There are quite a few concerns in this thread I'll happily second, from the Dev's mysterious "understanding" of certain game mechanics to the everlasting communication difficulties. I saw the conversation in Sandycove's g-1 Jim_B referred to, and it made logging in to the forum to post this an even greater effort. But since I've been puzzling over this a little time now and while very much hoping I've missed something, I cannot figure out what. So:
If this means what it says and includes only the Weaponsmiths, Horses, and Smelters as mentioned in the post:
What happens to quests like this, an early Tutorial quest designed to teach balance, if the Smelter is faster and Copper and Coal are... not.
Image from Fhearghus's Guide For Dummies - The Settlers Online
which tells quite nicely how to clear this quest and others using the regular building ratios.
Must you build extra bottom-of-the-chain buildings?
There are a lot of these production balancing quests, at many different levels. They often include the entire chain, from the most basic resources like Water and Pinewood through to the final product, many of which will apparently be produced much faster than what the quests were designed for.
Also puzzling is having the free building moves at the same time the production cycles are altered. If you move things around, and look to your Economy Overview or other in-game info for balance... what happens when the new balance you've created vanishes as production times return to normal? And at the very same time the fees for moving buildings return.
Again, I sincerely hope I've missed something, or that the phrasing is entirely misleading, or that all this has already been addressed... somewhere... Otherwise this is yet another "Sounds great in conference" and someone should have looked at it before moving ahead.
Finally, one of the "Tip of the Day"s on the Test server mentions that Expeditions will *not* be extended for Maintenance ("make sure you have time to finish")
It would be very nice to have this confirmed and if it is accurate it really ought to be very well publicised and not left to the quickly shifting Tip screen, else Tuesday 2nd December could be quite interesting indeed.
Edit: Looking at: some of the feedback on the French servers, where this has all just gone live, it looks less and less like those with concerns about base resource production missed something and more and more like these "Limited Offers and Promotions" really just weren't thought through.
It's not even clear yet the "new normal" productions will fit in with the old quest chains. Bringing all this extra in as a Special Bonus when permanent changes to some buildings' production are also being applied seems like a pretty Bad Idea. Here's hoping... I got nuthin'. Here's hoping.