Tool Production since new patch

[JarutheDamaja]

My 2 blacksmiths barely can keep up with the needed tool production.
The workers skill is 3.
Have them on:
55 stone axe,
35 stone knife,
5 wooden shovel,
5 stone pickaxe.


The fishing spear, stone sickel, stone hoe, small bags I have to produce and from time to time some stone knifes since the blacksmiths just can't keep up.
I also had to reduce meat and log production after the new patch to "balance" against the blacksmith production.

Have 3 woodcutters, basically 2 for logs and 1 for firewood, 2 hunters 2 farmers, 1 excavator and 1 fisher. The woodcutter are on 60/40 logs/sticks, and hunter is on 40 meat now. (Before they were both on 100)

I'm trying to find out what I'm doing wrong and have some follow up question regarding copper/bronze.

I'm thinking about upgrading to copper or bronze tools.
They have more durability, but the blacksmiths also produce them slower plus they need a hammer for that.
Anyone having experience if it's worth doing the switch in terms of durability vs. production time?

Secondly, without being able to build a mine, there is no way to put a worker to mine copper or tin, correct?
So that means I would have to provide the raw materials for the blacksmiths all the time.
But once I'm able to build a mine, I can automatically mine iron, why would I "waste" the workers time on mining copper and bronze then?

[Fel]

Your blacksmith are too low level to be reliable for now but keep them producing, things will get much better once they get 2-3 levels.

For copper/bronze, what I tend to do is use bronze for my own tools and leave all of the remaining copper from my minin runs to make knives.
The reason for it to be only knives is because knives tend to be what you need the most plus they don't need much copper and provide plenty of technology points.
If you have enough copper or bronze to switch, it's usually worth doing simply because your workers will level faster that way but at low levels you might need to do a batch of stone tools to prevent the other workers from running out at first.


When it comes to the mine, it depends mostly on your workers, how many you have and how skilled they are, both for mining and blacksmithing.
Mining iron takes quite a bit more time than copper and tin, so it's fine if you have 3+ miners at level 5+ but if you can't staff your mine with high skill workers you tend to get better results by mining only copper or maybe add tin.

Same for your blacksmiths, copper tools are the easiest to make for them, a single bar to smelt compared to bronze and both bars and tools much faster than iron.
As they get closer to level 10 you can definitely have 2 blacksmiths work full time on iron tools and churn out a lot of tools.

[Female_sniper]

I'm having a similar yet different issue that I am trying to work out with the production and extraction rates atm.
I have too many tools xD
but yeah I had 4 miners coz they werent producing enough at first, then I had too littel iron, so threw over two extra blacksmiths to do mining with my other two miners, and now I just threw them back coz the two I kept blacksmithing werent smelting iron fast enough LOL

constant micromanagement but I love it!

[Fel]

Well, when your problem is "too many iron tools", it's an end game thing already.
At that stage you will find yourself lowering the percentages on nearly everything, having your villagers work at less than 100% to avoid needlessly filling the storages.

[Female_sniper]

Originally posted by Fel:

Well, when your problem is "too many iron tools", it's an end game thing already.
At that stage you will find yourself lowering the percentages on nearly everything, having your villagers work at less than 100% to avoid needlessly filling the storages.

Indeed but I find this handy tbh :)
Since the marketplace was added and I don't need to ride back and forth to sell stuff.
Though I still do some myself, otherwise I'd just be walking back and forth watching my village xD

[Fel]

Selling stuff yourself is also a big source of experience for the diplomacy skill, especially if you are not breeding and selling animals.

[richardmgoldsmith]

I had 3 smithies active for a while. As their skill levels got higher, I found 2 was enough and later I could shrink the activity percentage of the 2. Now they are back to 100% to feed the market stall. It's a constant balancing act which needs reviewing each year at least if not each season.

[JarutheDamaja]

Thanks for the answers! And the confidence that with time and skill it gets better.
I'll go on a mining run for copper and tin and see how it goes from there.
Starting with copper knifes seems to be a good tip!
I also noticed the knifes being a good deal. The copper knife tripples the durablity for 2 copper bars instead of 2 stones.
The axe seems not be worth it:
Stone axe - 10 sticks, 2 stones = 100 Durability
Copper axe - 1 log, 4 copper bars = 200 Durability
I rather build 2 stone axes and 2 copper knifes with these copper bars.

Originally posted by richardmgoldsmith:

I had 3 smithies active for a while

I'm trying to prevent that but I think once my village grows more I fear I've to build another smithy anyway. And it gets me thinking - if the player is supposed to have all 3 levels of smithies in the end. Because at the moment my "mindset" is, that as soon as a new level of building is unlocked, to replace the old one with it. Like I didn't even built the Smithy 1, I straight built the smithy 2.

[richardmgoldsmith]

When I said I had 3 smithies - that was the NPC's I was referring to. I do have 2 actual buildings so I had 2 in 1 and 1 in the other.

[Vuyek]

copper tools are useless in game for NPC

balance is realy screwy in this game

[molly_zero]

I think 5000 experience points to get the mine is too much. I have 2 extraction sheds (only one worker allowed and they won't level up so they don't produce much stone. So I have to search for it myself. I mine tin & copper but mostly to get the stone! I've built most of the stuff I need, so unless I knock things down just to rebuild them again, are there any tips for getting extraction experience?

[Fel]

Workers using extraction skills (woodshed and extraction shed) give you points as they work, building and upgrading are ways to get some decent points, you can also use the decorations to get a few points.
Repairing also works so having a few buildings with hay roof like the extraction sheds is a good way to get some semi-constant points (a bit annoying but still works).
Among the random quests, there are some that reward you with fairly big chunks of building technology points as well (when you get a horse it becomes easier to do quests).


https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2476659412
From this guide you have a spreadsheet that helps you figure out what gives points as well:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KntwKjxV00xyNZzX55F7NDukMHszm69cqctv1FSsc1Y/edit


For your workers not increasing in skill levels, try to put them on limestone or clay instead, it seems to work better to level them up.
You could also turn them into wood cutters for a few years to gain levels but I never had issues with extraction shed workers level when setting them on limestone.