In the hopes of not having everyone die on my second year, I’ve still been playing Banished and enjoying every second of it. My first town was a bust, everyone slowly starved to death. The second town started off strong. I created a woodcutter, I penned the cows, I even created a market. I felt good, confident. People were eating enough and things were going smooth – until the second year hit and their reserves ran out and I realized I didn’t create a blacksmith so they had no tools to perform their jobs. No tools means eventually no food, and now everyone is (once again) starving to death while they walk around aimlessly, tool icon hovering over their head along with the starvation icon.
I did plan a blacksmith, but it was too late the damage had been done. I know the exact moment it all went wrong, too. It was when I started planning roads. In my haste I forgot how long it takes to build those roads (they don’t magically appear) and so everyone was preoccupied with that for a while. There’s a fine line between building too fast and too slow. A line that I have obviously not managed to figure out yet.
Third time is the charm, right?
You really have to balance your priorities in this game. I’ve done the roads thing as well as tell people to clear cut too many areas and then all my laborers split up and the work goes by much slower. Then people starve or freeze or are too busy to build the buildings other than at a snail’s pace.
I used to want to specialize all my citizens, but I’ve discovered the joys of a large labor force! At least in the early game.