Tools ASAP

[TyranusBonehead]

What's the best way to get to producing tools as early as possible? I really stink at this game, but it seems if I can get tools (more and sooner) that it would help tremendously. Thanks in adavance

 

[dalgo]

Settle a colony on a hill and put your colonist to work as a blacksmith. The town centre produces ore so you are making tools immediately. Add a farmer and an ore miner to increase production.

Early in the game though tools are cheap to buy in Europe so that is probably your best source until your economy improves.

 

[frontiersman]

This brings up the memory that Civ 1 did not require you to pay money for your pioneer to improve your colony's land. Instead, it cost so many tools for each improvement (10 or 20 I think). The hardy pioneer started off with 100 tools so could improve 5 or 10 plots before needing more. I think this was more realistic as barter was common in colonial times as this article http://www.bos.frb.org/education/pubs/historyo.pdf indicates, particularly this part:

Spoiler :

For a variety of reasons, money was almost always in short supply during the early
colonial period. The lack of coins and currency forced the colonists to barter. The English
leaders felt that colonial exports, such as animal skins, dried fish, and tobacco, should be
paid for in English goods. Colonial exports would be accepted in return for an equal value
of such goods as fabrics, window panes, pewter dishes, and mirrors.

I would like to see a mod feature where money was only used for trade with Europe or other European colonial powers, and all expenses paid -- and exchanges done -- within the player's colonies, and with natives, was with resources (as is the case with the Civ 1 pioneer).

Anyway, to address the question, yes, you can settle on a hill to get ore as the basic colony resource, and then build a blacksmith, but that will take a bit of time. Buying early tools at the European dock is the best bet. Note that in Civ 1 they were very cheap which made the pioneers reliance on them work quite well.

 

[Illusion13]

Speaking of which, are there any mods that change the way pioneers work back to the same way they did in Colonization 1?