You need good starting resources in your first region or you are wasting time or playing on imaginary hard mode.
| Tier | Resource Nodes | Unlocks |
|---|---|---|
| S | Berries Wild Animals Iron (Most Important) |
Food, Dye for Clothes/Cloaks, and Herbs Food, Hide for Shoes and Leather Weapons and Armor |
| A | Clay Emmer/Rye Barley |
Rooftiles (decent export if rich deposit) Bread Ale (Needed for T3 Burgage) |
| B | Flax Fish |
Linen/Clothing, but Wool and Hides are easier Produces a lot of food, delays need for crop farms |
| C | Stone | Don't really need much, can be imported cheap |
The ideal starting map will has 2 Rich Deposits, 1 Iron and 1 of Animals, Berries or Clay. If you don't have good Emmer, you can use a development point to unlock Rye, which isn't as sensitive to land fertility or make large Burgage Plots with Vegetable Gardens. Crop farming will be very useful in late game for food production. The desirable resource nodes should be somewhat close to each other.
You can Exit to Main Menu and Start a New Game to re-roll the map.
All Artisan Workshop Bugage should be single house. All others can be double. If you plan to have a Vegetable Garden or Apple Orchard, it definitely should be double so there are enough workers to "farm". Also, take a look at Guide: How to build efficient burgage plot sizes for vegetable gardens and/or orchards. These are the only Burgage additions that scale productivity with Plot Size. Really look at this, you can get more than 200 veggies per year per T3 Plot with these, reducing or eliminating the need to farm Emmer.
All other non-artisan Burgage Plots should be just large enough for the workshop addition so they can have Goats or Chickens. Those will produce 1 egg or 1 meat/hide each Plot per month.
If you decide to farm Emmer and Flax, you'll want to invest a Development Point in Heavy Plow. You'll need to farm Barley at a minimum as that's the only way to get Ale.
Alternately, you can Farm Sheep as an alternative to Flax to produce Leather and Shoes instead of Cloaks and Hides to qualify you for T3 Burgage Plots. Taking the Sheepbreeding Development instead of Heavy Plow will additionally open up the Sheep Trade Export strategy.
You can farm food with large Vegetable Gardens using the method in the Burgage Guide above as an alternative to an Emmer Crop Field.
This decision probably rests on a combination of personal preference and Regional resource conditions.
A Design option for you village is based upon the concept of districts. As opposed to a compact town design, this will likely end up more sprawl-y, but I'm fine with that as there is plenty of room in each region. The main Artisan district will act as a hub or City Center, and the remaining districts will form around resources. The Artisan District will be comprised of the higher tier Burgage Plots and be located close to the market. Gathering & Production districts will have Burgage plots located near the collection and production facilities to reduce villager walking and transport times. Because they are not near the Market, we will leave these at Tier 1. This District-based Design will probably have fewer high tier Burgage Plots, but this also poses less risk of unhappiness. The Wealth advantage from many upgraded Burgage Plots is greatly overshadowed by Trade anyway.
I came up with this “Districts” idea on my own. Optimization here is way open for debatable.
These are the plots to rank up. They will surround the market and well to make sure they never lack resources, as this will cause unhappiness. Plan for artisan plots and garden/orchard plots to be nearby as production efficiency all increase with the Burgage Plot Tier level.
This will include Logging Camp, Woodcutter, and Sawpit with Burgage plots for workers as needed. Leave room for a Charcoal Kiln later. Make sure a Storehouse is between this district and the Artisan Market area as those workers will need to go to both places to stock market stalls. Try to keep tree cutters away from the general direction of animal spawns or they can destroy them. Adding a Forester's Hut to this district can replant trees in the area.
This includes gathering facilities such as Hunting Camp, Forager Hut, Fisherman's Hut, and a Granery. The Granery should be located towards the Market for the reason's stated above. Production facilities here will include the Tannery if you have animals and Dyer's Workshop if you have berries. A double Burgage Plot should be enough for each resource node as 2 workers should be enough to maximize food collection/production. Additional Burgage will be needed for processing facilities.
This will include a Stonecutter camp, or Mining Pit & [Clay Furnace OR (Bloomery & Smithy)]. You can get by with a single family working each of these nodes unless you are producing for trade export. You may also need another Storehouse here unless it can share with the starter Storehouse.
There are a few configurations here depending on what you are farming. All will include a Farmhouse and likely a dedicated Granery and support Burgage Plots for workers. Make Crop Fields long and thin to optimize for the Heavy Plow development upgrade.
| Crop | Supporting Buildings | Production Chain |
|---|---|---|
| Flax | Weaver's Workshop | Linen |
| Emmer or Rye | Windmill, Communal Oven | Grain > Flour > Bread |
| Barley | Malthouse, Artisan Brewery | Wheat > Malt > Ale |
You'll need a Livestock Trading Post, Sheep Farm, Pasture and Weaver's Workshop. Wool > Yarn (+Dye) > Cloaks. If you take the Sheepbreeding Development, you can also export Lambs for regular income.
You can only earn 6 development points per region, so plan accordingly.
| Charcoal Burning | Charcoal turns 1 Firewood into 2 Charcoal. Essentially doubles your Fuel supply. |
|---|---|
| Forest Management | Doubles berries deposits if you have them. Used for Clothes and Food. |
| Sheepbreeding | Infinite sheep for export. Money made scales with pasture space. It's weird, but you only need 1 sheep to start. |
| Trade Logistics | Lots of trading late game, this will save regional wealth. |
| Deep Mining | Make rich iron or clay deposits infinite. Also good for making money. |
| Better Deals | Makes imports much more affordable. |
| Orchardry | Allows Apple Orchards to be added to Burgage Plots. | Take this is you need food variety due to lavck of Regional Food Resources. |
|---|---|---|
| Bakeries | Allows Bakery Burgage workshop addition. | Take this with Deep Plow for more efficient Bread production. |
During this phase, consider saving your starting regional wealth for a second Ox prior to any Burgage Plot upgrades that cost Regional Wealth.
An initial 10% was too high for me at the time I built my manor. I'd suggest starting at 2% or 4% and waiting until you have approval around 70% before raising to 10%. After that, it's a balancing act as food stall approval rates feel very seasonally inconsistent. You will feel this more if you have Burgage Plots tiered up that are not near a market. Taxes should probably top out at a 20% maximum.
Spearmen and Footmen are recommended. Archers won't attack actively engaged units, so are of limited use. Polearm Militia seem like melee glass cannons, but are very cheap to equip. The only thing that makes mercenaries stronger than militia is equipment. Once you can produce armor, militia is just as good or better.
| Type | Requirements | Attack | Armor | Shield | Anti-Armor | Charge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spear Militia | Spears(36) & Large Shields(36) | 1 | 5 | 8 | 8 | 10 |
| Militia Footmen | Sidearms(24) & Small Shields (24) | 2 | 3 | 3 | ||
| Polearm Militia | Polearms(36) | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | |
| Archer Militia | Bows (36) | 4 | 1 |
Once you have sustainable food sources and a Militia to defend yourself, you should be able to pursue village growth as you wish. Possible goals include:
Credit to the Game8 Gude for the Build Order, Development Points and Map Generation portions.