Dwarves

[SoggyShorts]

There is some math behind the portal upgrade though.

Right, 5 granite mines make 120/h, so
upgrading 5 makes an extra 60 per hour
upgrading a portal
if you have 12 mines gives you an extra 57.6 per hour
if you have 13 mines gives you an extra 62.4 per hour
I recommend a minimum of 16 granite mines (see below)

At which point upgrading a mine still wins because it finishes in 4 hours when the portal uses 16 or 17 hours.

But everything keeps running while your portal is in upgrade, whereas your mines produce nothing while upgrading.
The flip side is that you could upgrade a mine much sooner than a portal since you don't need to save up all 8K granite at once.
Worth noting is that your number of builders and activity level might have a big impact on this since level 1 granite mines have a garbage 4h production time, so you might lose a big chunk overnight/work.

First thing I did was spam out like 20 or so granite mines.

Other than my first 2 accounts where I could barely fit a dozen granites, I always spam lots of mines now.
Upgrading granite and copper to level 4 just costs too much copper and granite imo. The time it takes to make back what you spend is something like a week.
I leave copper at level 2, and I'd leave the granite there too if it wasn't for the short production times, but they go to level 3 because I want to sleep in.
I should mention, that this only works if you have room for around 20 granites and 10 copper.

I only had 5 granite mines

Slacker!

 

[mucksterme]

Slacker!

MOM?

 

[InvincibleRailroad]

I keep hearing the phrase "spam out", as in Shneeky's post above. What exactly does that mean?

 

[SoggyShorts]

I keep hearing the phrase "spam out", as in Shneeky's post above. What exactly does that mean?

It means place as many as you can as fast as possible. Possibly placing even more than you plan on keeping. like @ShneekeyTheLost said, you can fill the space reserved for copper mines with extra level 1 granitemines while you are waiting to unlock the coppermine tech to get a little extra granite early on.

 

[DeletedUser7370]

But everything keeps running while your portal is in upgrade, whereas your mines produce nothing while upgrading.
The flip side is that you could upgrade a mine much sooner than a portal since you don't need to save up all 8K granite at once.
Worth noting is that your number of builders and activity level might have a big impact on this since level 1 granite mines have a garbage 4h production time, so you might lose a big chunk overnight/work.

The math is very straight forward. If you are at the point where the 2 upgrades are nearly equal percentage gain for cost (300 production/hour), then you have to do a time series. 8100/300=27 and 1620/300=5.4. So you have to collect for 27 hours before starting the portal upgrade and wait 16 hours to start receiving any benefit. Whereas upgrading a single mine leaves you out production of 24/h for 3.5 hours. Adding up those times that is 34 hours at a rate of +12/h=408, deduct 84 for the 3.5 hours of down time = 324 more granite produced by upgrading the L1 mine first. So upgrading the single mine before the portal is still better.

By working all of that backwards I get that you would have to have a production of about 1200 per hour (50 mines) in order for it to make sense to upgrade the portal first.

 

[SoggyShorts]

By working all of that backwards I get that you would have to have a production of about 1200 per hour (50 mines) in order for it to make sense to upgrade the portal first.

Where this breaks down is dependant on how fast you are getting KP as well, since you need a level 2 portal to unlock later techs.
Also for me it often comes down to "will I be online when that granite upgrade is done?" Since starting an upgrade before bed or work would mean 9h of down time, not just the 3.5h that the upgrade takes.

What happened to me last time I took a city through dwarves was that by the time I had all ~23 granite mines built it was time to get my portal up so it could hold enough to unlock copper. Sometimes only having 2 builders sucks.

 

[DeletedUser7370]

Where this breaks down

And that is all that matters. Each of these views depends on personal play style and what is going on in your life. Remember that this game is not a sprint; it is a marathon.

And Soggy, you already know I soak up KP just about as fast as anyone can. I am still early in dwarves and pushing 480K coins per KP.

 

[SoggyShorts]

I am still early in dwarves and pushing 480K coins per KP.

 

[DeletedUser8196]

I find that producing enough copper is insane, I feel like I need more of those foundries than anything else on the map... and the teensy tinsey more that you get per upgrade is not enough for how much it costs to level up. I'm completely stuck in research due to copper as well. I really hope they update that. Its making me lose interest and fast.

 

[SoggyShorts]

I find that producing enough copper is insane, I feel like I need more of those foundries than anything else on the map... and the teensy tinsey more that you get per upgrade is not enough for how much it costs to level up. I'm completely stuck in research due to copper as well. I really hope they update that. Its making me lose interest and fast.

Last time through dwarves I had 12 level 2 copper mines and was capped on copper with full mines 90% of the time. If I even make another account I'll go with 9, or 10 tops.

 

[DeletedUser8196]

Last time through dwarves I had 12 level 2 copper mines and was capped on copper with full mines 90% of the time. If I even make another account I'll go with 9, or 10 tops.

That's good to know... it's just a first to have to dedicate that much space to one resource but i'll give it a try. Thanks!