Idle Odd Jobers

[japerson34]

After clearing a patch of wild fruit, I had a bunch of Odd Jobers go idle. There is ton of stone, fruit and mushrooms that need to be hauled to warehouses in the area. They aren't doing anything but eating fruit every now and then that is laying on the ground.

[Gamatron]

It's probably to far away to the stockpile for them. You can assign some workers to the stockpile, and they'll grab resources very far away.

[japerson34]

I was testing the game by not using assigned workers to the stock piles. Seems like you don't really need them. In fact, didn't seem like I even needed the stockpiles themselves. I've developed a strategy where I have them build and harvest wood and stone during winter and spring, then have them harvest wild food in summer and autumn. When they are hungry, they just go to the harvested piles laying in the fields to eat. This seemed like a great way to control population. And if workers are just going to stand around doing nothing, then I don't need a whole bunch of bums eating all the food while doing nothing. The odd jobers where stocking the warehouses with harvested resources that was the closest to the warehouses. Appears there was a limit to how many odd jobers that will perform these tasks at the same time? My population was like only around 20 and about 8 of them were idle. Eventually, one by one they found tasks to do and eventually the working group found their way to the more distant stone, fruit and mushrooms. Love the game. Off to test it some more today

[Gamatron]

That's great. Yes, there's such a mechanic, that they will search farther and farther away for something to do. You can definitely survive without stockpile workers. It's just they can carry 15 items, the others can only carry 1.

[japerson34]

So after playing (testing) for another day, I see and understand what happened. I highlighted the entire map for my 20 Odd Jobers to harvest wild food sources. After 6 game days (summer and autumn), they had split up and gone different ways. When I had them stop to allow them time to collect their harvest, these 8 simply had traveled too far away from the group of warehouses like you suggested. Yes, there was all this harvest right at their feet where I stopped them, but they didn't know where to take the harvest. So eventually, when I saw them finally leave their idle positions one by one, I assumed they finally where headed off to do a job. No, they went to a river to bathe. This river then put them close enough enough to my warehouses to where after bathing, they then joined the rest of the Odd Jobers.

Today's plan is to start a new game and build warehouses next to the resources to prevent this problem. Then only harvest where I have warehouses instead of the entire map. Also, will assign the warehouses a worker because 1 worker carrying 15 items is better than 20 only carrying 1 item when you factor in the time lost with travel time to and from warehouses.