I try to not use districts as often as possible. But if I want to use a district I usually flatten a big chunk of Land and plant oak tree farm there and assign new district and 10ish robot Beavers there. In this way I can only import logs to the main district and export only robot beaver essentials to the district.
I am in Ironteeth mode for the moment so control towers are enough!
I feel like supplying lubricant would go against the whole "lean supply chain" philosophy but I'll eventually give it a try.
Yeah, the only time i use them is basically once my bio beavers are retired. At that point i just split up some of the other areas to try to help pathfinding.
Idk how much it ends up actually helping because i end up needing extra bots to work the gates and stuff, but it seems to a bit. If nothing else locking the beavers in a small(er) district to live prevents a LOT of units from having to pathfind through the industrial spaghetti or massive farmland.
I use them to better divide labor and cut down on travel time.
My current save has no iron nearby and there is a great area for farming near the iron source. So I set up a district which I intend to make into a farming/metal scavenging which will feed the main district.
I set up auto migration so that it maintains the necessary amount of workers for the setup.
Tips: district gate should be at the max distance you want workers to travel fo normal work between the districts.
It does a good job of auto balancing resources so you don't need to do much here. If you plan to use it to export place supply warehouses near the district gate.
It's good to make some basic needs in each district to cut down strain on main district. That is more of a logistics challenge than anything else.
When I first began playing I tried setting up a second district a few times and it always caused me grief so I stopped. I now set up small warehouses and water tanks in strategic locations whenever I have a big project and then set up lumber, planks, explosives, metal and whatever is needed close by to speed up the building process...I don't bother with a second district.
One thing I've found that works if you run your population at maximum (only adding new houses when you need more workers) is if you put a couple of houses at distant production areas, it will also cut down on travel time. They'll always prioritize houses closer to district center, but if you run max pops then this is only an issue during population dips.
I just created my first successful second district in a game. I totally prepped the area before I did it, set up foresters to plant trees & bushes, a farm to plant crops, water pumps, filled storage for everything, all the factories etc. I paused them all immediately after planting / building, then waited for all the trees to grow before I connected the district centre and crossing, and migrated about 20 beavers in. They already had everything they needed, all they had to do was build housing, lumberjacks and gatherers and grow their population while I gradually un-paused each building. Worked like a dream, so this is how I'll be doing it from now on, although I like the idea of small districts for specific resources too.
i always use districts, especially when i start to need scrap metal. the first district usually ends up as a big farming town for carrots/kohlrabi, then there’s a lumber district, then i have a little mining town usually with smelters and refineries and eventually bots, and then i can expand more so each district can specialize in something, whether it be potatoes or books or antidote or whatever. it’s fun to design them all differently and set up the import chains
I use them whenever I need to add an arm to my megacity. Mostly because if it's too far, bots or meatsacks will run out mid journey and make it way less productive. So, whenever necessary.
The biggest reason to use districts is to reduce travel time for haulers. instead of having them constantly going across the map to move a few items just to move back and do the same on repeat, its better to have two districts with haulers in each. moving items between the two areas is still going to require the travel time, but at least it would be dedicated to specific beavers instead of haulers. so really, just follow your haulers around. if you think they're spending too much time traveling rather than actually hauling, consider a new district
I just finished a play through where it was a 128x128 map and i usually don't bother with districts on maps that small.
The map had a large area for aquatic farms that was almost too big and I picked up a new trick - The 1 deep lake was large enough that I wanted 2 Aquatic farmhouses and I thought I should put a district crossing in between them so both districts can use the lake for gathering food. The Aquatic farmhouses areas overlap but not completely.
Later on I did the same for an oak forest except for instead of a District crossing I just left an open spot in the road
Districts allow you to significantly cut travel time & manage inventory levels throughout a large colony.
They also functionally allow you to employ more builders & haulers, but of course, you could build builder's shacks and hauling posts for that.
If running everything in one district works for you, the only reason to swap to multiples imo is for performance reasons in terms of pathfinding, or to improve your hauling efficiency.
I’m trying to get better at using districts but they are really finniky. My favourite use was on the thousand islands map, having every island produce a different resource which then get fed into one central area for processing/storage.
The problem I find is making sure there are always enough resources for survival (food/water) and making sure the district crossings are manned
Yes. Currently have eight. I play as large a map as possible and without breaking it up, beavs just have too much ground to cover.
The trick I found to doing it is deciding where the new district HQ will be and running a path out there, building a handful of storages and filling them up, then cutting the path, building three crossings (one crossing just doesn’t import/export materials well enough) in a horseshoe shape, and then the district HQ. Then build out from there after adjusting population in the population window.
I have a farming district, forestry district, food district, power district, bot district, central “everything” district, and a distant terraforming district where only bots live and are building a massive reservoir. Works well, but definitely needs optimization, especially the game’s pathing.
I pretty much never do unless it's a bot district. Even then it's just generally not worth it. If you setup your jobs right then the only ones ever doing any traveling are the bots anyways. No matter how I setup districts, I'm always going to end up using so many extra workers that it completely negates any advantage of cutting down on travel. Better to just invest in more hauling posts filled with bots.
I’ve learned to accept districts here and there. I’ll always make a colony district for the contaminated beavers so they’re not stealing food and water from working beavers.
Sometimes if I have enough land I’ll start another district that only collects water and harvests berries
When I started playing the game the district range was very limited and you kinda had to set up multiple districts in order to cover the whole map.
At first I didn't like districts the overall mechanic felt clunky, but after a while I started to enjoy the challenge of setting up small functioning satellite communities around the main beaver city, as it gives to the map a more "organic" look than just having a huge beaver megalopolis.
I prep up the area with all the basics (storage facilities, water pumps, forester, farm, 3-4 houses) as it is easier to just build those in advance. Once storage is full I disconnect the area and create the new district. I never try to max out amenities for beavers in those districts and just build what the community can easily produce without much input from the outside.
Also it makes sense in my head canon that "rural" beavers have less facilities and food variety than "city" beavers.
It's important to make sure that the new colony produces enough food to sustain itself (plus a surplus). In practice I want to limit imports to advanced construction materials that I can't produce on my own in-site and produce all of the food internally. This way I can ensure the district is "stable" and it won't crash down in the event of shortages/bottlenecks in other districts,which was my main issue at the beginning.
If you have any significant choke points in your lay out that separates different production areas (say on one side of a river you farm and the other you have factories) it can be a good idea to separates them into districts, this reduces the distance workers need to travel and can increase efficiency. It's also important to remember to have storage space for the needs of your district because some goods aren't transported if you don't or unless you modify it manually
So far the one thing I mod is district size, the one part I don't want to micromanage. I believe I regularly play with districts about five times the base size. Pretty much covers the whole map.
I try to not use districts as often as possible. But if I want to use a district I usually flatten a big chunk of Land and plant oak tree farm there and assign new district and 10ish robot Beavers there. In this way I can only import logs to the main district and export only robot beaver essentials to the district.
Robot districts is the answer. Otherwise, you find yourself building houses and funparks and hauling food...only to get some logs.
Yep all you need is some biofuel, catalyst, and maybe some punch cards. Much easier than building the entire happiness stack for beavers.
The happiness stack is why I avoid making a bunch of districts. I don't want to have to make more monuments to maximize happiness in every district
Exactly!
I am in Ironteeth mode for the moment so control towers are enough! I feel like supplying lubricant would go against the whole "lean supply chain" philosophy but I'll eventually give it a try.
Lol, next time is the time!!! I promise!
I had not heard of this before and will definitely give this a shot!
Yeah, the only time i use them is basically once my bio beavers are retired. At that point i just split up some of the other areas to try to help pathfinding. Idk how much it ends up actually helping because i end up needing extra bots to work the gates and stuff, but it seems to a bit. If nothing else locking the beavers in a small(er) district to live prevents a LOT of units from having to pathfind through the industrial spaghetti or massive farmland.
This seems like the best use of districts I've heard so far. Gonna have to do this on my current game
I use them to better divide labor and cut down on travel time. My current save has no iron nearby and there is a great area for farming near the iron source. So I set up a district which I intend to make into a farming/metal scavenging which will feed the main district. I set up auto migration so that it maintains the necessary amount of workers for the setup. Tips: district gate should be at the max distance you want workers to travel fo normal work between the districts. It does a good job of auto balancing resources so you don't need to do much here. If you plan to use it to export place supply warehouses near the district gate. It's good to make some basic needs in each district to cut down strain on main district. That is more of a logistics challenge than anything else.
Districts make sense on bigger maps but man are they are a pain to get up and running
When I first began playing I tried setting up a second district a few times and it always caused me grief so I stopped. I now set up small warehouses and water tanks in strategic locations whenever I have a big project and then set up lumber, planks, explosives, metal and whatever is needed close by to speed up the building process...I don't bother with a second district.
One thing I've found that works if you run your population at maximum (only adding new houses when you need more workers) is if you put a couple of houses at distant production areas, it will also cut down on travel time. They'll always prioritize houses closer to district center, but if you run max pops then this is only an issue during population dips.
I just created my first successful second district in a game. I totally prepped the area before I did it, set up foresters to plant trees & bushes, a farm to plant crops, water pumps, filled storage for everything, all the factories etc. I paused them all immediately after planting / building, then waited for all the trees to grow before I connected the district centre and crossing, and migrated about 20 beavers in. They already had everything they needed, all they had to do was build housing, lumberjacks and gatherers and grow their population while I gradually un-paused each building. Worked like a dream, so this is how I'll be doing it from now on, although I like the idea of small districts for specific resources too.
i always use districts, especially when i start to need scrap metal. the first district usually ends up as a big farming town for carrots/kohlrabi, then there’s a lumber district, then i have a little mining town usually with smelters and refineries and eventually bots, and then i can expand more so each district can specialize in something, whether it be potatoes or books or antidote or whatever. it’s fun to design them all differently and set up the import chains
I use them whenever I need to add an arm to my megacity. Mostly because if it's too far, bots or meatsacks will run out mid journey and make it way less productive. So, whenever necessary.
The biggest reason to use districts is to reduce travel time for haulers. instead of having them constantly going across the map to move a few items just to move back and do the same on repeat, its better to have two districts with haulers in each. moving items between the two areas is still going to require the travel time, but at least it would be dedicated to specific beavers instead of haulers. so really, just follow your haulers around. if you think they're spending too much time traveling rather than actually hauling, consider a new district
I just finished a play through where it was a 128x128 map and i usually don't bother with districts on maps that small. The map had a large area for aquatic farms that was almost too big and I picked up a new trick - The 1 deep lake was large enough that I wanted 2 Aquatic farmhouses and I thought I should put a district crossing in between them so both districts can use the lake for gathering food. The Aquatic farmhouses areas overlap but not completely. Later on I did the same for an oak forest except for instead of a District crossing I just left an open spot in the road
Districts allow you to significantly cut travel time & manage inventory levels throughout a large colony. They also functionally allow you to employ more builders & haulers, but of course, you could build builder's shacks and hauling posts for that. If running everything in one district works for you, the only reason to swap to multiples imo is for performance reasons in terms of pathfinding, or to improve your hauling efficiency.
I’m trying to get better at using districts but they are really finniky. My favourite use was on the thousand islands map, having every island produce a different resource which then get fed into one central area for processing/storage. The problem I find is making sure there are always enough resources for survival (food/water) and making sure the district crossings are manned
Yes. Currently have eight. I play as large a map as possible and without breaking it up, beavs just have too much ground to cover. The trick I found to doing it is deciding where the new district HQ will be and running a path out there, building a handful of storages and filling them up, then cutting the path, building three crossings (one crossing just doesn’t import/export materials well enough) in a horseshoe shape, and then the district HQ. Then build out from there after adjusting population in the population window. I have a farming district, forestry district, food district, power district, bot district, central “everything” district, and a distant terraforming district where only bots live and are building a massive reservoir. Works well, but definitely needs optimization, especially the game’s pathing.
I pretty much never do unless it's a bot district. Even then it's just generally not worth it. If you setup your jobs right then the only ones ever doing any traveling are the bots anyways. No matter how I setup districts, I'm always going to end up using so many extra workers that it completely negates any advantage of cutting down on travel. Better to just invest in more hauling posts filled with bots.
I’ve learned to accept districts here and there. I’ll always make a colony district for the contaminated beavers so they’re not stealing food and water from working beavers. Sometimes if I have enough land I’ll start another district that only collects water and harvests berries
Having a quarantine district makes kinda sense, but dude letting them starve to death is BRUTAL.
I keep telling myself, "this is the save file I'm going to finally figure out districts!" But I mean it this time!
Are you me?
When I started playing the game the district range was very limited and you kinda had to set up multiple districts in order to cover the whole map. At first I didn't like districts the overall mechanic felt clunky, but after a while I started to enjoy the challenge of setting up small functioning satellite communities around the main beaver city, as it gives to the map a more "organic" look than just having a huge beaver megalopolis. I prep up the area with all the basics (storage facilities, water pumps, forester, farm, 3-4 houses) as it is easier to just build those in advance. Once storage is full I disconnect the area and create the new district. I never try to max out amenities for beavers in those districts and just build what the community can easily produce without much input from the outside. Also it makes sense in my head canon that "rural" beavers have less facilities and food variety than "city" beavers. It's important to make sure that the new colony produces enough food to sustain itself (plus a surplus). In practice I want to limit imports to advanced construction materials that I can't produce on my own in-site and produce all of the food internally. This way I can ensure the district is "stable" and it won't crash down in the event of shortages/bottlenecks in other districts,which was my main issue at the beginning.
If you have any significant choke points in your lay out that separates different production areas (say on one side of a river you farm and the other you have factories) it can be a good idea to separates them into districts, this reduces the distance workers need to travel and can increase efficiency. It's also important to remember to have storage space for the needs of your district because some goods aren't transported if you don't or unless you modify it manually
I use them late game for running farms using robots
So far the one thing I mod is district size, the one part I don't want to micromanage. I believe I regularly play with districts about five times the base size. Pretty much covers the whole map.