Banished

• If your population becomes stagnant you will find that workers will die off faster than they are replaced. If you haven't built a town hall, do it. It allows you to track statistics like food production and population growth.

• Every year you should be building a few houses. The biggest problem with a growing a population is you have kids living with their parents and there just isn't enough room for a baby. Plus who wants to fuck with their parents in the same house.

• I usually set up my town with 5 house side by side in a row. I then put another 5 running parallel to them. Farms are directly across from the houses to cut down on walk time. I always try to build the biggest farm you can. I think it is 15x15. I then put down a log cutter, blacksmith, and weaver. Depending on my population and trade I might put down multiples. When you have a surplus of labor and a steady growth going, put down a school. Warehouses are very important. Build a lot of them for the years you don't produce as much.

• It is possible to fish and hunt the wildlife to extinction. It takes a lot to do that and you should never run into the problem if you don't overlap hunting cottages or fishing docks. After I figure out where I'm putting my next expansion I would find a spot of untouched wilderness and put a gatherer's hut, hunting cottage, herbalist, tree cutter, and a house or two all together in the middle. Hunting lodges don't need to be where there are deer.

• There is a removal tool that allows you to just collect a certain resource. If you find you are running low on iron, click the tool and make a huge square over iron. If you are still low on tools, make more blacksmiths.

• My year usually starts with me pulling everyone from their usual jobs and making them farmers. When you click on a farm you can adjust how many people can work it. Large farms should have 6 workers, and at least 4. Orchards are luxuries. They take years to see a return and even then it isn't much. When winter comes I reassign all the farmers to various other jobs I need. Most buildings can have the maximum worker count raised, and it should be. Having one fishing dock with max workers is better than 3 with 1 or 2 workers.

• It is possible to reach a point where your town becomes self sufficient. A friend of mine tried it. He said there would be years where a large population of the community would die off, but would rebound many years later for a surplus. You will be cursing old people in this game for taking up valuable space for a 20 year old to have a baby with a 11 year old.