Odd Job Worker Population Issue (Bug? I'm dumb? :))

[Morkonan]

Here's the sitrep:

I'm playing the version that was before this latest Combat patch. (I think that patch is just in the Opt-In Beta, atm?)

I've got around 2100 Citizens. Good supply for everything, cranking out products just fine. No major population, loyalty, service/food/clothing/repair materials/stuffs issues that I can see.

I've got "Reproduction/Baby-Makers," but just two for each desired race, for a total of around 45 max in terms of pop reproduction slots (cribs). I typically have around 20+ Children in the Citizen's population display at any one time.

I have culled all my crafting/refining/harvesting/mining rooms to min/max worker/assignment issues up to and including turning off the University and Training facilities to try to account for periodic spikes coming from those.

There's no Retirment thing set up, yet. I've checked to see if it's Deathrate related and there's nothing significant, there. There's no plague or anything that I know of.


Yet, I still get my entire Odd Job force reduced by something between 45 and 90 Workers periodically. That includes when I've Recruited a decent number of new Citizens, at times from 20 to 45. As soon as I Recruit them, I sometimes see that Odd Job number of available workers go from a slightly positive number to -20 something or so, with the last time I did that it went -45 in a couple of "ticks." ??


The only thing on "Auto" are Warehouses, Janitors, Eateries and Ranches. I have checked these rooms during likely high periods of activity, attempting to spot increases in worker assignments, but I haven't seen any changes there. They do not appear to be snatching up Labor during peak times when they may spike to 100%. (Stages and Speakers are functioning, which are also periodically active buildings, but AFAIK those are "Actors" in their own job category.)

I can't find where the problem is or why I can not sustain a positive number in the "excess labor Odd Job" worker force.

I've tried to find likely causes, even wondering if it was just a situation of a "death by a thousand cuts" with the large number of warehouses each just hiring a temp worker for a short while during a peak and then releasing them, later. But, I had to have hired at least a hundred new Recruits in the past "few days" (I expanded some entertainment/canteen facilities and that caused a nice spike in Immigrants that want to join) and I can not get ahead on "surplus labor" so that i can expand. IF there is something that is hiring out of this labor pool, it's not releasing excess workers back into the workforce. (And, I can't find any situation where that is evidenced as having occurred. Just mentioning it.)

It's terribly frustrating. I had to quit last night because I just couldn't staff anything new. It also appeared that some Rooms/Buildings were reacting to this, as well - I found Flathouses that had workers the day before, but didn't have them the next day. (They were on auto, but I don't have many of those and they're usually not enough labor to account for any large numbers.)

I "should" have an excess labor force for Odd Job laborers of around 40 or so, minimum, given some back of the napkin sort of thinking on this. But, it's at around -45 or so in the display. And, that dropped drastically to that low number from around -10'ish or so right after I hired around 20 new Immigrants. Suddenly... just <boom> it went down to -45 or so right after I accepted those Immigrants.

I've checked the "Recruits", thinking they weren't yet able to enter the workforce, and the numbers there are single-digits. I've also dumped Training down to only two-hash marks for most divisions, thinking maybe I was creating permanents Soldiers and that was eating up my free labor force. Nope, that doesn't appear to be it, either. (I can not find "Soldiers" anywhere, but there shouldn't be Immigrants instantly becoming permanent Soldiers as soon as they walk into the city, anyway. And, the totals in the Military window don't change, either.)


What am I missing or what is the likely reason that i have yet to figure out because I am a "noob?" :)

What should I check or what's the best method to go about investigating this phenomenon?

I do not know how to solve for this problem. Bug? Is the saved game lost? Am I dumb? :)

/headscratcher

[NerArth]

At least on 0.61, I've noticed that sometimes bits of population seem to just go... Missing. Just very gradually, even though the murder/death rate hasn't been sufficiently high to explain the actual number of people that are apparently missing. When I check the population histogram, it doesn't seem to say that anyone left or died.

Maybe this is what's happening? I think you could watch your death notifications and individual race populations closely to try and find out if it's something like this.

[Morkonan]

I manually tracked changes during play last night for population, jobs, job sectors and assigned workers. (Will post later)

What it seems is that some industries will spike demand when on Auto, like Logistics (warehouse) and it's sometimes closely associated with Seasonal Changes in labor demand, which makes is sensible why I couldn't find it happening "all the time" and it was difficult to spot outside of those Seasons. That makes up a good bit of the discrepancy. (Other changes are weird, though, with reduced labor requirements reported for some sectors from change-to-change, yet they're not on Auto.)

I've still got to look at the numbers, but have an appointment to get to and was just checking in. I'll break them out this afternoon.

IOW - It does seem those "death by a thousand cuts" demand here and there from many different places adds up. But, I can't yet find where I'm feel as if I'm actually losing workers, especially when I "recruit" a bunch of Immigrants and then... my Odd Jobbers drop to -60.. after hiring 20 Immigrants. Still looking, though, but it's likely something I've just missed somewhere.

[Gamatron]

Sounds strange. I'd gladly have a look if you send the save my way? [e-mail]

Originally posted by Morkonan:

I manually tracked changes during play last night for population, jobs, job sectors and assigned workers. (Will post later)

What it seems is that some industries will spike demand when on Auto, like Logistics (warehouse) and it's sometimes closely associated with Seasonal Changes in labor demand, which makes is sensible why I couldn't find it happening "all the time" and it was difficult to spot outside of those Seasons. That makes up a good bit of the discrepancy. (Other changes are weird, though, with reduced labor requirements reported for some sectors from change-to-change, yet they're not on Auto.)

I've still got to look at the numbers, but have an appointment to get to and was just checking in. I'll break them out this afternoon.

IOW - It does seem those "death by a thousand cuts" demand here and there from many different places adds up. But, I can't yet find where I'm feel as if I'm actually losing workers, especially when I "recruit" a bunch of Immigrants and then... my Odd Jobbers drop to -60.. after hiring 20 Immigrants. Still looking, though, but it's likely something I've just missed somewhere.

[jt]

Are you tracking deaths from old age? There's no message/indicator when someone dies of old age so you have to watch your graveyards to notice when it happens.

Then it's a question of demographics, if you're very slow to replace your population you'll find that you'll get a drop in labour when a bunch of your citizens all die, if you're replacing regularly via immigration/children then once you get to a decent pop size (around 500) you'll start having constant fluctuations in the labour pool as you'll start having a more continuous die-off of the old.

Either you'll need to make immigration automatic, increase your child capacity (though this will take several years to filter through since this game has wonderful real-time demographic simulation) or just manually immigrate when you notice a drop in the oddjob pool.

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by Gamatron:

Sounds strange. I'd gladly have a look if you send the save my way? [e-mail]
..

If I find anything anomalous, I'll certainly send it to you. I just manually tracked data for population, recruits, children, (no retired), employed/needed, then all the industry types and their employed/needed stats. I only took measurements when there was a significant enough change in Odd Job worker availabilty, +/-, so couldn't get a legitimate timeline of data, just some sample sets. (It'd be awesome if we could magically press a button and get a delimited data dump... ;) (I don't code or I'd probably try to just to see it.)

Note: A mortality rate or death-tracker stat as in "deaths total, deaths 1 year" might be handy. (As below) Otherwise, balancing needed breeding facilities is kind of up in the air. It'll vary with race, of course, since some may live longer than an entire playthrough.

Originally posted by jtwm1:

Are you tracking deaths from old age? There's no message/indicator when someone dies of old age so you have to watch your graveyards to notice when it happens. ..

I thought of that when I saw some big spikes, but it wouldn't make sense in this situation in such small time intervals. I did, however, check all my graveyards, crypts. pit, etc. just to be sure and they weren't filled up enough to account for it. And, since Odd Jobbers will increase in big spikes sometimes, too, with no reduction in the current population of Children, I have to assume the dead aren't rising from their graves. :) (Though, that definitely needs to happen... A Necromancer cult raising bodies in the graveyard would be a nice event. :))

I know Pit burials deteriorate. I don't know about Graveyards and Crypts. I assume they're at least fairly long-term. If permanent, like in Banished, things could get out of hand in a long game.

[jt]

Originally posted by Morkonan:

I thought of that when I saw some big spikes, but it wouldn't make sense in this situation in such small time intervals. I did, however, check all my graveyards, crypts. pit, etc. just to be sure and they weren't filled up enough to account for it.

I know Pit burials deteriorate. I don't know about Graveyards and Crypts. I assume they're at least fairly long-term.

The dead in graveyards despawn eventually, so you don't need a spot for every one the dies which is probably a good thing consider how fast you can get die-offs at large pops. No idea about Crypts as I've never built them.

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by jtwm1:

Originally posted by Morkonan:

I thought of that when I saw some big spikes, but it wouldn't make sense in this situation in such small time intervals. I did, however, check all my graveyards, crypts. pit, etc. just to be sure and they weren't filled up enough to account for it.

I know Pit burials deteriorate. I don't know about Graveyards and Crypts. I assume they're at least fairly long-term.

The dead in graveyards despawn eventually, so you don't need a spot for every one the dies which is probably a good thing consider how fast you can get die-offs at large pops. No idea about Crypts as I've never built them.

Ah, thanks for that - I know Pits have relatively quickly despawn rates. I haven't really monitored Graveyards. Crypts are very cool, btw, so try them out - Citizens will go visit them like Graveyards, but they look pretty nice and the statues/construction is visually good, too.

(Checking my files, will up my data in a few. It's not a big set as there wasn't much of a point to keep on checking it after awhile. Also - I kept thinking about other things to check.)

[Morkonan]

Here's the little bit of "data" notes I made. It started off just trying to make some notes about what I should check for clues. I added things as I went, but started to realize I needed much more granularity. And, doing it by hand wasn't a fun thought. :) These were all taken within a year or so, maybe more, of time - I took them when I saw noticeable change in Odd Jobber availability, trying to spot the outliers in extreme conditions:

https://imgur.com/a/aTR6B1B

Copy/paste of raw notes, just in case anyone can't see the above:

****************

Worker Distribution

OddJobbers= -42

agriculture: 401/408
work: 1036/1050
logistics: 352/352
civics: 147/159
infrastructure: 233/242

OddJobbers= -55

agriculture: 402/410
work: 1027/1051
logistics: 361/361
civics: 147/159
infrastructure: 232/243


Pop: 21 recruits/5 nobles/51 children
Employed: 2186/2202

Oddjobbers= -16

agriculture: 413/413 (Hired 21 Cretonians)
work: 1050/1050
logistics: 340/340
civics: 142/154
infrastructure: 241/245

Pop: 21 recruits/5 nobles/51 children
Employed: 2173/2173

Oddjobbers= +10

agriculture: 410/410
work: 1050/1050
logistics: 319/319
civics: 155/155
infrastructure: 239/239

Pop: 24 Recruits/5 nobles/50 children
Employed: 2167/2167

Odd Jobbers= +13

agriculture: 408/408
work: 1049/1049
logistics: 310/310
civics: 155/155
infrastructure: 245/245

<Spring>

Pop: 24 Recruits/5 nobles/48 children
Employed: 2172/2172 (added guard 5/janitor 1 /exporter 1)

Odd Jobbers: 0

agrictulture: 406/406
work: 1054/1054
logistics: 306/306
civics: 154/154
infrastructure: 252/252

<Summer>

Pop: 24 Recruits/ 5 Nobles/ 48 Children
Employed: 2170/2180

Odd Jobbers: -10

agriculture: 406/406
work: 1054/1054
logistics: 312/312
civics: 147/154
infrastructure: 251/254

<Summer>

Pop: 24 recruits/5 nobles/47 children
Employed: 2167/2209

Odd Jobbers: -42

agriculture: 404/405
work: 1054/1054
logistics: 325/342
civics: 142/154
infrastructure: 247/254

<autumn>

24 recruits (hired 6)/5 nobles/46 children
Employed: 2171/2233

Odd Jobbers: -62

agriculture: 397/407
work: 1027/1054
logistics: 365/367
civics: 145/157
infrastructure: 237/248

*************

Again, this isn't a study or a paper, just some dude trying to figure out his game. :)

Start Conditions: I can't be sure of everything as I don't know the game well enough yet to know what's applicable. However -

All Farms were manual, all Ranches were set to Automatic.

All "Service" industries like Eateries/Canteens/Baths/lodging/janitors were set to Automatic. (To keep people happy)

All Warehouses were set to Automatic. (A big factor, it seems)

All Mines were manual.

All Crafting and Refining was manual

Paper/Library/"Research" was all manual.

Findings - A brief look, i haven't done much analysis. I want better numbers and a known start condition that gives me a good base to learn from. :)

Warehouse numbers fluctuate wildly. I generally have medium sized warehouses, but have a few big central ones out of necessity. (Necessity meaning I keep 60 days worth of Food in them... I know...) Those big ones could have up to 90+ workers. On "Automatic" they hover around 40. But, they do not keep that new total they're trying to reach if that's what is going on with the "Logistics Sector." I've checked them when seeing the spikes and either they're changing so rapidly I miss the increased hires or those workers are maybe getting tasked with "pickup order" jobs/behavior before they actually go to the warehouse to qualify to be included in that Worker Total in the Warehouse menu? /noidea

Canteen numbers seem to be pretty wild. All canteens have daily use that pegs at 100%. But, then it drops to very low percentages after the nightly crowds. When it starts back up with the evening crowd, sometimes there's no food in there - They don't appear to be restocking properly or efficiently with 60% labor staffed even when right beside a fully stocked warehouse. I bumped them all to 100% to check, after all this, and that appears to solve for that issue. I haven't checked today, though.

Ranches - They varied. I try to ensure that, like Farms, they are getting all their daily tending done every day with plenty of time before they break for Leisure. On Auto, that seems to happen as well, but I do not know why the variance seeking to reach 100% then dropping behaves as it does. My assumption is slight birthrate/unit changes or some effect of Fertility.

Civics and Infrastructure changes - I'm unsure, yet.

Seasons - Seasons did seem to have an effect on sector demands, including Ranches and Warehouses.

Deviations of necessity from starting conditions:

I included notes where I accepted Immigrants and had to build a couple of things... See, there was a "Murder."

Cretonians are jerks and lawless pigmen... They killed a Dondorian in his own apartment and I got there just after it happened. Then, some Cretonian, not necessarily the perpetrator, took all his tools and clothes and then booked out the door. No, I can't be sure that was the murderer. I assume it's just a triggered event not involving actual actors. But... maybe? :) (Doesn't matter, I role-played it like he was the perp.)

The Flathouse worker wasn't doing anything about the dead body stinking up the place and I dumped a Janitor nearby as well as a Guardpost, 'cause obviously that influx of Cretonians I hired were all part of some criminal gang of some sort. Eventually someone came buy and removed the poor Dondorian's body from his now empty, and quickly rented, flat. He was laid to rest in a nearby Crypt, so at least he has/had that going for him.

PS: That was an awesome experience seeing that Cretonian take the items from that Dondorian's corpse and scoot out of his apartment, leaving the body behind, no matter the reason. 10/10

The Problem:

It's difficult to solve for this.

I need to wait another few years or so for my Children to grow up, i guess, and start adding to the workforce. but, that means needing more free laborers and that means dumping some out of other sectors. And, the variability is a killer atm.

I later spent some points in Admin to buff up Public Health in the Kingdom to try to see if that would get some more Immigrants. When I could, I build more housing in an attempt to see if that helped. I also focused on some entertainment, making sure Food/Canteens/Bathhouses were plentiful, added some cheap decorations, lighting, etc. IIRC,

I've got close to 0 Odd Jobbers atm, but I added a Smithy and a Tailor with low worker totals, just to eat away at my raw materials instead of selling them. (Plus, it was time to try to start playing and moving numbers around.) If I can get those material use numbers up, I can return towards near sustainability without as much Importing/Exporting. (Not completely - Coal must be Taxed, Ore "somewhat.")

OR - I can just shut down industries, like Weaving/Cotton. I did reduce that as well as a few others, but other industries eventually picked them up.

Any further insight I gain will be done with a more well-known set of starting conditions. I'll manual everything and just sit there and stare at the screen for a few in-game years.

Note: It may be that I've seriously overbuilt. But, that's good, right? It's a good experiment to see what having too many of the same craft/material/food/etc "Rooms" can do when they get out of hand. Yet, it's not easy to cram all of what is needed in one convenient space, by design. That's fine - I like that. I don't mind variability that forces me to interact with a game. It's just this issue that's causing problems with being able to "play" instead of just watch and click when I can to get new Immigrants to offset negative Odd Jobbers. (Note - There is no way I'm letting more of those Cretonian Criminal Gangs into my city... ;))

I'll try out the fullscreen screenpic option and post the city when I can. (Looking forward to that - That is a nagging issue with Banished, which had some great looking city graphics, and many other "building/production" games.

[Gamatron]

Originally posted by Morkonan:

Here's the little bit...

thank you for that analysis. I'll gladly have a look at screenshots if available.

Some notes that might help you:
What industries do you excel at racially and technically. It's far better to put more workers into those and trade for the ones you're worse at in terms of production boost.

Look at the citizen fulfillment UI. Could be that you're missing something that can give you an easy couple of hundreds of immigrants. Look at the bars, their width, and see if there's anything you can afford. Note that even if you temporarily don't have workers, and the service needs workers, you'll probably get a new gain of workers if you build it.

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by Gamatron:

Originally posted by Morkonan:

Here's the little bit...

thank you for that analysis. I'll gladly have a look at screenshots if available.

Some notes that might help you:
What industries do you excel at racially and technically. It's far better to put more workers into those and trade for the ones you're worse at in terms of production boost.

I've been pushing this first playthrough there to see how much I can support, just to get a feel for typical play. I have reduced workers at certain mines to free up labor, since I can tax those materials. I can scale back Refining/Crafting sectors here and there as well, which I've done for a few products. There is, of course, the need to Expprt/Import and that has to be kept viable. (I do have a gem mine, as well.)

I've tailored sector preferences for some Races to maximize their contribution. When I added the Cretonians, noted above, one can see that they where they were supposed to go. (Farms, mostly) That moved those laborers to Crafting/etc where they were more suitable. At least, AFAIK - I don't know that workers will shift trades like that. I assume it's possible, though.

Look at the citizen fulfillment UI. Could be that you're missing something that can give you an easy couple of hundreds of immigrants. Look at the bars, their width, and see if there's anything you can afford. Note that even if you temporarily don't have workers, and the service needs workers, you'll probably get a new gain of workers if you build it.

I did work with targeting fulfillment during this in order to encourage Immigrants, though I wasn't sure how much of a lure that was. It did seem, however, that providing increased housing helped. Also, reacting to the "Murder" above, i added a Guardhouse in that area and a Janitor once the body hadn't been removed for awhile. I don't know that event occurs in troubled areas or is just random. But, as I had added industry after building a Guardhouse in that region earlier, traffic patterns may have changed a bit, so the second was actually in a well traveled newly developed area and passing by it likely improved things there, anyway, for citizens.

I have to add some Temples. That would be my next significant improvement unless I add an Arena. I had been sort of roleplaying, there, and didn't want to add one. But, I may need to in order to get increased Immigration. (Cretonians do want to immigrate, but the crime they bring, it seems, wouldn't be worth adding a lot of them.)

I adjusted Admin in the World screen to increase Health and Rule, perhaps even one tick on Entertainment. The idea there was to do things that did not require dedicated labor. Since my Administration is able to support much more, I thought adding those was a safe option.

Adding Temples will increase labor needs in a shortfall and I was/am concerned about doing more, there, right now. I don't want to end up pulling staff from Administration as it appears that workers will leave for other jobs on occasion. I don't know the mechanics, there.

I can easily survive for several years just letting it run, providing I don't end up getting hit with a big raid/attack. I have yet to experience those on my City screen, but did get a Siege which I fought on the Battle screen. I don't know the mechanics, there, but have started building my first walls "just in case."

Will up a screenshot and then I'll probably see if I can get some of the Children to mature (Four years, IIRC something i read, somewhere.) I'll tweak Fulfillment where I can to see if I can "evolve out of this worker drought." But, I don't know the death rate, given the wide disparity in Racial lifetime expectancy. Given the Humans may be the least long-lived, I should probably invest in another Human breeder to replace those more frequently occurring loses.

Will up a pic when I can, just for anyone's curiosity. Again, it's my first city and I've approached it much like a standard city-builder, where able.

[jpriccardi59]

I am having this exact same issue. How come my workforce is like 1400? But my total population is 2K? What are the 600 other people doing?

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by jpriccardi59:

I am having this exact same issue. How come my workforce is like 1400? But my total population is 2K? What are the 600 other people doing?

This is an old post and the mechanics for a lot of things have changed. You may be better off with just starting a new thread.

I don't think children are counted in the workforce, but may be counted in the population. Also, I'm not sure if certain states for citizens change that number, like whether or not those training military skills count or not if they're not strictly regular military. (I haven't played in awhile and I know the military stuff changed a bit, too.)

[jpriccardi59]

Morkonan... thanks. Yea i actually figured out i had Retirement age set incorrectly and had a lot of my population retired.

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by jpriccardi59:

Morkonan... thanks. Yea i actually figured out i had Retirement age set incorrectly and had a lot of my population retired.

There ya go! Good job figuring it out, congrats! :)