How can you use animals in Banished to have as much fun as possible?

There’s a lot to say about a video game that survives the time trial and stays a beloved game of many players, even with constant releases of dazzling new products on the video games market. Banished, a 2014 city-building simulation by Shining Rock Software, is a game that has passed the test and stayed a favorite for many. Planting and harvesting crops, expanding the list of professions, growing the population of your settlement - these are only a few of the many fun things you can do in the game. One of my personal favourite things about Banished is dealing with animals, and that’s exactly what this article is about. Let’s dive into the list of the most fun Banished animals with which you can play with or without mods, and what those animals are all about!

5. Fish

Fishermen are always hard at work, rain or shine.

Fish is the easiest kind of animal available in the game. Here’s everything you need to know about it:

• Fish is available from the very start of your game. As soon as you build a fishing dock on the nearest river or lake and assign a few of your citizens to be fishermen, they’ll start bringing fish to your storage barns, which your citizens will happily bring home and serve for dinner.
• Some mods offer an additional building where fish can be harvested: fish farms. Unlike fishing docks, fish farms don’t need to be built on the shore or a river bank. Just find a nice patch of flat land and build your fishing farm right there. Remember to assign some fish farmers to work there - that fish won’t catch itself!
• Unlike crops, fish can be harvested all year long, so don’t make the mistake of concentrating on your orchards and crop fields and neglecting such a steady source of food as fishing docks and fish farms.
• While the official game doesn’t offer much of a choice of what to do with the fish you catch, except eating it, there are mods that will allow you to further process it. With appropriate buildings in your village, you’ll be able to produce smoked, dried, and salted fish, which will increase the happiness of your citizens thanks to a more diverse diet. A diverse diet equals happiness!
• While you can flood your terrain with fish farms and it’ll increase the income of fish to your storage barns, it doesn’t work that way with fishing docks. Each catches fish only within a certain radius, which you can see as a yellow circle when you select any fishing dock. Even if you spam them along the river bank, it won’t make any difference as long as the radius of one fishing dock overlaps with the radius of another. 

4. Chickens

A pasture full of chickens is a steady source of food.

Now that the water animals are covered, let’s move to those who live on dry land. In this case, chickens!

• Chickens are one of the three types of domestic animals that are available to use in your settlement at the very start of the game. As soon as the game starts, if you see chickens hanging out casually among your citizens, it means they are yours and you'd better put them to good use!
• Although you start the game with your chickens free to roam the premises, they won’t be useful until you put them in a pasture and assign a herdsman to take care of them.
• If the chicken is not the animal the game gives you at the beginning, don’t fret! You will be able to purchase a few chickens later on, after you build a trading post. Remember: the more chickens you purchase from a merchant, the faster their number will be growing when you put them into a pasture. Once you have at least a few of them in your pasture, you can forget about trading goods with merchants to purchase more of these animals - just sit back and watch them breed and fill the pasture by themselves.
• Chickens bring two types of food: chicken and eggs. While they start laying eggs as soon as you put them in a pasture, you won’t see any chicken in your storage barns until the number of chickens in a given pasture reaches the maximum allowed for that particular pasture. As soon as the maximum is reached, whenever the number of chickens starts exceeding it… Well, let’s just say, the excess of animals in the pastures will be turned into food.
• When a pasture with chickens is ready, you will begin to hear characteristic chicken clucking. Way to make it more realistic, Shining Rock Software!

3. Deer

Majestic deer wandering in the winter wilderness

The wildest, most free, and untamed animal in the game is, of course, the deer. What should you know about this magnificent animal to make it part of the life of your society?

• Deer are the source of venison and leather. Venison is a type of food that contributes to the diet diversity of your population. 
• Leather is what you need to keep your citizens warm, especially in winter. You need leather to make two types of coats: hide coats and warm coats. If you start your game with chickens, which only give you food, you won’t have any other source of leather but deer. Who knows how long it’ll take you to get other animals that will provide you with leather? Until then, deer are your only hope.
• The main building that deals with deer is a hunting cabin, with a few hunters working in it. They will hunt deer, collect venison and leather, and bring them to the storage barns for your citizens to use. Avoid building hunting cabins in the middle of your settlement. Just like fishing docks, they have a radius of activity, and your hunters won’t venture outside this radius. You won’t find deer roaming the streets of your city, so the best place for a hunting cabin is in the middle of a dense forest. A bit invasive, I know, but don’t worry, your hunters won’t harm the deer population of the area!
• If you’re an appreciator of the Banished mods, I’ve got good news for you: where deer are concerned, you’ll find some interesting mods, for sure! For example, there’s a mod that allows you to build pastures for deer, just like you’d build it for chickens. The difference here is that you’ll have to purchase a few deer from a merchant to place them in a pasture, just like you’d have to do with chickens if you didn’t have them already.

2. Sheep

Sheep are not only useful but also cute.

Who is white, fluffy, and looks like a walking cloud? Sheep, of course! If you’re starting a new settlement in Banished, make sure you know everything there’s to know about breeding sheep.

• The sheep is another one of the three species of animals that you can either find roaming around when starting the game or you’ll have to purchase them from a merchant through a trading post.
• If you have to purchase sheep from a merchant, don’t forget to build a pasture for them to live in, and don’t postpone doing that either! Your sheep won’t breed or bring you any wool nor mutton if you keep them hanging out in the stable of the trading post. Everybody needs a home, and your sheep’s home will be their pasture.
• Sheep produce two products: wool and mutton. Mutton, just like fish and venison, adds to the diversity of your citizens’ diet, whereas wool is what you need to produce coats.
• Wool is used for two types of coats: wool coats, obviously, and warm coats. Both are better than hide coats: they are warmer, last longer, and are more expensive if you want to use them in trade to exchange them for merchants’ items. The warm coat, however, is the best coat you can make for your citizens. It requires both leather and wool, but its production is definitely worth investing in.
• Once you put your first sheep in a pasture, it probably won’t be full, and your animals will breed and grow in numbers. Remember that, while they will start producing wool right away, you won’t see any mutton in your storage barns until the maximum number of sheep in a given pasture is reached. Any excess, as always, will be turned into food. 
• If you listen in on the sounds in the game, you’ll hear your sheep bleat. But there’s more! If you observe them from up close for a while, you’ll see baby sheep magically appear in the pasture. Isn’t that cute!

1. Cows (Cattle)

Perfectly suitable for a milk commercial!

The symbol of every village and every countryside vacation with Granny, cows simply must be included in the gameplay that is so welcoming to animals! Make sure to read this manual on how to keep and breed cows, and you’re ready to go.

• Just like chickens and sheep, cows, also known in the game as cattle, can be gifted to you at the beginning of a new game. If you see your cows browsing peacefully while your citizens are getting to work, hurry up and build a pasture to give your cows a home and a safe space for breeding.
• If you’re starting with sheep or chickens, then you’ll need to be patient until you get a chance to purchase a few cows from a merchant through the trading post. Just make sure to stock your trading post up with the goods you plan to offer to the merchant in exchange for his animals.
• In the official version of the game, cows are the source of beef and leather. Beef, just like chicken and mutton, will boost your citizens’ health and, therefore, happiness, diversifying their diet. Leather produced by cows is the same as the leather obtained from hunting deer. It’s used to make hide coats and warm coats.
• There are mods that also make cows produce milk. While food in itself, milk can also be used for further production of various dairy products, such as yogurt, cheese, and cream. Sometimes, like in the case with yogurt, you’ll need to combine milk with another product, for instance, cherries or peaches, to enable the production of certain dairy goods.
• Pastures with cows, just like those with chickens and sheep, also have the rule of a maximum. The only difference is that cows can produce both leather and beef only after the maximum is reached. So when you build a pasture that allows for 20 cows, and you put your first 6 cows there, you’ll have to be really patient while they’re breeding and growing in numbers. When their number hits 20, then the production of beef and leather will begin. Until then, you’ve got yourself a pasture with cute cows to admire!
• The official game only has one kind of cows: brown, with a bit of white on their faces. If you explore some mods, you’ll find that they offer a new, black-and-white sub-species of cow (the Friesian cow), which isn’t really different in any other way but color. Still, I think it’s cute. Embrace diversity!
• Sheep or chickens in Banished aren’t mute, and neither are cows. You may hear them moo all the time, among other sounds of your active and ever-growing city. And if you decide to let your citizens do their thing while you take a break to enjoy your beautiful pasture, you’ll also see baby cows appearing out of nowhere as your cow population is slowly increasing. If that isn’t adorable, I don’t know what is!

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