@Nilla I can understand why you never had enough workers, with your fast expansion! However, I think if I expand more slowly, and concentrate on building up a food surplus (you know how I do
), I will be able to rely mainly on hunting, gathering, and fishing for food, with some farming to supplement needed grain, and will have sufficient workers left over for mining. Going to need more foresters than usual to provide logs, at least until I reach pop 150 and can get some big rafts of logs coming in thru trade, so hunting and gathering will fit in well there.
I don't see my pop expanding beyond a few hundred, 400-500 tops. I'm envisioning a few more low-density hamlets, similar to what I have already got started here. These will be spread farther apart than my normal towns, to allow for the large forester operations I believe I will need.
The three big challenges I see are building materials, tools, and goods for trade. I already can see that I am not going to be able to rely on surface stone for much more than a few buildings in any future settlements; the penalty for uneducated hits very hard here. Since two of the achievements I am going for are Miner and Mason, it makes sense to me to get a quarry and a mine established in the next few years. There are several good locations for these to the north and east of the new crossriver settlement.
I don't think I would call mining and quarrying inefficient, at least not with educated workers, but it certainly is a slow business. Much will depend on the meaning of the uneducated parameters for mining iron and stone:
mining iron:
int _lowCreateCount = 1;
int _highCreateCount = 2;
mining stones:
int _lowCreateCount = 1;
int _highCreateCount = 2;
If this just means that it is only half as fast, I think it is something I can live with. If it means that it not only is half as fast, but also that a given quarry/mine can produce only half the total output, that will be a serious problem. That's another reason I want to get a mine and/or a quarry set up fairly soon, so I can see which of these is the case.
Another possibility I see is sheep. This may be an error on the part of the developer, but it looks like there is no uneducated penalty for producing wool:
pasture wool:
int _lowCreateCount = 6;
int _highCreateCount = 6;
If this is the case, then it would make sense to set up some pastures; wool coats are very good for trade (although of course production of them will be only half as fast as normal, and will consume twice as much wool).
tailor:
int _lowCreateCount = 1;
int _highCreateCount = 2;
The other possibility I see for trade is ale. The uneducated penalty here is again not so severe:
tavern:
int _lowCreateCount = 7;
int _highCreateCount = 10;
Importing fruit, of course.
Firewood and especially tools are very bad. This is because there is are two compounding penalties, the one for trees=>logs (and surface rocks=>iron), and then the ones for logs=>firewood and for logs/iron=>tools.
You get only 2 logs per tree and 2 iron per rock rather than 3.
You get only 3 firewood per log, so that means one tree can yield only 6 firewood, rather than 12 with educated workers from the same inputs in the same amount of time.
You get only 1 tool per log+stone rather than 2, so that means tree+rock=>2 tools, rather than 6 with educated workers from the same inputs in the same amount of time.
I can see trading some firewood, especially once I am importing logs, but I can't see trading tools as an option at all. In fact I shall most likely be importing tools.
