Keep Coal/Metal full?

[unmerged(73742)]

So I was wondering what you all do with Sulphur / Coal etc and other metals?
Sometimes I do this with lumber / timber etc.
For some reason I have an aversion to ever promoting them to fill factories up.
Probably because when playing a big nation they seem to provide signifcant income and are used so ubiquitously in factories, which when upgrading causes my exports to go down.
Whereas by the 1850's most likely all my other resources are empty and the pops have been converted into craftsment / clerks.

So I guess what I'm asking is...

Is it ever worth it to upgrade coal, lumber, etc resources to factories or not?

 

[unmerged(131989)]

I'm not really sure what you mean by "upgrade" resources. If I have understood you correctly, you are referring to POPs being promoted from such RGOs as you mention and into factories, yes?

If so, then yes it is. Factory goods are more valuable and will get you more money. Leaving one or two stacks will be enough (and remember that you can split your POP stacks which are larger than 40k). The only RGOs worth keeping people in later on is valuable ones, like precious metals and sugar. These can get similar amounts of money as factories. That said, if you keep them full you won't get much migration to them.

 

[heliostellar]

It sounds like the factories you have been building may have been of low value goods or were losing money. Eventually the supply of coal, metal, and many other goods becomes so plentiful that the goods are dirt cheap and manufactured goods are were the money is.

 

[unmerged(136147)]

Depends on how productive the RGO is. A 5.0 Metal RGO is always worth keeping, but get rid of 1.0 ones.

 

[Consular]

I find sulfur is also good to keep, as it is important in making explosives (thus artillery which you will probably want if you want to deck out a fleet of dreadnoughts), but more importantly in the making of chemicals which are very useful throughout the game (needed for steel, which in my experience is usually a limiting factor for my industry in the late game).