Noob question how to get more workers.

[maestro]

I can't seem to reach the 300 workers I need for that first iron mine. I read that you need to increase demand to attract more residents but I'm kinda foggy on what that means exactly.

I've been following the early game starter quests and nothing seems to be suggesting what exactly I need to do so asking here before I just start building random things and hoping that attracts more farmers that I convert to workers.

[Balaal]

You just need to keep building the farmer houses, meeting their needs and upgrading them to worker houses. You will also get more workers by fulfilling the worker needs. So, just keep building and upgrading your houses, while keeping your needs balanced.

[CursedPanther]

Keep in mind you also need to maintain a balance on the number of workers of every class in the long run. Can't blindly spam a ton of houses and upgrade them as soon as the option becomes available cuz that will just collapse your economy even faster.

[maestro]

So can I also ask is there a range factor between say, farmer houses and the fields they work in?

[CursedPanther]

Originally posted by Maestro4202:

So can I also ask is there a range factor between say, farmer houses and the fields they work in?

Everyone is free to travel on the same island as long as the buildings are connected by roads. But for workers to get to different islands you will need ferries.

[kmmacman]

All good advice ... also remember your worker class population and the number of workers in your worker force are two different numbers. Ex: You may have a population of 300 workers of which only 100 may count toward your 300 workers needed goal.

[maestro]

Originally posted by kmmacman:

All good advice ... also remember your worker class population and the number of workers in your worker force are two different numbers. Ex: You may have a population of 300 workers of which only 100 may count toward your 300 workers needed goal.

Yes.. I do find the numbers and terminology a little confusing. Just need to put more hours in.

[Hundinger]

Originally posted by Maestro4202:

Originally posted by kmmacman:

All good advice ... also remember your worker class population and the number of workers in your worker force are two different numbers. Ex: You may have a population of 300 workers of which only 100 may count toward your 300 workers needed goal.

Yes.. I do find the numbers and terminology a little confusing. Just need to put more hours in.

This should help with this. It explains everything you see on the hud including work force and population. I also recommend his other tutorials, especially the one about the statistics menu. It's key to understand the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqXRULW2NSY&t=253s

edit: he doesn't talk too much about workforce and population in this one. He does in the next one though. This also covers production statistics. Very important!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLpDRKUqdk8

[maestro]

I should mention I did play a lot of 1701 back in the day but it was a VERY long time ago however I do still remember some very basic stuff like upgrading houses.

[Hundinger]

Originally posted by Maestro4202:

I should mention I did play a lot of 1701 back in the day but it was a VERY long time ago however I do still remember some very basic stuff like upgrading houses.

Which is very different in Anno 1800 because workforce is a thing now.

[maestro]

Yeah that would explain a lot.

[Metalhead123]

Needs>Happiness>Life bonuses. It's all about progression. Click on any house of any tier to find out what is needed

[abraham_linkedin]

Originally posted by Maestro4202:

So can I also ask is there a range factor between say, farmer houses and the fields they work in?

Distance does not matter at all, workers are just a number that will be deducted from your total for fullfilling workspace capacity (within the same island). Goods are also shared instantly across all warehouses, so you don't necessarily need to build your production chain together in one place. But distance and road type DOES matter when transporting goods between a warehouse and production building. I think for services like church, pub, etc. the building needs to be within a certain distance of houses, but I'm not 100% sure.

[Ivendar]

If you select a house and mouseover at the goods you can exactly see what it gives as bonus if unlocked and provided or how many population you need to unlock something. Also don't build too many houses too fast so you can fulfil the demands for cloth and other wares to 100%. For what I have read in wiki as soon as you upgrade a house it will use double the goods from the goods the lower version had before so be careful how much you upgrade else you can easily cripple your production if your peasants suddenly go down. Like a worker house need 2x as much fish that a peasant house needs for example and if you don't have enough anymore you start loosing workers and peasants. So watch your production. Also you can deactivate certain goods for a population in that house menu which will increase illness chance for missing goods, but you can compensate that a bit with hospitals. But you need to have all base goods to upgrade a house. But this can be interesting for the last house stage to save on investors coffee consumption until you have everything working better for example.

Also what abraham wrote about range is correct. You can see how much range a building has if you click it or on placement hover next to a road. But for church and the like you don't always need to have 100% for things to work. 100% is necessary for base needs for upgrading houses and less illness chance and luxuries to give more happiness to prevent riots and often more money, not sure about illness. But you don't have to always provide every luxury need for things to work. Town halls are really strong if they have the correct items and can compensate for missing luxury needs. For example if you put a item in which provide 12 happiness it's a bigger bonus than a missing church causes as unhappiness. Also there's some cool items which provide serveral goods same time.

Good luck and have fun :)