Buildings

Market

A Market raises gold income.

What it does

Gold is flexibility. A rush completes the item at the head of the queue — 3 gold = 1 production for units, 2 for buildings — and writes straight into the city's store; it is not subject to the per-turn draw cap. So gold is the one resource that can go where production cannot: finishing a defender the very turn a threat appears rests on this.

Gold also buys things off the board: a bandit camp's warband (Bandit camp) and a neutral village (Neutral village) can both be bought with the purse — one hands you soldiers you never produced, the other a city you never founded. The purse is also the only source for city repairs, tile purchases and truces (Economy).

Finally, gold counts toward score — every 5 gold is 1 point, with the remainder dropped — though that is usually its weakest use (Territory and score).

When to build it

• In a safe rear city, far from the front: production moves slowly there, while gold travels instantly to wherever it is needed.
• In a city with a Caravan road in its region — the two incomes stack.

The numbers on this page are read from the game’s balance tables.