TOTAL WAR WIKI

Iron Workshops
Category:	Metal Industry
Level:	1
Turns to build:	3
Building cost:	2000
European Indian Middle Eastern
Requires
Craft Workshops (Smiths)
Enables
European Ironmaster's Works Indian, Middle Eastern Ironmaster's Forge

Blacksmiths are the heart of many communities. Their skills make tools for the farm, the home and the workshop alike.

Smiths make everything that the world of work uses, from ploughshares, horseshoes and sickles to knives, nails, and wagon tyres. They even make the machinery to make more machines, as they make tools for themselves and other crafts not to mention the working parts of many workshops. The number of people with the surname “Smith” (or its equivalent) shows the historical importance of ironworking!

The job is, however, dirty and dangerous. Fire is an ever-present danger, and working with red hot metal has risks all of its own. It breeds tough, hardy, independent men with an unsentimental eye for profit.

Making iron requires a great deal of charcoal as fuel. This means that the secondary industry of charcoal burning uses large tracts of woodland to make charcoal, and is one of the main limitations on iron production. It is almost impossible to produce enough charcoal, year after year, to keep the furnaces burning because managed woodlands don’t grow fast enough.

This building can be built when the region has iron resources.