A few noob questions.

[Sugarcube Battery]

Hi everyone!

I’m loving this game. It really scratches by Banished itch. I did really well in the first round. I reached to copper age pretty quickly but I always tend to love beginning and mid of games like this. So, I went back and began from the beginning thinking I now have more knowledge than the first time. However, I found myself struggling more in the second run. Just like in Banished, I’m struggling with food. So, I have a few questions for the third run ha ha

- is hunting in early game bad? During my second run, I noticed that it was harder for me find animals and hunt. I didn’t have any issues in the first run. Does this depend on the place I chose on the map to start my tribe? Did I hunt too much? I was more careful while hunting in the first run like I would target old animals or if there was only 1 male in the pack and 3 females, I would hunt 1 female. If there was like 2 males in the pack and 3 females, I would hunt 1 male. I don’t know this contributed at all.

- does putting down hunting area scare away the animals? I didn’t use them at all in the first run but during second run, I decided not to micro too much on hunting and put down a hunting area. I noticed that the animals began settling further and further away.

- when should I start gathering stone? I feel like it’s kind of a waste of manpower to do in early game?

- what items should I always buy from the trader? and what items should always trade back?

- do farm animals get butchered every year or am I doing something wrong? I noticed that my goats got butchered every single year.

- how substainable it is to focus on farming (crops and farm animals) in mid and late game and not hunting at all? Will I still get raw skin from farm animals? When I play Banished I like to focus on farming but I still needed other food sources because lack of variety affects health.

- any general tips?

[Mahzrael]

Right now one of the biggest problems is that if Workload is too high, your people will commit suicide. Essentially, your people only self-care when they have no current task. So 100% workload implies that everyone is working but that nobody has a "pending job". At 150%, Half your people will rest when they are done working, and half will push through and try to finish another job on the list. At 250%, they will just work untill either they die, the job disappears, or the enviroment changes. I have noticed that if i use hunting work areas, animals disappear. I do not think this is intended, but yes i see the pattern as well.

Edit - Technically, the AI is set to self-care when it has a red/critical need. The problem is that is does not *predict* the inevitability of this situation. So If your at 150% workload, and a heard comes through a hunting work area, work load hits 250%, and people who are on yellow alert in terms of food and rest will run off into the wilderness to chase down the herd without eating , resting. They wont even grab an extra dry skin from the pile so they can make an emergency shelter/pup tent.

[Sugarcube Battery]

Originally posted by Mahzrael:

Right now one of the biggest problems is that if Workload is too high, your people will commit suicide. Essentially, your people only self-care when they have no current task. So 100% workload implies that everyone is working but that nobody has a "pending job". At 150%, Half your people will rest when they are done working, and half will push through and try to finish another job on the list. At 250%, they will just work untill either they die, the job disappears, or the enviroment changes. I have noticed that if i use hunting work areas, animals disappear. I do not think this is intended, but yes i see the pattern as well.

I haven’t seen suicides but some have died from starvation even though there’s food.

[ian.silver67]

Hunting does not cause permanent damage to animal populations. Each winter they will despawn (migrate to warmer areas) and in spring they come back. I micro-manage 90% of my hunting as I will kill 5-6 times as much doing this. As far as I know placing the flags has no effect on spawn points but a human walking around in an area will scare animals away - hence they may seem to be 'driven out of the area', I always have a few stone on hand - maybe 5 that can be picked up by hand - always useful even early game.

Re the trader, in early to mid game I buy nothing - prices are high and I never seem to have a surplus of something so I can buy something else I can already produce. Late game, buy metal, any metal in any form.

Animals are butchered regularly - the number limits sort of keep that under control, as far as I can tell an 'old' age animal always seems to come up for slaughter (I think killing a live animal yields more resource than harvesting a dead one).

As soon as goats and crops come along I virtually stop hunting. Mid game I do a little for the bones, but once you have 50-60+ domestic animals, especially cattle, the need to hunt is gone.

There are no dietary requirements in DoM as far as I know - my hunters will even eat raw meat straight of the carcass.

As a general tip....work hard and be nice to your mother.

[Regular Boar]

i never use hunting areas or give a hunting order by selecting an animal and klick on 'hunt' once a year when there is no urgent work to do (usually summer) i select a hunting squad (about 5 people) by holding down 'h' on the keyboard to get only hunters and go hunting manually. I hunt at least 5 animals.

i would not collect stone at all until needed. once you need it it's not like you need it immediately for your survival.

as ian silver said dont buy resources until metal shows up. however you should buy techs as much as possible (since tech points are somewhat hard to come by)
a good commodity pre copper are bone harpoons. in neo era you won't need bones for anything and one harpoon is 10 worth in trading. so turn ALL bones you get from hunting in harpoons. also skin outfits sell really well and you will have plenty skins from hunting. in fact i always buy dryed skins from traders and sell back skin outfit. one costs about 8 (depending on commission) and you sell it for 10 so its not a big yield, however note that you make 2 outfits out of one skin so you actually gain 12 this way. also bows are awesome for trade. they just cost 1 stick and dryed skin and nets a whopping 15 value. also i think their price still holds in copper era.

i also stop hunting as soon as i have 10-15 sheep. if you stop producing dryed skins (which you wont be needing anymore at some point) you will get enough skins for leather by butchering some animals. bones will be obsolete anyway and your clothes come from wool and linen instead of skins.

general tip: if you have problems with raiders take your time in neo era, dont progress to copper because they will come in big groups after that. i always stay as long in neo until i have researched/bought every tech possible

[General Malaise]

I tend to manage hunting pretty much the whole game.

I will make a fair few wooden spears, then bone, then flint. I like to take the opportunity when they are near, so as to save on walking. I won't shy from Woolly Rhinos, Woolly, Mammoth, Cave Bear, Lions or anything - but I will select the whole group(some won't go, cos they don't have weapons), and 90% of the time, they will kill stuff unhurt. I believe I've lost 3 to hunting in this playthrough(Northern Realms Hardcore). I've got a ton of meat, and loads of knowledge points for my trouble. I think the lost ones get replaced by people joining you quite quickly. Try and hunt when your guys aren't so busy, like Summer. I don't like hunting areas, so don't use at all.

No point gathering stone when you don't need it(unless you want to clear some for farming).

I try and buy all the tech upgrades from Traders. I will build a lot of flint weapons early game to trade, then bows seem the best effort/reward when you get them. Later, I usually have a stack of wool to trade. Apart from Tech, I will buy what seems reasonable to buy. If my Iron mine is a long way off for example, I'll buy ore. If early game, I need a bit of straw to upgrade a tent, I'll buy it. Just buy what you need, but really try and have tradeable stuff for tech.

They will butcher surplus animals(ie Males). They will butcher animals above the limit you set. They do it just fine.

It's easy to live off farm animals and crops - especially when you have a good choice of food, so don't rely on meat so much.

[Sugarcube Battery]

A lot of great tips! Thanks, everyone. I will avoid putting down hunting areas.

I might have been experiencing a weird bug then. I didn’t have any animals nearby for years after using hunting areas.

[janfo]

Originally posted by Plastic Love:

A lot of great tips! Thanks, everyone. I will avoid putting down hunting areas.

I might have been experiencing a weird bug then. I didn’t have any animals nearby for years after using hunting areas.

usually new animals will come in spring. Its true though that they will somehow get scared away or at least thats what I feel like. And also when you have predator animals they won't come close. So try to kill predators to attract the other animals.

[Sugarcube Battery]

Originally posted by janfo:

Originally posted by Plastic Love:

A lot of great tips! Thanks, everyone. I will avoid putting down hunting areas.

I might have been experiencing a weird bug then. I didn’t have any animals nearby for years after using hunting areas.

usually new animals will come in spring. Its true though that they will somehow get scared away or at least thats what I feel like. And also when you have predator animals they won't come close. So try to kill predators to attract the other animals.

That makes sense. I had a pack of lions.

[lnomsim]

Hunting is mostly about luck if animals will spawn or move close to your tribe.
At the beginning, don't use hunting area, pick manually hunters by holding the 'H' key and focus on only some targets, not a complete pack, and don't use the target icon when selecting an animal.

Try to regularly clear the area around your tribe from predators, in the early stage of the game, they will hunt your game, meaning less food for you.

Don't hunt too much, hunt only for what you need, if you kill too many animals at once, the workload will be too big and you people won't be able to harvest food, hide and bones: it will be a waste.

In the early game (around 20 people), a mammoth can feed all you tribe for more than one season. Don't hunt adult mammoths, only elders and young, you will have casualties and you don't want casualties early in the game.

For small game, don't focus on megaceros, donkeys and horses, they move fast and most of the time they will flee unless you send a big hunting party (but then, hunting a Mammoth or a Rinho is a better strategy), mostly focus on animals you will later be able to domesticate.

Don't bother with only hunting elders in a pack, the pack will either move on or be hunted by predators, if you need meat/hides/bones, kill everything that moves. I have never witnessed wild animals making babies or getting older.

As for food in general, do not rely only on hunting (actually, don't rely on it at all), create two or three fishing spots fare enough from each other so your fishermen will move between them while waiting for another spot to replenish. Create harvesting spots near fruits/vegetables/nuts natural growing sites. They won't last long, but long enough so you don't dig too much into your meat/fish stock.

Hunting area: create them only when you are kind of self-sufficient, that way if you have a bad hunting season, you'll still be able to have enough food.

Rocks: no. Don't create rock harvesting areas until you unlock masonry. You only need rocks to build totems, fireplaces and mortars. Begin by harvesting those small rocks piles you can find anywhere, you don't need tools for those and they give 1 unit of rock, that's good because all these thingies you'll want to build only require 1 unit of rock. this way you save some tools and some workload.

[Ghostlight]

Originally posted by Plastic Love:

is hunting in early game bad?

Automatically hunting (either by placing a hunting zone on the map or right-clicking on an animal and letting the AI get on with it) is almost always bad, as the AI will typically send too few people and end up chasing animals all over the map, wasting precious manpower. Imo you should always hunt manually, using direct control of a hunting party. You should also begin hunting as early as possible but not too far from the village. If there is nothing available, place an extra person on Fish.

During my second run, I noticed that it was harder for me find animals and hunt. I didn’t have any issues in the first run. Does this depend on the place I chose on the map to start my tribe?

I had exactly the same experience. I think it is RNG but who knows. My first run was Twisty River and my second run (where there were no animals for ages) was Forest River.

does putting down hunting area scare away the animals?

Yes. Any hunting activity in their vicinity makes animals run for it. I recommend you never use hunting areas.

when should I start gathering stone?

Early game, the only things that need Stone are Hearths and Totems etc. You probably want to build 5 Hearths early for the knowledge then destroy most of them to reclaim space. I gather Stone early but I set the limit to 5 and leave it like that for most of the game, until Stone use become very heavy (eg building Walls).

what items should I always buy from the trader? and what items should always trade back?

Difficult one. Obviously depends on your situation. I mean you will always buy something you feel you are short of, right? Be it Food, Leather, Straw, whatever, to avoid a crisis. As far as stuff you will ALWAYS buy no matter what? For me it's probably:

- Flint and anything made form Flint (because long-term Flint is a pain). Basically anything that your people end up having to walk a long distance to get, so all Ores as well.
- Charcoal (end-game you need SO MUCH of this, that any you can pick up is fabulous and saves a lot of trees)

As for selling. Again, it depends, but obviously sell anything you have excess of. The best things to sell are Wool and any tool or weapon that has has been eclipsed by a better version. You should always be mass producing something for the trader. That something will depend where you are in the game. It needs to be something you can mass produce cheaply and which is worth a decent amount. Early game: Wooden Spears. Mid-game: Bone Spears. Late game: Wool

do farm animals get butchered every year or am I doing something wrong?[/b] I noticed that my goats got butchered every single year.

Old animals always get butchered near the end of their lives. In addition, you can use F4 to set the village limit of how many of each type of animal you want to keep, and they automatically butcher any in excess of this number.

how substainable it is to focus on farming (crops and farm animals) in mid and late game and not hunting at all? Will I still get raw skin from farm animals?

Very sustainable. Once your animal population is large enough, their breeding plus your village limits set via F4 will mean enough animals are butchered to keep you in Meat and Skins. You will never need to hunt again, really, except for the fun of it, and perhaps to clear out any dangerous animals that are lurking too close to one of your work or gathering areas.

[Kev]

Hunting is extremely annoying, definitely manually do it. I don't used hunt areas and I still have the spawn issues. No animal in sight for miles.

Some have just come back now though but it's rare I see enough of them close by.
I have since started to keep my own and butcher them. Seems to be the thing to do in later game.

What's really annoying me is the lack of option of selecting every single worker who isn't doing anything. My settlement has suddenly grew massively and so far I have many people doing nothing!

I would love to be able to select like 20 people and just tell them to go mass kill the animals nearby when I do so luckily happen to see that.

The game seriously needs a button to select all unproductive people!

[King of All Rednecks]

In early-game, pick a site to "obtain stone" and then set the limit at 5--or even at 2. That'll let you make a new Hearth, or a Mortar when you get grain, but you won't waste time gathering them up.

When you get a pack of predators, best thing to do is gather up your hunters--at least five or six--and go hunting. Kill the adults one at a time, and then the others--they usually have little meat but lots of skins, so you kill two birds with one stone.

When I hunt, I do it one of two ways. One, especially if there's work going on, is to pick out goats, boars, or mouflon. Two hunters will go kill one, and they'll basically one-shot it... anything else will fight back or else they'll have to chase it halfway across the map. The other way is when there's no workload going on, so I gather up a bunch of hunters and just do it European Lordling style--Just over-kill everything you see, and let the other people deal with cleaning up the mess. Like others have said, game respawns with a cheerful disregard for the actual laws of science, so don't worry about extinction.

(Yeah, one guy used to hunt from a train. There was a second train full of butchers and skinners, tastefully out of sight.)

For farming, one thing I haven't tried but intend to, is to build a well and a Granary out in between some of your fields. That way if someone decides he wants a drink you don't have to wait for him to wander into town and maybe back out to the fields--and hopefully, if someone decides to carry the grain/straw in, they can bring it right over to the nearby granary and then get right back to the fields.

I made the mistake of expanding too fast, and ended up in the death-spiral. Had a crappy harvest, animals ate all my straw and most of my grain (I didn't know about the F4 trick!), and then my people started dying, so most of my grain and straw disappeared come winter, so the animals ate all the grain again, so there were even less people and an even smaller harvest, so the animals ate all the grain and then a bunch of them starved anyway. Finally I gave the order to slaughter EVERYTHING so I could at least save some people and add more livestock when my population built up again--but it was too late; they were so over-worked that they couldn't make any kills, and when they did, they'd work themselves to death right in front of a stack of meat. I went from 140 to 23 and realized I had well and truly boned myself. ... People, not livestock. Everyone was too busy to kill the livestock; most of THEM lived through the winter and did just fine.

So that provides me some lessons--in part, to resist the urge to build-build-build and ensure that my workload doesn't get too high, because I was ALWAYS overworked in Spring and Fall, and had to hope they got around to the harvest. But what I'd like to know is, does anybody have the ratios?

How many units of straw can a pig, or goat, or cow, be expected to eat over the winter? How many plots of grain can I expect one villager to be able to plant or harvest (I've noticed that the planting is easier than the harvesting).