Is filling slots in illicit buildings helping or hurting?

[kamalacw]

Am I missing something? It looks like having assassins or thieves is actively bad, but in that case, why would anyone fill those positions? I honestly can't tell if having someone training the rats is better than not having anyone in the rat nest. I've been filling them because if someone's most ardent desire is to work in the brothel, who am I to stop them? But it does feel counterintuitive.

[keastarino]

Any time a job slot opens up at an illicit building, that empty slot negatively impacts about -40 points of heath/faith/protection depending on the building. Employing someone to that slot reduces the damage dealt by the building, so employing someone can reduce that 40 damage to a 6. Did not understand this till I was like 14 hours in

[EdhyRa]

I find this quite annoying sometimes, because I'm already assign my best villager (4-5 Star) to do so, and yet I still get relatively low bar (red or orange). Hospital and Church seems not to help much also on early game.

[LouRagou]

Filling illicit building works for a while, until you need to fill its opposite, positive counterpart the same way (ie Rat Nest VS Hospital, Brothel VS Church, Thief guild VS Barracks). Mitigating the illicit building turns out to be not enough at some point, and you need to counter the damage by filling as many slots in the positive buildings as possible. Implying you need to have unlocked them and have enough people to fill them up, if you don't want to suffer severe damage.

I never managed obtaining a decent situation past 70-75 inhabitants in my village and it always turned into chaos, especially with the thieves/assassins because unlocking the barracks happens way too late

[EdhyRa]

Originally posted by LouRagou:

Filling illicit building works for a while, until you need to fill its opposite, positive counterpart the same way (ie Rat Nest VS Hospital, Brothel VS Church, Thief guild VS Barracks). Mitigating the illicit building turns out to be not enough at some point, and you need to counter the damage by filling as many slots in the positive buildings as possible. Implying you need to have unlocked them and have enough people to fill them up, if you don't want to suffer severe damage.

I never managed obtaining a decent situation past 70-75 inhabitants in my village and it always turned into chaos, especially with the thieves/assassins because unlocking the barracks happens way too late

Indeed, exactly.

[Lantantan]

Using these buildings hurt a lot for sure, you might consider not using them after the mid game. 5 high skilled murderers cause so so so many injuries and thus premature deaths. Rat nests eat up so much of your food, good time girls give everyone a really bad time.

All of those meters have barely any impact, temporarily debuffing 2 or 4 people every year is completely insignificant. Just do the bare minimum to avoid the plague, everything else is a luxury. Never man the pleasure house, use the worst assassins you can get away with, accept that thiefs will steal your furniture and enjoy the abundance of manpower you suddenly have.

[turkoizdog]

You need to fill the slots with people who are incredibly bad at their jobs, so they slow down production. It does feel counter-intuitive, but I like the idea of pretending they're sabotaging a larger operation.

[Lantantan]

Originally posted by turkoizdog:

You need to fill the slots with people who are incredibly bad at their jobs, so they slow down production. It does feel counter-intuitive, but I like the idea of pretending they're sabotaging a larger operation.

You do want the best possible pranksters, and maybe ratcatchers if you can afford the extra food.

[chaleur]

I just learned I have been using these wrong since the first time I played. The tutorial says that a negative effect will happen when they compete production. How do I know what that negative effect is? For the rat training, is it just the usage of food that is the negative effect, or is it something else?

EDIT: I also don't understand why I wouldn't just put a really good worker in the building and then pull them out and reinsert them (thus resetting the production) the day before the negative effect happens.