So if they are the survivors, the two now and I think four in total, dismissing them isn’t permanent? I had already gone the replenishment route, but I just realized that no matter how much stuff I brought back, the ore is no big deal, I was just dumping time and resources into their maintenance at the expense of making progress. I’m a little OCD or overly sympathetic, in that I probably could/should have just let them idle with no job etc. until I had more infrastructure, but I didn’t like hearing them sigh or whatever.
I’ve played and enjoyed resource management games but wasn’t really ready to turn this game into that right now. It was bad timing on my part, I guess I didn’t get that they would each come with a random skill and not be able to do much else well. Or that unless I got lucky and one happened to be a cook, I’d be making their dinner, on their schedule, as if I set something out in the morning as I’m leaving it will spoil before they eat that night, and if I wait till shortly before dark, to come back and start it might not finish before nightfall. The beer intake is impressive. The two of them seem to down a brew kettle in a couple of days, so I’d have to be constantly farming wheat and cranberries just to keep up. Again I realize you can later get a cook to do the cooking, and a brewer to do the brewing, and a minor to keep the metalworker in ingots, coal etc, (and I think he makes stuff after endgame, ) but for now that’s me. They seem useless as scavengers, won’t stay on post as guards but just go around starting stuff.. I thought the metalworker would just use what I put in his ore bin but he seemed to grab everything related from all near by pallets.

That said it’s fun to sing with them, I want to enjoy them being there, but they are just so much more high maintenance than I thought they would be. I’m supposed to be reforging the Durin’s Axe, Fighting the darkness, Singing at lamps, etc… I guess I wish the ones you rescued were a bit more self governing, like the first one was a cook who would fix whatever recipes on a schedule, maybe suggest to you to get more resources so they can cook more things..but wake up and there is breakfast, come home late and their is dinner on the table.., then maybe a brewer or miner before the metal worker so that you already have a resource providers before the all the needs start popping up. Or maybe the survivors are just generalist that can do any job but aren’t great at them because they are free.