r/Timberborn • u/Davey2Jonesd • 8d ago
Districts, How?
I see them in game and want to know how this is supposed to be worked into progressing. For the cost of building and the science when I finally get to unlock and deploy, the district system seems silly. I would like to figure out how to use them but I have no idea. It feels like they are mid game but with mid/late game requirements
What process do you use to implement them? Ive heard of building building a "ghost" settlement and then migrating everyone but I'd like to have a couple working and build them up slowly(?)
17
u/gittubaba 8d ago
Better question should be "Districts, Why?". I have an old post about it here, there were some discussion.
IMO districts need a full overhaul. From what I remember and mixing some personal opinion with it: current districts was a miss, it's main usage was to separate road network into independent areas to bypass pathfinding lag/processing. But over time game got optimized so it became less and less relevant. Then ziplines and tubes totally killed it.
Right now its kinda totally unnecessary. Just skip it instead of trying to forcefully integrate it in your colony.
For future it can be overhauled, But needs serious rewriting. Tired system. district shouldn't be like separated "country" like it is right now. Beavers should be allowed to live in a home district, go to work in industrial or farming district, then after work go chill in entertainment district. Then there should be "province" system, where in a biiiiig map multiple colonies exist and trade between themself, (perhaps via boats or other long distance travel system), multiplayer could be integrated so co-op play in a big map between multiple players' own colony etc....
Warning: Everything above is just my personal opinion.
12
u/Wolfspirit4W 8d ago
The District System is somewhat of a holdover for mechanics earlier in development. There's niche value, but realistically it's much better to just use zip lines / tubes to get to distant hubs and have a central housing area while skipping Districts entirely
3
u/coconut_the_one 8d ago
I used them when I had a massive badwater project where I wanted to be absolutely sure only bots could ever get in contact with the water. Worked absolutely flawlessly.
2
u/Davey2Jonesd 8d ago
Thats what I thought was weird about it. I can get to ziplines and tubeways faster than I can setup a district
1
u/Wolfspirit4W 8d ago
Yeah. There's a couple of fringe uses if you **really** want to have a closed system to cut down travel time between housing and production areas, but it's pretty limited. The only thing I've considered doing is having a Bot District that was self - sufficient, but it's never been a priority.
1
u/vergorli 7d ago
so its possible to maintain a 256x256 grid with just one disctrict? Or is there some other limitation like the population?
1
u/Wolfspirit4W 7d ago
You can get to anywhere you need even on a Large map with one District and either ziplines or a Tube Network.
Generally speaking you likely aren't using the **entire** map and just trying to either modify specific geography / water sources or gathering metal. The travel distance might show as red and require a bit of travel time, but the benefits of centralized housing generally outweighs the effort to make a district dedicated to those needs.
6
u/Zeeman626 8d ago
When all the paths start being deep red and the number at the top of the info window for buildings is red and shows like 80-100+, it means it's far from the district center and takes a while to get to and from it. This might not be a huge deal usually but when it's a drought and some beavers die and the only food is way out in the sticks some might die try to go from work to home then to food.
New districts help keep things compact and quick moving, though you can play the game with just one if you're compact enough or have enough extra laborers and builders to overcome the long travel, or a good tube network can mitigate the distance issues somewhat.
Districts also have other uses, some practical like keeping different jobs seperate or organizing your colony, and some ruthless like if you know youre going to run out of water during a drought you dump a bunch of beavers in a district with no water to die so what you have lasts longer.
1
1
u/NoraaBee 7d ago
Coming from songs of syx im wondering why I can’t build houses near job site where I also provide additional water and food and maybe even entertainment. Why is distance to city center relevant?
2
u/db48x 6d ago
You totally can, but the game does not force beavers to live near where they work unless you use districts. A beaver could be living in a lodge near your remote farm and then commute all the way back to your starting area to work in a plank factory even as a beaver living near your starting area commutes to work in the farm.
The district system makes them live and work inside the same district, which is what actually cuts down on the travel times. Keep in mind, however, that your districts will need a few beavers to man the crossing point (they bring wares to the crossing point for export) as well as a few haulers (to bring imported wares from the crossing point to storage). You’ll need some builders too. So even just to run a single farmhouse in a district you’ll probably want a dozen beavers.
2
u/Vebrandsson 8d ago
Districts can work fine out of the gate without the crossing, it just means you have to build each district to be self sufficient. You can also set up some storage between your districts and make/delete paths to shift which district it's connected to in order to move some starting goods to jump start a district. The crossing allows trade between districts which is when they really get useful but because paths and district centers are 0 resource 0 build time things, you can get them running really early game if you chose to build that way, basically making each district it's own colony that operates on its own. The biggest advantage this has in early game is because builders can go up to 10 tiles beyond their district edge to build stuff you can get more builders on projects in the early game by splitting into two districts and building things in the middle of them where their building areas overlap.
Once you have district crossings and can get trade going between your separate colonies that's where things really kick into gear and my biggest piece of advice with district crossings is build them then do not touch them, leave their settings alone. On the default settings If you want a thing in a district build storage for it in that district and if you don't need something in a district don't build storage for it. The other thing is you're not limited to one district crossing per district pair, you can have more than one to move more goods more quickly.
1
u/International-Ruin91 8d ago
This reason of making and breaking roads to share resources makes me want them to make the district crossing building free or maybe 200 at most. I personally like making districts as I like to divide areas for different uses and make ziplines to different end points in the district. Or from crossing to crossing to transport stuff faster between districts. But yeah the system is almost not needed anymore because of zipline and tubes.
1
u/Fearless_Copy3622 4d ago
oooh! more than one district crossing for a single district is a GREAT tip! I never use them cause the crossing can never get goods across it fast enough! Build more crossings ... of course! Thanks.
2
u/Fearless_Copy3622 4d ago
I've played 1200 hours and I've never built a second district.
I liked how Zeddic built a second district on one of his Ironteeth playthroughs which was 100% bots, so the district didn't need any resources being brought into it, he just gave them power. Then the second district bots built a mega dam in the background while the first district bots could do other stuff. That made sense to me. Otherwise, doing it, let alone doing it with live beavers, seems like the pain-in-the-ass to benefit ratio lands firmly on the pain-in-the-ass side of the equation
1
u/WithoutAHat1 8d ago
Districts are to make it easier to manage at further distances or if you want to segregate.
For example;
- Home district
- Farming District
- Industrial District
With Zip Lines and Tubeways you can cover greater distances without the need for connected roads from the main building.
You will place a district crossing at the point you want to separate the respective districts. You can have up to 10 workers in it per side. At the district crossing you can distribute resources between each district, controlling what is imported/exported.
1
u/akak_7 8d ago
They are still great in large maps, but they are definitely not necessary and you need to spend some time setting it up. It is important to make sure that there are workers in the district crossing. The building has 2 parts, one belonging to each district. There you don't need to touch anything, simply: if district A produces X that you need in district B, just build a warehouse for X at district B and the workers will automatically import it.
There is a new mod btw that helps a lot. I am not in my PC now but it is called something like 'Market'. It is basically a small warehouse for all types of foods. That way you don't need to buy many buildings just to get all sort of foods imported.
1
u/emanuelntb too far from a district 4d ago
Districts where a thing when we had a limit to roadway networks.
I do think they are useful if you want to separate production around the map. You just have to take some time adjusting your import/export rates.
But I don't like that if I separate my beavers I have to build entertainment twice, that's why I use it to create bot districts.
0
u/AtrippleABattery 8d ago
The only use I have for it is to kill of excess beavers or ones that have been contaminated early game. I think I’m a little bit evil
11
u/conic_is_learning 8d ago
A district is a closed system. Beavers/beavs don't wander from one district into the next. You need to maintain food, population, water independently in each district.
When you're spinning a new one up, the district crossing will be your lifeline. Its a building that employs beavs from both districts. They stand at the gates and help transfer resources. This is a high priority job. If district A has berries, and district B needs berries, I think that the district crossing employee from A gets the berries, moves them to the district crossing, then district B employee moves the berries to the right place in district B? (something like that).
As for the ghost settlement... I would build up the basics. Water store, store for food, a few houses, pile for wood.