Voxel City's buildings are made of things you dig out of the map. Quarries dig stone, pits dig clay and sand, lumber yards cut timber, and later there are mines for ore, copper and lithium. The works turn those into planks, bricks, concrete and steel, and the buildings need them to grow.
Until this week, every tile you could dig gave the same amount, 3 a month. And where you could dig came from the ground as it was right then. That second bit had a hole in it that players found before I did. Raise a riverbank with the terrain tool and it turned to rock. Rock means stone, and in the right spot ore. So for $45 a step you could make yourself a mine.
It was funny, and it had to go.
Fixed in the ground
Now each map works out its deposits once, from the shape the map started with, and that's it. Raising a cliff, digging down to the beach or cutting a canal makes, moves or takes nothing. Water has nothing in it to dig, as before.
The ground still gives what you'd expect. Woods give timber, rock gives stone, beaches give sand, and damp grass near water gives clay. That's roughly how it goes in real life too. Clay settles where water slows down, which is why there's so much of it in river valleys.
On top of that are patches of 10 to 30 tiles, joined up blobs with a rich middle, a fair ring and a poor rim. A rich tile gives 6 a month, fair gives 4 and poor gives 2. A works still tops out at 60 a month however good the ground is, so a big poor patch can fill one too, it just needs more land under it. Woods are richer where they're thicker. Ore, copper and lithium only come in patches.
Reading it
In the Resources view each material now has three shades. Deep means rich, the legend's colour means fair and a pale tint means poor. The rule is just that darker means more.
Getting there took a few goes. Lithium was a pale sky blue, and its rich shade looked exactly like water, which is the one thing a deposit must never look like. It's a deep crimson now, the colour lithium burns in a flame test. Every material's rich shade is held a clear step away from the water's colour in all four colour vision settings, and there's a test that measures it so I can't quietly break it later.
The cursor readout also said something misleading. Hover a poor stone site and it told you the works there "digs 60 a month here", which sounds like one poor tile gives 60. It now says what each number is.
Each quarter is good at something
Every map is four quarters, and a new city always starts in the north west one. That quarter now has rich timber, two or three clay patches by the water near the road in, some stone and some sand. Planks, bricks and concrete, in other words, which is what an early town is built from. The ore, copper and lithium are in the other quarters.
The idea is that you'll want a second town eventually, and trade between them. To make sure that never blocks anyone, a linked neighbour's spare stock counts towards your era goals and level ups, and neighbours keep working while you're away in another quarter.
One small thing fell out of this. Mountain Lake's map card promised "Ore and stone", but its starting quarter has no rich ore any more. It says "Stone and timber" now.
Still to do
The screens that go with this aren't built yet. The plan is for the region window to say what each quarter is rich in, for the advisor to point you the right way ("ore is in the north east quarter"), and for a way to stake a mining claim in a quarter you haven't settled. Those wait until I've drawn them properly.