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Topic: Deep vs Shallow

mxb2001
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Joined: 2019-05-20, 18:49
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Location: The land of the thirsty spider
Posted at: 2022-03-25, 17:57

I've read some posts that made me wonder, is one better than the other?

In particular if you've run out of coal on a random map (I have currently) is it better to run the deep coal mine or to tear it down and replace with a shallow one. Or well actually there's room to plop a new shallow coal somewhere else. I know that you get ? coal per ration and 7 per meal (Frisians who actually seem good at charcoal like they brag but that's irrelevant) so it comes down to that... I've learned that Fris Tav can turn out rations pretty fast while the Hall sucks at rations and is pretty much for meals.

Random maps can be pretty interesting. Made a 160x64 (yes long narrow strip) with 8 players in 2 teams. Combat was on after first set of expansion! Large fields of standing stones around to be a pain. Almost no coal/stones (massive quarry fields though) but tons of Iron and Gold.


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tothxa
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Joined: 2021-03-24, 12:44
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Posted at: 2022-03-25, 18:41

Well, as far as coal goes, just use charcoal when there's no more in the ground. With any tribe. In the last big games I played (testing Along the River and Trident of Fire), I've found that by the time resource scarcity started to hit, I didn't need that much building materials any more, so I had plenty of wood lying around, and also plenty of space for foresting. Not calculated, just gut feeling, but I think 3 or 4 forester/lumberjack pairs to a charcoal kiln take less space than all the wheat production and processing that's needed to make bread and beer for the miners to get some meaningful production out of empty mines. So empty iron and gold mines are better use for all that food than coal. If fertile land is scarce, put the forests there, and everything else on the worse lands. It's a strange effect in the game that wheat/etc. growth is independent of terrain type, while trees heavily depend on it.

As far as shallow vs. deep, I've only checked the math for Barbarians so far, but for them, clearly deeper is the best. Well, as long as you can get enough miners, and rearrange the masters to help train the new. But training new ones up to master in empty mines is waaaaaaaaay tooooooooo slooooooooow.


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mxb2001
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Posted at: 2022-03-26, 17:31

Oh right. Charcoal. I guess I'd assumed that making it was just a last ditch desperate way to get coal but I suppose it's not that bad. I've had plenty of games with 1000's of surplus logs... with enough charcoal factories that's a lot of coal even at 6:1... face-smile.png

Ah interesting about the Barbie mines. Extrapolating I guess one could guess that deep > shallow. But who knows. Maybe it's only the Barbies... In fact I'd guess that Frissies might just be better at shallow since honey bread and mead are quite a pain... not sure both are needed for meals but I think one is.


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