heh, even with 30 workshops it takes over 100k wood for trade ships due to the scaffolding reqs >_>. Though, now that I have harbours I'm thinking of doing a workshop focus and boosting to around 45-50 workshops.
Absolutely build lots of workshops. They make a huge difference.
* With 10 workshops, 100 scaffolds takes 342,000 wood
* With 20 workshops, 100 scaffolds takes 181,000 wood
* With 30 workshops, 100 scaffolds takes 112,000 wood
* With 40 workshops, 100 scaffolds takes 76,000 wood
* With 50 workshops, 100 scaffolds takes 55,000 wood
With more workshops you go from having to convert storage capped wood multiple times to making a single batch of scaffolds, to making multiple batches of scaffolds per pile of wood. It makes an even bigger difference with something like compendiums, which require three conversions.
Still doesn't solve the starchart problem, though.
Time doesn't seem to pass if I have it on a different tab than the one I'm looking at. Or it passes slowly.
Click on options in the upper right, then check the box next to "Use web worker (game works correctly in background tab, may cause performance issues)"
First reset tipFor people on their first playthough: now that I've played through a couple resets, I advise
stopping tech research at Architecture. Get navigation, get architecture, then once you're looking at Physics/Acoustics/Geology as your next research options, just stop. The compendium requirements at that point become very high. Don't even bother with them. The gain you get from any of those three technologies isn't really justified by the time investment required on a first playthrough. Instead, be sure you have the Cargo Ships workshop upgrade, and then simply focus on building trade ships and harbors to increase your storage capacity. If you can grind the starcharts, you'll get more storage from that than you will from barns and workshops. Be sure to continue building observatories at least to 10, maybe to 15 or so, even if you don't need the science, because they increase the frequency of astronomical events that give starcharts. Then unlock zebras and start trading for titanium. Trade ships not only increase storage, they also increase both the quantity and frequency of titanium trade. Don't worry too much about religion. Sure, get everything up to Solar Revolution and praise the sun regularly for the global production bonus, but don't bother trying to get the persistent faith upgrade from Apocrypha, It requires 5000 gold, and you're probably not going to get that on a first playthrough. Don't even worry about Basilica. You only need that if you're going to grind compendiums. So don't worry about religion all that much. It's only going to give you probably a 5-10% production bonus by the time you reset, and that will be lost without apocrypha. Don't worry too much about steel, either. Since you're stopping before the compendium grind, you don't need many steamworks. In fact, you probably don't even need a steamworks at all since you'll be stopping before needing energy production and you only need 10 compendiums total to get to the above research targets. Go ahead and build one, sure, but the majority of your iron is probably better spent making plates instead.
Instead, grind ships and titanium, and focus on getting lots of kittens from huts, log houses and mansions. You can reasonably get 90 to 100 or so kittens doing the above. That's enough to get a good amount of paragon that will give you global production and storage capacity bonuses, and skipping the compendium, religion and alloy grinds will cut several days off your reset time. If you continue pressing forward, you'll discover after those few days that the next good reset threshold is concrete huts, which are still another week away. In that time, you could instead reset with karma and paragon, and be fully back to where you were, with ~60 paragon instead of the ~50 you'd have pushing through for that extra week.