Field of Glory: Kingdoms – Domestic Economy Guide

Guide to Domestic Economy

Money, Manpower and Metal

These key assets are mostly produced by buildings and the assignment of the workforce. Once you exceed certain limits, you will struggle to add to your existing stockpiles as production will be constrained.

For manpower and metal, this limit is set by the volume of military equipment you produce and the current value can be found on the relevant tooltips as:

Money usually has a cap of 5,000 and there is a 25% per turn loss of any amount over this value. Some buildings, such as banks, or national traits can increase this limit.

Each of money, manpower and metal is produced at the regional level but stored as a global resource for your faction. Military equipment is produced and held at the province (if one is formed) or regional level.

Money

Money is mainly produced by relevant buildings (most but by no means all in the commerce category) and the allocation of population to the commerce category (again most usually freemen but you can use nobles).

In addition, selling RGD will usually generate money. Although most money is raised on a regional basis it is stored at a global level.

Expenditure is on some buildings, army maintenance and recruitment, playing RGD and court expenses. The latter are scaled to the size of your faction and are also very dependent on the administrative value of your ruler. The actual value is a moving average over recent turns so maybe slow to adapt when a ruler changes (for better or worse).

Note that due to the trade system the estimate can be very wrong if trading patterns change substantially to what is expected.

Manpower

As with money, manpower is mostly generated by relevant buildings (again most are in the military category but others can contribute). Selling some RGD can also raise manpower.

Expenditure is, again, on some other buildings but mostly on army recruitment and maintenance. Failure to have sufficient stocks of manpower will very quickly see your army lose effectiveness.

In addition, some RGD demand the expenditure of manpower when they are played.

Metal

Metal production comes mostly from a combination of certain buildings and the existence of natural resources (either locally produced or imported).

The main use of metal is in army recruitment and maintenance. As with the others, it is needed to play some RGD and can be acquired by selling some RGDs.

Equipment

Equipment is important both for the military and it sets the constraint on how much manpower and metal a faction can easily store. In particular, stockpiles of equipment are vital if you want to raise an army fairly quickly.

Equipment points are derived from allocating population to the military task and then used to equip new units. However, this is relatively inefficient and you will find it more effective to construct some of the relevant specialised buildings. Again these are mostly, but not exclusively, in the military category.

Unlike the other assets, equipment is stored at the regional level. Thus stockpiles can be lost if a given region is lost.

Court Expenses

These are a major item of expenditure and reflect the size of your realm and the efficiency of your administration.

The cost will increase if you have gold stored over 5,000 (unless you have the Bank building) and will reflect the administrative score of your ruler. Your realm will be much cheaper to run if they are a 5 rather than a 1 in this respect.

There is not much you can do about this item as it is a direct consequence of your ruler’s competence and attributes and your overall realm size. Each courthouse will reduce these costs by 1% and the specialist Byzantine building, the Pronoia, will help in this regard as well.

Buildings

Building categories

Each of the six areas you can assign your population to have their own set of buildings. The areas are:

• Agriculture;
• Industry (note this group includes both those focussed on infrastructure and the health related buildings);
• Commerce (this group includes the wider commerce group and the specific set of buildings related to harbours and ship-building);
• Military (see section 11.4 below for a discussion as to how this group works)
• Piety; and,
• Stewardship.

Note that while a building notionally falls into one category it may affect other areas – sometimes substantially so (and not always in a positive manner).

Most buildings take up one structure slot. However, there are a number of buildings that take no structure slot (and a few take more than one). Nonetheless, these buildings cannot be started unless there is a vacant slot. Some buildings will create additional slots and one or two will demand more than one slot.

All temporary buildings (these mostly relate to fortifications, do not take a slot.

Some buildings represent upgrades on an existing structure.

In this case the new building will occupy the same slot as the original so you do not need a new slot for them (but you still must have a vacant slot before you can commence building them).

In addition there are a small number of buildings related to Domain Expansion and some agricultural improvements. These will create additional slots over those supported by the basic population.

Normally, you gain (or potentially lose) structure slots as your population expands (or contracts if the region is hit by a plague or natural disaster). Some Peers of the Realm have a trait that creates an additional building slot in each region in their province.

If for any reason your population falls below the number of current structures you cannot build any more until it again exceeds that total.

If you have no available slots, the option to create new buildings will be crossed out as:

Maintaining Buildings

Equally most buildings cost infrastructure to maintain so you will need to ensure you can afford to allocate enough of your population to infrastructure. If you do not produce enough infrastructure there is a chance that an existing building will be dismantled.

Ethnic, religious or region specific buildings

Many ethnic/religious groups have a number of buildings specific to that culture. These are often variants to the normal building. If you capture a building from a different faith it will usually still produce 50% of its original piety.

Some buildings are geographically limited. For example, the repair aqueduct option will only occur in regions previously owned by the Roman Empire.

Impact on other buildings (same or adjacent region)

A building will also show the effect on its own or nearby regions if it was built (or that it currently contributes). Sometimes the production of a new manufactured good will have a wider beneficial impact such as:

This can include improving the performance of existing buildings in the same region.

In addition, some buildings will provide additional bonuses depending on how many other buildings in the same group exist in the region. So, for example, Mesne-Lord Manor is even more useful if other stewardship buildings exist as it then produces extra stewardship.

In addition, buildings can be very useful in attracting trade goods that others can use either as a bonus trade good.

Building Choice and Edicts

Usually the list of buildings is randomly generated but you can issue a Regional Edict. If you take this option, you have access to some of the current potential buildings of the region. The number of possible buildings shown will vary according to your authority level, if you are ascending and if you have a tier III government then you have more options than if you are an unstable tier I faction.

To access this option, click on the slot to order a new building as normal but do not select any of the provided list but instead the crown at the bottom.

You will then be provided with a wider choice of buildings in each of the six categories.

Note as in the tooltip the number of options depends on your realm traits.

The cost in terms of authority is related to the underlying infrastructure cost of the building. Certain faction or ruler traits can vary this but if the building costs between 1 and 93 infrastructure it will cost 1 Authority point. From 94 to 186 infrastructure it will cost 2 Authority points and so on. Note that some buildings automatically will cost more than these basic costs.

Mousing over an option will generate a brief summary of the building traits.

If you want more information, right click, otherwise left clicking on a building will commence the production.

Milestone Buildings and Authority Bonuses

A key part to provincial development is to add appropriate buildings. These are split into 3 tiers and you need to have three tier 1 buildings before you can build a tier 2 building and so on.

In addition, tier I buildings have been split in two groups and you need to build a special building from the first group to gain access to the second group. These represent critical buildings and an important milestone for a region.

To access the second part of tier 1, you will need the following buildings:

• Agriculture – Manorial Demesne;
• Infrastructure/Health – Craftsmen Borough
• Commerce – Trader’s Borough
• Military – See below
• Stewardship – Mesne-Lord Manor

In tier 2, you will again find a group of “gateway’ buildings that are needed before you can access the balance of that group. In addition, the upgrades to the Manorial Demesne (Lord’s Estate) and Mesne-Lord Manor (Lord’s Manor) not only act as gateways in tier 2 but also generate a per turn authority bonus. This bonus can also be derived from the improved fortifications once you can construct basic castles or better.

Impediments and Related Buildings

Note that buildings can be generated by the game system. Some of these are a benefit but others will hamper your region. Typical of the latter are buildings that are connected with low levels of sanitation or piety.

Sometimes an otherwise useful building can have an adverse side-effect to an otherwise desirable building. Typical of these are the Baronial Vassal building which helps with loyalty and fortifications but is costly in terms of resources.

In other circumstances the building is designed to be a negative impediment on the region. These can include plagues of rats or bandits and thieves.

In addition some impediments can represent geographical problems in the region.

Thieves will possibly appear (or become stronger) if commercial income (per turn) is double (or more) the per turn stewardship income. They are also more likely to appear in a region with unrest.

Bandits can arise either because mercenaries were disbanded in the region or if stewardship (again per turn) is less than, or equal to, double the number of population points in the region.

Usually these impediments can be removed, either by other buildings or the placement of military units. This will be indicated on the tooltip. In addition, certain buildings will remove, or prevent the appearance, of some impediments.

The Sworn Forester will remove poachers (including the Noble Poacher) and any of the Night Watch, Town Watch or Local Watch will potentially remove a level of the thieves buildings. The Dungeon building will also help reduce and existing thieves in the region.

Especially for rats, there is also a chance they will be removed in a given turn but the rat catcher building is a more reliable cure.

In addition, the Story Teller, if present in the region, will produce an epic poem celebrating the event (which in turn will give you a small legacy bonus) if rats, thieves or bandits are removed.

The regional decisions “remove hostiles’ and “remove civilized’ can be played to remove such buildings as well.

Baronial vassals and Independent Fiefdoms can be created via a RGD (either by the region owner or an external faction). They can be removed using the “remove civilised’ RGD or if the faction has high Authority.

Mining and Metal Production

Buildings connected with metal production are a special case with some constraints. You can only build a mine in a region where there is a pre-existing metal vein (you can see this using the trade-goods map view) or the regional pop-up.

Normally you need both the raw resource and a specific mining building before there is any metal production. In turn to access the mining buildings you first need to have built a Craftsman District building.

There are a few alternatives.

In a swamp region, it is possible to use the building “bog iron deposit’ but this will only produce a single unit of metal.

Mining exploitation will give you a single unit and is a prerequisite to the formal mining buildings.

Both the Crude Smelter and Bloomery produce metal (2 and 3 units respectively) but need the trade good iron. So you will need to pay for the price of the trade transaction unless these buildings are co-located with iron production.

To access the more specialised mining buildings you will need to first construct the tier 2 Craftsmen District. If the resources exist, this will then allow you to construct a gold mine or other option as appropriate.

Upgrade Chains

Some buildings can be upgraded as your region develops. The chain, and any consequences, can be accessed by clicking on a building and then on the icon once the description is shown.

Event Chains

Some buildings will trigger event chains. Some of these are immediate so, for example, the Master Clothier will generate at least 5 legacy (and potentially a huge bonus). Others are contextual, so the Royal Executioner doubles the chance of eliminating any unrest in the region.

Others such as the Cathedral, Large Mosque or Hagia Sophia will have an effect that varies according to circumstances.

Fortifications and Military Buildings

Fortification buildings are a sub-set of the wider military group. Broadly the military group falls into three sub-categories. One group unlock new units, improve the quality of recruits and/or the production of weapons to equip freshly raised units.

The second group raise the fortification levels of a given region. This is partly done by adding incremental defensive bonuses but also by increasing the quantity or quality of the local levy.

Fortification Levels

Unless a region starts a scenario with a building that gives permanent fortifications it will start with a Stronghold Site. This has no particular impact (other than generating a small garrison) and is best seen as a placeholder for the various improvements to the fortification value of the region that you can produce.

For most factions, the process of building up fortifications is incremental. There are a number of military buildings that add temporary or permanent improvements until the stronger stone castles or city walls become available. Note that in addition to their contribution to the overall fortification (and thus unlocking permanent fortifications) some of these have secondary benefits such as generating specific regional decisions.

You can find the current fortification level of a given region on the region tab as:

To complete the lower part of tier 1, you will need to build roughly half of this list:

• Closed Settlement
• Protected Settlement
• Discreet Hamlet
• Rudimentary Earthworks
• Trench and stakes
• Timber Keep
• Timber Wall

The Rus (and related factions) have a slightly different set of buildings in the higher tiers that give more direct benefits (but in the end are slightly weaker than a stone fortification). In particular, once a Grad (which replaces the more common Motte and Bailey) is built it can upgraded to a Detinet if the region is adjacent to a hostile, non-Slavic, region.

As you improve the basic level of fortification in a region the temporary building set will alter. At the higher level these will add considerably to the underlying difficulty an enemy will face in trying to conquer that region.

In addition, completing some of the more substantial castles will provide either additional events or unlock further permanent buildings.

Walls

In addition to the basic fortification value, the region will have a value for the current walls.

Fortifications are a form of milestone building and to progress beyond the lower part of tier 1 you will need to construct one of the following:

• Fortified Manor
• Fortified Village
• Garrisoned Village
• Qasaba (the Islamic alternative to the above)

At the upper end of the second tier are massive castles with their specialist architecture.

It is possible that you can have more than one building that gives a level 1 fortification. If so, their value is not cumulative.

Regional Decisions

Some buildings can be created by regional decision that will provide an improved wall. Note these have substantial benefits and drawbacks and include the Detinet, Baronial Vassal or Minor Fiefdom.

Other Military Buildings

In addition, there are other military buildings. These make it possible to raise new unit types, improve the quality of freshly raised formations (especially levies) or create stocks of equipment making it easier to raise a large army quickly.

Others will remove traits such as hastily raised or give a newly raised formation additional experience.

The ratio of military buildings (this is weighted by level) to the number of regions you own has a bearing on the overall effectiveness of your army.

Palaces and Capitols

Palaces

Most factions start the game with a specific building for their ruler located in their capital region. Some states will have the ability to create more than one palace once they unlock the higher level culture buildings. This building will vary according to faction but will often be described as the King’s Residence. The second palace, if any, will be called the Winter or Summer residence.

This building has a number of advantages. In addition to its intrinsic traits it resets the distance from the capital part of the Local Authority calculation.

Capturing a Capital

If you capture a capital from an opponent, a portion of their stored gold (up to a maximum of 5,000 gold) will be looted and added to your gold stocks. If this will give you more than 2 capitols, then one of the existing ones will lose that status (but this cannot be your original capital).

In addition if any capital is destroyed it will first be replaced with an abandoned palace building and, over time, this will be converted to infrastructure.

Regional Capitals

When a region is formed, a new building (taking no slot) will be created. Again the title and effect will vary according to faction but will often be called something like the Domain Court.

Transport: Ports and Roads

Some of the basic levels of ports and roads can be created either via a RGD or by being built in the usual manner. In addition, if a given region has high loyalty and high stewardship and is currently not building anything it is possible that one will be created for free.

Ports

Port-related buildings have three major roles in the game. They are needed to allow the player to build naval units and larger ships become available as structures such as the Shipyard are created. More powerful harbour and coastal fortifications will also lift the impact of Fog of War in adjoining sea regions.

As larger port-related buildings are constructed the movement delay imposed on units loading or unloading is reduced, allowing longer sea moves in that turn and reducing sea-movement related attrition.

If the port is blockaded, then a siege will be more successful in starving the garrison. Most ports open out onto a single sea area with this clearly shown by its location on the map. Some ports have access to two sea areas, this is shown by the harbour icon being in green as opposed the normal blue display. You can check which sea areas can be directly accessed from the terrain icon on the region tab.

If a port is fully blockaded it will be shown in red. In addition some military buildings will lift the fog of war over sea areas.

Roads

Some buildings take the form of tracks and roads. These can reduce the movement costs if units move directly between regions with road systems (of the same or a better type). Road related buildings sometimes do not take up a building slot but you need a spare slot before you can add or upgrade your existing network.

Once you have progressed beyond a track, the connection (if any) is shown on the map.

Also roads help by increasing the trade distance and commercial acumen for that region. In turn this may allow you to import new trade goods.

Upgraded and Master Buildings

Upgraded Buildings

Some buildings only become available if an earlier related building has been built. If you create one of these then the new building will not require a new slot but will replace (and remove) the existing building. This means that all the costs and benefits of the earlier building are lost (but in most cases you will find the replacement clearly more effective).

Note in some case the original building took up no slot. In this case the upgraded replacement will usually need a free building slot.

“Master” Buildings

A number of these are available and will be presented at random if you already have built the basic building. Some are limited to once per nation, others can be built in any eligible region. Most of these affect the quality of freshly raised military units but some improve the quality of the underlying building. So, for example, a Master Rat Catcher is an upgrade on the basic Rat Catcher.

Loss and Disbanding Buildings

Buildings may be lost due to natural disasters such as an earthquake or a volcano. In addition, if you have negative infrastructure production in a region there is a chance that an existing building will be lost due to lack of maintenance.

If the building selected for removal is either a World Wonder or a National Wonder then it will be retained but you will lose Authority instead.

You can order most existing buildings to be disbanded but some can only be removed if you play the appropriate regional decision.

Building Planning

In general, you will find yourself trying to tackle multiple issues when choosing building options. Some are relatively obvious, food production is the bedrock of your economy, infrastructure is needed to build and maintain buildings, commerce produces the money that pays for your state and army.

However, in addition to this there are some relationships that can be important and are worth bearing in mind when planning the next building.

In addition, remember that most buildings affect more than one category (not always positively).

Health

At the start, health may appear to be relatively unimportant given its immediate effect is to reduce the amount of food needed to produce the next population level. If your region has low population the gain for this can seem minimal but it will make a huge difference if the region has 20 or more population.

However, once plague becomes a widespread problem health producing buildings are essential. In effect, you will lose more in terms of productivity (and possibly population) if plague affects a region than if you had invested in health related buildngs. There is no hard and fast ratio but in general if you have health over 20% you are less likely to be affected by plague and if you reach 30% there is a real chance that any plague outbreak will have no effect.

You can see the health ratio under population as:

If this is shaded green you have a reasonably chance of mitigating any outbreak of plague so that you do not lose population. However, it is worth remembering that some exceptionally valuable buildings, especially related to infrastructure, have a negative effect on health.

In other words, while a high health ratio is usually desirable, in practice you will inevitably have regions with a relatively low (possibly negative) value.

Piety

If the local piety/population ratio is under 4 there is a risk of heresy arising or spreading. The higher you are over this, the more chance there is to convert either heretics or population of any other religious affiliation.

A further problem with low piety and loyalty is the risk of the emergence of an Occultist.

Piety-Stewardship

If you can, you want to keep the stored values for these as close together as you can, perhaps especially in your capital. Read the section on education for the reasons why.

Stewardship-Money

If per turn stewardship compared to per-turn money is low (Stewardship at 50% or less), there is a risk of thieves appearing in the region. At the lower levels, these are a minor problem but unchecked can become a “Hideout”, “Guild” and then an “Underground Network”. By the time they reach the higher levels you will be losing most of the local income and have a severe penalty to stewardship (in turn making it harder to deal with them).

Stewardship-Population

If the per turn stewardship production is equal to, or less than, the population there is a chance each turn that a Bandit Lair will occur.

Note this can also be generated if you disband mercenaries in the region regardless of the existing commerce-stewardship ratio. Also some of the early fortification buildings run the risk of generating bandits.

However, unlike a thief building this will never progress to anything more troublesome.

Gaining Authority

As noted above, some buildings give a per-turn Authority bonus. These include Lord’s Estate and the castles that start to replace simple fortified villages. Over time this can add up to a substantial increase in your per-turn authority giving you a lot of flexibility in how you use your authority to create building edicts or in diplomatic interactions.