Black and White
Village Life
Spawned by:
Ian Jacobs
April 16, 2007
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Table of Contents
I. Introduction
i.Legal Stuff
ii.What does it all mean?
iii.Version History
II. The Basics
i.The Villager Desires
A.What is Villager Desire?
B.Desires
a.Wood
b.Food
c.Expansion
d.Offspring
e.Mercy
f.Protection
g.Civic Buildings
h.Rest
ii.Village Buildings
A.Housing
B.Civic Buildings
C.Village Center
D.Village Store
E.Temple
iii.Wants VS Needs
A. Determining Wants VS Needs
III. In Depth Coverage of the Flags
i.Fixing the Desires
A.Food
a.Good
b.Evil
B.Wood
a.Good
b.Evil
C.Expansion
a.Good
b.Evil
D.Offspring
a.Good
b.Evil
E.Mercy
a.Good
b.Evil
F.Protection
a.Good
b.Evil
G.Civic Buildings
a.Good
b.Evil
H.Rest
a.Good
b.Evil
IV. Do's and Don'ts of Village Management
i.Do's
ii.Don'ts
V. Strategies
i.General
A.Self-Management
B.Breeding
C.Village Structure
D.General Rules
ii.Taking over towns, The Good way
iii.Taking over towns, The Evil way
VI. The Creature
i.My Creature, My Village, and Me
A.Training
B.Miracles
C.What can my creature do for me?
D.When is my creature ready to be my work
horse?
E.Last Words
VII. Final Words/ Contact Info
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I. Introduction
i. Legal
This guide was written by Ian Jacobs. It may be published
if proper credit is given to it's creator, Ian Jacobs. That's
it... nothing more at this time.
ii. What does it all mean?
Well let's see, you are here because you want to know about
villages, and to make great ones. You want to know about desire
flags, how to fix them, and how to make your creature help you, in
your village, of course. This guide goes from the basics of what
your villagers want, and need, as well as distinguishing between the
two. Furthermore, what to and not to do when your villagers want
stuff. Some strategies for making an efficent, working village.
And finally, how to make your creature into the work horse of your
town, those fingers to get tired after some time... This guide will
cover both good, and evil styles of play. Yes, I know this game is
very old, but I still think it is one of the greatest games ever.
iii. Version History
1.1 Updated 4/26/07 Added a couple more strategies and fixed some
errors in table of contents.
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II. The Basics
ii. Villager Desires
A. What is Villager Desire?
We have all seen them, the little flags that appear around
the village store, occasionally at our worship sites. We read what
they are, hear the villager scream out they usual stuff, yet we don't
quite get it. Sometimes they want food, but I see food in the store,
sometimes they don't want wood even though it is empty!
Villager Desire is what your villagers want at the time, or
need. They may not want wood, since the don't need it. Or they
want more food because, well, they just plain want it! Villagers
want and need things constantly. VILLAGERS ARE NEVER HAPPY, YOU
CANNOT OBTAIN A PERFECTLY HAPPY VILLAGE! Get that thought out of
you head now and never, ever, ever, ever ever ever let it come back!
B. The Desires
This is a quick list of the different desires your villagers will
have, and what cuases them.
a. Wood
Your villagers want wood in the village store so that they
can build buildings, or put wood in your Workshop. It is caused by
lack of wood in your village store. (Duh, that's why these are the
basics) At times you may see a completely empty wood storage and no
desire flag. This is O.K. It just means that you have nothing
going on in your village that requires wood.
b. Food
Each villager eats it's own helping of food,
if you have more villagers than you do servings, or you people
(as I have observed) have to walk a long way to get to food will
want more food. (People get hungry as they travel)
Your people will feed themselves, as in they walk to the village
store, get some food, and eat it. This should never be empty!
c. Expansion
This means housing, and it really isn't that big of a problem as
long as you are constantly building houses for your people.
When this goes up, be prepared to start working on some of the other
desire flags. Building need wood, builders need food, etc.
d. Offspring
WARNING! VILLAGERS BREED LIKE RABBITS! This is the most common and
the most annoying desire. This desire is the root of all evil!
Example, Villagers want offspring, more off offspring means more
food and more buildings, more buildings require more wood, more
builders need more food, more food means they want more offspring.
It is perfectly O.K. to have a Breeding flag up, it mean's your
villagers are essentially happy (so long as no other flags are up).
e. Mercy
Your villagers are frightened of you, or your creature, because you
did something evil to them, like burning the creche. Frickaseed
baby... not bad!
f. Protection
Your villagers are frightened of another god or creature. Not much
else.
g. Civic Buildings
You don't have a Creche, Workshop, or Cemetary, just build these
early to get them out of the way. This is the easiest to take care
of
h. Rest (Worship site only)
Too many villagers are worshiping at your temple, or the ones that
are there are low on health.
ii. Village Buildings
A list of all the village buildings you will find in the games,
the same goes for every tribe.
A. Housing
Your Villagers need a place to live, housing provides that. It is,
or at least should be, the most common type of building in any
village. The two types of housing is large (Two scafold) and small
(On scafold). Large buildings can give either 3 or 4 adult spots,
depending on size, where as small buildings will ALWAYS give you two
adult spots. "Spots" can be viewed by "tapping" on any house.
B. Civic Buildings
There are only three types of civic buildings. The Workshop, where
scafolds are made, the Creche, basicallya daycare, and the Cemetary,
duh. Every village should have a Creche and Cemetary, but the
Workshop is suggested. Also a building that isn't really classified
under anything, but since it affects your village I will put it
here, The Wonderer. It gives you special powers or changes the
attributes of your village based on which wonderer you choose.
C. Village Center
This basically IS the village itself, all the miracles are listed
there as well as the totem. You can create these by placing 5 or
more scafolds down in a somewhat remote location. Remote location
being away from all other towns. This is the heart of any town.
D. Village Store
All your villages desires are listed here. Your village's food
supply and wood stock are also located here. You can leash your
creature here so that it will fufill the town's needs and wants.
E. That huge building of great importance,
oh I mean the temple!
The temple is essentailly you! It reflects your alignment by
either having towering spikes, or slim curves. Your creature's
pen as well as the villages worship sites are located here. Inside
the temple is your creature cave, and other rooms like that.
iii. Wants VS Needs
Want: something desired, or demanded.
Need: necessity arising from the circumstances of a situation or
case.
A. Determining Wants VS Needs
Wants are easily defined by situations, thus giving you a basic
understanding and flexibiliy to determine on your own the difference
between the two.
Situation A: Wood Desire is high, as well as Expansion Desire.
There is little to no wood left in storage.
Want: Wood
Need: Expansion
The villagers want wood to supply their need for expansion
Situation B: Wood Desire is high, and there are many buildings
under construction. The Offspring flag is also up.
Want: Offspring (This is always a want, and never a necesity EXCEPT
when your village has but one or two villagers.)
Need: Wood
The villagers want offspring to fill in the new homes, but need wood
to build them.
So as you see, each desire flag yields a new desire. An easy way to
prioritize the falgs is through the Want VS Need system.
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III. In Depth Coverage of the Flags
The sction will cover the different ways to "fix" the flags. It
covers both the good and Evil ways to fix the flags.
i. Fixing the Desires
A. Food
a. Good
Cast the Food miracle on your village store. Another option is to
use your creature to feed the people.
b. Evil:
The only evil way that comes to mind is to steal from other
villages, or from your villages themselves. Yes taking food from
the fields IS EVIL! To bad you can't fill the village store with
children!
B. Wood
a. Good
Cast the wood miracle, or water trees for the villagers.
b. Evil
Can you really be evil with this, besides once again, stealing wood.
C. Expansion
a. Good
Build homes for the homeless, keep the village store up with food
and wood, and you should be set.
b. Evil
KILL KILL KILL! Who needs those worthless EXTRA followers anyway!
D. Offspring
a. Good
Be carful here, one man can impregnate an ENTIRE village, so it's
best to have one female breeder per 20 people. That way you keep a
constant supply of offspring, but not to many. If you are DESPRATLY
low then mabye one or two men will do the trick. It's not a good
idea to let your creature do this for you, but under no circumstance
slap him for it! All you need to do is pick up the new disciple
and shake him about!
b. Evil
They want offspring? They won't after you destroy all the extra
housing space. Burn the houses and watch the villagers squirm.
E. Mercy
a. Good
Try to be nicer to them, cast some healing miracles, water some
plants, be nice!
b. Evil
You're evil... WHO CARES IF THEY WANT MERCY!?
F. Protection
a. Good
Spirtual shields, physical shields do the trick, also try helping
them rebuild what was lost in the attack.
b. Evil
Ditto but without the rebuilding part, that's to nice for you.
G. Civic Buildings
a. Good
Give them their damn civic buildings, they do nothing but help!
b. Evil
Ditto.
H. Rest
a. Good
Lower the totem about 5% to 10% depending on how badly they need
rest, cast a few healing miracles around the worshipers and mabye
even make a teleport to your distant villages.
b. Evil
Roast 'em. Who needs tired worshipers? Fresh meat is your game!
Just kill em off to make room for the new meat.
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IV. Do's and Don'ts of Village Managment
i. The Do's
1. Do keep the food desire low.
2. Do keep the wood desire low.
3. Do encourage villagers to work by creating
diciples.
4. Do try to be ever-expanding, a village at rest
gets you no more influence over the land.
5. Do make room for your creature to move around.
6. Do encourage your creature to always help
villagers, even if you are evil. (An evil
creature can be both annoying and destructive)
7. Do try to make your villages self-sustaining.
ii. The Don'ts
1. Don't let villagers "Chill out." Assign them to
be disciples like fisherman, or farmers.
Something that will require constant work on
their part.
2. Don't overbreed, overbreeding is the source of
all other desires!
3. Don't kill your entire village.
4. Don't allow your creature to eat villagers,
unless you really really want that.
(Sadistic SoB)
5. Don't do everything! You can spend hours
micromanaging your villages only to find out
that you raised a load of LAZY VILLAGERS!
6. Don't make too many houses at once! Remember,
houses need wood, wood requires trees! If you
can't supply the wood to each house you make
(Around 1660 or one wood miracle) then do not
build it. It creates a need for your villagers
to chop down every tree on the map!
7. Don't let your creature do everything, it's
good to have him around but he could be doing
soooooo much more in other villages!
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V. Strategies
This section is about some basic to advanced strategies to
creating your villages.
i.General (Your town)
A. Self mangement.
Your villagers can be reasonably self-reliant. If done correctly
this strategy can help you to stop micro-managing all of your towns.
Start of with the following rule for food, 1 field can feed 5
people, if you want it to be really self-suffiecent and have a lot
of wood to burn, or 1 field can feed 10 people if you don't have
that much wood. Fields are built at the workshop for 4 scafolds.
Next look for any fish farms in the area and set disciples to work
there. Food is really the only thing you want your people to be
self-suffcient on. Wood cutters tend to overkill forest in a
heartbeat.
In the story mode, when you are more than likely paying attention
to other things, A good way to get your town to be self managing and
have alot of influence is by creating a agricultural type of town.
Around your village center just try to fit all your civic buildings,
with the exception of the graveyard. This will help you in later
lands, trust me. On the outskirts of the town center use this rule,
1 field for every small house, 2 fields for every medium house (3
or 4 villager spots) and 3 fields for every large house (5 spots)
this creates a cool loking town, make the villagers self-suffciant
as well as helping you to spread out and increase your influence.
This won't work as well in the skirmish mode since players have a
limited amount of space to utilize.
B. Breeding
Breeders can be a plague! Over breeding is the WORST thing that
can happen to any village. A general rule of thumb for me is 1
female breeder per 10 people. This way the population can grow
exponentially but still under control. If you are having trouble
keeping up with the rate of breeding, simply take out breeder
diciples. I have never seen two non-breeder diciples mate. If,
like on land 3, you need alot of people, then make 1 male breeder
diciple per 25 people.
In a village where there isn't anyone, like one you just took the
evil way, you can't really start a village without 1 male and 3
females. Make the one male a breeder disciple and the women what
ever you need. Then put the man around the village store or food
supply to ensure that he is constantly breeding.
Don't let your creature create breeders since he tends to get out
of hand and goes on a breeder frenzy. It's best to handle such
matters with your godly hand!
C. Village Structure
If you notice how villages are laid out in the skirmish maps, then
you will see that they have a group of houses around a few farms and
mabye a few around the village store. I find this to be extremely
effective. Building houses into what I call "neighborhoods" or
groups of houses, and then centralizing them on important resources
such as flocks, farms, fish farms, trees, and forests can be a great
way break apart the village into sectors, fireflys I see escpecially
like houses around trees.
Make "roads" through your village. Between each line of houses
should be a strip of green grass, if there isn't than more then
likely your creature cannot fit through! Accesibility is key here
since, when trained properly, the creature can be your best friend
in village management.
Always expand toward your opponent! That way your influence is
getting ever closer to his villages, as well as those nuetral ones
in between.
Keep all your civic buildings close toghether, when they are closer
then the interaction between all of them is much easier.
Two workshops spaced close thoghether can provide you with a quick
way to mass produce buildings and fields, so long as you supply them
well. It seems like there is a glitch where if you take
scaffolding from one workshop and put it into another, all scaffolds
that are already being made into buildings are cleared. Thus making
room for more scaffolds in their place.
D. General Rules
Killing villagers is bad. Killing houses is bad, setting fire to
fields can be extremly bad as these are hard to put out. If you
need to impress a town with fireballs, throw them OVER not IN the
town.
Always leave space and keep desire low, remember, THERE IS NO SUCH
THING AS A HAPPY VILLAGE, so don't waste your time trying like I
did. Don't be fooled by that bliss moment when you think you have a
happy village, it will only stay that way for a minite.
ii. Taking over towns, The Good way.
Start by sending your creature into the town,make sure he knows all
the good miracles. Then impress them useing Flying Flock, or one of
the other big miracles.
Satisfy their desires, or have your creature do it.
Leash the creature to the Village Center and he will entertain the
villagers, leash him to the village store and he will satisgy their
desires. Throw artifacts, in the village and do other nice things
for them until they believe in you.
iii. Taking over towns, The Evil way.
Take your creature, have him destroy a few homes, burn any civic
buildings they have, throw villagers about, and eat villagers, they
will believe in you in no time.
Alternativly, kill everyone, then send in a missionary. Town is
yours.
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V. The Creature
Ah yes, the creature, the almighty being that is your creature,
your greatest ally, or worst enemy. This creature teaching is made
to make a village work horse, not a fighter, or evil creature.
i. My Creature, My Village, and Me
A. Training
Train your creature not to eat villagers, but to tuck them in at
night, pick them up and cuddle them, make them happy, and perform
for them. Teach him to use the totem, and when it's appropriate.
Teach him to fish, take food from fields and use village store.
Teach him to poop on trees, or fields if you can. Let him learn how
to feed himself and when rest is O.K. Teach him to eat whatever, as
long as it's not villagers. After he has learned these basics,
teach him how to throw trees into the village store when he is on
the wood desire flag. Next teach him to throw full grown animals
into the village store when on the food flag. DO NOT teach him to
take food from the field, otherwise he will turn out more evil,
since stealing is wrong.
B.Miracles
Start him off with the water miracle. Leash him to the food desire
with the learning leash, and then water fields. Leash him to the
wood desire flag and teach him to water trees. Next teach him to
cast the food and wood miracles, these are important for him to
learn since they give a good deal of resources. Continue to
reinforce these lessons until he will do them on his own. A good
test is to put him on the learning leash, leash him to a food or
wood desire flag, and watch what he does. If he feeds the villagers
when on the wood flag, then you need to teach him to put wood in the
village store instead of food when on that flag. Or if he sits
down, then you need to slap him right away, then show him what to
do. NEVER should your creature be idle!
After learning these basic concepts, teach him more advanced like
miracle forest, and miracle heal. These will help to impress later
villages.
C. What can my Creature do for me?
Your creature can satisfy desire of your villagers with relative
smarts, depending on how extensivly you train him. He can act as
just big babysitter, or and active member of society based on what
personality traits you bestow upon him. If trained right, your
creature can the most vital member of any village.
D. When is my creature ready to be my work horse?
Here is a quick checklist of things your creature must know.
1.Water miracle, and when, where, and what to use it on.
2.Food Miracle, again, when and where.
3.Wood Miracle, ditto.
4.Healthy (from villager point of view) eating habits.
5.Not to roam around. Leash that big fella up.
6.Your Creature MUST knowhow to help the villagers out,
and when to do it.
E. Last Words
Your creature should never be allowed to sit down, ever. He must
know how to please the villagers. He must know how to do basic
villager tasks, like food and wood. He should be an overall good
guy.
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VII. Final Words
I created this guide because I hadn't seen many comprehensive
guides on village life. I will attempt to update regularly as new
information. You can contact me at
[email protected] with any
questions, comments, ridicule, or new information. All e-mails will
be answered as long as they have a purpose!
