Tools Crisis

[A Nonny Moose]

My neat little town of some 700 souls became unplayable because of a mounting tools crisis.  It seems you need a smithy for every hundred or so workers, especially as the population grows and the simulation slows down.

In the process of doing all this, I depleted two mines, one of each, and had two more under construction.  There was also an impending wood dearth, even though most houses were stone, wood is a necessary commodity, and I am beginning to think that there is a need to increase the volume of trading by having multiple trading posts, especially if they can be specialized, although my general trader was doing the job.

Of several quarries (stone is great for trade), two were nearing depletion when the population got around 700.

Scrubbed the village, but it was definitely my most successful to date.  And yes, I have a procedure that scrubs the save directory.

[A Nonny Moose]

Further to this:  While I have been able to handle these things, something occurred to me today.

What is the life of tools?

Are they depended on the number of uses or time since withdrawal from stock?

Iron tools?
Steel tools?

[Nilla]

I have also wondered about how long tools last. I think it depends on what the people are doing.

I'm absolutely sure, that miners and quarry workers need much more tools, than farmers or general labourers. How much and which other occupations also need more tools; I don't know. Steel tools last longer, you notice it very clear if you have many miners. In a game I played, where I tried to heat with coal and had 100s of miners, it seemed to me that steel tools lasted almost double as long as iron tools.

Besides a tip; buy steel tools but not for stones. If you look how much stones one quarryman produces in one year, you will notice, that he makes a very small profit. And beside you have the disadvantage of the ugly quarry ruins, the many occupational deaths, the "unhappiness circle" and the high need of tools.

[kralyerg]

According to the code, an Iron Tool has a "quality" level of 100, and Steel Tool is 200. 

I believe it's based on how often it is used, not anything time based.  Mines and Quarries seem to use them up the most, since they require the most work to produce a resource.

[Nilla]

According to the code, an Iron Tool has a "quality" level of 100, and Steel Tool is 200. 

I believe it's based on how often it is used, not anything time based.  Mines and Quarries seem to use them up the most, since they require the most work to produce a resource.

Thank you. That sounds possible. Interesting that my feeling about the difference between steel and iron tools was right. Do you know if there is an uneducational penalty? If they are used up just proportional to how often they are used, uneducated would need less tools, since they produce less. But I have the impression that they rather need more.

[kralyerg]

There's nothing that indicates that there is anything different from educated or uneducated tool use. The only difference is the amount of resource produced.  The Quarry will produce 2 units of stone with an educated worker, but 1 with an uneducated worker. The amount of time it takes, and the subsequent tool use is the same for both.

[irrelevant]

@A Nonny Moose Did you try running your town with no tools? I have a town with pop approaching 600 that has no tools, and is uneducated to boot: http://worldofbanished.com/index.php?topic=825.45 It has run for several years with no tools at all.

[A Nonny Moose]

@A Nonny Moose Did you try running your town with no tools? I have a town with pop approaching 600 that has no tools, and is uneducated to boot: http://worldofbanished.com/index.php?topic=825.45 It has run for several years with no tools at all.

No.  I can generally avoid a tools crisis by building a mine, but in this one village the mine production was terrible and the iron demand off the top of the charts.  Frankly, those "no tool" zots drive me to distraction.

[Trizeropz]

nah i dont think you need 1 smithy for 100 people. the moment i had 4k people with 18 smithys the amount of tools growth slowly. at 5k it stayed and at 5,5k it started droppin slowly

[irrelevant]

@A Nonny Moose Did you try running your town with no tools? I have a town with pop approaching 600 that has no tools, and is uneducated to boot: http://worldofbanished.com/index.php?topic=825.45 It has run for several years with no tools at all.

No.  I can generally avoid a tools crisis by building a mine, but in this one village the mine production was terrible and the iron demand off the top of the charts.  Frankly, those "no tool" zots drive me to distraction.

I'm just saying, maybe you don't need no stinking tools.

[A Nonny Moose]

Tools make a pretty good trade commodity, so I try to get a serious surplus of them.  Getting into an unresolved tools crisis is one of the things that makes me scrap the village.

[Paeng]

A few collected pointers regarding these issues... 

[A Nonny Moose]

^ Thanks.  I was aware of all that, but it is a good review.  Somehow, I allowed things to reach this pretty pass.  If I don't solve it by sometime tomorrow, I'll probably scrap this village and start a new session.

[tnarg]

In my first long game I got 700 people and have not built a single mine or quarry,  I have 6 TP all stocked with 1000 firewood and I buy stone and steel tools.  I don't need to buy iron anymore as I'm not using to make tools any that I need for building I find on the ground did buy some at the start.