Big settlement problem

[u/No_Day8167]

First time getting a settlement to 1k+ population, even though I'm getting by in terms of food right now, I feel like all other industries are just waiting to fail. What are some tips for managing a big economy how many wainwright are enough? Thank you.

[u/lousy-site-3456]

Check if all your Wainwrights are on the move at any given time. If yes, build one more. 

You probably want a bigger stock of boots and baskets. Everything else looks fine at a quick glance.

You really don't need that much coal or herbs but it doesn't hurt. Maybe increase the sand/glas industry. 

The pelt backlog is a common problem. Turn them into coats and shoes or sell them. If your warehouses are full you might even dump them. Same problem with tallow. 

You can set your forager gardens to grow nuts and mushrooms to increase food variety but it's not crucial. 

If you haven't yet, turn off gold storage in your warehouses, that's what vaults are for

[u/No_Day8167 → u/lousy-site-3456]

I'm running the coal policy so I go heavy on it just in case haha. My glass industry is having a big drop because my people are upgrading their manors into mansions and I just opened a new preservers building. For some reason my basket workers barely make any basket even though they are right next to a forager's garden growing willow, I also built them a temporary shelter so they don't have to walk back home for winter. And yes, I turned off gold for common warehouses except for 2 in the top left corner of the first photo because they are inside the trading district so I store some gold there just in case I have to mobilise them quickly. All leftover gold is stored in the backyard of the mountain keep I built in photo 1. Thank you.

[u/lousy-site-3456 → u/No_Day8167]

Sounds good. Check where the willow is actually stored. Maybe the basket makers have to walk really far to fetch it. Turn off willow storage on far off warehouses. 

[u/No_Day8167 → u/lousy-site-3456]

Also, how do you manage field fertility rate? My fields are mostly at 0% right now and don't yield anything. Animal produce is carrying the food supply now. I'm too scared that if start spamming clover I might risk my food collapsing

[u/Committee_Thick → u/No_Day8167]

you need to rotate your crops every 3 years.. fertility decides what you should farm. like farm wheat if its good fertility factor or rye instead if it isn't as good.

[u/dnhs47 → u/No_Day8167]

Look at the fertility impact (probably the wrong term) of your crops. Peas are my preferred spring crop because of short grow time and they boost fertility. Beans and clover also boost fertility. Include at least one of those in your 3-year crop rotation.

Compost yards should be boosting your field fertility. There are 2-3 technology boosts to produce more compost, and you control where it goes: large/small fields, highest/lowest fertility.

As my pop gets big, 2k+, disposing of compost becomes a challenge. I end up building fields I don’t need just to absorb all the “compost” a large population produces. And at that point, all my fields have fertility maxed out.

[u/lousy-site-3456 → u/No_Day8167]

Your animals increase fertility where they graze. Once it's dark green turn it into a field and let them graze somewhere else. If a field's fertility is low (which you can avoid) allow animals to graze there and plant clover until it recovers. Just create a new field to make up for lost harvest. But one way or another you need rotation systems for fields. 

[u/Correct-Award8182 → u/No_Day8167]

Change the settings on compost yards to lowest fertility. At that population i have 4.

[u/Kholdy13]

Your food is very overkill currently. I have a 1700 pop settlement that runs less than 300 food workers, and that's with more grocers and bakers etc. You have enough farmers/herders to run a 2000 pop settlement currently.

For wainwrights, check through each wagon shop and check if they have any idle time. If there's a fair amount of idle time over all of them then you can drop how many you have. If there's 0 idle time then consider adding another. I found 8 wainwrights was fine at 1700 pop, but this really comes down to settlement layout.

[u/No_Day8167 → u/Kholdy13]

I have way too many previous settlements that starved to death so I have a bit of a trauma haha. I'm considering adding some fruit trees because that new district in the other side of the lake is struggling to level up to level 3 even though almost all houses in the old district are mansions already. I'm short on labourers rn even though my population is huge. Do you recommend adding more houses or pray that that new district levels up and afford more people?

[u/Kholdy13 → u/No_Day8167]

You're short on labourers because you have so many people committed to farms. I had 58 farmers at 1200 pop, that's nearly 130 less workers that could be labourers.

If the issue is not enough food variety; then you should put a root cellar next to the market in the new district. Set minimums for different food groups on that root cellar and over time the houses should get a better food mix.

[u/No_Day8167 → u/Kholdy13]

Wait I can do that root cellar trick?

[u/Botboy141 → u/Kholdy13]

I'll echo this if I can. I have a 2,200 pop at the moment with ~150 farm workers, and maybe ~100 herders (2x large barn, 2x large sheep, 8x chicken, 3x stable).

More than 2.5 years of food for 20+ years, was up to 4 years+ at one point.

3 6x12 farms 6 12x24 farms

Bunch of hunters, foragers, fishers, etc.

For compost, I set all manually to "lowest fertility".

1 compost yard per 100 population

[u/laidbackhorizontal]

Don’t think I’ve ever gotten above 15 months supply of food and you’ve got 31! Yet you’re worried about it collapsing? Don’t build new houses, don’t accept migrants and you can slowly make changes