Banished Ventures

North 7.1 Beta

  • This topic has 97 replies, 8 voices, and was last updated 3 years ago by Tom Sawyer.
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  • #5798
    Tom Sawyer
    Keymaster

    Hello! A new test version has been finished and I would like an experienced crew to fly over it. I have a feeling it can be dangerous this time but we will see. Here a short briefing about things that have changed in the test area:

    New Buildings: Longhouse, Hunting Camp and Turf-Storehouse are included. Nothing has changed since their separate beta versions. Only fuel efficiency of the longhouse is reduced to 70 and capacity of the storehouse increased to 1500 but more to this later.

    Peat is now added as a new fuel resource. It can be cut from the ground in limited amount and only in bog areas. After this, the land can be used for farming and building but not again for peat cutting. It does not need to be filled up like a clay hole and if a player might not care about peat but just want to reclaim the land, its possible by a tool next to peat cutting. This way I tried to implement it in a realistic way. You can find bog areas on your mini map and more details in wiki page. Peat is one of your primary mission objectives… you have to find out if it’s nice or not. ;)

    Sacrificing: We have evidence about some pagan groups doing again those cruel rituals. Hopefully not with humans. Our scouts have reported that they do it in big temples to satisfy their gods or their people. We need to know if this is a good idea. I mean to have an interesting difference between Paganism and Christianity where developing to the second religion after trading makes sense for a bit more efficiency. To make pagans fully happy it is now necessary to run a temple sacrificing animals while christian chapels achieve it without but are only available in mid and late game. The wooden idols are reduced to idling locations. They don’t increase happiness of near houses anymore but can still be useful here and there to shorten walkways.

    Nomads: Immigration is now working only via Thingstead in early game and via Village Hall later. While at a thingstead nomads arrive more often but not scaling with a growing population, they want to join in larger numbers at a village hall. In seafarer starts the thingstead now also attracts nomads. Religious buildings got their normal UI back to work better for happiness. Why this? The idea of immigration at chapels was to give them a function but this was before we made happiness working. Now it’s not necessary anymore but also had some issues. One was adding more and more nomad attractors in a developing town with many chapels while nomads are actually wanted in early game and can become annoying later.

    Fuel efficiency now follows a calculation as followed:
    Open fireplace: 40%
    Stone fireplace with chimney: 50%
    Tiled stove: 60%
    Thin wooden walls: + 20%
    Wattle and daub walls: + 20%
    Thick turf walls: + 30%
    Solid wooden walls: + 30%
    Glass panes: + 10%

    This turns out as Goahti (60%), Framehouse (60%), Turfhouse (70%), Longhouse (70%), Log Houses (90%) and Red Cottages (100%). The intended effect is turf houses becoming a bit weaker and adding a reasonable but small gap between log cabins and modern cottages. 80% is a spot for primitive log cabins without glass or stone cottages with glass for future updates.

    Other changes and fixes:

    • Storage capacity has been increased by 20% and of trading docks by 50%.
    • Some primitive buildings became slightly cheaper.
    • Abundance of rubble stone on the ground has been reduced.
    • Hunting spots now take place on 2 x 2 tiles for easy use in dense forests.
    • Campfire can now render tallow from animal fat in a pot.
    • Stepstones now need a building time and show a proper building UI.
    • Fixed crayfishing spots to avoid people fully crossing the stream.
    • Finally really fixed that crash when pausing the building site of an export dock.
    • Fixed a bug that caused a crash at the mini town hall.
    • Kralyerg’s Mini Buildings are now better integrated in general.

    Download is available on early access page if you like. It overwrites North7.pkm in your mod folder and of course you should start a new map.

    #5800
    Jase
    Participant

    Hi Tom
    I have spent a few hours to test the new 7.1 beta. I’ll talk about the new stuff here and also some old stuff that was still in my head. Therefore I will structure my test a bit. Sorry for the long text now ^^

    Peat and Bogland
    Well, I like the new mechanics with the Peat very much, the Bogland brings even more depth to the game and you can’t build everywhere without processing the land, which is realistic.
    I noticed some things when playing the game.
    1) Somehow the cutting of the Peat was weird or buggy for me. A worker came and started to remove the Peat normally, then the display went down to 50% and only a little later 8 Peat appeared (Picture 1). Then the workers usually go away with the Peat and come back later because there is still 50% left. Then they start to work again until the display drops to 0% and no Peat comes out (picture 2). I have tested this very often and it was 99% like this. Only very rarely after 0% 8 Peat came out again. Here it would be better if you just had 2 times 3 or 4 peats after 50% and at the end at 0% as with the Clay Pit.
    2) I noticed that the Bogland is only generated in birch woods. This is no problem on a normal map but on a seafarer map it is quite difficult because there are no wild fruits or herbs growing on the Bogland. Or less than before. As you can see on picture 3 it is a lot of area.
    3) The Peat Cutting menu has no button for production statistics. Maybe it’s not supposed to, but I just noticed it.
    4) Wouldn’t it even be possible to color the Bogland a little bit different or give it a different texture? maybe a slightly darker green. would be cool if you can separate it, that would also make building easier.
    5)The texts are not yet updated for the new 7.1 like the Chapel or Pead are still missing in the Firewood Pile.
    6) I had the feeling while playing that the Peat was a little too much…I definitely had no heating problems and didn’t have to collect firewood anymore. Maybe reduce the amount of the Peat a little?

    Sacrificing
    I actually like the idea. I don’t have much to say about that. Just why you can’t sacrifice chickens, too?

    Nomads
    I like this better as it is in the new version now. Now there is no difference to the Seperate Chapel anymore, right? Then you could put the two roof colors as F-variants into the game?

    Fuel efficiency
    I like your new calculation and it’s a little more logical with the houses.

    storage capacity
    I think the new storage capacities are just great. It’s playing very well with it and now the storage makes more sense to me.
    Here you could think about giving the Pit House a litte bit more wood and the Turf Storehouse a little bit more stone. They are quite cheap as it is.

    Professions
    Here I have thought about the possibilities to reduce or improve the professions.
    I think there are some professions that could be combined and some that should be in place to manage better.
    1) Hunter and Trapper could be combined to Hunter
    2) Glassmaker and brickmaker could be taken together to become craftsmen
    3) The new place could be used to insert a baker or a smoker. Smoking is very important in the game and managing the farmers is a bit annoying.
    4) Maybe you can even combine the weaver and the tailor I think this is the same skill.

    Alcohol
    1) I noticed that the brewery cannot make all kinds of alcohol, which I find strange because it is a brewery. Later in the game I only let the brewery work so that everyone is supplied.
    2) Is it not possible to make schnapps from blueberries?

    Misc
    1) Maybe you could now move the Clay Collect button to the righthand side of Peat Cutting in the menu, then it would be a bit more organized. I always press there by mistake when I want to collect iron^^
    2) The Hunting Spot now has no more radius? Is that right?
    3) Maybe the hunter at the campfire could later produce food with roots, mushrooms or onions. Something like a wild soup or something simple for the start.
    3) Now that there are 3 fuels, the Firewood Pile could be renamed the Fuel Pile.
    4) There are still no real building menus for the Charcoal Pit and Campfire.
    5) There is still no wiki page for the Turf Storehouse and Tannery.
    6) In the Chicken Coop there is a farmer working instead of a herdsman, I find this confusing as there are already many places for farmers like the oven the Smoker or the Dairy Hut.
    7) You could put the smithy, the bloomery furnace, Blacksmith Shop and later the blast furnace into a separate menu like in glass making. This could then be called iron processing.
    8) There is only one forester’s lodge for pine trees but not for birches, it looks strange in Seafarer maps. Maybe you could just make 2 different ones.
    9) A fishing dock for 2 people would be cool in the future.
    10) Maybe you can reduce the amount of fur the trapper finds. At my last game I had over 600 furs with a trapper and all the other clothes are actually completely useless because the winter clothes need a lot of work and also Wadmal, Linen and Leather.
    The fur coat just fur. Feels a little unbalanced there.
    11) I think that the hospital is very late in the game. All my citizens have died many times because of illness but I did not have all the materials yet. Maybe we can add a small early game hospital later. A viking shaman or something like that^^

    So…That’s it^^

    I’m sorry if I wrote or said any old stuff that was said before. I just wanted to make a summary of it all.
    Hope I could help you.

    Greetings, Jase.

    Attachments:
    #5805
    Tom Sawyer
    Keymaster

    You are fast, thank you very much for all the points!

    I found this buggy behavior is caused by laborers while real professions do it correctly. So I changed peat cutting to be performed by miners for now. A new profession called Peat Cutter would be an option as well. I also fixed the chapel description and uploaded it. Just download the same file again to play with the fixed version. Costs of the turf buildings are also adjusted in the way you suggested. About the other points I will think.

    #5806
    Jase
    Participant

    Yeah I had some free time today^^
    You’re fast, too.
    Just tested it quickly, now you can store coal in both the Fuel Pile and the Ore and Coal Pile.
    The peat cutting works great now, I think it’s a good idea that miners are doing it. Another job that might fit in, would be Stonemason, but miners are okay.
    Yes, think about the points, but as I said, these are just things I noticed personally. Other people might think differently about it but that is ok.

    #5807
    Tom Sawyer
    Keymaster

    Coal could be already stored on the Firewood Pile, I just renamed it into Fuel Pile. If we think in german about professions, I would actually call those guys Torfstecher (Peat Cutter). Both Bergarbeiter and Steinmetz actually sound completely wrong.

    #5808
    Jase
    Participant

    Sorry das mit der Kohle ist mir nie aufgefallen. Macht es denn Sinn die Kohle in zwei verschiedene Stockpiles zu haben? Da hast du natürlich recht, Torfstecher gab es früher wirklich einige.

    #5812
    Nilla
    Participant

    You are both fast. I´ve just downloaded and will start to test later. We´ll see if I agree with Jase´s points. Much of it makes sense to me.

    You haven´t written anything about trade, Tom. Have you made any changes here? At least taken away the “order bug” by the food categories, I hope.

    #5813
    Nilla
    Participant

    First impressions after 4 years playing. Rather unstructured points, following the notes I made during the game.

    Some buildings seem to be 2* at the menu, at least I can´t see any difference, it´s the longhouse, turf storehouse, small hunter and campfire.

    I´m playing on a seafarer map because I think that the changes are more relevant here. It looks that to the bogland, there are a few other changes. I have the impression that there are more trees and far fewer stones. As Jase says, there is less food in the forest but since there are more trees, the total output in the close area doesn´t seem to have changed much. It´s also very much deadwood to be found. Maybe only because of more trees but I also have the impression that there are more from each tree. It´s very easy to get (more than) enough firewood, at least now at the beginning. So I don´t think, it´s the amount of peat that´s too high. It looks like pretty much work for 8 fuel, compared to just pick all that deadwood.

    The most interesting part is that it need work to use the land. It´s not as easy as it used to be to clear land for expansion. I´m not sure that everyone will like it but I do. It´s realistic and adds something to the gameplay. But it isn´t easy to find the bogland, I agree with Jase that a slightly different colour would make it easier to see, however it may look strange. It´s also a bit tedious that you only can clear 1 tile at the time but I guess it would be hard to make it work in another way.

    I´m not so sure that I like miners to cut peat. As I made a small clay spot, I had to use the priority tool several times to get a miner to dig some clay first. The “competition” with real mines may be confusing. To expand your settlement, you will need to cut peat during a whole game (at least on a seafarer map) so I would like to define the numbers of workers who cut peat without thinking about how many miners work elsewhere. Stonecutter would be better because you use less of them in a game but as you say; it sounds as strange as miner so I would prefer a special profession.

    It looks like they also find additional ore when they dig (or was there ore on that spot before?) If it is that way, it makes sense to me.

    What is your reason to only let a family of 4 live in the longhouse? It makes it less useful as living space at the beginning of a game. I like the thought of having 3 full families living there, at least until the first children start to get adult. In this game one family already had 2 children from the start, the others had each one. That means I need to build houses very early and the longhouse makes little sense.

    #5814
    Tom Sawyer
    Keymaster

    Great you joined the beta test, Nilla!

    Food categories in auto purchase are correct in this version. The scaling is still there with 100% amount at 100 pop or more.

    I’m now sure with adding a peat cutter profession to avoid the problems with mining you mentioned and just because it feels right.

    Introducing bogs and peat of course changes the balance a lot. It somehow takes away the thrill about fuel in seafarer starts but that’s ok. It should be so that collecting fire wood is always the first option that will not be enough anymore for a settlement after some years and then peat cutting is the way to save logs for building or to survive even without trees left.

    Birches grow around or inside bog areas. Since bogs are quite large for some interesting maps, there are now also more birches on Iceland. Not too many to be unrealistic but maybe too many for good gameplay. I will test some bogs with and some without trees. For nice large boglands but a still challenging wood situation.

    If I could, I would blend the ground texture with some reddish color in these areas but does’t work. What I can do is adding 3d models. That’s a bit tricky because it should look naturally without hitting game performance all to much. My first idea is making some cotton grass or similar plants. I will show a screen when I have something.

    Ore is found inside of bogs, yes. But you collect it as usual via button. The reclaim bogland button collects also the iron from there.

    About the longhouse. My thought was 12 people in this house to be still the most efficient home even compared to the dense frame houses but not that overpowered than with 15.

    #5815
    Tom Sawyer
    Keymaster

    … the Peat Cutter was sinking into the bog. =)

    #5816
    Jase
    Participant

    I think its a good decision to adding a peat cutter profession, so it is definitely well-arranged.
    I like the idea with the cotton grass, it often grows on peat in bogs. The Dactylorhiza majalis (Breitblättriges Knabenkraut) and Dactylorhiza sphagnicola (Torfmoos-Fingerwurz) also look very nice and grow together with peat moss in bogs.

    #5817
    Tom Sawyer
    Keymaster

    I guess that would mean trouble with nature conservation guys if we go peat cutting then.^^ Here is a first attempt to get some low poly vegetation into bog areas. It somehow looks too sweet for my taste, not really like a nordic bog. Maybe without the pompoms.

    Attachments:
    #5819
    Jase
    Participant

    My job is environmental technician^^ But it’s okay in the game.
    I don’t know… well, I actually kinda like it. These moors just seem to look like that with the wool grass. But i know what you mean, the wool grass looks like flowers. Hmm…maybe less wool grass? or you can use dead brown grass, bushes or reeds instead of the pom-poms, then it looks a little less friendly again. Dont know^^

    Attachments:
    #5822
    taganaya
    Participant

    I get a “fatal access violation” clicking on the un-built footprint of the wooden chapel. Worked fine in 7.0.

    #5823
    Nilla
    Participant

    You may be right that these “pompoms” makes it look a bit too sweet and not really like a bog area, more like some meadow flowers. And I think such “brownish” bushes like those on Jase´s pictures would look more realistic. But somehow, I think you´re on the right way; with just a little grass, it will be easier to find the bogland tiles. By the way Jase; it seems like we are colleagues; I´m an environmental engineer, now retired.

    I went on some more years yesterday. Peat extraction is tedious. Of course, I must test it in this game but in a normal game with another goal, I rather think that I would use the “Reclaim bogland” button a lot. I use to mark 20-30 tiles on a spot where I want to use the area later (or in the close forest, to make room for new trees and berries). It´s fast enough for labourers to clear the ground for the miners but after that, it takes a long time to get all peat out. I´ve used 3 miners that I take away in autumn to pick berries but it takes something like a year for these 3 miners to extract some 200-300 fuel. It would have been much faster to send 3 more workers to pick deadwood in a forest more far away. I think I will look more into it in detail and make some calculations later.

    A totally different matter;
    I´m no big fan of buildings without a road. It´s so easy to make a mistake and forget the road. Some of them, like the tannery, works quite alright because it has this small extension in front of it so you can see, where the road must be but the new turf storehouse has something like empty tiles on the front. I´ve built several of them on the wrong spot. The store on the picture wasn´t too bad, I only needed to move the field but why not a row of road tiles? I can understand that there are no road attached to buildings out in the forest like the trapper where no one need to go but a store; it needs to be visited all the time and connected road tiles would make sense to me.

    Attachments:
    #5825
    Tom Sawyer
    Keymaster

    Not cool with this crash. Thank you for the report! I have fixed it and uploaded a new version. In my test it was save compatible with chapels and temple and also with peat spots already placed. So I think you can continue your test game after download. There is now also changed:

    1. Peat Cutter profession included.

    2. Model added to bog tiles. It’s for now only a simple reddish grass to make bogs visible on the ground. Very low poly and fast without expensive billboard materials or such.

    3. Turf-Storehouse changed to 3×3 plus road and adjusted capacity to keep it below all other buildings in storage/area.

    4. In seafarer starts are now less trees. The half of bog areas are without trees which makes logs and firewood rare again (and peat cutting more interesting).

    5. I also added leather to fur coats to make it more effort to craft and with a tannery as a requirement.

    #5826
    Jase
    Participant

    hmm..I can’t open the file, my pc says data error…

    #5827
    Tom Sawyer
    Keymaster

    Please try again, maybe you were faster than my upload was finished.

    #5828
    Jase
    Participant

    Oh yeah sorry, it’ working now, maybe I should slow down… ^^

    #5829
    Nilla
    Participant

    I think I´ll rather start a new game to check out how the start with fewer trees works.

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