Mines, Mine Shafts, Mining Camps, and Foundries

from Elemental Forums

Lets assume building the initial Mine gives you only 1 Iron per turn. This represents simply having the initial backbone of the mining shafts.

Then later, you can build an expanded mine which increases the base output to 2 per turn.

Finally, (with engineering or some such) you can build a deep-shafted mine, which increases base output to 4 per turn.

"expanded mine" and "deep-shafted mine" aren't additional buildings, but upgrades to the original -> thus built over the original mine.

 

Now, somewhere in the Civilization Housing Techs ... you get the tech for slums. This also unlocks Mining Camps. A Mining Camp has roughly the same stats as a Slums (though perhaps less housing/more cost?), and can only be built adjacent to the mine. The mining Camp doubles the output of the Mine because it fills the mine with labor, where before the mine was working with largely a skeleton crew of the few, the proud, the brave volunteers.

This means Mine without Mining Camp -> 1 ore, 2 ore, 4 ore (w/ tech)

Mine WITH Mining Camp -> 2 ore, 4 ore, 8 ore (w/ tech).

NOW you have a much more realistic background of increasing Ore output where you can add a diminishing returns Foundry system.

Example: Foundry one *doubles* ore production (deep-shaft + Camp + Foundry = 16).

The next foundry additively increases output by 50% (deep-shaft + Camp + 2 Foundries = 20)

The third and fourth foundries would also increase output by 50% (additively) ... for a total of 28 ore.

// the 2nd, 3rd, 4th were all 50% for the case of simplicity as opposed to a descending staircase

Three more Foundries (6th, 7th, 8th) can now be built (if at size 5?) at an additive 25% increase ... for a max total of 34 ore.

 

Now then ... if there are TWO mines (both with mining camps) in a city, then this doubles the effectiveness of foundries (but doesn't increase total foundries allowed).

If two deep-shaft mines + mining camps ... then that is 16 total base Iron ore. First two foundries each additively add 100% Iron (32 -> 48) ... while the other 6 can additively add 50% (56->62->70->78->84->92)

If there are three mines within a city, then three foundries can additively add 100%.

Alternatively, you could choose the (1 mine) style for any number of mines, with only one foundry allowing for 100% increase. It have the benefit of providing a more linear Ore output per city, as opposed to giving the great advantage to two mine cities and three mine cities (I feel a two mine or three mine city would be able to mine more efficiently, as well as indicate a richer area of ore in general ... everyone knows how to mine in the city, so there is more applied effor).

//What do you think?

6,251 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Great idea.  This enables you to focus production (ie have a Pittsburgh or Detroit type industrial center... perhaps Harbin is a better example for the pre-industrial world), while still maintaining realistic growth rates.  So now that city is known for metalworking, and the theme of the city grows around that.  A smaller town can be known for the fertility of its farms or cattle ranches with just the same type of specialization, ect and so forth.  This enables you to actually create those armies of thousands, while at the same time giving your cities character for building quests, and attachment to your empire.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Sorry, but I am a bit confused. I thought Foundries produced a finished product, steel say, from the ore? Why do they increase ore production?

Object Desktop - Get all of our enhancement utilities in one suite
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Perdon ... Iron is simply Iron. There is no difference between the ore or the finished product in Elemental ... in fact, its never finished product until it is reforged as a weapon during Unit training.

So, just look at all values as a monolithic "Iron"

 the idea will be that Steel weapons merely take more Iron to produce than a more crude "Iron" weapon.

and refolded steel (as seen in Toledo and Damascus) will require even more Iron.

Intricately Refolded Steel and More (like one of the better Japanese Katana) will require the most iron. (and maybe even some materials, representing the specialized equipment required for the process, including the clay used during the extra firing period which gives the edge a sharpness that can decapitate a Knight wearing Steel neck armor.)

 

I hope this cleared your confusion?

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

As I said in the other thread, I think these numbers are too big, though the idea for how it progresses is pretty cool. The issue is just that the production of the mine itself gets so overwhelmed by the production generated by the building bonuses that there's really no choice but to make the buildings. It takes the idea of a hamlet that sits on a mine (some remote mining settlement that otherwise doesn't grow) and throws it out the window. That kind of town would give you a small fraction of the production that a city would. (Let alone a mine built by a pioneer that isn't near any town, though I guess that would have to count as part of some town.)

In this example the difference between a large mine, and a large mine with a camp and a whack of foundries is over 7x. That's just astronomically high in a game of any length whatsoever. Once you get a mining town or two set up, you simply won't care about taking other mines on the map because their relative output is non-existant until you build a city and 10 foundries on them (and with that much ore coming in you won't really be spending it all anyway).

 

The refineries in Sins were a better example of how this should work, I think. They were worth building in some cases, depending on location and game length. It wasn't just an automatic "throw this up anywhere for massive gains" building.  They could also work on mines in several systems at once. Maybe the foundries should have the same ability, instead of working on the local town, work on all the mines in a certain distance. Then you'd want a town somewhere to load up on them, but you wouldn't just throw 10 foundries up next to every mine.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

"Then later, you can build an expanded mine which increases the base output to 2 per turn.

Finally, (with engineering or some such) you can build a deep-shafted mine, which increases base output to 4 per turn.

"expanded mine" and "deep-shafted mine" aren't additional buildings, but upgrades to the original -> thus built over the original mine."

With you so far.  Not so sure about mining camps.  Share Tridus' concern about overdoing it.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

yeah i agree with tridus as well.  i think that there should be more incentive for fighting over resources as opposed to being able to create a resource ubertown.  we need more reasons to go to war or resolve things diplomatically.  now if there is just some insane tech or units that would absolutely require many ubertowns then i am fine with your idea.