Most Impactful Prestige Malus

[Hauw2x]

After climbing all the way from Settler to P15 today I've realized the malus with the biggest impact is Prestige 6 - Villagers Eat More Food. It isn't the most terrifying, neither it is the hardest, but it has the largest impact.

There's a lot of times I've come close to losing but there are always less optimal path we can take.

P15 storm? Tame. Dismiss all woodcutters. Burn fuel if needed.
P12 blueprint? We don't use some of the buildings we get anyway.
P9 trade? Trade routes, it just delays the climb to prosperity.
P8 glade? I've yet to see any glade failure that botched my run and if it does, it's caused by not having this or that
P5 building? Just level up and get that 2x +20% and embark bonus

But no less optimal path is given for lack of food. None.

From the moment you've embarked, you're perpetually on a countdown to find renewable, sustaining source of food. Traders don't sell enough food for you to sustain yourself.

If you found none, you're going to suffer perpetually heavier malus until you lose, or you find food

If you found any, you're stuck with hard cap called population.
It affects every single thing on your game.

If you get ALL the blueprints you want. Carpenter, Kiln, Scribe, you're still hard capped by #manpower of you have and it's all derived from 1 single variable : how much food you can produce to feed your non food producing manpower

You said that you lost because of resolve?
Where did you get most of your hostility from? Wood cutters, population, and glades opened. Do you realize that except #glades opened, 2 of them is a tangible cap derived from food? And if you ran outta food nodes, what are you going to do? Right, open more glades.

How did I get into this conclusion, you ask me?
Well aside from a good number of hours played in this game, and good number of hours reading outside the game, today I've barely beaten P15, the storms are tame and hostility means nothing.

It was the lack of food on Scarlet Orchard that nearly killed the run.

All I get are copper mines, and those are garbage compared to fertile soil.
Mines needed loads of plank/brick/pipes to produce anything meaningful to feed the workers, needed production chain to make profit, otherwise copper is sold for bread scraps to traders. And after everything you've put, it ran outta juice.

On the other hand, farm needs no more than 2(3 at P5) planks, and even the crappiest farm can and will literally sustains itself plus a whole bunch of hard working manpower, perpetually.

Yes, you can lose because of hostility, glade event, impatience, storm.
But not a single one of it mattered if you don't have food.

Food is king in this game.

[Lil brekky]

Well... yeah. Much like in life.
If anything, it would make no sense if you could have a population of sapient creatures in a wilderness survival scenario NOT, like, fail and die in the absence of calories.

What youve described is like a description of flying enemies in shooting games: "No matter what challenges the game throws at you, the melee attacks can only handle so many enemies. At the end of the day, winning is totally dependent on BULLETS." It's like... yeah... that's sorta the game.

[Hauw2x]

Originally posted by Lil brekky:

At the end of the day, winning is totally dependent on BULLETS." It's like... yeah... that's sorta the game.

I realized it a bit too late because I mostly play on Coral/Royal where food is not really an issue😂😂😂

For a long time, I think I could produce other things like pipes and sell things for food, like real world. It doesn't work in P9 but I still made it through until Scarlet where food is hardest (plenty of nodes on Marshland)

At some point during mid/late game, everything is hard capped by food. When you can't find more nodes to feed your population. It's food, food, food 😂😂😂

[BimBam]

For me personally the p18, when u lose 2 villagers if u dont have 5 Gold, is the hardest. Could not beat it so far...

[Hauw2x]

Originally posted by BimBam:

For me personally the p18, when u lose 2 villagers if u dont have 5 Gold, is the hardest. Could not beat it so far...

Probably when I get there I'll always embark with amber, oil, and food. I'll substitute oil for plantation if human is in the starting caravan. Fingers crossed for glade events

[Lil brekky]

No need to embark amber. I often take provisions, or if I get extra cheap food, I just rush Makeshit Post &Tradingpost and make a few lame trades for the first $5-10

[kory]

Originally posted by BimBam:

For me personally the p18, when u lose 2 villagers if u dont have 5 Gold, is the hardest. Could not beat it so far...

Its the most noticable early game one, but by midgame I often forget it is even there.

[BimBam]

But how do u manage it? I never played focused on gold and i dont get it how to make it even so soon....

[koboldlord]

You can pick either provisions or amber as your embark bonus; usually one of them will have their cost rounded down, so do that one.

You can also grab the meat or eggs for 1 point, use consumption control to make sure your villagers don't eat them, and use the makeshift post to generate enough provisions to get you to 5 amber. This results in fewer provisions total and puts a significant drain on your starting labor, but it does work. If you don't get to 5 in time for Drizzle 2, then don't open a glade in Drizzle 2.

But the real cost of the land tax is where you have to use a portion of you food budget to make provisions to generate your stream of amber. Glade events won't necessarily make enough amber for you to pay it forward, and may even cost amber.

[Hauw2x]

Originally posted by Lil brekky:

No need to embark amber. I often take provisions, or if I get extra cheap food, I just rush Makeshit Post &Tradingpost and make a few lame trades for the first $5-10

Originally posted by koboldlord:

You can pick either provisions or amber as your embark bonus; usually one of them will have their cost rounded down, so do that one.

Thanks for the tips I'll remember these when I got there!

Originally posted by kory:

Originally posted by BimBam:

For me personally the p18, when u lose 2 villagers if u dont have 5 Gold, is the hardest. Could not beat it so far...

Its the most noticable early game one, but by midgame I often forget it is even there.

Have it ever caught you off guard?
Like selling things for amber, spend amber to buy that blueprint/perk you desperately need. And lose 2 villagers?

Originally posted by BimBam:

But how do u manage it? I never played focused on gold and i dont get it how to make it even so soon....

In all honesty me neither
I just play to the advantage of the map

Royal = farm blueprints ASAP, plantation is the best.
Most of my win conditions here are complex food. GG pickles +8 resolve.

Coral = IMHO easiest, by far.
Trees give meat, dew, incense. Turn dew into tool ASAP. Might find coal here.
With meat, tool, and coal, what could possibly go wrong?

Marsh = advanced camps ASAP, trapper is best.
No copper smelting = no copper mine, value too low.
I don't play this map as much as Royal or Coral, but here fuel is non issue because of coal.

Scarlet = learned the hard way food is hard here, will cap population.
Not as much fertile soil as Royal, not as much nodes as Marsh, trees drop no food.
Seems like the winning condition in this map is archaeology, but it's a big drain on time and food...

Haunted = I avoid this biome as much as possible.
I only take these for achievement, and play it at lower prestige.

[Dervish19]

After climbing all the way from Settler to P15 today I've realized the malus with the biggest impact is Prestige 6 - Villagers Eat More Food.

For me its P19 - 5 Gold per Glade. I hate it, because I tend to forget about it and open glades (or woodcutters open them themselves when I forget to set Avoid to open glades) and lose the villagers. Its not a big deal most of the times, but I really dont like losing them.

Food in most of my games (P20) is not an issue at all, especially after 0.48 boosted Small Farms and its not food that forces me to population control, its Hostility.

Have it ever caught you off guard?

Always. Like, in 50% of my games. My main reason to insta-reload the latest save.

But how do u manage it? I never played focused on gold and i dont get it how to make it even so soon....

Taking provisions packs or amber in Embarkment is a must. Everything else is optional (like, I love to take Small Farms after 0.48, but I can play without them as well, but Provisions/Amber is a must to pick).

[DG]

P15 with the full length storm is much more important for overall game balance than it first appears, such as getting cornerstones 20% later since the years are 20% longer. The people consume 20% more between harvests. The full length storm properly punishes a settlement with resolve problems but if your settlements don't have resolve problems then you don't see that.

While some penalties just seem annoying they almost all contribute to a failed settlement. A troubled settlement can survive a few problems with food, resources, blueprints, hostility, events, etc so a failed settlement typically runs into many different problems.

[kory]

Originally posted by Hauw2x:

Originally posted by kory:

Its the most noticable early game one, but by midgame I often forget it is even there.

Have it ever caught you off guard?
Like selling things for amber, spend amber to buy that blueprint/perk you desperately need. And lose 2 villagers?

It has, and losing two villagers is a bit of a shock a few times, you wind up just developing the habit of never spending out all of your amber. Of course, losing two villagers is hardly a problem, but the impatience bump can be.

[kory]

Originally posted by Dervish19:

After climbing all the way from Settler to P15 today I've realized the malus with the biggest impact is Prestige 6 - Villagers Eat More Food.

For me its P19 - 5 Gold per Glade. I hate it, because I tend to forget about it and open glades (or woodcutters open them themselves when I forget to set Avoid to open glades) and lose the villagers. Its not a big deal most of the times, but I really dont like losing them.

You can set them to avoid glades by default. I always have them avoid glades except marked, and just mark when I want a glade opened.

[Dervish19]

Originally posted by kory:

Originally posted by Dervish19:

For me its P19 - 5 Gold per Glade. I hate it, because I tend to forget about it and open glades (or woodcutters open them themselves when I forget to set Avoid to open glades) and lose the villagers. Its not a big deal most of the times, but I really dont like losing them.

You can set them to avoid glades by default. I always have them avoid glades except marked, and just mark when I want a glade opened.

Done! Found it in Options. Thx for the hint.

[Hauw2x]

Originally posted by Dervish19:

Food in most of my games (P20) is not an issue at all, especially after 0.48 boosted Small Farms and its not food that forces me to population control, its Hostility.

For me, it never was until it was, and when it was, it struck like a scorned lover 😂😂😂😂

I've played mostly on Coral, Royal, and Marsh (exactly in that order).
I trade stocks, and regarding stocks, it's not only how big the win is, but also the loss. So I avoid loss whenever possible.

It just happens that in 3 of those maps, when I'm at a disadvantageous position, I've never really lost that bad and can always recover.

Originally posted by kory:

Of course, losing two villagers is hardly a problem, but the impatience bump can be.

In all honesty if food is sparse, and impatience is a non issue, losing villagers would be a boon. You get to keep whatever they produce, plus the newcomer bonus is rather nice.

Originally posted by DG:

P15 with the full length storm is much more important for overall game balance than it first appears, such as getting cornerstones 20% later since the years are 20% longer. The people consume 20% more between harvests.

Ah yeah, this is true
It doesn't affect greenhouse or clay pit, right?