How is everyone managing housing?

[bz_siege_01]

It seems about half the jobs in town require serfs, the other half commoner or citizen. I have plenty of space for them to build. The residential zone is basically an arc around the city center where industry, castle and markets are. Everyone kind of expanded and built early on and things more or less worked out. Then I walled in the city and began patrols. The first attempt was a disaster - I painted the entire residential band for patrols while the wall was being built, and as soon as it was completed, every single home attempted to upgrade density. I don't know why the game starts the rebuild if there aren't enough planks (I would have needed about 400), but suddenly 90% of my town was half-upgraded homes waiting on planks and everyone left. So I reverted to last save and started the patrols one house at a time. Much better this time, but now with the higher density the citizens are shuffling around constantly. I have houses upgrading, downgrading, empty... its frustrating. It seems like we should be able to just tell the new baker who just got promoted to commoner, to live in a particular house along with other commoners. Or maybe a dropdown on the home to select what class of resident should occupy. Or zone a city. Letting them select on their own means I'm losing materials and tying up builders as they shuffle around. Maybe you guys have figured out a way to manage this with current mechanics?

[lembos-hauser]

Yeah as you said: you painted the entire city for patrols. The game even tells you not to upgrade too much at once. So next time just go house by house. I understand, that it is annoying that everyone wants to upgrade, but it's the game. It is not a bug. The player has to adapt

Topic commoners: difficult. If you are paying attention you could just promote those serfs who are already living next to the new commoner work place. But I agree: it should be managable, paint designated areas, assign people to specific houses. I agree. It is annoying. Especially if you have to build small villages outside your town and all of the sudden citizens move in.

[kantell13]

i get rid of all the trees first and then plan housing. i don't do patrols until later.

[Maehlice]

I expand wide until I have ~15 low density houses -- usually around towers so they all have light fortification from the get-go. Then, I add Patroller(s) a little at a time until all of those have upgraded to medium density.

During that time, I'm planning the city so I know roughly where my Commoner-worked buildings are going to be, because that's going to determine which houses get upgraded to Medium Quality.

After all of the houses have upgraded to Medium Density, I start executing quality upgrades. The key is to ensure the closest house to the Commoner-worked building is the only one nearby with beautification and vacancy.

I probably already have a Butchery, so we'll promote its workers first. Whichever house is closest to the Butchery, I decorate it with Beautification. Then I snag two people from that house and promote them to Commoner as Butchers. (Alternatively, just promote your two already-Butchers and then kick two people out of that soon-to-be Medium Quality house.)

Rinse repeat for every Commoner-staffed business. Only the houses I want Commoners in ever get beautification. I force Commoners to live exactly where I want them. As long as you don't go moving around businesses too much (or you repeat that upgrade process at the time of relocation), Commoners won't just up and leave their house.

Every time the population exceeds vacancy, I repeat the process of spreading wide before upgrading and then the entire process for that new suburb.

[bz_siege_01]

Great advice, thanks all