You might think of “Banished” as being a sort of low-key strategy game for the person who isn’t really interested in perpetual conflict. Instead, it’s a title which introduces you to a more tranquil bird’s eye view of a rather pastoral yet primitive evolving world. Assuming that you want your isolated society to succeed and flourish, here is a brief guide to help you become a better city builder…
Think ahead
While it’s most certainly assured that you need to supply your people with the essentials – heat, shelter and food, you should also be wary of how you accomplish this. While it might not make much difference how you sustain the first group, you simply cannot afford to mow down an entire forest or plant your settlers too far away from a river. Just like the burgeoning towns of old (IRL), rivers were seen as the lifeblood of a city, offering transportation, water as well as trading potential. In short, you must be able to strategically position your settlement so that you both have room to grow and access to a river (not just a lake) while also avoiding to aforementioned clear-cut scenario. Not only do forests provide lumber, but they’re also sources for things like herbs and uncommon foodstuffs.
On Commuting
Assuming that you’ve thought out the beginnings of your little civilization and are starting to erect structures, the next thing to begin thinking about is worker commutes. It’s just illogical to force your citizens to have to make long treks to complete their daily duties, just like in real life; you want pathways to be as clean and direct as possible. This helps in terms of boosting productivity. So, when you have a lodge, cabin and hut, make sure to erect at least two houses to support this infrastructure (the residents should sort everything out on their own).
…speaking of critical infrastructure
When you’re starting out, you need to make sure to construct a forester’s lodge as it allows you to harvest lumbers as well as plant new trees. Ideally, you want it located directly adjacent to both the hunting cabin and gatherer’s hut. Most players seem to recommend waiting to build the lodge until after the other two structures have been erected as the forest density directly affects the flora collected from the gatherers, etc.
Jumpstart your economy
As soon as you can, initiate trading and stockpiling and try to jumpstart your village’s economy. In particular, trading is extremely important and might be considered absolutely critical to your settlement’s long-term viability, so try to focus all your goals on establishing commerce.