I think there's a serious problem with the output yields of the new T1 factories, compared to their HUGE population cost....
Consider the pitiful extra yield by increasing t1 factories to max (using elves and marble as an example.)
Current scenario – early in elementals chapter.
10 marble factories at level 24.
Space used – 200 (20 per factory). Right ? but wait, we also have to consider the space requirements (due to houses needed) of the population cost too.
Pop requirement of these 10 – 42,520. Assuming magic residences, and only considering the impact of marble factories, this requires 8.67 residences which take 139 squares. (its fair to consider fractions of a house, since we are only discussing one small portion of pop requirements.)
Total space required – including housing requirement = 200 + 139 = 339.
Output of 10 factories, assuming 5 runs of 3 hours and 1 of 9 hours, is 219k marble per 24 hours.
Let’s assume / hope there is some tangible benefit to upgrading factories to max level, ie 27, and to keep things fair assume no need to increase our overall production levels. What’s the impact of population, space needed, and cost ?
Yield on a 27 factory is 25.7% more than a 24. To produce approx. 219k a day on the same production runs, you need 8 factories at 27 (instead of 10 at 24).
Space used by 8 factories – 160. Great. Save 40 squares. BUT population requirement jumps HUGELY, to 6,529 per factory, so total pop requirement for 8 = 52,232.
This now requires 10.65 magic residences, which take up 170 squares.
So to accommodate the large extra pop requirements of the level 27 factories, the real total space required is 160 + 170 = 330. So only 9 squares less, than keeping factories at 24 (which is basically nothing.)
The actual COST of upgrading 8 factories from 24 to 27 = 1.23 million steel/planks, and 1.23 million sentient goods.
So for a huge cost, if you went from 10 factories at 24 to 8 at 27, you’d net (and considering true cost, with population factored in) – produce exactly the same amount of goods, and save 9 total squares in space, which is almost totally negligible, (basically a single square per factory) for a total cost of over a million sentient goods. .... is it really worth it ??