Resources

Gold

Gold is the game's flexibility resource.

Income

• 1 per turn (global)
• Caravan road — while inside a region
• Market
• Ruins — once, when you step on it (the reward kind follows the seed; if it is gold, it lands in the purse)

What it does

Rushing: 3 gold = 1 production for units, 2 for buildings; a rush completes the item at the head of the queue. It writes straight into the city's store and is not subject to the per-turn draw cap (The production queue). That is the one thing separating gold from production: you can finish a defender the very turn a threat appears — but soldiers are the expensive side, so save accordingly.

City repair: 1 gold per missing HP, filling the city in one go. A damaged city also repairs itself at the start of the turn (Cities and population) but not while under siege and not while in revolt — gold repair works in both cases, and that is the whole point of it: a blockade gets an emergency exit you can buy. In a revolting city what you buy is HP only; income and production do not return until the revolt ends (Victory conditions).

It is the cheapest gold rate in the game, and the reason is that repair buys nothing permanent. Walls raise maximum HP for good; repair only puts back the HP you lost, and the next attack makes you pay again.

Buying a tile: adds a tile next to your region to that region. The first tile costs 6 gold, and every tile already bought by that city makes the next one 3 gold dearer. The tile has to be adjacent to the region, unclaimed and passable; the conditions and the overlap rule are on Territory and score. Unlike the other doors this one buys something permanent — and you pick the direction: toward a resource node, or across a rival's path?

A truce: buys non-aggression with one opponent for up to 10 turns; sides under truce cannot attack each other or enter each other's cities. The price follows the balance of power — the weaker side pays more for peace — and it is 30 gold between evenly matched sides. Who accepts, and when the AI offers one itself, is on Diplomacy and truces.

Mercenaries: hires the bandits of an adjacent Bandit camp; the roster becomes yours and the camp leaves the board. The price scales from 12 gold per bandit and follows the balance of power. This is the only door that buys soldiers off the board.

Annexing a village: turns an adjacent Neutral village into your city at once. The price is 30 gold at full health and scales with the health it has left. What you buy is a city — but it spends a slot from your city cap.

Score: every 5 gold is 1 point, rounded down — the remainder does not count (Territory and score). Gold is the only term that converts to score by division; the other three are capped, so without that division gold carried the largest share of the score.

Which door?

Every one of gold's spending doors is paid from the same purse, so this is the real decision:

• If the city is about to fall, repair: self-repair does not run while the besieger stands at the gate, so this is the only way out.
• If the city can hold for a few turns, rush: the unit that lifts the siege is what saves you from repairing again. Repair does not kill the besieger, it only rewinds the counter.
• If the front is quiet, a tile: the first two are emergency exits, and with no emergency the purse is best spent widening a border. Not for points, though: the price rises with every purchase, so the first tile or two break even and the rest are a loss (Territory and score). You buy a tile for the resource node on it, for border depth, or to cut a rival off.
• If you are facing an army you cannot beat, a truce: the other doors try to turn a war around, this one postpones it. It is the dearest door, and it is dearest exactly when you need it most — the price grows with weakness.
• If a neutral is standing next to you, mercenaries or a village: both are shortcuts around production — one hands you soldiers, the other a ready-made city. Both have a hidden cost: the bandits' upkeep comes out of your food, and the village eats a slot from your city cap.

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