Good points Trix.
The critical piece is the
building upgrades that lead us on our path to T7. Those will always be the priority; hotspots and blanket/pattern customizations are purely cosmetic at this point and will be replaced with better, fancier versions when they become available; I'd only push for them when we have a surplus to pretty up the place.
But first, a little background on resources…
There are primary resources and secondary resources:
Timber (woodcutting) > Charcoal (firemaking)
Stone (mining)
Ore (mining) > Metal Bar (smithing)
Precious Ore (mining) > Precious Metal Bar (smithing)
Cloth (crafting)
Rations (cooking)
Minions (summoning)
Secondary subtract from primary resources, e.g., if we needed 1k logs and 1k charcoal, then 2k logs will need to be cut then 1k of them turned into charcoal. As we move up in tiers, it will indeed get quite complicated to keep track. I will be doing the honors of determining what items need to be upgraded, setting the target goals using the in-game interface, and posting weekly posts here explaining the status and options for transparency's sake.
Here is the good news:
As the storehouse gets upgraded our weekly resource cap gets raised, all the way to 3k resources at T7.
At T5 we unlock the summoning plot. Minions can be used as a wildcard for any resource. For this reason I suggest that everyone max out 10% of their resource cap on minions.
You have volunteered to "hold back" helping until you can see where the effort is needed the most. I don't think it's necessary yet, but perhaps a good idea at T3 and up. I will be doing the same.
Lastly, we can do "partial payments". We don't need to gather 100% of the resources required to upgrade a building within one build tick; we can apply what we have and make up the rest next week. This will help for things like the T7 stronghold upgrade that requires a whopping 511k in resources.
In conclusion and to answer your question directly, I will be figuring out resources required, setting the targets in-game, and posting here for feedback and explanation.