Who tends the fires please?

[garyp156]

Who and where do I set the villager to bring firewood to the cottages and long house and light all the town fires?
They are fast to snuff them out at daybreak though. :)

[larky2k]

builders tend to fires and torches

[Absinthinseattle]

Builders do a crap job of lighting the fires and lanterns. I have asked before for a dedicated lamplighter.

[Greg]

Remember to manipulate priorities for the builders, Just have one do the fires and torches and take it off of another builder. Things run a lot smoother when you limit what an individual has to do,.

[zeddicul99]

I might have to check into what you are saying. I know you can dig down pretty deep and set specific people to tasks. I can't say I have ever seen a way to set a builder to just fires and lanterns. They generally just work on anything you have started a construction site for. Can you actually remove them from certain sites or somehow manage their tasks as a builder? I also think we really need a new village class for Fire tending and lanterns, In the winter, I feel like I am spending a large portion of time grabbing coal or wood and filling every campfire and fires in the cottages. I might have 8 stone lanterns around my perimeter and I am lucky if they light one. I usually plan to run and light them before an invasion.

[garyp156]

I'd like to know this too. I have seen nowhere to assign anyone to tending fires.

[grizranger]

Keep resin and charcoal in builders packs, it will expedite the process.

I place BBQs on campfires by work areas and assign hunters to cooking a few fish and meat to keep people fed and fires burning during the winter. It also raises the hunters skinning skill. In the winter I pull in workers that have jobs that pull them too far away from camp, e,g, Hunters and Gatherers and assign them menial tasks. If you stock up food in Autumn you can eventually just sit the winters out.

More tips:

I usually just spend winters busting stumps for firewood then build a coalmaker by the mess. They won't go far to get it themselves off the ground so it's easier to build a coalmaker then dismantle and rebuild by the next mess, Woodcutter's are the same way and I found it better to just build Tier 2 Woodcutter huts by the trees I want cut, along with a small warehouse, then the market can use a cart rather than carry one long stick or log at a time back to warehouse by the carpenters.

It took me awhile, 300+ hours, to figure out my workers weren't stupid, just unskilled, e.g. low wood cutting skill is going to take more whacks to fell a tree and go through more axes, taking longer. Once my builders got their building and fire starting skills in the 30+ range they became more efficient, and some tasks do require a min skill level. If you assign them jobs with the most stars in their profile, they level up that skill faster.

Another tip, give workers with the thirsty trait and workers that use water, extra water pouches so they make less trips to the well. Also remove any tools workers don't use so they carry more, then give them all to workers that do, so they make less trips to get new tools.

The biggest thing I learned is to slow down, wait for surplus. When you have too much food, then get more villagers, not before. When you have a thousand sticks on the ground and fiber spilling over, then build flimsy fences. Don't upgrade faster than your workers skill level, when farmers are just standing around then you're ready to add another plot. Adding 3 plots and one low skilled farmer is just going to bust a lot of rakes and a get a lot of weeds. Crafters require a certain skill level for some items. Have workers work the bloomery (I use 5:15 ratio and get very little slag before their skill goes up to where I get none) to get blacksmith up before assigning them crafting tasks. Build storage for the iron and blooms and don't make iron tools until your workers are skilled enough to not burn through them. Keep bloomery workers stocked with wooden hammers so they don't have to stop and ruin the ore. Have carpenters just make planks and shafts (you will need a lot anyway) to skill up before shaving posts and beams. If their carpentry level is too low they won't touch the task. Have builders build easy stuff but lots of it, like decorations and defenses, to skill up before bigger stuff. If a worker breaks a hoe or hammer, they will do everything they can that doesn't require tools, leaving phases not being done before they start something else.

Bottom line, I thought the AI was bad but after 100 days and just 56 villagers, they put up a cottage in less than half a day, and fires are always lit. It's a lot less micro management and more like watching good flowing traffic. AI is smart but if you ask it to do something and it can't, it will keep making checks until it can, the more checks it makes, the stupider it looks.

[garyp156]

Thanks for all the info. Now I know more.
The builders still don't restock the buildings with firewood or even light the fireplaces in the cottages.
We need a regular job for restocking firewood.

[ThunderfulPaige | Community]

Thanks for the suggestions and what an amazing list of tips those are!!! What an amazing bunch <3

[sillygolucky]

Wow, yeah!! Thanks so much for all the well thought out tips, @grizranger!! Hope you don't mind I screenshotted all that for my current/future reference hehe <3

[zeddicul99]

Yeah we are all learning new strategies for how it all works. One simple thing may be to have more than one or two builders which seems to be my standard. I made it to day 155 once and still only had 32 villagers. They were quite skilled and had great gear though, so it worked great. When it comes to fires and torches, we probably just need more builders and don't have 5 buildings going up at once.