Why won't my people make babies?

[Zunymitshu]

I have tons of food, 400+ apples, pears, mutton, ale, fish, wheat, beef, chestnuts.

I have plenty of herbs, 180+ with a physician,

I have a church, lots of ale, a graveyard, etc

I have lots of warm fur coats and coal /firewood to heat the houses,

BUT i currently have 4 potential couples worth of people living by themselves. what's up with this? do I need to destroy the houses so they come together? why wouldn't the 23 year old cat lady want to hook up with the 31 year old physician? WHY!!

[Ddoge]

sounds like you built too many houses. If you build too many, you'll actually pull families apart.

Yes, destroy some of the houses and they should move back in together.

[Lori37]

build a town hall...

[Manuel5cc]

Too many houses, no kids. Insufficient houses, no kids. Please, someone in dev team make this a little more comprehensible.

[Lori37]

as I said: build a townhall, you'll have all the info you need

[ebrumby]

You need one house for every male/female pair of adults to have more kids. Once a house reaches it's maximum family size (5 for wooden and stone houses), they stop having kids. If one child becomes an adult and doesn't leave home, the parents stop having kids. If you build too many houses, only one adult will move into it, couples aren't formed, and - no kids! To keep your population from growing too fast, you may want to only add 1-4 houses a year. Like Lori said, the Town Hall is a must; it will tell you how many homes you have vs "families". Build only 1/2 the homes indicated at first - I think they count single adults, living at home, as a "family".

[Banisha]

More tips at my pinned thread ...

----> TIP # 8 : ----->HOUSING VERSUS DEMAND
1. One house can hold one familie of 5 people. Each villager ages 4 years every year.
In average 1 house per 2 adults should keep your population " renew " themselves.
You cannot reach your goal population and then just sit on it, you must make space for the younger generation. A couple will have so many children, then stop. Their kids will live with them until they get their own house. If there isn't one, they won't move out, won't pair up and won't have kids.Building a house IF you want them to move in and have more children is HOW you manage the population (must be aged > 16 but < 40) . You shouldn't "pre-build" because someone will always move in immediately.
HINT---> A boarding house comes in handy when you upgrade wooden houses to stone and to take nomads in. At all other cases citizens prefer a house for themselves to start a family or they stay with mum and dad.
>>>>>>>>>>An adult is someone who isn't a STUDENT or CHILD.
>>>>>>>>>>An adult can marry another adult, or a STUDENT

[NetPCDoc]

Hey, just a thought, but in science-fiction terms, you could think of Banished as taking place on another planet (in another solar system) - where each season is a Terran Year long; hence one Banished Year equals four Terran Years. For me, this makes more sense than measuring age in seasons, rather than years.

Without using any mods, I have seen students (one him student and one her student) move into a just built house; with a child appearing in said house a season or two (T-Year or two) thereafter.

• While there are 5 people in a house - no more children will be added.
  
• If the family's first her (wife?) is over 40 - no more childern will be added.
  
• If either the Family's first him (husband?) or first her (wife?) dies - no more children will be added.
  
• (unless and until said house becomes available for a new family.)

Edits:

Don't ask ME, because I don't know, "How does Banished choose which male will pair up with which female?" ... howsoever, if there is an imbalance in the genders of your population - depending on which gender has the greater number(s) - you may get "a confirmed bachlor" or "an old maid" as a single member family. While young couples will resist moving into a boarding house, I'm not sure if these single member families would move into an available boarding house? or not?

I do know that when both singleton and young pair families are available - just where you place a new house may influence which (singleton or pair) moves in.

[Zunymitshu]

I've stuck to the 1 house per 2 adults and it's working fine,though I wish there was a way to control where people live.

edit: the downside to the 1:2 thing is that my population is rising much faster than I wish it was.

[BoneCracker]

get rid of condoms in the storage barn

[NetPCDoc]

Originally posted by Zunymitshu:

I've stuck to the 1 house per 2 adults and it's working fine,though I wish there was a way to control where people live.

Not sure what you mean - people live where you build a house for them to live in; the game will (automatically) re-assign jobs based on who is living just how close to each job.

Oh, if you want a particular offspring to move out - try building a house closer to where said offspring is moving out of; as the game will usually move the nearest prospective family (couple? or singleton?) into a new house.

Originally posted by Zunymitshu:

edit: the downside to the 1:2 thing is that my population is rising much faster than I wish it was.

If you slow down the building of houses, you can slow that population rise; but then you get into the generational issues.

Such as - an over 40 (season old) wife will not produce any (more) children; and while a house has five occupants, children will not be added to that family.

So the slowest you want to build houses (to maintain current population levels) is that 1:2 with the prospective wife having just enough time to have 2 children before she reaches 40 (seasons); don't forget to factor in any houses that empty out (because the parents die of old age after all of the offspring have moved out).

Edit: Once you balance the birth rate with the old age die off rate - your population should be stable; until a disaster strikes!

[larsa]

im new on this game but all help here will help me ,thx alot

[Tsal Vlaxitov]

Originally posted by Ddoge:

sounds like you built too many houses. If you build too many, you'll actually pull families apart.

Yes, destroy some of the houses and they should move back in together.

Don't listen to this.

You can have an individual house for each of your citizens and the females will still have kids.

I do it that way often. Females won't have kids every year rather than they will have another kid once the last kid is something like 6-7 years old. When you give your citizens abundant housing that females can live without mated males occupying the residence space, you can often squeeze one more child out of them before they turn 40 and stop having kids.

I'm not really sure what is causing the OP's problem, I've never experienced it.

[ROFLpl0x]

Originally posted by Tsal Vlaxitov:

Originally posted by Ddoge:

sounds like you built too many houses. If you build too many, you'll actually pull families apart.

Yes, destroy some of the houses and they should move back in together.

Don't listen to this.

That's pretty sound advice for someone that's having problems with population growth. It is true that split families will still make babies but it's also true that when you don't understand why your population isn't growing, the last thing you need to be doing is building so many houses that you begin splitting families. Even though they do still reproduce when you split them, several other factors come into play when you do it that opens the player up for all sorts of bad things to happen.

There's a lot of things you can do in Banished outside of the generally accepted rules but you don't tell new players that's it's okay to do them or that they shouldn't try to roll things back to a simpler, more manageable state.

[Tsal Vlaxitov]

Originally posted by Whack!:

Originally posted by Tsal Vlaxitov:

Don't listen to this.

That's pretty sound advice for someone that's having problems with population growth. It is true that split families will still make babies but it's also true that when you don't understand why your population isn't growing, the last thing you need to be doing is building so many houses that you begin splitting families. Even though they do still reproduce when you split them, several other factors come into play when you do it that opens the player up for all sorts of bad things to happen.

There's a lot of things you can do in Banished outside of the generally accepted rules but you don't tell new players that's it's okay to do them or that they shouldn't try to roll things back to a simpler, more manageable state.

There is no such thing as "splitting families," the game isn't that complicated.

I stand by what I said, that you left out from quoting me.

"Splitting families" isn't the issue, its something else, and you generally get a bigger population boom out of providing enough housing that each adult can have their own residence.

So yes, it is good advice to say something isn't true when its not, so that whoever might have this problem can eliminate that specific thing from being a cause.

[Ddoge]

Originally posted by Tsal Vlaxitov:

Don't listen to this.

You can have an individual house for each of your citizens and the females will still have kids.

I do it that way often. Females won't have kids every year rather than they will have another kid once the last kid is something like 6-7 years old. When you give your citizens abundant housing that females can live without mated males occupying the residence space, you can often squeeze one more child out of them before they turn 40 and stop having kids.

I'm not really sure what is causing the OP's problem, I've never experienced it.

I'm really surprised that the couples will continue to re-produce even after they are forced into different houses. I definitely want to confirm that it works for myself, as everyone always recommends that you don't build too many houses and force families apart!