One thing that I did find out, Tallest, was that the game auto saves when a trader arrives so if the trader doesn't have what you need then just go back to the main menu, load up that auto save and it will be a different trader. Repeat if necessary. That's how I got my chickens. It's a bit of a cheat but after more than a dozen years with no trader ever showing up at my town with livestock, I was beyond caring.

Awesome thanks, I have a market on hold but haven't pulled the trigger on it though.

TALLESTOPIA LIVES!!!

Yes, I started over again, this time I built my houses around the jobs I was creating. I paused the game in the beginning to plan my layout. Once I got the initial layout setup with a gatherer, hunters, a storage bin and stockpile I waited for two seasons before putting up more homes. I then put a fishing dock with a house. Waited another season and then added a mine and blacksmith; only reason for this was I ran out of tools. I then built a school. After a few seasons I built a second hunters shack, forester's tower and gatherer's shack. Once they were completed further out I demolished the original ones. I then put houses close to the new ones. I've got a second fishing dock on hold and I'm about to put a trade hub. I also built a herbalists shack and a market. 10 seasons in and no deaths. I was getting frustrated there orginally.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=231403747

Mines aren't worth it. It's impossible to clear them and they take up precious land. Just clear out your whole map, build a few trade posts and trade coats/firewood/other commodities for your iron, stone and coal needs.

As for making smaller communities on bigger maps: my workers can't work, because they're always hungry when they're almost there and turn around for a little snack. It takes ages to make a new small settlement with a gatherer, forester, woodcutter, hunter and maybe an herbalist. I haven't tried anything with markets yet and I haven't bothered yet with agriculture, too.

I don't get all the hate for fishermen. I mean, they only use a tiny bit of space and they produce 800-1500 fish a season. Gatherers take a LOT more space. Just make sure your fisheries don't overlap, or your productivity will plummet.

I have my gatherers and fishermen spread out. But it would seem that as soon as I made my above food everyone stopped working and I had about 15 deaths. I'm convinced this game won't let you get past a certain point. I'm in my 12th season and I have no food. I have two fishermen producing 0 fish even though they are no where near each other. Same thing with my gatherers, they are no where each other and neither are producing any food. I can't build a farm because I have no seeds, I can't herd animals because I have no animals. I have a trader and have had one trader come through but he had nothing that I needed so I sent him on his way. I have 4 hunters and they are catching deer but it's not enough, people are still hungry. I'm really not sure what to do at this point.

Did you start out on hard difficulty? I know for easy/medium you start out with two types of crops seeds and one type of orchard seeds from the get go.

How many workers do you have at your fishing docks? I have one dock with four workers, right on the main river and they pull in around 700-800 fish a season.

I started out on hard. I had one merchant come through with Walnut seeds but he wanted 2500 in trade for them. I had nothing setup to trade. I had about 75 people but as soon as I opened the trading post I had about 25 people die of starvation for some reason. So I closed the mine down, the trading post, the tailor and moved everyone into a gatherer position. I've got a ton of food now. But no people. I have two docks with 5 fishermen. They are pulling in a great deal of food. In fact I have 6 storage barns and they are all full of food. I'm afraid to trade any of it. I'm kind of stuck. I'm not sure what to do at this point. I'm about 15 seasons in with only 26 people but I can't grow food or herd animals as I still have no seeds or animals. I've increased what I can trade but the merchants come through once every few years.

Most of the space mines take up is unusable anyway. Quarries are a different matter, but personally I prefer the security they provide over relying on trading. It's not like they run dry quickly, and it's not like you can't trade for stone anyway when it's available

Most of the time I'll just have a couple mines and a quarry sitting idle untill I need some iron/coal/stone. At that point I can start production right away and don't have to wait for anything.

As a rule, it seems like a bad idea to put all your eggs in one basket in this game. Have multiple sources for everything, and even if you don't make use of it immediately you'll be much more secure if something unforeseen happens.

Focus on gathering more food in the forests with the golden trinity of a gatherer, forester and hunter each. Hunters don't bring in a lot of food (1000 at max, but I get 600-800 most of the time) but give leather for coats. I posted this earlier, but I cannot stress this enough: don't bother with mines until your entire map is cleared of stone/iron. It takes up a lot of space, workers and produces very slowly.

I'm trying a large map right now with the following strategy: make lots of small encampments which have the basic needs (firewood, tools, coats) and spread out after that. I have 4 'zones' at the moment with houses. They are closed just outside the range of the hunter/gatherer/forester next to a barn and a stockpile. The amount of houses is the amount of people working divided by 2. Each couple gets an house, their children will be forced to settle at a new 'zone'. I will continue this until I have sufficient resources to make a centralized hub next to the river with a market, townshall and lots of foresters for firewood. I'll build a few trading posts and wait for merchants with seeds, herds and the non-renewable resources like coal, iron and stone. When I get the seeds I want, I'll start replacing hunter/gatherers with agriculture.

@Fearmenot - I assume you haven't had a very high population or a very large city yet. One issue with fisheries is that they have the same radius circle problem as gatherers. eg, they require a lot of land (and a lot of water area) to be fully productive. Hence if that's all you're using, if you're making a large city, the fisheries have to be very spread out and that means they're farther and farther away from your main hubs...which equals a long haul for the fish to be available/slowdowns in production. Gatherers are like this too. Fish/Gatherers/Hunters are awesome for starting out/smaller cities, but the bigger the population/city becomes, the less efficient they become as a means to feed entire populations for large cities because they require so much (untouched) land, when you need that land to build houses and more market hubs and so on.

It's really best in the long run, it seems, to have a mixture. Some of each. It's a balancing act.

(edit) you also need farms if you want 5 full health hearts. Crops are the only way to get the "grain" requirement (corn, wheat).

Also, trade ports: build more than one if you want more trade visits per year. They don't have to have more than 1-2 trade workers each, so worker use isn't much of an issue. But however many visits per year (or per two years, or whatever is your case on your map) you get, a 2nd trade post doubles it, because the game seems to assign one boat per dock. They show up slightly staggered times, but instead of 1 boat per year you'll have two (each with different stock to trade). In my current map I plan on having 4 eventually...

First try and I got a really bad map. My town was basically in a crater with mountains on all sides. No way out.

Suffice it to say, that game didn't last long...

Tallestopia is still kicking. I don't quite have a lot of people yet, I'm still sitting around 30ish. but the town has grown to around 17 houses a town center, a hospital (that I have not used yet; waiting on some nomads), a brewery. I've got two forests that I alternate between planting trees for cutting and trees ready for cutting. At one point I had almost 2000 fire wood. I've since last post lost one forester to a tree falling on her and a lot of people due to old age. I've got a bunch of people in school too.

That's good to know about the trade. I've been annoyed I see one trader a year. I still cannot for the life of my buy seed. They are ridiculously expensive. I have bought two chickens and two sheep though. Both of which have multiplied a few times.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=231564047

I change the layout a lot. When I find something doesn't work because the people can't get to it I demolish and move it. I try not to build anything in my forests as I need those for the hunters and gatherers and herbalists. Although I do built storage barns in the forests. I have a lot of storage barns.

@Tallest - that's a whole lot of storage barns....I don't think you need anywhere near that many - especially since you have a Market. Storage barns seem to accept everything, so unless one is getting full, no reason to double up in the same spot. Markets are useful mainly because the houses in the circle then have an easy time stocking their houses with every available good. Houses without a market = occupants who waste tons of time trying to visit every far flung storage barn that has a bit of what they want, and their houses will probably not be well-stocked on goods. You can live without markets for a while, tho, of course.

Trading for seed: if you have the space, you can build more Hunters. They provide some Leather for your tailor to make the hide coats. Eventually your citizens won't need many coats per year and you can just sell the excess for 15 each. Or, since you have cattle, once the pasture matures it'll give leather each "harvest" as well (oops, you have sheep - same thing tho. They'll give wool, make wool coats). Otherwise, since your population is low, sell all that excess Firewood (4 each) for a while. It takes a while to store enough in a trade post to buy what you want, of course, so don't spend in trade every year (just dismiss the trade boat) if you have an expensive goal. Example: every winter/spring/autumn etc tell the trade post to pick up another 20 or 50 of whatever it is you're selling, until you have enough.

It's why I like at least one mine early on (w/4-6 workers) - I'll build 2-3 blacksmiths and trade most of the iron tools produced...the mine lasts a lot longer than clearing all your land of iron and thus is a more reliable, steady long-term income. (or cattle, if you want to go the sell-clothes route instead).

Oh and the multiple trading posts - each one has to have it's own stock of goods to sell to the boat that parks at it. They don't share.

One other thing I learned - gravestones in graveyards slowly decay/disappear over time to allow for new gravestones. So you don't actually need multiple graveyards if you don't wish. I wish I'd realized that earlier, before I built 3 graveyards.

Aw, good tip. I was wondering about that. My current town is on a small map so I don't really have much space to spare.

I had a market for a while but after the first deathening I destroyed it. I had all of those storage barns full that I had to built new ones to keep up. I ended up rebuilding the market then added a second one as my village is actually quite spread out. The storage barns are still filling up but not quite as fast. I'll eventually start destroying the barns.

I have sheep since I haven't been able to find a merchant who had cows. I also just finally bought some seeds (squash) took me forever but now I have two farms producing squash as well. I've also taken in a lot of nomads; so many in fact that I've resorted to staging new houses then pausing construction. This way the moment I get some new citizens I can just pick up where I left off. As for hunters, I currently have two shacks with four hunters. I'm slowly adding more.

I noticed that with the trading posts. I had a merchant come through with seeds that I really wanted I was so disappointed when I clicked on the trade button and I had nothing to trade.

Does anyone know if having more teachers makes the schooling go faster? It seems I always have 10-12 students in school when I could really use them on a job.

My graveyard holds 96 headstones and I've only got now 73 citizens. So I've got a long way to go yet. But that is good to know that I don't need to make another graveyard. Although I just might anyway put a graveyard on top of a hill that I think the people can walk up on. I think it'll look neat.

Here's my current town, Four Bells. Its population is up to around 75 now. We're having a bit of an iron issue at the moment.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=231620153

@Tallest - you only need more schools if you tend to have more than 20 students at a time (max per school is 20). Or maybe if you're getting so spread out that students need a closer school. Not sure about that. Education delays the becoming an advlt phase, not sure by how much, but I think they don't become advlts until maybe 16-18 years, then, instead of 10-14 or whatever. Education increases production output and - I think - the age at which they can still breed.

@mellowtraumatic - I wish we could take pics of our town via a shot of the whole map. It's frustrating having to post multiple pics, or only one part of your town, once it gets too big for a single shot. Someone posted a stitched-together whole-map image, and it was awesome ... but way too much work.

Oh that's awesome. I haven't even ventured across the river. I really like your layout. That's impressive. Mines all cluttered and like a city then I have a section of forests.

Yeah, I wish we could, too. That's even a small terrain and still can't manage to get everything in. I should post some other closer shots of different parts.

About the schools, I think educated workers also die less from accidents.

Hmm, I should build a school...

Thank you! I think again I fell into the trap of spreading out a little too much and my workers aren't as efficient as they should be, but I like how it turned out for the most part.

Edited to say: Well, I just lost half the town to starvation. I think Four Bells might be sounding its death knell. *lol* I think next time I'm really going build a town hall early on so maybe I get a better handle on what's getting produced and used. It might help me deal with a crisis before it actually gets started.

There is a Banished Maps reddit for anyone looking to start a new town. People post images of their favorite map seeds and include some of the land's attributes.

http://www.reddit.com/r/BanishedMaps/

Awesome. I usually just type a bunch of random numbers in for the seed but I'll definitely check a bunch of those out. Reedit really needs to really rethink their layout; man it's friggin' horrible.

Ran into my first issue with a new town this morning. Half the town got stuck taking stuff off the stockpile because there was stuff next to it. They all wound up freezing to death there. *lol* Guess I'll be making two or three stockpiles right away then so they don't get full.

I noticed the people can be kind of stupid at times. Yesterday was a perfect example. I had them clearing an area of all usable material and they would walk right past 2 stockpiles and a storage barn to go put the stuff on another stockpile and in another barn across the map. I kept thinking to myself, 'No wonder you dopes freeze to death or starve to death. You walk past things that have food and wood to go to another place that doesn't have what you are looking for.'

They did it time and time again while building stuff too. They'd walk past stockpiles that were over flowing with the things they required to go to another stockpile that was empty. Then they'd have to trek all the way back to the one they originally passed. Then they'd take a complete round-about way to get back to the structure they were building. I'd scream at the computer, 'WINTER IS COMING!!! STOP LOLLYGAGGING!!!"

I'm having a small problem at the moment. I'm swimming in food (Farms are really awesome, and I have a lot of luck with 3-4 1000+ fisheries) but I lack the logs to expand as much as I'd like. Most of my harvested logs end up being thrown in the fire in my small town. I have a few foresters dedicated for grabbing logs, but it seems it aint enough. I have 4 foresters fully staffed for the logs and 6 woodcutters to chop up the logs, but I just barely scratch by without freezing anyone to death. When in dire need I used my huge labour force (like 50 guys, half of my town is pretty much sitting around doing nothing) for cutting enough wood. How do people set up their firewood trade company? I can post some screens if anyone wants a better view of my town. It's pretty cramped, but I never had a fire in 20+ years. I just like to live dangerously.

How many foresters do I need for 5000+ firewood a year? I can also trade for logs/firewood/coal, but I haven't acquired sheep yet. I guess I'll have to move my gatherers to other spots further from town and use the areas in between them for log harvesting.

How many people?

I've had 3 foresters + 3 woodcutters (not in optimal positioning) which = 1000 firewood easily stocked all the time, with 900 logs easily stocked. So I'd guess I could've added several more woodcutters.

But this kind of information doesn't really have any hard numbers yet and I'm not entirely sure it will, because a lot of it depends on building placements, worker house locations, and other such things tat are sometimes constantly variable. If you have good placement/distribution layouts, then I'd make a guess you could actually support 4 woodcutters with 1 forester (after the first few years go by), maybe even 5 or 6, but more typically it might only be 2-3. So then you'd just look at how much firewood each of your woodcutters is producing per season and multiply.

And in case you didn't know, each production building info menu has a small button so you can see their per-season production numbers. It looks like a little greyed out swirly icon or something. Click it, then click to return to the regular info menu.