Okay, a mini tutorial, kind of.
The very first thing that you need to have in any adventure - aside from housing - is food... keep them fed, and they'll roll into your city. You could have plenty of Fleece, Olive Oil, Wine, and what-not else, but if the food fades, you will be screwed, your city will die. The proper (or least required) ratio for food is 1/3 - enough food to match the population, plus 1/3 more. If you have two times the amount of food for your population, that's fine - you can always give some to an Ally or even an enemy.
The 'fastest' foods, ones that will begin producing within a couple of months of setting them up, are Boar, Deer, Fish and Urchins - there are no specific time frames on those, and once they're started, they'll keep going; Urchin and Fish are the fastest, because they don't need to reproduce, whereas Boar and Deer do.
The 'slowest' is anything that you need to grow - Carrots, Onions, Wheat, Oranges. Yes, you can put in a Carrot farm as soon as you start the episode, and as soon as they have full employment they will start working - but farms, and any other growable that needs a meadow, only harvest once a year, usually April (Oranges in November). The farms take a full year or slightly under to get up to full speed; in your first year, even if you place a Carrot farm as soon as you start an episode, won't produce much... it will take a full year before they produce their full load.
Cheese (Goats) and Cattle (Ranches) are probably in the middle... they won't produce as fast as Fish, but once they're rolling, they will be steady, as long as you check on them and replace Goats and Cattle as necessary, depending on what the priests at the Sanctuaries do. ("I strike my knife into this ripe bunch of Olives!")
It depends on what type of adventure that you're doing - if you're doing a hard or challenging adventure ('Hero' or 'Olympian'), then the player just has to take their chances with food, and you don't do anything special. But if you're doing an easy adventure, one that has one of the 'slower' foods (anything grown), then you might want to give the player an edge. Set up an event, a 'Gift' event - in the first year, +4, +0-+0, (or 5), set up an event where your city receives a gift of 20 (max 24) food. It needs to be one of the 4 food types in the episode, of course, and it should come from an Ally. Just remember that there needs to be a minimum of 18 of whatever type of food in a Granery in order to start feeding your people.
For example: your very first year, you've just started your city, at around month 4 or 5 you get a gift of 20 Wheat from an Ally. If your adventure doesn't have any Allies to start, then the 'gift' should come from you, ie, City 0.
Is this cheating? No, it is not - it is giving the proper edge to the player in an easier adventure. If it's supposed to be an easy adventure, then you don't want them failing because they can't keep their people fed, but if it's a hard one, then they can just suffer.
Do you do the same with Fleece or Olive Oil? No, usually not - it depends on how hard the episode / adventure is. If it's challenging ('Olympian' mode), then you *might* want to give them a Gift of 8 Fleece... usually via a Quest or something of the sort, but otherwise they need to live or die on their own.
David "Nightwolf" Masters
dsmasters61@gmail.com
my Facebook page
"When facism comes to America, it will be waving the flag and carrying a cross." -- Sinclair Lewis
The very first thing that you need to have in any adventure - aside from housing - is food... keep them fed, and they'll roll into your city. You could have plenty of Fleece, Olive Oil, Wine, and what-not else, but if the food fades, you will be screwed, your city will die. The proper (or least required) ratio for food is 1/3 - enough food to match the population, plus 1/3 more. If you have two times the amount of food for your population, that's fine - you can always give some to an Ally or even an enemy.
The 'fastest' foods, ones that will begin producing within a couple of months of setting them up, are Boar, Deer, Fish and Urchins - there are no specific time frames on those, and once they're started, they'll keep going; Urchin and Fish are the fastest, because they don't need to reproduce, whereas Boar and Deer do.
The 'slowest' is anything that you need to grow - Carrots, Onions, Wheat, Oranges. Yes, you can put in a Carrot farm as soon as you start the episode, and as soon as they have full employment they will start working - but farms, and any other growable that needs a meadow, only harvest once a year, usually April (Oranges in November). The farms take a full year or slightly under to get up to full speed; in your first year, even if you place a Carrot farm as soon as you start an episode, won't produce much... it will take a full year before they produce their full load.
Cheese (Goats) and Cattle (Ranches) are probably in the middle... they won't produce as fast as Fish, but once they're rolling, they will be steady, as long as you check on them and replace Goats and Cattle as necessary, depending on what the priests at the Sanctuaries do. ("I strike my knife into this ripe bunch of Olives!")
It depends on what type of adventure that you're doing - if you're doing a hard or challenging adventure ('Hero' or 'Olympian'), then the player just has to take their chances with food, and you don't do anything special. But if you're doing an easy adventure, one that has one of the 'slower' foods (anything grown), then you might want to give the player an edge. Set up an event, a 'Gift' event - in the first year, +4, +0-+0, (or 5), set up an event where your city receives a gift of 20 (max 24) food. It needs to be one of the 4 food types in the episode, of course, and it should come from an Ally. Just remember that there needs to be a minimum of 18 of whatever type of food in a Granery in order to start feeding your people.
For example: your very first year, you've just started your city, at around month 4 or 5 you get a gift of 20 Wheat from an Ally. If your adventure doesn't have any Allies to start, then the 'gift' should come from you, ie, City 0.
Is this cheating? No, it is not - it is giving the proper edge to the player in an easier adventure. If it's supposed to be an easy adventure, then you don't want them failing because they can't keep their people fed, but if it's a hard one, then they can just suffer.
Do you do the same with Fleece or Olive Oil? No, usually not - it depends on how hard the episode / adventure is. If it's challenging ('Olympian' mode), then you *might* want to give them a Gift of 8 Fleece... usually via a Quest or something of the sort, but otherwise they need to live or die on their own.
David "Nightwolf" Masters
dsmasters61@gmail.com
my Facebook page
"When facism comes to America, it will be waving the flag and carrying a cross." -- Sinclair Lewis