Tools tools tools

[rolfen1969]

Hi!
I've got a pretty balanced society with all of the needs fulfilled. But they keep breaking their tools!? I've now 4 blacksmith working 24/7, but cant still feed the tool-needs.
Is this a bug? Or do i just need more and more blacksmiths?

EDIT: I use CC and no other mods

[brads3]

what type of tools are you making? you can pull the townhall up and check the production menu to see how many you use each year and how many you make.

       several things can cause you to make less fro year to year. 1 is the education rate. we try to keep educated workers at the blacksmith. the game still can change them as it re-assigns workers. how far away is the worker going to get supplpies and is there a shortage of supplies.

       this 1 can cause more slow down to me than the lack of education. as the town expands and you are building farther away,materials are located far from the blacksmith.plus as you build more and more, you use up logs,iron,and other supplies. there are some markets that will move the supplies. these can help move the needed goods for the blacksmith. the better he is supplied, the more tools he can make.

       to me lack of tools is worse than low education. it will start a domino affect. as more workers are short on tools, they waunder looking for tools. the production without tools is lower than an un-educated bannie.
now less work gets done and more production falls short.

[rolfen1969]

Ah! Logistics! Oc, didnt think about that. Too eager introducing new luxuries and cool clothes, that i forgot bout the essentials.
At 91% edu-rate, education cant be the problem. And i gonna take a closer look to warehouse/markets situation.
Thx!

[Glenn]

Have you checked to see what type of tools you are making.
eg wooden tools do not last as long as iron or steel

[theonlywanderer]

At a certain point you have to make the choice to produce better tools.   Adding more blacksmiths demands more of the same resource and you're not getting any more longevity out of the tools so it becomes more of a temporary bandaid.

I hate having to deal with coal due to the constant battle with bannies using it for fuel.  You can avoid this a little by having a stock pile right near the coal mine with all the blacksmiths next to it.  But it's no guarantee they still won't snag it up.    The other problem with this is that mines typically aren't in the best locations and as your town spreads out, you still need tools supplied further out.   Even with Markets, the tools can take awhile to spread if all your tools are being made in one distant location.

So I don't bother with coal which leaves out steel, hardened steel, and carbon steel tools.   I tried Gemstone one time, but it was a pain.  So that leaves Bronze as the most durable one for me to make.    Which is fine because I like product chains.   Bronze is made in the forge or foundry.  Bronze needs copper ore, tine ore, and furnace fuel.   So you need the copper mine, tin mine, and fuel refinery.    Furnace fuel requires charcoal, coal, coke, firebundles or firewood.   I typically go for Charcoal because it has an incredible conversion rate.   You need a stacks burner or brickworks and 5 logs makes 55 charcoal.   25 charcoal makes 10 furnace fuel.   

The other benefit here is that none of these items are consumed directly by bannies.   Tin ore and copper ore have a few other uses.   I rarely setup tinneries, they never seem worth it to me being that they compete with tin ore I need for my tools and I don't care about making pewter either.   I also don't care about making copper for copperware or or pipe.  There are alternatives for that stuff so I can focus all the tin ore and copper ore on making bronze.   Bronze only has one other use as a statue and it's not all that worth it either.   So I can really focus this chain on making Bronze tools.  The furnace fuel is the only resource that many other buildings will use.   Glassworks, brickworks, metalsmith, potter, distillery and a few more.   That's easily handled by adding fuel refineries as necessary.

Here are the longevity values I found through various sites over the years.

Rough 40   
Wood 50   
Stone 75   
Iront 100   
Steel 200   
Bronze 265   
Hardened 300
Carbon Steel 400   
Gemstone 1000

[brads3]

there is a mod to stop the houses from using coal. it does not stop them from using charcoal though.

[rolfen1969]

Thx all for good answers! 
Problem is solved, and it took very short time. I only placed some warehouses, and small markets (of varies form) around the map.
Before when i tried to keep the toolproduction up, i produced rough tools. I thought they were faster to make, than ie steel tools, although they dont last long. Is this true btw? That they are faster to make?
You all have the nicest day. :-)

[theonlywanderer]

@brads3

I actually had no idea they would use charcoal to heat their homes.   Guess I never noticed because charcoal is so abundant once setup that it just never impacted the supply so I had no reason to go looking for a problem.

Thanks for the info!

[theonlywanderer]

@rolfen1969

Takes the same amount time for production to occur.

However, you do get 3 rough tools vs 2 steel tools, or 2 iron tools from that same production time.

When you consider steel tools last 5 times longer, it's easy to see that only 1 extra rough tool can't make up for that.

[brads3]

1 tactic i use to avoid tool shortages is to make a variety of tools. usually stone,rough iron ore,and then upgrade to steel for miners.this way if i am short of 1 material, the other blacksmioths keep making tools. this is not fool proof if you are short on logs. it does make shortages occur less often.

    the map i am on there is no iron ore so we ran short of tools. as we were busy with construction, ran short of logs and stone both.