Steam-Powered Sawmill is a type of lumber resource building in Napoleon: Total War.
Description[]
This building gives a huge reduction in the costs of construction and shipbuilding.
The advent of steam power means that sawmills are no longer tied to watercourses for their power and they can be built anywhere, thus improving productivity. A sawmill also makes a considerable contribution to the industrial wealth of a region. However, working conditions are not very good, and the lower classes are unhappy as a result.
The invention of machine tools greatly improved the productivity of sawmills. The invention of the circular saw and gang saws meant that a tree could be turned into planks in one easy step. Both of these inventions were prone to breaking down: the circular saw was easily damaged by overheating or dirty logs. The expensive nature of this equipment led to the creation of a new sawmill technician known as a saw filer. These men were highly skilled in metalwork and their primary task was to keep the saws in perfect working order. High speed saws are not the safest pieces of industrial equipment to work near, and deaths and injuries were common.
Effects[]
Requires Steam Locomotive and a Lumber Mill. Takes 10 turns and 4,752 gold* to build.
*The Steam-Powered Sawmill technically costs 5,400 gold, but it always benefits from the 12% cost reduction from its predecessor, the Lumber Mill.
Unlike its predecessors, the Logging Camp and the Lumber Mill, the Steam-Powered Sawmill grants a global reduction to both navy unit recruitment costs and building costs. However, it's difficult to take full advantage of this discount as it requires a fairly late game technology, Steam Locomotive, to be researched. Nevertheless, late-game buildings can cost thousands of gold, and a 26% discount can easily save hundreds, if not thousands of gold per building. The large percentage reduction to shipbuilding costs are also very substantial, as late game ships also cost thousands of gold to build. The global bonus stacks with those of other steam-powered sawmills. Just spending 36,000 gold in a region with a steam-powered sawmill or so allows it to pay for itself; for reference, several final-tier building types are around 10,000 gold apiece.
The discount provided by Steam-Powered Sawmills and their variants do not apply for the unique buildings of each faction, such as Nelson's Column, the Minin Monument, and the Siegessäule. It also does not affect the price of Stables or their upgrades.
The Peninsular Campaign[]
In The Peninsular Campaign, steam-powered sawmills require 2,052 gold and 8 turns to build.