Crossbowman (lv 36) requires Titanium Mine (lv 52)

I became eligible to recruit crossbowmen at level 36, but a crossbow requires titanium, and searching for a titanium mine by the geologist can only be done at level 52. This seems to be a major bug.

Not a bug. You can find Titanium Ore in and only in Adventures (and Trade). Victor the Viscous is one of those Adventures.

Granite
Exotic Logs
Saltpeter

Those are some of the other things you can find only in Adventures (or Trade).

Maybe sometime in the future we will have Granite Mining or Titanium Mining.

Hmmmm. My version of the game doesn't have an adventure called Victor the Viscous. Are there different versions of the game?

Victor is not one of the ones you can buy in the Shop. You find it Medium and above Adventure Searches by your Explorers/Scouts.

So I guess instead of a bug, it is a major design flaw. Crossbowmen are available at level 36, if you get titanium (which is hard to get until level 52), and then build a titanium smelter, and then build a crossbowsmith. From the building purchase menu it is unclear how much titanium ore you need to make titanium bars (together with coal, of course) and how many titanium bars it takes to build a crossbow, after which you need 10 crossbows to produce a crossbowman. Why bother???

Crossbowmen are a very valuable troop but their are easier ways to get Crossbows than production. You can get 500 Crossbows as an Adventure reward from Victor, Black Knights, Dark Brotherhood and I think a couple others. The production chain is rough. 2 Titanium Ore and 16 Coal makes 1 Titanium bar every 16 minutes. 16 Elogs and 6 Titanium Bars makes 1 Crossbow every 32.5 Minutes. It is better to do Adventures (which you have to do anyways to level) and get the Crossbows as an Adventure Reward.

List of Adventure Rewards:http://forum.castleempireonline.com/...enture-Rewards

Thanks for the adventure rewards link!