Topic: Hello everyone. Questions from someone new to the game.

Hi arikari and welcome to the forum

First of all, the challenge is not to create good trained soldiers the fastest. The challenge is to build up a good working economy, because without that you can't get soldiers and train them. Building up a good economy needs some knowledge of the production chain of a tribe. Build the basic buildings first and grow the economy step by step.

If not done yet you should play the tutorials and at least a few campaigns to get a feeling about a good working economy. If you have a lot of traffic jams, you are doing something wrong, e.g. didn't build warehouses, or have bad production chains. As an example it is a bad idea to have a Rangers Hut far away from Lumberjacks.

Connecting your headquarters with as many roads it can have is a good idea, but probably you may need also roads wich bypasses the headquarters so wares which do not go to the warehouse will not produce a traffic jam at your warehouse.

Hopefully i gave some hints. In case of more questions, feel free to ask.

You can upload a save game here in the forum after writing 4 more posts (this restriction is to prevent spammers) if you want.

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usingUser wrote

Placing some more flags on the streets so that the individual carrier needn't walk a long way from one flag to the other helped me decrease my traffic jam

Using CTRL-Click when placing roads is explained already in the first tutorial with the hint that placing more flags speed's up transporting of wares, if i remember correctly.

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arikari wrote

I understand that the economy is the primary challenge, but ultimately, the military aspect is the end goal.

Yes that's true. But you can't reach the end goal without having a good economy behind it.

I would appreciate it if you could tell me what a reasonable timeframe is before one can field a significant army (so I can benchmark my performance; perhaps I am simply rushing the process and my current pace is acceptable).

That depends heavily on the map. How far iron, coal and gold (especially) is away from your starting point. On some maps gold is very rare, or only available on an island. If you win against the AI in every game you have a good timeframe, imho.

Regarding the Warehouse system, I realize the key is not random placement, but assigning each one a specific, functional template for efficient operation.

Honestly i do not spend much time on such thoughts. Mostly you are restricted in building spaces and have to place buildings just where it is possible. Some players tend to plan roads around building spaces to have as much big, or medium, building plots available, but i usually don't do this. Nevertheless in past tournaments my ranking is not that bad, not the first but also not the last

On Log management, I understand Ranger's Hut must be near Lumberjack's Hut. Yet, I struggle with their proximity to the Headquarters (HQ), as trees occupy valuable building space. My strategy is to immediately build 6 Lumberjack's Hut to clear the initial area, then relocate them (demolish and rebuild) for expansion. Despite this, I still face a severe Log shortage. What is the optimal way to manage this Log production vs. space-clearing dilemma in the early game?

It depends also on the map: Tree growing depends on the terrain. On some terrains trees grow very well, on other terrains trees don't grow or very slow. Rule of thumb: If the terrain looks more green the better trees do grow. Normally with expanding your territory the wood production moves to the border, leaving the cleared space available for other buildings in the middle of your territory. But in the end you have to keep the inventory window open and regularly check the amount of stored wares.

Personally i think a good economy uses most wares immediately for producing other wares or buildings, without storing too much of a ware in the warehouses. But this goal is difficult to reach… some other players tend to store much wares in the warehouses to have some kind of a backup.

Except the issues derived from a map, this is all my personal opinion. Every player has his own strategy to play widelands.

((Forgive me for not understanding English.. I used a lame AI to draft the message and translate it, and I have a feeling it's not free of spelling errors...))

All is fine from my side

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kaputtnik wrote

arikari wrote

I understand that the economy is the primary challenge, but ultimately, the military aspect is the end goal.

Yes that's true. But you can't reach the end goal without having a good economy behind it.

I would appreciate it if you could tell me what a reasonable timeframe is before one can field a significant army (so I can benchmark my performance; perhaps I am simply rushing the process and my current pace is acceptable).

That depends heavily on the map. How far iron, coal and gold (especially) is away from your starting point. On some maps gold is very rare, or only available on an island. If you win against the AI in every game you have a good timeframe, imho.

Regarding the Warehouse system, I realize the key is not random placement, but assigning each one a specific, functional template for efficient operation.

Honestly i do not spend much time on such thoughts. Mostly you are restricted in building spaces and have to place buildings just where it is possible. Some players tend to plan roads around building spaces to have as much big, or medium, building plots available, but i usually don't do this. Nevertheless in past tournaments my ranking is not that bad, not the first but also not the last

On Log management, I understand Ranger's Hut must be near Lumberjack's Hut. Yet, I struggle with their proximity to the Headquarters (HQ), as trees occupy valuable building space. My strategy is to immediately build 6 Lumberjack's Hut to clear the initial area, then relocate them (demolish and rebuild) for expansion. Despite this, I still face a severe Log shortage. What is the optimal way to manage this Log production vs. space-clearing dilemma in the early game?

It depends also on the map: Tree growing depends on the terrain. On some terrains trees grow very well, on other terrains trees don't grow or very slow. Rule of thumb: If the terrain looks more green the better trees do grow. Normally with expanding your territory the wood production moves to the border, leaving the cleared space available for other buildings in the middle of your territory. But in the end you have to keep the inventory window open and regularly check the amount of stored wares.

Personally i think a good economy uses most wares immediately for producing other wares or buildings, without storing too much of a ware in the warehouses. But this goal is difficult to reach… some other players tend to store much wares in the warehouses to have some kind of a backup.

Except the issues derived from a map, this is all my personal opinion. Every player has his own strategy to play widelands.

((Forgive me for not understanding English.. I used a lame AI to draft the message and translate it, and I have a feeling it's not free of spelling errors...))

All is fine from my side

Thanks for the answers. Note that I'm with the barbarians for now because they were said to be easier at first. If it's a large map with plenty of resources and relatively close mines, what's the logical time to reach army production? I haven't tried playing against real AI yet.. In the meantime, I'm just trying to understand how the game works, and playing against the very weak AI. In the games I managed to finish, I won in about 6 hours (by game time)... That seems too much to me.. If you "not spend much time on such thoughts", I assume you have another method.. I'd love to know it and what I missed.. I'm a beginner player.. Let me stock up on goods for now... The problem is that I have buildings stuck all over the territory and there's no LOG to complete it.. Is the growth of trees similar to the growth of wheat? Can you tell me about the road planning? I think it would be useful for me to learn this.. I also don't feel like I really understand how the map works in this game... I understood that it is triangles and that at the intersections between triangles you can place a flag.. but not much more than that.. It is still a mystery to me how to maximize the area. Thank you very much

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