Production is one of the five resources which can be generated by a Settlement. Unlike other resource types, it cannot be transferred -- only the producing Settlement can ever take advantage -- but it is essential to making use of that settlement.
Production Sources[]
A city's total production is equal to Base Production * (1 + 0.01 * Production Bonus, rounded down. These categories are further defined as follows:
Base Production[]
Base production is determined by race and allocation of townspeople; no spells or buildings affect it directly, though effects that provide Food allow allocating fewer Farmers. It is calculated as follows:
The only way to adjust base production is by changing the allocation of citizens.
Production Bonus[]
Production bonus can be affected by Terrain, Town Buildings, and spells. It is computed as follows:
- +1% per shared Desert, Forest, Hill, or Nature Node square in the catchment.
- +2% per shared Mountain or Chaos Node square in the catchment.
- +3% per exclusive Desert, Forest, Hill, or Nature Node square in the catchment.
- +5% per exclusive Mountain or Chaos Node square in the catchment.
- Increase Forest, or Nature Node bonus to +3%/+6% for Gaia's Blessing.
- Terrain tiles with Corruption do not count. However, tiles with unbroken nodes or lairs do count.
- +25% for a Sawmill.
- +25% for a Foresters' Guild.
- +50% for a Miners' Guild.
- +50% for a Mechanicians' Guild.
- +100% for an Inspirations spell.
- After applying the production bonus, the total number of hammers is halved for Cursed Lands.
The production bonus may be seen with the Surveyor.
Spending Production[]
There are three things production can be spent on:
Trade Goods[]
Housing[]
The amount of does not actually affect the population increase; but when Housing is chosen, nothing else can be built with the town's production output.
Construction Cost[]
With the exception of Trade Goods and Housing, all units or buildings have a Construction Cost. This cost is equal to the amount of Production needed to complete the item. The terms Construction Cost and Production Cost can be used interchangeably. See below for specifics.
Producing Buildings[]
At the start of every turn, adds the city's Production to an internal counter. If this total equals or exceeds the cost of the building being produced, the building is completed, the counter is reset to zero, and the city is reset to producing Trade Goods.
Producing Units[]
Works identically to buildings, except that when the unit is completed, the city's production is not reset to Trade Goods. Another unit of the same type will start production.
Changing Production[]
If you change what you are producing, your counter is left unmodified, so you can change your mind at any time -- though if you're 800 into building a Wizards' Guild, it's rather wasteful to change it to Spearmen; the excess production is entirely lost. An option in the 1.5.0 patch allows for excess production to "roll over" into the next production item.
Accelerating Production[]
You may spend Gold to speed production. Doing so sets your counter equal to the cost of what you are building; the cost depends on your current counter, as follows:
- 0: 4 * cost.
- < cost/3: 3 * ( cost - counter)
- < cost - Total Production: 2 * ( cost - counter)
- ≥ cost - Total Production: not allowed.
In other words, rush buying will cost you 4 gold per production point bought if you have not put any turns into producing your target unit or building; 3 gold per production point once you have put at least 1 turn of production in; and 2 gold per production point if you are more than one third of the way done.
Note that it is possible to change production even after buying; this is probably not intended.
Strategy[]
There are two basic elements to Production strategy: Worker Allocation and Buildings.
Worker Allocation[]
As noted above, when you complete a building or unit, your counter is reset to 0, wasting any excess; thus, you want to make sure to minimize excess -- if you're building a Shrine, 20 builds it in 5 turns with no waste, 25 builds it in 4 turns, but 24 builds it in 5 turns with 20 waste. Is is rarely practical to avoid all waste, but it's worth checking and if necessary reallocating when you start production.
Production Buildings[]
Maximizing production is somewhat complex, because production is actually altered in many different ways: other than increasing your Production Bonus, a Food bonus allows converting Farmers into Workers, an Unrest bonus allows converting Rebels into Workers, a Gold bonus allows spending more on Accelerating Production, and a bonus to population growth rate just gives you additional townspeople. In the end you may want to just build all of them, but some basic advice:
- You will almost always want a Granary and a Farmers' Market.
- If you have Rebels, it is almost always worth building a Shrine and a Temple; other buildings that affect Unrest are more dubious propositions.
- Remember that production can't be transferred, so don't overbuild; if you don't actually need the capacity, consider not building it. This particularly applies to the Mechanicians' Guild.