read Jon's summary posted today. He ramped up the difficulty to the point that it's on sadistic hard mode right now. I have played this game A LOT and even i cannot make it past turn 150 in 1.1.

I've failed 3 times today because i used up all the berries, fish, animals available, even bypassing trapper (cloth) and rancher opportunities just to stay alive.

I think the only way to survive at this time is to get a great RNG roll and have multiple fishing spots very nearby. Get 2 fishermen and a trawler up and you can survive for a while. However, unless you get ranching up with + production of animals / turn and a meat cutter, you will still starve once the fish run out.

Farming, hunting, and gathering don't pay the bills and are not worth trying past turn 25. Even with only 12 clans, you cannot generate enough food without the upper tier upgrades that you, of course, cannot get.

Yeah I read the notes but I figured there must be some way to not lose still. Figured he wouldn't tune it to be impossibly hard... like, I mean, figured he probably tuned it to be difficult for him. But possible. It is good to know it's not just me.

50 lumber for a farm is way too much! I'm having serious problems keeping myself fed during the first two winters. If I could just afford a farm, I'd have at least one secure source of food during the cold, but I can't seem to scramble fast enough to get that lumber and keep enough food to last me. Wow, difficulty levels maybe, so we can ease into it?

Dunno why he made the game harder...It was virtually impossible before the update ! ( Unless you had a fortuitous spawn location.)
The worst aspect for me, is the ridiculous traits..eg ..( Never brawls & May start brawls ...wtf !!!)
But there are so many other important things that needed correcting,. Each one annoying people in different ways. Why not focus on amending just one of those instead of turning folks off even more ...sigh. New players will get so disheartened very quickly.
Doesn't appear to be a sound business policy to me.
Only my opinion though, so no need to go overboard in John's defence.

I'll be adjusting things to be easier in v1.2, which will be up later this month. I've been able to get to turn 100+ regularly, though you have to focus quite a bit on food and finding the right synergies for what's available around you (e.g. Guides, Tillers).

- Jon

the caravan should be restored to the 1.0 for the time being. the other costs for things like farms should be revised back to 1.0 for the time being. discouraging players by making an unreasonably difficult starting situation is just not productive.

The real issues should be worked on right now instead of this wasteful adjustments to the caravan. here are the top 4 issues
1. install bot scripts so the computer actually plays
2. create "phase 2" and "phase 3" content. phase 2 is the point after survival (post 100 turns) when you're thinking of establishing a kingdom. phase 3 is defined as the point (post 200 turns) where you are economically and militarily strong enough to attempt to attack Rome.
3. create scripts so that Rome has varying degrees of interaction with the player as the player progresses.
4. fix the stuff that is in disrepair or generally doesnt work. these things include, but are not limited to, the trade skills, quality of life items (like a way to heal away from camp ,carrying more than 1 unit on a galley, and establishing forward operating bases to move people quickly across the map), and the ability to launch sea craft if you're not on the coast.

once there is an actual fully functioning game, then that's the time to play with the caravan. Even then, the caravan is a lazy script that is lacking in a bunch of ways that don't include prices.

I would be happy to start some idea threads on these topics. I just don’t think Jon wants to listen and improve the game .

Ok, I have won on the hard new update. First find coal or pheat and get your digger to get you enough and turn one of your guys to be a brickmaker then you can find a stone mine and build it and turn one of your guys into block cutters. After 25 turns you should be able to build a stone coal shaft mine or pheat shaft. Only after you have 2 gatherer, 2 hunter, 2 harvester. you make sure you have bread maker, 2xmeat cutter. Slowly replace your food gatherers and harvesters to farmers and turn your hunters into ranchers and build the stone structures. Once you get all these up into stone you will only concentrate your energy on your technology. Try to get meat smoker, briner, meat butcher, preserver, bread maker and upgrade your guys to these professions ASAP. After that you can concentrate on the game. Good luck, it's not that hard!!!!

Originally posted by clayffo:

Like I have said, you get a good rng it’s possible. Problem is if there’s no coal/peat or not enough berries for 2 gatherers or 3 barb camps nearby or any number of other issues, your strategy won’t work

I like the creative thought process though

There is also a good fishing strategy, but again it relies on there being enough fish.
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/app/241000/discussions/0/1681441347882693222/

Yeah, I can make it through a few winters, but then my population's grown too much, I lose some food sources, and suddenly I'm at -20 food per turn and burn through my stockpiles and lose.

It's a good example really of how unlimited fixed growth spirals out of control quite fast.

One big problem in this version is there is nothing to scale with the clan growth as far as food consumption! No matter what i do or how much food I have accumulated clan growth always brings on starvation and death. I in particular would like to move on from this so i can start playing mid game and learning how to incorporate some of the professions that weren't needed in the easy version.

Hey romdead that might work if their is no bandits around otherwise you'll be overrun!

One thing I'm seriously considering is just periodically feeding the less useful clans to nearby bandits to keep food costs down...

I m finding the difficulty a lot better myself. The game seemed silly easy before this patch. Now it is actually a struggle.

Often I die winter 1, more often winter like 3. But sometimes much longer. You need to stop focusing on long term optimization and just go out and hunt some crap early on. No more trying to have a rancher and wool chain up as your first major piece of economy. Instead you have a real focus on feeding everyone and sort of get what other advanced things you can, when you can.

Originally posted by becephalus:

I m finding the difficulty a lot better myself. The game seemed silly easy before this patch. Now it is actually a struggle.

Often I die winter 1, more often winter like 3. But sometimes much longer. You need to stop focusing on long term optimization and just go out and hunt some crap early on. No more trying to have a rancher and wool chain up as your first major piece of economy. Instead you have a real focus on feeding everyone and sort of get what other advanced things you can, when you can.

The problem is that the difficulty curve starts up way way too high and then falls like a rock. . If you do happen to survive you’ll find out there’s nothing out there. The computer and Rome both refuse to play. The game becomes essentially a resource management exercise.

The focus should be on finishing the game instead of screwing around with resource management