I usually start right by a mountain so this isn’t an issue. Tried a different style this time around but now to progress into the bronze age it’s half way across the map.
Wondering what some of you have done to keep up a relatively fast but efficient mining operation. Like should I build an outpost with workbenches, storage and everything needed to craft there… then move around the finished goods? Or would it be best to just have highways out to mines and transport only raw materials to a central workshop district.
I drop a dozen or so stone chests near the mine and have them put everything in the chests. After the chests are full I move them back into town. This way I can recall everyone if there’s an attack so I don’t have to defend multiple fronts.
I tend to just trade for resources not locally available; although this requires having at least some local source from which to make products for sale. It’s partly also because I like to preserve the natural landscape most of the time, so large mining operations are something I tend to avoid.
If I do want to clear/flatten off an outcrop though, I use @Averest’s method – place down the largest containers available, select that desired resource, load 'em up, and undeploy them once they’re full.
Building hobbit-holes in the foothills can be a great way to get stone and clay; and if you excavate some basements/second-floor-down rooms you can hit the stone layer which drops ores at the same rate as mountain stone. Once we have better control over water (i.e. pumps or at least sources and sinks) I’ll probably start building flowing sewers under my town mostly just as an excuse to have a network of mine tunnels hahah!
It very well may have changed from what I remember – it’s a long time since I dug into the lower levels of the world. It might also have been because I was starting in the “clay pits”, and tunelling under the mountains; so it could have been that one of those terrains is/was responsible rather than the basic rock layer.