Resources are materials that are produced and consumed in order to operate and grow your empire. Most resources, such as gold and food, are produced in resource buildings, like farms and mines, using workers or slaves. Recruits generate automatically in cities. Most resources accumulate and can be stored in camps or cities before being consumed locally. The exception is gold, which is accessible globally and tracked as ongoing income vs expenses. Any net income or deficit will not accumulate locally. All resources are transported automatically between camps, cities and resource buildings via supply lines. Combat units may also carry food with them to supply them in the field.
Resource types[ | ]
Tangible Resources[ | ]
Tangible resources are the main resources that you will find "stockpiled" in your cities and that can be moved, either via supply lines or by recruiting units and sending them somewhere else.
Food[ | ]
Food is produced by farms and used to feed cities and combat units. Without food, a city's population will begin to shrink and units will lose morale and will be unable to fight, defend the walls, or put down rebellions.
Units will automatically consume food when inside a camp or city, or while within the yellow resupply radius that surrounds it. If there is insufficient food locally to feed all of your units, the city will automatically try to move food along unblocked supply lines.
All combat units can carry a few weeks worth of food to supply them when they are out in the field. Units will automatically try to pickup food when they leave a city's supply range. How much food a unit can carry and how quickly it is consumed depends on the unit's stance, their officers and any assigned general.
Gold[ | ]
Gold is used as the generic currency for all factions. Gold is typically generated from mines and city taxes, but may also be gained through diplomacy, objectives, trade and pillaging. Unlike other resources, gold is not stored in a specific location and can be spent directly throughout your empire on upgrades, unit salaries, diplomacy, etc. However, mines must still be connected by supply lines to at least one city before the gold can be collected.
Wood[ | ]
Wood is a consumable resource produced by Lumber Camps and used to expand cities as well as to construct ships, siege equipment, bridges, fortifications (camps) and building upgrades. Wood can be stored in camps or cities and transported via supply lines, but it cannot be carried by units.
You can see where your wood is moving and how it consumed in a building's trade tab. In the tab you can also set the building's stockpile level which causes it to automatically move wood from nearby buildings that have an excess supply. To see how wood is being consumed, produced and moved throughout your empire, click on the wood icon above the mini-map in the bottom-left corner of the screen.
Recruits[ | ]
Recruits are a consumable resource that represent the men available in a city to build new workers and combat units or to replace units lost in the field. Highly trained units may require multiple recruits for every successfully trained soldier. Vehicles such as siege engines and ships use wood instead of recruits.
Recruits are automatically generated in cities at a rate proportional to the population of the city. If a city has its maximum number of recruits it will not generate more until some of the recruits are used.
When a unit is disbanded in a city of its native faction, its men will rejoin that city's recruitment pool, but those in excess of the city's maximum will be lost. When a unit routs, some of its surviving men might make it home to be added to the home city's recruits.
When building a new unit it will begin to draw recruits from what is available and it must have at least one man in order to leave the city. Units will stop recruiting while they are in the field. If a partially complete unit is moved into a different camp or city than its home, it can still recruit members as long as there is an unbroken series of supply lines back to their home city. Recruiting away from home is much slower than when in their home city.
Intangible Resources[ | ]
While this page focuses on the tangible resources, the game also features intangible resources. These are those resources that cannot be moved.
Morale[ | ]
Morale comes in two flavours: city morale, which you can influence e.g. by city upgrades or by applying policies in the city trade tab, as well as unit morale.
Experience[ | ]
Combat units gain experience in battle which you can then invest into officer upgrades that will greatly improve those units' effectiveness.
Skill Points[ | ]
Each city contributes skill research to earn skill points, which you can invest in unlocking new skills in the skill tree (aka technology tree).
Managing Resources[ | ]
Resource Overview[ | ]
There are a number of ways with varying granularity to view resource income and expense and drill down into it.
Top Panel of the GUI[ | ]
In the top left GUI you will find icons for the main resources gold, food (supplies) and wood. Hover the mouse over these icons and an info box will appear that gives you an overview on resource income and expenses on an overal level.
Asset List[ | ]
To drill down into your resource nodes and associated assets, e.g. which kind of resource and how much they produce, which upgrade is built, how well they are staffed etc., go to the asset list in the top right GUI. You can filter on various items of interest and also click to be taken directly to the item on the map.
Territory Details[ | ]
In the Territory Details you can view all assets and associated resource flows of the chosen territory.
Gold Income and Expenses
Food Income
Wood Income
Asset List, Filter on Food Production
Territory DetailsMoving Resources[ | ]
Generally, food and wood are moved automatically to where they are required for consumption, construction or storage. However, there are times when you may wish to move resources to a specific location to complete an objective or because you're worried the enemy may interrupt your supply lines.
Sending Resources[ | ]
To move resources directly from one camp or city to another, select one of the cities and then hold the right-mouse button down of the other city and select 'Send Wood' or 'Send Food'. The two buildings must be in the same territory or or their territories must be connected via one or more supply lines. This will open a window where you can adjust the slider to determine how many resources you wish to transfer. Once you click 'OK' a progress bar will appear above both buildings and the resources will begin to transfer.
Stockpiling[ | ]
You can also direct where resources go using the stockpiling buttons in the trade tab. When a building is set to stockpile it will try to pull resources from nearby territories in order to reach a specific level i.e. 50% or 100% of its capacity. Stockpiling can be a good way of moving resources from many separate places or to ensure resources remain in a building after transferring them there manually. Warning: Telling a building to stockpile can prevent other units or buildings from receiving the food they need.
Resource buildings[ | ]
Resource buildings are standalone structures on the map that produce wood, food or gold when you move workers or slaves into them and connect them to a camp, city, or bridge with a supply line or territory. Empty resource buildings can be captured by any unit, but occupied buildings can only be captured by combat units. Capturing an occupied resource building takes notably longer, and once completed, half the occupants are killed and all workers are converted to slaves.
Resource production in a building is proportional to the number of workers / slaves inside and may also be dependant on the season. Resources are distributed to buildings within the connected territory or along uninterrupted supply lines to the nearest city or camp that has space available. If there is no space available, the resources are lost. If an enemy unit is near a resource building any production will be halted. Units can block supply lines by moving near them. Resource buildings can also be scavenged to supply food to the unit or razed to temporarily reduce their production.
At the start of the game, the majority of resources are generated at independent resource buildings such as farms, mines and fisheries. These resource buildings must be captured, occupied with workers or slaves, and connected by supply lines to cities or forts in order to produce resources. Resource buildings can be raided to temporarily reduce their productivity. Empty farms and other resource buildings can be captured and occupied immediately by workers or slaves, but you'll need combat units to capture enemy buildings that already have workers in them.
Farms[ | ]
Grain farms are the principle supplier of food to a player's empire. Food production at farms varies significantly throughout the year, with the majority of food produced during the autumn harvest. Since farms can be replanted they recover moderately quickly from raids.
| Resource | Production per Worker |
|---|---|
| Food (Winter) | 0.3 per Week |
| Food (Spring) | 1.0 per Week |
| Food (Summer) | 1.4 per Week |
| Food (Autumn) | 2.0 per Week |
Fisheries[ | ]
Fisheries are a major source of food in coastal regions and along rivers. While not producing as much food as farms, they produce more consistently throughout the year (except in winter) and recover very quickly from raids. Fisheries are also the only resource building that supports a naval supply line.
| Resource | Production per Worker |
|---|---|
| Food (Winter) | None |
| Food (Spring) | 1.1 per Week |
| Food (Summer) | 1.1 per Week |
| Food (Autumn) | 1.1 per Week |
Livestock Farms[ | ]
Livestock Farms raise sheep, goats, cattle or pigs to produce food and a some gold. Production is constant throughout the year, but because of the lengthy time it takes to raise the animals they take the most time to recover from raids. Livestock farms produce less food per worker than grain farms, but production is more consistent throughout the year.
| Resource | Production per Worker |
|---|---|
| Food (Winter) | 0.2 per Week |
| Food (Spring) | 0.7 per Week |
| Food (Summer) | 1.4 per Week |
| Food (Autumn) | 1.0 per Week |
| Gold (Year-round) | 1.0 per Week |
Vineyards[ | ]
Vineyards are farms, that produce grapes for wine or olives for oil, generate mostly gold but also produce a little food. Production varies seasonally and recovery time from raids is slow.
| Resource | Production per Worker |
|---|---|
| Food (Winter) | 0.15 per Week |
| Food (Spring) | 0.35 per Week |
| Food (Summer) | 0.4 per Week |
| Food (Autumn) | 0.7 per Week |
| Gold (Year-round) | 2 per Week |
Lumber Camps[ | ]
Lumber Camps are the only resource building that produces the wood that is required to grow cities, build ships and construct upgrades. Wood production does not vary seasonally and with little infrastructure to rebuild their recovery from raids is quick.
| Resource | Production per Worker |
|---|---|
| Wood | 0.75 per Week |
Mines[ | ]
Mines produce the majority of gold in the early game while cities are still small. Except for the loss of workers/slaves, mines recover very quickly from raids.
| Resource | Production per Worker |
|---|---|
| Gold | 3 per Week |
Available upgrades[ | ]
List of Upgrades[ | ]
| Name | Description | Effects | Build Cost | Upkeep Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Palisade | A basic defense to slow down raiders. | Raid Defense +200%, View Distance +8 | Gold 200, Wood 200 | Gold/week 10 |
| Resource Production | Increases resource production per worker. | Resource Production +50%, Repair Time -50% | Wood 200 | |
| Living Quarters | Expands the living quarters for workers, allowing more to work here. | Worker Capacity + 100%, Repair Time +100% | Gold 200, Wood 400 |
Strategy[ | ]
- Since one can only have one of these in a resource node, the choice depends on how many workers you have/are willing to train. Living Quarters is clearly better if you have tons of slaves. fully staffed it doubles the output of a Farm. Resource Production is great if you are low on manpower and don't have abundant slaves. but need an extra resource boost. It's only +50% so it's not as significant, but you don't need extra slaves.
- Resource Production decreases the time it takes to repair a damaged structure, allowing for 100% faster recovery. Living Quarters, on the other hand, increases the repair time, thus it takes 100% longer to recover from a raid or scavenge.