.
You might have noticed in some other thread that I’m no big fan of herbalists. Seeing how they work; Banni feels unwell, pick a herb in some store (not necessarily the closest) walk to the herbalist (not necessarily the closest if you have more than one), soon feels unwell again and back on the road, made me avoid them.
I realized that I haven’t tested your improved herbs, Tom. Either I had a good health and no need for a herbaist or the stores of supply was critical, also without herbalists keeping people away from working. But in my present game my Bannis had a safe store of berries and venison and a poor health, so I thought I’ll give the improved herbalists a chance.
I got the idea of this game from a guy who makes a video series where he starts as hunter gatherer and develops through the ages. I haven’t watch the videos because I never watch Banished videos but I copied the idea in a North game. My idea is to first fill a small map with primitive huts and only hunters and gatherers. When it’s full, they will discover iron making and farming and make a viking society with longhouses, after the map is fully rebuilt, they will discover glassmaking and everyone will want their own house and finally they will want to educate their children and live in nice red houses. I’m still in the hunter-gatherer part.
I built a healers hut and let the laborers pick herbs in summer and the food stores looks like on the picture. Fuel and clothes look similar. I estimate that production went down about 15% by food and fuel and 25% by clotes. Why clothes are worse than food and fuel, I don’t really understand but tool-less hunters at the campfire aren’t very productive anyway and time away from the site might hurt more. You can see at the graph that last year, I sent all free Bannis to pick berries and now all herbs are used, herbalist is unemployed and things improve.
The earlier drop in the food store was because I turned the hunters off some years. There was too much hides and clothes. We don’t trade, so we can’t get rid of any surplus.
Conclusion; If you have a poor diet, don’t build any herbalist unless you can spare at least 15% production.
