Mine

“Dig deep enough and the earth gives up its secrets – ore, stone, and the foundations of power.”

The Mine is the primary source of production from tile improvements, extracting ore and minerals from the rocky terrain of hills. While farms feed your people, mines arm them – production is the currency of military units, buildings, and wonders, making mines essential for any civilisation that intends to build rather than merely survive.

Stats

Valid Terrain

Strategy

Mines are the production engine of your empire. While farms drive population growth, mines determine how quickly your cities can translate that population into tangible output – units, buildings, and wonders. A city with many hills and mines will build faster than one relying solely on flat terrain, even if the flat-terrain city has a larger population.

The interplay between farms and mines defines a city’s character. Food-heavy cities grow large but build slowly. Production-heavy cities build quickly but grow slowly. The ideal city has access to both flat farmland and mineable hills, allowing a balanced development path. When settling new cities, count the hills in the potential working radius – three or more hills is excellent, while a city with no hills will always struggle for production.

Mining is one of the earliest technologies you should research, as it unlocks both mines and lumber camps. Getting mines online quickly gives your cities the production boost needed to build early military units and infrastructure. In the early game, even a single mine can meaningfully accelerate a city’s build queue, shaving turns off critical projects like Walls, Granaries, and military units.

If a hill tile also contains a strategic resource like iron, building a mine there serves double duty – providing both the production bonus and access to the resource. Always prioritise mining resource-bearing hills.

Historical Background

Mining is among humanity’s oldest industrial activities. The earliest known mines, dating to approximately 40,000 BCE, were ochre mines in Swaziland used to extract the red pigment for ceremonial purposes. By the Neolithic period, flint mines like those at Grimes Graves in England were supplying the raw material for tools and weapons across wide trade networks.

The Bronze Age and Iron Age were defined by mining – the extraction of copper, tin, and iron ore from the earth drove technological progress and shaped the fates of civilisations. The silver mines of Laurion funded the Athenian fleet that defeated Persia at Salamis. The gold and silver mines of the Spanish Americas financed the Habsburg Empire’s wars across Europe. The coal mines of 18th-century Britain powered the Industrial Revolution. Throughout history, the ability to extract and process minerals from the earth has been a foundation of economic and military power.