Tom Sawyer.
xixixiHi,
seems like i´m the first one to post something here. Yay! :)
Well i kinda just have a few questions about the ratios of the iron tools and leather coat chains.
First off this is not a rant or anyting. If it reads a bit like it, its probably because english is not my main language. Just saying to get this out of the way.
I really like your mod and i´m enjoying playing it!
Lets start with the leather coat chain:
In my playthroughs i had the following building count: 1 tailor (1worker), 1 tanner(1worker) and 1 hunter(1-3worker) and i noticed the tanner cannot sustain continous work without having to stop due missing hides. Same goes for the tailor, having to wait on the tanner. I`m not sure if this is intended but it “feels” kinda wrong and because of this i was not able to build-up a leather coat stock not even in the very beginning with 10 ppl only. This did not change in the next years funny though because even with 30+ ppl then 1tailer/1tanner/1hunter(3ppl) was still enough, but i never could build up some stock.
Also whats a bit annoying is, having to change the tanner from deer to cow hides all the time, maybe it should always produce both at the same time without having to manually change? I could have just build 2 tanners sure, but thats nowhere near efficient. Even with a 20×20 cow pasture and a hunter (3 worker) the one tanner had to stop working because deer/cow hides income is to low.
Ok the iron tool chain:
Here is the ratio question too, having them (1charcoal,1bloomer,2blacksmith) working all the time there will be stops due missing ressources. Maybe because needing charcoal multiple times (for more than 1 item) idk. But the numbers also seem off.
And its kinda annoying needing 3 buildings to produce 4 different things just to get iron tools in my opinion. Especially in the early game, where you simply dont have the ressources to have producing 1 charkcoaler, 1 bloomer, 2 blackmists (iron + iron tools) all the time. So you have to switch workers, stop productions etc all the time but i want to focus on building and expanding early game not micro managing 3 buildings all the time.
Maybe the bloomer should produce bloom and iron in 1 step or something (basically removing iron bloom then) so its just iron furnace then or something idk.
Or maybe wooden/stone tools for the early game or crude iron tools which are produced with the ore idk, something like that would be good. Same could be done for early coats, like hide coats or something. Not very durable but easy chain for early game.
So in retrospect, having complex chains for late-game stuff -> very good, but not for early game stuff.
Ok another thing i noticed is the Forester! Why do i need glass for him? Forester is kinda important early on if you dont want to cut trees everywhere with the woodcutter. Because it takes ages to get glass from the trader (depending on luck.. another annoying thing, even with orders) to finally build glass production and a forester…
Until i could build a forester i fully cut 4 complete woodcutter areas down…
For the other stuff, school etc. its ok that you cannot build everything right from the start, but i´d advise to allow the forester early on too.
Well i guess thats it for now!
Again i really like your mod and i´m looking forward to your answer regarding the ration questions etc.
Greets
Tom SawyerHello and welcome!
With the leather balance in the current version I’m also not very happy and I want to fix it with the reworked clothing set of version 7. Btw, an early game coat is the parka made from reindeer hides crafted by a hunter at the campfire. You mentioned the need of such a thing. The main resource for clothing of farmers is actually wool and will be also linen in future. Leather will be more an additional material for belts and boots.
To run the tannery with different options for different raw materials is due to the game mechanics. There is a way to let them perform all jobs automatically but then you could not keep reindeer hides away from tanning to save them for warm parkas or for trading. It’s a thing I want to test a bit more.
The tool chain is indeed way more complicated than in vanilla. In your setting you will even need a second charcoaler to support the bloomery and 2 smithies. That’s a lot of workers and you have to micromanage it in early game with just a few people. It’s a bit of a challenge and I don’t really want to remove this. It can easily happen with including stone tools. I made such a small mod and even with a very low durability it made the whole iron chain almost useless. If you want to experiment with this stone tool add-on, you can load it here: Stonetools.pkm
To remove bloom and to make iron directly is an option I thought about but I kept it this way to simulate the cumbersome medieval way of iron working and to give way to a bigger furnace which will smelt ore to iron directly and more efficient in industrial times. So my concept is not so much to have simple chains in early game and complicated things later. Rather vice versa to increase efficiency and to create advantages of technical achievements for a motivation to develop your town.
With the forester it’s similar. I made the primitive woodcutter cabin to have it in early game like it was in old times where people just went to the forest to cut what they needed, with depleted forests as a result. The modern forester lodge comes later and will solve this problem by planting trees and inventing sustainable forestry. Requiring glass is forcing it to be at least a mid game item and something to achieve.
So far for now to your points. :)
xixixiHey,
thanks for your thoughts on the mechanics. These insights help understanding why the stuff works the way it works.
Thanks for the tip with the parkas, didnt know about that. This definately helps with the early game micro managing.
I´ll give the Stone Tools a try, but i too do not want to render the iron tools useless.
Well i see where you wanna go with the improvement argument getting more efficient and easier buildings later on, i didnt have alot games yet with your mod, i´ll see how it feels for multiple playthroughs (more rewarding or more tedious the more you play).
I´m really looking forward to version 7 then, also read the dev diary and it looks good. Any ETA on when to expect it? Ballpark maybe? :)
Greets and thanks for your answers!
Tom SawyerStill hard to say when North 7 will be finished. I have to make a bunch of more models and it depends on how much time I spend on it. I guess it will be autumn.
Let me know how you think about my stone tools. If they would fit into the main mod or if too cheaty. They have a durability of 10 (iron tools = 100) and 3 tools are made from 1 stone and 1 wood. It cannot be increased by education. The disadvantage comes mainly by having workers running often to pick a new tool.
Greetings!
xixixiHey,
took some time but i tested it with the stone tools. I agree with you on this one, it kind of feels cheaty yes and its also inefficient because of the running and changing tools all the time.
I also encountered two bugs i think, forgive me if i use this thread now to tell you, but we´re talking here anyway already.
Nomads from the church often spawn at a map end from which the town is not accessible, idk if its a mod bug or not, but in the vanilla game i never encountered this i think.
The other one was with the Traders. Here also idk if its due your mod or not! I had 1 of each trader buildings, but to the port of the big one there came 10 years in a row the same boat, just selling always the same 2 items. I dont remember the items, but they were both added by your mod, not from the vanilla game.
The other port was visited by different traders as it should be.
Greetings!
Tom SawyerHi,
Spawning nomads in odd locations is a known issue of the vanilla church. It’s due to the lack of an internal create point of this model which was not made to attract nomads. I included it as a kind of feature, that they come from far away and sometimes need a bridge to reach the town, or how it’s written in description.^^ With my wooden chapel it doesn’t happen and a new church model will solve it one day.
Always the same trader at the port sounds like bad luck, in theory this can happen. The two items were probably coins and they wanted to buy goods from you. Others want to sell stuff but did not come yet. The big port represents a money-based trade with specialized merchants while the small dock for early game creates an old barter trading with silver and gold as exchange. It’s pretty different to vanilla and may be worth a little How-To post.
Greetings :)
JandoGreetings! (and congrats to the new forum!)
I’m also very much enjoying the North! Many thanks, Tom.
As to the iron tool chain in the early game I think it’s not really a problem. By now I’m used to have the charcoal pit, the bloomery and the blacksmithing hut all close to each other and a house for the smith just outside the grey circle. Then it’s initially just 1 villager rotating through these 3 stations in the early game.
Let him/her make 30 or 40 charcoals, move him to bloomery, 30 bloom or so, then some iron and tools, and back to the charcoal pit with him/her. Helps to set the max. item limit pretty low and the up-arrow symbol reminds me to switch him/her to the next task.
Tom SawyerThanks and welcome, Jando!
That sounds like perfect handling of the iron chain in early game. :)
I’m currently testing an idea of a new ‘ironwork’ resource in terms of fittings and other crafted things made of iron and used as building material instead of the pure metal. These items would be forged by a smith as second option besides tools and the bloomery would already produce lumps of iron. It would shorten the tool chain as people suggest but keeping the forging step in the smithy to get the building material. I would like to hear what people think about it.
maiden4meldinFor mid to later game changes, using iron as a building supply is okay I guess. I really like that most of your buildings don’t use up any iron, or ore. The toolsmith chain works well in early game. But I am a micromanager by habit anyway, so it doesn’t bother me. The lack of iron ore early game is bothersome. Trying to build a mine when you have twelve people isn’t a very fun prospect. I usually like to wait to 30 to 40 available workers. I did have just one builder for the majority of the game, till I hit the two hundred mark. Still using and building primitive everything as I can’t seem to buy glass to save my life. And now I have children running away from home, literally making themselves homeless and starving. It is frustrating when this cycle begins. (It has happened to me before when I played CC Journey mod) I ended up accepting 15 nomads, and had no choice but to build a boarding house. As soon as the boarding house was built, The “advanced boarding house” Once it was empty, thats when the kids started running away from home. Usually when I build a new house, I end up with between 2 and 18 kids running away, most end up going back home, But some of them stay away too long and the parents have another child right away, so they can’t go home. They won’t go into the boarding house even when it is empty. So they end up starving, watched two die standing right beside a market and a storage hut.
Tom SawyerHello and welcome! :)
Your running kids sound strange. I never saw this in my mod, maybe because I don’t have a boarding house (only the tavern attic, which is not used much). One thing that comes to my mind is the special case when a family moves into a house which is actually too small. For example, a family with 2 kids moving into a house where only 3 inhabitants are allowed. Then they move in but it can happen that a child will be kicked at some point. Can you remember what a house it was and how many kids the family from the boarding house had? Maybe we can reproduce it.
