Walking Speeds

Each number represents the number of tiles (a tile is the size of one piece of wall etc) travelled in a month.

Military Units

Archers
Walking to barracks – 50
Taking up position – 66.6

Spearmen
Walking to barracks – 50
Taking up position – 50

Macemen
Walking to barracks– 50
Taking up position – 50

Crossbowmen
Walking to barracks – 33.3
Taking up position – 33.3

Pikemen
Walking to barracks – 33.3
Taking up position – 33.3

Swordsmen
Walking to barracks – 20
Taking up position – 20

Knight
Walking to barracks – 33.3
Taking up position – 75

Engineers
Walking to guild - 50
Taking up position – 50
Carrying oil – 33.3

Laddermen
Walking to guild – 50
Taking up position – 66.6

Tunneler
Walking to guild – 50
Taking up position– 66.6

Town Buildings

Apothecary – 33.3

Priest – 33.3

Well – 66.6

Farm Buildings

Dairy Farm – 50

Apple Farm – 50

Wheat Farm – 33.3

Hops Farm – 50

Hunters – 50 (speed when going to hut, speed when hunting to be confirmed)

Food Production

Mill
Empty handed – 66.6
Carrying wheat/flour – 50

Bakery – 33.3

Brewery – 25

Inn
Walking to Inn – 25
Walking to get ale – 50
Rolling back barrel – 66.6

Weapons Buildings

Fletcher – 25

Poleturner – 25

Blacksmith – 25

Tanner – 25

Armourer – 25

Industrial Buildings

Woodcutter – 33.3

Stone Quarry masons – 33.3

Oxen Team Quarry workers
Going to collect stone - 50
All other times– 25

Pitchmen – 50

Iron Miners – 33.3

(edited 27/11 to revise Oxen Team numbers)

[This message has been edited by Merepatra (edited 11-27-2001 @ 08:03 AM).]

A couple of other things I have worked out the numbers for -

Food Consumption

Each person in Stronghold eats .2 units of food per month.

Fear Factor

The number of good/bad things needed to change your Fear Factor rating depends on population. For up to 15 people 1 good thing is sufficient to change the Fear Factor rating by 1, with another 1 needed for each rating change in the factor up to the maximum of Pleasant 5. From 16 to 31 people you will require 2 good things for each rating change, from 32 to 47 you will require 3 and so on, in increments of 16 people. The same applies to bad things. If you have a mix of good and bad things then the difference between the amount of each is what is counted.

As an example with 45 people in your city you require 9 good things in your city to get a Fear Factor of Pleasant 3. Having 9 good things and 13 bad things would give you a Fear Factor of Cruel 1.

Each increase in your Pleasant Fear Factor raises your Popularity Rating by 1, each increase in your Cruel Fear Factor decreases your Popularity Rating by 1, to a maximum of 5 in each direction.

For each change in the Fear Factor rating you also get a change in the efficiency rating of your workers of 10%. Each rise in the Pleasant rating makes your workers 10% less efficient, eg with a Fear Factor of Pleasant 3 they work at 70% efficiency. Each rise in the Cruel rating makes your workers 10% more efficient.

Fear Factor also has an effect on troops which can be seen in the scribes book under Army as either a negative or positive Combat bonus.

Bad things have a negative effect. Each point change in Fear Factor Cruel will give them a negative 5% Combat bonus up to a maximum of 25% at Fear Factor Cruel 5.

Good things have a positive effect. Each point change in Fear Factor Pleasant will give them a positive of 5% Combat bonus up to a maximum of 25% at Fear Factor Pleasant 5.

Yes. Extraordinary work. Fantastic.

One question though. I've seen spearmen both walk and run. From your numbers thay seem to have only one speed. Do they walk and run equally fast?? They don't run to take position, they just sometimes run.

I've played very little with the military side of things so I haven't yet noticed spearmen running. Can you tell me when they do? Is having an enemy near or something like that a trigger? I did all my tests on a test map without any enemy soldiers nearby (too hard to count when you are being attacked ) so it is very likely many things are still missing. Thats the point of this thread

Spearmen usually walk, but if they are set to "aggresive stance" and they see an enemy, they will charge at it.

Well I had a quick look and have seem spearmen and macemen running. They start running toward the enemy in aggressive mode when the enemy comes within 20 tiles. It certainly looks to be faster than their normal speed, I'm sure it is, but I haven't yet worked out how to really measure it as 1. they don't run far enough and 2. they just won't co-operate and run in a straight line

Great job Merepatra!

Nice to see some figures being posted, and thanks so much for the effort.

Yeah, it would be nice to see the fighting units move in formations.

I've now done some work on food and beer production rates. Industrial and weapons productions are next, but I might take a couple of days off to just play first As always any suggestions or corrections would be appreciated.

Food Growing/Production

Apples

Once you place an apple orchard the trees start growing and bearing fruit even before a worker arrives there. It appears that fruit is ready to be picked in just less than 3 months, meaning there are 4, sometimes 5, harvests per year. The orchard worker picks the apples and delivers 3 units at a time to the granary.

When the orchard was very close to the granary, ie an orchard directly adjacent to the granary and the orchard next to that, then the orchard worker was able to pick 2 crops of 3 units each harvest. Any further away and only 1 crop per harvest was possible.

This means that it is possible to get 24, occasionally 30, apples from an orchard in a year with the optimum placement. Slightly further out and the yield will be reduced to 12, occasionally 15. If the orchard is so far from the granary that the worker cannot pick, deliver and return within the time it takes for the next crop to reach maturity then the trees turn brown and that crop is lost.

Orchard workers will also pick from adjacent orchards if there is no fruit available on theirs at that time.

Cheese

Cows do not start being born and growing in dairy farms until a worker arrives. Once 3 cows are fully grown then the milking/making cheese cycle starts. The first cheese is ready approx 5 months from when the worker first arrives. After that it takes 2 months for each milking/making cheese cycle, with 3 cheese being delivered to the granary each time. .

If the dairy is directly adjacent to the granary it is therefore possible to produce 18 cheese per year. As the milking cannot commence again until the worker delivers his cheese and returns any extra time taken walking to the granary and back will reduce the number of cycles possible in a year.

If a leather armourer takes a cow for leather no milking will be done until a 3rd cow is produced again.

Wheat

Once a worker arrives at a wheat farm he starts by hoeing the ground, then sows the seeds and waits for it to grow. Once the wheat is grown he harvests it in sections and delivers it 2 units at a time to the stockpile. A full crop is 12 loads, meaning 24 units of wheat.

It takes 18 months minimum for a full crop to be hoed, grown and harvested if the farm is directly adjacent to the stockpile. If the farm is further away it will take longer. Any part of the crop still unharvested 24 months after hoeing starts will die.

Mill

Mills have 3 workers who run back and forth collecting 1 unit of wheat from the stockpile and returning it as 1 sack of flour after processing. A mill close to the stockpile can produce 32 flour in a year. I still have to do some tests as to how far it could be before this figure is reduced.

Bakeries

Bakeries turn 1 sack of flour into 8 loaves of bread. It takes approximately 2 months for them to bake the bread. It will take approx 1 further month for a bakery right next to both the stockpile and the granary to deliver the bread to the granary, head to the stockpile and pick up more flour and return to the bakery. Therefore it is theoretically possible for a bakery to produce 32 bread in a year from 4 sacks of wheat, but usually less production would be expected.

Hops/Beer Production

Hops

Once a worker arrives at a hops farm he hoes the ground, sows the plants and then waits for them to grow. Once they are fully grown he picks them in sections and delivers them to the stockpile 1 unit at a time. A full crop is 4 units of hops.

It takes approx 13 months minimum for a full crop to be grown and harvested if the farm is adjacent to the stockpile. If the farm is further away it will take longer. Any hops not harvested within approx 15 months will start to die, meaning that it is very important that hops farms are not too far from the stockpile.

Beer

It takes approx 4 months for a brewery worker to turn 1 unit of hops into a barrel of beer. Add in the minimum time taken for the worker to deliver the beer, collect more hops and return to the brewery and it takes approx 4 ½ months per barrel of beer for a brewery directly adjacent to the stockpile. Production will of course decrease the further from the stockpile the brewery is.

This is really good work. It also stands up to what I have observed. Isn't it amazing the decrease in efficiency just by having the farms and productions buildings more than say 6 tiles from the stockpile? Good job, I had run the tests and was aware of the process, but hadn't gotten down to actually counting numbers yet as I've wanted to build instead of watching one farm/building for any period of time.

This and the walker speeds should really help in designing efficient (well, as efficient as it can be w/ a centralized delivery and distribution approach) settlements.

I'm working on a chart that will the show the flow of goods. There are 3 distinct building and store goods in Stronghold, the Stockpile, the Granary, and the Armory.

Each Stockpile has 4 segments which can hold only 1 type of good. There are 8 materials in the game which go thru the Stockpile, so a minimum of 2 are required.

Depending on the material to be stored, the Stockpile will hold only so much of a material. For example, 1 pile of wood is 48 but a pile of pitch is only 16. Anyone who wants to complete this list is free to do so.

The Granary will hold up to 250 food. It doesn't matter how many units or each food or how many food types, it will always hold the first 250 food delivered to it then the delivery men quit delivering until some is eaten or sold to make room. You can place a 2nd granary.

The Armory -- don't know any real specifics about this baby yet, but just from memory, it will also only hold 4 different types of weapons or armor so again, 2 and 3 stockpiles may be necessary to supply a well balanced force with a variety of units. I suspect there are limits on what it will hold, but again, I haven't been dealing with the fighting part of the game yet so I don't have any concrete evidence at this time if anyone else wants to pipe about this as well.

Food
Apples and Game meat always go directly to the Granary. These building should be placed as close to the Granary as will allow to maximize their production.

Cheese goes directly to the granary, so you should keep it as close as you can, but between the granary and the armory so the leather armorer doesn't have to walk so far to either the cows or the armory.

Wheat is raised on farms which is delivered to the Stockpile. There it is picked up by the Mill and turned into Flour which is also delivered to the Stockpile. Finally the Bakery gets hold of the Flour and turns it into Bread which is delivered to the Granary. Therefore, your Wheat farms and Mill can be placed away from the Granary (closer to the stockpile) with the Bakeries between the stockpile and the Granary.

Raw Materials

Wood -- If you put your wood cutters inside your walls, you force them to walk first to the trees, then back to the Keep. For better efficiency, wood cutters should be placed close to the trees you want them to cut down.

Pitch and Iron -- Pitch and Iron can only be produced on the specific resource tiles. Therefore the limit to their production is the distance from the building to the Stockpile that receives the goods. Use Merepatra's Walker Speeds to determine how many stone and pitch rigs you need ahead of time to conserve on labor and still ensure you have a nice steady flow.

Stone -- Again, distance is the limiting factor, but knowing the distance from the Oxen Hitch to the Stockpile will allow you to determine how many Oxen you need for any Stone Quarry. Again, make sure you have enough to maintain a steady influx of Stone without the quarry filling up completely (and stopping further production) while the Oxen are off delivering the Stone to the Stockpile. Remember, each Oxen will carry 8 Stone at a time.

Weapons and Armor
Because weapons use wood and iron from the stockpile and then deliver the finished products to the Armory, and optimal placement would be between the Stockpile and the Armory (opposite to the granary or in a triangle formation) to allow the Dairy Farms to be near the Leather Armorers as well.

I'll know more about the weapons production process once I really start the game. I've been having too much fun in Free Build.

What would be great is a graphical representation of a "model" stronghold, supporting a large population. Including how to place farms, workshops, granaries, stockpiles, etc, for maximum efficieny, while still maintaining a stronghold that is defendable.

Both homegrown and Merepatra have made clear how important it is for production and workshop facilities to be close to their drop-off points, but how can you achieve this if you are trying to support a large population?

BTW, great work guys

...and that's why we have Cherubs
Thanks, Mere.

One of the later military missions has the granary and the stock pile in a place remote from the actual castle, where there's meadows. This seems to be a viable alteernative.

Also note there's quite a lot of terrain that will actually support a farm, including light hilly one and beaches.

Wow. Nice work! I tried to figure out some of this on my own, and got some of the stuff right, but I was way off on other things...nice job again.

Brave Sir Robin

Quote:

Both homegrown and Merepatra have made clear how important it is for production and workshop facilities to be close to their drop-off points, but how can you achieve this if you are trying to support a large population?

The key is rather 'closest possible'. With a large population you will run out of room. The less room, the less efficiency. I have 1 tile between buildings people need to walk between, and adjacent where they don't need to walk between. Most farms' fields are also walkable, and tend to have heavy traffic.

Yes, I see your point Secateur
Jayhawk- are you likely to be attacked in that mission? If your whole food production revolved around somewhere outside of the castle, you would be awfully insecure...

Could some nice experts put some screenshots up of a "good" organisation, maximising effieciency?

When I've finished doing the numbers I would expect to build a few castles with an efficient layout. When I do I will probably submit some saved games to the downloads section (which should be up late this week). Each mission will have differences in priorities and space available though, so there can be no fixed rules about exactly what is "correct".

[This message has been edited by Merepatra (edited 11-26-2001 @ 11:07 PM).]

Sir Robin, you will be attacked in that particular mission, but the farms are off in a valley that can only be reached if the enemy waltzes through your entire keep. I'd say when that happens you have different things to worry about than food.

Note on graneries and stockpiles.

These can only be placed when touching the first one you set down. Make sure you have enough space to expand.

A good thing the huts can be anywhere and still will be able to get food. It would be horrid if they too needed to be close to the granary.

Note on tanners and fletchers
The tanner should be closer to the armoury than to the dairy farm, as one cow will provide leather for three leather jerkins. However, he will deliver each of them seperately, so that trip should be shortest.

The reverse its true for fletchers who need to be closest to the stockpile, as it takes 2 or 3 trips there to have enough wood for a (cross)bow.

How much do most people use hunters? I find them more efficient than dairy farms, especially as being close to the granary is not as important.

If we could build multiple granaries anywhere, all these problems would be solved

I build a few of them when available, normaly close-ish to the granary.
They makea good early food source, before my economy kicks in.

I could do with stockpiles away from the keep as well, for quicker stone & iron use

So delete the original?

I think it's possible.

The main requirement for the stockpile is that it has to touch the keep.

Merepatra told me she has tried to even surround the keep with stockpiles, hoping that workers on the other side of the keep would use the stockpile on that side, but they fill up the stockpiles in the order they were laid so that's no good either.

Hmmm....

Anybody tried to lay a trail of stockpiles and remove the ones in the middle?

Good idea AJ

Have just done a quick play around and you can delete any or all parts of the stockpile.

If you delete the original part you can then rebuild it anywhere at all on the map that you wish to. Of course you would then lose anything that was stored in it so that may not be a feasible choice too often.

You can otherwise keep that and then as you suggested lay a trail of stockpiles across the map. You can then delete any or all of the pieces in the middle. Since the pile does get filled section by section it would take a bit of manipulation to get people to use the section closest to them but I think it could be done. As long as you keep at least one item in each of the 4 sections of the original piece then any different kind of item would go to the other section. The possibility of manipulating it so industries are going to the section near the keep and wheat/flour to a different section near the granary occurs to me.

That's an amazing find Mere. Or getting the iron and wood delivered to the pile near the weapons buildings.

Ok time for the next exciting installment in the production saga This time its wood and trees

How much wood would a wood chopper chop if all a wood chopper chopped was wood?

When chopping wood woodcutters walk to the nearest tree, chop it down and then take one log and return to their hut with it. They then return to the tree, cut another log, again return to their hut, then back to the tree for a 3rd time. When they have 3 logs in their hut they then proceed to turn them into planks of wood before taking the full load which is 12 planks of wood to the stockpile.

Because they make 3 trips from their hut to the tree they are chopping per load it is more important they be close to trees than to the stockpile. It takes approx 3 months for them to cut up a full load of wood if the tree is directly next to their hut, you must then add in the time it takes them to walk to the stockpile and return. As they cut down the closest trees to them then the time taken will increase.

Trees

There are 4 types of trees in the game, Pine, Oak, Chestnut and Birch. Mature Pine, Oak and Chestnut trees all provide 3 loads of wood, ie 9 logs which is 36 planks. Birch trees only provide 2/3 of a load, ie 2 logs which is 8 planks. The stump is removed from the ground when the last log is taken.

Once a tree is cut down it does not regrow. Forest growth is achieved by mature trees seeding. Every one or two years a new baby tree will appear a short distance away from the mature tree. It will then grow to maturity in 3 stages for Pine, Oak and Chestnut, taking approximately 3 to 4 years. Birche trees grow to maturity in approx 1 ½ to 2 years and only have one immature stage which provides 1 log, 4 planks of wood. Immature Pine, Oak and Chestnut trees provide 1 log, 4 planks in their first stage, 2 logs, 8 planks in their 2nd and 4 logs, 16 planks in their 3rd stage.

Trees also occasionally die, they lose their leaves and are ignored by the woodcutters. Approximately 2 years later they disappear. This appears to be a random event, unconnected to the trees age, though I have only seen mature trees die.

Some tests I did seemed to show that Birch trees reproduce quickest, followed by Pine then Chestnut then Oak, but this is really not conclusive. The quicker maturing time for Birches though does definitely allow them to spread quicker than the other trees, but their lower wood yield makes them much less attractive for woodcutting.