Loyal villagers?

[James]

Is there any type of rule of who is leaving my community in bad times?
I've had "Otto" as a builder (now level 1) from the start and it seems I can always "rely" on him, lol. He has not left my town as have many others...
Would be awesome if the skill/level somehow affected the way NPCs make their decisions on leaving/staying?

Replacing people (that are leaving their jobs unattended) is a major task in Foundation, and if it could just make it a bit easier to keep people "you know", it would certainly be appreciated. If not built-in, some tool that keep track on loyal NPCs would be interesting. A reward system making sure (raise level of probability) of staying? Getting more personal with your characters could benefit the game immersion factor?

While the people who are leaving, it would be nice to be able to click them (on their waiy out) to see what they left in terms of their former job.

Some other thoughts:
- Incoming trader! (option to toggle message, like immigrants)
- Camera option: walk! (among my fellow citizens!)
- Store pop-up window locations (so they appear in the same place)
- Remove pop-up window when clicking on object 2nd time (toggle option)
- Graphs of xx Resources/Demand?
- Windowed mode where pop-up windows can be used on a 2nd monitor?
- A close all pop-up windows short-key
- Need for soldiers came too quick? Camp for soldier training?
- more neighbors to sell basic goods to? (unlockable?) - neighbors changing needs after changes in budget cap?
- option to sort villagers profession by job (alphabetical order, not order of implementation/importance)
- maps with no water, could have 1 or 2 small lake(s). Also, it is good to have some maps completely without lakes to fish in. (I guess map editor will nullify this)
- map generator/editor is essential for the game
- When assigning task to villager, a column indicating the need/available spots would be helpful.
- Hard to understand why my people are starving... got many markets selling food and stocks of bread/berries/fish, Waterwells all over the place. Do I need to have even more wells? I think food & water-need should be shown separately?
- Warehouse management (visualization) needs a bit of reconsideration. Lot's of "air" in the current windows making it hard to get an overview of, say 10 warehouses (blocks the whole screen)... A single dialog window for all goods, trade setups and warehouses stock would be good - could be an unlockable feature a bit into the game (skill dependent - "accountant/auditor"... similar/linked to treasure.


Also, I'm curious to what solutions of the villagers "I am stuck while going to HOUSE." will be presented in the next build? Or will it be considered a player "re-design your town"-thing?
Cheers!

[Shane]

You have to just keep their needs met, so if you click on the villager list lower left of the screen, then in that new window you just click the sort by tab and change it to happiness, those at the bottom will require the most attention...

any bar showing a low value you need to account for, you can then use the lower options in the characters window (Follow, View, etc) to see his/her routine then place wells in areas you dont have any perhaps near there home or something...

As you continue to account for each characters needs they move up in terms of status from commoner to serf as so forth. As you expand lower the size of residential zones, forcing housing upgrades and also open new residential areas closer to other workplaces in addition to that...

you can also toggle the resource list top left near your income indicator and see where your lines are struggling and apply more workers to that production chain, in my case my bread production is on the lower limits in terms of shifting wheat into flour, but its not critical because im maintain bread stocks.

in order to keep expansion under control open the village information window, and remove the tick from checkbox for immigration. sometimes you can just remove workers from other jobs when the stocks for that station and high and move each villager between jobs/roles instead of placing extra demand on your food production by taking on more citizens

you can check the status of each workstation quickly via the workplace list lower left again...

in the screenshot my most unhappy person is oliver and his character window shows need of clothing, when i hover my mouse over the clothing it tells me the need is a shirt, so i can see in my resources ive got plenty of textiles, and so instead of expanding in citizen numbers and can rotate the guy making textiles and tailor workshop duties.

they leave when the needs are not met....

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1645767042

just monitor each aspect of production, against each character, and control immigration so that the pace of the game is literally in your hands not the games, and as you learn this you will simply remove this problem and develop that relationship with your people...

slow is smooth, smooth is fast !!

[James]

Hi Shane, and thank you very much for your elaborated feedback!
As this is my first playthrough I expect to learn more about the game mechanics as game progresses (and the next and next...). It is part of the fun, indeed. Looking more closely to each individual routines seems like something I neglected. I did, in the beginning but lost track when city grew and I did (possibly) get powerstruck, lol.

I will take your advice(s) and look at where I'm missing information. Generally, I think Foundation does a really good job in terms of balance, since I'm still surviving on my first settlement!

Good game this, beautiful (audio too) and very engaging/immersive!
Like you touched upon (final words), momentarily the game feels out of my hands, but it is quite forgiving so that I can get back to controlling it. Fine balance...

/cheers

[Shane]

Ive restarted i think half a dozen times already myself, my first attempts were a disaster in terms of finances, then i found the immigration control and im much more relaxed now...

['Strict]

I do think they should add what Banishes has which is if there's unemployed people and someone leaves (or in banished case, dies) the job will be filled by an unemployed person.

having to go back all the time to move people around gets annoying after a while. =)

[Shane]

It depends on your desire for expansion i suppose, since they dont die it doesnt bother too much like it would in banished, but if you are a rapid expanding sort of person. it would be more annoying i guess...

but if thats the case (im no good at it i like it slow paced) you should get enough immigration to keep new roles filled i would think. im personally not having to much issue with it at the moment because of the slow expansion...

im going to reserve complete judgement

['Strict]

Oh with all the bugs atmo you'll have tons of people leaving.

I had warehouses stocked with stuff right next to producers and markets but the people working at those places kept travelling across the map to pick stuff up.

Which meant that they kept running out and people kept getting pissed off.

Also, I had a Rustic church with room for 100 people and a church with room for 80 people, I only had 140 people but they all were pissed off cause of faith not getting filled. =p

[Shane]

that might be down to how obtaining their needs works, in the character window each need has a bar which when empty they place reservations on each need in order, so they will return home, sleep, walk to market buy food and eat, walk to church pray, walk back to market get clothes, and so on so forth...

the distance they have to do that in effects everything... my baker is at it bigtim at the mintue, overall i am at 98% happy and im convinced is my 2% issue, his travel to work is the longest from the centre of being able to obtain all his needs in rapid succession

i was going to relocate him, but im borderline ready for another village centre style approach

[James]

Interesting discussion!
I was a bit intrigued by the "distance" aspect of the game. To what degree do I have to provide things "nearby"? I guess one can find out by experimenting with people/NPCs and various facilities.

As settlement grows, space and distance becomes a critical issue unless people find the resources/needs regardless distance to resource/need/target?

As always I see things from a "simulation" perspective and find great interest in how game/algoritms work. Planting a good simulation into such a beautiful graphical frame as Foundation is just astounding. The trouble is still how to present a GUI for all/selected information available in a way that the player feels "in control". The pop-up windows are adequate to a certain degree, but quickly (say 2-3 hours in) asks for other ways of dealing with resourses. Here, some game mechanic could fill that need via an "accountant" and additional map overlay information?

We also play games in different ways. I'm a slow paced gamer (like Shane), love to watch small details and take my time (going back to my simulation and contemplation interests).

I'll play this alpha a lot more and try to provide my feedback through discord. Problem with discord is that I can't seem to find the game (have no invitation).

Cheers