Topic: Simplified economy flowcharts and tips (Barbarians tribe)

Hi All,

I was struggling with my economy so decided to make some flowcharts that were a bit simpler than those in the wiki to enable me to see at a glance what links to what - are they any use to you?

Entire supply chain for Barbarian tribe: https://skitch.com/guyfraser/rpaef/barbarians-economy-overview (read right to left) (direct link to image: https://img.skitch.com/20110209-1wugk18pm7np5wbfuxjmk2reg3.png )

• Orange - primary sources of wares (eg. iron mine)
• Yellow - replenishment of trees/animals
• Purple - Resources that are produced (eg. iron ore)
• Blue - Utility buildings (eg. bakery)
• Grey - goal/objective of the supply chain (eg. to train troops)

I decided not to show the building upgrades for mines, metalwork shop and tavern, so as to keep the diagram nice and simple.

The bold arrows indicate supply chains that I found to be most important - if you get those supply chains right, eg. placing associated buildings near to each other, your economy will work much better. I left the bold arrows unchanged on the following diagrams, just to highlight how many places those bits of supply chain affect. On the following diagrams the bold arrows aren't as important usually (for the specific goal/objective).

How to feed mines: https://skitch.com/guyfraser/rpaet/widelands-mine-input (read left to right)

Providing food for mines was one of my biggest problems. I found that following building placement worked best for wheat part of the supply chain:

4 x Wheat farm > 2 x Brewery > Bakery > Well > Tavern > Mines

I created several "lines" of the above buildings, with each line not connected to the other lines - that means that the wheat farms supply specific brewery and bakery, and the brewery/bakery supply specific tavern. Having a warehouse near the edge of a mountain also helps, as excess food will be stored there ready for when it's needed later.

As long as you have enough fishermen and hunters, it doesn't really matter where they are on the map - the fish/meat will steadily flow in to your tavern.

Where mined resources are used: https://skitch.com/guyfraser/rpajj/widelands-mine-output (read right to left)

I tend to place the battle arena close to taverns, as it needs lots of strong beer. In games against the AI I found that troops with higher evade skill are much better in battles.

I then place charcoal burner and wood hardener near to a source of renewable wood (forester + lumberjacks) - this means that I have good supply of coal and blackwood. Next to charcoal burners I place smelters (close to edge of mountain so iron ore or gold stone gets delivered to them quickly). Next to smelters I place the metalwork buildings to ensure good production of tools and axes. Finally I place the helmsmith and training camp. It looks something like this:

Several Forester & Lumberjack > Wood Hardener > 2 x Charcoal Burner > Smelter > Metalwork Shop > Helmsmith > Training Camp.

Very brief summary of mines supply and distribution chains: https://skitch.com/guyfraser/rpajp/widelands-mine-summary (read left to right)

How to create tools for new workers: https://skitch.com/guyfraser/rpajw/widelands-workers (read left to right)

How to ensure good building construction: https://skitch.com/guyfraser/rpaq3/widelands-construction (read left to right)

On the building construction one, the gold is only needed for battle arena and training camp, hence the dotted line (once they are built you don't need gold for building construction any more).

How to breed Ox to get faster transport of wares around the map: https://skitch.com/guyfraser/rpaky/widelands-transit (read left to right)

Note that I made dedicated farms and wells to supply my cattle breeder so that it would not consume wheat/water from my food supply chain elsewhere.

How to train your troops: https://skitch.com/guyfraser/rpakr/widelands-troops (read left to right)

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I very much like these charts - they're a well balanced mixture of information and simplicity! Thx

What they do not (can not????) show is the respective amount of units for optimized performance / output (to quote: 4 x Wheat farm > 2 x Brewery > Bakery > Well > Tavern > Mines - how many mines???) I know I'm being annoying in repeating this wish at every possible occation ...

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@k54e56 - I still don't know the optimum ratios of buildings, those are just figures that I've used so far which seem to work OK for most of the time. I could have shown the ratios I use on the diagrams, but as they are probably not quite right (eg. depending on building upgrade levels) I decided not to.

Speaking of building upgrade levels.....

Upgrading buildings tends to create chaos as you either end up with "worker missing" (building stops working) or the resource consumption changes a lot (building performance suddenly drops). It's as if the game "challenge" has been implemented in the wrong area.

In Settlers, most of the gameplay revolved around getting resources to the right place - eg. gold to castles to train troops, and configuring warehouses (or was it stockpiles?) to determine where resources would get stored. As your territory increased, you'd have to keep tweaking your resource distribution and storage to make sure resources were available where they were needed.

In Widelands, everything seems to be focussed around the mines - feeding them and then processing their output. As your mines run out of resource, you have to start upgrading them and their supply buildings (tavern & brewery).

I find the need to have a worker of certain experience level in an upgraded building to be most frustrating, because I have no control over which workers go in which buildings (and I don't particularly want that level of control). Maybe an upgraded building could be run by even a novice builder, but it's output would just be much slower? Worker experience could work like a multiplier to the building output rate - eg. a highly experienced master brewer could increase brewery output by 50% whereas a novice brewer would struggle to manage a full brewery and it's output could be decreased by 50% until he gains more experience?

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Hello! I like aubergine's graphs, too. Compared to the ones we have in the online help, they are quicker to read (less details and faster loading). In contrast, the do not have all the information (worker, tool for worker, enhancements) included in our current online help. So in my opinion, the two solutions have both their appliance, it depends on the question you have.

Perhaps we could split our online help in several graphs like aubergine did (transport, construction, mine input = food, workers = tools, military) and link one to another. This could perhaps make them more clearly arranged and faster loading?

I'd also like to include some of aubergine's graphs to the game help in the wiki, e.g. on the sites GameHelpquickstart, WidelandsFaqPlaying, as these are the sites for beginners who will be greatful to have not all information in one huge graph, but more an overview. I especially like the graphs ordered by the aim of the chain (transit, construction, mine input, workers, training) and the overview. May I use them, and include them as pngs in the wiki? Of course it would be nice to show these graphs for all three tribes, we will have to complete this.

Thanx to aubergine for presenting your work here!

PS: Did you note that the categories are quasi the same as the ones in the new stock menu?

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@k54e56 and aubergine: We are aware of the annoyance with the workers and we will fix this eventually. bear with us :). I find it interesting that you feel widelands is a lot of micro management. In s2 I always had to micromanage my gold production (no delivery of gold to building that are not on the border) and the production of tools. As a s2 veteran myself I enjoy the micromanagement that widelands needs more more - though it still leaves much to be desired, I agree.

That said, please keep this thread focused on the marvelous graphs and not derail it into game discussion. Open another thread for this if needed, please.

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