I recently stopped because I started to get annoyed with the replanted trees bug, and realized I’d put in more than a hundred hours, which means something this game is doing is right To give a bit of context about my opinions I’m a big fan of city building games in general, and Banished in particular. I like it when it’s challenging to survive and good planning is rewarded, along with meaningful choices
Of course, given the potential of this type of game, most of my wishes might be completely unrealistic, but hey, you miss all the shots you don’t make!
- the feeding systems
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Hunting: very well done. I like the dynamic with boars that you have to actively hunt and micromanage, but it gives you better resources than passive deer hunting. Wolves are annoying but it’s great that you can clear the deans, bears are a giant “oh shit” moment.
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Foraging: very well done also, great idea that you can move the berries closer. Maybe have a priority list?
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Fishing: the most passive of them all, it does the job but I’m not sure I understand the system between the fishing points and the bonus resources… Apparently having 4 bonus fish in your circle is no better than one? In any case I just jiggle the circle until the percentage is the highest. Maybe they could need wood to craft the fishing poles?
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Farms: incredible system, of course. It’s really fun trying to adjust the crop rotations and maximize it, but the drawback is that pretty soon the “best” rotations will be posted online and people won’t have to think anymore. I feel that the penalty for big fields is a bit too harsh - it’s always better to do 4 55 fields than one 1010, but hey, that’s kinda accurate historically
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Barns: There’s too much milk and too much cheese I think. Slaughtering could be automated. Maybe have different kinds of cattle? Goats/sheep could be great for weeding fields. Horses/donkeys could be necessary for the wainwrights
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Bread: It is hard to adjust grainularity. Bread should spoil fast, but a way to limit how much bread bakeries make would help a lot to take advantage of the “grain doesn’t spoil but bread does” mechanic.
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Arborists: it’s way too easy right now. There should be some way to buy in the fruit trees instead of just planting them from nowhere: maybe a rare foraging find? Or traders? Also, peach trees die annoyingly fast and unless there’s a reason to have different kinds of fruit trees I don’t see why I should plant them.
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Beer: I’m always overflowing with beer, so numbers might be adjusted. Also, I think glass/clay/barrels should be crucial for this industry to be effective: pubs should need glasses, you should not be able to store beer without barrels or clay amphoras, etc.
I like the spoiling mechanisms and the different ways to manage it (glass jars, barrels, upgraded storages, non-perishable food), even though barrels seem like a pretty steep investment by using iron, which usually is best to build arms and armors - maybe pottery could be used until barrels are available?
Also, it should be clearer which group type each food belongs too!
- The wood chain
I think this one is set up right between work camp/firewood/planks. Easy to understand, set-up and adjust if necessary. My only complaint is the lack of forest management - wood camps should replant trees, or forest growth should be balanced in such a way that 1 and 2 workers would let the forest regenerate, while 3 and 4 is “I need wood now” mode
- The ore chain
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Iron: this works great. good upgrade to the smelter too. It’s fun to try to find out on the map the best iron spots, but maybe this could also be a mini-game of exploration with some sort of prospector that would be the only way to know how much ore is in that vein?
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Gold: it’s completely broken. Having gold next to your town is a sure way to make a lot of problems disappear. But I don’t really mind it, it’s rare.
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Clay: I feel like the brick makers are too slow. Either have an upgrade to add more workers, or more efficiency, but it’s really a slog in the end game that can only be addressed by building way too many of them compared to the other chains.
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Sand: I like that sand can be used for two things, farms and glass. Maybe it should be found by the shore though? Something foragers or fishermen could also gather?
- Industries
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Furniture: the money maker. Wood is basically infinite, and as such this will be the basis of a lot of economies I reckon.
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Arms and armor: it’s nice having two tiers, but maybe the shields could get a second tier too? And also make it more obvious when soldiers have them equipped.
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Tools: it should be more obvious what regular tools do and who’s using them. Also, just like with heavy tools, there should be some sort of priority list to say who gets first dibs when new ones arrive
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Leather/Clothes: works fine. Maybe having cobbled roads could be better on shoes? Also, maybe there should be a way to make pants?
Hats would be nice if they were also made by the basket weaver, and then further expand the system to implement cold protection/heat protection based on clothes available
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Pottery: it’s the furniture’s poor cousin. Mainly used to make money with vendors. Maybe it could have an impact on night soil production (easier to collect night soil when it’s not on the ground)? Or water/food storage (a tier 1 storage before barrels)?
- Storage
It can definitely be improved with reallocation, upper and lower limits, etc. but I think that’s already in the work.
- Logistics
The most confusing part of the game. It’s not clear what laborers/builders/wainwrights do, and how they do it, and what’s the difference. Also, I don’t like the fact that people live in houses willy-nilly, not as family units, but then won’t move to the houses closest to their jobs - it’s like the worst of both worlds.
- Defense
Yeah, this one is rough for me. Walls are overshadowed by defense towers, and the fact that attackers can just go around them if it’s close to the water, or just hack at them and go through once destroyed - which is fine for wooden walls but should not happen with stone walls - makes the heavy investment hard to swallow. Also, not knowing exactly where the raiders will come from make the ranged ability of the barracks not very useful.
I don’t know how far into that system we should go, but things that would improve it:
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Patrolling: have your units go around the city limits, taking care of wildlife, maybe increase safety and happiness?
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Scouting: an evasive unit that would roam far away and alert you when raiders are coming
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Watchtowers: cheap wooden towers to alert you when raiders or bears are sighted
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Walls: Wooden ones should only really stop wildlife, and just delay raiders; stone ones should not be able to get destroyed unless by siege units
- Information
This game could use a lot more graphs and charts, about:
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resource usage: how much are you producing vs using in your industries - we have a line “gained this year” under each resource, why not a line “used this year”?
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spoilage: based on each storage place
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demographics: how much of your population will come to working age? How much will retire?
- Needs
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Education: I think a lot more could be done with that. Too few jobs require it, based on how many people graduate each year. It should also make your workers more efficient, and maybe make them more demanding of entertainment and luxury resources? For instance, pub for uneducated workers, theater for educated ones.
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Health: one Healer’s house/Hospital per town was all I ever needed, so I think numbers should be tweaked. The apothecary should be more crucial in making not only medicines, but each illness maybe should have its own remedy requiring different ingredients?
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Desirability: it should be more obvious when a house won’t benefit from an improvement because the same one is nearby. Range of effect should be clearer to see when you click on an improvement once it’s built - just a plain circle like the other buildings
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Entertainment: plazas and parks, being places where people socialize, should give a small entertainment boost
- Trading
I think the latest dev update talks about improvements in that area that I fully agree with so I won’t expand on that, except to say I really like the mechanic of depending on trade to have a fully functional city.