Banished looks like a super complex game on the surface but it’s in fact easier than you’d think once you get to grips with it. I’ve been been getting stuck into the game for a couple of weeks and through trial and error I’ve managed to get a good system in place that kept my citizens alive when starting a new game. Here’s a few tips in this Banished guide that can really help you on a path to success.
Make sure you have the Professions window open at all times (until you have built a Town Hall). Really micromanage the citizens for the first few years.
Build farms right at the start, these are a constant supply of food through the summer and food can be stockpiled over the winter months. This only applies to Medium and below. If startingon Hard then Gathering is a great way to get food going. Just make sure you don’y overlap the yellow circles on the Gathering huts for maximum collection,
Try and keep as many farmers farming as possible. This can be tricky when starting but if you do not assign enough you will lose crops when winter arrives.
Build a fishing and Hunting Lodge. These guys will hunt even in the freezing winter and can augment your food piles during the winter months in the Storage Barn.
Always build a woodcutter and make sure he is always turning over logs. This will prevent your citizens from freezing to death. Again this is an essential starter building. Make sure you tweak the production limit on logs as the population increases and turn him off if you have a large stockpile so cut trees can be used elsewhere.
Tools are essential. Get your blacksmith stockpiling tools in the Storage barn and keep a close eye on the amount stored. Stop production when these are stockpiled and restart when they start to run low.
A Gatherer can boost your food quite impressively. Don’t discount him/her as a food source.
Build a Town Hall as soon as you can. The sooner you can build this the sooner Nomads will arrive to boost the population. Be warned however, this is a resource hungry building.
A Town Hall is key to quick management
Once you have a Town Hall built, keep the Town Hall window open at all times and stop using the Professions window.
Build a Forrester. He/she will keep planting trees and continue to cut them down. As trees get cut down in massive numbers when starting out, it’s good to keep the same area planted up and growing so citizen don’t have to travel far to chop wood when it’s required.
Build a school once all the essential resource buildings are down. Educated citizens will work more efficiently but it will take longer for them to reach adulthood.
Don’t make citizens walk to far to collect resources and food from Storage Barns.
As soon as you see stone and iron running low on the landscape, plan ahead for that first mine and quarry. This will save your skin later on.
A trading post is your gateway to livestock and exotic seeds. There is no need to build a Pasture until you have this up and running. Once built, watch for arriving traders all the time and trade for livestock before building a pasture. It’s a good idea to stockpile some resources such as firewood or logs in the trading post so there is something to trade with when someone arrives. If a boat arrives with nothing you need, dismiss it quickly.
Should your town run low on resources, reduce the number of goods assigned to the trading port. They will be collected and returned to your storage yard and Storage Barn.
Build a large graveyard. This reduces mourning time of citizens and keeps them happy, Over time graves will degrade and slots will become available so there is less chance of you needing to build an additional graveyard.
Bring out your dead!
Keep a close eye on your student numbers and make sure there is a new house ready for them when they mature to an adult. This will mean they’ll start their own family. We discovered that houses that remain empty for long periods are not always populated and a new house will see the population increase as young adults move in. We tested this be demolishing the empty houses, using their resources and building new ones.
Spread your town out. A tornado can be disastrous and if key buildings are taken out in one swoop  then the game could be over.  Build an additional Storage Barn well away from the original.
Don’t panic about population numbers and don’t spread yourself too thin. Population numbers don’t zoom up like in other city builders.
These tips should set you on your way to making a great town. Banished is not an easy game to master when starting and perseverance is key. Don’t get frustrated if something goes wrong. Banished is a challenge and once you have the basics down the town should run like clockwork.
If you have any tips feel free to add them in the comments and we’ll try them out.
Published: Feb 19, 2014 05:47 am