Banished

[NielsC007 499]

No, the houses don't get any taller than you see in those screenshots. 

[jmsepe 2,039]

Now that is so sad...

[pressure 2]

Damn.  I like to think of myself as being good at managing resources from gaming experience but I've never gotten to a point where I've got so many resources I don't know what to do with all of it.  It's been a life and death struggle in every game.  I mean I only take the nastiest (by which I mean prettiest) maps but still.
I remember soon after SC4 came out I was thinking about how cool SC5 could be, like, for example, if bridges took more than just a tiny chunk of the billions of dollars you can run up on cheetah in 10 mins, or if there was actual repercussions to bulldozing a few houses in the way of a new highway project.  Granted, no highways or traffic in Banished.  But bridges matter when you're fighting for every pound of food, or stone, or timber, but not all, and every home that you might want to bulldoze houses valuable members of the community.

I also like how if you just sit and wait and try to build resources your whole town just multiplies, fills the available houses, gets old and dies.

[USA_Pride 49]

After about a month and a half of playing Banished hard-core, I'm at the point where it's not fun anymore.  Don't let this sound like a negative thing, I played the hell out of this game and got my money's worth.  I was playing an average of 2 hours per weeknight and 6-8 hours per day on the weekend for over a month.

 

The issue I ran into is that the wheels fall off once you hit about 500 people.  People start making this absurdly long commutes that cause them to freeze and starve before they can get back to their home that's warm and stocked with food.

 

When playing this game, I would not do a large map.  Medium is the biggest I can go, and even then as you fill the map up meltdown will occur.

 

 

This game was amazingly fun, well worth the $20 I paid, and I recommend it to folks looking for a great diversion.  I will most likely play the game in the future after a cooling off period.

[rkellywlu 1]

If you check the forums at Shining Rock (http://shiningrocksoftware.com/forum/) or World of Banished (http://worldofbanished.com/index.php) there are people who have built the Banished version of a metropolis and gone up to at least 2000 people over 100-200 years. Many of them make extensive use of trade to bring in food and raw materials, then they process the raw materials and sell the products to get more raw materials and food, etc. I don't play that way myself, but if you want massive towns you could check them out.

[USA_Pride 49]

Breaking news!  Banished 1.0.2 has been released.  There are many fixes in it, most notably people are now much less likely to starve to death from having a far-away job.

 

Here's the changelog:

• * Citizens are now more effective at fighting fires and putting them out.
• * When fires break out, citizens fighting the fire now run at high speed.
• * Citizens working in an area where a fire breaks out will now be interrupted to help fight the fire.
• * Fixed a bug that caused non-laborers to not fight fires.
• * Citizens fighting fires will only be interrupted by sickness, freezing, or starving.
• * Citizens will now only search for water in an area around the fire. Far inland areas need wells for fires to be fought.
• * Increased the number of citizens that can fight a single fire to 50.
• * Increased the area of effect for citizens fighting a fire.
• * If enough water is brought to a building on fire, the chance of the fire spreading is lowered.
• * Fixed a bug that caused buildings on fire not to be high priority.
• * Fixed a major slowdown in large towns when fires break out.
• * If citizens are already walking to get food at a distance location and become starved, they’ll now interrupt the walk and get food at the closest market or storage barn.
• * If citizens are working far from home and become hungry, they’ll eat food from their home as if they brought food with them. This will not interrupt the current task. If no food is available at home they will interrupt the walk and get food at the closest market or storage barn.
• * Because citizens can eat from home when far away, they can better deal with freezing, and visit a warm place when needed.
• * Fixed a bug that caused citizens not to warm up when eating at home in some cases.
• * Citizens now won’t be assigned far away tasks without a specific profession (pickups, gathering, clearing, etc) unless the tasks have been around for a long time, or haven’t been assigned to someone local. This keeps citizens far away from walking across the map in most cases.
• * Citizens now limit the distance they’ll walk in the winter when it is very cold.
• * Tombstones now decay in 4-6 years instead of 13-17.
• * Existing tombstones have had their decay time reduced by half.
• * The trading post volume was been increased to 60000. This allows larger auto purchases to occur without overflowing storage. Existing trading posts need to be removed and replaced for this change to take effect.
• * Mouse buttons now obey system setting for flipped left/right buttons.
• * Input options now allow binding of mouse actions.
• * Input settings can now be bound to any of eight mouse buttons.
• * Fixed a bug that cause meat and other resources to show up in the corner of the map.
• * Fixed being able to pop a building back into existence after being damaged by using the cancel removal tool or reclaim button.
• * Fixed grave count on cemeteries when it is marked for removal then reclaimed.
• * Fixed crash at trading post when trading, dismissing trader, and then selecting a custom order.
• * Fixed a bug that allowed auto purchase to over fill the trading post.
• * Fixed a bug that caused cycling through laborers to show children and students.
• * Foresters no longer cut down orchards.
• * Fixed water showing inside merchant boat.
• * Builders will no longer walk the long way around to the other side of a bridge or tunnel when constructing it if it’s more than twice the distance to the closer side.
• * Fixed building pause icon staying up when a building completes construction after pausing construction.
• * Fixed a bug that caused starving or freezing people to get stuck in a loop doing the same job over and over if no food or warmth was available to resolve the starving or freezing issue.
• * Fixed a bug that caused pending roads to not be cancelable if they were under a tree, rock, ore, etc.
• * Fixed a bug that caused roads to be unremovable.
• * Fixed a bug that caused areas to be unusable after roads were removed in certain cases.
• * Dirt roads can no longer be quick removed by zoning over them with stone roads and then removing them. They now revert back to dirt roads and work has to be performed to remove them.
• * Placing stone roads over pending dirt roads no longer cause unusable areas.
• * Disasters are now disabled in tutorials.
• * Fixed several spelling and grammatical errors.
• * Fixed crash in audio streamer due to missing thread synchronization.
• * Fixed a crash that occurred if a video card doesn’t support sampling from a depth texture.
• * Fixed a bug that caused very wide screen displays to calculate an incorrect FOV.
• * Windowed mode now allows resizing of the window.
• * Window position is now remembered and restored on game shutdown/startup.
• * Graphics initialization now has better error handling and exception recovery.
• * Added a game launcher that allows changing video settings if the game doesn’t display properly on startup.
• * The game launcher only shows if an error occurred, on first time startup, ctrl is held on startup, or /launcher is on the command line.
• * Added selection of refresh rate to graphics settings
• * Added selection of graphics adapter to graphics settings.
• * Save games now check for truncation and crc validation to make sure save games haven’t been corrupted.
• * The scene shown on the background of the main menu now has better error checking in case the file has become corrupt. If the file is corrupt it will show the original scene that the game shows on first time startup.
• * Files are now created in a temp directory and are moved after writes complete. This stops partial files from being created if a thread crashes while a background thread is performing file I/O.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

I'll have to pick up this update.  The version I have currently hangs my machine right off the top.  Something funny between wine and the game.

 

Edit: Later.  Picked up the update.

 

I was finally able to set some options for my graphics, which are elementary indeed, and got it to run.  Now I have to climb the learning curve.  Hope it is as good as all reports have said.

 

Edit: Very much later.

 

Ran the first tutorial which took about three hours.  Just fascinating.  It seems like the Sims but with much more laudable goals and objectives.  My machine is quite slow with this, mostly because of the crummy graphics card, I suspect.

 

Runs fine at 1080p but with my wonky vision, I would like larger type.  I really don't do very well with four-point type.  Microsoft must have shares in eye-glass makers.  Have yet to find a font option.  If I don't find one, you can bet I'll ask.

[USA_Pride 49]

After running with this update it has solved many of the show-stoppers for me.  I'm able to have large populations without people walking off to starve and die.  Workers now either "bring food" with them, or won't do far away jobs.  This makes it more difficult to get far away jobs done, but there are no more mass-extinction events for invalid reasons.

 

The improvements to the trading depots are very nice too, they hold A LOT more in storage now, making it much less of a manual process.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

This update has finally allowed me to run this game.  Fascinatingly, the way it runs is to fork off the main program almost immediately, then multitask like mad, apparently.  I wish I had a couple of more cores so it might run a little faster.

 

I am now suffering through the learning curve having run all the tutorials.  I even learned how to kill a cow for food to save my people from winter starvation.  Played about five hours today.  This could be a deadly addiction.

[CapTon 592]

I'm having a bit of a problem I have no idea how to update my game. Do I go to the Shining Rock Software site or is there something in-game I have to do?

[Linoa06 1,374]

After about a month and a half of playing Banished hard-core, I'm at the point where it's not fun anymore.  Don't let this sound like a negative thing, I played the hell out of this game and got my money's worth.  I was playing an average of 2 hours per weeknight and 6-8 hours per day on the weekend for over a month.

 

The issue I ran into is that the wheels fall off once you hit about 500 people.  People start making this absurdly long commutes that cause them to freeze and starve before they can get back to their home that's warm and stocked with food.

 

When playing this game, I would not do a large map.  Medium is the biggest I can go, and even then as you fill the map up meltdown will occur.

 

 

This game was amazingly fun, well worth the $20 I paid, and I recommend it to folks looking for a great diversion.  I will most likely play the game in the future after a cooling off period.

 

Yeah, that's the issue I have too... The game is sort of doomed from the beginning anyway the moment you don't have room for more mines.

[USA_Pride 49]

 

After about a month and a half of playing Banished hard-core, I'm at the point where it's not fun anymore.  Don't let this sound like a negative thing, I played the hell out of this game and got my money's worth.  I was playing an average of 2 hours per weeknight and 6-8 hours per day on the weekend for over a month.

 

The issue I ran into is that the wheels fall off once you hit about 500 people.  People start making this absurdly long commutes that cause them to freeze and starve before they can get back to their home that's warm and stocked with food.

 

When playing this game, I would not do a large map.  Medium is the biggest I can go, and even then as you fill the map up meltdown will occur.

 

 

This game was amazingly fun, well worth the $20 I paid, and I recommend it to folks looking for a great diversion.  I will most likely play the game in the future after a cooling off period.

 

Yeah, that's the issue I have too... The game is sort of doomed from the beginning anyway the moment you don't have room for more mines.

 

 

The trick there is to use trading posts, not mines.  I never use mines because they're useless once gone.

 

I started playing again after the most recent update and this is what I do.

 

Step 1, survive.

Step 2, build a surplus firewood

Step 3, use the firewood to trade for iron

Step 4, build lots of blacksmiths

Step 5, build a surplus of iron tools

Step 6, use the iron tool surplus to get more iron

Step 7, Keeping making more and more iron tools and trade for iron

 

At that point you start to have a huge surplus of iron tools and you can use it to trade for whatever you need.  You can even start to depend on trade for essentials like food.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

I'm having a bit of a problem I have no idea how to update my game. Do I go to the Shining Rock Software site or is there something in-game I have to do?

Depends on how you got it.  I went to GOG.games where I originally purchased it and the update was in my games list free.

 

This version is better as I can actually run it.  Now that I can open the options with sanity, I turned off most of the advanced graphics and things are better.  I also switched from a 64-bit to a 32-bit wine prefix.  All the software I run under wine is 32-bit.  Here is the link for how to do this for Linux users.

 

Even though I have the windows media player installed in this prefix, I still have no sound in this game, and it is set to 100%.  Any ideas?

[CapTon 592]

 

I'm having a bit of a problem I have no idea how to update my game. Do I go to the Shining Rock Software site or is there something in-game I have to do?

Depends on how you got it.  I went to GOG.games where I originally purchased it and the update was in my games list free.

 

This version is better as I can actually run it.  Now that I can open the options with sanity, I turned off most of the advanced graphics and things are better.  I also switched from a 64-bit to a 32-bit wine prefix.  All the software I run under wine is 32-bit.  Here is the link for how to do this for Linux users.

 

Even though I have the windows media player installed in this prefix, I still have no sound in this game, and it is set to 100%.  Any ideas?

 

I got it from the Shining Rock Software site through their "Buy" page. I used PayPal to pay, I believe.

 

For the sound issue: do you think it could be a problem with your computer instead of the game?

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Yes, the sound issue is definitely some glitch in wine.  Remember, I don't run windoze.  There is supposed to be a new copy of DX9 that fixes it, but it didn't work for me.  Since I am not a fan of game music, I can do without.

 

Currently I have a small town at around year 8.  This system runs very slowly on my box.

[USA_Pride 49]

I've got a desktop computer that's a little old with Intel's slowest quad core, the Q8200.  When playing a large map the game starts to slow down considerably due to CPU exhaustion.  From what I've seen, there is no multi-threading.  I've got one pegged CPU and the other three are pretty sleepy.

 

I'm still having fun and all, I'm just going to have to do some much needed upgrading on the system.  Perhaps I'll buy a beefier dual-core.

[Jim14409 448]

I've got a desktop computer that's a little old with Intel's slowest quad core, the Q8200.  When playing a large map the game starts to slow down considerably due to CPU exhaustion.  From what I've seen, there is no multi-threading.  I've got one pegged CPU and the other three are pretty sleepy.

 

I'm still having fun and all, I'm just going to have to do some much needed upgrading on the system.  Perhaps I'll buy a beefier dual-core.

 

I am truly sorry that you are having such a hard time playing the game but I must thank you for the hearty chuckle I received from your post. "CPU exhaustion" sounds serious. Now I know what is wrong with my system from time to time. In your case perhaps a good iron tonic would help until you get your "beefier" system.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Heck, I even have an iron mine and it doesn't help the speed of the game.  Something really puts the brakes on my whole system even when Banished is paused.  This has got to be a problem with the wine layer, but I haven't figured it out.

 

BTW, the game does try to multitask, but wine forces it into apartment threading which is not what it originally calls for.  This is probably what is causing my problem, but I'd need the source code of the game to figure that out.

 

The failure to multiprocess may be an operating system problem rather than the game itself.  What operating system are you using?  I don't think XP was very good at that.

 

These lines is where wine messes up the threading:

 

err:ole:CoGetClassObject no class object {5a508685-a254-4fba-9b82-9a24b00306af} could be created for context 0x1
err:ole:CoInitializeEx Attempt to change threading model of this apartment from multi-threaded to apartment threaded

 

Some co-routines are trying to run, but my system won't do that.
 

[Mr_Maison 2,426]

@ A NONNY Moose- I'm using XP on a Q6600 and it runs very smoothly. At the time of this post I did not get the update yet so I'm speaking for the original build.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Strongly suggest the update.  Runs much better.

[paeng 2,525]

Banished is a really good game (for me)... The learning curve is steep - mainly for the reason that when you think you finally understand - everybody dies ;-)

 

Actually easy to learn, but (very) hard to master...

 

I must admit, I'm a bit hooked - I play every day... But by now I have a pretty good handle on it. Unfortunately, when I get beyond a 1000 residents, my computer starts to strike (well, at least to lag heavily) - people with better hardware get 2 or 3000 population no sweat.

 

It's too bad that many people give up way too fast... up to a point where the developer put out patches that dealt with a few minor bugs, but on the whole made the game too easy... I went back to the original 1.0.0, now I'm happy again (luckily I never had any technical problems with  the game, works like a charm ever since) ;-)

 

 

You are really into Banished? Visit here:

http://banishedpeople.freeforums.org/index.php

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

I've been playing this now for about a month and still haven't been able to keep people alive very long.  The initial milestone of 300 population still eludes me.  The author of this game is diabolical indeed.  I think it has more variables than SC4.

[Ocram's Razr 964]

I started playing Banished about a week ago and I now love it. One problem is that I find it hard to increase population unless I have completely empty houses. My town jumped to about 30 population (from about 20) when I built a Boarding House, one stone house, and upgraded the wood houses to stone but there have been little-to-no population growth since then and people are now dying of old age. I recently built a graveyard for them. I am also running out of stone in the general vicinity and the traders don't bring stone very often (I was only able to buy 25 stone from traders, once).

--Ocram

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

On that front, Ocram, the clue is to build houses fairly early while the new arrivals are young enough to procreate.  I've currently got a village with the population up to 49, and I am giving it a rest.  I also build things then turn them off.  My stone quarry has never had anyone assigned to it, but it is there if I need it.  Build things when you have the manpower and resources.  Oh, and build the school early enough so that the knowledge of the founders is not lost.

[Linoa06 1,374]

I must admit the game is a tiny bit less frustrating with the new updates ^^

[Mr_Maison 2,426]

Looks like modding is coming soon!

http://www.shiningrocksoftware.com/

 

This is going to be very interesting.

[Monte Gaming 3]

For anyone struggling with how to play or looking for a social group of fun Banished players come join our facebook page. We even have a food gathering competition this weekend. https://www.facebook.com/groups/BanishedNationGuild/

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Besides the SRS site, there is a user site that is quite useful for discussing this game.  IDK if its been linked before.

 

Currently, this game crawls like a snail on Linux under wine on my system.

[Mr_Maison 2,426]

Surprized no one mentioned that the mod kit is available in this forum. I been away from the game for a while now and just discovered it for myself.  I feel late.

http://www.shiningrocksoftware.com/2014-08-26-mod-kit-beta/

 

 

[Anderson Xeyed 23]

This game is really, really great. A great game made by a "One person team" only, and that is the most amazing.