Endgame balance issues? Anyone else finding this?

[Morgenthau]

Hey all,

I'm working on a city with ~800 people, playing on easy difficulty, but not pacifist, and I'm still finding it extraordinarily hard to keep up with my villagers demands at this point in the game. Here are a few examples:

(1) SIX cobbler shops, with over 1000 pelts in nearby storage, aren't sufficient to fully "shoe" my population

(2) TWELVE nightsoil collectors, lined up right alongside my housing blocks (just far enough away to not apply the desirability debuff), aren't sufficient to collect all the poop

(3) NINE 12x12 farms, SIX 10/10 cattle ranches and FIVE fully operable, fertile orchards only has my food at like 3-4 months max with 2 month's worth always spoiling -- and FYI I have four cheesemakers, all storage has barrels, and I tried to push preservists but they're perhaps not worth the investment

(4) I have well over 20 towers with just under 100 guards. Everything is upgraded and everyone has crossbows. Attacks of ~200 raiders come from all four cardinal directions. I fend them off effectively for now, but if I have to pump villagers into more of all the basic services (cobblers, food generation, etc.) I won't be able to man my defenses.

(5) Finally, the repair mechanic is so challenging that I find you need ~50 builders and plenty of planks on hand to allow your village to keep up with the VERY sharp decline in building health every few years. Again, if I put more people into basic services, I won't have the laborers and builders to avoid the deadly "condemned" circle.

Basically I feel that a lot of these good and food producing structures need to do more, especially as your city gets close to the 1.000 limit. I have a villager shortage at this level and I don't see the math working out. Am I the only one dealing with this? Or do any of you smart folks have any suggestions for how to handle this?

[Deus]

I think they balanced most of these things on paper, but the AI needs to be adjusted to keep up with that.
Shoes, for example, may be in storage but the villagers never go and pick them up.
Or the food doesn't get produced fast enough because the AI is divided between all the needs of the job and the needs of the villager.
Or the poop doesn't get picked up because the collector is away stocking their homes that might be on the other side of the town compared to the waste facility.

[BumpInTheNight]

I've only got a pop of 180 and I'm already seeing failure of logistics. I think until they fix their known problems with the market building logistics (in the 0.8 release next month) its just not going to be fun fighting against that mechanic.

I've given up until that update.

[Immortalits]

Originally posted by Re:Deus:

I think they balanced most of these things on paper, but the AI needs to be adjusted to keep up with that.
Shoes, for example, may be in storage but the villagers never go and pick them up.
Or the food doesn't get produced fast enough because the AI is divided between all the needs of the job and the needs of the villager.
Or the poop doesn't get picked up because the collector is away stocking their homes that might be on the other side of the town compared to the waste facility.

Exactly, althou I personally don't have issues with these.

@Morgenthau
I recommend you to try creating a production area, where you even put down multipple specialized storages, like one for metallurgy or special resources, that needs coal, that is near the woodworking too, because there's the firewood -> coal source also.

I personally made it like this:
Stone is only stored by the starting wagon and it's parked around this area

one block surrounded by roads
Firewood - Saw Pit - Furniture
Sockyard(wood stuff and coal only) - Flatcher
Firewood - Saw Pit - Forge

one block right under it with a road separator:
Kiln - Stockyard(bricks, and anything non-wood) - Foundry

Left from the wood:
Hunter - Smoker - Huner
Cellar - Well - Cellar
hunter - Smoker - Hunter

Above the hunter section:
2x Barn

Right from the barn:
Cheese + Tannery

Under the hunter section:
Warehouse(coats, high tier products, flax, tallow, soap, tools, willow and baskets and pelts) - Soap
Armory - Brickyard

it's still under construction and I'm missing the iron stock and will change stuff around soon, but you get the rough idea, here's a section summary:

barn - cheese+tanner
hunter - wood
WH + random - kiln + metal



NOTE: I'm not always using max employement and my residential are is stricktly fixxed at 65 houses (I've made a guide to cover them with only a single market) - this building placement is actually the field testing of the entire city build and what it can sustain in it's maxxed out state.

[Immortalits]

Originally posted by BumpInTheNight:

I've only got a pop of 180 and I'm already seeing failure of logistics. I think until they fix their known problems with the market building logistics (in the 0.8 release next month) its just not going to be fun fighting against that mechanic.

I've given up until that update.

Understandable, I personally have food issues, but that's probably because the barns just got max cows (10 each), so I was missing the meat from them :)

I also focus on builds, that don't grow too large, because of the logistics failing on immense travel time scaling, like I'm trying to build a cemetery in a corner of the map for 8 ingame years now, they are at 950 out of 1250 and 2 corpses along the way :D

[Otkin]

I also found it hard to keep my towns self-sufficient. I use trade to supplement my own production. I produce a lot of cheese, candles, and linen clothes for trade. I also buy and stock all sellable underpriced goods and sell them when they are overpriced. This strategy allows me to keep all my villagers' needs satisfied and my coffers full.

Preservists work fine for me. But I buy all glassware at any price to keep them productive.

[Morgenthau]

Looks like we are going to have to wait for V8 for a lot of these things to be addressed. Time to find another game for several weeks.

[Immortalits]

Originally posted by Otkin:

I also found it hard to keep my towns self-sufficient. I use trade to supplement my own production. I produce a lot of cheeses, candles, and linen clothes for trade. I also buy and stock all sellable underpriced goods and sell them when they are overpriced. This strategy allows me to keep all my villagers' needs satisfied and my coffers full.

Preservists work fine for me. But I buy all glassware at any price to keep them productive.

Yeah, I've also experienced, that glass is actually the ahrdest thing to provide, sand is always low on any environment outside of arid highlands, where you have no medicine, herbs and clay... so a harsh tradeoff and also a glas workshop can chew through immense amount of glasware and you just can't sop your people to use it as luxury instead of using it only for preserves (at least as far as I know), so it's quite a problematic production chain to support and I tend to skipp it alongside the beer path; I can still easily get desirability over 90-100%, so it's fine :)

[DiViNe NeKO]

All you need is enough food to keep people from starving and enough firewood so they dont all freeze in Winter all the other resources are kinda addons so its not the end of your city if you dont have enough shoes or soap to go around, try to keep resource levels around 50% you will be fine.

[Vrighty]

I have a v"village" with 1k pop. No problems in logistics. I produce wayyy to much.
I have 100 laborers and 60 builders.
4 barns
6 24x12 farms
3 cobbler
3 healers
5 bakers (for the smell bonus ;P)
4 fishers
5 hunters

Reading the amount you have placed, i assume you have placed so much, they are fighting over recourses. and nothing is being produced. Look at the placement.
All of my "poop" carriers are placed AROUND my village. So not just on 1 side.

I think this is part of the puzzle you have to solve: How to make an functional/effective village

[Groovy]

Originally posted by Morgenthau:

Hey all,

I'm working on a city with ~800 people, playing on easy difficulty, but not pacifist, and I'm still finding it extraordinarily hard to keep up with my villagers demands at this point in the game. Here are a few examples:

I have 800 peeps also now (used to do 1000 but too laggy) on hardest settings and you have more stuff than me building wise. I make 1800 gold a month and about 15K a year from trading ( I currently have 240K gold in my vaults)

Why am I telling you that? to show you it is possible so that means something about your set up needs tweaking. The most important thing in this game you need to fix is travel time. If you click on a building and travel time is not green you need to fix it.

example firewood maker buildings. 10 of them if travel time is green can crank out fire wood faster then 20 if red travel time. If all workers are spending 90% of their time traveling and stocking food and shelters no firewood is being split.

Fixing this 1 thing makes the game super easy. way less buildings frees up LOTS of workers. It also means less buildings need repair so less builders are needed and less materials. With less wood needed you do not need workers in work camps delete the work camps so even more peeps available. It snow balls into complete ownage of the game. There is this tipping point where you make so much gold with so few workers you can just delete most of your buildings and free up many workers. You just buy everything you need from the traders. You don't waste workers on shoe making you delete all those buildings and just buy shoes. etc...

another added bonus is with less buildings the game runs much faster. AI doesn't have to track as much stuff.

Less buildings less land needed. Tighter smaller city so less walls and guard towers needed so more workers freed and less monthly gold spent. Smaller city mean compost heaps are closer and compost workers do not have to walk as far and thus you do not need 12 of them like you have you only need 8 etc... see how this goes?

You end up having a city that is exactly like the games opening splash screen and that city just kicks butt. Compact and super efficient!

[Kgutta6107]

I get that it is realistic and I love that, if we could get a stone mine?! lol i find myself late game, 300+ population and struggling to support colony with stone. Someone said in a comment that trees regrow, that's awesome. Renewable resource but late game strategy is hard asf on any difficulty. These dudes out here with 1k+ pops...WTF are you doing lol Just a dude trying to relax and make a settlement with some challenges along the way.

Is there a roadmap from the devs about their plans in the game later on and if so where TF can I find it? LOVE the game, GREAT job so far and keep it up. Only up from here...hopefully.

[Immortalits]

Originally posted by Morgenthau:

Hey all,

I'm working on a city with ~800 people, playing on easy difficulty, but not pacifist, and I'm still finding it extraordinarily hard to keep up with my villagers demands at this point in the game. Here are a few examples:

(1) SIX cobbler shops, with over 1000 pelts in nearby storage, aren't sufficient to fully "shoe" my population

- You need about 1 cobbler/ 150/200 pop if your workshop placements are efficient

Originally posted by Morgenthau:

(2) TWELVE nightsoil collectors, lined up right alongside my housing blocks (just far enough away to not apply the desirability debuff), aren't sufficient to collect all the poop

- 3 is enough for me in 400 pop, the only diference should be, that your houses are spread out on a larger area and you need to 'surround them' a bit more; mines are in a clump around the 2,5 farms

Originally posted by Morgenthau:

(3) NINE 12x12 farms, SIX 10/10 cattle ranches and FIVE fully operable, fertile orchards only has my food at like 3-4 months max with 2 month's worth always spoiling -- and FYI I have four cheesemakers, all storage has barrels, and I tried to push preservists but they're perhaps not worth the investment

- You need a lot more storages for a large population, and again, you should specialize them for meat OR fruit/ veggies, maybe even a 3rd separate for breat (and 2-2 at leasf for others), and a 4th setup place for cheese, efficient placement of buildings is super important, because travel distance fks up productivity the most.

Originally posted by Morgenthau:

(4) I have well over 20 towers with just under 100 guards. Everything is upgraded and everyone has crossbows. Attacks of ~200 raiders come from all four cardinal directions. I fend them off effectively for now, but if I have to pump villagers into more of all the basic services (cobblers, food generation, etc.) I won't be able to man my defenses.

- I've mentioned it in multipple posts already, towers are horrible, upgraded ones give you +3/+4 at best on flat terrain, while the barrack can baseline provide it, while forts is +8/+9 AND you can move army support to heavily pressured fronts from them! They are still better even if you man them, like a tower (with only 2 person inside)

Originally posted by Morgenthau:

(5) Finally, the repair mechanic is so challenging that I find you need ~50 builders and plenty of planks on hand to allow your village to keep up with the VERY sharp decline in building health every few years. Again, if I put more people into basic services, I won't have the laborers and builders to avoid the deadly "condemned" circle.

- Again, efficient placement of buildings, in this case, you might want to spread in a semi-circle arount your woodworks

Originally posted by Morgenthau:

Basically I feel that a lot of these good and food producing structures need to do more, especially as your city gets close to the 1.000 limit. I have a villager shortage at this level and I don't see the math working out. Am I the only one dealing with this? Or do any of you smart folks have any suggestions for how to handle this?

You feel it right, the current AI is messed up and pop don't work as intended (that's why the game is early access, but still, you should think about the other stuff I've answered to each of your points.