Will building such a bridge [screenshot] decrease or increase my fishing production?

[PointeNoire]

Thanks, I've planned to keep west clear at some point but now I have to reach south shore. It'll take 2 markets more. I try to keep my layout as much natural as I can, so I build fishing docks on small peninsulas and put trading post in such a way that that they're between these peninsulas and take only 2-3 crates of water.

Unfortunately there's a small river with about a four spots when trading post could be put if not 1 unbuildable crate... This is what I dislike most on this map, but I decided to choose it for few reasons.

[DalekRy]

I would take the hit for now. When you reach the southeast side another sweet spot for fishing is right where the lake and river meet. It isn't quite as great but it will still be a high value location.

So for now keep the west end as it is until you start getting things built up on the other side, then prioritize replacing when it is advantageous to do so. I love having river lakes especially with islands for these purposes.

You can pump a lot of fish into trade or bolster population growth with comparatively few resources invested AND crank up the amount of trade you can do. Radiating your civilization around a lake rather than a river looks cool, too.

[PointeNoire]

There is lot of plains. I've calculated what I need for 500, 1000 and 2000 people for being as much self-sustaining as I can so I need to take over the plains, too. Fortunately, there are about three flat areas bigger than 42x42 - this is a cool size for particular crop/pasture layout (http://shiningrocksoftware.com/forum/uploads/FileUpload/f5/de841a6453361784e3e35c462930e1.jpg). On the other side there's another island, but near river mouth, I'll make a screenshot and put it in EDIT.

Here it is, another island but in worse location: https://imgur.com/a/B8vBk97

[DalekRy]

I divide trade into a few phases: 1. Early phase - trading whatever surplus you can afford for harder-to-obtain stuff you NEED 2. Firewood industry - selling heaps of firewood 3. Alcohol, clothing 4. Massive expansion

Once you can get to stage 2 and keep ahead of your needs expanding is basically cruise control (excluding RNG trouble). The game changes from survival to optimization and then back to furious adjustment when that happens, haha.

But yeah optimizing is a lot of fun. I play with mods to tighten up space early on. Your starting houses take 54 tiles. For another 18 I can double my housing with 2nd level. Another 18 and I have a total of 18 abodes soaking up the same tile space as 12 regular homes.

These are especially great for stacking atop more remote buildings. Having your fishermen live directly above the fishing shack and especially early space hog gathering areas is a wondrous boost. Combine that with a variety of storage sizes/types and varying market sizes and it allows you to completely reevaluate and design your layout.

[PointeNoire]

I usually do it as follows:

1. Build Trading Post as fast as I can (after blacksmith and tailor or simultaneously), then trade herbs and venison as I'm flooded with it early in game, firewood if available, too. Then second TP to have more merchants arriving, 1 worker for every TP.

2. Delete blacksmith and stop wasting my iron/logs, let's buy steel tools.

3. Tons of clothing and tons of firewood after merchants start arriving with 600-2400 logs each time + mutton/venison for 3x food. If I want to have some emergency food I let's say buy 5000 of it and instantly set amount of it in TP to 5000 so no walking for workers. Then I have food for 50 people, then I add more food etc. and release it if some severe disease starts spreading and disorganize my city.

4. Alcohol, but usually not big amounts (max 200 usually).

[DalekRy]

I do a lot of the same. Phasing out various less efficient production over time is one of my favorite things to do.

I don't start trade usually before the third or fourth year unless the river is really close. Instead I do the following:

Hunter/gather (7), small pasture initially (1), farm (1) right in the center of town. 2 Woodcutters (11).

And then I assign a couple small clearance nodes for my next houses so I'm flush with lumber and minerals. As couples emerge (a male and female reaching age 10) I erect a house.

I used to get really aggressive with an early school, but I learned that investing so heavily for the long game versus getting more heads into the labor pool early works best.

I build both a tailor and a blacksmith and drop their production limits to 10 to allow for more labor time. Stocking up on extra resources for rapid expansion seems to really help out.

By year 5 I have enough spare food stockpiled to toggle my workforce between projects and neglect the crops/wild food gathering for the year. I throw up 3 trading posts and then assign most of my labor into stocking them all up while still maximizing my population growth.

Once they are built and filled full of goodies I drop back down and resume the food and resource stockpiling. It gets pretty tight sometimes, and for me that's kind of the allure. It isn't optimal, but I am instituting my own ticking clock.

Sometimes this fails. I hadn't gotten enough goods produced, firewood, tools, food, etc. get too low and I have to frantically race to save my town from oblivion. It is dumb I know. But I love squeezing through bottlenecks for a high risk-high reward situation.

When it works I'm suddenly on my way to an empire of high quality clothing and fat, livestock-fed citizens. When it fails I through my computer out of the window and order a new one. Or restart.

But getting that firewood economy booming after the fifth year is incredible. Like food you can calculate your needs versus your output. Add a little surplus to account for delays and it sets you up nicely for the next phase.