Support NeoGAF

[Rentahamster]

It's been about a month since Banished was released, so all you hardcore types should know the game mechanics pretty well by now. For those of you don't know, Banished is:

Banished OT: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=767594

Release Date: February 18th, 2014
Platforms: Windows (Linux, Mac, and SteamOS planned)
Publisher: Shining Rock Software
Developer: Luke Hodorowicz

What is Banished?

Banished is a city building strategy game that starts out with a small band of villagers, exiled into the procedurally generated wilds, with only a small cart of supplies to accompany them. You must keep the population alive by building them a community and living off the land while finding ways to feed and clothe your people. Survival is the goal, and while the summers can be pleasant the winters can be very harsh. Hunt and forage for food, grow crops, fish, trade for goods you can’t find. Collect materials to build houses, blacksmiths, sawmills, roads, and many other buildings. Expand the village as people are born, grow, work jobs (twenty different professions), have more children, get old, and die.

However, actions have consequences. Cutting down trees will lower the deer population. Newly planted trees take time to grow, but many herbs can only be found in old forests. The soil in planted fields will deteriorate if farmed for too many seasons in a row. Fish too hard in a good spot and kill off the fish population. Choices made to keep your people alive must be carefully balanced with the risk of death.

The game does not have any skill trees nor gating of any kind. Build any structure whenever you want, as long as you have collected the resources for construction. Money does not exist in Banished, it has no value out in the wilderness. Goods have value and can be traded for other necessities, things like seeds, tools, food, and livestock. There’s no one way to play the game “correctly”, and every map is different (although each map has a seed value allowing you to replay or trade map seeds with others). The only factors in whether your people live or die are the choices you make as their leader. Will they flourish while growing into a large community, or will they die in the cold of winter by freezing or starving to death?


Banished was completely created by one person, Luke Hodorowicz. He did the game design, the programming, the music, and the art and modeling, over a period of three years.

I thought it might be fun to see how well you guys have figured out the game by offering up a small challenge competition for GAF members.

Prizes (total value of $80 USD):

1st place: Any game or games on Steam that total up to a value of $50 USD or less.

2 runners up: Any game or games on Steam that total up to a value of $15 USD or less.
​

Objective: We will all play on the same map, with the same conditions, and see who can get the highest population.

Map seed - 743110794
Terrain Type - Mountains
Terrain Size - Small
Climate - Harsh
Disasters - Off
Starting Conditions - Hard
​

Here is a screenshot of the map with the minimap visible:

Deadline for submissions: April 1st, 12:00AM Pacific Standard Time.

Please name your town the same name as your NeoGAF username, or at least have your username be a part of the town name.

1. Please take a screenshot of your town that clearly shows the population statistics from either the town hall panel, or your town status panel, as well as the name of your town. (See example screenshot. Note that example screenshot is not taken from the same map as this challenge).

2. Please also take a screenshot of the "Map" info panel that can be accessed from the main menu so we can verify that your map was completed at the required conditions. It is the same panel that is shown in the first image in this post. Please include some of your town in the background of that screenshot.

You may also be asked to upload your save as well, so keep that in mind. I will not make that a requirement for now, however.

Although disasters are an interesting and challenging part of Banished gameplay, it makes more sense to have them off for a competition in order to reduce the effects of RNG as much as possible. Besides, even if they were on, and your town got fucked up, you'd just reload your save to a previous state anyway, so it doesn't really make a difference.

Protips:

Be aware that certain forms of food production are more effective when you have lots of workers but no space. Other forms of production are more effective when you have lots of space but no workers.

Your era of highest population will be at a point where your growth rate is the highest, and you have no more space to build houses. If you wait any longer than that, your young people will not have any children because they're stuck in their parents' houses, and eventually all the old people start dying off without any new kids being born. Be sure to take your screenshots before that happens.

 

[Deleted member 47027]

This looks like a ton of fun. Let's see what I can do.

 

[Mengy]

I'm in. Starting tomorrow morning. I think I'll call my town...Mengyville.

 

[Rentahamster]

If no one else tries, you two will win by default!

;D

 

[Prototype Viktor]

Oh finally came up with the rules. I'll fit it in between second son play

 

[Pestilence11]

This sounds fun but not sure it would run well on my laptop.

AMD A6-3420M at 2.1 ghz
6250g + 7670m 1 gig
6 gigs ram

 

[Rentahamster]

This sounds fun but not sure it would run well on my laptop.

AMD A6-3420M at 2.1 ghz
6250g + 7670m 1 gig
6 gigs ram

I dunno, the game isn't really that demanding. The only time the game slows down is when the CPU gets bogged by too many people running around (population 700+), which probably won't happen in this challenge. (but hey, it would be neat to be proven wrong)

 

[Phlebas]

How's the learning curve on this?

 

[Jenenser]

i am in too, invested 3 hours already ^^
(81/15/25) don't know if good or bad on a small map like this but at the moment i need more FOOOOOD

edit: made it to 213/45/53, than it ended fast, no more food/housing

next try tomorrow than.

 

[Cerity]

The struggle begins. Hit year 5, at about 50 pop, however I've a bunch of female bacholerettes living by themselves and no of age males in sight. The oldest male I have is 4 years old.

 

[Madchad]

The struggle begins. Hit year 5, at about 50 pop, however I've a bunch of female bacholerettes living by themselves and no of age males in sight. The oldest male I have is 4 years old.

Mmmm cougar town

 

[Steverulez]

Im in, just loading Steverulezopolis up now!

 

[Rubixcuba]

I'll be in !
Will start town in the morning

 

[Rentahamster]

The struggle begins. Hit year 5, at about 50 pop, however I've a bunch of female bacholerettes living by themselves and no of age males in sight. The oldest male I have is 4 years old.

Mmmm cougar town

4 years old.

More like pedo town

 

[Lactose_Intolerant]

I've already run out of places for my people to work....

 

[Mengy]

So Mengyhole got off to a rough start, but I recovered and now it's doing fairly well:

I'm up to 87 people so far. Had it rough at the start, this map has a lot of those little "hills" that get in the way of building stuff like fields and pastures, Now after 20 seasons I'm running surpluses on pretty much everything (no coal yet, might not bother). Still need sheep, and I have a few fields built but I'm not farming them yet, need more people to man the fields.

Room is going to be a real issue on this map. I'm curious to see how many citizens I can cram into it while still keeping everyone fed, clothed, and working.

 

[Cerity]

Producing enough firewood is going to be the biggest issue on this map. Sitting at 180 pop and I have trouble keeping everyone warm during winter, I'm in the process of moving everyone over to stone houses. A few ideas in the hatch, but I'm thinking I might be able to get to around 300-350 people, maybe a little more.

 

[Rentahamster]

I like how with disasters set to off, you can just pack in houses and stuff those villagers in there like canned sardines. No fires, no problem!

 

[Vicious]

Mine so far.

 

[Prototype Viktor]

The struggle begins. Hit year 5, at about 50 pop, however I've a bunch of female bacholerettes living by themselves and no of age males in sight. The oldest male I have is 4 years old.

Town full of lezza's what is your town name. Brighton?

 

[Skinpop]

Looks fun, gonna try this.

 

[Lactose_Intolerant]

may have to retry, didn't get the timely resupply boats when I needed them

 

[Skinpop]

had mass starvation right after this screenshot was taken.

 

[Rentahamster]

had mass starvation right after this screenshot was taken.

I like how you're cramming in little stockpiles in every nook and cranny you can find

Gotta maximize that space!

 

[Cerity]

stopping here for the night. Just making sure my food production is catching up with my expansion. There was a period where I was needing stone and I was just getting the same 2-3 food merchants, again and again. Now that I'm needing food the game is just sending merchants with livestock constantly instead of food .

Plenty of space to expand to yet.

 

[Mengy]

Man, some of you are raising the bar pretty high. My town has like half the population of some of yours. But then I still have a long way to go too. I don't just want to get a high pop town that crumbles under it's own weight, I want a high pop town that is thriving and sustainable.





Yeah I'm not going to win this am I, lol.

 

[Rentahamster]

I don't just want to get a high pop town that crumbles under it's own weight, I want a high pop town that is thriving and sustainable.

In this game, a stable population town that needs minimal input from the player is probably going to have a lower population than when it was growing at its peak. Just due to the nature of the housing mechanics.

I dunno if anyone else has done it, but I would imagine that a good strategy would be to get your population as high as possible, then wait for nomads to move in, accept them, and then take a screenshot before all those diseased, uneducated, vagrants eat all your food and kill off your town

 

[Skinpop]

Second try, think this'll be my last try though. Managed to keep the town on life support by buying food for the last 2-3 years but I could never get my firewood production up enough to balance the costs. Was hoping to hit 600, but it wasn't meant to be :/

Kinda funky to have almost 200 laborers just doing nothing really.

Getting past 600 should be doable and sustainable if you fill out all forests with farms/houses and make sure you have a steady supply of logs from trading.

In this game, a stable population town that needs minimal input from the player is probably going to have a lower population than when it was growing at its peak. Just due to the nature of the housing mechanics.

I dunno if anyone else has done it, but I would imagine that a good strategy would be to get your population as high as possible, then wait for nomads to move in, accept them, and then take a screenshot before all those diseased, uneducated, vagrants eat all your food and kill off your town

I was thinking about doing that but I didn't want to waste any space with by building the town hall. Instead I'd just fill up my forests with houses and let my people breed when I felt I was approaching the limit. Guess you could raze a farm and put the town hall up instead though, but it can still take a while for the nomads to show up.

Crazy thing about surplus is that the volume past a certain point(making sure storages are saturated) doesn't matter, it's deceptive because when you have 50k food you wont notice if you're having a small deficit. Then a few years later you notice it's 25k instead of 50 and it's like this unstoppable force where even if you add a lot of food sources they'll still starve to death since storages are empty and they run around looking for food instead of working it.

 

[Cerity]

Man, some of you are raising the bar pretty high. My town has like half the population of some of yours. But then I still have a long way to go too. I don't just want to get a high pop town that crumbles under it's own weight, I want a high pop town that is thriving and sustainable.





Yeah I'm not going to win this am I, lol.

You should be able to get to maybe around 400 with planning and smart usage of manpower and still remain sustainable. No chance with a healthy population though, herbalists just can't sustain the population and traders with herbs are fairly rare. You will need to rely on trading for stone but you only really need it for whenever you're expanding.

As far as the fuel situation goes, coal mining is the way to go tbh, the only reason I keep around my foresters lodges is for the food that also comes alongside them, each hub is still producing a good 3-4k a year. The only reason I run low on firewood and logs now is because I use them for trading. Firewood may dip every so often but coal is the go to, I haven't had any people freezing for a long while.

Crazy thing about surplus is that the volume past a certain point(making sure storages are saturated) doesn't matter, it's deceptive because when you have 50k food you wont notice if you're having a small deficit. Then a few years later you notice it's 25k instead of 50 and it's like this unstoppable force where even if you add a lot of food sources they'll still starve to death since storages are empty and they run around looking for food instead of working it.

This is one of the many reasons why you want a town hall , it's fairly costly and they're fairly big but keeping track of your yearly production/usage is very helpful when you get to that stage. Very much worth it, even in a small map like this.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

Okay, GAF, I done fuck up. Took up the challenge, have a thriving town going, suddenly a fire happened and through being amazingly incredibly lucky it didn't go further despite my buildings being neurotically crammed together. Didn't realise I'd left disasters on. I really don't want to abandon this attempt because it's totes going to win (I wish...), so does anybody know if there's a way to turn off disasters mid-game?

 

[Lactose_Intolerant]

Making good progress on my second attempt

Going to start building in my forested areas now that I get enough resources from trading

 

[Rentahamster]

Okay, GAF, I done fuck up. Took up the challenge, have a thriving town going, suddenly a fire happened and through being amazingly incredibly lucky it didn't go further despite my buildings being neurotically crammed together. Didn't realise I'd left disasters on. I really don't want to abandon this attempt because it's totes going to win (I wish...), so does anybody know if there's a way to turn off disasters mid-game?

Umm, don't think so...but you can try to see if that option is still togglable on your map panel on the main menu.

You can always just reload your save to an earlier state....if you made copies of your earlier saves, that is.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

Umm, don't think so...but you can try to see if that option is still togglable on your map panel on the main menu.

You can always just reload your save to an earlier state....if you made copies of your earlier saves, that is.

Guess it's going to have to be the later. Nobody minds if I save-whore to avoid 'nados and fires, right?

 

[Rentahamster]

Guess it's going to have to be the later. Nobody minds if I save-whore to avoid 'nados and fires, right?

No, of course not

That's why I suggested that disasters be off. It would be moot if they were on, because everyone would reload anyway.

 

[Lactose_Intolerant]

Coming to the end....taking a screenshot every time someone has a kid. Hoping for some nomads before I start to starve.....

 

[Cerity]

at 513 pop. the great lumber crisis is in full effect, farms aren't working optimally because of a lack of storehouses in their area and i don't have enough lumber to build more. A Tool shortage will also occur very soon too. Hoping a mob of nomads make their way to town soon.

I've been managing the 8k or so food deficit through trading excess coals and wool coats however it looks like that lucky streak of trading is going to end soon as well. The game is sending livestock as opposed to food/tools/resources again.

Nomads came in just on time.

575 total

 

[Rentahamster]

As we get closer to the end, here is a shot that I took of my town as it currently stands (keep in mind that I'm not eligible to win anything since I'm the organizer). This is an example of what's possible. I'd say that there is still space for more people, too.

643 citizens.

 

[Cerity]

hit 585 and starvation truly hit. Probably won't have time to try again but with better planning and layout it could get way higher. Just need to get rid of the habit of dropping my main town where the game starts me.

 

[Rentahamster]

hit 585 and starvation truly hit.

This game in a nutshell, lol

 

[Lactose_Intolerant]

As we get closer to the end, here is a shot that I took of my town as it currently stands (keep in mind that I'm not eligible to win anything since I'm the organizer). This is an example of what's possible. I'd say that there is still space for more people, too.

643 citizens.

way past that

 

[Rentahamster]

way past that

Nice

There's still room to grow in that screenshot of mine, too.

 

[Mengy]

As we get closer to the end, here is a shot that I took of my town as it currently stands (keep in mind that I'm not eligible to win anything since I'm the organizer). This is an example of what's possible. I'd say that there is still space for more people, too.

643 citizens.

Holy Shit, some of you are good at making huge pop towns. I'm truly impressed.

 

[Rentahamster]

Oh fuck....lol....

[/IMG]

 

[Rentahamster]

Here's an updated pic. 1061 citizens after an influx of filthy nomads:

 

[Lactose_Intolerant]

Here's an updated pic. 1061 citizens after an influx of filthy nomads:

bah, beat me but like 20 and still going

Pretty much sold everything for food and more houses to squirt out some kids

 

[Rentahamster]

About 12 hours left!

Does anyone need more time?

 

[Mengy]

About 12 hours left!

Does anyone need more time?

Bah, you guys are far and away better at min / maxing this game than I am, you are all in a completely league! One more night won't give me any chance at all.

 

[Lactose_Intolerant]

Bah, you guys are far and away better at min / maxing this game than I am, you are all in a completely league! One more night won't give me any chance at all.

You might as well post your city, not like there is much competition. $15 on steam is like 50 games

 

[Rentahamster]

All you people who posted work-in-progress screenshots: Is that your final answer?

 

[Casimir]

Heh, this is an amusing contest renta.