Storage Strategy

[Old Coot]

Let's say I have two cities:

City A produces a surplus of 30 food per turn and city B requires 25 food per turn. I have a wagon train transporting food from A to B. My problem is, that at some point, food stocks at B will reach the the storage threshold, and B will pop out a colonist. Then B has 0 food and all the workers therein stop working in order to look for food. Production is disrupted until, eventually, the wagon train restocks the pantry.

I want to keep B supplied, but at some level below the storage threshold. If there is to be a new colonist, I want him to pop from A rather than B. Any ideas?

 

[dalgo]

Can you add a third colony to the mix? Set B to export and import food. Export food from A to B. Export food from B to C but with a minimum so B doesn't starve. The new colonists will appear in C.

 

[Old Coot]

3rd city is not on right now, but you've given me an idea which seems to be working: I've set both cities to import and export food with city A having a higher minimum than B, so city A works as city C would.

Thanks!

EDIT:

Turns out there's all sorts of unintended consequences with my idea. Looks like the your 3rd city method is the best way to go after all.

 

[HermannLombard]

I'm curious about those unintended consequences!

Anyway, I've often wished there was a way to set a maximum for imports like there is the way to set a minimum for exports. It's harder to program, of course, because you have to do something with wagons already en route.

 

[Old Coot]

An unintended consequence:

Let's say that A has a min of 100, B has a min of 50, and both have 0 food to start with. On the fourth turn A will reach its min and start shipping the surplus to B. After that, A will send 30 food per turn to B which can only consume 25, so B will start accumulating food at the rate of 5 per turn. After 10 turns B will reach its min. Now, on each turn, A sends 30 food to B which can only accept 25, so the train totes the other 5 food back to A which won't accept it because A has reached its min. Eventually, the train fills with food and can't accept other cargo.

 

[HermannLombard]

OIC. Thanks.

 

[milvang]

The easy solution is to build an extra wagon train, and either use it to transport, or just park it in the city to store food. As long as the food is in the wagon train it will not cause city growth.

Wagon trains can often bee good ways of storing things. They hold twice as much as a warehouse if you only have one product you have excess of, and cost less to build. The do require more micromanagement though.

 

[Joeexplorer]

I've been going through this my last couple of games.

Here's what been happenning:

I like to build a colony with 7 - 10 cities. Speciality cities and at least 2 iron cities. I set my Capitol to import all finished products to export them. I usually had about 7 or 8 wagon trains (on auto) going back and forth. This strategy worked well for me with 4 cities.

I noticed that my Capitol wasn't getting any finished products. I had all the import/export checked right. Then I checked my wagons. Here I had 3 or 4 wagons hauling around nothing but lumber.

Moral of the story I guess? is to have more wagons so they can store your excess and deliver the goods.

 

[HermannLombard]

I noticed that my Capitol wasn't getting any finished products. I had all the import/export checked right. Then I checked my wagons. Here I had 3 or 4 wagons hauling around nothing but lumber.

Safer to dedicate one wagon to each trade route. I don't like dedicating one wagon to one product or even to the same product on more than one city.

 

[milvang]

Safer yet to micromanage it. I must admit I havnt tried any of the automated transport features yet, but i cant imagine they are as good as moving them yoursleves. I imagine that if you auto move stuff its a lot easier to lose track of what you have where.

 

[WaxonWaxov]

If you lock all your in-town colonists, then won't they NOT change to food when it reaches zero?

I do the "send all the food to city X so it can make colonists" thing and next have a problem with city X

 

[HermannLombard]

Safer yet to micromanage it. I must admit I havnt tried any of the automated transport features yet, but i cant imagine they are as good as moving them yoursleves. I imagine that if you auto move stuff its a lot easier to lose track of what you have where.

Actually the specific assignment to a trade route between two cities works fine with up to two goods going each way. You may start to have trouble if you have one wagon train assigned to 3 goods going one way, such as silver, tobacco, and food from City A to City B. I'm not sure how it chooses which two of the three to carry on a given trip. I assume greatest numbers which might leave one good untransported for quite a while.

 

[CuervoGold]

Let's say I have two cities:

City A produces a surplus of 30 food per turn and city B requires 25 food per turn. I have a wagon train transporting food from A to B. My problem is, that at some point, food stocks at B will reach the the storage threshold, and B will pop out a colonist. Then B has 0 food and all the workers therein stop working in order to look for food. Production is disrupted until, eventually, the wagon train restocks the pantry.

I want to keep B supplied, but at some level below the storage threshold. If there is to be a new colonist, I want him to pop from A rather than B. Any ideas?

Here's the solution to the problem:

Set both cities to import and export food.
On City A, set the minimum to something more than 100 - say 120.
On City B, set the minimum to something lower than 100 - say 80.

Now what will happen is that the amount of food on the wagon train will slowly increase, but it will never go higher than 80, because as soon as it drops off 80 food at city A, city A will experience a pop increase.

The one thing to be concerned about is the distance between the cities. If it is more than about 2 turns for the wagon train, then I would probably use 2 trains, and set them both to import/export from each city.

You will also want to be aware that after City A breaks 200 and a citizen pops out that it might take a few turns before they get up to the minimum and begin exporting food, so City B would need enough of a reserve to hold them over until the export starts up again.

 

[dalgo]

If the wagon drops off 80 food at A giving a total of 200 food, won't it just pick that 80 food up again straight away as A has its minimum set at 120? The population increase can only happen at end of turn by which time the wagon has left.

 

[Dale]

The proper solution would be to change the coding so that the limit box (where you type in how many of a good) dictates the minimum level if exporting, and the maximum level (if greater than zero) for importing. Thus, you could specify in the food A & B colonies example above, a maximum level of 100 in colony B which means excess food will remain in colony A.

 

[BobTheBull]

Yeah, Dale, we're all with you on that. But just how do you do that? Would be in Python or GameCore wouldn't it. If I knew where to look I might have a go at it, but I'm not familiar enough with the col code to know where to start.

Or did you, or Jeckel do that already in your mod? If so, I missed it.

 

[WaxonWaxov]

The proper solution would be to change the coding so that the limit box (where you type in how many of a good) dictates the minimum level if exporting, and the maximum level (if greater than zero) for importing. Thus, you could specify in the food A & B colonies example above, a maximum level of 100 in colony B which means excess food will remain in colony A.

Another example of how Sid and Company dropped the ball.

 

[Dale]

It would actually be tricky to manage. For instance, two cities exporting good A to a single importing city with a max set of 200. Two wagons leave the two exporting cities loaded with the goods. One wagon reaches the importing city and triggers the max.

- What happens to the second wagon load?
- How do you track this sort of thing?
- Does wagon one load to exactly the max or is it when > max (thus allowing the whole load to dump at the importing city)?

For instance, at this point would goods already in transit keep going to their intended destination thus causing much more than the max? Would it halt? Return to source thus causing other issues at the source?

Or, would the wagons only pick up enough to reach the max (as at that turn) thus running the risk of not under-supply? For instance, only 2 goods needed to reach the max, and both wagons pick up 1 of each good, and with the processing of the importing city leave it under-supplied once the wagons reach it.

Personally, I think a wagon load in transit continues, but no new wagon loads are picked up till the city is under the max again. This will cause some overflow, but it'll be much more manageable.

 

[HermannLombard]

That "only pick up enough to reach the max" really breaks down for long-distance shipments. My thought would be that the wagons would pick up goods regardless but then stop and wait for orders when the receiving maximum is reached. "Boss, there's a problem, the warehouse is closed!" The situation is similar to pulling the plug by cancelling the import or export orders, the wagon train stops and calls for help.