Game rules:Turn structure and other fundamentals:
Each turn represents one year. You direct city production, research, and military units, and may provide as much detail as you like. More detailed plans may give you bonuses to random rolls, so try to be a bit more in-depth than "three guys mine the hills, and I'm building a library"!
Turns last until everyone has their orders in, or until one week has passed, whichever comes first. If you miss a turn, your civilization will more or less idle.
City basics:
Your city starts with 10,000 people. Each 1000 people generate 1 labor and consume 1 food. Labor points may be used to work the terrain surrounding your city, producing resources, or used in the city to build or staff buildings. The primary resources are food, wood, and stone, along with various ores. Other resources exist, but you won't know about them at the beginning of the game.
Your city is surrounded by 18 tiles of varying terrain types. Rivers and special resources (like ores, luxury foods, or magical reagents) can be fonud in some tiles. Each tile can be fully worked by one labor point, providing the appropriate resources for the terrain type and any upgrades there.
Labor may also be spent on construction (in or out of the city) or on manning buildings.
All resources but food can be easily stored in your city and used later - but they can also be used in the same turn they are produced. Excess food is wasted unless you have a granary or some other way of storing it.
Building types:
Some buildings are made in the city itself, like a smithy, library, or shrine. Some of these have modest staffing requirements and provide a constant benefit. A generic shrine, for instance, raises the city's morale by 1. Others allow new types of labor to be performed in the city. A smithy allows ores to be processed, for instance, and a hall of learning allows labor to be spent on research.
You may also construct terrain upgrades. These generally increase the resource output of the tile they are built in. Plains, for instance, can be irrigated to raise their food output from two to three. Most upgrades are mutually exclusive - you can't build a quarry and irrigation in the same tile - but a few, like watermills, are 'free'.
Morale and population growth:
The attitude of your citizens is very important! The happier your people are, the more immigrants you attract and the faster your population grows. What's more, at very high and low morale, their productivity is affected. Morale ranges from one to ten, with a base of five, and can be adjusted by many factors. The effects of morale are as follows:
Morale:yearly population growth
1:-4%, -30% production
2:-2%, -20% production
3:0, -10% production
4:2%
5:4%
6:5%
7:6%
8:7%, +10% production
9:8%, +10% production
10:10%, +20% production
Some luxury goods can be consumed for morale bonuses. Your population typically consumes 0.1 units of such goods for every 1,000 people, giving a +1 morale bonus. Additional luxury goods of the same type provide no benefit; different types are needed. If you have more than three luxury goods, further bonuses become harder to get; each additional point of morale takes two different resources.
The most common 'luxury' good is clothing, available by refining wool produced by hills. Your people can scrounge for furs and such to keep themselves dressed, but they're happier if they don't have to.
Leaders:
Every civilization has a few citizens with unusual skills and aptitudes. They may be great military leaders, ingenious engineers, wise sages, or any number of other things. Leaders can provide bonuses to appropriate activities - a sage can lead research efforts in your hall of learning to speed your research, for instance. Possibly more important, however, many buildings cannot be built or operated at all unless you have an appropriate leader available. Without a skilled alchemist, for example, you can't build an alchemist's lab, and you won't be able to do much with it if he's busy elsewhere. Other structures only require a leader to be built - building a huge castle requires a skilled engineer, but once it's done he can move on to other things.
Leaders of the same class have the same basic abilities, but each also has their own special ability. You may not initially know what this ability is, however; it must be discovered either by putting the leader in an appropriate situation or through a random event. Alduf the Sage might be a brilliant teacher of magic, giving bonuses to your wizards, but you might not know it if you never put him in charge of a magical college.
Military units:
To create a military unit, you must be able to equip them - typically this means creating weapons at a smithy. Almost all units may be trained in a single turn, and will be ready to move out on your next turn. Initially, you may only train one unit a turn, but there are ways to increase this limit. Military units draw personnel from the population of your city. Most units consist of 100 men.
Simple wooden weapons can be made with 2 labor and 1 wood for a unit's worth, and wooden shields also take 2 labor and 1 wood.
Most units may move a couple hundred miles a turn in known territory - they have a year to do it in, after all! Supplies may be an issue on long journeys, though, so be careful. Also, exploring uncharted territory is much slower. Major battles (including all PVP) takes place in a combat sub-turn at the end of the regular turn.
Units have ratings for attack, defense, health, and movement, and many have special abilities. The exact meanings of attack, defense, and health will not be divulged! (Higher is better, though.)
Food and your people:
As noted earlier, each 1000 people consume 1 food a turn. If extra food is available, it provides morale bonuses - each extra .5 food per 1000 people increases morale by 1.
Famine can easily be disastrous. If there is not enough food, your city's population drops by 1000 every turn and morale is reduced by two until the situation is resolved.
Money:
Initially, your people don't use money much. This changes once you research Trade. Money is used mostly for upkeep of military units and for trading. Each 2000 people produce 1 gold in tax income, and each military unit requires 1 gold in upkeep costs. Before trade is researched, you may only support three military units.
Research:
Research points are produced primarily with labor spent at the Hall of Learning. You may tell your researchers what you want them to work on, but they may surprise you from time to time. Plus, there is a large random component to research speed, so don't assume much.
Your city's surroundings:
The 18 tiles surrounding your city are available for production, but tiles being used for production may need to be protected. Enemies can keep you from working tiles, and may also destroy improvements in them. Units in your city may be ordered to defend terrain tiles, or not, as you prefer. Walls improve the strength of your units when they're defending any tile they enclose, but are of no use outside them.
Your tiles may be referred to by number as follows: The tile directly above your city is tile 1, and the remainder of the inner ring is numbered 2 through 6 clockwise. The northmost tile is number 7, and the rest of the outer ring is numbered 8 through 18 clockwise.
Expanding your civilization
Civilizations with an appropriate technology can produce settler units by spending 5 labor, 5 food, and 5 wood. This also reduces the city's population by 5,000. Settlers move like military units, and can be expended to produce a colony or town, depending on the technology used.
Colonies take 10 money in startup costs, and represent relatively small settlements dependent on their parent city for most production. They grow slowly, and require steady upkeep costs (2 money a turn for starting colonies), but send resources back to their parent civilization based on their location. Colonies with little or no farmland may require steady food shipments, as well. Colonies have no ability to raise military units, and rely on their parent city for protection.
Towns are larger and more independent. Essentially a smaller city, the number of towns a civilization can have is sharply limited. Towns may have another player governing them. Towns always share money and technology with the rest of their civilization, but resource trading is at the discretion of the player or players involved. Migrants may be sent from cities to towns and back, as well.
Reference:Terrain and terrain improvements:
Plains (Yellow)
2 food
Hills (Brown)
1 food, 1 wool
Forest (Green)
1 food, 1 wood
Mountains (Grey)
1 stone
Ocean/lake (Blue)
2 food
River (Blue line)
+1 food
Terrain improvements (and technology required)
Irrigation (Farming)
Plains or hills
Requires river or lake present or adjacent
no resources, 2 labor
+1 food
Quarry (Construction)
Hills or mountains
no resources, 2 labor
+1 stone
Pasture (Animal taming)
Hills
1 wood, 3 labor
+1 food OR +1 wool
Woodcutting village
Forest
2 wood or stone, 2 labor
+1 wood
Hunter's camp (Archery)
Forest or Swamp
2 wood or stone, 2 labor
+1 food, +1 leather
Fishing village (Fishing)
Ocean/Lake
Requires land adjacent
2 wood, 2 labor
+1 food
Mine (Mining)
Mountains or hills
Requires ore present
1 wood, 3 labor
Production depends on ore type
Deep mine (Deep mining)
Replaces existing mine
2 wood, 4 labor
Doubles mine production
(You can build a mine and a deep mine on the same turn if you want. There's no discount.)
Watermill (Engineering)
Any land
Requires river present
Stacks with other improvements
2 wood or stone, 1 wood, 4 labor
+1 to any one resource already produced
Windmill (Mechanics)
Any land
May not be adjacent to other watermills
Stacks with other non-mills
2 wood or stone, 1 wood, 1 wool, 4 labor
+1 to any one resource already produced
Palisade
Any land, including city tile
2 wood, 2 labor
+25% strength to defenders within wall
Stone wall (Construction)
Any land, including city tile
3 stone, 3 labor
+50% strength to defenders within wall
Buildings:
Hall of Learning
2 wood or stone, 2 labor
No tech required
Allows up to three labor to be spent on research
Stables
2 wood or stone, 2 labor
Horseback riding
Allows production of mounted units
Dockyard
3 wood, 3 labor
Sailing
Allows production of ships
Granary
2 wood or stone, 2 labor
Construction
Allows storage of up to 20 food
Shrine
2 wood or stone, 2 labor
No tech required
+1 morale
Library
3 wood or stone, 4 labor
Literacy
Requires Hall of Learning
Increases max researchers to five, unlocks more advanced technology
Smithy
2 stone, 1 ore (any ore allowed), 3 labor
Metalworking
Allows production of metal weapons and armor
Marketplace
2 wood or stone, 3 labor
Trade
+50% tax income
Military workshops
2 wood or stone, 2 labor
No tech required
Doubles production speed of weapons and armor (Normally 2 labor for each)
Clothier's workshops
2 wood or stone, 2 labor
No tech required
Doubles production speed of clothing (Normally 1 labor for each)
Military school:
2 stone or wood, 4 labor
No tech required
Requires General to build and operate
Train up to 2 units/turn
Alchemist's lab
2 stone or wood, 4 labor
Glass
Requires Alchemist to build and operate
Provides research with no labor
Fortress
4 stone, 5 labor
Engineering
Requires Engineer to build
+50% strength to defenders in city
Mechanic's workshop
1 wood, 1 stone, 1 wood or stone, 6 labor
No tech required
Requires engineer to build and operate
+33% to all construction
Watchtower
2 stone, 3 labor
Construction
Requires engineer to build
+10% strength to defenders within city radius
Breeding pens
4 stone, 6 labor
Beast taming
Allows production of some exotic beasts
Mage school
3 wood or stone, 2 magical resource, 6 labor
Any spellcasting tech
Allows training of mage units
Technologies:
Techs marked with an asterisk may not be available to all civilizations. (Moreso than usual, that is.)
Construction
Build stone walls, quarries, granary
Animal Taming
Build Pasture
Horseback Riding
Build Stables, Horsemen
Farming
Build irrigation
Mining
Requires construction
Build mines
Fishing
Build fishing villages
Engineering
Requires construction
Build watermill
Build fortress (with Engineer)
Metalworking
Requires mining
Build smithy
Archery
Build hunter's camp
Build archery units
Literacy
Build library
Trade
Enables money
Build marketplace
Beast taming*
Requires Animal Taming
Build breeding pens
Deep mining
Requires Mining
Requires Engineering
Allows deep mine
Mechanics
Requires Engineering
Allows windmill
Imperial colonization*
Requires literacy
Produce settlers
Build colony
Horse-drawn vehicles*
Allows stables
Allows war chariots
Allows settler production to substitute up to 2 stone for an equal amount of wood
Weapon enchanting*
Produce magic arrows
Produce magic weapons
Slings*
Allows hunting camps
Produce slings
Produce staff slings
Units and Equipment:
Note: Some other metals may be substituted for iron, and may be easier or harder to work with, affecting the labor used.
Bronze: -1 labor
Wooden spears
No tech, no building
2 labor, 1 wood
Wooden shields
No tech, no building
2 labor, 1 wood
Leather armor
No tech, no building
2 labor, 1 leather
Horses
Horseback riding, stables
1 labor, 1 food (No military workshop)
Bows
Archery, no building
2 labor, 1 wood
Iron weapons (hand weapons)
3 labor, 1 iron
Iron polearms
3 labor, 1 wood, 1 iron
Iron shields or light armor
3 labor, 1 iron
Iron arrows
2 labor, 0.5 iron
Magic weapons
1 iron, 1 magical resource, 4 labor
Magic arrows
1 iron, 1 magical resource, 3 labor
War Chariots (Horses not included)
1 wood, 1 labor, mechanic's workshop and military workshops do not apply
Slings
2 labor, 1 leather or wool
Staff slings
3 labor, 1 wood, 1 leather or wool
Galley
2 wood, 3 labor (Mechanic's workshop applies)
Example units
Unit name
Equipment
Attack/defense/health/movement
Special abilities
Spearmen
Wooden spears
4M/3/10/1
Warriors
Wooden spears, wooden shields
4M/4/15/1
Horsemen
Wooden spears, horses
6M/3/15/2
Hunters
Bows, leather armor
5R/3/10/1
First strike 1
Galley
Special
1M/3/5/2
Special resources:
Flint/Obsidian
Passive: +1 attack with wooden spears and bows
Copper
With mine: +1 copper or +2 money
Tin
With mine: +1 tin
Iron
With mine: +1 iron
Silver
+1 money
With mine: +1 silver or +3 money
Gold
+2 money
With mine: +1 gold or +4 money
Pearls
With fishing village: +1 pearls or +4 money
Spice
+1 spice
Glowing truffles
+1 glowing truffles
Ember roses
+1 ember roses
Map key: