Unexpected crazy synergies

[OverThere]

One of the cool things through my learning curve on this game has been the unexpected crazy synergies. They have taught me a lot about how to think about getting to a win in any particular playthough.

I am sure there are many great examples, but here are two from my playthroughs:

- the +1 mushroom harvest per 25 harvests perk. I got this in one of my first runs and wrote it off as marginal. A thread earlier in the discussions hilariously outlines the consequences of this perk in the forests that general mushrooms as a side-effect of tree harvest. The mushrooms sneak up on you and soon you are drowning in them. Eventually, finding enough logs to fuel your economy becomes a problem as the logs are swamped by the deluge of mushrooms. Easy win when you know this is coming.

- another run I got a +2 to stone harvest perk. Yawn. Then I recovered an abandoned building in a glade that was great with bricks. I'd normally never choose a blueprint strong in bricks as almost anything else would be more useful. It still haven't noticed, beyond thinking that I least I wouldn't struggle with bricks in this run.

Then I get +2 production for pack of building materials. This inadvertently synergizes with my tinkerer, selected for simple tools (gotta open those caches!). Normally I'm starved for stone or clay, but in this game there are hundreds of stone in inventory.

This is when it clicks. My one stone harvester is generating three stones with each harvest. Three stones convert to three bricks in the brickyard. Three (four?) bricks convert to three packs of building materials. Every trader buys packs of building materials for almost one amber each.

Basically, each stone harvest could end up as more than two amber.

I build a second tinkerer to focus on pack of building materials. My stone and brick inventories continue to climb even as I'm buying out each trader entirely with my pack of building material stacks. The run ends up being an unexpectedly easy win.

What other stories are out there of unexpected crazy synergies?

[Kyresti]

One of my most common game-winners starts with a hi-throughput lumber mill and the 'Woodworkers make 3 barrels with each 10 planks" cornerstone. One game I even got it twice.

All of a sudden, other things will fall into place, like orders for trade goods, or every part of the ale and pickle chains -except- containers (or that blueprint will come last).

Or one that pops up from time to time is the... I forget what it's called but 1 insect per 2 trees felled, then a termite mound will show up, then the smokehouse. It's basically free jerky.

[OverThere]

The one insect per two trees is a great one! It doesn't seem like a lot at first, but turns out to be huge.

Eight trees gives four insects. Four insects equals ten jerky. Four jerky (and four of whatever plant ingredient) equals ten skewers. Free jerky and, if you make jerky the input for skewers, almost free skewers too.

The basis of two of the five complex food needs covered from one perk. Hunger problems solved!

[Ironheart]

i got the 1 insect per 2 trees 3 times running. then saw funny stuff happen when I got a +1 on insect harvest and 5 pigment per 10 insect.

[Starseed]

ahh yes I always chose that insect perk

[ACS36]

+1 after 25 gathers of anything is really bad. You only take it if you don't have a reroll or the other options are just bad. You have to be thinking of +1 or +2 mushroom gathering, that's the only one worth taking.

[Narandia]

Originally posted by ACS36:

+1 after 25 gathers of anything is really bad. You only take it if you don't have a reroll or the other options are just bad. You have to be thinking of +1 or +2 mushroom gathering, that's the only one worth taking.

The trick there is that on that biome, you get mushroom harvests from trees frequently. Just for naturally harvesting from mushroom nodes on the map, sure, it can take a while to get that modifier up to a noticable degree, and all those harvests in the meantime you didn't get any benefits at all. And if you can't find a lot of mushrooms in the first place, it might end up doing nothing for you, unless you get the greenhouse or the cornerstone to plant mushrooms on farms.

[Bomba Clout]

first year = +3 wood but lose it after the storm and gain 50 insect
2nd yeah = +1 but lose all fuel
3rd year = +1 but 50% slower farming production

4th year have soo much planks, coal and wood that I just sacrifice it as if global warming is my goal

[clyneymeister]

On my last run in the scarlet orchard i had:
+1 copper ore
+1 copper ingots
+1 tools
2 +1 planks
+3 barrels per 10 planks

I actually got a resolve win despite the awesome tool production, I only opened 4 glades and most of the crates had great loot or citadel resources. I had brilliant luck on my blueprints and production chains, over +1 rep a minute and human resolve was about 43 at the end

[Lorska]

Coral forest with +1 meat every 25 produced. You just win.

For real you just need to hunt down a single type of tree and you'll drown in food wood and tools. And the best thing is because you don't need any food production you need almost no villagers to do it.

[Narandia]

Originally posted by Lorska:

Coral forest with +1 meat every 25 produced. You just win.

For real you just need to hunt down a single type of tree and you'll drown in food wood and tools. And the best thing is because you don't need any food production you need almost no villagers to do it.

That does sound like it could hamper your wood production though, much like Fungal Guide in the Marshlands. Although I suppose its at least more controllable, since not every type of tree has the meat bonus.

[OverThere]

Here is an unexpected terrible synergy.

I recently did the marshlands with the 'Barren Lands' modifier (no fertile soil).

One of the storm modifiers was +20% to impatience if hostility hit three or more at any point during the storm.

In marshlands you have to pop open glades to keep your economy going. All the glade penalties make staying under three hostility in mid-game a challenge.

The first dangerous glade I popped needed luxury goods to complete the task. I had no luxury goods. Neither of the first two traders had luxury goods.

The bad event cycled two times before I could finish it. That was two hostility.

In most storms, I was unable to keep hostility below three. Before I knew it, I had four versions of the +20% to impatience.

My inability to keep resolve enough above hostility cost a modest number of citizens (harpies!!!!). In a normal run this would be no big deal, but here the extra hostility from each departure really hurt.

In most runs I'm in optimist mode, aiming for a respectable town and few achievements to boost progression in the meta game.

By year five I knew I'd be lucky just to make it. I could practically see the impatience meter growing, even though I kept a human as firekeeper from the start.

I gave up all hope of anything approaching decency, solved the easy orders, put everything on simple tools and opened glades as fast as possible just to solve the caches and stay ahead of impatience.

In my quest to find caches, I even opened a forbidden glade - which is a big no no for me unless I'm in a strong late game position. There was a fabulous beached whale meat source (1004 meat, ~40% each of leather, sea marrow, jerky and crystalized dew with each harvest - and I had a +2 to crystalized dew cornerstone). The event was a steampunk foundary that spawned living matter as you tried to salvage it.

Given my other strengths in that run, now non-relevant, it would have been easy to manage the living matter spawns and salvage the steampunk foundary. Normally, I'd have made a town center around the steampunk foundary to spam parts and infused tools for the Queen and the wider economy, or go for the finish the game with 400 amber achievement.

Instead, in this run all I cared about was the lousy cache the forbidden glade offered.

So, yeah. Sometimes just getting through is a win.

[CPT Chthonbeard the Pirate]

Originally posted by Lightning Paw:

One of my most common game-winners starts with a hi-throughput lumber mill and the 'Woodworkers make 3 barrels with each 10 planks" cornerstone. One game I even got it twice.

All of a sudden, other things will fall into place, like orders for trade goods, or every part of the ale and pickle chains -except- containers (or that blueprint will come last).

Or one that pops up from time to time is the... I forget what it's called but 1 insect per 2 trees felled, then a termite mound will show up, then the smokehouse. It's basically free jerky.

Lumber mill is unironically worse throughput at making planks than carpenter despite having a better recipe. The problem is that the lumber mill has fewer workers to work together so they spend more time hauling individually. The carpenter has more workers to work together, so typically one guy gets to stay in there working constantly making planks while the other 2 deal with the hauling until he needs a break. Typically you get 16%-20% more planks per season from it, at a worse input ratio.

Unfortunately this is not something easily fixed by planting down a second lumbermill and putting a 3rd person in there. Even if you did that, you'd still see the carpenter with a slight advantage in throughput.

Just something to keep in mind in the future. It's even more pronounced with the cookhouse when making biscuits.

[arjensmit79]

Originally posted by CPT Chthonbeard the Pirate:

Unfortunately this is not something easily fixed by planting down a second lumbermill and putting a 3rd person in there. Even if you did that, you'd still see the carpenter with a slight advantage in throughput.
.

How can this be ? I can imagine that working out in the short term, but not the long term. It should not matter how many guys are in the building. The planks all need to be produced and moved to the storehouse either way. I don't see how multiple guys could make that more efficient in man-hours. Explained in another way:
Say production of 2 planks needs 60 seconds, thats 30 seconds per plank.
Say walking 5 planks to the storehouse also takes 60 seconds, thats 12 seconds per plank.
Total, each plank costs 42 man-seconds.

Please explain me what i'm missing in my logic here.

[OverThere]

I think the OP math is planks per facility, not planks per person. Because you can put three people at work in a carpentry verses two in a lumber mill, as long as all you want out is planks then you get more out of the carpentry.

For most games, in the short term all you care about is getting planks as you are hungry for planks (or want to feed packs of materials). So planks per facility is a better metric than straight up plank efficiency per person.

If it was two workers in a carpentry producing planks verses two workers in a lumber mill producing planks, in that math the lumber mill would come out ahead. But if you want lots of planks, ASAP, then the OP is suggesting that three workers in a carpentry is better.

[CPT Chthonbeard the Pirate]

Originally posted by arjensmit79:

Originally posted by CPT Chthonbeard the Pirate:

Unfortunately this is not something easily fixed by planting down a second lumbermill and putting a 3rd person in there. Even if you did that, you'd still see the carpenter with a slight advantage in throughput.
.

How can this be ? I can imagine that working out in the short term, but not the long term. It should not matter how many guys are in the building. The planks all need to be produced and moved to the storehouse either way. I don't see how multiple guys could make that more efficient in man-hours. Explained in another way:
Say production of 2 planks needs 60 seconds, thats 30 seconds per plank.
Say walking 5 planks to the storehouse also takes 60 seconds, thats 12 seconds per plank.
Total, each plank costs 42 man-seconds.

Please explain me what i'm missing in my logic here.

It's because each person needs X wood to make a plank, and produces Y planks. X is usually smaller than their carry capacity, and Y is also usually smaller than their carry capacity. Combine this and one person can usually carry enough to supply two people, sometimes 3 if you use a harpy as a main fire keeper. Likewise one or two people can usually empty out the storage easily while the other person can just keep working.