Gathering and spending

Gather, carry, deposit#

Villagers gather food, wood, gold and stone from the appropriate sources. A carried load belongs to the worker until it reaches a suitable owned drop-off. It cannot fund a building or unit while still being carried. Shorter safe travel between a source and drop-off can improve the time between deposits.

After completing a farm, its builders start gathering from it automatically, up to its two-worker capacity. Explicitly queued orders take priority.

Farms contain a finite food supply and admit two assigned villagers each. Farmers walk inside the plot to work; other units can cross it, but another building cannot be placed over it. The selected farm shows Farmers N/2. A villager returning cargo, waiting on a queued farm order or temporarily garrisoned still holds that assignment. Send a third worker to another farm, or stop or replace an existing worker's farm order first.

Trees and mines also deplete. When work stops, check the source, the route, and whether a suitable drop-off survives.

Normal development matches begin with 200 food and 300 wood. The two lessons begin with 400 food, 500 wood and 300 gold. These provisional openings and the finite starting deposits were doubled after playtesting; purchase costs were kept the same.

Pay before work starts#

Starting construction or unit production spends the stated cost. A busy producer, missing age requirement, blocked placement or insufficient population capacity can prevent work from starting. Friendly units standing on a clear site move out of the footprint while keeping their orders. Construction waits for them to leave; hostile units, terrain and existing structures still block placement. Build housing before you need its extra space; housing does not make units free.

Trained units emerge from the two front edges of their producer, choosing a free exit toward its rally point when possible. Those edges turn with the building. Keep them clear when placing nearby structures or parking units. If all front exits are blocked, completed training waits with its paid population reservation until an exit opens.

Cancellation and destruction have different consequences. Cancellation uses the refund shown for that paid job; losing a building is not a request for a refund. Do not assume every project returns its full cost.

See advancing your age for Town Hall research and development rules for the generated reference values.

Palisades cost 3 wood per tile and can be built in the Founding Age. Stone walls cost 5 stone per tile from the Territorial Age. Both block movement; passage agreements apply to gates. Towers occupy one tile.