Charcoal clamp

The Charcoal Clamp is an advanced production building for the Charcoal resource, which is a more-efficient alternative to direct Wood burning for buildings that require a fuel source (such as the Foundry or Potter). In Nordic climates, it's also possible to acquire Charcoal directly from Peat tiles using the Soil Miner.

After the transition to a Barter economy, Woodcutter capacity quickly becomes a crucial bottleneck on further population growth for many cities. This makes the switch to Charcoal a major technology milestone, providing exactly 3 times more fuel for production buildings for each unit of Wood collected.

Operating the Charcoal Clamp also requires a substantial supply of either Clay or Mud. While Clay sources are much rarer than Mud, the reduced cost per unit of Charcoal allows you to employ fewer Workers overall.

Charcoal clamps are unlocked through the Charcoal (Knowledge) Idea.

Production
''* Charcoal production is unusual in that the game calculates it as batches of 3 units. All costs are shown this same way to avoid rounding errors.''