Steam-Powered Factory (ETW building)
| Steam-Powered Factory | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Category: | Metal Industry | ||||
| Level: | 3 | ||||
| Turns to build: | 6 | ||||
| Building cost: | 6000 | ||||
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| Requires | |||||
 Ironmaster's Forge | |||||
| Technology | |||||
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Powered machinery allows enormous factories of all kinds to be built, and for profitable work to go by day and night.
Steam engines can drive all manner of machines, from trip hammers to crushing mills, spinning machines to looms, lathes, drills and a hundred other devices. Anything that once relied on muscle power can be connected to a steam engine by a cunning contrivance of pulleys and drive shafts. Once an operator no longer provides mechanical power for a machine, he can either supervise many machines, or his job can be made less skilled. Either way, he does more work for his wages, and the mill owner feels the benefit. Because the heavy work is now done by machine, it is also possible for women and children to make a contribution to the workforce.
The “dark Satanic mills” that William Blake (1757-1827) wrote about and drew in his epic work “Jerusalem” (worked on 1804-20) really were shocking to everyone who encountered them. No matter where the mills and factories were built, they changed the landscape, poisoned rivers and skies, and brought new slums in their shadows. For sensitive people like Blake they truly were a vision of a new Hell on Earth, destroying lives in the search for profit.
This building can be built when the region has iron resources.