I decided it was about time I did some tests to confirm what I thought were the annual production rates for the majority of domestic industries, so I ran some industries for a couple of years in sandbox. The results demonstrated that everything is as blindingly simple as I thought it was. All data was gathered for fully employed buildings, on Olympian difficulty.
The upshots of these tests are, assuming there are no God effects (discussed below):
Industries have a maximum output of 6 units per year. This means that:
Wineries produce 6 wine
Olive Presses produce 6 oil
Armories Produce 6 armor
Sculpture Studios produce 6 statues
Horse Ranches produce 6 horses
Raw Materials are a little more complex:
- Foundries, Mints and Timber Mills have an output that is dependent on the distance of the raw material from the relevant building. Mints also have a 'turnover period' (the length of which I have not investigated) during which the silver ore gathered is converted into Drachma (200 silver makes 100 Dr). Gathering of silver does, however, continue during at least part of this period.
- Masonry Shops get a big block of marble (enough for 8 slabs) at a time. It takes two months to dig the block of marble out of the ground. Once back at the Masonry Shop, it takes a month to chip off a slab of marble. When the shop has only three slabs worth of marble left, it send out another man to quarry another block of marble. So, provided the masonry shop is within a one month round trip of the quarry site, the productivity of a masonry shop is fixed at 12 slabs of marble per year.
- Carding sheds can support a maximum of 8 sheep. Each sheep is sheared one a year, making an maximum annual production of 800 units per shed or dairy. New sheep are sometimes born, but this only happens when you are below the 8 animal limit. When you first place sheep, they are ready for shearing in 6 months. When a baby animal is born, it is ready for shearing in 12 months. Once an sheep has been sheared, it is 12 months before it is ready again.
For example, if you place a new sheep in March, it will be ready for shearing in September. If the shepherd doesn't shear it until November, it will not be ready for shearing again until the following November.
A major contributing factor to is the activities of the priesthood, who will steal an alarmingly large amount of sheep every year. If they steal a sheep just before it is sheared, the consequences for productivity are obvious. Wolves have been known to pick off the occasional sheep, too Consequently, in the majority of years, you will produce 800 fleece per carding shed, but there will be occasional years when production dips a little below this (when a sheep is sheared at the end of December one year and the beginning of January the following time around, or if the wolves/priests have a particularly busy year). You should be safe working on the assumption that a carding shed produces between 700 and 800 fleece per year.
- Growers Lodges can, it appears, support a maximum of twelve vines and twelve olive trees per year, obtaining a maximum yield of twelve grapes and twelve olives. If the grapevines or olive trees are distant from the Growers Lodge, then this number will decrease. As with the Masonry Shop, there is a delay effect, making the first year's production slightly less than the maximum possible, particularly if you don't plant the vines/olive trees at the start of their growing season.
Gods can play havoc with these numbers. Generally speaking, a blessing from a God makes the building deliver four times its normal output the next time it sends out a cart. The important industries that may be blessed are:
Fleece: Athena
Oil: Athena
Wine: Dionysus
Bronze: Hades
Silver: Hades
Armor: Hephaestus
Statues: Hephaestus
Of these, the benefit is smallest for the fleece industry, because fleece tends to be gathered in gluts, and in general only one or two of the 8 cartloads produced by a carding shed will be a 'blessed load'. Similar concerns apply for foundries, and, to a lesser extent, mints. For finished goods industries, careful placement should result in quadrupled annual output: i.e. 24 carts per year!
Alan[This message has been edited by Caesar Alan (edited 02-09-2001).]