Topic: Mining strategy

For Barbarians and the Empire, shallow mines are cheaper to run. (total effective costs of consumed food / one piece of mined resource) Barbarian medium ("deep") mines are the most expensive to run, except for gold, which is the same for "deep" and "deeper", and if I didn't make a mistake in my calculations, iron "deeper" is even slightly cheaper than plain. Empire coal and marble mines have little difference though between plain and deep, while iron and gold have somewhat more. But in exchange for the increased cost, you also get faster production.

Frisians have lots of options for food production for mines, with different costs. Also their meal is super expensive. On the other hand, their deep mines are much more productive than plain ones, so in the end plain mines cost more to run than deep ones, except for coal, which is about the same. But you need a lot of infrastructure before you can afford deep ones.

So there's no uniform optimal strategy for mine levels for any tribe. It always depends on the map and the game situation too.

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tothxa wrote:

For Barbarians and the Empire, shallow mines are cheaper to run. (total effective costs of consumed food / one piece of mined resource)

Hmm. I'm wondering though. What about the cost of the miners? If you open 100 shallow mines you need 100 miners. That's 100 picks (- what you started with in miners + spare picks)...

This is what caused me to ask since I found that lots of shallow mines tend to get hung up on missing workers.

--
To Boldly Go Where No Man Has Gone Before

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Empire

Foods:

flour: 2, bread: 4, beer: 3, wine: 3, meat from piggery: 3

In the beginning you're better off if you only make rations from fish (and hunted meat), but later, when fish starts to become scarce, you should switch to bread, and keep fish and meat (by this time clearly from piggery) for soldier training and meals. Below calculations are for the early game and assuming fish is abundant, so ration costs 2.

Meal, also in early game, costs 6.

Mines:

Mined amount / food:

Effective cost of mined material:

Frisians

Foods:

fruit: 1, smoked fish/meat: 2, bread: 3, beer:3, honey bread: 4, mead: 4

(again, while map fish resource is abundant, otherwise bred fish costs 4)

Now, here you have many options for rations: only fruit: 2, only fish(/meat): 3, fruit+fish: 2, bread+fish: 3, only bread: 4 (clearly, you should avoid the last one). I took 2.5 as average in the spreadsheet, but I revised it here to 2, which is possible if taverns only get fruit (and possibly fish/meat), and no bread. This way shallow coal becomes better than deep coal, and gold is the same. (by this very simple approximation)

Meal: 10

Mines:

Mined amount / food:

Effective cost of mined material:

Charcoal costs 5 on average, if you build groups of a clay pit, a charcoal burner's house, a well, a charcoal kiln and a few foresters and woodcutters. This is often worth it, as it's all renewable (wells don't really need actual water :)), so you can spare the expensive and troublesome foodstuff for the metals and soldier training, and don't have to relocate your coal production all the time.

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LienRag wrote:

Also, do multiple mines covering the same location empty it quicker than one ?

I mean, if there is "some iron" or "a lot of iron" or whatever in a location, and multiple mine emplacements covering that location, is it better to have just one iron mine (and leave the other mine emplacements empty) in order to deplete it more slowly ?

yes, because the available amount of resources is stored in each field and is decreased by each succesful mining cycle by any mine

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Placing a mine on wrong ores is the same as running a depleted mine. This just makes no sense, except you really, really, really don't get the ore you want with normal mines. So the question makes also no sense, sorry.

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