District management painful to anyone else?

[Phoenix5921]

As much as I love the game, i find districts just painful to work with, Its the 1 feature of this game that i find painful to manage and puts me off making any bases of any real size

having to set up trade routes for every single resource i need to move to another district rather than just having an option with priority on sending a resource to another district as its needed is painful for me

if i want to build something outside of my main districts range, making an entire new district, setting up trade routes for food and water, and resources just to build a few dams is just a giant amount of effort for something that doesnt feel like it gives much benefit

I feel like other games have much better systems in this regard, either something where district 2 has a list of "resource needs" that i agree to send from district 1 automatically or just make an infinite build range, then have me manage my roads, builders and transporters myself to optimise where i store what resources, that way i dont need districts and can focus entirely on 1 district that covers the map but needs me to plan out where i want to store what and with what priorities etc

[Wolfman]

it's by far the most annoying part of this game.

[Grubs]

I'll be the odd one out then. I like districts. I also liked heat stroke, and exploding golems which spewed poison death clouds if you failed to maintain them.

District center, and drop off point are both free and instant builds, so small outpost builds are not really that challenging. The trade route setup could be improved a ton though. Its not difficult, just a lot of repetitive steps.

[JCHamels]

Originally posted by Grubs:

I'll be the odd one out then. I like districts. I also liked heat stroke, and exploding golems which spewed poison death clouds if you failed to maintain them.

District center, and drop off point are both free and instant builds, so small outpost builds are not really that challenging. The trade route setup could be improved a ton though. Its not difficult, just a lot of repetitive steps.

I'll be odd with you. I found districts pretty simply to understand. I agree that outpost builds are not challenging at all.

If I need an "outpost district" to build let's say a dam. Plop down the District Center. Plop down 1, 2 or even 3 drop offs if needed. Calculate how much resources I need for the dam. Send the resources to the outpost district first. Then migrate some beavers to build it. If it isn't a mega project, they would be back home in no time. And if it is a mega project, might as well make a self sustaining permanent district there too.

Sometimes it feels like, people have forgotten we start the game with 7 adult beavers and 90+ food depending on difficulty. Starting a new permanent district doesn't need more than a handful of beavers and some food to get going.

[jonnin]

I try to avoid them, but its simple enough. They allow for exploiting (basically free 300 water storage buildings or warehouses) and deletion of stuff that gets too full (need to dispose of 300 medicine? Make a drop off and fill it, then delete it) in several ways, and they let you expand or set up shop near the deep mine etc. It works, and you can do any number of creative things with it (eg a farming district and a water district etc micromanaged) but its also a little convoluted and unnecessary. I would rather just have longer paths, or both, so we can opt out while still growing.

[Rhonox]

Do you think there is any chance for maybe a check box when starting a new map. Districts on or off. On leaves things as they are, and the unchecked setting would just expand the first district range to the whole map.

[Momaw Nadon]

The district concept is a main reason why I bought this game, as I look at it as an interesting design challenge. But I agree that trading could use an overhaul. I use it just fine as it is, but it would be nice to have a custom preset or copy/paste type thing. Or a Central Trading Hub/Marketplace bldg or special non-district bldg.

[Shas'O O'Kais]

I LOATHE the forced districts.

Don't get me wrong, I think they can be useful in certain ways to centralize beavers in specific areas without roaming all over the map, but to be FORCED to do it is horrific. The simple act of building stairs far from your city is such a chore as you have to throw up districts, supply drop offs, and gateways every so often just to be able to reach the stairs to build them.

Or on those occasions where that scrap deposit is juuuust barely out of range so you have to make a new settlement over there... Build houses, and either build their own farms too or spend additional beavers on transporting goods to bring food and water over there to sustain your new colony. It's just such an annoying chore all around.

I like setting up different cities when its on my terms, in a location I want to build a new settlement at, but being forced to do it is pure cancer and my biggest beef with a game I otherwise adore.

[ZizGryphon]

I wasn't a fan of them either so I started using:

https://timberborn.thunderstore.io/package/PB_Ozai/District_Extender/1.0.1/

You can customise the size of the districts so I just set one for the whole map and honestly it's so much nicer

[jet800]

+1 to remove districts altogether. I usually use just two/three. And it's very painful to balance sometimes if you want all districts to be happy. Cause lots of limitations on transportation. Auto-migration helps a lot, esp with iron teeth, since you can have one birth-district to distribute workforce, but with folktails it's sometimes wonky.

Also, it's kinda stupid, that this cell is buildable and that one is out of range and you need to make another district for new building. Maybe if building could be built w/o districts, but could not function - that would be balanced well enough. Like allow builders from builders guild to go as far they can and build w/e you want, but if that's active building - then a new district is required for it to function.

[graphitepaddle]

Originally posted by jet800:

+1 to remove districts altogether. I usually use just two/three. And it's very painful to balance sometimes if you want all districts to be happy. Cause lots of limitations on transportation. Auto-migration helps a lot, esp with iron teeth, since you can have one birth-district to distribute workforce, but with folktails it's sometimes wonky.

Also, it's kinda stupid, that this cell is buildable and that one is out of range and you need to make another district for new building. Maybe if building could be built w/o districts, but could not function - that would be balanced well enough. Like allow builders from builders guild to go as far they can and build w/e you want, but if that's active building - then a new district is required for it to function.

Also in the camp that districts are a PITA, Idea to allow builders to work across district boundaries, but require local beavers to operate such a building once that it has been built.

Distribution Post needs to be smaller & stackable.

[pat]

I have mixed feelings about the districts. The distribution definitely needs to be fixed, but I'm also not a fan of the migration system. The latest incarnation has a screen that seems to be overly complicated and non-intuitive. The minimum setting has to be constantly tweaked as the various populations change. I honestly liked the old method of simply "Send 12 beavers from district 1 to district 2". But if District 1 needs beavers and District 2 has unemployed beavers, I don't see why they can't automatically migrate.

[jet800]

Originally posted by pat:

I have mixed feelings about the districts. The distribution definitely needs to be fixed, but I'm also not a fan of the migration system. The latest incarnation has a screen that seems to be overly complicated and non-intuitive. The minimum setting has to be constantly tweaked as the various populations change. I honestly liked the old method of simply "Send 12 beavers from district 1 to district 2". But if District 1 needs beavers and District 2 has unemployed beavers, I don't see why they can't automatically migrate.

Actually by default new system works exactly as before. The reason for no migration by default is of sustainability. Thus you won't get beaver population imbalance by default. Only if you as the player decide it :)

[citablekettle]

I think district system is excellent, but Routes and Limits setup UI is terrible. It should be possible to change Limits when setting up Routes, and it should be possible to set up multiple Routes in the same window when they go between the same pair of Post/Point. There needs to be copy-paste or saving-by-name for these settings, that also works for moving a District Center or a Post. Beaver/Golem Limits should be in the same UI as Limits on other resources, and should be possible to set up as Routes between specific districts.

[pat]

Originally posted by jet800:

Actually by default new system works exactly as before.

I haven't played for a couple weeks. I'm looking forward to seeing that back.

[Phoenix5921]

a significantly better way to set this up is to base how far beavers can travel based off where they sleep

For example, if a beaver lives in 1 area, he has to be able to get food,water and its job in that area or you are forced to build houses closer to where he is going to work and where the resources are stored or that beaver will only be able to work a limited amount of hours per day as they have to travel to their job

this way when you want to expand out, youre planning where your housing, food and water is located and can ignore managing anything else as once you set it up once you have finished

if you want to have beavers work far away, you get informed that a beaver is only working a few hours a day because they live too far from the job so to make more houses closer to the work place etc