Anno 1404

[Roman Totale]

I mastered the art of populations a few days ago. I was going to post a guide, but then Magicka came along...

I'll try and do one this weekend.

[Dog Pants]

Anyone know why I've primary production buildings full of goods, but nobody is taking them to the next building and that one sits empty?

For example, my wheat farms have stopped producing because they're full, and my brewery has stopped producing because it has no wheat, despite them being only about 15 squares away connected by a stone road.

[Roman Totale]

Brewery uses Herbs, not Wheat. Wheat is used to make Bread - stick a Mill next to two wheatfields, then a Bakery within range of the Mill.

[Dog Pants]

My breweries appear to use both.

http://anno1404.wikia.com/wiki/Production_chains#Beer

Do they need to be within a certain range of each other?

[Roman Totale]

:doh:

Of course, ignore me.

When you go to place a building down you'll get the highlighted area of influence - the brewery should have both Herb and Crop farm in it's area, or at least a warehouse.

[shot2bits]

i thought that they only picked up goods from the warehouses rather than other businesses and the area of influence you see for things like the pub is the coverage of population who get to use the facility, i could be wrong though

[Grimmie]

Yeah, as long as there's a warehouse with the goods in, the businesses will be 'stocked'.
I usually have one upgraded warehouse per four farms, seems the maximum you can fit around one of them.

Warehouses and farms dont have to be connected to the town by a road network, they are automagically linked together.

[Grimmie]

Er, like this:

<img src="http://screenshot.xfire.com/s/80939610-4.jpg" width="900">

[shot2bits]

yes that, choose a spot for residential then build clusters of farms with a storehouse for each cluster far enough away to allow for expansion and build whatever industries use the produce from the farms along a short road leading off the storehouse. same applies for mining operations and other industries from what i remember except you obviously only have one mine per mineral deposit

[FatherJack]

Ordinarily the supplier of the raw material needs to be within range of the production plant that uses it, linking by roads is not a substitute (see below), or necessary, only the end of the chain needs to be linked by road to a warehouse. The fishing hut and woodcutter function as the end of their chains.

Take the simplest chain, Hemp Farm, Linen Clothes Maker. The farm should be anywhere there's space to build plenty of fields - I like to cram as many as I can on, but I'm not sure more than the standard helps. Clicking on the farm shows an area of effect, not the same as the extent of its fields - a wider one, the clothes maker must be built within this range. Once they are both built, clicking either one should light the other one up green.

The clothes maker must be connected by road to a warehouse. Unlike 1701, this warehouse doesn't have to be part of some road network, it can be in the middle of nowhere. Having the clothes maker close to it will shorten the cart travel time. All your island-wide goods are available from any warehouse.

This last point highlights that sometimes it is desirable to link a raw material producer, like a farm, to a road. That way any surplus goods not immediately used by a nearby production plant are put into storage. You might want to do this if you were to build a production plant that you only need occasionally, perhaps a ropeyard, which also uses Hemp. You would have Linen constantly trickling out at whatever level it takes to satisfy your population (about one maker at ~90% for every 400 citizens) but have a ropeyard conveniently placed near your docks which you can turn on or off depending if you are planning any ship building.

You also might want to add road links if you intentionally oversupply yourself with raw materials for future expansion - without a connection once it's full (five units) the produce will sit in the raw material producer and stop it producing any more, unless it can go to a warehouse. This fits well with the 2 farms, 1 producer model which scales well to a quickly-expanding town - it's easier and cheaper to put another producer down next to a warehouse than find space for another farm. Also, if you wanted to go all Sim-City, you could set aside different areas purely for agricultural, industrial and residential and really get the most out of those norias.

Roads are more important in the town centres, as each house and any public buildings like churches and pubs must have a road connection. Again, you can click on any house and see highlighted in green the amenities within range. One thing to look out for though is that you don't make the routes too long. If you build long strips of houses between roads, it may make the travel distance for some houses too long to be satisfied by a church or pub, even when it's being shown in range. It's better to have a grid system of roads, even though that means you can fit less houses in.

Also, each warehouse only has one cart, so consider upgrading or building another one close by if it is servicing a lot of producers - the last thing you want is delays when you have goods waiting. Don't connect everything up to a huge road network as then idle carts can be summoned from miles away.

[Wiggy]

This page helped me a lot when setting up my islands.

[Dog Pants]

I now understand why my settlement is so inefficient. I was assuming it was like Settlers, so I have raw materials and producers miles away from each other linked by road in some places. Possibly a new game beckons.

[FatherJack]

I now understand why my settlement is so inefficient. I was assuming it was like Settlers, so I have raw materials and producers miles away from each other linked by road in some places. Possibly a new game beckons.

The modular approach is something it took a while for me to get my head round, what with the warehouses all magically teleporting goods to each other.

More confusing for me since IIRC in 1701AD, which I played solidly up until this game's release (I think it was free/cheap in the preorder), everything had to be linked. Looking back, that was a massive PITA, as was stuff like the fish running out and I'm glad they revised it.

Playing the campaign, which only exists running the base game, really taught me a lot of tricks. When you move to the next chapter, the game has a pregenerated version of the stuff you spent the last mission building and it's often an eye-opener to see how much more efficiently it's done. The biggest revelation was islands solely dedicated to production, such as spice, with no inhabitants at all.

1701AD did have some great missions, including a hugely useful one where you had to "fix" an island being run by a complete spazzer. It's a shame this later release is a lot lighter on the assistance to new players.

[Dog Pants]

a hugely useful one where you had to "fix" an island being run by a complete spazzer

That's every scenario for me. My game must be broken.