I just got the game so I’m running with version 0.7.5. The rat catcher is micro manage hell. It’s not like the compost yard that will take care of waste where it pops up and if there’s too much waste you just build another compost yard.
The rat catcher acts more like the forager. There’s circular area that is the rat catchers effective area of work. If you have a rat infestation pop up in a building you plop that work area circle on it and the catcher does his thing. I’ve got 300 dwellers and I’m getting rat infestations all over the place. My game has become what I want to do for 5 minutes then scan the map for infestations and start the rat catcher mini game for 5 or so minutes. And it’s not fun.
My suggestion. Make the rat catcher like the compost yard. If rat infestations persist then I need another rat catcher. At this point I don’t care about the cost I’m regularly running a 100 gold/mo deficit. I just dislike being God, Mayor and Rat catcher dispatch.
Ya , I think this is because the older ver have a rat-icon-bug issue. Sometimes the icon doesnt display, but if you zoom in, you will see a ton of rats running around
I have had rat infestation and there is no sign that the Rat catcher is doing their job. One would think the icons around the buildings would go away, but the rat catcher just says the, “can not work” message.
Have you moved the Rat Catchers “work area” circle so it includes the infested buildings?
Yes I did, thank you.
RCs seem pretty useless to me. Maybe they actually attract rats instead? I’ve moved them changed the radius but nothing helps. Time to introduce feral cats to get rid of them IMO.
Lol even if there are ill people at the hospital, healer doesn’t give a damn and keeps selling snake oil.
There must be something you are doing wrong mate. I usualy have all living space and storehouse covered with rat catchers and can still maintain an army. Try bringing your storehouses and houses together to minimise costs of ratcatchers. Later on you should have enough income to utilise more of them.
Agree the rat cacher is really annoing at it’s current system. Like every few minutes need to changing the radius icon and since you wanna have markets all around the town where you build residential it starts to seriously irritate. It does it’s job fast that I have to admit but something should be done to it. I agree making it like the nightsoil collector (with infinite radius) but also the nightsoil collector needs to be a service which consumes taxes.
200 pop, 8 soldiers, 4 guardsmen, 2 healers, 2 poo collectors (poo per house below 10), 4 rat catchers, monthly income +1 gold (not counting in trade).
Once I set up rat catcher’s work area, I don’t touch it anymore until I’m expanding and buildning new rat catchers. Could you look at the image and explain again what the problem is? Either I’m missing something or you do something wrong.
I don’t do anything “wrong” I just like to have some more soldiers and several barracks so at now I am currently -9 gold monthly cost but I have plenty of gold so not worried about that so setting up a several rat catchers just for them to catch one or two rats per month in few building seems like a oversight for the costs that would gather. Raiders are a constant threat so with just that little defense like you have I would be destroyed at the first raid that comes…
But seem as you don’t have walls I might even think you are playing of Pacifist mode?
LOL no, I would get bored to death. It’s year 15, at this point hunters are as effective as soldiers when it comes to fight the raiders. I play only vanquisher mode. 2 watchtowers and town center near all storehouses and trading post do the job during raids, I have also 2 barracks - 4 soldiers each and another 2 watchtowers bit to the south of the place where I took the screenshot. Most of the raiders come from south at the moment. Can’t afford walls yet, struggling with labor 
Edit: Hah just had a raid next year, managed to build some wooden walls in the meantime, still almost lost 1 of my barracks to the south. Another group that came from north was wiped out by my 8 hunters 
Nice yeah it seems we have a bit of different strategy I would not dare yet to play Vanquisher mode I’m with the normal setting but at this point raiders are not too big or risk, I’m at Year 27 with 250 villagers. And I just got the monthly cost to +4 with some luxury stuff so nice. But once I get fully hang of this I will defiantly play with the vanquisher mode some day 
My 2 first villages were traubalizers, to learn how to play this bloody game 
After that just vanquisher, try it, once you know the basics it doesn’t seem to be that much harder. Or maybe I just got used to it.
Try to buy some iron as soon as possible, to upgrade watchtowers, early game they are just OP. Also buy some swords, armors and shields, again early game you will be able to wipe entire groups of bnandits with only few soldiers.
… to get back to the topic:
I support the idea that the rat catcher works independently for his payment. Without having to constantly tell him where to find rats.
After all HE ist the rat catcher, not me 
Rat catchers will catch any and all rats in their work area. Quit moving the work area and either hire an additional rat catcher or move the supply facilities and houses inside the rat catchers work area.
My experience is the rat catcher doesn’t work unless you get a notification so notifications in and of themselves aren’t a bad thing. Somebody can correct me if that interpretation is wrong.
Nope, that’s right. Rat catchers will only go to work if a building has the rat infestation icon over it.
I have to say I misjudged this system, after playing it more and learning to do it better the rat catcher is pretty good as it is 
I wish the rat catcher building had a much larger radius than it does. Or just have the rat catcher work at a specific rate and in the one building you can hire on more than just one to meet demand for services. I just don’t think it is very appealing to have multiple rat catcher buildings. I also can’t imagine many villages had more rat catcher buildings than pubs. I would be okay with there being no rat catcher building entirely and their just be a job you assign someone to.