Economy

=RESOURCES= These are the materials and goods your town will generate and transport. Resources Range start as Raw Material and end up as finished products ready for war, trade, or technology.

Basic Building Materials
There are three types of basic materials in Settlers 7: Population, Wood Planks, and Stone. All other materials in the game come from buildings produced with these two resources.


 * Population: Population is created from residence buildings. Residence buildings produce initially 4 settlers when created, but can be upgraded (with prestige points) to produce a total of 12 settlers. Noble Residence buildings produce initially 5 settlers when created, but can be upgraded (with prestige points) to produce a total of 15 settlers (both residens use the same prestige upgrade). Both Noble and Basic Residence buildings produce settlers and will fill the needs of your town.


 * Wood Planks: Wood planks are produced at a sawmill, which must get wood from the woodcutter. Both workshops are built on a Lodge. It is advisable to build near trees; although a forester can plant trees to harvest on fertile land (given some time). Realize that each of these workshops require a population (1 settler) and a tool.


 * Stone: Stone comes from mines. Specifically Stone Mines, although Geologists can also collect stones from other types of mines randomly. To collect stones you need a miner workshop built on a Mountain Shelter.

Food
There are two different kinds of food in the game: Basic and Fancy. Basic food is either bread or fish, while fancy food is always meat (looks like sausages). Mastering your food will allow you to master Settlers 7, particularly through a technique called "Food boosting".

Fisheries and Hunters are great early sources of food, as they are quick and easy to set up and do not have the long production lines that the other parts of the food industry have. However, their disadvantage is that they only have a limited supply (or at the best, regenerate very very slowly) so unless you have Aquaculture researched or plan on setting many foresters loose, these will only be temporary solutions to your food problem.

Bakeries and Piggeries are more long-term sources of food. The disadvantage is however that they both rely on large amounts of grain which, for a player trying to get large amounts of horses or alot of beer made, could put alot of stress on the flow of the economy.

Normal Residences can be set to either No food, Plain food or Fancy food.

Set to No food: The buildings attached to the residence will not require food for production.

Set to Plain Food: Either Bread or Fish will be required for production, but will double the results.

Set to Fancy Food: Sausages will be required for production, but will triple the results.

''For example: Residence with a Brewer is set to Fancy food. ''

''Production cost would be 1 grain, 1 water, 1 Fancy food. ''

''The result would be 3 Beers. ''

Noble Residences work in a similiar fashion, but do not have a "No food" setting.

Set to Plain food: Bread or Fish will be required for production and will produce as normal.

Set to Fancy Food: Sausages will be required for production and will double the results.

''For example: Noble Residence with a Butcher is set to Fancy food. ''

''Production cost would be 1 meat, 1 Fancy food. ''

''The result would be 2 Fancy food. ''

Depending on the strat currently being employed, setting certain buildings to Plain or Fancy food can either be used to power an economy along or even to dig a player out of a lack of resources (For example: Major grain shortage, set Grain Farm to Fancy Food to alleviate the stress on the economy the shortage is causing).

However the community has yet to release data on some aspects of Food Boosting, such as which parts of a certain production line are most efficient to boost (For example: Boost Grain farm for 3 grain per crop, boost Mill for 3 Flour per grain or boost Bakery for 3 breads per flour).

Ore
You have 3 different ores and then you have coking.

The 3 main Ores are:

Coal.

Iron.

Gold.

Coking, allows you to make coal via using logs.

Coal is simply mined out of the coal mine nothing more has to be done to it.

Iron ore needs an iron smelter to be converted into iron bars which get used for weapons and tools.

Gold ore doesn't need a smelter to be converted but does need to be converted into coins if you want money.

Tools, Weapons & Wheels
Tools and weapons make use of iron bars to be produced. All of these items also require logs.

Weapons will allow you to produce pikemen and other army people.

Tools need to be made so you can have extra farmers and miners etc

Wheels are needed for cannons and carrier carts and also overseas/boarders, item exports.

=Managing Your Goods / Economy= All the goods generated above must be transported where they can be used.

Storehouses
These are the lifeblood of your economy. They are where all your settlers come to pick up the materials they need to produce and work. They are also where your settlers will return any finished products. Therefore, it is essential that you build Storehouses near all of your production centers. The farther a storehouse is away from a workshop, the more time is spent by your workshop settler walking to and from the storehouse. Storehouses also provide carriers, who allow goods to be transferred from storehouse to storehouse.

For example, if you have a woodcutter and sawmill in the woods at the edge of your land and you have a residence in town that you are waiting to build, the following takes place:


 * 1) The woodcutter cuts down a tree and creates a log. The woodcutter then transports the log to the closest storehouse.


 * 1) the sawmill settler will come and pick it up. After producing a plank from the log, the sawmill settler will return the plank to the storehouse.


 * 1) the carrier of the storehouse will transport the plank to the next closest storehouse in the direction of the demand (your residence that you are attempting to build).


 * 1) In turn that storehouse carrier will take it to the next closest; etc. until it is at the closest storehouse to your construction site.


 * 1) Once all the building materials are in the closest storehouse to the 'new building', your constructor will come and take the materials from the Storehouse to the construction site and then will actually build your new building.

Each storehouse has a single carrier who can carry up to 3 things at one time (they do not have to be the same type of good, so they could carry 2 planks and 1 stone for example). Upgrading a storehouse will add up to two additional carriers; and a fully upgraded storehouse also allows you to designate the storehouse as the 'storage' place for excess goods.

Typically your initial storehouse is fully upgraded and allows you to use this function. This will only affect excess goods, demand will still take priority. For example, if you have a storehouse near your pig farm and designate that all excess grain be stored there, the bakery you have across the map will still get the grain they require, but any extra will be transported to the pig farm storehouse. Finally, when a carrier has multiple items needed to be transported (more then they can carry), the requested (demand) goods are put into queue. This queue is created in order logistic priority and then by order or request (who asked first).

Because you only set storehouse to store the excess goods and cant for example say this storehouse only handles stone, you'll have to specialise. Since you can only have three carriers at any point for each storehouse, they most likely wont move around everything. This means you can pretty much only do one or two things at the same time. It's going to be difficult to make soldiers, priests and let your traders trade at the same time.

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