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Hello. My name is Fluxuss, and I will be your guide through the game, Banished.
Banished is a beautiful single-player indie simulation-strategy game, in the same genre
as SimCity, Settlers and Towns. At first look, the graphics and buildings could remind you
somewhat of Age of Empires, but when you get into the depths of the game, you quickly figure
out, that that is in fact not the case. When you start out a new game after setting
your options and naming your town, you get to control a certain amount of families, both
containing adults and children. You will also start out with some food, and resources to
keep you alive for a short amount of time, until you start to become self-sufficient.
When you start a new game, you won't have any guidelines to follow or information on
how you should start out building the village. Each map is different, and before you start
building, it is a good idea to take a good look at where you start, and where you wish
to expand to, as it is important, if not fatal, to get a good start to each game. It is all
up to you what you want to focus on, maybe you want to get a lot of resources first,
or just getting a steady income of everything -- but do not forget, you have to focus on
surviving as the main thing. I will now go through the different resources
in the game, which will be necessary to maintain a village.
Wood: To obtain wood, you can either tell your laborers to cut down trees in specific
areas, or you can get a forester, who plants and cut down trees. You can toggle the plant
and cut assignments at each foresters hut, so if you only want a forester to plant trees,
then you can toggle off cutting down the trees. That way you will obtain a much more dense
forest, with more herbs, roots and mushrooms for the herbalist and gatherer to pick.
Stone: Stone is obtained the same way as trees, when it comes to the raw stone around the
map. Laborers will harvest specific areas assigned by you. Just keep in mind that stones
do not return to the surface. If you run out of stone on the map, or just feel like you
want a more dependable way of obtaining stone, you can then build a quarry. The negative
thing about doing so, is that you do not obtain stone as fast from a quarry, as from around
the map. Iron: Iron is also on the surface of the map.
These are obtainable through laborers, if you assign them to harvest a specific area,
just like wood and stone. Iron is also obtained through mines. Mines can only be built in
mountains, and can therefore be somewhat of an annoyance, if you really want to build
a mine as soon as possible, and you do not have mountains nearby. So keep that in mind,
so you know which way to expand, so you always can get near mountains.
Firewood: Firewood is most likely the best fuel you can get, at least in the beginning.
In order to create firewood, you will need a wood cutter. Wood cutters will take harvested
logs, and turn them into firewood. Firewood is used to keep houses warm. Just make sure
you do not slack when you start the game, and get a wood cutter before you run out.
Otherwise, your villagers will freeze to death. Coal: Coal can only be obtained through mines.
Whenever a mine is built, you can choose if you want the active miners to mine coal or
iron. If you have two mines, you can assign one to mine iron, and the other to mine coal.
It is all up to you. Also a good thing to know with coal -- you villagers can and will
use it as fuel to their homes, just like firewood. Tools: Before explaining on how to obtain
tools, let me explain the importance of these. If you have a stable income of resources,
and everything seems to work out just fine, and you run out of tools -- you will end with
massive problems. If your workers do not have tools, they will not be working as fast, and
you will be able to feel it right away. My tip is, ALWAYS keep tools in your stock. It
can be the reason that your village will die of starvation if you do not. Anyways, there
are two types of tools, iron and steel. The resources needed to create iron tools are
logs and iron. For the steel tools, you need coal, iron and logs. So if you seem to have
a good amount of firewood, and a decent amount of coal, try upgrading to steel, as they last
longer. For you to be even able to create tools, you will need a blacksmith. When you
click a blacksmith, you can choose to create iron or steels tools, just like you can choose
between iron and coal at the mines. Food: Food is one of the most important things
in the game to always keep a good stock of. If you have no food, your villagers will starve
to death. There are many ways to obtain food and it is very important to get a good and
stable production of it as fast as possible! First of all: Fishermen. You can build fishing
docks at the lakes and rivers and obtain fish. Second: Gatherers. Make sure to build your
gatherer's hut at a lush and dense forest, so he always has roots, mushrooms, berries
and onions to pick. Everything he gathers counts for food.
Third: Hunters. I am uncertain about this, but I believe hunters work best in the same
surroundings as gatherers. Hunters acquire not only meat, but also provide leather for
the tailor. The meat they provide is venison. Fourth: Herdsmen. Herdsmen work at pastures.
In order to obtain animals for the herdsman to take care of, you need a trading post,
and trade enough resources to obtain at least 2 of the same animal. After you have bought
the animals you want, you have to remember to assign them to a pasture. To do so, click
the pasture you want them in, then click the question mark where is says "Pick", and then
choose the animal. Also remember to assign 1 or 2 herdsman to the pasture as well. The
slider in the window depicts how many animals you want to keep at each pasture. Whenever
the number is higher than the one you have picked, the surplus of animals will be killed
and used for food. Chicken provides eggs while alive and chicken meat when killed. Sheep
provides wool when alive and wool and muttons when killed. Cows provide leather and beef
when killed. Fifth: Farmers. Farmers can work at crop fields
or orchards. You start out with one or two sorts of seed for the crop field, and one
type of nut/fruit for the orchard. These fields will work as in real life. They plant seeds
during spring, and start harvesting them in the summer or autumn. You can obtain a total
of 8 types of crops and 8 types of trees. The crops are: Bean, Cabbage, Corn, Peppers,
Potato, Pumpkin, Squash and Wheat. The trees are: Apple, Cherry, Chestnut, Peach, Pear,
Pecan, Plum and Walnut. 5 tree types and 1 crop are useable for the brewer to brew alcohol
with. These are: Apple, Cherry, Peach, Pear, Plum and the only crop is Wheat.
Herbs: The herbalist should be built in the same surroundings as the gatherer. He will
provide the village with herbs, which keeps the health of the village up. Villagers with
low health have a risk of dying of bad hearts, and would be a bad way to lose your villagers
from. Coats: There are 3 types of coats: Hide Coat,
Wool Coat and Warm Coat. As you most likely have figured out, the hide coat is created
with leather, the wool coat with wool, and the warm coat is a mix of the two, and will
provide the most warmth for the villagers. In order to create these coats, you will be
in the need of a tailor, and remember to assign which sort of coat you want created, just
like with the blacksmith. Alcohol: As mentioned earlier, there are different
sorts of ale you can create. The ale is produced by the brewer, and will increase the happiness
of the villagers. The amounts of different ales that can be produced are 7. The one yet
to be mentioned is berries, which is provided from the gatherer.
Leather: Leather is pretty much covered already. But as mentioned earlier, to obtain leather,
you need either hunters or pastures with cows. Wool: Wool is also covered previously. But
as mentioned, the only way to obtain wool is to get it from pastures filled with sheep.
As a side note, everything can be obtained through a trading post. The trading post is
a very important thing to build, if you want your village to obtain new sorts of seed,
and to obtain animals for the pastures. Just remember, it is not necessarily cheap to get
these things, so make sure to load up your trading post with goods, you know you can
spare. Now that we have been through the various
type of resources, I will briefly be going through the jobs in Banished, and quickly
describe their functions in the game. We will start out with:
Laborers: These guys do the "easy" work, where they harvest the specific areas you have told
them to harvest, like stone, iron and trees in the wild. They will carry stuff to building
sites and move resources from the ground to stockpiles, storage barns and marketplaces.
If a person dies within anyone of the other 19 jobs, a laborer will automatically take
their place. So for instance, if a farmer dies, and you have at least one laborer available,
he or she will automatically take over the job as a farmer.
Builders: It is pretty much a given. They build whenever all the resources have been
delivered to a building site, and will also carry resources from stockpile to building
sites. Farmers: Take care of orchards and crop fields.
Herdsmen: Take care of the animals at pastures. Herdsmen provide food, wool and leather; depending
on the animals. Gatherers: Collects berries, mushrooms, roots
and onions. Fishermen: Works at the fishing docks, and
as you have guessed, they provide food. Hunters: Works at the Hunting Cabin's, provides
food and leather. Wood Cutters: Cuts logs into firewood, in
order to heat houses. Foresters: Plants and/or cuts trees, based
on what you have assigned them to do. Herbalists: Provides herbs for the village.
Blacksmiths: Crafts iron or steel tools. Brewers: Produces alcohol from fruits, wheat
and berries. Tailors: Crafts hide, wool and warm coats
out of leather and wool. Vendors: Works at the marketplace, which is
another way of storage, when you do not think storage barns are enough. Marketplaces have
the difference, that they have a certain reach. So if a wood cutter from the other side of
the map needs logs, and the marketplace contains that, he will not take it from that marketplace,
as he is out of the reach. Traders: Traders are the caretakers of the
trading posts. They make sure the resources you want to trade with is being delivered
to the trading posts. Miners: Works at mines.
Stone Cutters: Works at quarries. Teachers: Works at schools and makes sure
your children get an education. Physicians: They work at the hospitals, and
take care of the sick people whenever there is an outbreak of some sort of sickness or
disease. They can prove to be vital to have, whenever nomads arrive to town, and spreads
a deadly virus. Clerics: These work at the chapels, and provide
the village with happiness whenever they are a part of it.
As you can hear, the game is very realistic, and you have to provide your villagers the
provisions to keep them alive, just like what you need for yourself in real life.
Just keep a really good eye out... because maintaining villages by only focusing on those
things are not good enough. Besides keeping them alive, you have to be
aware of where you want to expand, what you want to build, make sure you do not overpopulate
your village so all of a sudden you run out of resources, as an overflow people will deplete
your resources fairly quick. If this happens, you will need to re-organize your villagers
and their assignments quick, at least if you want a chance to make them survive.
You would think keeping them alive sounds simple enough. Until you try it. This is not
your typical strategy builder game you are used to. Managing the village, making it bigger
and surviving in the process, is a lot more difficult than it sounds.
One feature in the game, that can save you or create chaos in your village, is the nomads.
When you have built a town hall, which you can only build one of, you can get the opportunity
to let in nomads. These people can come in big groups, and can be a great help if you
want more people into your village. But be careful. If you do not watch out, the nomads
can carry diseases than can affect your entire village if you are not prepared. They can
also make your village overpopulated, and if you do not make sure you have enough food,
tools or other resources, they will quickly deplete, which may result in chaotic results.
So before you let in nomads, make sure you have the resources and space for them.
Besides all this, there are a few more things to keep your eyes out for ... as mentioned,
diseases, but also tornadoes and disasters. Diseases: Your villagers can catch diseases
from nomads you have decided to let into your town. If not treated quickly, it will spread,
and may kill your entire village. So make sure you have a few hospitals ready, if this
should happen. Tornadoes: Horrifying "beings". They will
destroy your city in seconds, and you cannot do anything to prevent it. Just cross your
fingers, and hope that it will end soon, and that it will not destroy your entire village,
so you can start rebuilding your town as soon as it has disappeared.
Fires: Starts at random, and will spread quickly if you do not take care of it as soon as you
get the warning. So always make sure that the villagers have an easy path to wells throughout
your village, as it may save buildings, and lives.
Infestations: These will from time to time hit your orchards or pastures. One way to
get rid of it is to cut down all of your trees on your orchard. On your pasture, you will
have to get rid of all of your animals on it. This is a very good reason to have two
or more pastures with the same animal. That way, you can always split up your backup pasture,
to the previously infested one, after the infestation is gone.
General accidents and deaths: Your villagers can and will die at random, all depending
on what job they are doing. As a stone cutter in a quarry, a villager can die from getting
crushed by a rock. Miners can die from cave ins. Hunters can be trembled by wild boars.
Builders can fall down from ladders. And so on and so forth.
There is at least one accident that is non-related to a job, which is the mother dying from child
birth.
As stated earlier, the game is really realistic, which also can be seen on the fact of aging.
Every single villager has an age, and they all keep aging, until they die of old age.
Children are born, and turn into laborers at an age of 10, and will then work their
entire lives, unless you build a school and assign a teacher.
The school offers you the ability to educate your people and thereby increase their productivity.
The schools can contain up to 20 pupils at once. They will enter school as they hit the
age of 10, and will be fully educated in a continuously studying of 7 years, as they
on their 17th birthday will be educated and ready to work. Just keep in mind; it is a
good thing to keep at least one free laborer, in case your teacher passes away. If you do
not have a replacement of your current teacher, all the current students will be uneducated,
and be turned into laborers immediately when the teacher dies. These previous pupils will
not become students if you manually assign a new teacher right after, and the school
will just begin to pick up the new children that turn 10.
The last thing to mention will be happiness. Keeping your villagers happy is also on the
schedule. In order to keep them happy and satisfied, you will need alcohol. As mentioned
earlier, alcohol is made from 8 different crops and fruits. In order to process these
resources, you will need to build a tavern and assign a brewer to it. Just remember,
that some of these fruits or crops will at some point be eaten instead of used for alcohol.
Another thing to help increasing happiness, are graveyards. This way your villagers will
be buried automatically at a graveyard with enough room. This way, you can prevent people
from becoming saddened from a wipeout from a raging tornado, or whatever might be the
case. You are probably wondering about something.
Does the game contain soldiers, combat or war? The answer is no. The game does not contain
any sort of combat or war. It is a city simulation game, where you have to keep people alive
with your town management and organization skills.
With all the information you now have been given, go and give your best try at maintaining
a village. It takes practice, and I am far from a master at it, even though I have the
knowledge about the game. If you have any comments on the video, any
information you want, or questions you want answered, go right ahead and ask, and I will
do my very best to answer.
With this, I want to thank you for watching this video that describes some of the parts
of the fascinating game of Banished. Remember to follow, subscribe and/or like,
and also to check out my stream! The link is in the description below.
See you guys the next time!