So, hey! To begin with, I have over 200h played here, and 5-6 1k pop playthroughs, ranging from pacifist to hardcore raiding parties. I’m happy with my purchase to say the least, so don’t take this critique as the game would be bad or anything. I actually enjoy it greatly even in the current state and earlier as well, I’m writing this for feedback and input for you developers. So we can keep enjoying the game forward! And perhaps, some of my gripes already have fixes I’m unaware of, if so please let me know! Note that I started writing this before you announce the next patch and what to include there
Cobbler shop
It seems I need so many of these. The update helped with production, but can we get an upgrade that allows us to have more workers? I don’t see the need to have 10+ Cobbler shops. To some extent you need a few to spread production and make logistics easier, but at some point, it just used up all the space you want to use for other constructions. There are a few buildings where I feel we need too many of, compost yard would be another debated one. I also feel the end game needs a whole new upgrade to all storage, which litters the town as it is right now. I think you need 8 for 1k population, but as I’m constantly behind as I usually lack leather I need a few extra to catch up when I get the leather rolling - anyhow, 8 is too many in my mind as well. An upgrade in later tiers would help make this building less OP early game, but late game buffs would be appreaciated
Furniture workshop
It’s so useless today, highly expensive to make furniture, requires a lot of labor and isn’t much needed as a luxury item either. Not sure what to improve here, perhaps remove it? Make it produce other stuff we actually need, make furniture actually relevant? If it is usable, please let me know, as it is it just eats up all my planks it would appear to me, so I play without this for now - relying on glass instead
Forager
They need an upgrade! Not sure what function it would have, but when everything else is upgraded they look so shabby! So, minor gripe, as the function as is it’s OK to me
While on the forager, I use some mods, amongst them one who allows me to move all the gatherer resources like blueberry bushes. It’s OP, sure, but as a sandbox everything could be easy, just adjust the difficulties around it. Why do I use it? Great fun to make your own gardens, also get more rare stuff close to my town. So why do I bring this up? Well, the garden aspect here, manage your own garden is great fun. Finicky with all the 1x1 plants for sure, but anyhow, if any of this could be moved in game, that we can manage gardens like we do farmfields today it would add another dimension to me. Even if it isn’t copied 1:1, perhaps foragers can plant stuff, gather seeds from what they forage and then let you plant certain plants? Anyway, great fun, would be nice to bring something like this to all players in some capacity I think
Barracks
Raiding bandits, it’s great fun and feels like a minigame in FF to me. I enjoy setting up defenses and trying to find new ways to deal with attackers in the most resource effective way possible - without just walling them out with multiple stone walls, that’s cheating! Just as much cheating as using mods to make all plants abundant, maybe even less cheating, I know!!! Anyhow, my wish here is that we can have more barracks, more soldiers, more flags to spread out your troops with and make more detailed strategic decisions. Now cost and available work force limits this. If one barrack could just split up its current troops on several flags I’d be happy, or however we could solve this - making strategic defensive decisions is a big part that makes this game fun, and any addition to our strategic choices would be awesome here!
Arborist
In my opinion the building in the biggest need of an overhaul as it is today. Why? It is torturous, having to check for replants, and manual replanting all the trees. This is the building I need to have to get different food sources, but I try my best to have as few as possible, as it is so much work to maintain. Not to mention, if you need to move the arborist, you need to manually cut all the trees down. If they are anywhere with coverage, you will easily miss trees and you need to spend time looking for some trees in a forest to manually cut them down… Can they at least replant mature trees? Otherwise, I suggest you revamp it. Allowing us to plant fruit trees as decoration trees, and the arborist works like the nightsoil collector. This way we can litter our towns with beautiful fruit trees and feed our population at the same time, or we just plant huge forests with fruit trees outside town - but it would give players the choice, and there are probably any number of ways this building that makes it less work and hopefully more fun than torture to work with
Before post edit (yes, I’m lazy!), I wrote this before you announced the reworked arborist, awesome! I let this stand here as it contains some other gripes and suggestions of mine
Auto fill worker slots
If people die, and have work you need to manually rehire for that spot. Since I already decided to populate the worker slot, any way we can auto rehire? I understand if you have no labor, sure, but if it is let’s say above X% of total population is labor, or if you have X amount of people as labor? In general, if I made a decision to have a worker slot filled, I don’t want to remake that decision, and it goes for many decisions in game. As with arborists which you fix now. But repairs as well and some other things. As a thumb of rule just let decisions stand and not forcing players to take the same decisions again and again is better game play in my mind. It isn’t like we hire a specific NPC for a work slot, it’s just the closest one and our only decision is if we are to hire or not
Resource management
Can we get production limits on more stuff? Like grain, flax, wax, honey and most other things as well? It’s difficult to impossible to have an exact production and you risk having all storage filled with one type as it isn’t consumed fast enough - it would save a lot of micromanagement having this possibility. Some resources will be managed by spoilage, but some will last for years or forever and while I try and be exact in my production not to waste valuable resources, space and work it just ends up being impossible for a perfectionist to get to 1:1 between supply and demand
Trading
I know you are looking into this, being able to order in rare materials or resources and what not. As an industrialist, I’m looking for balance in production and demand, and the logistics. Automating trading would be great, being able to buy X resource if below Y value. Perhaps this could also be done outside Trading post, and perhaps as we set up mines with a Wagon shop, perhaps we can set up our Trading post with somethings similar, sending our surplus inventory out and with orders to procure specific resources on the way back. This could be used to balance your lack of production in some areas and give you a steady flow of rare or completely depleted resources. I would just love to see some automation of trading, perhaps not completely, but to some level
Repairing buildings
I use a mod for this but would be easier if we could include something in the game for this. So, what is the issue I got? Well, after fires or raids I’m sometimes left with broken buildings, most likely several after hundreds of bandits paying me a visit. After this I want to repair all my buildings. Having to look up all areas that was attacked, and all small things I might have missed, broken fences to keep wildlife from eating my harvest and what not. Sometimes I don’t even notice all sides being under attack, and totally miss repairing some buildings and those buildings whose rubble is hidden behind other buildings might not even be repaired until I find them after the next raid…
The mod just gives you a short cut to repair all. Nice enough! What do I wish for? Central administration, like with the work force. Where you list all broken buildings, enable repair, priority and amount of builders working on it. The graphics is nice in this game, but it doesn’t lend itself to point and click easily as many buildings are hidden and hard to reach and just makes it so easy to miss a bunch of stuff
Auto repair would be nice to, after fires or after raids. This and the mod do have a lack of granular control. For example, if you lack resources to rebuild everything and want to prioritize desirability buildings so houses won’t go abandoned or so, would be nice to be able to control this more easily
Finding buildings
How many times have we not tried to find that one rat catcher with its area out of place? That one cobbler with only 1 and not 2 workers? That specific forager? Buildings are hard to find today, and any way of scrolling between buildings would be awesome! Yes, some buildings can be outlined if you choose other buildings, but not all, and even so it is time consuming just looking for buildings when you can spend your time on more constructive endeavors
Logistics
I would greatly appreciate if labor could be used to spread out materials and wares between storage buildings. So all town will have access to the same resources. Now we could have all production in one corner of our town, and traders, market square and anyone in need of these just get a lot of travel time. Mines come to mind here, I can just block the storage of let’s say sand in some storage, forcing it to be stored closer to the center of the town, but often you want to be able to spread the resource out on multiple locations. Some tool for this would be great, and I know you have commented on this before, just wanted to mention it as well. This isn’t a huge issue today, but it would be nice and would probably help buildings like the market to keep it filled up and help your workers stock their homes more effectively, so they can get back to work!
Perhaps set max limits for some resources in specific locations, or have labor at least empty out stuff that you uncheck the checkbox for enable/disable specific resources in specific buildings. Perhaps have a worker class for this? Perhaps they can use wheelbarrows, built by the furniture people so they have some use in the game?
Feature request! Can we have an option to pause on attack or pause on trader. Perhaps even pause on traders that buy or sell specific items. An option wont force it on those not wanting it, and most likely most people won’t use it through all the game either as needs change throughout the play through
Anyhow, these are my two cents. Some feedback, some requests and some suggestions. Appreciate the game, and always look forward to new play through when new patches come along. Great work so far and looking forward to my next 200h played!