Couple of questions - mostly immigration and population...

[Jeffreyac]

Hi folks,

New guy, struggling a bit. Got some idea of what I'm doing, but I was originally going to do a city with a main race, maybe 2, but I found the influx of immigrants was sooooo slooooow.... :) so, in the end, I ended up letting everyone in, which helped in the short term, but then I ended up at about 45 pop, but with a mix of all 5 races - and no one was really happy, which of course limited immigration even more...

So, question 1: is a single, or 2-3, race playthrough workable? Was I just impatient, or just need to do more for happiness and be picky on my immigrants?

Question 2, a little unrelated - I keep seeing guides saying don't build farms,s it's a waste, just grab all the wild food and sell them and import everything...

....honestly, I kinda don't want to do that. I like the idea of farms, and making stuff, and refining things, and building... but, of course, I hate to shoot myself in the foot, too... is it really far better to just trade huge amounts of foraged stuff, or can I get by going the other route without driving myself crazy?

Question 3, back on topic - if I have a second or third race, and want to limit jobs to those that race is good at - if I set job priority for that race, will existing jobs of that type filled by other races be fired, replacing them with the new race, or will it only apply to future hires? (Hope that makes sense - it does in my head, but it's kinda a convoluted question...)

[Jeffreyac]

Oh, since I'm here...

Question 4: I've been using stone buildings because I thought they were better... is there a reason (other than speed/insufficient stone) to use wood instead?

[optimumscar]

Q1: 2-3 mains is what I do. Depending on climate. Temp or warm, Pigs, Green Elves, and Humans. Cold, Dwarfs and Giants. Using the Bug like dudes only for military in my warm/temp too but I don't let many of them in. I use em only for war power and make sure they stay in the army.

Q2: Farms are fine, but too many will take up a lot of space/workers. I use them to supplement income honestly (eggs sell very well till ya can sell jewelry). 1 of each at max size for your peoples fav foods at most. Don't fill them up workers, you won't even need them half filled with workers. Playing the trading economy just helps for supplementing your army and building it up faster. Cause less farmers can mean more income for war power in other places.

Q3: When you set work priority of a race, it works for all future/past population that immigrate of that race. So yes, all the jobs set already will fire and be changed to the other race ya set priority to.

Q4: Yeah building type effects happiness and work efficiency. Like Pigs and Elves work well in wood buildings together, while the Drawfs, Humans, and Giants work well in stone/grand/mountains.

[Jeffreyac]

lol - kinda forgot climate. So, no wonder my warm-weather dwarves were even grumpier than usual!

[Jeffreyac]

Originally posted by optimumscar:

Q3: When you set work priority of a race, it works for all future/past population that immigrate of that race. So yes, all the jobs set already will fire and be changed to the other race ya set priority to.

I'm trying, but struggling on making it work.

Example: brand new game, as I'm building my first warehouse, a couple of the pig guys who love to farm show up. Cool, I'm building a farm anyway, that will work great. I build the farm, set it for 2 workers - a human and a pig-guy go to work there.

I check the work priorities - humans, 16 farming. Pig guys, 20 farming. Meanwhile, I get another pig guy immigrant... I set the farm to 3 workers, and one of the new pig guys waddles over - cool! Now I just need the human to go do other stuff. So, I set the farm back to 2 workers - the pig guy who was just hired leaves, and the human stays...

I guess I don't have enough of a difference in preferences? If that's the case, how much is needed? Or is that not the case - do citizens not leave jobs after finding one, even if a better candidate comes along later?

[Jeffreyac]

OK, new question - we'll call it #5.

What is, and how do I use, administration? I seemed to find some references to admin points and unlocking cool things for your faction, but I can't seem to find anything in game. I thought at first maybe it was from a previous version, but I see there is a tech that unlocks bonuses to administration, so it must be a thing.

Is it just something you don't get until higher pop? I'm only at 80 pop right now, so still kinda small...

[optimumscar]

When you click on priorities, are you doing it from the Citizen menu in the top left? From there go into work tab of the race you want. Now ya can click the work priority button, up at the top right on this menu you see a hammer, a heart, and a cancel. These are the auto one, and they set a minimum of 11 for races that aren't very good/fulfilled while those that are, are set to 20.

Now that part I'm sure ya know and sorry ahead of time for reiterating it if ya did.

To keep a race from working a space at all, you need to set their priority to 0, The ones you want to work there only, set to 20.

The reason your piggies might be doing other things is likely because they have other places that have priority as well based on fulfillment/or set priority that is equal to the farms. So the human is filling the missing position even though all your piggies are working jobs that give full fulfillment or fit the priority set.

[optimumscar]

Administration buildings (built from the infrastructure build tab, you should have access to build it from the start I think) is another building that gives access to a kind of tech tree for upgrades (and like education for the tech tree, it can go down over time on its own if you spend more points then ya make). Once you start building up your Administration points after you set workers in the building (you'll need a steady supply of paper too), in the top right interface, click the world map. From there click your city. You'll get an interface for the whole region you control. From there you can spend admin points for many different things, from segregating certain races (this is more so for choosing what races fill in your army, but it also effects immigration to your capital city and the happiness of the races), taxing certain productions of your civs that are outside of your capital, and increasing overall effectiveness in 5 areas like Sanitation, Law, Entertainment, infrastructure, and Education in your capital city. These upgrade are very helpful too.

This is also where you build your big armies for taking down other cities too, it's in the top left of the world map under armies tab, you recruit from your region rather then your capital city. Those ya train in your capital city are only for civil defense for when you get invaded or civs rebel, though they can march out of your capital they'll be weak in numbers to any army above raiders (unless your troops are Giants) but in general your civil defense should be phased out once you start building large amounts of guard posts and other fortifications that have to be manned in your capital.

[Jeffreyac]

I think I'll make this my 'recurring question thread' - otherwise, I'll end up spamming our forum...

So, #6. How many beds should I have for a given population? Does it vary based on the quality of beds? I mean, I know flats will give better quality sleep than dorms, but for sheer quantity, is a dorm with 8 beds functionally the same as a flat with 8 beds?

I think I recall seeing an estimated number of patrons a food establishment can serve when it's built, but I don't recall seeing that on the sleeping facilities...

[optimumscar]

Click the Citizens tab in the top left. Then click The race you want to look into, from there click services (it should have a green/red bar). You see the stats for you services like eating, sleeping, hygiene, ect. Hovering over the services text will show you a break down of the happiness for that service. It will have info like how close they are to beds, how many are used, and if the quality is up to their standards and how much it's effecting happiness.

Beds will be changing in the next version though to being individual houses so it will be different soon.

[Jeffreyac]

Ah-ha! Thanks much, that should be much better!

Let's roll into question 8.... :)

...how far is too far for resources? And is there a good method for long-range gathering? (i.e. build up a little village at the site to house/feed workers?) Also - I confess, haulers kind of confuse me right now - I think I set them where I want he resource moved TO, and the hauler will go get it where it is and bring it to the haul point, is that correct?

...asking, as I am struggling waiting for my metal imports to trickle in, but there's a ore vein in a mountain about half way across the map, and I've got plenty of spare workers at the moment, so considering trying to make myself a little more self sufficient... of course, I also haven't looked at the tech requirements to smelt metal yet - was surprised as I went to set my gem mine, as I'd forgotten to look to see if I had the tech, I imagine metal will also require some research.


And, #9 - after being show the demographics page (thanks much!) I see that, while I have humans ages 2 to 5, I have no 'children'. I'd built a school thinking wanted to be prepared for educating folks, but I don't have the tech for nurseries.

Is it that, prior to nurseries, the only source of new folks is immigration, therefore your existing citizens won't have kids (without the tech building)? If so, did I jump the gun on my school?

[Jeffreyac]

So far I'm loving this game. But I've hit my very first annoyance at game mechanics... (which, actually, considering the time in, isn't too bad!)

Economy.

Question #10 - ok, wait, why is the price for me to buy items 10 times higher than for me to sell items?

Finally noticed, now that I'm starting to produce and can be more picky on my imports and exports... I get that there needs to be some adjustment for gameplay, but it just doesn't seem right that, for example, folks will sell me gems about 500 a unit,than a unit, but wil only pay 50 a unit for the ones I'd sell. Across the board, for all items... I get this was probably a gameplay/balance decision - but it's a little jarring. Can't I find the folks who are ALSO buying those gems from the misers selling them at 500, and see if they'd like to buy mine instead, for, say, 250?

If that's no kidding the prices for the world market, it seems very wrong and jarring...

(and yes, I do see there is tech to improve my selling prices...)

[optimumscar]

Q8: Well in terms of how far resources to travel for. What I do, is essentially make a new block around the resource I want, like the idea ya suggested. So if I had a coal mine on the other side of the map away from my main hub, I would make a eatery, warehouse, well, dorms ect near the resource so they don't really have to travel all the way back to the other side of the capital. And since it generally a good idea to build the facilities that use said resource nearby, it helps keep the population working fast with a little city block near the resource, and for the most part they should just stay in it themselves besides a few haulers/warehouse workers traveling to other storage depots. Haulers can help mitigate that if you don't want to build little city next to your far away resource, for hauling the resource back to the main hub if your workers can't carry much, or things spoil faster then ya can carry them. But I rather build a warehouse in a haulers location, it just seems to work better for me in the long run.

Q9: Yes, the school needs children and children only come from the nurseries that get unlocked in the tech tree. Slave traders, Prisoners of war, and Immigrants are the only way you'll be increasing population till you get a nursery. Side note: Buying from a slave trader and freeing the slaves ya bought is a great way of increasing happiness for most races too. it's kinda double edge sword since it only raises happiness usually for those of the same race as the freed slave, while lowering the others. But it's different for each race too.

Q10: Edit: Sorry I got it wrong ignore my earlier post on this

[optimumscar]

Q10: Sorry reposting because I gave ya wrong info on the trading and prices before. In the top left corner is Goods, click that (below the population). From there you can make special orders for cheapest or closest for a certain good you want, it'll be the coin icon next to the green slider bars. It works for both selling and buying. Though it works differently then normal when only importing by sending it directly to the throne, and when importing special orders they don't need a import depot.

[Jeffreyac]

Thanks much for your help - I very much appreciate it!

Got a somewhat self sustaining colony now, just under 1k pop, and feel like I've got at least a grasp on the basics. Of course, the city is a mess - trying to decide if I want to stick with it or take what I've learned and start fresh! (I'll probably stay with it - still a lot to learn on this run, I think!)