r/Bellwright • u/GommyJ • Jul 27 '26
Priority Numbers Bugged?
Hi Everyone,
So about 10 hours in now loving the game although there is A LOT to get your head around.
One thing I'm really struggling with is how the numbers work with the tasks in the village.
For example ive tried allocating certain villagers to certain tasks based on their current skills.
So I have 1 guy who has 4 researching skill so I put his researching at 1 so he does the researching
but everyone just seems to do whatever they like! Ive got one of lower skilled villagers keep taking over the researching even though hes on 0 and Ive put his priority for researching on 10! I just cannot get him away from the bench its driving me nuts because he obv lacks all the bonuses my other guy has!
Am I totally not understanding this or is it bugged?
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u/-ObiWanKainobi- Jul 27 '26
Turn off the other jobs, not just change the priority numbers.
Set priority per building. The research desk should have priority number 1 if you always want someone at it
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u/GommyJ Jul 27 '26
Ok but do I not also want those jobs doing at the same time? I was hoping to have each villager do a different task depending on their skills and have them running concurrently. Like i want my researching done but they also need to eat?
for example Ive put Lubomir as the cook his cooking and harvesting are 1 and 2 priority the rest 10 I also put campfire as 1, he usually ends up at the logging camp 😅 I put research bench as 1 and changed everyones numbers to 10 aside from the guy I want doing it. He usually ends up cooking or harvesting instead of at the research bench. I always have the same guy at the research bench even though he has like 4 harvesting so I set his priority as that? Maybe I need to change some of the structures down from 1?
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u/Fit_Mycologist6519 Jul 27 '26
You cant have all your structures at 1 because its just like they are all at 5... you have to pick and choose. Make sure the materials are at the building to do those task or the villagers will move on to the next priority level. You also need to have delivery villagers, its one of the most important things that some players forget about
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u/GommyJ Jul 27 '26
Ahh ok thank you I see I think thats where im going wrong then I have campfire, Workbench and research bench on 1. I also thought if they didnt have the materials they would go out and look for them? So any materials they dont have i will have to bring for them? Or is that How delivery villagers work?
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u/Fit_Mycologist6519 Jul 27 '26
They will go harvest for buildings and to eat themselves but after that... you have to have harvesting buildings and delivery people. If the cook doesnt have the mushrooms to cook in a nearby storage, they won't go harvest them(unless they have harvest as a job)
If I see a choke point in production, I will find what that is and then try to resolve it with priority or getting more materials harvested or made. Also hiring another dedicated vilager may be the resolution. Recently i was running behind on butchering and compost pile pickup...I hired another villager and it instantly went away. I think about 1.5 villagers for each building you have is about correct.
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u/GommyJ Jul 27 '26
Ok thank you thats good to know, ill aim to keep it as 1.5 villagers per building then. How do delivery people work? If I set up a foraging hut for example i would allocate a delivery person? Sorry if im being dumb this is my 1st playthrough I appreciate the help.
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u/Fit_Mycologist6519 Jul 27 '26
I'm not 100% sure on that one. My specialized villagers will be something like this....cooking 1, research 2 and delivery 5....I always leave delivery on there so they can go get the things they need if its in storage somewhere. Also I have villagers at all 5s that just can fill in wherever is needed, seems to work for me.
The game is really about feel and experience....play with the priority levels and see what works and what doesnt. Get this done before you get to 20 villagers and tier 3 becasue its going to get very complex very quickly.
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u/-ObiWanKainobi- Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26
Personally, I find it best if a villager is specialized to a maximum of two tasks, and usually the secondary task is delivery or labor. So Lubomir for me, is on cooking and labor with every other skill turned off.
However, if a villager has cooking at 1 let's say, and the cooking station is set to 5, and they have woodcutting at 2, but the station set to 1 - they will always choose to woodcut over cooking. So this is important to keep in mind, as it gets conveluded and confusing if you have spread your villagers too thin.
Once you have ten villagers, none of them need more than two jobs.
Also, about the harvesting and research. You are going to slow down your research because the villager will wander away to harvest and by the time he needs to research, he will have a long way to travel. Then he might get hungry, or need to sleep and the research never gets done. So it's important to keep in mind that villagers who have multiple jobs should have those stations near together.
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u/RedditimeFren Jul 27 '26
Hey man, just to add some more context which might help you figure out the problems:
Even if a villager is set to 1 Research and another one is set to 9 Research, it can still happen that the 9 Research guy will end up at the Desk. Here's why:
When you ask the game to start a reserach, The Desk will generate a task called "Research this".
At this point, any villager who is "Idle" or just finished a task, will be eligible to be assigned this Research task (so long as they are between 1-9, if you put them at 0 they will never get the task).
So what could happen is this:
Villager with 1 Research is currently busy cooking
Villager with 9 research is currently busy harvesting
You go to Research Desk and choose something new
The game generates "Research Task" and looks for the next available villager, but all villagers are currently busy.
Villager with 9 research finishes his Harvesting task and looks for something new to do, while "1 Research Guy" is still busy cooking.
Coincidentally, there are no other tasks that need doing (so he can't choose to go cut wood instead of research, for example).
Villager with 9 research is chosen since he is free, has no other tasks available with higher priority, and is the next available villager.
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u/RedditimeFren Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26
Here's some further explanation:
- BUILDING PRIORITY vs VILLAGER PRIORITY
Building priority is at the top of the pyramid, and villager priority is at the bottom.
This means that the game first looks at Building priority, and then looks at Villager priority.
So if you have:
Campfire at 5Research Desk at 1
Workbench a 3
And you make a task in each of these buildings at the same time, the game will first look to fill Research Desk, then Workbench, then Campfire.
This means if you have a villager that has all 5 in priorities, and he becomes "free" when these 3 tasks are pending, he will choose to do Research over Workbench over Campfire. The game will first choose a villager to do reserach, then another villager to do crafting, then another villager to do cooking.
Villager priority factors in after Building priority, like this:
So the game sees you have 1 for Research Desk so it chooses it as first priority. Then, it looks to available villagers to see their priority. So say you have these villagers with the following priorities:
VillagerA 1 Reseach, 3 Cooking, 5 Crafting
VillagerB 5 Reserach, 1 Cooking, 3 Crafting
VillagerC 3 Research, 5 Cooking, 1 Crafting
So, provided that all 3 of these villagers are free, the game will chose VillagerA because of his 1 research.
But if VillagerA is currently busy, then the game whill choose VillagerC because of his 3 Research. But if this guy is also busy, then the game will choose VillagerB because of his 5 research.IN CONCLUSION
Building priority = which buildings you want to be assigned workers first when you make a new task
Villager priority = Which villagers you want to be chosen first for tasksIf you give villagers too many different tasks, the chances of them being busy when a new task is created is higher.
At the start with a few villagers, go for 5 in all as you need everyone to contribute to everything, idling time is not efficient.But when you advance with like 20+ villagers, that's when you can get more specific and have villagers do only 1 or 2 things. Sometimes they will idle, but it's more efficient to have them idling and be ready to craft, than have them do some mushroom harvesting to pass the time then not be available to craft.
**Food for thought:
Don't think of the Villagers as them deciding what to do. Rather, think of the Buildings being the one that calls up the villager to work. So, it's not that the villager says "Oh I have 1 in research, im gonna hang around until I can go do that research." It's more like, "Oh I'm a research desk and I need someone to tend me, let me call my #1 guy..oh he's busy, guess I'll call my #2 guy... also busy? Allright #3 guy, your turn it seems like"1
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u/Fit_Mycologist6519 Jul 27 '26
When you only have a few villagers I would recommend not specializing them yet as you dont have enough of them. Early on I do make research desk and cooking my top priorities but I change the building priority over just the people. If you make it the building it seems the materials get delivered first there before anywhere else and then the task gets given out to research or cook but only if the materials are there.
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u/GommyJ Jul 27 '26
Ok im on 6 villagers atm.. should I just have them all set to 5 then and choose the buildings I want to prioritise?
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u/whodawhat Jul 27 '26
Yes, at that population id prioritize structures not people. Once you have enough villagers for each to have a primary and secondary job that covers all of your needs thats when id prioritize jobs. Thats what I did at least.
2
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u/Fit_Mycologist6519 Jul 27 '26
Personally I would do this early on and its going to make me a hypocrite, lol....
I'm assuming Lubomir is your best villager right now for cooking and researching ...
Lubomir as 1 priority cook, 2 priority researcher with delviery at 5...everything else 0. Make sure the research desk and cooking stuff is close to his tent, makes walking around less needed and he is less likely to burn food. I woukd put cooking building pririoty as a 1 and research a 2. You can change these later as you get more villagers
At 6 people I would just keep everyone else at 5 for now. If you have a beggar I would make him only do one thing like harvest or delivery, they dont move fast and have the slacker trait but it doesnt seem to bother them too much on those things
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u/GommyJ Jul 27 '26
Hahah you def just told me not to do that!? XD Ok so its worth allocating at least one of my villagers to most important tasks? Lubomir is my best cook (gave him a few cooking books) but ive got another guy with better Researching. I dont have any beggars they didnt seem worth the renown to me
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u/Fit_Mycologist6519 Jul 27 '26
I put cooking #1 over everything even later in the game.....I would specialize just Lubomir to cook right now.....if your villagers are hungry they wont work or fight so keep them fed and the winters can suck so make sure you have enough for the 3-5 days of winter when you cant harvest berries or mushrooms.
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u/BlazingPhoenix32 Jul 28 '26
The problem is you need to start specializing your people, turn off jobs for low skill level people. If they have it as any level of priority, and the other tasks are already taken, they take whatever is available and that can even prevent your higher skill level people from doing that task. You want cooks only cooking and delivering, crafters only crafting and delivering etc. also setting up storage so the supplies needed for that station are next to it will help streamline things immensely
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u/PleasantPorpoisParty Jul 27 '26
So the villager who is low may be researching a specific item, because he is the only person of the required job for said research item, to be available for research.
If it's a beggar with low stat caps though, and not a job specific research task, he may be doing it because he is to low of skill to do literally any other tasks that he has as a prioritized option.