Idle Factory Tycoon Tips: Bottlenecks, Foremen and Crew Mood

In a lot of idle games, every purchase makes you a little richer. A production chain is different: the whole line can only go as fast as its slowest part. These idle factory tycoon tips are built around Brick Field, our free brick works game, where an old village brick field grows into a clean, modern factory. The same thinking works in almost every factory and management game.

In Brick Field you play Shapla, the new manager of the field. Karim Mistri, an old brick master, knows every corner of it. Moyna Khala cooks for the crew and always knows when they need a rest, and Hasan Bhai, a building contractor, buys every truckload you can send.

How the chain works

Every brick passes through four stages, from left to right across the field:

1. The clay pit. Diggers cut clay and pile it up.
2. The moulding yard. Moulders press the clay into brick shapes and leave them to dry.
3. The kiln. The firemen bake the dry bricks hard and red.
4. The loading bay. Loaders stack the bricks onto a cart, a tractor or a lorry, and every brick sold pays a coin.

Between the stages wait three piles: clay, green bricks and fired bricks. They are real, not decoration. When a stage is slower than the one before it, the pile in front of it grows until it is full, and then the stage before it has to stop and wait.

Find the slowest stage

This is the most important idea in the game. Your field sells exactly as many bricks a second as its slowest stage can handle. Adding workers anywhere else only makes the piles bigger.

The game helps you find it. The Field tab names the slowest stage in a line at the top and outlines its card. You can also read the piles:

• A big pile in front of a stage means that stage is too slow to keep up.
• An empty pile in front of a stage means the stage before it is the problem.
• All piles about half full means the chain is nicely balanced.

So the buying rule is simple: put your next coins into the slowest stage, check which stage is slowest now, and repeat. Each stage's workers double their speed at 25, 50, 100 and more workers, so pushing a stage past one of those numbers can suddenly make a different stage the slowest.

Hire foremen early

At the start, no stage has a foreman. A stage without one works at a quarter of its speed unless you are watching, which in the game means tapping the field. Every tap keeps the crew busy at full speed for a few seconds.

That is fine for the first minutes, but you cannot tap forever. Hire foremen in this order:

1. The clay pit first, because it is the cheapest and feeds everything else.
2. The moulding yard next.
3. The kiln, then the loading bay.

A stage with a foreman always works at full speed, and it keeps working while you are away. Time away pays only as well as your foremen let it, so buying all four is the best investment of the first hour.

Buy the next machine

Every stage has three machines. The clay pit starts with spades, then a clay trolley and finally an excavator. The yard goes from hand moulds to a brick machine and an automatic press. The kiln goes from an open clamp to a zigzag kiln and a clean tunnel kiln, and the loading bay from a hand cart to a tractor and a lorry.

The second machine opens at 25 workers and the third at 75, and each one makes the stage three times faster. A new machine at the slowest stage is the biggest jump you can buy, so save up for it rather than spreading coins around.

Keep the crew happy

The strip under the field shows the crew's mood. A happy crew works faster, up to one and a half times at full mood, while a tired one slows down, and a worn-out crew below a tenth barely works while it rests.

• Tea break: free, every two minutes. Tap Tea in the strip whenever it is ready. It is the cheapest speed boost in the game.
• Lunch: costs about a minute of sales and lifts the mood a lot.
• Bonus: costs about five minutes of sales and fills the mood right up.
• The canteen: each level makes the crew tire more slowly. Buy it once the foremen are hired.

Mood only falls while you play, never while you are away, so a quick tea break when you come back is all it takes.

Get ready for the monsoon

Every so often the monsoon arrives. Wet bricks cannot dry in the open, so the moulding yard slows almost to a stop, and the whole chain with it. A minute before the rain, a line at the top of the field warns you.

The drying shed is the answer. Its first level keeps the yard at more than half speed in the rain, and the second keeps it at full speed. Build the first level before your second monsoon. Until then, use the rain for tea breaks and for buying the machines you were saving for.

Open a new field

Once the clean tunnel kiln is built, the Trust tab lets you open a brick field in a new place, first by a river and then near a growing town. Workers, machines, foremen and coins start again, but you keep your Builder's Trust, and every point makes every stage and every tap 2% faster for good.

If you enjoy games like this, also try Machh Chash with our idle fish farm tips, Launch Ghat with our idle boat tycoon tips, or Cloud Garage with our idle server tycoon tips. You can find more in the idle games and simulation games categories, and signed-in players can read how GamesYap points work.

FAQ

Is Brick Field free to play?

Yes. Brick Field is free in your web browser on phones, tablets and computers, with nothing to download or buy. Optional ads can cover the yard in the rain or give the crew a feast, but they never give points.

Why did my sales not go up after I hired workers?

You probably hired them at a stage that was not the slowest. Look at the line at the top of the Field tab, which names the slowest stage, and hire there.

Does the monsoon come at random?

No. The monsoon comes on a fixed schedule as you play, and a warning appears a minute before it starts.

What should I buy first?

Tap the field and hire workers at the slowest stage, then hire the clay pit's foreman as soon as you can. Give the crew a tea break whenever it is ready.