Señores y villeins – Smelter Profession Guide

This guide will cover the Smelter profession and why they are my favorite profession in the game. Con un poco de suerte, by the end, they will be yours too.

What do they need?

So this is the suggested build menu for the Furnace, which is the work zone for the Smelter profession.

Sitio de excavación – Dig Sites are used to tell Smelters to dig in the ground to gather clay. This can only be done on Dirt or Grass. Desafortunadamente, atm if you place a Dig Site on a forest tile, they will not dig for clay, and random clay can not spawn on the tile. This will also stop any terraforming from occurring

Bloomery – This is where Ingots are made. They will first heat ore in the Bloomery, then Hammer it on a Wooden Block. The Bloomery is an entirely passive work table after loading, it will take a few hours til the ore is melted, after which they will unload it.

Wooden Block – They need these for Hammering Ore into Ingots, shaping Clay into Bricks, and chopping Fire Wood. This is the only place where actual work is required, y como tal, necesitarás 1 for every worker in the family.

Horno – The Oven is where they will «Cocinar» Ladrillos. This is entirely passive work; once loaded, it will take a few hours, and they will unload the bricks. I recommend at least 2 ovens per worker.

Blast Furnace – This is an optional work table for the Smelters. They use it to create Coal from Firewood. I say this is optional since your miners will provide more than enough Coal for them to make Ingots

Ground Depository/Ground Storage – Their main storage building. They use this to store Wood, Leña, Carbón, All Ingots, Arcilla, and Bricks

What Can Smelters make?

Smelters are a middle production profession meaning they need resources from another profession (Miners) and their end product is needed by another profession (Blacksmith/Coinmaker/Artist/Jewel Crafter)

So what can they make

Steel Ingots – These are the backbone of your Blacksmith profession which can be processed further into Rod/Plates/Armor/Weapons

Bronze/Silver/Gold Ingots – These are used primarily by the Artist/Mint/Jewel Crafting Noble Families. I tend to try to use Gold for Statues and Silver for Jewelry. The Mint is a terrible profession and will not make as much Gold as the Ingots themselves are worth

Arcilla – With the use of the Dig Site they will be able to produce Clay. When I first bring in a Smelter family will cover their entire home/work area with Dig Sites. Once the ground gets a cracked look, it is depleted and can not be reused again. Demolishing the Dig Site and putting Dirt Path over it will stop it from giving a negative beauty effect. Once covered with dirt, the ground can be used for anything else. It’s a good idea to harvest clay from land that you plan to use for other families later.

Ladrillos – What you are all here for these is the best renewable resources for exporting in the game. Smelters can harvest their own Clay, make them into Bricks and sell them for a big profit. A lot of people worry about running out of Clay to keep this industry running, but over an entire map using just Dig Sites, there are hundreds of thousands of Clay you can gather. You will never run out of Clay

How to get Clay?

So how do we get all the Clay to fuel our Brick Empire?

We’ve already covered the Dig Sites and how Smelters can gather their own Clay. The first source of Clay you will encounter, aunque, is in the Forests. Forests will naturally regenerate Clay over time, usually several seasons. It’s important to note that Clay can never spawn on normal grass, where a wild plant is growing, where a tree is growing, or on any tile that already has something on it.

Entonces, if you want Clay to spawn in your Forests, you will need to remove wild plants/grass while keeping space between your trees but not too much that the Forest ground disappears. This is around 1 tree every 2-3 Azulejos.

Another important thing about Forest Clay gathering is at least 1 del 4 adjacent tiles must be empty. As you can see from this image, hay 4 trees surrounding the Clay that is in the middle. This Clay will be unharvestable by the Foragers.

The last source of clay will be the Miners. Más específicamente, the Mineshaft. These buildings will allow 4 Miners each to travel underground to harvest resources below the surface. They will only provide the ores that the above mountain contained, but they will always provide some Clay, Carbón, and Stone.

Even when the Mineshaft has been completely mined out, the below-ground resources will still provide Clay, Carbón, and Stone at a much slower pace.

Gold Brick Printers

So now that we know how and what to make, let’s talk about why Smelters are my favorite.

These bad boys are all about making the economy go round. Most of the problems you will encounter in the game can all be solved with gold. This is because your town is essentially a closed economy with only 3 ways of gold coming in. The Inn/Tavern, the Caravans, and when you add new players. As long as the number of what comes in is positive, you will almost never have any problems besides starvation. The game also has no concept of inflation, so the more gold in circulation keeps all the wheels of production rolling.

The easiest way to achieve this is Bricks

Setting up a min sale for bricks allows some to still remain in town until you are done upgrading everything to your tastes after that every brick you make can be exported

If you are going to use multiple Smelters, and you should, make sure only to have 1 Smelter family producing Ingots and the others just Ovens no Bloomeries. De lo contrario, they will attempt to compete to buy Ore/Coal driving prices up. You should expect around 3-5g gold per season per smelter family that is full-time «Cocinando» Bricks depending on their size. En mi 800 pop map, yo usé 17 Smelter families, which were producing around 120g a season, or 20-25k bricks.

So get out there and make your fortune!