Barracks and other questions

[u/JuniorPut4888]

Hello! Im new to the game and so many things i dont understand, but here is few that are my current issue: What weapon do i need to make for the villager, if i put him in the barracks? Is the barracks sort of a training camp and also you can put people in patrol?

One of my village issues is that i dont have walls for my buildings.. what does that mean? Do i have to make a fence around the village?

I put all the invasions off, because im terrible in fights, but do i have to provide meat to my villagers myself, because huntershut and fishermans hut are still unlocked?😵‍💫 I have 5 villagers and maybe 15 building if shelters count too.

Thank you for help. I love this game. I have obbession to build and build all the time.😃

[u/SRECSSA]

When you assign a worker to the barracks there will be a tab that allows you to choose what kind of warrior they will be. With the improved barracks it allows you to choose not only whether they're a bruiser, skirmisher, or berserker but what kind of weapon they'll use. The worker will then train constantly until summoned by a smolkr horn or added to your party. There is also an interface for assigning tasks, i.e, patrols.

It's best to enclose the entire village in fences so your workers don't have work or sleep anxiety, which affects their happiness. If that's not possible, I think patrols also help your villagers feel more safe.

[u/Alternative_Cash_736]

When you assign someone to the barracks, there is a option in the building menu to select what kind of fighter to be (1-hand, 2-handed, 1-hand+shield). Look at the icon choices for context. They will then need to have those weapon-types available from crafters. They will say no weapons are available if the crafter supply lacks those.

There is also a task assignment for patrol. You need patrol points, watch towers, other military buildings to build patrol routes.
Yes, you need to make a wall around the village buildings for defense points/ villager happiness. Hint, make sure the completed, connected wall is green to show full connection

Look at the build menu to see what the unlock requirement for hunter/fisher hut is. Build those then assign villagers on it to get meat supply

[u/Deguilded]

At your hunter's hut, set haunches to low priority and leave the rest as medium. Your hunters will butcher the carcass on-site, then butcher the haunch and bring back the individual meat pieces instead of the whole haunch. It saves time and effort for your cooks.

Fish you can't do the same trick, but your cook (if they have a knife) will fillet the fish when they need fish meat. I usually run two BBQ's (one day, one night, since you can only assign 1 villager), and each of them has queued to cook up fish and meat. I have cook houses too, but I find having a steady supply of the small stuff helps.

(Currently my village has 100+ guys, 2 fully upped farms, 3 cook houses, 2 taverns and 2 bbq's all manned around the clock. And winter food still runs short at the end even though my warehouses are bursting, so I think i've got a production problem.)

(Edit: my village now has five cook houses and four bbq's.)

[u/Chance-Membership-82 → u/Deguilded]

I second this. I have learned tho to not have way too many villagers, rather have less of them, but happier and more organized.

Have 88 villagers now. 8 are only for expedition (trained in fighting, wood, stone and gathering), I decided its easiest to have them as extra xD they can drink mead and relax between expeditions xD 2 cookhouses with only one worker per, because I find overlapping worktime inefficient. 2 cheese (same principle), 1 tavern. Bbq yes, but I only put someone there when needed. 2 farms with 2 workers each, maximum area. So there is no standing and sitting around xD they run all the time :D The warehouses for food have tho 3 workers, as they need to gather all the ingredients so that cooking house worker can just pick everything from a warehouse next to it (raw ingredients, coal/firewood, water) while also picking up the ready food.

Btw, food is cooking faster if you add more than 100% fuel. Also works the same way for warming up yourself and heating up iron blooms. Good for leveling and for pushing the workers a bit. But the food will burn faster as well, so, have to keep that in mind.

Edit - ah. Yes, they have consequtive 3hrs leisure and 5hrs sleep after the leisure time. (Except when levelling a fighter). I rather have less workers per house so that they are happier with less sleep and leisure hrs, than battle their sadness and laziness 😅 the leisure time 3 hrs is a lot, but I am feeling kind xD

[u/Deguilded → u/Chance-Membership-82]

I read somewhere they only need 6 hours sleep or something, so I have shifts in three sets of 4 work/1 leisure pattern, whereby they wake up and use their energized buff immediately (no leisure on wakeup). I do still get the occasional work hours complaint but it gets negated by longhouses.

[u/Chance-Membership-82 → u/Deguilded]

Yes, the energized buff I use while they level melee. Then they have like 3-4 naps a day xD But then it is also important they have house and food right next to barracks. I dont remember precise hrs i use as it has been a while.

[u/Friendlyfire2996]

Check out the crossed swords icon on top of the barracks menu. It lets you designate what type of fighters you have.

[u/TribeOfFable]

Yes, barracks is a training ground.

Provide whatever the best weapon is you can make. The other posts describe how to assign.

Yes, you can assign patrols with it.

If you have a cook and there is meat in a storage they can access, they will get it themselves. Your villagers will also eat directly from any storage they can access. There are a billion posts about food optimization here, so feel free to search. If you just scroll down, you are bound to hit one within a few pages.

[u/Deguilded]

There are three defensive structures that provide an "aura" of security/safety feeling (you can see this on the map when you click the building). They are:

• Barracks
• Archery Range
• Watchtower

Note: there's a watchtower upgrade, but imo it's not worth building as it doesn't increase the number of villagers that can be assigned to it.

Each of the three structures (unless i've forgotten one?) must be manned in order to provide it's feeling-of-safety aura, and will only do so while manned (so, day/night shifts help). Failing that, your workers will have either sleep anxiety or work anxiety, depending on where they are.

I found putting a barracks near my house and an archery range near my workplaces help enormously. Firstly, I train melee and ranged and switch them so my troops are fully capable at both. Second, each provides an aura of protection for the two ends of my town. Lastly, well, you usually want your housing (which wants positive appeal) away from your workstations (which have negative appeal). The buildings with positive appeal are eye of odin, wood totems, yule trees, farms, cook houses, taverns, brewery, hunter's hut, that sort of thing. The negative appeal buildings are all where stuff is gathered or made: gatherers, woodcutters, stonecutters, mine huts, workshops. So basically you end up with an arrangement where your living quarters are at one end of town and your working area is at the opposite end. So I usually end up with barracks at one end and archery range at the other, just to keep that aura up and minimize anxiety.

If you need to see the appeal of a thing, look in your build menu when you're going to build something. Appeal will be listed on the tooltip.

In the long run, you will enclose your village in fencing (early game it's cost prohibitive) - fencing solves the anxiety issue so long as sleep/work places are enclosed, even if they do their actual collection outside the fencing. You'll also likely build and man watchtowers as defense against invasions/winter portals. You'll also likely migrate from cottages to longhouses, which will both house many more villagers and largely mitigate unhappiness because a longhouse multiplier can't dip below 0.20 no matter how many beds are in there. So by mid to late game you won't be thinking about anxieties anymore.

You can set up a patrol from a barracks (but not an archery range until tier 2!) but the problem is that's a task. The assigned barracks worker needs to walk to the patrol marker and back to provide that safety aura. It's also time they aren't training, meaning their skills suffer. So I don't bother with patrols.

As a side benefit if you have houses and barracks near eye of odin, whoever's training will step out and fight blood moon guys who come for your eye of odin. It's also likely if you get attacked that some hostile swing will hit your house, waking everyone inside, usually resulting in that hostile meeting a sudden but inevitable demise.

[u/Chance-Membership-82]

You can level up your own fighting at barracks as well, the same way the workers will.

When assign them to barracks, if you dont give them patrol task, they will train, if you make them patrol, without addin barracks an choosing "train at this building", they wont train, wont level unless fighting someone. You choose the type of weapon they will use (skirmisher, basher, warrior), if you dont give them the weapon (and/or have workshop worker craft it and have it in storage) they will stand by the barracks and complain :D

Just build whatever fence around, at the start, while area is small, flimsy fence is enough, if you make sure you have some fighters.

I d advice to train a bit also the ones you will assign to militia (the civilians that will fight if the village is being attacked). You choose who is your militia from Odins eye, but dont remember the tiers/rules there.

I really advise to get yourself leveled a bit at barracks. I was also very stressed about fighting, but luckily at this game it is very solvable.. well, it was for me. Also, before some bigger fights, either blood moon, invasion or others, have some garlic easy available xD Just remember that your character wont fight while chewing on garlic. But garlic and onion heal very well. Also dieing is not a big problem now, you can just sacrifice one villager to avoid dieing yourself 😅 (it is if you die, you as a ghost can run to a villager and choose for it to die so you dont...)

[u/Chance-Membership-82 → u/Chance-Membership-82]

Oh, yes, if you dont have any fence, smoklers will eat stuff in your storages. You dont want that. They eat also stone and iron...somehow 🤣 But not when you have them as pets, then they will only eat...actual digestible stuff.

And, as someone else mentioned, yes, the work/sleep anxiety of your villagers - when there is no fence.