Babysitting Mines

[Lumienkeli]

My short and humble experience: I'm totally frustrated babysitting my mines for several times per day.

Math: cycle / 60 * (deposit amount / building level) = how long before deposit depletes

Stress:
as an example
- Copper mine, L3, Deposit 700 = 3/60*(700/3) = 12
- Copper mine, L2, Deposit 700 = 3/60*(700/2) = 17.5
- Copper mine, L1, Deposit 700 = 3/60*(700) = 35 hours
The higher my level get, the more resources I need and mines I must babysit. Not mentioning, I have to use most of my resources just to rebuild mines if I'm about to do any army.
Especially everything above L3 with these mines (Copper, Coal, Gold and Iron) are useless, cost too much resources and your real time to build.


Current solutions:
- I do stop by in game 24-35 times in day, set geologists to find out depleted deposits if any, wait them to complete, wait them to build up.
- Care not, I stop by every second day see if there which prolly are ready to renew & rebuild, login miscellaneous times to renew stuff and prolly see one adventure if happend to have enough resources to build army, since my bronze, iron or steel smiths haven't had enough coal for last 20 hours or so.
- Spent hundreds of euros /month in Trader to get +deposits.

Your future solutions:
How about increase an amount in deposits? Just 50 units more is same as nothing (30mins? when L3 mines). Do same for deposits needed for weapons as stone materials have, so I don't need to rebuild expensive mines several times a day, just use geologists to find out deposits again.


Thoughts:
I'm not going to write any deeper thoughts about the case. Everyone can figure about it themselves when reaching the critical levels, where you need to choose either not to bother about the game mechanics (wait days or weeks to get enough resources to build decent army) (what kind of game is that?) or do hourly micromanagement with mines, so you can do adventure in a few days.

I'm old Settlers fan since 1993-94 and I have always enjoyed game mechanics where I had to plan logistics and fit it together with balanced production. Now at least these mines are breaking the formula and ruining my gaming experience. Those mines always have been depleted, but when story goes on, I do really expect to do something else than log in _just for mines_ i need, which do have around 40. I feel like I'm playing some *#*#*** Farmville!

I do love the game, but in a current production state, I'm horrified about the idea if there is some development about to come, which do require more weapons to produce (PVP, Dailies... what ever that does decimate my armies).

If no one can't do anything about this and think this is working as intended, please could someone at least program settings option I can choose the client not to show be exclamation character animation when my factories run out or Zzz-animation when stopped. They drive me nuts

[Tierarzt]

Your first mistake is upgrading mines. That your biggest problem.

[onlem]

I agree with the original poster. My solution will be that I will just stop caring about building the most productive island, but instead stop producing anything that requires copper ore, and just build a lot of fw and hw, so that I won't need to be babysitting mines. Well..probably getting rid of the requirement for fields and wells aswell.

Maybe once the trading interface becomes more advanced, and you can trade more at once, or by just one click (binding/saving often used trade offers to save slots), I could get my ore from the market, and just run the smelters.

One solution would be that there would be something similar to ore deposits that is available to fish and meat deposits. The gaming experience wouldn't be that frustrating, since you could increase your deposits at times of your choice, with the amount of your choice. In provisions house - deposits - you could choose "copper miner" or a "iron miner" or "gold miner" and choose how much you want them to search. Then for some resources you could "search" through provision house some content to deposits adding them to the star menu..

The role of geologists after this implementation would be more useless, since many wouldn't let their mines deplete fully, and the geologist wouldn't be needed to find a new one so often. What comes to the coding part, this kind of implementation seems like a rather easy to do, since you wouldn't really need to touch the code of geologist or anything like that, just adding the possibility to generate ore deposit content

[Dilbe]

Your first mistake is upgrading mines. That your biggest problem.

Upgrading mines is not a mistake at all. Most mines need to be upgraded to increase your income.

[Vampirelord85]

Well i had the pleasure of playing Settlers 4 today, and well in the game when you have a mine, it cost bread, fish and/or meat to make them find the stuff, why not implant something similar to the game. So when you have mines it don't deplete the same way, so you have to build a new mine again, but more like have to use food to add to the mines so the worker/worker's have food and are able to dig deeper or what ever, so that the mine is still there. That way we don't waste tools on upgrading the mines only to see them get destroyed when its "empty" just to send out a geologist to find the same deposit and have to build a new mine at the same location, and properly start all over with the upgrading to keep up with your needs ? That way we could use the fish deposits more than just the buffs, to actually keep the mines fed as well ?

[Elrina]

Agree with poster.I can play 2-3 h a day after work and most res I collect get used to rebuild copper/iron mine so that I can get weapons for next mission after replacing army .It slow game a lot more .With more declined than accepted trades things get worse .

[Socratov]

I too agree, I'd rather like to see a system where geologists can rediscover ore in previous mines (the location don't seem to change, so why should there only be further ore after a collapse?). Instead, make us search for deposits without losing our mines. Even when it would cost resources to send our geologists into old mines it would be fine, it would save the cost and time of building the mines...

[Tierarzt]

Upgrading mines is not a mistake at all. Most mines need to be upgraded to increase your income.

Upgrading mines can increase the resources per hour but not the overall quantity.
It's not worth the additional cost.

[Dilbe]

How does

Upgrading mines can increase the resources per hour but not the overall quantity.

translate into

It's not worth the additional cost.

?

That does not make sense. The best way to increase your income of a mined resource when you have all mines is upgrading them. That is better than buffing an non-upgraded mine.

[Mystic]

How does

translate into

?

That does not make sense. The best way to increase your income of a mined resource when you have all mines is upgrading them. That is better than buffing an non-upgraded mine.

An coppermine got 700 or so copper in it. Those 700 copper can be turned into 700 bronze and those can be turned into 700 tools.
Upgrading an copper mine cost you 50 tools. But you still have an deposit of 700 copper. Basically you have used 50 of your to be produced copper to be able to speed up the prodcution of the still existing 700 copper. An coppermine L3 cost you another 150 copper. This means that 200 of the 700 available copper are already reserved for making new tools which you just has spend.

If you on the other hand spend 1 fishbuff you will get 100% extra production for 30mins. Assuming 10 seconds walking to an nearby storehouse it will mean an extra 1800 (seconds) / 200 = 9 copper extra. Just do the math yourself, what is more important 10 fish or 9 copper :-)

Short answer. Buffing increases temporary production without increasing consumptionrate from your deposit.
Upgrading: cost you resources and decreases production time while also increasing consumptionrate from your deposit.

Mystic