Excavation Amount

[ATXGains]

I was excited when I finally got to build my first excavation shed because trying to find stone is tedious and time consuming. However, my skill level 3 worker only finds 16 stones a day at 100%. Is there a reason it is such a low amount? Is it just because they are only level 3? Do I need to place the shed somewhere else, or is this a normal amount?

[Fel]

The excavation shed is not great at getting stones unless your villager has a high level.
Its placement doesn't matter, like nearly all buildings (with the exception of the barn and the surrounding fields).
16 stones a day still means 192 stones per year so it's not that bad, maybe even enough to sustain your production of tools for your village but if you wanted the stone for houses it's going to take a while if you only have one of these as the only source.

If you need a lot of stone quickly, build a storage building near a cave entrance and go mine the ore deposits, making several short trips to store your stones and ores.
You will want the ores (at least copper and probably tin fairly soon afterward) to make better tools at leats for yourself anyway.


I tend to use the excavation shed to get limestone because manually collecting that is just a pain and you need a lot of it to further upgrade your houses with that have stone walls.
You could of course build several excavation sheds to multiply the number of workers gathering stone.

After a few years their skill level going up will also mean more production so if you are not in a rush you can just do with that for now and know that you will get more and more as the years go by.

[ATXGains]

Originally posted by Fel:

The excavation shed is not great at getting stones unless your villager has a high level.
Its placement doesn't matter, like nearly all buildings (with the exception of the barn and the surrounding fields).
16 stones a day still means 192 stones per year so it's not that bad, maybe even enough to sustain your production of tools for your village but if you wanted the stone for houses it's going to take a while if you only have one of these as the only source.

If you need a lot of stone quickly, build a storage building near a cave entrance and go mine the ore deposits, making several short trips to store your stones and ores.
You will want the ores (at least copper and probably tin fairly soon afterward) to make better tools at least for yourself anyway.


I tend to use the excavation shed to get limestone because manually collecting that is just a pain and you need a lot of it to further upgrade your houses with that have stone walls.
You could of course build several excavation sheds to multiply the number of workers gathering stone.

After a few years their skill level going up will also mean more production so if you are not in a rush you can just do with that for now and know that you will get more and more as the years go by.

I started off making stone houses, which require a ton of stone per wall so that's why. I will head to the caves, but even when I mine rock deposits it is a random amount of stone. Seems to be 1-3 mostly, and my stone pickaxe degrades so fast.

[MinenSpecht]

Ore/Salt deposits give you 6-10 stone each.

[Fel]

Once you get the smithy 2 unlocked, you will be able to make bronze pickaxes, which last much longer and take less hits to mine the deposits.

That's usually a pretty good goal since bronze tools and weapons help you quite a bit.

[invivo4u]

Wait until winter: stones are everywhere and quite visible ... spend the night gathering them. You'll have to carry them to a resource storage or elsewhere but, if you have a horse with a large saddlebag, you can load it up, too.

[molly_zero]

One question for the devs - did medieval people use bronze much? I thought iron was in use everywhere by then. Was that only true in western Europe?

[Goldi:AI]

Originally posted by molly_zero:

One question for the devs - did medieval people use bronze much? I thought iron was in use everywhere by then. Was that only true in western Europe?

That would be one for Swords - but not on Sunday, I'll leave it on his digital desk, maybe he has some time on Monday.

In General, I think those different options are mostly for the gameplay. So, the game is always a balance act between historical accuracy, fiction and gameplay. I'm thinking that the different metals are mostly to benefit the gameplay.

[billthebad]

Winter is my annual stone harvest. I can easily gather 100+ stone in just a few minutes in the immediate vicinity of my town. Not a lot else to do in winter in the early game than gather rocks and sticks and craft some things to pay your taxes with. But yeah, the 80 stone requirement for the 2nd tier house is painful (until you have to cut enough planks for the best roof).

I think the gather rate of workers is balanced around supply chain automation for other workers. They gather enough stone to support a blacksmith who makes just enough tools to support the excavation, hunter, woodcutter and some farming, etc.

[SwordsOfTheSouth_Toplitz]

Originally posted by molly_zero:

One question for the devs - did medieval people use bronze much? I thought iron was in use everywhere by then. Was that only true in western Europe?

Goldi left this on my digi desk ;-)

Bronze was still in use at the time, mostly smaller everyday objects like cups or ladles and for trinkets. Bronze was still the cheapest of the semi precious metals, so it was used heavily throughout the Middle Ages.

Iron replaced bronze during the first ten centuries after turn of the eras for tools or weapons, for obvious reasons. The much more durable Damascus steel was still rare at the time.

[molly_zero]

Thanks. I missed your reply until today. I hope we can make useful or saleable objects (those cups, ladles & trinkets) from copper & bronze once we have iron & no longer need them for tools & weapons. It could also be good to have small amounts of gold & silver for the smiths to play with.