Guides for planning your city as you start?

[Ayaka]

I've had a few bad starts and can't seem to get myself too far before I screw something up and end up running out of food. Was hoping someone could point me in the right direction in terms of planning out how I build and plan cities from the 10 person start?

[Lucid]

My general advice after also restarting multiple times is to found near a river for high fertility and plan for your city to grow alongside the river as the farmland spreads up and down. Preferably pick a spot close natural sources of food like wild vegetables, grain, mushrooms or apples. You can freely harvest these in late summer (I've learned to set up a hauling job next to it so you can assign workers to collect everything as soon as it is ripe) which both gives you the seeds to do your own farming as well as supporting a small population.

I have been focusing on Cretonian starts and the key there is to build plots that take 2 workers max. Don't try to make a huge farm to start with because the labor to get the fields ready will take all year. You start with grain so plant a 2 worker field of that immediately - before housing and storage. Just clear the land and get the seeds in the ground. Then get storage and housing, a hearth, well, food stalls and finally a small bakery (about 4-6 workers total).

After this a livestock pen for Aurochs, and between grain and meat you should be able to support everyone. In years 1-3 be cautious about letting in too many immigrants because you don't want your food stocks to be burned through before late summer arrives and it is time to harvest. The single grain farm should keep about 4 bakers busy all year and after that I usually go for vegetable farms (2-3 worker size plots, 1-2 per year) so your food supplies can keep growing alongside your population.

[AccelToWinYT]

Advice:
Map Placement: Have accesses to multiple factions to trade with it. High fertility. Water recommended. Resources optional. (You can get that later on)
Start: Put down livestocks (pigs and then the cows for their leather) and then rush happiness buildings. Continuously put down more food and food options.
Midgame: You need clothes. Continue to keep your minions happy. Get more $$$ (Not too much, raids are going to eat you alive.)
Lategame: Build an army (or just hire mercs) get some regions. The End.

[Sevrun]

Focus on having between 30-50% of your people pushing food supplies. It doesn't really matter WHAT the food is, fish, fruit, bread, whatever. Focus on VOLUME of food.

Obviously, if your people are good at a particular type of food production, focus there and you can drag the overall % down. Once you get provinces, food becomes much less of an issue.

[Ayaka]

Thank you, guys, I'll try and keep all of this in mind.

[Edmund Greyfox]

Also, don't expect to be able to build enough to supply all the food you're going to need during the first year. You will almost certainly need to do some foraging in the first couple of years while you get your food production built up, so make sure you go out and forage some fruits/vegetables on day 3 and 4 of summer. You can also hunt some of the animals on the map to get a bit more food as long as you don't hunt too many of them (they will reproduce, but only if you don't wipe the herd out).

I've been starting with humans, and start by building an Auroch pasture that's as big as i can make it and still have 100% efficiency with 1 full size hut. I throw 10 workers in there long enough to get all my starting animals into it (animals are expensive, so you don't want to lose any to spoilage if you can avoid it) , then dial back to 5 workers and use the others to start working on a max size farm along the river. It takes a couple years to totally clear it and get it built, but between the meat from the Aurochs and foraging vegetables/fruit and a little hunting it's enough to keep everyone fed as long as i don't go crazy adding new population.

Also, make sure you have a hearth up and running before the first winter hits so you don't lose any pop to the cold. Once you have your basic buildings up (hearth, well, storage/food vendor and a couple houses) you can start recruiting a few new pop and put more into the Auroch pasture and let the rest continue to clear the farm area).

[Ayaka]

Originally posted by Edmund Greyfox:

Also, don't expect to be able to build enough to supply all the food you're going to need during the first year. You will almost certainly need to do some foraging in the first couple of years while you get your food production built up, so make sure you go out and forage some fruits/vegetables on day 3 and 4 of summer. You can also hunt some of the animals on the map to get a bit more food as long as you don't hunt too many of them (they will reproduce, but only if you don't wipe the herd out).

I've been starting with humans, and start by building an Auroch pasture that's as big as i can make it and still have 100% efficiency with 1 full size hut. I throw 10 workers in there long enough to get all my starting animals into it (animals are expensive, so you don't want to lose any to spoilage if you can avoid it) , then dial back to 5 workers and use the others to start working on a max size farm along the river. It takes a couple years to totally clear it and get it built, but between the meat from the Aurochs and foraging vegetables/fruit and a little hunting it's enough to keep everyone fed as long as i don't go crazy adding new population.

Also, make sure you have a hearth up and running before the first winter hits so you don't lose any pop to the cold. Once you have your basic buildings up (hearth, well, storage/good vendor and a couple houses) you can start recruiting a few new pop and put more into the Auroch pasture and let the rest continue to clear the farm area).

One of my biggest problems is my citizens don't seem to want to go too far away from where we started. I don't know how to get them to go places that are far away, like to forage food farther across the map. I have to be missing something, do you know what the issue is?

[Edmund Greyfox]

They will go, but it takes time for them to get there. You also have to suspend construction on other things because they will go do the closest task you have set for them to do (that's why building the pasture is the only task i set them at the start). It's really a matter of getting used to suspending/resuming construction on things as needed, so there is a fair amount of micro management in the first 4-5 years.

[Ayaka]

Originally posted by Edmund Greyfox:

They will go, but it takes time for them to get there. You also have to suspend construction on other things because they will go do the closest task you have set for them to do (that's why building the pasture is the only task i set them at the start). It's really a matter of getting used to suspending/resuming construction on things as needed, so there is a fair amount of micro management in the first 4-5 years.

Ah, alright, they were probably all just distracted by nearby tasks, then. I appreciate your help. Also, what about you know... planning how to build my city to start? Like I would put housing and wells and storage near where my throne building is to start, but maybe later on that would be a terrible place to place them? I guess I'm feeling a bit lost on how to plan the 'shape' of my city.

[Edmund Greyfox]

Originally posted by Ayaka:

Originally posted by Edmund Greyfox:

They will go, but it takes time for them to get there. You also have to suspend construction on other things because they will go do the closest task you have set for them to do (that's why building the pasture is the only task i set them at the start). It's really a matter of getting used to suspending/resuming construction on things as needed, so there is a fair amount of micro management in the first 4-5 years.

Ah, alright, they were probably all just distracted by nearby tasks, then. I appreciate your help. Also, what about you know... planning how to build my city to start? Like I would put housing and wells and storage near where my throne building is to start, but maybe later on that would be a terrible place to place them? I guess I'm feeling a bit lost on how to plan the 'shape' of my city.

This guide is a little out of date, but most of what he's saying to do in the early game is still valid. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oydz6qWoih8

[Ayaka]

Thank you.

[Tux]

Originally posted by Ayaka:

I've had a few bad starts and can't seem to get myself too far before I screw something up and end up running out of food. Was hoping someone could point me in the right direction in terms of planning out how I build and plan cities from the 10 person start?

Do not expand your village size until the days of food indicator is a few days higher than however long it takes to generate your longest food source to be created.

So for example, if your farms have 9 days to harvest, make sure you have 11 days of food before expanding

[krin]

i am really new to the game, but the reason they are not going super far away is because of the warehouse radius. set that to 100%

[Ayaka]

Originally posted by krin:

i am really new to the game, but the reason they are not going super far away is because of the warehouse radius. set that to 100%

I'll have to actually check that out, thank you.

[phoneticdecay]

Originally posted by Edmund Greyfox:

They will go, but it takes time for them to get there. You also have to suspend construction on other things because they will go do the closest task you have set for them to do (that's why building the pasture is the only task i set them at the start). It's really a matter of getting used to suspending/resuming construction on things as needed, so there is a fair amount of micro management in the first 4-5 years.

This is something that need to be communicated in the game better. I am having a difficult time moving past the tutorial. If feels rather sparse for something this size. I was honestly expecting something that ran me through the constructing the first few buildings and setting up a sustainable intake of food.

Whether this is done through foraging or pasture construction. Floundering around trying to get the warehouse to construct in the proper manner to start triggering other tooltips was frustrating and repeated at every step.
I'm struggling to overcome that expectation that the tutorial should teach you the game and ready to move on to youtube but do not know if i want to go down the internet rabbit hole just to try and figure out *how* to play the game.

I kept seeing this game and would get excited each time it hit the feeds. Now i feel rather dejected and am giving up because i cant seem to pick up the nuance with the various things you can build early on and when / where / how to place these things.

Most games put these things behind a wall to prevent engaging with too early and have a series of tooltips to explain what everything does in game. I think i will have to come back when it gets a little more update.

Or im just an idiot and missed some important bit of text early on.

[atlas]

If just getting your momentum going is the problem, I'd really recommend this video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J15gJ1wmrEY

It will tell you exactly what to do to get a functional city right down to the placements and building sizes, and might encourage you a bit to experiment and check out the different systems