Like others, I am finding after ~250 pop, i’m constantly playing whack-a-mole with repairs, needing to manually prioritize every building that needs repairs. It’s very tedious.
Is it possible to get a button that says “always prioritize repairs over new construction” so laborers fix buildings before working on expansions?
Thanks! Also thanks for building such a fun game and great forum to talk about this stuff!
What I’m wondering is: why is it that most of the repairs are needed when the weather is at its absolute worst?
I think that’s part of the heatwave/blizzard thing, I’ve noticed a lot of my buildings suddenly need repairs whenever winter hits.
That would make a lot of sense!
Make sure you have a good Builder to Laborer ratio.
Leave room in the construction que each year for repairs.
If you do this, repairs will sort themselves out.
If you have several years-worth of construction projects stamped-out for them to complete all the time, they will get behind in repairs.
Don’t overload them.
They’re just peasants.
What’s a good ratio of builders to laborers? I’ve been trying different combos but nothing seems to be just right.
Where is the construction queue? is that visible somewhere or just a mental list you keep track of?
Also how important is it to have fresh tools for all this work? Seems to help a fair amount when I buy lots of tools.
OH and who does repairs builders or laborers??
Both - labourers bring the materials to do the repair with and builders repair them.
Somebody with more hours in the game may have a better handle on this, but my experience is that the ‘best’ ratio of Builders to Laborers changes constantly. If I have a bunch of construction projects going at once (like an entire Iron/Coal Mines - Foundry - Blacksmith - Armory chain I’m trying to get up all in the same season) then I need more Builders. If the projects are far away from any storage areas, I’ll need more Laborers. If nothing is being built for the moment, I can drop Builders to a minimum necessary to maintain (react to Repair notifications). It keeps you on your toes if you are trying to maximize the efficiency of the work force: this is not a ‘laid back’ type of game!
Press ‘P’ to open the Professions window.
If the number in the Red Circle on the top left is white in color, you have an adequate number of Laborers for the size of your colony and their workload.
If that number changes to RED in color, it means you have too few laborers.
The two numbers in the Yellow Circle on the right shows you how many builders are currently working (1), and the maximum number of people (8) you have allocated to all Building tasks.
If the working number exceeds the allocated number, it means you have more projects placed than you have Builders assigned to do the tasks, and at that point the AI will pull workers from the Laborer pool and assign them as Builders to try and keep up with the number of buildings you have placed on the map from the Buildings menu.
There is no actual ‘Construction Que’.
It’s just the number of buildings you’ve placed on the map, wanting them to be built.
If there are more buildings placed and waiting to be built than your peeps can build in a single year, that year’s repair works will be delayed while new construction (and any obstruction removal) takes priority.
Here is wisdom.
This post explained so much THANK YOU
And again, THANK YOU. I suspected the color change meant something, because the red always appears on low numbers, but didn’t realize that the relationship between Builders and Laborers and Builders and Projects was also concealed in the numbers.
This is going to be exceedingly useful - and is exactly the sort of thing that has to be explained in Final Release version of the game.
And when there are no build jobs, the builders drop back into a labourer role.
Does changing the # of builders actually do anything? Builder count seems to go up or down depending on need regardless of what I set the number to.
The number of Builders and Laborers does change, depending on how many building projects you have placed on your map.
If you place too many buildings all at once, the game the game will do it’s best to get them built right away, by tasking as many workers as possible to the jobs from among the two pools of Builders and Laborers.
Sorry I should have been more specific. You can use the +/- buttons to change the number to the right (in the yellow circle in the image above). If you move the righthand number up or down, what is the effect? The lefthand number, I agree, definitely changes depending on the # of building projects.
It divides the labor pool between basic and advanced taskings.
Builders won’t spend time gathering logs or stone unless there are no building projects placed, or there are obstructions in the building footprint to remove.
The direct effect of increasing the builder count is to decrease the labourer count, although using the + button on the builders-side doesn’t always send more people to become builders straightaway, so you might see some lag (especially if you’ve got very few building tasks set).
Correct.
Builders wait for a need, and then return to the Laborer pool if/once all building projects are completed.
Wait I think I’m confused now.
Are both these statements true? What is the actual effect of raising or lowering the rightmost number? Does that mean that as long as a single construction project is underway, there will be a minimum of that number of builders?
