Iron bars?

[Asmodeus]

Hi, is it just me or the Iron Bar system is somewhat stupid? maybe it's just me but correct me if i am wrong, we get the iron mine at tier 2 but we're unable to produce iron bars until tier 3, however so many essential buildings requires iron bars (like the Vault) in tier 2.
Why? if we're not able to get iron bars until tier 3 why introduce essential buildings that requires it at tier 2? this design does not make sense to me.
Please educate me if i am wrong.

[MedeaFleecestealer]

So you use the trading post to get said iron bars - and the heavy tools you'd need as well to turn iron ore into iron ingots.

[Asmodeus]

Originally posted by MedeaFleecestealer:

So you use the trading post to get said iron bars - and the heavy tools you'd need as well to turn iron ore into iron ingots.

but i've had the trading post for most of the game now and i haven't had a single one that sells iron bars or heavy tools. Isn't it bad design to base essential building resources on chance?

[MedeaFleecestealer]

Atka often sells both.

[Matthew]

Traders are themed. Atka, the female barbarian trader, is the one who sells iron bars and tools early on. It is normal for the other traders not to have them.

It isn't most of the game, because either you'd have Atka pass through by now, or you have 150+ population. In which case you'd be tier 3 and able to make iron bars yourself.

It is easier to buy 20 iron bars than to make them yourself. It costs hundreds of resources and a lot of labor just to get iron production going.

In a big picture sense, this game is really just about where you allocate labor. You don't even need to produce your iron bars if you don't want to. You can easily export linen shirts and pottery and just buy all your weapons and tools you need.

Maybe it is bad game design, maybe not. But even if foundry and blacksmith were on tier 2, I'd still just buy the 20 bars for the vault. I almost never make my own bricks in this game and often just buy them out, because otherwise I'd have a bunch of excess gold sitting around not being used anyway. Saves me the need to use labor on clay mining and brick making.

[Furin]

It's somewhat poorly balanced at the moment as some goods are so obviously superior to others in terms of workforce and resources needed vs. profit. Also new production chains mean expansion of space which means longer ways for everyone which means everything is suddenly done more slowly, another reason to specialize in a few things and cram them together as much as possible. Plus you want to have a small area for better defense anyway.

As long as the traders come like clockwork every spring there's really no need to become "self sufficient".

[MedeaFleecestealer]

Except it's fun when you have thousands and thousands of iron ore deposits.

[SgtScum]

Iron ore can be sold to traders so its worthwhile to mine before you can smelt it yourself. However I think there should be a tier 2 smithy that can make crude bloom iron which can then be turned into crude weapons and a new crude tool item which isn't as efficient as normal tools but better than nothing at all. Many middle age villages had a smithy that could produce crude bloom iron to make and repair common items like knives and hooks and nails etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsywnQJMJEk

[Asmodeus]

i understand what you guys are saying, but here is my take. I am currently close to 150 and i have yet to see Atka, not sure why but i have been eyeing to buy iron bars ever since i built the trading post and so far have got none.
Secondly, there is no other way to get rid of waste except by using it as fertilizer which is extremely slow and that forces me to build so many compost yards and expand way beyond my build area to manage desirability.
so many other things to nitpick at, i know it's still in early access mode and has room to grow, but if nobody raises these issues they will release the game thinking its perfect.

[MedeaFleecestealer]

Don't worry, I'm pretty sure Crate will never think their game is perfect because you simply can't please all of the players all of the time and they know that very well.

Relying on the trader can be a bit problematic at times. I'm stuck waiting for iron ore myself having exhausted the one small deposit I've found so far on my current map, but Atka has only bought iron ingots the last couple of times she's visited.

My guess is the devs don't want you to be self-sufficient in everything so tied a few things to needing to have to trade for items to get some buildings up and running.

[Matthew]

Originally posted by Furin:

Also new production chains mean expansion of space which means longer ways for everyone which means everything is suddenly done more slowly

Ye that is also a good point.

Also, even for the production chains where you are self sufficient, you almost always produce some amount of excess. Using up all the hides from a tier 2 hunter trapper is going to result in a lot of shoes/jackets.

So ideally you also want to specialize and buy out others, else your storage is just going to get increasingly more full. Unless your goal is to hoard the most stuff possible, you want to unload that excess and turn it into something useful.

[Matthew]

Originally posted by Asmodeus:

so many other things to nitpick at, i know it's still in early access mode and has room to grow, but if nobody raises these issues they will release the game thinking its perfect.

It's all good. The iron bars/tools thing has been brought up multiple times.

They mentioned they may look into being able to "order" things from traders at premium prices, to cut down on RNG. Which would be nice.

For me, cattle can be the annoying RNG. There are some maps where I have 2 barns built sitting empty just because I get a bad streak of no cattle for several years. It is a bit awkward needing to build a trading post and barn beforehand, then you just sit around waiting until the game finally lets you actually get cattle. Sometimes it is right away, other times it is many years.

[SgtScum]

I think that cattle and the barn bottleneck can be alleviated somewhat by adding in a chicken mechanic. You start the game with a rooster and a few hens with a t1 coop so that you can get early eggs and meat on a small scale to help supplement the hunter and forager. Then a t2 hen house option to increase egg production and breeding rates and you can wait a while before feeling the need for cows. Chickens could also add in a new luxury item of feather pillows and beds to increase desirability and villager happiness and a new high tier confectionery building to make cakes and sweets and other pastries using eggs and milk and honey etc.

[Asmodeus]

and behold just now i got atka two times in a row

[mikeydsc]

Originally posted by Asmodeus:

i understand what you guys are saying, but here is my take. I am currently close to 150 and i have yet to see Atka, not sure why but i have been eyeing to buy iron bars ever since i built the trading post and so far have got none.
Secondly, there is no other way to get rid of waste except by using it as fertilizer which is extremely slow and that forces me to build so many compost yards and expand way beyond my build area to manage desirability.
so many other things to nitpick at, i know it's still in early access mode and has room to grow, but if nobody raises these issues they will release the game thinking its perfect.

Then you missed her repeatedly. At tier 1 you have 4 base traders and Atka is part of this group. Means at least every 3 years you would see her if really looking. There are 4 T1 traders and 2x T2 new traders for a total of 6 and you are guaranteed to get 2 per year.
If you waste fills up, it will still keep collecting as this was fixed last patch so no worries there any more.

[Immortalits]

Originally posted by MedeaFleecestealer:

Except it's fun when you have thousands and thousands of iron ore deposits.

I have a single market playthrough on a small peninsula, protectable by 3 forts...
nearby mountain (like within 200-300 tile range from TC) I was able to set up 2 iron mines; 1 with 40k+ and one with 60k+ iron available for them in range and I could set up even more...

BTW, back to the original post, the game is poorly balanced currently; difficulty settings are just more enemies (probably higher scaling through pop count and/or resources deposited and whatever other possiible factors).
'challenging environments' are just missing essential resources, like herbs, medicine, clay wich in turn just makes the town building tedious at most, because you're dependent on trader RNG, you CAN have years of traders not providing options to sell your stuff or buy what you need or have the options but on bad/ worst ratio, etc.

Sinec you can't die, any kind of environmental challenges are just annoyances at most.

So yeah, currently the game is super badly balanced in many layers too, not just on production; I'll tell you, that without trading, you can't even EVER start to produce anything, that requires heavy tools, even thou after building the production facility, you can remove the heavy tool from use and 'reuse' it for another building, rotating it around just for building stuff. I also hope, that things would make more sence once the game is finished, you also realy have to keep in mind the fact, that it's early access even if there are things you'd personally never even designed in the way it is in the game currently in the first place, because it's common sense for you. The devs have their own perspective on logic and game mechanics making sense :)
They have their viewpoint and we have ours.