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Topic: Slow start (poor hamlet & basic outpost)

hessenfarmer
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Joined: 2014-12-11, 23:16
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Posted at: 2020-06-10, 17:41

Denethor wrote:

hey... just tried the challenge with barbarians as well and I was able to get to a point where it was only a matter of time to gather enough wood. I played without any enemies though just to figure out the build order. I felt like it took me way too long to get to a point where I had established even the most basic economy.

I solved the issue of having the toolsmith produce "the right" tool by demolishing my wood hardener and rebuild it later. I am pretty sure that I didn't have any iron left for an additional axe, so is it even possible without demolishing either the lumberjack or the wood hardener (sure to be the better choice) or relying pretty much on "luck" to have the necessary tool produced?

After the change provided in my last post, it should be possible to solve it without dismantling the wood hardener. You just need to ensure that the one tool necessary for further work (i don't want to spoil this here) is already requested when the metal works start their production. (as said in the tooltip in poor hamlet there is no superfluous ware included, any wrong use of a starting ressource will lead to fail this) There is no luck in getting the right tool, nor a chance to manipulate the order of tools produced by any in game action. That is why I made the last change to this ensuring the right tool is produced before an additional aax is produced if it is requested by the economy (it simply is first in the order of checking).

I didn't try to cut the roads for the wood hardener though. Can anybody confirm that this works?

I think somebody invented a workaround but this was so complicated, that I can't remeber it. But as said this is should not be necessary anymore.


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Denethor
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Joined: 2020-05-28, 08:10
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Posted at: 2020-06-10, 17:45

the-x wrote:

Thats right, they are far to low and sometimes frustrating. We should about double the start resources.

I don't think that's necessary since there is another starting mode somewhere between "normal" start and the bare minimum with some more ressources to start with. I don't know how it is called though. I think the interesting point about this special starting condition is to start right from the bare minimum - if you change anything at this point it will loose most of its charm.


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hessenfarmer
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Posted at: 2020-06-10, 20:33

Denethor wrote:

the-x wrote:

Thats right, they are far to low and sometimes frustrating. We should about double the start resources.

I don't think that's necessary since there is another starting mode somewhere between "normal" start and the bare minimum with some more ressources to start with. I don't know how it is called though. I think the interesting point about this special starting condition is to start right from the bare minimum - if you change anything at this point it will loose most of its charm.

Correct. "poor hamlet" is the bare minimum, while basic outpost is more the less a doubled poor hamlet with more tolerance for errors (e.g. the workers are in the starting conditions instead of just iron for tools)


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stdh
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Posted at: 2020-06-13, 13:58

When I was testing the bare minimum start condition, I carefully avoided the production of any tool except the one I needed next. So I didn't make new buildings except the next one in the Right Order. The trick I used for the barbarian woodcutter was to make sure that there's never a lumberjack's hut and a wood hardener connected to the main economy at the same time. I did have both buildings, but I switched the lumberjack between them by disconnecting the roads, expelling the worker and 'catching' him with roads around (but not connected to) the building. Was that the complicated workaround that you're thinking of, hessenfarmer?


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hessenfarmer
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Posted at: 2020-06-13, 19:03

stdh wrote:

When I was testing the bare minimum start condition, I carefully avoided the production of any tool except the one I needed next. So I didn't make new buildings except the next one in the Right Order. The trick I used for the barbarian woodcutter was to make sure that there's never a lumberjack's hut and a wood hardener connected to the main economy at the same time. I did have both buildings, but I switched the lumberjack between them by disconnecting the roads, expelling the worker and 'catching' him with roads around (but not connected to) the building. Was that the complicated workaround that you're thinking of, hessenfarmer?

the method you described is exactly the complicated workaround that was discussed on github. However this was only necessary due to the order of tools to be produced in barbarian metal works and not in empire toolsmithy for example. thats why I changed the order of tools to make this consistent with empire


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aDiscoverer
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Joined: 2022-10-29, 13:23
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Posted at: 2022-10-29, 13:43

Thanks for fixing the order of building tools for barbarians (long ago).

blind3rdeye wrote:

Thanks for looking into it. face-smile.png

Regarding the order of the tools, having tongs first would be barely enough, in the sense that you would still waste iron on the ax before finishing other important tools. (I believe you can get some food and a mine going, but you still wouldn't have a geologist, so you'd probably have an exhausted mine unless you happen to know the map in advance.) So that's probably ok. It would be easier if the ax was last on the list; but really, moving the ax around the list is a kind of kludge solution. It's would work, and that's probably good enough, but I wonder if there is a better approach. (I can think of a few ideas which would be good for this mode - but my ideas wouldn't be easy to justify in normal play...)

I agree to above, the reordering is barely enough. An iron is still wasted, which I would like to use for the geologist. All other tribes have resources to have one.

For me it looks the minimal conditions of "poor hamlet" for all tribes are not equally minimal in other ways as well. For empire I had a worker for both buildings which shared a worker initially, I had a geologist and still had one ore left after building a mine. For frisian there is no tool on stock for a forester, which all other tribes do.


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aDiscoverer
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Posted at: 2022-10-29, 14:13

Nordfriese wrote:

  • The ProductionSite tells its Worker Economy "I need 1 worker of type barbarians_lumberjack"

  • The Worker Economy checks whether lumberjacks are available. There aren't any, so it checks in all its warehouses if it can create the required number of workers using tools stored there. If that is also not its case, it tells one of the warehouses to open a Plan for 1 worker of type barbarians_lumberjack.

  • The warehouse remembers this Plan. It tells the Ware Economy "I need one ware of type felling_ax".

  • The metal workshop asks the ware economy if felling_ax is needed. This is the case, so one is produced.

  • The felling_ax is transported to the warehouse that requested it.

  • The warehouse now has what it needs to fulfill the Plan, so that's what it does.

  • The Worker Economy now sees that it has a new lumberjack. It will distribute him to some site that needs one when there is a Request for one. If there isn't, he waits in a warehouse until he's requested.

I am a bit surprised what happens when ordering a worker. This is not what I expect to happen. If I ware a real (tribe) leader, I would tell my team to not follow my commands in this way. (Something like: When my command was long ago, they should confirm before finally starting it.)

It has totally unexpected effects for me especially when ... - I send a geologist too much to explore a site. So one is ordered at a warehouse. This order is saved until I have a tool smithy, which might be much later. He will not go anywhere because the site is explored since. I will probably not remember that I clicked once too much long ago. - I start building a thing too much. So a builder is ordered at a warehouse. I have no possibility to cancel my order, not even with destroying the size. In case the builder is created much later, I will not remember when I did the order by mistake. So which save game should I reload when playing "poor hamlet"? - Workers transported by ship seem to be unseen for orders. So in case a worker is already on the way in a ship while the construction site is finished, a new one is ordered. And the building does not accept another worker than a new one. Destroying a connecting road does not order the worker waiting at the port to come. I have no possibility to terminate the employment of a worker which is not yet here. - It happened that I had an additional blacksmith sitting in my warehouse. I did never have any building requiring a blacksmith except the one which produced the hammer for the black smith. So why was one produced? There are too many possibilities to trigger something unexpected. And because I can not see the list of orders it is difficult to find out why something happened.

  • Loosely related: When I have multiple ports, a tool is sometimes transported by ship, then a worker is produced and then the worker travels again by ship, maybe even back to where the tool came from. This slows down ordering workers. How is the warehouse/building selected which saves the request to build a worker?

I really enjoy playing "poor hamlet" and "discovery", but sometimes I have to try too many times because of some non obvious events.


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