1 gold mine can speed up 4 buildings near it at once for 3 turns in a row for in total -12 turns reduction for a cycle of 4 turns (5 turns in future) when all 3 techs are researched. Humans can't even dream about such production speed increase since in case of dwarves ratio of such speed up when maxed is about 2.2-2.3 per 1 turn cost while for humans it is 0.5 per 1 turn cost. Yes at base it is around 0.4-0.7 thus early game it actually might be true that you waste production onto gold mine. But only up until you get proper position of all 4 factories to speed up and unlock tier 2 speed up ability.Anchar wrote: ↑Sun May 01, 2022 11:08 pm To be honest, when I used mines, they didn't really help me (although I didn't build them cell to cell and digit to digit) are they really that significant?Yes, maybe you got these units quickly, but at the same time you lost extra production by replacing them with accelerators, as if the Humans supplied a lot of couriers for the elephant speedrun. If your opponent survives the zerg rush, then later he can crush you by shooting the same magicians in 3 moves with magic arrows on human, elves + immobilize, don't mummies already work with their victim on the undead? As for the healers, they can be shot in advance by archers.
And you also can even further speed up producion with gem mines.
And also you can get minecarts which may boost for you various things — from production for 1-3 turns up to gunpowder units for +7 extra attack, casters for extra spe power, or even workers for +1/+2 actions for 1 turn (stackable with each other).
I must remind that this -40 turns cost reduction for 12 turns was applied not only to this factory with 14 turn cost war mammoths but also to other factories as well (alas i did not supply those with additional money couriers aka gold/gem carts thus it was around 24 turns speed up instead). In total for those 12 turns i've got 6 dwarven shielders (4 turns cost each), 6 dwarven musketeers (4 turns cost each) and 5 dwarven boar riders (5 turns cost each, on 13th turn i've got 6th boar rider). All that from 4 factories around 1 gold mine with all 3 abilities unlocked.
Is it still insignificant? This speed is something that even orcs with their current ridiculously op goblin looting ability on goblin spikers along with grenade casted onto hamletback still could only ever dream about.
So insignificant that end game dwarves definitely not because of this but because of increased units costs compared to other races are considered as most spamming race rivalling even undeads.
Only problem here with gold mines is that they require astounding amounts of micromanagement — base planning, production planning, carefully looking for cooldowns of each separate ability and so on — to maximize speed up output. In hands of less experienced players i think around 30-50% of this potential is wasted into the void.
