I'm just kind of asking out of curiosity. I have been wondering if I am alone in this or if everyone needs a specific start in order to even play?
By specific start, I mean there are certain conditions that the map seed needs to provide in order that play that seed. For instance, here are some examples of what I look for:
-Must start along the river bank (This is because the first food source I always build is the fishing dock.)
-Needs to have a minimum of 8 kids already present; 10+ is preferable but I will do 8 or 9 if all other conditions are right
-Among the kids, 2-3 need to be at least 8 or 9 years old (This is mainly because I play with a mod that causes the bannies to age only one year in one year's time instead of the default aging time.)
-The starting area cannot be surrounded by too many water sources or mountainous areas; I need a bit of open area to comfortably expand on.
That is just to name a few. If I don't feel comfortable with the seed, I go right back to finding a new one. If I have doubts on whether or not I will like the seed, I start trying to plan things out. For example, where my market is going to go and where my farming area is going to be set up. If I can't comfortably fit things how I want them, then I don't use that map. It can sometimes take me anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half to find the perfect map.
depends on what i am in mood for or trying to do.it can take time to find the right setting to start with. as for the bannie count or ages.good luck. i have nomads aand options to nomad catchers to increase populations. have you tried the debug mod? it does have a way to add citizens.the terraform mods give you options to alter terrain. with the debug and terraform combined ,you can make your own map and then save it ,and unpause and play.
keep a notebook or txt file handy to log good maps you find. there are blog pages full of maps as well.
I shop around for a good map too. I like Easy starts. I never take a map with Horses as the livestock. I used to hate getting Chickens, but with the Dock Reed Farm and the Dock Workshop, they are great for making Survival Coats. I want a river near the town and a connected lake not too far away since I love the Dock pieces. Needs a good place to put a forest node. My 1st market is usually the Dock Market, which has a large work circle, placed in the center of the starting houses - not bad looking when decorated with brick around it and plants added. Also important is getting good crop/orchard seeds. I prefer one grain and something I can use to make wine or ale. I try not to use Debug, because once I do, I'm too tempted to keep using it; I do have a tendency to use it to decorate the town.
I'm particular about maps too. If the map is really bare of trees, stone and iron near the starting location, I won't use it. I don't like maps that are littered with small streams, though one or two are ok. And while I used to look for maps with good lakes, I find I'm not really interested in the dock set right now, so I've started using the Plains Without Lake maps, and Appalachian Forest as my starting conditions. I typically do a Hard start, and then use Debug to bring in 8 more people. This makes the amount of resources you start with insufficient, but that scramble to get everyone a tool & food is fun for me.
My typical build order: Stockpile, school, woodcutter, forest workshop, RK's settler's tents for everyone, barn. While I'm doing this I'm collecting wild foods. Then I clear a bunch of resources, build a gatherer's hut, a hunter & a windmill pump, and start making perfume to trade. Then I build Alotofseeds Trader so I can start farming. My priority is oats or corn so I can get some domestic animals. Then I also work on getting a good selection of fruit, nut, and vegetable seeds. And so on.
i love the medium start. good number of families, and good number of materials because i always always build the school first. i lay down the school and then i do 4x crops of 15x8x2 in front of the barn. i love so much farmers because in winter i have a powerful crew to clear whatever zone i wish. i hate gatherers for that, they are useless.
also i like not being too near of the river/lake. i want some 30-40 tiles all around of land.
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depends on what i am in mood for or trying to do.it can take time to find the right setting to start with. as for the bannie count or ages.good luck. i have nomads aand options to nomad catchers to increase populations. have you tried the debug mod? it does have a way to add citizens.the terraform mods give you options to alter terrain. with the debug and terraform combined ,you can make your own map and then save it ,and unpause and play.
keep a notebook or txt file handy to log good maps you find. there are blog pages full of maps as well.
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That is such a great idea with the terraform and debug. I've never thought to do that. One of the issues that I have run into is that the vanilla valley option is too much for me. I've tried playing with the completely flat maps and just played with smaller sized maps. That just didn't cut it for me. The small map felt too small and the medium map felt slightly too big. The only map I could find that was a good in between these two extremes was the Flat Plains map that comes with <abbr title="Colonial Charter">CC</abbr>. It has the flat lands I'm looking for and the scattered "large enough to fit mines" hills. I have kind of wanted something in between that include a little bit more hilly areas. I might just have to play around with that idea and see if I can get something I like.
I will also try the idea of writing down map seeds. I like to change up the scenery when I start a new map, but I play off-and-on so often I will probably forget what the maps even look like! It works out I suppose. : )
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I shop around for a good map too. I like Easy starts. I never take a map with Horses as the livestock. I used to hate getting Chickens, but with the Dock Reed Farm and the Dock Workshop, they are great for making Survival Coats. I want a river near the town and a connected lake not too far away since I love the Dock pieces. Needs a good place to put a forest node. My 1st market is usually the Dock Market, which has a large work circle, placed in the center of the starting houses - not bad looking when decorated with brick around it and plants added. Also important is getting good crop/orchard seeds. I prefer one grain and something I can use to make wine or ale. I try not to use Debug, because once I do, I'm too tempted to keep using it; I do have a tendency to use it to decorate the town.
I use to be able to play with the easy or medium+ starts. The only problem I have is that every single bannie is used up in other areas first, so the animals just became too much of a "chore" to deal with. Once I have everyone settled and have one of the kids age up, I just build a hunting blind and that gets me a sufficient amount of meat. Also, I have found that having one field crop and one orchard crop has hindered my progress. By having two field crops, I can get off the ground much faster since I don't have to wait around for the trees to grow. I will just use the orchard crop whenever I can get around to it. In my current game, I am on year 20 and am just now getting around to wanting/needing it. The kind of crops haven't really mattered to me yet. Of course my play style is constantly changing so that could very well change one day.
I have been wanting to play around with the dock set. I just haven't gotten around to it. My current map has two lakes nearby, and I've almost expanded enough to be able to use the first one. I'm looking forward to that because that lake is huge, and just on the other side is another hill big enough for a mine. I will be able to expand beyond the lake without having to worry about were I'm going to get a sufficient amount of iron. Since I like playing with the <abbr title="Colonial Charter">CC</abbr> Flat Plain map, there are little hills just big enough to fit a mine scattered around the map. Sometimes they are too close to each other and sometimes they are too far from each other. I think with the current map I'm playing, the hills are spread out just right.
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I'm particular about maps too. If the map is really bare of trees, stone and iron near the starting location, I won't use it. I don't like maps that are littered with small streams, though one or two are ok. And while I used to look for maps with good lakes, I find I'm not really interested in the dock set right now, so I've started using the Plains Without Lake maps, and Appalachian Forest as my starting conditions. I typically do a Hard start, and then use Debug to bring in 8 more people. This makes the amount of resources you start with insufficient, but that scramble to get everyone a tool & food is fun for me.
My typical build order: Stockpile, school, woodcutter, forest workshop, RK's settler's tents for everyone, barn. While I'm doing this I'm collecting wild foods. Then I clear a bunch of resources, build a gatherer's hut, a hunter & a windmill pump, and start making perfume to trade. Then I build Alotofseeds Trader so I can start farming. My priority is oats or corn so I can get some domestic animals. Then I also work on getting a good selection of fruit, nut, and vegetable seeds. And so on.
Oh, I hate the bare tree thing too. Mostly because it is just an eye sore to look at. I play with a mod that increases the amount of resources that bannies can get from trees, rocks, and iron deposits, so I can usually get by if I for some reaons play with a map that has less trees. Although the main reason I started playing with that kind of mod is because of realism. I mean, you cut down an entire tree and only get one log? What a waste! It also makes the lack of iron and stone a little bit bearable too. Although my current map seems to not have enough stone even with this mod. Lol! I find myself constantly going, "Where is all my stone?!?!?" I have a quarry with one person working. Lol! It is pretty slow going.
You are brave for doing that to your people. If I tried that, I would probably break out into a stress induced coma from it. Lol!
It is so interesting reading how people play their game. I always try to work out in my head how I would I be able to play that way and I can just never seem to get it work. At least in my head. Maybe in the actual game things would go differently. My order is:
-Build a fishing dock and employ two people
-If the storage barn is too far away, I will build a new one and tear down the old one.
-Build a bigger stockpile somewhere nearby
-Build a boarding house
-Build two crop fields; These usually don't get used until the following spring though.
-Build a lumberyard for more fuel and lumber
-Build a blacksmith
After that, I usually start planning out the market area. As of lately, I haven't even bothered building everything out in an organized way. I just kind of build it all together. This is mainly because pretty much everything moves around because I build everything surrounding the market area.
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i love the medium start. good number of families, and good number of materials because i always always build the school first. i lay down the school and then i do 4x crops of 15x8x2 in front of the barn. i love so much farmers because in winter i have a powerful crew to clear whatever zone i wish. i hate gatherers for that, they are useless.
also i like not being too near of the river/lake. i want some 30-40 tiles all around of land.
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Interesting. I could never build the school so early. That would spell the death of my town before I could ever get it off the ground. I learned early on, even before mods, that building the school too early is really bad. At least for me.
I love the winter time too with all the farmers. I always seem to lack laborers, so winter is definitely the time to get stuff done!
LadieWinter, just so you know, you only need a single house to get all of your population through the winter. Boarding houses are very expensive to build.
Also, the Appalachian Forest starting condition gives you rice and eggs. With those you can immediately build a rice paddy in a lake, stream, or the river, and a dock chicken breeder (you can build it on dry ground) so food is taken care of. One worker for each, and you'll easily get 1500-2000 food in a year. It's not a balanced diet, but you can gather wild fruits & vegetables easily enough.
This leaves you enough people and resources to build that school. The interesting thing about building the school is that it does make the first couple of years pretty slow, but once the students start graduating, you'll be amazed at how much more productive educated workers are. Example: 160 vs 200 meat. Another: in a 11x11 crop field, 620 vs 868 food. Education makes the game easier, not harder!
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1 minute ago, Goblin Girl said:
LadieWinter, just so you know, you only need a single house to get all of your population through the winter. Boarding houses are very expensive to build.
Oh, yes. I know this. I just prefer the boarding house for some reason.
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Also, the Appalachian Forest starting condition gives you rice and eggs. With those you can immediately build a rice paddy in a lake, stream, or the river, and a dock chicken breeder (you can build it on dry ground) so food is taken care of. One worker for each, and you'll easily get 1500-2000 food in a year. It's not a balanced diet, but you can gather wild fruits & vegetables easily enough.
Really? I wish I had known this before because my current game is using the Appalachian Forest. I will have to try and remember this for next time! Thanks for that tip!
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This leaves you enough people and resources to build that school. The interesting thing about building the school is that it does make the first couple of years pretty slow, but once the students start graduating, you'll be amazed at how much more productive educated workers are. Example: 160 vs 200 meat. Another: in a 11x11 crop field, 620 vs 868 food. Education makes the game easier, not harder!
The only reason why it has made it harder for me is because of the One Year aging mod I use. So, it isn't just a couple of years. But maybe if I follow the tip above, maybe that could change that for my next game. I will just have to wait and see. : )
The Dock buildings can go on dry land. (However, sometimes it's best to flatten the area 1st to make sure parts aren't buried under a layer of dirt.) Since you always get Chickens or Leghorns with the Appalachian start, you might want to build the Dock Workshop which can produce Survival Coats from feathers & reeds (build a Reed Farm) as well as Rough Tools from Iron Ore. Also, the Dock Market has a large radius.
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On 7/27/2018 at 2:12 PM, LadieWinter said:
By specific start, I mean there are certain conditions that the map seed needs to provide in order that play that seed.
I look for river banks near by that are 90 ° or parallel, so it is easy to place trading posts in a perfect line, i don't like gaps between them, or to have them not set the same distance on shore.
I look for a big enough area to set residential blocks in tidy rows between foresters/hunters/gathers on one side, and fields/pastures on the other, so folks can go to work with minimal travel, but residential blocks are only houses, and things that generate happiness radii.
I like a small stream near enough to start clay collection because i make bricks for super fast roads.
If I start with animals and seeds, sometimes I will dump a map and try again if I don't get at least 1/2 my favorites on start: wool-bearing animals (sheep or llamas,) a grain that can make DA (domesticated animals) oats, corn or barley, and cherry for trees (simply the best for yogurt, pies, AND taverns.)
<font color="#3c3c3c">...for me, it's all about tidy towns and happy folks</font>
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