No Iron Miners' Houses on Valdivian Rainforest?

[Jeff]

I'm playing Valdivian Rainforest and it seems like you can't make iron miners' houses?

Am I missing something? Is this a bug? I need to make 5 sawmills but I can't even support the warehouses because my iron production is so low even with 6 mines. The hardware stores requiring iron makes it even worse.

I have every inch of forest covered in lumbercamps and overexploitation of forests on and I just can't produce enough wood to get enough iron mines.

I'm also halfway through all the forests already and I'm only on the minitruck achievement.

This and the archipelago level were just absolutely miserable, lol. The desert was at least fun because it varied up the gameplay.

[bigext]

From what I can tell this is how it works on this map, and I had to do the same thing. I got through it simply by just building a ton of iron mines.

I'm kinda with you, it is very miserable. I've been having a ton of fun with this game but just gave up in frustration on this map. It's a shame too, because I think the concept is really fun.

I think they either need to up the production on some of the non-wood items (like iron or coal) or lower the consumption on them. What also could be nice is a "heavy sawmill" which increases the radius. Things come to a screeching halt whenever one of those gets abandoned.

[Brukoslav]

Good idea of the heavy sawmill! Could it be improved with industries nearby, for example?
As for the difficulty of these maps, I find it difficult to balance, on the other hand there are players who say they like that it's that hard at that level.
Maybe it's more a progression issue than a difficulty issue that could be improved?

And yes, there are no miners' houses in the Valdivian jungle, maybe adding them will make it more bearable as they say.

[bigext]

Originally posted by Brukoslav:

Good idea of the heavy sawmill! Could it be improved with industries nearby, for example?
As for the difficulty of these maps, I find it difficult to balance, on the other hand there are players who say they like that it's that hard at that level.
Maybe it's more a progression issue than a difficulty issue that could be improved?

And yes, there are no miners' houses in the Valdivian jungle, maybe adding them will make it more bearable as they say.

I don't find the map difficult per say, and I really like the concept around it. I just find there's some tedium to keep the wood production going, to a point where I struggle to be engaged with the map. Perhaps if I had an indication of when a lumbercamp or sawmill will be abandoned soon (I know there's an exclamation point but perhaps sooner than that) it would be easier to manage.

With all that said, this is a wonderful game. It gives me a weird sense of nostalgia to the Caesar series...

Quick edit:

I just thought of this QoL improvement that would make this map potentially easier to manage... could we have a setting that allows us to build even if we have negative consumption, as long as we have the reserves? I think this helps some of the problems I have with the map... for example:

I need wood, so I want to build a saw mill -> saw mill requires warehouses, which require iron. I only have +3 iron because Iron mines require a bit of wood -> Because I have negative production of wood, which is why I wanted to build a saw mill in the first place.

If I could build in the negative, I wouldn't have this negative loop to manage which is a major hassle.

[Brukoslav]

I implemented this option on the last update, in option is named "Unrestricted mode" ;)

[neondead]

I feel the forest is brutal right at the point of when you need steelworks. The wood requirement for iron and steelwork is extremely difficult (if not impossible) to maintain. I feel like having iron mines or some special high resource iron trees on this map may help that single run ending hurdle. The map is challenging enough with having to redo the lumber camps every 4 minute.

Without a river it is frustrating to have to abandon many attempts as you almost end up clearing all usable area before you steelworks can produce anything.

[rino142857]

the problem is the maths
I have production 45, consumption 12, surplus 21
needless to say: 45-12=33
the actual consumption of iron is double than what it states

[rino142857]

I found the archipelago to be super smooth

[Sved]

Do you have any policy in place? I tend to overlook them and realised I had few on that were impacting my production

[Gravity]

I had the most fun on archipelago!
But yeah i agree, the forest map is just tedious. I'm constantly micromanaging my lumberjacks and i couldn't get above 150 production while a steelworks costs 200+
After a while all my wood was gone and i just couldn't keep up with the wood and power demands.

[IndieInc.]

Answering the OP,
1. Yes, there are no iron miners' houses. The tutorial and mine tooltip could do a better job explaining this. I believe the tutorial mentions something about hardwood being a substitute, is just confusing.
I did a cluster of warehouses surrounded by Iron Mines. Having them upgrade to Heavy Iron Mines increases the iron production from [5 for 25 wood] to [32 for 100 wood], increasing efficiency significantly.
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198030431916/screenshot/2139831008856926148/

2. "I need 5 sawmills". That's for productivity path, right? Pick appropriate regional trait to have an easier time. Either East Europe or the Africa that increases wood production.

[Doomchild]

I've been banging my head against this map for 3 days... 5 failed attempts, all boil down to some seriously weird math going on.

using East Europe region for double iron & steel production doesn't help because of it.
256 production, 119 consumption but a deficit of 20?
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/2113936579369459926/90C3B5F6499A512EC6EF29DBC2C2A44ECB220527/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false
same with steel, 80 production, 30 consumption, only 20 surplus, I needed a second heavy steel mill because of this, which I shouldn't have needed yet
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/2113936579369458780/C5163DBAB2C914FB6C833CC972F9545CAC553377/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=falseall this puts even more strain on wood production

I give up... I really like this game but this map just sucks the fun out of it for me