Anyone else feel the Iron beavers kind of... Suck?

[Shas'O O'Kais]

The biggest and most important difference is they don't breed. You have to build those breeding pods and keep them running. It can make early game a little faster I suppose, but the auto-breeding/growth of Folktails is so unbelievably nice. Your population is always exactly where you want it to be.

The next big difference is their "Industrial Log Pile". It holds the same amount as the Folktail version and has the same footprint size. The difference is, you can stack them on top of each other BUT they now cost lumber to build. Personally, I find this a terrible tradeoff. While it is cool to have a 5 stack tower with a winding staircase, the fact is it just isn't as useful or practical as the Folktail log piles because they are FREE to construct. You can slap down 3 of them and you're set for basically the whole game until it is time to expand to a new district, and when you DO expand, having free log piles is far nicer than expensive ones. It just seems like a nerf instead of a "perk" to be honest.

Iron beavers also have big houses available right from the start, which is nice, but it honestly doesn't matter that much because you NEED to get housing up asap as Folktails for breeding purposes. Iron beavers don't need it. It just makes them live slightly longer, so there is absolutely no priority to build them housing anyway. Which I guess is a perk, but again, it isn't worth the cost of auto-breeding.

Iron beavers lose wind mills and instead gain an engine. Windmills are unreliable, but they're also available a lot earlier. The baby windmills only need logs and planks and the big windmill needs gears and paper, all tree products. The iron beaver engine requires METAL, which can be a PITA to acquire on some maps requiring expansion to get it. Not all maps, but most of them, and expansion is a whole ordeal. So you generally won't have access to these generators until much later in the game, and by that point you've already setup your power systems to run off waterwheels (or potentially windpower as well), so it would be a waste of time and resources to replace all your pre-existing infrastructure with the new power source that additionally consumes resources to use. They are kind of bad.

Wind power is unreliable its true, but it is PERFECT for setting up things like the carousel in some random out-of-the-way location and powering it without having to stick it on the water front. The fact it doesn't operate non-stop doesn't matter because it doesn't need to.

I just feel like everything with Iron beavers is... Less than the Folktails. Maybe that is why you have to unlock them, to prove you have a good grasp of the game before you can play them, but I assumed they'd be better, not significantly worse haha.

I just feel like they should be reworked because I only played them once and after getting the colony to infinite sustainability and getting all needs to 15, I basically have no desire to ever play them again. Meanwhile, folktails are tons of fun and their automatic population management is just amazing.

[Shas'O O'Kais]

It generally only happens when constructing stairs and accompanying platforms, though it can also happen if building stairs next to a dam that you have already blueprinted.

Again, the core issue is if you have multiple builders, they will build multiple things simultaneously. If one of them decides to build something that will block a path (like stairs do), anyone that is already on the other side working on a levee or more platforms will get stuck.

It isn't 100% of the time, but it happens a couple of times each game for sure and the odds of it happening increase substantially when you have more builders.

But regardless, it does happen, and it'll cost you a beaver unless you tear down what you literally just built to save them. For folktails, it isn't worth it as they'll be instantly replaced, but for iron teeth it'll cause a disruption in your pop for a long time without doing some micromanagement to artificially fix the issue.

Regardless of how much "work" someone may think it is or isn't to micromanage pods on and off multiple times, some folks prefer automation to having to do everything manually. Folktails are just the easier and better option for population control.

[MaebeKnot]

Originalmente postado por Shas'o O'Kais:

Regardless of how much "work" someone may think it is or isn't to micromanage pods on and off multiple times, some folks prefer automation to having to do everything manually. Folktails are just the easier and better option for population control.

I think a lot of it comes down to someones play style and which way comes more natural to them.

[Zlorfik [CH/BY]]

Originalmente postado por Gorby:

Originalmente postado por Zlorfik CH/BY:

To be fair if you don't realise your population is going out of control in half an hour of play, you are doing something wrong xD

I had the worst experience with the Folktails recently. A large population creates new beavers very quickly. So you build that big house for 9 beavers. Great. And then a couple of cycles later 9 beavers who happened to be working all your water pumps all die simultaneously. You are now 9 beavers short.

I have never had that problem with Folktails. If you don't realize that's happening then you are doing something wrong xD

But simply by the logic of how Folktails reproduce, this is happening all the time, if you have a large population in a district and large houses. If you don't notice it happening, maybe you're not paying enough attention or have bigger reserves than me xD

Originalmente postado por Gorby:

Originalmente postado por Zlorfik CH/BY:

I had the worst experience with the Folktails recently. A large population creates new beavers very quickly. So you build that big house for 9 beavers. Great. And then a couple of cycles later 9 beavers who happened to be working all your water pumps all die simultaneously. You are now 9 beavers short.

Seriously though, that's the same problem for both factions. If you're Ironteeth, new child beavers are born because of timing. If you're Folkstails, new child beavers are born because of empty housing space. There's no real difference. You get your baby beavers a little bit quicker with Ironteeth and that's it, and that's meaningless unless your population is under 20 or so.

The Iron teeth don't have that problem. You get x beavers per y time units at a consistent rate. Your beavers also die at the same rate. As such, the number of concurrent deaths are generally about as high as the number of pods you have (you do NOT want 9 pods in a single district xD) The difference is also that the Iron Teeth will likely already have children practically grown up, ready to take the vacated jobs. With the Folktails, you have to wait a good 6 days for the new breed to be ready.

[Zlorfik [CH/BY]]

Originalmente postado por Gorby:

Originalmente postado por 76561197987036512:

I get that it would be optional. But you already have a limiter: 1 pod = 18 beavers. You just have larger increments than the Folktails, sure, but I never have enough beavers anyway and you sure can employ 18 beavers with ease, especially because they aren't all born at the same time anyway.

But I don't want 18 beavers in my 4th district created for nothing other than gathering scrap metal on the other side of the map, I want to slap down a 9-beaver house and rest easy knowing there will never be more than 9 beavers at that district that I need to feed. Nor do I want more than 6-7 beavers in the district building a large reservoir wall on the far side of the map.

Half of the "team Ironteeth" people keep saying "but it's 18 beavers per pod it's so simple" as if it's not ridiculous to forcefully have population sizes that can only exist in increments of 18. Which, as you mentioned, is MUCH larger than the increment that the Folktails have... 1.

Oh yeah, and why not plant a field of berries that I wouldn't need if I was playing Folktails? It's not like space or farmable land are limited in any way, right?

It is true that the Iron Teeth have less means of keeping low numbers of populations. You can somewhat control it by not giving them access to things boosting their lifespan. Maybe you'll only have 9 beavers per pod (haven't tried that ever). You might also be able to control it by the number of berries the district has access to. I know it uses up a job, but you could have a gatherer flag for a very small number of berry bushes. Their growth cycle is your natural population growth inhibitor. It gives you a job for a beaver who will most often just be hauling due to free time (hauling your iron to the distribution post) and it allows you to control your beaver population.

My counter argument is that the Iron Teeth are industrious and they will want some form of industry in every district. Sure, maybe that's not what you want, but hey, beaver overlords, please them xD

As for berries: I have found that the starting patch of berries is more than enough to sustain growth far beyond 170 beavers.

[Zlorfik [CH/BY]]

Originalmente postado por Talderas:

Regarding pods, the 15-18 beavers per pod isn't the macro for iron teeth population. The macro is controlled by blueberry bushes you have available.

I spent some time today watching my Iron Teeth's breeding cycle. Here's a few data points and observations I noted.

1. The breeding pod progresses 20% each day as long as its supplied (1 beaver every 5 days).
2. Blueberry bushes mature at a rate of 9% each day (11 days between harvests).
3. Blueberry harvests are 3 blueberries.
4. A beaver with Comfort and Nutrition I (+55% life expectancy) dies the morning of their 92nd day.
5. The breeding pods are supplied during non-working hours.
6. My breeding pods independent of the test appear to have 4 harvested blueberry bushes per pod.

From this data I can reasonably extract a few predictions.

The harvest from a single blueberry bush will keep a pod operating for 3 out of 11 days. This means that the pod is only operating for 27% of the time. This should mean you only need 4 blueberry bushes to maintain 100% uptime on a pod. (This matches up with my observation of harvested blueberry bushes).

The pod takes five days for a beaver to mature and the base max age is 60 days for a beaver, it means a pod should be able to maintain a stable population of 12 beavers.

Nutrition I grants a +30% to life expectancy which if the 60 day base lifespan figure is correct means the lifespan with only Nutrition I would be 78 days. This would mean the pod stabilizes at 15.5 beavers.

Comfort grants a +25% to life expectancy which if the 60 day base lifespan figure is correct means the lifespan with only Comfort would be 75 days. This would mean the pod stabilizes at 15 beavers.

The +55% from both bonuses equates to 93 days (could be a rounding error) but it would mean about 18.4-18.6 beavers per pod with both of those boosts.

This gives us three baseline pod stable populations of 12, 15, and 18, of which 15 and 18 are values commonly reported by players. Considering the ease at which you can get nutrition I or comfort it's not terribly surprising a figure of 12 beavers per pod isn't reported.

Since the blueberry bush is the actual constraint on population growth we can quarter these figures to find out the population per bush for each of these boost categories.

Base (No Buffs): 3 beavers per bush
Comfort Only: 3.75 beavers per bush
Nutrition I Only: 3.875 beavers per bush
Both Buffs: 4.625 beavers per bush

Thanks for your observations. I would like to point out that while blueberry bushes are a constraint to growth, an obvious second constraint is the number of breeding pods. The starting area contains a large field of blueberry bushes, so you'll be limited by the number of pods (unless you destroy the remaining bushes, but that makes expanding a bit more tedious again).

[ZakaryX]

I love them. I have a 600 pop city and water and food is a non issue. Being able to stack buildings easily allows me to build tall and cram the maximum amount of stuff next to my one and only district. I had to make an additional district early on to get scrap but I phased it out later. Wood burners are fantastic during the dry season and the deep pumps save you thousand of wood building tons of shallow levies.

Early game is slower but they shine late game.

[G4M5T3R]

Originalmente postado por Shas'o O'Kais:

I just feel like everything with Iron beavers is... Less than the Folktails. Maybe that is why you have to unlock them, to prove you have a good grasp of the game before you can play them

^ this but I'd argue that in the case of IT "less" is actually more.

The ability to stack so much in such a small footprint has its benefits, but those benefits come at the cost of resources. Either way you have to micro housing. If FT then you have pause them if you build too many, and if IT you can build dozens but have to pause the incubators regardless. The generator is yet another example of investing time & resources for more power in a smaller footprint.

I actually prefer them. In the games current state (with the lack of information displayed to us in-game) micro-managing pop is part of the challenge and a faction that does it for you is simply a means to make that challenge easier. So imo it isn't a matter of better/worse it's a matter of difficulty.

[Shas'O O'Kais]

Originalmente postado por G4M5T3R:

Originalmente postado por Shas'o O'Kais:

I just feel like everything with Iron beavers is... Less than the Folktails. Maybe that is why you have to unlock them, to prove you have a good grasp of the game before you can play them

^ this but I'd argue that in the case of IT "less" is actually more.

The ability to stack so much in such a small footprint has its benefits, but those benefits come at the cost of resources. Either way you have to micro housing. If FT then you have pause them if you build too many, and if IT you can build dozens but have to pause the incubators regardless. The generator is yet another example of investing time & resources for more power in a smaller footprint.

I actually prefer them. In the games current state (with the lack of information displayed to us in-game) micro-managing pop is part of the challenge and a faction that does it for you is simply a means to make that challenge easier. So imo it isn't a matter of better/worse it's a matter of difficulty.

I dunno, the one and only map i've played on thus far where you actually have a more finite amount of space to work with is the Islands map. The rest have ample space for the wider builds for folktails. On islands, the high density can help a bit, but almost everything is stackable regardless. The only real advantage iron teeth have over folktails in regards to stacking is their housing holds about twice as many (at max size) and their stackable log piles. Everything else though? Exactly the same.

And the fact you need twice as many houses for folktails really doesn't matter as wood is limitless and you can stack as high as you need.

I have seen some people say they have settlements with 600+ beavers, but I can't understand WHY unless you're just massing as many as you possibly can for the sake of it. Around 100 beavers is what I have found to be the ideal amount because it can produce limitless quantities of everything you need to survive indefinitely. Beyond that point, I guess I just don't see the point.

[G4M5T3R]

But with a higher density that space can be used more effectively. Especially if you're aiming for 600+ pop. That's just how people tend to play city builders, common metrics are the scaleability and efficiency of your design. You might find 100 to be ideal in terms of reaching the point where progression becomes pointless, but a minimalist could argue you only need a dozen before you're just playing for the sake of expansion or science. That's in part due to the game still being EarlyAccess but it's also kinda inherent from the genre itself.

I'd love to see the ability to build farms (crops) on solid structures. Perhaps it should be a IT perk since their theme puts emphasis on verticality. Like a levee block but for crops. Could provide another use for the water dump other than exploiting 1x1's for irrigation.

[Shas'O O'Kais]

Originalmente postado por G4M5T3R:

But with a higher density that space can be used more effectively. Especially if you're aiming for 600+ pop. That's just how people tend to play city builders, common metrics are the scaleability and efficiency of your design. You might find 100 to be ideal in terms of reaching the point where progression becomes pointless, but a minimalist could argue you only need a dozen before you're just playing for the sake of expansion or science. That's in part due to the game still being EarlyAccess but it's also kinda inherent from the genre itself.

The 100 beaver goal isn't arbitrary. My "finished" end state basically has 3 conditions: 15 wellness for all beavers, researching all technology, and the ability to survive 30 day droughts without having to do anything (no manual adjustments or micromanagement of any kind). It takes about 100 beavers to do that in a timely fashion.

You "could" get by with a single lumber mill and you "could" get by with a single gear workshop, but the production rates would be too slow to build anything in a timely manner.

Likewise, you "could" build 100 lumber mills and 100 gear workshops but why would you ever need to do that? You'd drastically overproduce everything you need. 99% of your production would sit in a warehouse and never get used.

Efficiency isn't about making as much of something as possible, it's more like a speed run I suppose. I have been "collecting" perfect colony save states for each map. I do all of them as folktails on hard difficulty until I achieve my 3 goals and then I move on to the next map. My goal originally was not to hit 100 beavers for any arbitrary reason, it was to meet the other objectives, I just ended up with approximately 100 beavers in each colony again and again and again.

I literally cannot imagine how you could have 200 or more beavers unless you were going out of your way to try to produce more beavers. Now if you want to cover the whole map with houses and farms and water pumps to really push the limits, thats on you, but I was just asking what purpose could it serve aside from doing it for the sake of doing it. I'm not saying its a wrong way to play, I just feel it is not needed at all beyond the novelty of it which is why I was asking why someone would do it. I'm curious what benefit having 600 beavers has.

[G4M5T3R]

Originalmente postado por Shas'o O'Kais:

Efficiency isn't about making as much of something as possible

I didn't say or imply that it was. I'm stating the obvious here but it's a measure of multiple variables. Including but not limited to: Supply, Demand, and the Distance between the two. Scaleability on the other hand kinda is about making as much of something albeit efficiently. It's also a very common thing for players to do in these games. Keep building until it breaks.

100 may not be arbitrary but that number only really reflects the current state of the game and what you consider the win condition(s) to be. Also not entirely arbitrary. The goal panel is exactly that, a pre-defined list of goals, so in a literal sense yea... as of right now there is no real purpose beyond that list (+ or - your house rules). However, if they were to simply add population milestones suddenly 100 isn't enough to meet your win condition(s) because 250 has been deemed a "goal." Does your goal post shift with it or no? Does it matter?

Players define their own goals ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The game doesn't care if you can survive a 30day drought without intervening. You do.

[Drinkcup]

I haven't unlocked Iron yet but for me power goes like this:
Water wheel > Hamster wheel > winfmill. I've gone entire working hour days getting no wind power with windmill. The only problem with hamster wheel is the breaks the beavers need to take

[Shas'O O'Kais]

Originalmente postado por Drinkcup:

I haven't unlocked Iron yet but for me power goes like this:
Water wheel > Hamster wheel > winfmill. I've gone entire working hour days getting no wind power with windmill. The only problem with hamster wheel is the breaks the beavers need to take

Wind power is indeed unreliable.

As for them occasionally taking breaks, this is much less of an issue if you build a dedicated power farm and connect it with gears to your dedicated industry sector. Then even if a couple are late to work or busy satisfying needs for whatever reason, the others are still chugging away. It would only stop progress if you only built wheels for each individual building without mass connections.

[Drinkcup]

Originalmente postado por Shas'o O'Kais:

Originalmente postado por Drinkcup:

I haven't unlocked Iron yet but for me power goes like this:
Water wheel > Hamster wheel > winfmill. I've gone entire working hour days getting no wind power with windmill. The only problem with hamster wheel is the breaks the beavers need to take

Wind power is indeed reliable.

As for them occasionally taking breaks, this is much less of an issue if you build a dedicated power farm and connect it with gears to your dedicated industry sector. Then even if a couple are late to work or busy satisfying needs for whatever reason, the others are still chugging away. It would only stop progress if you only built wheels for each individual building without mass connections.

That makes sense but it don't like the idea of a power generation area. I prefer local power per 1-3 buildings, it's just my style so far.

[Shas'O O'Kais]

The reason I prefer the mass wheel power area is because I know eventually i'll switch to sustained water wheel power. Once you make a big enough reservoir up stream, you can pour water from it through the full duration of droughts to keep industry rolling and it just makes it a much easier transition to just unhook one set of gears and hook up another by having all your industry buildings connected together already.

It's just a planning ahead type of thing, i'm always planning long term with my layouts.

Matter of fact, the instant I start a game, I pause it and lay down probably 30 structure blueprints and just pause them all until i'm ready for them to actually be built because I like getting the layout prepared in advance for what i'm gonna do at the end state.