Banished - Medieval SimCity

[Turisas]

Marriage shouldn't be necessary for offspring, anyway.

There's always wincest...

 

[Toffeli]

I saw 1 year olds who were walking around the forest alone yesterday.

Walking.

 

[Toffeli]

I have to admit, the game feels a bit of a dissapointment. After solving the the unemployment problem, there's not much of threat. Last night I think I lost 5 (once, which was to my own stupidity) people to hunger at winter, and a couple died working at the mine + 1 died at disease. + The fucking tornado.

The game is too shallow, the random scenarios are not enough, when there are no campaing or specific scenarios to compensate for it. I'm sad, because I really felt like this would be the game I for waited years. I just can't seem to return to this after 2-3 nights.

 

[J_C]

I have to admit, the game feels a bit of a dissapointment. After solving the the unemployment problem, there's not much of threat. Last night I think I lost 5 (once, which was to my own stupidity) people to hunger at winter, and a couple died working at the mine + 1 died at disease. + The fucking tornado.

The game is too shallow, the random scenarios are not enough, when there are no campaing or specific scenarios to compensate for it. I'm sad, because I really felt like this would be I game I waited years. I just can't seem to return to this after 2-3 nights.

Well, for a 1 man studio, the game is a great achievement in itself, even though you might be right. I have to play some more to get an opinion on Banished.

Also, are you plaing on hard?

 

[Toffeli]

I started at medium.

I'm just saying that it became it became quit stale after a couple of hours of play, and really can't see what the other maps can offer me anything different.

I really really want wanted it to be great, but I feel like I've seen it allready.

 

[Angelo85]

So what's the deal with Banished?

I did not play the game myself but I heard in several places (well just two actually... here and from another friend ) that the Gameplay becomes a little stale/shallow after you figured out what buildings are essential in the beginning/mid/"end"game because once your town runs, it runs. If you were to start a new map, you could just build the same stuff in the same order once you figured out a way that works for you.
Things that shake up the Gameplay a little, mess with your perfect little world seem to be missing. I assume the natural disasters were supposed to fill this role, but apparently they fail at that? From what I gathered though there seem to be quite a handful of those disasters: fires, tornadoes, plagues, sickness
Is the problem that they are not severe enough to really mess your stuff up, or do they not occur often enough? Are there options for the frequency of disasters occurring?

Perhaps the random maps are a problem for diverse Gameplay as well, because from what I understand every map has always every resource in it. Some maps without or with only few animals/herbs/wood/stone/whatever could have perhaps helped in the respect that you would have to think a little outside of the box, make due with what's available and work your strategy around that?

Like I said I didn't play Banished myself so I'm just stabbing in the dark here.

 

[Abelian]

Maybe in the next expansion/DLC the people who banished the settlers will invade to stir things up

 

[Kaldurenik]

So after playing this for a few hours all in all. I have to say that the game have a strong basic ground to stand on. However thats where the problems start. Once you figure out what to do and when to do it you simply run out of things to do.

Only problem you will run into are two things: Over expanding, tornadoes.

Tornadoes if you are unlucky can destroy everything. And then its game over.
The other problem is that you expand so fast that you run out of resources (mainly food).

Other then that you will slowly (yes very slow) expand and hoard more and more of everything. Im at over 90 000 food, 1000+ wood/stone (etc) and well a lot of other things.

Then you have some very annoying bugs with the ai and a few problems with how you control the workers for example lets say you want to build a... Hunting lodge out in the forest outside of the main town. Then your builder will run there and "build" it for one point... Once. And then run back. ALL the way back to the town center even if you have other check points along the way.

Yes it was fun while it lasted but in my opinion the game would have been a lot better if they added these things:
Larger map - 10 to 50 times larger?
Other villages / kingdoms.
make trade networks with them
more resources and things to do with them.
More advanced happiness system
More buildings and building types, including social status.
Fend of wild animal attacks / bandits on the roads along the trade route to other towns.
No need to add war to the game. - Having more things to do and prepare for would have made the game great.

 

[Turjan]

Well, the teacher just died, my blacksmith is an 84 year old woman, and I don't have enough wood. The 11 year old miners don't work hard enough. Slackers. Eh yes, it's not looking overly good, but not too bad, either.

But yes, I think there really isn't enough content. Also, I have the suspicion there are more bugs than just the mouse scroll to the right not working. My food situation was A okay, but when I bought 3 chicken, the food was suddenly gone. And no, I didn't pay with food. Must be ravenous chicken. The game has potential, but is a bit shallow at the moment. Can't say I didn't like it, though.

 

[MoLAoS]

So, all the people complaining that Banished is stale, what does it lack compared to the old Impressions games? Those weren't exactly complex either. Is it the campaigns that saved them for you guys compared to Banished?

 

[DakaSha]

So, all the people complaining that Banished is stale, what does it lack compared to the old Impressions games? Those weren't exactly complex either.

Dumbfuck detected

 

[Athelas]

It sounds like this game needs a birth control resource.

 

[Haba]

Smallpox should work fine. Or tuberculosis.

 

[Zewp]

So, all the people complaining that Banished is stale, what does it lack compared to the old Impressions games? Those weren't exactly complex either. Is it the campaigns that saved them for you guys compared to Banished?

The Impressions games had scenarios with different goals and circumstances to spice them up, as well as a massive variety of buildings to build (including monuments) and external factors that you had to keep in mind and take care of, such as keeping your gods satisfied and keeping up good relations with your neighbors.

Compared to those games, Banished is just a simple town-survival game where the aim is to get your town running well enough that it doesn't die out. The replayability isn't very high. Not necessarily a bad game, but sorely lacking in depth.

 

[Calapine]

Compared to those games, Banished is just a simple town-survival game where the aim is to get your town running well enough that it doesn't die out. The replayability isn't very high. Not necessarily a bad game, but sorely lacking in depth.

That was exactly the issue I had with Tropico IV after a while. Being more a fan of the sandbox mode (as opposed to the missions) is was perfectly fun: balancing deficits and battling rebels, but once one understands the basic concepts it becomes a railroad and impossible to lose.

Does anyone know if the dev for this plans to expand the game a bit more? Be it patches, DLC or expansions?

 

[Turjan]

I actually have the feeling that the simulation doesn't work. The game gets stuck in downward spirals. Even if 80% of your population die, you have thousands of logs and enough woodcutters, the game doesn't manage to get out of the "no firewood" state. That looks buggy.

It's also weird that it lets your hunters or gatherers die as random choice during food scarcity. Those would always have enough food to survive.

 

[Zewp]

I'm getting the same idea. With a town of 50 residents, 2 fisheries, a gathering hut, a 15x15 squash farm and a hunting lodge (all fully staffed) my people are still dying of starvation.

 

[Zed]

I've had people for no reason wandering out into nowhere like a train of lemmings only to die to cold and hunger. Uuuuh.

 

[Kaldurenik]

I did not want to make it to easy for people but how you want to do it is like this:

Place a market. this is your town "center". In this area you place mainly homes and other general buildings.
You place the homes inside the edges of the circle... Outside you place things like hunters lodge, forester, herbalist, gatherer, farmers and so on.

Each "town "center"" need a building of each kind. The market need food and the variety of it. They need their own wood cutters, tools, clothes (not 100% required). Ofc you only need one of the town hall to give a example.

When you build a place where people can work they will move into the home that is closest, that is why you want to avoid building farms and so on within the "town" areas.
You also want to leave some space between each of the towns, you should make sure that the farms are close to the market so they dont go to the wrong "town" to leave their goods.. If you do that then you might end up messing with the food for each areas.

if you dont do like this what will happen is that at some point the food that you have stacked will run out from the main town. When that happens it will be a downwards spiral of death. It can also happen at smaller areas.

This also helps to make sure that the villagers dont have to run to far. So they can work longer, have less distance to transport the goods (more materials).

Hope it helps.

 

[MoLAoS]

So, all the people complaining that Banished is stale, what does it lack compared to the old Impressions games? Those weren't exactly complex either. Is it the campaigns that saved them for you guys compared to Banished?

The Impressions games had scenarios with different goals and circumstances to spice them up, as well as a massive variety of buildings to build (including monuments) and external factors that you had to keep in mind and take care of, such as keeping your gods satisfied and keeping up good relations with your neighbors.

Compared to those games, Banished is just a simple town-survival game where the aim is to get your town running well enough that it doesn't die out. The replayability isn't very high. Not necessarily a bad game, but sorely lacking in depth.

But the criticism of once you get running its trivially simple still applies. I guess you just have less reason to start a new town and thus spend more time in the easy mode part? Because you aren't trying to complete missions.

I wonder how good the mod tools are then.

 

[Ashery]

I'm getting the same idea. With a town of 50 residents, 2 fisheries, a gathering hut, a 15x15 squash farm and a hunting lodge (all fully staffed) my people are still dying of starvation.

That's part of your issue, actually. Gathering huts and hunting lodges especially benefit from multiple structures covering a wider area with low man power. All of my lodges stay at 1 and gathering huts are usually 2-3 depending on the amount of forest in their area.

At least, that's my thought process so far. I could easily be wrong, but my hunters typically bring in 4-800 meat each, which is a hell of a lot more than my farms and fisheries do on a per person basis. Gathers will usually be around 800/each when optimized.

Really, there are two meaningful ways to measure food production: The amount generated per tile and the amount generated per person. Gathering huts are at the top of the class on the latter section but the weakest in the former, and wharfs are the opposite, although largely because you can make the argument for ignoring water tiles in the calculation for their footprint.

 

[Zewp]

But the criticism of once you get running its trivially simple still applies. I guess you just have less reason to start a new town and thus spend more time in the easy mode part? Because you aren't trying to complete missions.

I wonder how good the mod tools are then.

But with the Impressions games it was easier to get a functional city, but once it was functional you could start focusing on the aesthetics of your city. You could start building monuments, start creating upper class suburbs, etc. Banished is lacking in that aspect, because there are no such features. Once your city is sustainable there's not a lot of reason to continue playing. Challenge is all that's left, and the challenge tapers off around that time, unless you get hit by a natural disaster.

Not a bad game at all, but one I'll only ever play again when I'm looking for something relaxing to do or I've got nothing else to play.

 

[MoLAoS]

But the criticism of once you get running its trivially simple still applies. I guess you just have less reason to start a new town and thus spend more time in the easy mode part? Because you aren't trying to complete missions.

I wonder how good the mod tools are then.

But with the Impressions games it was easier to get a functional city, but once it was functional you could start focusing on the aesthetics of your city. You could start building monuments, start creating upper class suburbs, etc. Banished is lacking in that aspect, because there are no such features. Once your city is sustainable there's not a lot of reason to continue playing. Challenge is all that's left, and the challenge tapers off around that time, unless you get hit by a natural disaster.

Not a bad game at all, but one I'll only ever play again when I'm looking for something relaxing to do or I've got nothing else to play.

Okay, so the issue is mostly one of more things. That makes sense. I always want more things. In fact, ideally I want ALL THE THINGS!

That's why I prefer Warlords Battlecry over Warcraft.

 

[Ashery]

The more I play, the more I'm liking the game, actually. It won't be addictive on the level of the Caesar3/Pharaoh campaigns, but it's a breath of fresh air when compared to the usual city development cycle in the city builders that are currently out. The late game challenge seems to be almost entirely dependent on the player's willingness to push expansion as quickly as possible. It might seem trivial to keep a massive surplus of food, but if you shifted thirty workers to a new quarry, the food situation would be a hell of a lot more delicate. It also relies on the player not gaming the traders to acquire the more difficult goods like stone.

The thing is, though, that the type of variety present in Caesar3/Pharaoh just isn't possible with how Banished plays. In Caesar3, for instance, you can have a bottleneck on oil because you have a maximum of only 25/year for import without the means to grow olives yourself. You could have a military map that doesn't allow for the production of iron but is able to export large amounts of furniture. There are no goods you can restrict in that manner in Banished.

Instead, one should focus on adding details/options to map generation, but that might require a fairly substantial development process. Droughts would be fairly easy to model (Reduced crop yield, pastures decreasing in capacity over time, increased chance of fires), but floods would be an entirely different ballgame. Less resource production from mines and quarries. Less resources available on the surface. But you can't remove game as that's the only native method of acquiring leather. Removing mines and quarries would actually be a *benefit* to the player as they have the lowest trade value per unit of time value (Fully manned quarry is ~320 stone/year, which is a trade production of 2240/year. Two 12x15 farms would outproduce that value (2520/year when fully exploited) and use a fifth of the labor, and farms aren't even one of the gamey ways to produce exports.

 

[subotaiy]

The AI seems pretty weak; my builders decided that is better to waste time and wander in the woods for the stone instead of taking it from stockpile and letting the laborers doing their job. I had to cancel removal each time i build something.