Can someone please explain to me how should I set up a simple delivery chain for wood to consumers that works?
In a small city everything works, but in a big one I always have idling workers or workers traveling very far just to get the resource needed to do their job.
In the following image I have set up:
- A firewood production on the far left of the city, with a stockpile for only wood and firewood.
- A wood consumers on the right side of the city with a stockpile for produced goods and for firewood.
- A laborers camp far to the right outside of the city.
Now, the problem is that wood is stockpiled on the left, and never on the right. So, the workers from the consumers ale always traveling through the whole city just to get that one lump of wood. This is not optimal. Their traveling is very high, because they waste time because of this.
One solution to this would be to have firewood producers everywhere where the firewood is needed. But this is not the best solution for producers that are close to houses, because of the low desirability.
I also tried to use carts, parked close to the firewood production, but they received one lump of firewood in 2 years. They are ignored.
So, devs or anyone, have you managed to make something like this to work?
And can you spot a lost cow in the city? 
It is just standing there, confused.
Very good question … same problem here!
I was having similar problems. My farms were producing hundreds of flax, but it would take up their storage space for some time, so I built a storehouse nearby to put it all in. But it was on the other side of town from my clothing makers, who would be sitting around waiting for flax. I built a wagon shop next to the storehouse, thinking it would be able to transport large amounts of flax to the clothing makers. But it sat there waiting for tasks.
So far, the supply chain is my biggest frustration. My storage facilities seemingly have lots of raw resources sitting idly while my production buildings are waiting for raw supplies. And I haven’t been able to figure out how to make this more efficient or effective.
The only solution I have found so far is to use the wagon you are given in the start of the game. Unfortunately you have to micro manage your other storages with the same resource where you unselect them where you don’t want them to be stored and then move the wagon once you have a reasonable amount of resources available closer to your production centre. I have used this with rotating wagons to good effect with farms and workhouses which are far from my city centre. The storage management should have a priority system similar to Rimworld I find for you to effectively manage your villagers’ time.
they need to add “workers” to stockyards etc, that will “relocate” items to other storage. so your workers are not acting as over the road truckers. they need a “Hauler” role. somehow. most other games solve that with workers on storage to “Move” items. the problem i have is with “IF” i localize storage near gatherers i.e. Hunters, Forgers, Farmers, Barns. then i also have to pay for RAT catcher to keep RATS away. rat catcher tie up a person and “COST GOLD per month” it’s crazy. so you are punished by not having centralized storage, yet, your efficiency is punished by having centralized storage. “Eyes Crossed”. “EDIT” also with raiders head for storage, so you have to defend it. again, punished for decentralized storage. at least have “ADD on” options for building for “Appretenice” and let “Teens” run and fetch inventory, thats what would of really happened. an apprentice would be running around getting crap.
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The game needs mini storage or something and be global
As much as I would also like some system how to manage storage, you are just shooting in your own leg by “this should work as I want”. There are many ways to work around this.
First of all - that city is not big and it should work fine, for that amount of people, depending on industry (and maybe difficulty) 3x2 upgraded splitters for hardest should be enough.
Secondly - labor camp can be anywhere, carts collect materials from them and its not a problem.
Thirdly, its best to have all industry together, but you still can have several clumps like you have, just needs a bit more thought of whose efficiency is more important. I personaly prefer all industry together with all storehouses toghether, since its then close to trading post which is key structure in this trading game.
If the current setup doesnt work I would move the storage in middle or best - make a new storage in middle for just firewood.
@aivenho Thanks for the suggestions!
I need to say that I asked how to solve this issue, I didn’t say I wanted it my way. Your answer suggest there is no solution to decentralized industry.
For example on some maps you have limited space and you have to stretch your city in the valleys between mountains. So you want to optimize that.
Sure my city is not big enough, but it didn’t work:). Workers had running value around 75%. Same with slaughtering cows. Meat was spoiling in the barn, even with 4 smokers touching the barn.
Having whole industry together closes so much playstyles. I do not think a good city builder game would do that. If there is only one way of doing something, then it is not a strategy, it is a puzzle game.
In the end I just wanted to know how to do decentralized industry. If there is no way, then I guess that is ok.
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The only thing I’ve found so far that helps is building the wagon shop at every start point. Unfortunately learning that this helps has cursed me with hubris and I tried building several small villages on my slow growth pacifist map and while the supply chain is moving relatively ok having very spread out areas seems to confuse the AI to the point that they largely refuse to build anything. I have an iron mine right outside the town that has been unbuilt for two entire years despite having 10 builders available and enough planks.
