Banished??

Anyone else playing this?

This game's broken. It's so hard it's not even fun. I can't ever keep my people from starving, even on medium difficulty. I have a fishing place, gathering place in the forest, AND and hunting tower, yet that's still not enough to subsist 25 people. Any food that is gathered immediately disappears.

How the hell am I supposed to increase my town size with this? This is just dumb. What a waste of money.

i think there is a certain element of "you are bad at the game" here...

game is not broken... i never had any issues keeping my people alive outside of major disasters/disease

I've tried many things, watched tutorials, and can't survive. Any tips to go along with your vote of confidence? :)

You need to monitor your input. If your fishing place isn't producing anything, then you should put the fishermen to work somewhere else and return them once the fish are back.

The game is supposed to be more about survival than city building.

Ugh, I remember this hurdle until others helped me too. The game doesn't document all the little things people share as well as it could.

Solution

Gatherer Huts are the most efficient at gathering food. Rely on these and only these until you cross this hurdle.

Build a gatherer's hut of these in an area that is surrounded by trees with your main housing area just outside the hut's gathering circle. If you can't, build a barn just on the other side of the gathering hut's circle, which will speed the time it takes to store the gathered food.

Make sure you have at least one gatherer at all times. At first, you might want to have two to four until you build up a store of food.

Do not chop trees down inside the gathering circle unless you are simultaneously planting more trees using a forester's lodge. This may contribute to a lower density of food in the area. I have heard both "yes" and "no" on this from other people, so I still use it as a rule in order to be safe.

Build at least a dirt road between the main housing area and your gatherer's hut to speed travel.

While gatherer's gather the food, you need basic workers to pick up and move the food around If you don't have any of these, the food will not be transported very efficiently. You should always have at least a few basic workers to fulfill duties like this. With 25 people, I recommend around a 5-person minimum.

If some kind of crisis hits, like lack of tools, a fire, a lack of firewood, whatever, your citizens will immediately start to horde their food and store it in their houses (see the house's inventory or storage tab to see it) to protect themselves. Ironically, this will speed starvation because everybody else is doing the same.

If you're still having a hard time, set it to easy mode or an easier climate and land type until you get over that hurdle. I believe there is also an in-game-downloadable-and-install-able mod that will increase the gatherer's production, if you'd rather try that route.

I think getting past the initial hurdle of the game is the most interesting part. Eventually you will have a stable community and the game gets a bit boring.

Hunter cabins are very useful early on, as are Fishing huts. firewood chopping huts and tool-making huts should also be a priorety early on if I recall. You will also sometimes just get unlucky with your starting location and have to start again.

I bought it but I haven't really played it all that much. I feel like it's missing something, something other resource gathering games have that make me want to play it more.

This is one of those game where I want to play it but I suck so bad at it.

I second the Gatherer Huts as an essential part of surviving early on. They continue to gather food in winter, where the farms do not. I always seem to get 20 years in and some how always run low on tools. So I've been making that a big part of the early building.

Also be aware of the number of houses you build. The more homes you have, the more the people will reproduce... meaning more mouths to feed.

I've never had any problems with the game. I survive with my gather huts until I can build farms. I usually start with 2 farms, my hunter lodges and gathering huts. That's usually enough infrastructure to start building other types of buildings, such as mines and leather workers.

Thanks for all the tips. I managed to get my town up to 30 the other night, then some froze to death then the rest all starved. They don't feel like following my instructions then they deserve it. Maybe next time...

Once you understand how food works, its almost too easy to survive. Overpopulation is my problem

The game Sometimes it gets boring after a while.

Brilliant game, just practice you will get to a point where you have a better strategy and eventually will be somewhat easy for ya :)