When is dung going to have a use?

[Hellzon]

Peat: soil material[...]
PS, in Swedish it is something like torvströ....or torvmosse?

Ah, wikipedia is your friend. And torvströ (or just torv) sounds about right. Torvmosse is the place where you get it (a "peat bog"?).

/Hellzon - currently on modem, too impatient to look stuff up

[wichita]

The problem here is clearly one of the New Lands people messing up in this instance, not one of a wrong sequence of builds involving dung. There are indeed far too many "New Lands" and and some look to have been designed with insufficient care.

Having not been involved in that nor allowed to look at a map when contemplating such matters (as much as I would love to be able to do that to provide as much game balance as I can ) I can't really comment on the validity of this statement. I do find it a bit hard to believe that entire continents, or an island that is larger than about 12 to 15 locations remotely removed from a currently inhabited land would be completely devoid of wood. Jos will have to comment on this though.

So, you kill off your charrie and start again, but that is a different issue.

Still playing that strategy are we?

In fact one of the problems with dung is that it further devalues trade. You used to have to go to a forest for wood, now there are great piles of dung everywhere and you don't even need wood to dry the dung (analogous to using wood to make propane).

But instead you will soon have huge surpluses of dung, probably on the scale of surpluses of large bones.

This was the biggest consideration when finally discussing this implimentation. It is precisely why the drying step was implemented and I have tried to set the numbers, based on yield from animals to keep it less efficient than firewood. I believe it will work out that way in the end once all is said and done and it will serve it's purpose. Isolated characters far removed from wood will use it to provide subsistence levels of cooking, those closer to forests will likely opt to try and go trading for firewood, and those in forests and cities will simply let it rot in the Objects tab.

I would much rather they had created peat deposits here and there on the existing continents, so as to say double the number of sources of vis-a-vis using wood (peat deposits scattered strategically where there aren't enough forests).

This is a nice suggestion. Having a gatherable fuel alternative however could arguably be worse for the wood economy than dung. You do say strategiaclly placed though, and as we know, everybody has their own strategy.

Yes, but dung can only be used for cooking, so even if it becomes easier to do so, wood will still be needed for tools and boats and smelting and machinery, so it's not like it's suddenly going to become worthless.

This is going to be the biggest factor in keeping up the demand for wood. Dung is only good for cooking, which most of the lazy player base doesn't bother with unless they have to anyway. There are a lot of structural uses for wood, and as you pointed out in making propane, that will keep the demand up.

[EchoMan]

I can't really comment on the validity of this statement. I do find it a bit hard to believe that entire continents, or an island that is larger than about 12 to 15 locations remotely removed from a currently inhabited land would be completely devoid of wood. Jos will have to comment on this though.

Have a look at the Sz-island in the swedish area.