Unless fixed, this will drive people away....

[MGSteve]

I emailed this into support who passed it onto the devs (thank you), but I thought I'd raise it on here to see what people think (i.e. to make sure its not just me!)

I've been away from the game for a little under 24 hours and come back to find that all my lv3 mines have been exhausted. This I don't have too much of an issue with - however, what I do mind is that a) you can only top them up by using gems at the moment and b) you loose all the tools you used to level them up.

This makes getting the mines back up to level 3 a) time consuming and b) expensive.

I've spent nearly €90 on this game and looking at the prospect of having to restablish all the mines again (given the length of time it takes the geologist to do the searches, and I've got the Jolly version as well), I'm thinking - why bother.

This will drive people away from the game, where as if you left the mine there, but put an exclamation mark over it (like you do with any other building where there aren't enough resources to produce anything) and then allow the player to refill them - you won't loose players and you'd probably actually get some buying gems to top them up.

The way the simply get exhausted and you then have to pull them down, sent the geologist out and rebuild them simply takes too long.

If it happens again, I doubt I'll carry on playing, I simply don't have the time to be on here 24 hours a day.

The main problem with mines is that is no way to top them up other than paying with Gems. If you don't do this, by the time you've leveled them all up to around lv3/4, they're exhausted anyway and you loose the resources you spent levelling them up.

This definitely has the potential to drive people away from the game as currently, I'm struggling to produce enough iron ore because I don't have enough tools to level all the mines up to level 3 or 4. and Especially if you're doing it to copper mines, I'd question whether its actually a net gain in resources by using tools to level them up anyway, seeing as you use bronze to make tools...

I'm sure its been raised before, but in my opinion, this needs to be fixed. No game should effectively require you to pay real money in order to play it, it should be down to the player's choice. I'm sure some will argue that this is the case here, but as far as I'm concerned, this has far too much of an impact on gameplay if you don't top the mines up yourself.

[pietjepukkie]

I second, third AND fourth this suggestion. I haven't bought any gems and I do not intend to, simply because of this... why bother? Great job for pointing that out MGSteve!

Also, I hate the fact that I built some level 3 marble masons, but now that the quarry is depleted, the Geologist finds only deposits on the other side of the map (and when I tell him to look again, he fails because I have too many discovered locations already). Either make the masons movable by turning the buildings into covered wagons (like the prairie schooners of the American Wild West), or give us the ability to direct the geologists to search in a particular area.

Another great option that makes mining and quarrying a lot less annoying would be another update for a "smart geologist", who starts looking for new deposits automatically when a mason or mine can no longer find its resources. I hate it when I log on and find all my mines and quarries have depleted during the night and I have a serious shortage of building materials because of that.

[MGSteve]

Also, I hate the fact that I built some level 3 marble masons, but now that the quarry is depleted, the Geologist finds only deposits on the other side of the map (and when I tell him to look again, he fails because I have too many discovered locations already).

Ah yeah, I've had that a couple of times, but I've only got up to the bottom right sector, so its not been too bad as if yet - but that is another very, very valid point.

[Chris1979]

@pietjepukkie: just destroy the depleted marble mines and keep the masons. I've got 1 on the startpoint (near the Mayor house), two on the middle part of the map. and two the most right map part. All five lvl 3. As soon as a mine is depleted send out a Geologist and the marble spot will 're-apeare'. Note that if this didn't happen I would have quite this game a long time ago (and went back to the pc version :-) )

[Qualan]

decent mining planning makes it perfectly feasable. most people manage to rebuild their mines without much hassle. You can get refills from adventures ass well or buy refills from fellow players (eiher gem bought or adventure rewards)

TBH, most will not bother with this except for gold mines, which are expensive to build and take a lot of time to search and have few resources in em. Most people will run copper mines and iron mines at lvl 2, some at lvl 3 if they have big production streams running and have them staggered.

It is all planning really. If you know you will be gome for a while, make sure you have the mines you upgraded past lvl 3 and never want to exhaust switched to stopped aka zzzz and make sure you have enough stocked in warehouse to meet your production needs.

Having unlimited supplies from 1 mine would be dumbing down the game to the extreme and would mean people can be offline for weeks as long as they have maxed out storage space and come back to fully stocked storehouses

[MGSteve]

It is all planning really. If you know you will be gome for a while, make sure you have the mines you upgraded past lvl 3 and never want to exhaust switched to stopped aka zzzz and make sure you have enough stocked in warehouse to meet your production needs.

Having unlimited supplies from 1 mine would be dumbing down the game to the extreme and would mean people can be offline for weeks as long as they have maxed out storage space and come back to fully stocked storehouses

I don't think I ever said I wanted unlimited supplies at all. What I was suggesting was that the mines stayed in place when they ran out and you had a way to refill them (either by using the geologist or some other method).

What I object to is as I said above, and this removes your point about planning - if you leave the game for a day - i.e. you're away from the computer, you'll come back and find all your mines exhausted and it does take about 12-18 hours to get them all up and running again thanks to the time it takes to search for the mines, plus the resources of course to actually build the buggers in the first place.

I've increased my tool production capability now, so at least I can level the mines up when I build them.

But overall, my point was one of wasting resources. If you pull the mine down you get some resources back, if it gets exhausted you get zero resources back - that is ridiculous. As is not getting any of the upgrade resources back - but that applies to all buildings not just mines, tbh.

Planning is fine if you're on the game day in day out - some of us do try and have lives though and that means we don't always get a chance to get online to manage the mine depletion plan.

[DamianG]

I fail to see where the problem is.
i have played this game for 8 weeks now, never lvl up any mine and i dont intend to do so (at least not untill come to the gold), never ran out of marble either and all my 6 marble quarris are at lvl 2, havent spent a penny on the game. never spent more than 2-3 hours a day playing
i am currently at lvl 31.
probable is all a question of planning in advance and or not to try to run before you learn to walk.

have my marble quarries spread in all 4 lacations, so no matter if they deplete, there is allways 3 or 4 suplying marble.
have a mining system really easy going, with 18 mines total and allways 18 mines, working on ratation, rarely run out of raw ore.
comming now to lvl 32 i know exactly what my new 10 licencies are going to be used on.
in adition never had any problem with chuck or metal tooth, just waited my time (about 3 days each) to take them, planinig and planing no need to be here 24/7 to plan. right now i am in the process of colecting the 200 steel swords that i will need to cop the last leader, i know for a fact that it will take me some 10 days maybe more,to clear all the camps first. already sacrificed 200 cavs 600 recs 150 militia clearing a few camps on sector 9 and still have 7000 horses 5000 bronce swords 3000 iron swords 500 long bows ( plus 600 stell swords) waiting for my settlers to come back to town.... no rush, no rest, one step at the time.
It is a strategy game and a choice game. some ppl choose to have room for 1000 or more settlers and most of the time they are there doing nothing, making numbers only(i dont see the point y have room for only 500 and no soldiers, other than the survivers of last attack) i choose to have weapons instead and no army. just make the type of fighter i need for a specific task...no rush, no rest, one step at the time.
never skip any camp. i have killed one by one all of them.
also i dont see much point at this stage on doing adventures. time will come for that.

choices, strategy, planing and no rushing have proven to me that im getting there faster tham most without spending a dime (for now, anyway)

[FauSt0]

Why would you level them up to 3 or 4 when you know they're going to be exhausted anyway?
Just keep them at lvl1 or maybe to lvl2 and your problem is solved.

Only disadvantage you have, is that you get your recources a bit slower. So be it. this game was never intended to be easy.

[unlucky]

Interesting points about the mines - I run many processes in rotation - because of this I was able to slowly build my single iron ore mine up to over 4000 ore with loot from different adventures. When it gets down to under 1000, I will turn it off and do something else (mainly to save buffs!)

The real problem that needs to be addressed is being able to leave your settlement while on holiday and not come back to find all mines empty, all deposits and fields exhausted but a store house full of planks, logs and possibly coal.

Restarting the economy will not be easy! + there will be a population overload as well - shame the extra settlers won't be put into the star menu.

Going on a 2 week holiday, so probably a good time to leave the game

[Darkterrorist]

what you could also do i increase the mine mats by 3 - 4x this way you would only have to login about.

also maybe a idear to install a vacation mode. where your land get locked down for atleast 48 hours and max untill canceld.
at this time all production and stuff freeze.