I've started maybe a dozen or so separate games of Banished and I always end up with major issues by the time I get to around 40-80 people.
What tips can you offer or maybe you can tell me what I am doing wrong.
I have read many tips online and this is what I generally do:
I usually have about 3 or four separate "outposts" of gatherer, hunter and forester away from the main populated areas. I often cut down the trees in semicircles around these zones to regain logs and firewood.
I also usually have several fishing docks and 3-4 farms/orchards by this point.
I understand that building more houses makes room for more population, but I find that its a real struggle to allocate the population effectively at this point. I often get people dying either from starvation or from hypothermia. I find it challenging to keep them all stocked with both wood and food.
The couple of times I have at least gotten that far, then I build a quarry and a couple of mines and have a hard time building the population enough to actually work those buildings.
Is it at all effective to have low numbers of people (1-5) in those buildings? By this point I am usually dependent on those buildings as the land has been stripped of ore and stone. At least nearby my populated areas.
I have built trading posts, but practically never do I feel I have enough excess of anything to stock up for trade.
I've recently begun building barns at my outposts. I always have lots of stockpiles on the go.
What could I be doing better?
Best Answer
Odd as it may seem, try starting on hard mode. Building all of your buildings where you want instead of in relation to the initial deployment can allow for a much more efficient setup. All the free stuff in easy/regular mode is nice, but poor initial placement of your free storage/houses can really hinder your game.
Keep several laborers free at all times, and don't build too much. You need laborers to haul goods around, and having a half dozen means your workers have more time to do their actual job instead of hauling. If I've got an ambitious building project I'll designate everything but then immediately pause all but one job at a time. As each individual building completes I'll evaluate whether I want to unpause the next one immediately or wait for resources to stock up, hauling jobs to complete, etc.