So I have to manually clear trees before placing any buildings or farms?!

[Joghurt]

So I recently researched thatching and I want to start a new settlement just on the other side of the hill. However, I can't place either buildings or walls or farms where there are trees and the big area where I want to build my sprawling town is covered in forest.

This means I need to cut down all the trees manually before building anything at all. But this is hard because there are so many other things to manage as well, like procuring food and maintaining my already built little settlement.

In games like banished, you can just select a large area that you want cleared and designated villagers called "labourers" will clear it for you while other villagers like hunters or fishermen will focus on their tasks. If you want to build a building or a farm on an area covered in trees, you can designate the spot and labourers will go and clear it for you before starting on the building itself.

But in DoM, everyone does a little bit of everything. That means that if I want to clear a large area of forest (or just a little bit just to build a few huts) they need to sporadically go there and cut down those trees whenever they have the time at the expense of doing other work. This means it takes ages to expand your settlement. And if you don't do it fast enough, new trees will start to grow that need to be cleared as well before an area is deforested which is beyond irritating.

I think that as long as you have the technology for cutting down trees, you should be able to place buildings and farms on top of trees or wherever you want and then villagers will clear any obstructions before starting on the buildings. It would reduce a TON of tedium in the game.

[Varick]

While I like having to balance everything and cut down trees first. The devs already gave us "magic" pots and flax to linen. I really liked Banished but I do not want another Banished.
Just my thoughts- everyone is different.

[gittubaba]

Try increasing your log limit 100. Then put a cut down trees work area. I found that way they cut down the trees really fast.

[Ronald Gordo]

I'm very jealous of players who complain about cutting trees. I am always lacking logs for palisades, heating and charcoal.
Tell me where your trees are and I'll cut it for you!

[jg89d]

Set log limit to ∞ and place a work area like gittumia said and you'll get it done.
I hope this other village isn't too far.

[d102_KoT]

make sure you have more than one worker in your work area. 5 is max and will clear it quickly enough with a higher log limit as suggested, depending on how far your village is away from your new area.
Personally, I'm quite happy with the current balance but would love coppicing technology (doubles growback time or gives more logs) from neolithic as I never have enough wood either

[martiño]

You can just double on a tree to select the 20 nearest ones and click on "cut down"

[jg89d]

Originally posted by martiño:

You can just double on a tree to select the 20 nearest ones and click on "cut down"

A work area would limit the impact on the workload, though, while still automating the process.

[Jaguar]

I manually cut trees in bursts. I select 10-20 trees and clear cut, then I can use that land for buildings. Later in the game I will pop out 2 tree cutting areas (and move them around every few seasons just so I don't run out of logs by not paying attention). But relying on a cutting area is just silly, if you TELL THEM to cut a tree it gets put in the task order ahead of automated areas for collecting, cutting, gathering, etc). If it's not an area I intend to build on, I will manually select all the non-tannin trees (shift click) and clear cut them as they grow back in a year or so anyway and it leaves the other trees standing for collecting leather making goop.

Also having sledges and carts means one of those guys will go cut the tree and haul all of it away to your wood piles -- doesn't matter if you have logs set to 10 or infinite, you need wood piles to move logs and sticks to or they will leave them sit on the ground. Once they're done cutting and hauling they're back in the queue for other tasks instead of being stuck as a tree cutter.

I also hunt in packs (manually group hunters, H-Select) and clear-kill everything as I go. Once I've murderized 5-15 animals the villagers go collect it all. Really easy to get 30 or more hides in a few minutes by manually hunting instead of having a hunting area. A group of 10-12 hunters also drops any animal from Mammoths on down in a second or two. As soon as the hunters are back they take on other tasks. It seems to be far more efficient. I used to think I needed to leave some breeding adults, but it doesn't matter at all, the animals get reset regardless.

By doing trees and hunting manually, you can do it AROUND the the harvesting seasons so you have almost no impact on your workload. Tree cutting, hunting, and building in winter and summer has the lowest impact on the workload (when done manually). Your kids and old farts will pick fruits, sticks, rocks, etc., and other tasks all year round so why not use the healthy adults for the harder fast tasks?

[jg89d]

I always relied on cutting areas alone and never had a problem with logs or tannin supply, the area around my village gets progressively cleared as my village grows allowing me to expand, people use sledges and carts as intended and they never got "stuck" as wood cutters, my workload rarely get higher than 100% in spring/fall.
This in all scenarios and all difficulties.
Wood cutting tasks don't have a higher priority if manually set.

To do what the OP wanted, work areas are perfectly viable.