Messages

1366

Gameplay questions / Re: What causes villagers to refuse hiring now but maybe in the future?

« on: January 13, 2018, 11:02:20 PM »

One companion died in the first robber elimination (largely through friendly fire, grr), but my experience is that they usually refuse with the message that they won't join until <X> returns. I did later get a flat refusal from one adventurer, and it might be in the village the dead character came from.

I did eventually get 10 people to take on 5 robbers, so it worked out in the end (and I then proceeded to remove another known robber band of 4 when I had a posse at hand, plus a bonus Njerp). However, I think at least 4 former companions didn't want to join "then, but possibly in the future". Did I pay them too much so they didn't want more food?

1367

Gameplay questions / Re: About herbs/plants

« on: January 13, 2018, 10:53:55 PM »

Yes, the regrow from the plants that withered, so no additional seeds are needed.

Killing heaps of birds is bad for your karma in 3.50betaX...

1368

Gameplay questions / Re: About herbs/plants

« on: January 13, 2018, 08:13:17 PM »

Actually, different plants wither and disappear at different times of the year, and plants can be planted before they wither, to wither and die but regrow the next year (autumn planting). This means that you could do away with some early withering plants to sow something that withers later, but note that as withering plants will regrow the next year, you might not actually want to do that.
I originally thought only rye and barley could be planted during the autumn, but as far as I can see it works for all crops (my hemp and broad beans have sprouted, but it's too early for the May crops yet).
The advantage of autumn planting is that those plants will sprout even if the snow cover is thick when they're due, so you might miss out of a couple of months of the growth cycle for April sprouting crops if you're forced to wait until the snow disappears.
The big disadvantage is that you get an additional window for pests to eat your plants (damned badgers...) in the autumn/early winter.

1369

Gameplay questions / Re: About herbs/plants

« on: January 13, 2018, 12:57:21 PM »

Heather gathered after flowering is useless, and you shouldn't really be able to harvest it (kind of a bug, in my view).
You can get rid of junk by dropping it on the ground and then press 'D'(estroy). I don't know if harvested plants burn or if they contribute to fires.

I don't know if fire will remove withered plants, but given that one of the latest beta changes was that fire should destroy ground cover you might try to drop 3 branches on the tile and setting fire to them.

1370

Solved'n'fixed bug reports / [Fixed - persists in 3.50b2] Dog caught in village pen

« on: January 13, 2018, 12:52:49 PM »

I entered a village from the west and ended up right beside a dog pen. When I tried to leave the village I was told my dog couldn't follow me, so I shouted for it and finally located it in the dog pen. Given that followers end up to the east of the character when entering settlements the dog should have ended up on top of the fence, and then elected to go in rather than out.
This is the first time it's happened, even though I've visited this village and another village where I likewise end up right beside a pen fence when entering from the west multiple times.

It's just an annoyance, but it would probably help if settlement generation placed pen fences with a two tile margin to the western edge rather than the current single tile.

1371

Gameplay questions / Re: Harvest field near village

« on: January 13, 2018, 12:28:58 AM »

The only reason the villagers haven't reprimanded you is that you've been a SNEAKY thief
Also note that terrain types that can exist outside of village influence spheres aren't owned, so roads, ground, and groves are fair game, for instance (you can find  individual road tiles inside villages, and I wouldn't try to harvest from those, should there grow something on them).
I've been reprimanded for picking an unknown herb on a pasture, as I thought only fields were owned.

They also don't like you setting traps on their property...

1372

General Discussion / Re: Having a hard time finding animals.

« on: January 13, 2018, 12:20:14 AM »

I'd rather placed this game play question in the game play questions sub forum...

Passive hunting is the most efficient way to hunt, in my experience. It takes some work to set up, but once done you get time over for other things.
I only (occasionally) hunt big game actively (this does not count removing pests from my farm plots or my homestead) when my traps have been dry for an extended period of time, and "big" in my view is elk, reindeer and wild boar (bears are large, but they're also dangerous, so I avoid those. Wild boars can be dangerous as well).
When hunting large animals I typically look for a places with a good view, like hills, or open terrain like mires to see if I can see any in the distance. Otherwise I walk around zooming into each tile to look for animals or tracks (zoom in, look forward, turn 180 degrees, look, zoom out, turn 180 degrees, move one time, repeat). Any reasonably fresh tracks from large game can then be followed (assuming reasonable tracking skill), although I give up if the area is riddled with tracks crossing back and forth.
Also, I try to avoid spruce infested terrain as the visibility there is poor, but when I track animals passing through such terrain, well, I follow, but I won't look for new game there.

In short, about the same techniques as Privateer uses.

Animal abundance varies over time, but different animals have an affinity for different kinds of terrain as well.

1373

Gameplay questions / Wooa, too many things...

« on: January 12, 2018, 08:00:30 PM »

(3.50beta2)
I'm getting this despite not having a huge number of things, and very little scattering (and the message spammed a fair number of times [5-10, I think] while processing an elk hide, mixed with dog alarm warnings about the fox that got caught in a trap during the process).
I have about the same number of things as with previous characters, with the exception of bones (2-300 individual bones). The bones are stacked, except 3 small stashes (4+4+12 bones, I think) for dog enjoyment, which the dog de-stacks as it eats them.
My largest stack is an assortment or robber garments, which I try to process into bandages, but it takes time, followed by a weapon stack of robber/Njerp origin (my character has just returned from eliminating one quest robber band or 5, a "free" robber band of 4, and one Njerp [when an anti robber posse has been rounded up, it makes sense to eliminate all the known robber bands with it]. Earlier robber/Njerp clothing has been processed into a bandage stack).
My farming area is 5 tiles away, which should be far enough not to influence the homestead stack count.

Is there a tool that can tell me what those stacks are so I can hunt them down and process them in some suitable manner?

1374

Development News / Re: Healing (the bleeding wounds of) your pets and companions

« on: January 12, 2018, 05:55:31 PM »

A very welcome improvement!

1375

Gameplay questions / What causes villagers to refuse hiring now but maybe in the future?

« on: January 12, 2018, 10:19:31 AM »

It's rather frustrating to have everyone I ask refuse when I'm trying to round up a posse to take down a robber band. It doesn't help that I have no idea why they refuse (including the members of the village that wants the robbers gone), as I've done a fair number of quests for them, and have done nothing to anger them.
The closest village has refused every time I've tried to hire someone, while I'm fairly sure I've now been rejected by at least two people I've hired to take down previous robber bands (based on their equipment), and as far as I can tell we've parted on good terms.
3 villages of refusals so far...

1376

Solved'n'fixed bug reports / Re: Duplicating items by pushing them into water

« on: January 12, 2018, 12:07:38 AM »

I'd ensure replication is attempted at exactly the same location (tile borders or whatnot), as well as ensuring it's winter with a hole in the ice (either before you did the replication or as a result of it), so I guess you have to wait half a year to try it out.

When I discover something I suspect is a bug I typically make a save and a copy of it (given a suitable name, so I can find it later), in case Sami needs it for an investigation later. Hard disk space is cheap...

1377

General Discussion / Re: Adding marriage - poll about how you find its priority

« on: January 11, 2018, 07:48:47 PM »

I agree with your agreement that social networks are probably the most important part, and a spouse then becomes a logical icing of that cake. I'd probably start with friends and settlement relations to then go on to apply those structures to a character biological family (that can be opted out of when generating the character), and then add the spouse last, as I'd expect a spouse to bring the family relations of that side into the equation, and if that groundwork has already been done it ought to be reasonably smooth and can focus on the stuff related to an actual family rather than the external networks.

1378

Gameplay questions / Re: Harvest field near village

« on: January 11, 2018, 05:59:34 PM »

A field is owned and tended by somebody, so yes, taking from fields and pastures is thievery. However, if you wasn't discovered they won't know it was you (they ought to get suspicious if you're seen in the village shortly before a lot of their harvest goes missing, especially if it happens repeatedly, but I don't think they have the smarts for that).
Your conscience (should you have one) will know that you've stolen the crops even if the owners don't know it was you.

1379

General Discussion / Re: Adding marriage - poll about how you find its priority

« on: January 11, 2018, 05:52:11 PM »

I think phenixshenanigans may over estimate the commonality between the (pre) Viking Scandinavian culture and the Finnish culture. I would expect Scandianavians to have had more in common with the older Celtic culture, for instance, than with the Finnish one.

I have nothing against having a spouse being a resource drain of sorts (dogs are, currently), but I definitely do not like a development where it is ONLY a resource drain, without bringing something with it in the form of new interactions and perhaps shared labor.
An Iron Age trophy spouse is just plain boring.

I certainly agree that once you get past the two first years (or the first one, even) things get fairly easy (although you can still get killed through bad luck, carelessness, overconfidence, or a suicidal Nerp purge campaign).

Friends and family ties could add to the game, in particular at the later stages, but it might not be that easy to develop those to get a suitable balance between chores and interesting developments.

1380

Suggestions / Re: Suggestion: Allow trading in exchange for same item type

« on: January 11, 2018, 12:02:14 AM »

In a barter economy it doesn't make sense to accept inferior trade ins: that's something that would make sense only for  dedicated traders (and the foreign traders won't count as they're mobile and thus have a very limited inventory). When bartering your offer ought to be something your trading partner wants, so in fact the current system is a great simplification in that you don't actually have to offer something they are in need of (just think of running around to conduct 7 different trades with different people to get the items your primary trading partner wants).

When it comes to asking "How many X will you give me for this/these Y?" it would make logical sense that they'd give you a number, but it's a specific case, and the coding of that case probably won't carry over to more complicated trades, so while it would be nice to have, it might not be worth the implementation effort.