Health and happiness

[eatonpye]

My bannies are half a star down on happiness- I think it's because they only have access to rice liquor... but they are down a full heart for health, and I can't figure out why. There's a hospital, an herb grower and an herb mender, they have a very well-rounded diet, and the only unhealthy job is two guys at the stacks burner- but they are in good health! The stacks burner is across the river, btw, so only the people who work there are inside it's circle of death.

Any ideas on why they might be less than perfectly healthy? There are about a hundred people in this town, half are adults.

[Banisha]

Do you have a church and cemetery?
Bannies get upset when they can't bury their dead.

Does a herb mender do the same thing as a herbalist I wonder? It doesn't matter how many herbs you have if you have no one to make the medicine.

[olympe]

What constitutes a well-rounded diet in your bannies? Sometimes, even if you have all four food groups available in theory, they don't get into every household if the household is outside the radius of a marketplace.

Another thing I noticed is that older people often go down on both happiness and health, sometimes considerably. This can lead to an overall that's one hart or star short of full.

[maiden4meldin]

Markets Markets Markets. Every house covered with food markets, and provide four food groups. Grain, grow it. Veg Available from Farmers and Gathering Post, Fruit, Gathering Post first, then buy it, orchards last. Meat, Hunter Venison to start. and Pasture Chickens for fastest supply, but down side, is no leather/wool. Or Cows/Sheep, Leather/Wool respectively.

Vendors will go to every Barns, and every stockpile on the map. They will distribute the food across the map, so your houses inventories, will get more balanced diets. This has two effects. One, is they will gain in health naturally, not artificially through the Herbs, and Herbalist. Two, they will enjoy a boost to happiness, Especially, if you provide a bigger variety of food. For instance:

House Inventory Market House, 15 Corn, 10 Berries, 15 Venison, 25 Beans, approximately. This will provide fuller health, but not much happiness.
House Inventory, Marketed House, 15 corn, 15 Wheat, 10 Berries, 5 Mushroom, 5 Onions, 5 Plum, 5 Beans, 5 potatoe, 5 Venison, 10 Fish, 15 Beef
This will provide fuller health, and will give a small but not insignificant boost to Happiness, as their diet becomes broader, I could go on. But suffice to say, provide as much variety, and include all Four food groups, Your Traders, can provide much of what you are not making yourself. And your health and happiness will increase, And stay at full Five/Five.

Next. Cemetaries. I know it hurts to place these ground gobbling cemetaries, anywhere nearby your town. But, Your people will be happier if they can visit their deceased loved ones. So by placing the Cemetary convenient locations, make smaller ones, but increase the number of Cemetaries, near your settlements, and your people will go visit, and return to work sooner, with happier stars. If you place them in out of the way locations, sure it will have some happy effects, but you lose the production time, while your people traverse the map to visit a loved one. So placed nearby, is better always. I usually go with 8 x15 Cemetaries, and place them wherever I have that kind of space, usually trying to place them outside a Markets radius, and in between Settlements. But, not always My first cemetary, is usually inside the first settlements area .

Churches, Serve to diffuse the negative effects of the mines or quarries, so placing them in mining areas, will help boost the happiness of the community.

Taverns. By this time, You should have fixed the issues with Food, and not need the Churches or the Taverns. But Taverns with Ale, will boost happiness a little as well.

World of Banished Wiki, has a great article regarding happiness and the effects on your people.

Markets, and Trading Posts make people happy as well. So place them near your Settlements, and enjoy fuller health and happiness more naturally.

[eatonpye]

Originally posted by olympe:

What constitutes a well-rounded diet in your bannies? Sometimes, even if you have all four food groups available in theory, they don't get into every household if the household is outside the radius of a marketplace.

Another thing I noticed is that older people often go down on both happiness and health, sometimes considerably. This can lead to an overall that's one hart or star short of full.

I think it must be the aging Originals. Everyone is within a market radius, I import tons of food of great variety, and certainly there are plenty of all four food groups. There is a church, but it just hit capacity, so perhaps there are one or two people who lost some happy due to that. It's time to build another church, but I can't find the one I'm looking for- it must have come from some non-Megamod mod that I'm no longer using, but I can't think of which.

On the other hand, all but five houses are within the purple circle of three trading posts- that ought to count for something!

I do need to build a tavern, but I don't have the manpower to staff it yet. I can afford to import lots of things because I'm growing a lot of rice, but I don't have enouigh bannies to run all the job functions. Another ten years and I should be fine...

[some moron]

You think they are four-foodtyped but are they? You can check. Find someone with less than perfect health, go to their house and check their food in that house. Thereby you can confirm or deny that they have all four food types in their house.

[eatonpye]

Well, if they are finicky eaters and won't eat their broccoli, let them die. The food groups are available, I can't micro their individual diets.

[maiden4meldin]

Originally posted by eatonpye:

Well, if they are finicky eaters and won't eat their broccoli, let them die. The food groups are available, I can't micro their individual diets.

keep a trace on a few houses that are in poor health, and check their house inventories. Are the Markets providing the four food groups? Sometimes markets will get overloaded with one type of food. Farms are nearby and dumping their food into the market, and if you do not have enough vendors or other storage then they will keep those deposits at high volumes, and not go for other types of foods, and while you the player are providing variety, individual markets are not getting to the variety due to over abundance of certain foods. I have this exact problem. With potatoes, cranberries, and corn. I am providing other types of foods, but my farmers just dump their harvest into the markets, and I have to use warehouse vendors to remove large quantities out of markets in order to make space for other types and varieties of foods. I know, its a pain. But MegaMod provides food much faster than the vanilla game does, so it is something I have to be careful of. The other way to change this, is growing one type of veg, one type of grain, and one type of protein and fruit. Then trading for the other varieties, by selling off periodically the ones you are growing. For me, I am using up corn to feed my crystal stables and producing domesticated animals, which are building animal pens, that use up wheat to feed the milk goats, or the fur rabbits for pelts. And it seems to allow my vendors to keep the space in the markets more cleared up. The other tactic I use, is to use only Food Markets, and using a Resource type of market as well. so two types of larger markets, with a bunch of smaller types of markets, for tools and clothes, for wood and stone, and iron, in industry zones, helps my food markets, and general goods markets stay relatively fresh with new supplies as they are being brought in through traders. When I look at my houses inventories after a big trade, I see the old stuff not being renewed, and the new variety goes to zero inventory quite quickly.

[kevinshow]

Originally posted by eatonpye:

Well, if they are finicky eaters and won't eat their broccoli, let them die. The food groups are available, I can't micro their individual diets.

If you don't want to check what their food inventories are, then you shouldn't be worried about 0.5 or 1 of a star or heart. It's an average that will go up or down over time.

Like others have said, your total inventory showing that you have a lot of food and food types, does not mean all your villagers are able to partake of those things. these are the very reasons why you may experience decreased health or happiness, even having starving people, if the villagers don't get access to these items.

As a further example, let's say you grow grains but that farm is way over on the east side of the map. You think you have grains for your village, but the people living on the west side of the map don't get enough of those grains.

So you would have to increase the supply to the western side villagers. One way to do that is with the market, so you think things should balance out now. But it still hasn't. Then it could mean, you need more vendors working, so that all homes that seek out grain, can get grain in ample amounts for all the villagers. You add more vendors, but the food still isn't getting distributed properly. Then check if the homes for those vendors are nearby, and if their own happiness and health are in good condition. You might have 16 vendors staffed for the market but if they are unhappy and not working, you aren't getting 16 vendors doing their job.

These are some of the issues that larger villages face, or also just villages that don't have the logistics of supply done efficiently.

So when players say "I have enough of everything, I don't understand why the villagers have some trouble and I'm not willing to look into the finer details of the problem. Resolve my issue for me", then it's hard to see what else is really going on.

[some moron]

Originally posted by eatonpye:

Well, if they are finicky eaters and won't eat their broccoli, let them die. The food groups are available, I can't micro their individual diets.

You do not understand much, do you?
If you don't provide broccoli to them, how could they possibly eat it? finicky or not

you cannot micro what an individual eats or does so microing that is not necessary nor even possible

sounds as though it's not finickiness that's the problem, it's your bad attitude and ignorance or failure at managing

[eatonpye]

I do provide broccoli, if they choose to eat only beef, let them die.

[some moron]

Originally posted by eatonpye:

I do provide broccoli, if they choose to eat only beef, let them die.

you don't seem to understand that if broccoli is in a barn and not the marketplace and not in the house, it is inaccessible to them, because of something you did, not them

if there is broccoli in a house, they will eat broccoli 100% of the time

[olympe]

Originally posted by eatonpye:

I do provide broccoli, if they choose to eat only beef, let them die.

Well, if broccoli is only available in the US and you live in Down Under, you won't swim through various oceans to get some broccoli, you'll eat the homegrown beef (or, more likely, mutton) instead. And that's probably exactly what your bannies are currently dealing with.

[eatonpye]

Sweet Jumping Jeebus! Market is full of all the good stuff. People live right near the market. I can't control what the vendor loads in the market, and I can't control what the bannies take from the market, or the barn. Get it yet? If it's there and the market won't pick it up from the barn, or it's in the market but the bannies don't buy it, I guess they die, and good riddance.

[some moron]

well with that attitude you're gonna breed some kinda super-bannie, who eats the food what's good for them, and has good dental hygiene, or they just die, i guess

i hope that superior race are the ones around when we get invaded by aliens

[Banisha]

@ eatonpye

We here in the forum are a helpful people, I think, but I have to get this off my heart. It seems like your glass is always half empty instead of half full if you know what I mean ..
It doesn't matter what we propose as a solution, with you it is always "yes, but .."
Many posts have been devoted to the topic of health and happiness since the first day of this game, so you can indulge yourself and read it all in the hope of an appropriate answer.