Tips on crafting charcoal?

[vavillalobos1]

hiii! does anyone have any tips/ideas on speeding up the charcoal production? :/ i don't want to be ~that~ person but it's been insanely slow no matter how many kilns i put in (or don't put in)

i have four kilns with 2/3 families assigned at each (so 8 families total), placed it adjacent to a firewood yard + placed it adjacent to a storehouse that is the only one collecting the firewood, no reserves or limits set, the families assigned are housed nearby, no market stalls enabled... yet i maybe get just a little bit of charcoal each month and the firewood just ends up getting used up by the burgages.

i've also tried watching the families through the "people" tab, and they don't seem interested in making charcoal nor care for the logistics i've setup for them.

thanks in advance!! :)))

[Didz]

Yes!

Build Charcoal Kilns in blocks of six, and place a Storage Warehouse nearby that only accepts Firewood and Charcoal. (Turn firewood and charcoal off in your other warehouses of you want to try and maximise charcoal produciton.) Give the new Warehouse its own Market Stall.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3324305865
All firewood should then be collected by your new warehouse and used to feed your charcoal kilns. All charcoal should then be collected by your new warehouse and they will then distribute it to the settlement on their own market stalls.

[rgda3rd]

Seems like a waste of a point and families if i have to have 6 charcoal kilns. Is it really that much of an advantage?
A basic woodcutter and forester setup seems to do fine for me once it gets going.

[Mr Spartacus]

Originally posted by rgda3rd:

Seems like a waste of a point and families if i have to have 6 charcoal kilns. Is it really that much of an advantage?
A basic woodcutter and forester setup seems to do fine for me once it gets going.

true but if you have rich iron you get charcoal either way and 1 wood makes 2 charcoal and wood can be in any region with a forester or 2

+ it is good money maker for any region

[Jabberwocky]

Originally posted by rgda3rd:

Seems like a waste of a point and families if i have to have 6 charcoal kilns. Is it really that much of an advantage?
A basic woodcutter and forester setup seems to do fine for me once it gets going.

In my experience, three fully staffed charcoal kilns built around 1 fully staffed woodcutter's lodge with 1 dedicated firewood storage building are more than enough for a large town of 300-500 people. I actually had to trade AND barter excess firewood with this setup, because otherwise, it would just stockpile into the thousands and overflow the storage buildings.

If you build your towns significantly larger (which is not advisable), you might need more, but usually, you shouldn't.

[Didz]

I usually have two woodcutters as a matter of routine for every settlement. So, given that 1 x Woodcutter can keep 3 x Charcoal kilns busy, that's why I build 6. Also as stated any excess charcoal is a nice export item and you get 2 for 1, so its a good money-maker.

[bugritall]

I prefer to have my charcoal burners collect their firewood direct from my woodcutters. Nobody stores or markets firewood. Everyone must burn charcoal.

To be clear, woodcutters and kilns can not open market stalls. A single storehouse stocks charcoal and sends it to market.

It works well apart from when certain crafters (like smelters and malters) insist on collecting their fuel directly from a woodcutter's lodge. (I have requested elsewhere for the devs to make charcoal everybody's first choice fuel.)

[Didz]

Originally posted by bugritall:

To be clear, woodcutters and kilns can not open market stalls. A single storehouse stocks charcoal and sends it to market.

When did that change then?
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3271827461
I must admit I haven't played since patch 0.804 so it may have been nerfed again. But certainly in the past I have given my Woodcutters market stalls to boost the supply of firewood on the market.

[Jabberwocky]

In my current ongoing game of "Restoring the peace", my home region of Waldbrand is an Angerdorf-type town with more than 460 people, so I had to build a fourth fully staffed charcoal kiln to keep up with charcoal production. But still I only need 1 woodcutter.

And while they are all perfectly capable of opening market stalls, I rather let my specialized storehouses handle that.

[bugritall]

Originally posted by Didz:

Originally posted by bugritall:

To be clear, woodcutters and kilns can not open market stalls. A single storehouse stocks charcoal and sends it to market.

When did that change then?
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3271827461
I must admit I haven't played since patch 0.804 so it may have been nerfed again. But certainly in the past I have given my Woodcutters market stalls to boost the supply of firewood on the market.

I think there has been a misunderstanding, probably due to my poor wording. I didn't mean that the game inhibits market stalls in a new way, rather that the player should restrict fuel stall opening to just a single storehouse that stocks charcoal but not firewood.

Something I could have mentioned is that kilns will happily send their firewood to market if they are allowed to open market stalls.

[Didz]

Originally posted by bugritall:

Originally posted by Didz:

When did that change then?
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3271827461
I must admit I haven't played since patch 0.804 so it may have been nerfed again. But certainly in the past I have given my Woodcutters market stalls to boost the supply of firewood on the market.

I think there has been a misunderstanding, probably due to my poor wording. I didn't mean that the game inhibits market stalls in a new way, rather that the player should restrict fuel stall opening to just a single storehouse that stocks charcoal but not firewood.

Something I could have mentioned is that kilns will happily send their firewood to market if they are allowed to open market stalls.

I find that if there is a shortage of Supply v Demand on the market for anything whether Fuel, Food or Clothing the best solution is to give more suppliers the opportunity to set up a market stall. Restricting the market to just one Fuel stall may not provide enough fuel to satisfy demand.

[bugritall]

Originally posted by Didz:

Originally posted by bugritall:

I think there has been a misunderstanding, probably due to my poor wording. I didn't mean that the game inhibits market stalls in a new way, rather that the player should restrict fuel stall opening to just a single storehouse that stocks charcoal but not firewood.

Something I could have mentioned is that kilns will happily send their firewood to market if they are allowed to open market stalls.

I find that if there is a shortage of Supply v Demand on the market for anything whether Fuel, Food or Clothing the best solution is to give more suppliers the opportunity to set up a market stall. Restricting the market to just one Fuel stall may not provide enough fuel to satisfy demand.

Good point but storehouses seem to open plenty of duplicate market stalls if they're left to their own devices. Indeed, I find it a bit of a pita trying to keep market stall proliferation under control. Also, bear in mind my declared aim, which is to prevent firewood getting to market when charcoal is available.

[bugritall]

Originally posted by Jabberwocky:

In my current ongoing game of "Restoring the peace", my home region of Waldbrand is an Angerdorf-type town with more than 460 people, so I had to build a fourth fully staffed charcoal kiln to keep up with charcoal production. But still I only need 1 woodcutter.

And while they are all perfectly capable of opening market stalls, I rather let my specialized storehouses handle that.

Agreed but I take it a bit further by trying to make my charcoal storehouses the sole source of fuel.

[Didz]

Originally posted by bugritall:

Originally posted by Didz:

I find that if there is a shortage of Supply v Demand on the market for anything whether Fuel, Food or Clothing the best solution is to give more suppliers the opportunity to set up a market stall. Restricting the market to just one Fuel stall may not provide enough fuel to satisfy demand.

Good point but storehouses seem to open plenty of duplicate market stalls if they're left to their own devices. Indeed, I find it a bit of a pita trying to keep market stall proliferation under control. Also, bear in mind my declared aim, which is to prevent firewood getting to market when charcoal is available.

Personally, I wouldn't bother, and never have bothered micro-managing the market stalls. I usually build a market right at the start of the settlement that can support around 34 x Market Stalls.

Usually about 12 of those end up being run by the families working in the nearby Storehouse and Granary. The rest are dedicated stalls run by Artisan Families or local Greengrocers, Tanners and Fuel Merchants.

The objective is always, always, always to hit the 100% Supply v Demand target and I've found that generally every additional family who is given a market stall adds about +5% to the supply of goods on the market.

It's basically a numbers game, and every market stall comes with a Peddler who picks up goods and uses them to stock their stall/ The more peddlers you have doing this the more goods your have on your market and the higher your Market Supply. It also shortens the supply chain by cutting the storehouses out of the distribution chain.

The advantage of the direct supply of goods from your artisans, greengrocers and fuel merchants is that they tend to be less distracted by having to gather the goods into the warehpuse and so peddlers from those families tend to keep their stalls better stocked. In fact, you often find that if you don't give them a stall then their generic storage becomes full and they stop working anyway, so giving them a stall benefits everyone.

[bugritall]

Your approach is very different from mine, Didz, but your arguments are persuasive and I'll try doing things your way the next time I hit supply problems. Shouldn't take long...

[Didz]

Originally posted by bugritall:

Your approach is very different from mine, Didz, but your arguments are persuasive and I'll try doing things your way the next time I hit supply problems. Shouldn't take long...

It's sounds pretty simple but essentially it is just a case of hitting that 100% supply target for all three commodities and the more peddlers you have carrying stuff to the market the more likely it is that you will do so.