Building "useless" buildings is good

[6Havok9]

Hello there, long time enjoyer but mostly noob player here, I love this game and wanted to share this.
I found that building useless buildings, if you can spare one builder's labor time, is always good. Especially when that building is housing, a hearth, or made of wood or parts. I try to always have zero building materials available, especially parts and wildfire essence.

Why? Because:
You can always demolish the building and have the full materials cost back, unless some nasty modifier is in effect.
If it's housing, you have housing available if some newcomers arrive because of events or orders.
But if woodcutter's prayer pops up, you can demolish the useless shelters and decorations and reclaim your wood, stored in the useless buildings.
If it's a hearth, you can leave it unattended until you need it. The same if it's a camp, you can leave it unattended until you need it, you can demolish them if you need parts or wildfire essence elsewhere.
But if cheap construction pops up, you get all the parts and wildfire esence back, and you can build them again for half the cost.

Probably most of you playing on high prestige already knew about this, but it was a pretty mindblowing moment for me. It allowed me to forget everything, complete all the archeological sites and call it a day very fast!

Cya!

[mostly willing]

building stuff you don't need is speculative. you could spend that labor for guaranteed immediate returns at most points in your settlement's lifetime

if you do happen to run into a labor surplus - sure, why not. beats building dirt paths most of the time

[el Darkness]

Good to hear a new player is enjoying this gem of a game.
An interesting take, I have considered it a couple of times myself to bank some materials in real estate, but I am not sure if it would work on higher difficulties. It can help you mitigate some nasty Events though, so if it works for you that's great.
Just remember not to do this if you have Corrosive Rain or you will get a nasty surprise :D
How exactly does it interact with Cheap Constructions? I guess you need to first demolish the building and then get the Cornerstone, am I right?

[kory]

Originally posted by el Darkness:

Good to hear a new player is enjoying this gem of a game.
An interesting take, I have considered it a couple of times myself to bank some materials in real estate, but I am not sure if it would work on higher difficulties. It can help you mitigate some nasty Events though, so if it works for you that's great.
Just remember not to do this if you have Corrosive Rain or you will get a nasty surprise :D
How exactly does it interact with Cheap Constructions? I guess you need to first demolish the building and then get the Cornerstone, am I right?

Once you pick up cheap constructions, the old buildings still "remember" what you paid to build them, so you can just demolish every building you own and rebuild them (if you are willing to spend the labor) for some free materials.

[el Darkness]

Nice, I thought it needs to be done in a different way, good to know, but labor time is also precious.

[Spacesuit Spiff]

It's not zero value, but compared to throwing the extra workers in a rain collector or camp, ehhhhh