This is starting to look like a monastic communism.

[solarscreen]

The beta fixed my problem and I never noticed that it went final three weeks later.  Have you found a large playing difference between the beta and the final in this case?  I see from his blog that he fixed a few more things.

To be honest, I haven't played more than 30 minutes since installing the latest.    Life has been very demanding this last month and I have been struggling just to post on the forum to make sure people know I'm alive. 

I would like a professional review and opinion. How about it? 

[A Nonny Moose]

1.0.3 runs better than the version I had, thanks.  I now have a village worth saving across sessions, and currently am working to solve a tools crisis which seemed to appear out of nowhere.  Smithies are not productive enough (I currently have three) and I've just opened a coal mine.

Traders selling tools may solve this in the end, but I am not counting on it.

[slink]

1.0.3 runs better than the version I had, thanks.  I now have a village worth saving across sessions, and currently am working to solve a tools crisis which seemed to appear out of nowhere.  Smithies are not productive enough (I currently have three) and I've just opened a coal mine.

Traders selling tools may solve this in the end, but I am not counting on it.

Check whether your blacksmiths are educated.  Shortages can appear apparently out of nowhere when an educated worker is replaced by an uneducated one.

[solarscreen]

1.0.3 runs better than the version I had, thanks.  I now have a village worth saving across sessions, and currently am working to solve a tools crisis which seemed to appear out of nowhere.  Smithies are not productive enough (I currently have three) and I've just opened a coal mine.

Traders selling tools may solve this in the end, but I am not counting on it.

Check whether your blacksmiths are educated.  Shortages can appear apparently out of nowhere when an educated worker is replaced by an uneducated one.

Definitely agree on the education.

When Flomatons education dropped to 30%, I had a tool shortage of almost 300 and had to change my trade ports to buy tools. It took 2 years to pull out of that mess.

[rkelly17]

I've found 4 reasons for tool shortages:

1. If producing steel tools, citizens are using all coal for heating.

2. Shortage of iron

3. Shortage of logs

4. Shortage of blacksmiths.

#1 is the reason I gave up on producing steel tools. #3 is usually the one that bites me in the posterior. I get so worked up about the shortage of firewood I forget that tools also require logs.

[RedKetchup]

you need to keep in mind that the blacksmith need to spend +-33% more time to walk away to get 1 more ressource : Coal. he needs to go get wood, and bring it to the building, then he needs to go get iron and bring it to the building, and then also, he need to go get coal and bring it to the building, and generally , it s already time to go eat, and after when got back, he is cold, need to go warm up, and then ooops, his house doesnt have any firewood, he needs to go buy some, and then ooops he doesnt have food anymore, he needs to make grocery, and then , he go back, craft 1 Tools, and it s already time to go eat again ^^

[irrelevant]

I can no longer see any very good reason to make or to buy steel tools or warm coats, either one, since I've seen how easy it is to keep tens of thousands each of iron tools and warm coats wool coats in stock.

[A Nonny Moose]

In that last sentence did you mean to say 'wool coats'?

[mariesalias]

I've found 4 reasons for tool shortages:

[snip]

3. Shortage of logs

4. Shortage of blacksmiths.

#1 is the reason I gave up on producing steel tools. #3 is usually the one that bites me in the posterior. I get so worked up about the shortage of firewood I forget that tools also require logs.


You know I hadn't really properly considered that before. Usually I am also worried about firewood, not logs for blacksmiths.

[irrelevant]

In that last sentence did you mean to say 'wool coats'?

I did; thanks. Corrected.

You know I hadn't really properly considered that before. Usually I am also worried about firewood, not logs for blacksmiths.

I've had to shut down tool production entirely for a couple of years because of a shortage of logs. Fortunately I had many thousands of them in stock. But you can go without making tools, you can't go without making firewood.

[RavenSteele]

I've found 4 reasons for tool shortages:

1. If producing steel tools, citizens are using all coal for heating.

Until this post I had no idea my citizens were using my coal to heat their homes!  Thank you!

Ever since I switched solely to steel tools I've stopped having tool shortages.  Though I think most of you have much larger cities than I do, so I'm not sure if that trend will last.  Mine just broke 500.  I have two blacksmiths that produce steel tools for my village and one that produces iron tools for trading.  Currently I have 2000 tools in stock, produce 215 and use 190.  I was at producing 200 and using 100 a couple years ago, but since refining some of my industrial areas and adding more production to food (my population has stagnated), I'm now in need of another blacksmith to boost my production back up.  It wont take long for that 190 to overtake the 215, can't let that go unattended

[irrelevant]

@RavenSteele  Your supply chain would be much simplified if you just produced iron tools for use and for trade. Steel tools are better, but only because they last longer. If you have scads of iron tools, who cares when they break?

Keep in mind that every market will keep in stock enough iron and logs to keep a blacksmith supplied for making iron tools. I just put a blacksmith at each market, set him to making iron tools, and forget about it. As long as you have enough vendors (and enough logs and iron), he'll never stop. This gives me enough iron tools to have a considerable surplus to put in the trading posts.

Wool coats work exactly the same way. A market will keep wool in stock for one tailor. Or for a number of tailors, if you are able to put a number of vendors there, and if you have enough wool.

Ale works exactly the same way, if you have enough fruit.

Everything I do is based on markets. I plan where my next market is going, then I plan everything around it.

[RavenSteele]

@irrelevant , what do you mean by simplify my supply chain?  It seems pretty simple already...  My main two blacksmiths are near my markets and my third is next to my trading post along with a well stocked barn and stockpile.  The thing that kept happening to me with the iron tools was that I seemed to be using considerably more resources than with the steel tools.  My resources would drain very quickly and I wasn't able to recover.  I switched to steel tools, and not only did my tool shortages stop but my iron and log production increased.  Now I always have plenty of tools and lots of iron, logs, and coal.  Are you saying I could do that with fewer than two blacksmiths (I don't count the third because its used only for trading)?

[irrelevant]

No, I just mean that by switching to iron tools you eliminate the need for coal altogether; coal is a huge problem, your villagers have an insatiable appetite for using it to heat their homes; it is far more valuable than firewood, but burns at the same rate. Plus every blacksmith you build in the future, you can just set to making iron tools and not have to decide.

It is a bigger issue with warm coats vs wool coats vs hide coats. It is so much simpler to make one thing and not to have to keep track of which tailor is making what, and whether you have enough leather, and enough wool, and should this tailor switch to that to balance things out, etc.

If you just have a few blacksmiths or tailors, it doesn't matter, it isn't so hard to keep track of. But if your town gets big enough (and what is "big enough" will vary), producing two different products at the same producer will become more than you will want to mess with. 

And actually, I'm surprised your production increased when you switched to steel tools. For iron tools, one log + one iron = two iron tools. For steel tools, one log + one iron + one coal = two steel tools. So you are producing the same number of tools from the same amount of iron and logs, but you also have to have coal. I think you may just have coincidentally solved whatever iron/log issues you were having at the same time you switched to steel. 

[RedKetchup]

i usually have 2-3 coal mines (sometimes even 4-5) but it s not for Tools, only for heating citizens, so i can save some firewood to sell ^^