In addition to magical responsibilities, apprentices may be expected or at least allowed to take a hand in the city's affairs. If nothing else, the city is the source of an apprentice's security and resources, and thus its operations might be of at least passing interest to them.
Output and UpkeepCities produce a number of useful resources, but also require certain things to remain functioning. Most notably:
-Each citizen requires a unit of food per turn
-Most buildings require a certain amount of gold upkeep per turn
-Luxuries and amenities are required to keep a city's population in line once it grows past a certain point
The type of resources produced (and to some extent, required) by a city depend on both what innate structures it has, and what sorts of terrain its people are working to produce. See the
Labor and Population and
Buildings headings for more detail.
Resource | Sources | Use |
Food | Farmland, hunter's camps, granaries; anything that produces, conserves, or preserves food | Feeding population, growing new population |
Production | Workshops, lumber mills, mines; anything that produces or processes raw materials | Manufacturing and supporting military units, constructing buildings, crafting individual items |
Gold | Markets, trading posts, population centers; anything that encourages commerce or generates taxes | Paying building upkeep, paying unit upkeep, purchasing things from others |
Mundane Research | Libraries, sages, laboratories; anything involved in learning or experimentation | Unlocking new or improving current buildings, units, equipment, upgrades, or nearly anything else that might be built, bought, or manufactured |
Spell Research | As mundane research, but requiring those knowledgeable in magical arts | Creating new or improving current spells or magically enhanced or related buildings, units, equipment, or nearly anything else that might be built or manufactured |
Luxuries | Jeweler's shops, wineries, theaters; anything that higher-class or already happy people might enjoy or benefit from | Turning content citizens into happy citizens |
Amenities | Taverns, guard houses, sewage systems; anything that lower-class or unhappy people might enjoy, benefit from, or be kept in line by | Turning unhappy citizens into content citizens |
Population and LaborThe city's population is measured in citizens. Each citizen unit generally represents about a hundred people, though this number can vary wildly depending on various factors.
Each citizen consumes 1 food per turn and can work one improvement for resources.
Generally speaking, when a city amasses as many units of food as it has units of population, it consumes the food and produces another unit of population.
MoraleBy default, all citizens are Unhappy. It takes amenities to make them content, and luxuries to make content citizens happy.
Fortunately, there are a set of basic amenities rather innate to being a city.
Food represents freely available food. Famines and various other events can sometimes prevent this, in which case the populace generally starts starving and causing or suffering from additional problems.
Shelter represents freely available places to live. Natural disasters or other events can sometimes prevent this, in which case the populace generally begins to seriously consider emigrating elsewhere.
Civilization represents the freely available conveniences of civilization, such as specialized craftsmen. Utter anarchy, complete economic ruin, or other catastrophes can sometimes prevent this, in which case the city is usually undergoing far more grievous concerns than the loss of an extra amenity.
This means that cities can freely grow to Size 3 simply by being cities. Beyond that, they must produce structures, acquire resources, specialize labor, or otherwise devote attention towards improving their citizens' lots in life.
In the event that a city's unhappy citizens outnumber its happy ones, the extra unhappy citizens begin fomenting unrest. They refuse to provide labor as standard citizens do, and may begin generating further problems, from increased unhappiness to outright rebellion.
Happy citizens, and unhappy citizens in amounts smaller than the number of happy citizens, do not normally provide any bonuses or penalties beyond normal. However, having happy or unhappy citizens can impede or enable certain, usually creative actions, such as creating an elite school for happy citizens or forming a smuggling ring using unhappy citizens.
ProductionProduction is the city's industry and craftsmanship. It is used to produce just about anything physical, from farmland to courthouses to armor. Each item has a cost in production, so the more a city produces, the faster it produces.
Cities can produce multiple items at once, but it's usually not prudent to do so. Typically split production is used for very small items in conjunction with larger projects, or occasionally as a "tax" towards a project too massive to focus on exclusively until completion.
Most buildings cost somewhere between 10 (a simple tavern) and 50 (a respectable palace) production to complete. Improvements are usually closer to 5 (simple farmland) to 20 (a mine), but can become much more expensive for special purposes. Units vary wildly depending on equipment and training.
Buildings and ImprovementsBuildings are structures that provide some constant or situational benefit on their own. Improvements are larger, more spread-out features that provide benefits when worked by labor.
Buildings typically cost gold in upkeep, and may have a wide variety of effects. Some simply produce more of a resource, while others speed unit healing, reduce unhappiness, or enable a trade in resources. Buildings typically cannot function beyond another building that operates in a similar manner; for instance, a brewery might not have any benefit if the city already contains a tavern, since the core mechanism, "provide beer," is already in effect. Some buildings may complement or augment each other, however.
Improvements typically have no upkeep and no effects when not actively being worked. They typically provide only basic resources, but exceptions are possible.