minimal size of town?

[failsafe]

What do You think is the minimal sensible size of town in terms of population? I assume that it has to fill most critical jobs, including education, firefighting, commerce, heat production and some culture. But obviously most of these buildings have very wide range of employment, so even with more and more people dropped into the settlement those structures can suck really quite a lot of pops. At this point I consider that 500 is more or less minimum, but rather bare minimum - it doesnt deliver surplus that could be directed towards some industries.

What are your experiences in this area? Im asking because I consider building few smaller towns outside my main city, and the more I think about it, the more buildings I add to the layout, and the bigger those towns may become. Anyway, I dont want to grow my main city too much at this point, since I'd like to spread pops across the map to get access to resources ect.

[Phoenix]

I would also consider the minimal size of around 500. Basic services& necessities would took somewhat around 150(50x3), and the majority of population imo should do something useful, not just sustain their place. That makes it around 500.

[bajecznie nawdychany]

My first small city used to be around 500-600 flats. from this I had like 150 workers 'free' being able to work in any nearby industry. I am pretty sure it can be even less, probably 300 could work if You can it compact.

[failsafe]

I didnt do any min-maxing, so all buildings accept as many workers as when they have been built. I assume that to "compact" a town I would need to do some calculations and just reduce max workers numbers from some buildings, right? And so far I play almost without forcing labor to certain place. I have four blocks of flats, each ca 110 workers - I have forced one of them to deliver workers to bus stop only, and this bus stop delivers them to heat production facility (with few more buildings around, like fire dept, small water processing and large electric power plant, but this one is still shut down). So, with around 400-440 workers I dont have any surplus. Yet. But I have more than just basic buildings in the town, I even have party building, museum of communism and so on ;-P. I cant consider this as a basic services only.

Originally posted by Phoenix:

I would also consider the minimal size of around 500. Basic services& necessities would took somewhat around 150(50x3), and the majority of population imo should do something useful, not just sustain their place. That makes it around 500.

What do You consider as basics in this calculation? Water treatment, heat production, two shops, fire dept, police dept, hospital and some culture stuff? It takes more than 150...

Originally posted by bajecznie nawdychany:

My first small city used to be around 500-600 flats. from this I had like 150 workers 'free' being able to work in any nearby industry. I am pretty sure it can be even less, probably 300 could work if You can it compact.

Compacting means min-maxing workers limits in buildings or/and reducing services? I dont know how much we can actually reduce services. While very basic stuff is shopping, water and heat, we need also health, education and then culture and sports. So, you say that 300 is to cover this minimum or is it minimum plus surplus?

[bajecznie nawdychany]

Try to limit distance between places where peoples live and work (ie have your shopping centre, cinema, university, sport playground etc as close as possible to flats) to limit number of workers that are on their way to work. They will occupy the space in workplace but do not start working until they reach there.
Lets say You want to have cinema with only 1 worker inside. After shift is over worker disappears and new one starts its journey to cinema. If the cinema is far away You will get long period of time when cinema is offline. The closer it is to the city center the faster it is online again.

[Phoenix]

Originally posted by failsafe:

What do You consider as basics in this calculation? Water treatment, heat production, two shops, fire dept, police dept, hospital and some culture stuff? It takes more than 150...

Well, if you put not decreasing any number of workers in buildings as an absolute principle, those surely will take more . Otherwise: Heating 5-10, water treatment - 5, sewage treatment - 5 (if you concerned about nature), small fire station - 10, shop 5-10. Clinic 10. Small police - around 10-15 (often is not needed if you close enough to a big city).
Maybe a cinema so we don't get bored - around 5-10.

[ling.speed]

I'd say about 100 population (which is ~67 workers and some children) could be self sufficient. To do actual work you'd need a bit more ofc.

Most citizen service buildings can be throttled down to ~3 workers to keep operational 24/7. And one could drop that to 2 or even 1 for non essential stuff like alcochol kiosks, clothing stores etc.

When adding actual workforce some would need to be expanded, like food stores or kindergartens/schools ... so i'd say about 100 worker flats is a resonable low point to aim if needing only a handful of workers for some remote project.

[John Moridin]

I don't think there is much point thinking about the bare minimum. What's the point in building a 500 worker town? Everyone will be just working in the town.

The smallest town that makes sense in any way is one with 2k-3k workers. That's what you need to support one industry of any meaningful size. Even then, half of those workers will probably be working in the town .

On a practical level, I make most cities at least 5k. It take a lot of time and money to setup a town. Expanding a town from 3k workers to 6k workers is much easier then setting up a completely new town of 3k people.

[failsafe]

Originally posted by John Moridin:

I don't think there is much point thinking about the bare minimum. What's the point in building a 500 worker town? Everyone will be just working in the town.

The smallest town that makes sense in any way is one with 2k-3k workers. That's what you need to support one industry of any meaningful size. Even then, half of those workers will probably be working in the town .

On a practical level, I make most cities at least 5k. It take a lot of time and money to setup a town. Expanding a town from 3k workers to 6k workers is much easier then setting up a completely new town of 3k people.

I understand this. And I also understand that from mathematical point of view it is better to build one bigger city than three smaller since the very survival of the settlement will always cost a lots of workers, no matter the size. Im just trying to find some good figures for possible self sustainable towns... of course by bare minimum I mean survival of the town itself, while I would always need surplus workers on top of that.

In my case I have a bit distant industry around coal - coal mine is located several kms from my main city. I transport coal by conveyors so it is not the issue, but at this stage Im still importing workers from border crossing to feed the mine. Also, I have a gravel mine just very near to the coal mine. And not enough workers to feed it (with rest of the gravel industry). So I want to build a small settlement to have just enough surplus of workers to feed some small industry nearby.

And yes, I agree than expanding city is easier than building new one. I still want to expand my main city. I thought about having around 5k people, maybe bit more, there. To feed some more important industries and still dont have problems with traffic ect.

Originally posted by bajecznie nawdychany:

Try to limit distance between places where peoples live and work (ie have your shopping centre, cinema, university, sport playground etc as close as possible to flats) to limit number of workers that are on their way to work. They will occupy the space in workplace but do not start working until they reach there.
Lets say You want to have cinema with only 1 worker inside. After shift is over worker disappears and new one starts its journey to cinema. If the cinema is far away You will get long period of time when cinema is offline. The closer it is to the city center the faster it is online again.

I understand this. I also try to limit spread of the city, though I dont like things being right next to each other. I dont know if this is visible here, but this is how my idea of main city looks like:

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198059123570/screenshot/2380784374788442140/

Big square with four residential sections (only one built so far with 4x110 blocks of flats) and small'ish subsection in the middle (fire dept, shops, chess house, some other stuff). In theory this big square is supposed to be sufficient for up to 15 blocks of flats (1700 citizens), though I assume that some buildings could be easily fit around it if needed.

Originally posted by Phoenix:

Originally posted by failsafe:

What do You consider as basics in this calculation? Water treatment, heat production, two shops, fire dept, police dept, hospital and some culture stuff? It takes more than 150...

Well, if you put not decreasing any number of workers in buildings as an absolute principle, those surely will take more . Otherwise: Heating 5-10, water treatment - 5, sewage treatment - 5 (if you concerned about nature), small fire station - 10, shop 5-10. Clinic 10. Small police - around 10-15 (often is not needed if you close enough to a big city).
Maybe a cinema so we don't get bored - around 5-10.

Heating 5-10 seems bit risky. Also clinic... I use hospital, and prefer to have actually more staff there.

Originally posted by ling.speed:

I'd say about 100 population (which is ~67 workers and some children) could be self sufficient. To do actual work you'd need a bit more ofc.

Most citizen service buildings can be throttled down to ~3 workers to keep operational 24/7. And one could drop that to 2 or even 1 for non essential stuff like alcochol kiosks, clothing stores etc.

When adding actual workforce some would need to be expanded, like food stores or kindergartens/schools ... so i'd say about 100 worker flats is a resonable low point to aim if needing only a handful of workers for some remote project.

Hmm.. never tried going that low. On the other hand I always try to scale up rather than down, though maybe for this case it is a good idea. So, in theory, settlement with 3x110 blocks of flat could support 100 people working in the city and another 200 doing business around ;-P. Which seems okay for what I need (coal mine + gravel industry).

[joeball123]

Originally posted by failsafe:

Originally posted by Phoenix:

I would also consider the minimal size of around 500. Basic services& necessities would took somewhat around 150(50x3), and the majority of population imo should do something useful, not just sustain their place. That makes it around 500.

What do You consider as basics in this calculation? Water treatment, heat production, two shops, fire dept, police dept, hospital and some culture stuff? It takes more than 150...

It depends on how remote the settlement is, but the only service that really needs to be provided locally is kindergarten (12 workplaces for the smallest vanilla one); everything else can be provided regionally through transit connections, pipelines, et cetera.

Regardless, if you need to provide everything:
- 25 workplaces for a Small Shopping Center (covers food/meat and clothes/electronics for 5 fewer workplaces than separate Grocery and Small Stores; another alternative would be to use a Small Store and a couple of Grocery Kiosks for 15 + 1/kiosk workplaces)
- 10 workplaces for a Small Clinic
- 12 workplaces for a Kindergarten
- 1 workplace for an Alcohol Kiosk
- 1 workplace for a Football Playground
- 2 workplaces for a Carousel
- 4+ workplaces for a Fire Station (0+ if you've researched and can afford firefighting helicopters)
- 5 workplaces for a Cinema or House of Culture
- 5 workplaces for a Small Water Treatment Plant
- 7 workplaces for a Small Heating Plant
- 14 workplaces for a School
- 18 workplaces for a Small Police Station
- 18 workplaces for a Secret Police Station
- 60 workplaces for a Small Technical University
This looks like a lot of workplaces (182 total), but for a small settlement of only ~500 people you can probably get away without filling a considerable fraction of these - I'd say at least half of the workplaces in the stores, cinema/house of culture, and police stations as well as almost all of the ones in the university can safely be closed, for starters - so the workforce you actually need is likely considerably less than the workforce that would be necessary to keep all this fully staffed, and ~50 workplaces (~150 workers) isn't too implausible as an estimate for that lower number even with all of this.

If you can provide some of this at a regional level rather than at the local level, paring this down to ~50-70 local workplaces becomes fairly feasible even without reducing staffing levels - a shopping center, clinic, kindergarten, alcohol kiosk, football playground, and carousel, for instance, is nominally 51 workplaces.

[John Moridin]

Originally posted by failsafe:

I understand this. And I also understand that from mathematical point of view it is better to build one bigger city than three smaller since the very survival of the settlement will always cost a lots of workers, no matter the size. Im just trying to find some good figures for possible self sustainable towns... of course by bare minimum I mean survival of the town itself, while I would always need surplus workers on top of that.

In my case I have a bit distant industry around coal - coal mine is located several kms from my main city. I transport coal by conveyors so it is not the issue, but at this stage Im still importing workers from border crossing to feed the mine. Also, I have a gravel mine just very near to the coal mine. And not enough workers to feed it (with rest of the gravel industry). So I want to build a small settlement to have just enough surplus of workers to feed some small industry nearby.

A fully functioning mine requires 750 workers (250 per shift). To process a 50% quality mine you need 3 processing plants, that is another 75 workers. So 825 workers in total. So I think a "small mining town" would be 3k minimum.

The number of workers required to sustain a town depends on the total population of the town. So even if a self sufficient city is 500 workers, a self sufficient city and a coal mine isn't 500 + 825 because you the additional 825 workers need more services.

If you want a simple solution then just build with the assumption of a 3k minimum but be open to expand to least 5k.

Otherwise you'll need to math it up e.g.

City Buildings
* Cinema (5)
* Hospital (60)
* Small Shopping Centre (25)
* Fire Station (8)
* Small Headquarters (80)
* Technical University (142)
* Kindergarten (18)
* Kindergarten (18)
* Small School (26)
* Small School (26)
* Indoor Pool (18)
* Indoor Pool (18)
* Carousel (2)
* Gallery of Art (15)
* Small Police Station (18)
* Small Courthouse (25)
* Small Prison (15)
* Pub (5)
* Grocery Store (15)

City workers:
* 539 * 3 = 1617 workers (assuming all buildings full staffed, which definitely isn't necessary)
* Buildings required: 1617 / 110 = 14.7

**Phase 1 industry**

Heating plant
* 30 * 3 = 90 workers
* Buildings required: 90 / 110 = 0.81
Explosive factory
* 75 * 3 = 225 workers
* Buildings required: 225 / 110 = 2.04

24 - 14.7 - 0.81 - 2.04 = 6.45 => 6.45 * 110 = 709.5 free workers with 24 residential buildings

**Phase 2 industry**

Fabric Factory + Clothing Factory * 2
* (100 + (80 * 2)) * 3 =780 workers
* 780 / 110 = 7.0

[joeball123]

Originally posted by John Moridin:

**Phase 2 industry**

Fabric Factory + Clothing Factory * 2
* (100 + (80 * 2)) * 3 =780 workers
* 780 / 110 = 7.0

Clothing is a very good starting industry, but I really cannot agree with the suggestion of including a fabric factory in the initial setup, even as part of "phase 2;" it's a significant amount of added cost (~56% more workers and ~4.3 times more transport capacity for a given clothes output as compared to just importing fabric) for fairly little gain, especially if your agricultural sector isn't up to the task of replacing crop imports to feed the fabric factory without additional investment. You'd be better off putting the ~300 people it takes to run a fabric factory at full output to work on something else that can create export revenue, or even just not having those people in the first place.

[failsafe]

Originally posted by joeball123:

Originally posted by failsafe:

What do You consider as basics in this calculation? Water treatment, heat production, two shops, fire dept, police dept, hospital and some culture stuff? It takes more than 150...

It depends on how remote the settlement is, but the only service that really needs to be provided locally is kindergarten (12 workplaces for the smallest vanilla one); everything else can be provided regionally through transit connections, pipelines, et cetera.

Regardless, if you need to provide everything:
- 25 workplaces for a Small Shopping Center (covers food/meat and clothes/electronics for 5 fewer workplaces than separate Grocery and Small Stores; another alternative would be to use a Small Store and a couple of Grocery Kiosks for 15 + 1/kiosk workplaces)
- 10 workplaces for a Small Clinic
- 12 workplaces for a Kindergarten
- 1 workplace for an Alcohol Kiosk
- 1 workplace for a Football Playground
- 2 workplaces for a Carousel
- 4+ workplaces for a Fire Station (0+ if you've researched and can afford firefighting helicopters)
- 5 workplaces for a Cinema or House of Culture
- 5 workplaces for a Small Water Treatment Plant
- 7 workplaces for a Small Heating Plant
- 14 workplaces for a School
- 18 workplaces for a Small Police Station
- 18 workplaces for a Secret Police Station
- 60 workplaces for a Small Technical University
This looks like a lot of workplaces (182 total), but for a small settlement of only ~500 people you can probably get away without filling a considerable fraction of these - I'd say at least half of the workplaces in the stores, cinema/house of culture, and police stations as well as almost all of the ones in the university can safely be closed, for starters - so the workforce you actually need is likely considerably less than the workforce that would be necessary to keep all this fully staffed, and ~50 workplaces (~150 workers) isn't too implausible as an estimate for that lower number even with all of this.

If you can provide some of this at a regional level rather than at the local level, paring this down to ~50-70 local workplaces becomes fairly feasible even without reducing staffing levels - a shopping center, clinic, kindergarten, alcohol kiosk, football playground, and carousel, for instance, is nominally 51 workplaces.

Nice figures, thanks for that. Im not sure about heating... 7 seems bit small, with that many workers things really have to work very smooth to keep it working all the time. Basically it requires some unemployment and really compact town.

182 is not that much. Maybe a lot for minimalistic settlement, but it still seems okay as a starting point. Regional supply seems okay, but it is bit problematic with workers downtime, right? They just need to spend more time traveling to fill their needs. Sometimes it just "eats" all saved workforce.

Originally posted by John Moridin:

Originally posted by failsafe:

I understand this. And I also understand that from mathematical point of view it is better to build one bigger city than three smaller since the very survival of the settlement will always cost a lots of workers, no matter the size. Im just trying to find some good figures for possible self sustainable towns... of course by bare minimum I mean survival of the town itself, while I would always need surplus workers on top of that.

In my case I have a bit distant industry around coal - coal mine is located several kms from my main city. I transport coal by conveyors so it is not the issue, but at this stage Im still importing workers from border crossing to feed the mine. Also, I have a gravel mine just very near to the coal mine. And not enough workers to feed it (with rest of the gravel industry). So I want to build a small settlement to have just enough surplus of workers to feed some small industry nearby.

A fully functioning mine requires 750 workers (250 per shift). To process a 50% quality mine you need 3 processing plants, that is another 75 workers. So 825 workers in total. So I think a "small mining town" would be 3k minimum.

The number of workers required to sustain a town depends on the total population of the town. So even if a self sufficient city is 500 workers, a self sufficient city and a coal mine isn't 500 + 825 because you the additional 825 workers need more services.

If you want a simple solution then just build with the assumption of a 3k minimum but be open to expand to least 5k.

Otherwise you'll need to math it up e.g.

City Buildings
* Cinema (5)
* Hospital (60)
* Small Shopping Centre (25)
* Fire Station (8)
* Small Headquarters (80)
* Technical University (142)
* Kindergarten (18)
* Kindergarten (18)
* Small School (26)
* Small School (26)
* Indoor Pool (18)
* Indoor Pool (18)
* Carousel (2)
* Gallery of Art (15)
* Small Police Station (18)
* Small Courthouse (25)
* Small Prison (15)
* Pub (5)
* Grocery Store (15)

City workers:
* 539 * 3 = 1617 workers (assuming all buildings full staffed, which definitely isn't necessary)
* Buildings required: 1617 / 110 = 14.7

**Phase 1 industry**

Heating plant
* 30 * 3 = 90 workers
* Buildings required: 90 / 110 = 0.81
Explosive factory
* 75 * 3 = 225 workers
* Buildings required: 225 / 110 = 2.04

24 - 14.7 - 0.81 - 2.04 = 6.45 => 6.45 * 110 = 709.5 free workers with 24 residential buildings

**Phase 2 industry**

Fabric Factory + Clothing Factory * 2
* (100 + (80 * 2)) * 3 =780 workers
* 780 / 110 = 7.0

Good figures as well.

Regarding industry: why explosives factory in first stage?
Typically I start with exporting coal and sometimes crude oil - if I start producing them. Coal is easy, since typically I have some surplus there. In stage two I would export bauxite or processed oil (fuel) rather than clothing, though I know that clothing is very good workforce for economy. Just I feel that setting oil industry seems more usefull.

[Silent_Shadow]

You can reduce a town's population quite a bit if the town can be made to leech off another nearby town's services:
• Students can be bused to the other town's school and university.
• "Rare" needs can be fulfilled in another town (doctor, clothes, electronics, attractions).
• Water and sewage can be handled by trucks (no treatment plants or wells.)
• Only a local police station is needed; courthouses and prisons can be anywhere else.

• The carousel isn't really needed; you already have two attractions types.
• The sports field also isn't really needed, you already have the indoor pool.

There are also more worker efficient service buildings that can be used:

• The grocery and small shop have higher visitor per worker ratios than the small shopping center. The new grocery kiosk is even better, if a pain to keep stocked.
  
• The sports hall also has a better visitor to worker ratio than the indoor swimming pool, but it also costs a lot more.
  
• The fire station could have helicopters to eliminate the need for workers, but this can get expensive as you need a big helicopter to put out fires at large buildings.

I would also replace the gallery of art and the cinema for a Museum of the republic, which is cheaper, needs fewer workers, and citizens can still visit it to satisfy culture while they wait out their cool down from using it as an attraction.

The art gallery is probably the worst service building in the game, as it forbids citizens from satisfying culture there if they replaced a need with the "galleries" attraction type in the last 15 days, and it has a rather mediocre tourism rating that cannot be improved.

[failsafe]

Originally posted by Silent_Shadow:

You can reduce a town's population quite a bit if the town can be made to leech off another nearby town's services:
• Students can be bused to the other town's school and university.
• "Rare" needs can be fulfilled in another town (doctor, clothes, electronics, attractions).
• Water and sewage can be handled by trucks (no treatment plants or wells.)
• Only a local police station is needed; courthouses and prisons can be anywhere else.

• The carousel isn't really needed; you already have two attractions types.
• The sports field also isn't really needed, you already have the indoor pool.

There are also more worker efficient service buildings that can be used:

• The grocery and small shop have higher visitor per worker ratios than the small shopping center. The new grocery kiosk is even better, if a pain to keep stocked.
  
• The sports hall also has a better visitor to worker ratio than the indoor swimming pool, but it also costs a lot more.
  
• The fire station could have helicopters to eliminate the need for workers, but this can get expensive as you need a big helicopter to put out fires at large buildings.

I would also replace the gallery of art and the cinema for a Museum of the republic, which is cheaper, needs fewer workers, and citizens can still visit it to satisfy culture while they wait out their cool down from using it as an attraction.

The art gallery is probably the worst service building in the game, as it forbids citizens from satisfying culture there if they replaced a need with the "galleries" attraction type in the last 15 days, and it has a rather mediocre tourism rating that cannot be improved.

I've used water pools before, now I use sport hall, it is okay. I also have Palace of Communism, Chess house and the House of Culture.

Thanks for hints with shops. Also, I didnt ever consider using buses to move students to other city... I always used buses for workers only. This is actually a very good idea!

[joeball123]

Originally posted by failsafe:

Regarding industry: why explosives factory in first stage?

Explosives in the phase 1 and clothes in the phase 2 setup is because explosives and clothes are both relatively low-investment high-return industries, even if you import all the inputs, and as long as you don't build the fabric factory that John Moridin included in his Phase 2 industry list you're not even going to generate much traffic.

Pulling prices from game start on default settings (1970, easy):
Chemicals cost 804.44 rubles per tonne
Crops cost 17.94 rubles per tonne
Gravel costs 7.58 rubles per tonne
Wood costs 9.40 rubles per tonne
Fabric costs 341.41 rubles per tonne
Explosives sell for 1092.25 rubles per tonne
Clothes sell for 1187.77 rubles per tonne

0.75 tonnes (603.33 rubles) of chemicals + 2.3 tonnes (17.43 rubles) of gravel + 1.5 tonnes (14.1 rubles) of wood + 75 workers => 1.1 tonnes (1201.48 rubles) of explosives per workday, for a gross profit of 566.61 rubles per workday at full production.

2.4 tonnes (819.38 rubles) of fabric + 80 workers => 1.2 tonnes (1425.32 rubles) of clothes, for a gross profit of 605.94 rubles per workday at full production.

20 tonnes (359 rubles) of crops + 0.5 tonnes (402.22 rubles) of chemicals + 100 workers => 5 tonnes of fabric + 160 workers => 2.4 tonnes (2850.65 rubles) of clothes, for a gross profit of 2089.43 rubles per workday (really slightly more since I'm ignoring the excess 0.2 tonnes of fabric that you should be producing per workday using these figures).

Note that these figures ignore transportation costs and overhead (e.g. food for the workforce and power to run the factories). Price fluctuations, inflation, and market saturation will of course also have an effect.

Typically I start with exporting coal and sometimes crude oil - if I start producing them. Coal is easy, since typically I have some surplus there. In stage two I would export bauxite or processed oil (fuel) rather than clothing, though I know that clothing is very good workforce for economy. Just I feel that setting oil industry seems more usefull.

Oil is a decent enough starting industry - crude oil is one of the more valuable raw materials despite being one of the cheapest to produce, and while refineries are expensive and require a lot of workers they also offer a fairly high return - but coal is pretty much a poster-child for high-investment low-return and is very much something you should put off until later except maybe if you're starting out with a lot of money. A coal mine and the one to ~four coal processing plants you'll need to turn the coal ore it produces into usable coal are a very significant capital investment (the coal mine itself is comparable in cost to a pair of clothing factories or an explosives factory, and a single processing plant is about twice the cost of the mine), the workforce you require to operate all this at full capacity is very large (220 workplaces for the mine and 15 workplaces for each processing plant, so up to 280 workplaces, or 840 workers assuming three workers per workplace to keep things operational around the clock; compare that to the 80 workplaces / 240 workers needed for a clothing factory or the 75 workplaces / 225 workers for an explosives plant), and neither coal ore nor coal nor anything you can readily make from coal are particularly valuable.

Worse, a coal setup operating at capacity is very much a high-volume industry - the mine nominally produces 924 * (source quality) tonnes of coal ore per workday, which becomes 528 * (source quality) tonnes of coal per workday after processing. Pretty much the only practical way to export any significant fraction of that volume of material is by ship or by train, and both of those are very expensive to set up; meanwhile, coal itself is a fairly low-value resource (import for 15.12 rubles per tonne, export for 13.68 rubles per tonne, pulling numbers from the same start as was used for the clothes/explosives example), you don't need that much of it for heating early on, and pretty much everything else it's used for (power, steel, bricks) is also high-investment low-return, so you're not really offsetting imports or positioning yourself to get into something really good by starting off with coal.

Coal is probably not completely unworkable as a starting industry, but it certainly isn't a good one.