Introduction
Welcome to this guide to Knights and Merchants.
Most of the people playing this game are most likely people who played this game way back when it came out, and most of us (myself included) were still children, and therefore already know how to play this game.
This guide probably isn't for those people.
This guide is for those people who actually haven't played this game before, and don't already have years of experience in it. There don't seem to be any other guides on steam that actually relate to the game's gameplay (at least in english, maybe some of the russian ones are on it) so I'm hoping to amend this.
In any case, this guide will be covering quite a few topics, as this is a rather diverse game, particularly considering how old it is. We'll go over the purpose of each structure, their places in the production chains to achieve various finished goods, as well as overviewing each of the game's military units and roles in combat. I'll also touch over various strategies you may consider employing.
This guide is NOT going to cover either campaign, this is moreso a general strategy guide, to be used where it applies. Personally I tend to play the skirmish modes, because I feel like the campaign levels are closer in style to challenges to overcome, rather than actually testing one's ability in strategy.
Gameplay Basics And Controls
When you first open up a map in skirmish mode (I'd advise doing this before starting the campaign, so you know what everything actually does before being thrown to the wolves) you'll be presented with more or less the same view every time.
In the center of the screen is the main view that the game takes place, you'll see a few guys standing around a building. The building is your storehouse, which is one of the most important buildings in the game, or a complete waste of time, if you play like me. In front of the storehouse are a few rocks cobbled into a road. This is important.
Of the people standing about, some will be holding shovels (These are your laborours) and some are not holding anything (these are serfs).
If you're actually in skirmish mode, there will also be a single guy on a horse. This is your starting scout, and we'll talk about him later.
On the left side of the screen is your toolbar. At the top of this is your mini-map (which is mostly black for the time being, since it's unexplored).
Below this, are 4 buttons.
The first, with the hammer, is the one you'll spend the most time with, as this is your build menu. It holds all the buildings you'll need to build, as well as the tools to build roads and fields. It also has the tool to willfully demolish anything you've placed.
The second button, with a scale on it, is your resource distribution menu, which controls how many units of given resources are delivered to certain buildings.
The third button with a abacus on it is an information screen that shows you how many of each building and peasant you control. (For the most part. Some buildings aren't listed here, I'll mention these in the section on buildings.)
The last button, with a quill, is just the options page for controlling settings and the music player.
We'll go through this part of the guide as if you were playing a game and setting up your base.
Now let's get back to all that stuff sitting in your view. Let's start with the storehouse. If you click on it, its information will show up in the toolbar. Now the storehouse is one of the few buildings that you can actually mess with over here. You'll notice that there are quite a ton of items in here, it's actually every resource in the game. If you mouse over the icons, it'll say what it is (although the pictures are usually sufficent) and if you click on them, then you'll see a little red triangle appear in the corner of the box.
This is important.
By clicking on a resource, you'll tell your serfs that you do NOT want that resource being taken to that storehouse. This is your only means of controlling where stuff goes, so use it wisely.
For now, I'd recommend turning off almost everything. Yep, almost everything. Turn off every resource in the storehouse, with the exception of the following items: Timber and Stone (Building materials), Bread, Sausage, Wine, and Fish (Food items) and Gold.
Everything else should be turned off. That way, when these items are picked up, they'll be taken directly where they're needed, rather than being hauled to the storehouse, and then back out to where they belong.
Alright, next thing. All those people sitting there being useless. Click on one of them and look at the toolbar.
It doesn't matter whether you click on a serf or a laborour, you can't control them. You'll see a little meter that's mostly filled, and a short description of what they do. That meter is their hunger. If it empties completely, they die. Thankfully, they'll go eat before then, but more on that later.
Now then, let's click on that horseman. This is your scout. Unlike your peasants, you can control your military units. Right-click to send him somewhere. You can hold down the mouse button to pull up a compass rose, and then move the mouse to choose which direction he faces in when he gets there. We'll cover military units further than this later.
Now then, let's give those layabouts something to do.
Click on your build tab, the button with the hammer. Now that it's open, you'll see a lot more icons. At the top is the icon of the item you have selected, with an icon of timber and an icon of stone, with numbers next to these. This shows how much timber and stone it takes to build stuff.
Under this are three items forming a cobblestone road, a ploughed field, and grapevines, in order.
When placing buildings, you MUST form a connection to your storehouse with a road, or your serfs will never bring any building materials to it.
The fields and grapes will be covered later, as they are only used by certain buildings.
Next to these three is another button with a red X. This is your delete/demolish tool.
There will be a confirmation box before deleting a finished building, if you're deleting a building in progress, there won't be. Be careful with it.
Below all this are a whole bunch of more buttons, most of these are going to be little question marks because you can't build these yet. You unlock more buildings by building the precceding ones. There should be two of these that you can build, however.
Down in the bottom is a little treasure chest, this is to build a second storehouse. This isn't needed right now. The important one is the one in the first square that looks like a book. This is the school.
Now click this button, and find a place where all the little squares light up, and there aren't any red X's. When laying buildings out, you'll notice that when it shows what squares the building takes up, one of the squares on the south side will look like an upside-down horseshoe. This is the door. ALL buildings have to be accessed from the south side, even if the door is on a corner, like the woodcutter's.
Now that you've found a suitable spot, left click to place the foundation. Your cursor will automatically switch from placing schools to placing roads, which is nifty, since you need to now connect the school (starting from the doorway) to the road in front of your storehouse.
You will now have a square area marked off with ropes, along with little rope X's where your road will go. Your laborours will now automatically go dig these up and prepare them, while your serfs bring them the materials they need to complete the task. This is how building works in this game. You tell people where you want stuff placed, and they go handle the hard part.
Once the school is done, your serfs will start carrying gold over to it. If you click on the school, you can see how much gold is in storage, as well as cycle through all the different peasants that you can train by clicking the arrows at the bottom, and by clicking the center button, you can order someone to begin training.
There may be a lot of different types, but by and large, you only need to worry about a few of them.
Serfs are your most important worker, and the one you'll have the most of. They are the only ones that can haul around all the junk that needs hauling. Without them, no one else can work.
Laborours are the only ones that handle construction. They build buildings, dig roads and fields, and repair damaged structures. If you feel like it's taking too long for building to be completed (This is a slow-paced game, after all) then you need more laborours. I recommend about 10 of them, but don't make them all at the beginning.
At the complete other side of the school page (You can right-click the arrows to instantly zoom over to the end of the selector) is the recruit. This guy is the only one that can pick up weapons and fight your enemies, as well as manning the watchtowers, so you'll probably make more of them than anybody else.
As for everybody else in between these, they are all basically the same. They take residence in certain buildings and perform the jobs of said buildings. Basically just ignore these guys until you build a structure that needs them, and then just train said peasant to fill the building. There is literally NO point in training any of those guys until you have the building they occupy.
Gameplay Basics And Controls Part 2
Because there's a character limit.
Now then, you have your school, and ordered three more laborours to be trained, followed by three more serfs to provide materials to said laborours, right?
I'm assuming you did, because building that school took forever.
Next objective. Recall the little meter that shows up when you click on a peasant that shows how hungry they are? We should probably do something about that before those all go empty. Now yes, there is food in the storehouse, but your people can't actually eat any of it right out of the storehouse. Don't question why, it just works like that.
Thankfully, building the school unlocks the next building in the list, the Inn.
The inn is important because it is what allows your people to eat the food they have stored up. Just follow the same pattern as before. Go into the build menu, click the Inn icon (the fork and knife) and find a place where it fits. Then connect it to the rest of your roads. Once it's done, your serfs will automatically go fill it up with all the assorted foods that your storehouse started with, and refill it as food gets eaten. All of this is automated, so you don't have to worry about any of it.
Now that you have the means to keep your existing people alive, and train new ones, the next building that unlocks is the stonemason's. Someone needs to mine all the stone for those roads you keep putting all over the place.
Now unlike the previous two, that can basically be put wherever, this needs to be near a natural resource. It needs to be placed near stone, which look like a big grey mountain.
Once you find some stone, place the stonemason's as close to it as you can (they have to mine stone from the bottom of the mountain, so try not to place the hut above the stone. The sides are generally fine, though.) and connect it with a road. You should have the general idea by now. Now if you click on the stonemason's, you should see a little greyed-out guy with a pickaxe next to the building's health bar. This indicates that the building needs a particular person to occupy the building to have it function. This is the stonemason.
Remember what I said about how a whole lot of the people you can train just occupy a building, and are really no different from each other? This is one of those people. Go to the school, and tell it to train a stonemason. Once it's done, he'll find the building on his own, take up residence, and get to mining stone.
I'd recommend making two stonemasons huts right from the start, so you're not sitting there, waiting on stone to be mined for your roads.
Next building is the woodcutter's. You have stone for roads, but you still need wood to make buildings. Same thing as before. Find a forest and put the woodcutter's in the middle of it. Then train a woodcutter so the building actually gets put to use. He'll go around and cut down all the trees he can see, and then start planting saplings so that the trees grow back. For this reason, you don't have to put it near a forest, if you don't mind waiting for them to grow their own trees.
Small issue, though. You can't use the wood until it's cut. Once the woodcutter's is done, you'll unlock the sawmill, which cuts the trees into lumber suitable for building. Place the sawmill, train a carpenter, watch them cut timber.
Now this is something that's going to be important to remember. Recall how I said to turn off deliveries of a bunch of stuff in the storehouse? The tree trunks don't need to go to the storehouse because they're useless until cut, but the lumber needs to get stockpiled for building structures. If you leave trunks to be delivered, then your serfs will often times take the trunks to the storehouse, and then pull them right back out to take them to the sawmill, which is not only a complete waste of time, but increases the amount of traffic around the storehouse, leading to congestion. Trust me, I've spent a lot of time figuring out how to design bases just to deal with congestion because of how much it can grind your economy to a crawl as everyone starts shoving each other out of the way trying to get in and out of the same spot.
The whole chain of production for timber isn't hard. It starts at the woodcutter, then goes to the sawmill, before being dropped at the storehouse until it's needed. So place the woodcutter a fair distance away, and have the sawmill be between the woodcutter and storehouse, closer to the storehouse.
Why closer to the storehouse? because the sawmill takes one trunk to make two timber. That means it takes two people to empty the sawmill, and only one to fill it, so you want the trip from sawmill to storehouse to be shorter than the trip from woodcutter to sawmill, since more products are being moved. Remember to have this mindset with every building you place. A Stable takes a bunch of corn to raise a single horse, so you want it near your farms, not near the barracks. Whenever you have a production chain, aim to have the start of the chain away from the base, so that the end of the chain lands where it's suited best. You'll have to build many bases to get really good at this, so plan and practice.
Now that your sawmill is complete, and you have both stone and wood being produced to keep expanding your base, a whole bunch of more stuff becomes available. Farms and vineyards lead into all the different options for making food to feed your people (along with other things, like leather armor and horses). Gold mines are needed along with coal to give you the resources to keep training more people, and iron mines are used with coal to make the best equipment in the game to outfit your troops for real battles.
One last thing before we move on. If you click on a building (let's say the sawmill) and look at the toolbar, just to the left of the building's healthbar and the icon that shows what person operates the building will be two buttons. The first is an open doorway, and the second is a hammer with a red X over it. Clicking the doors will close them, meaning that any resources the building uses won't get delivered there. This is useful in the event you have to tear down a building and move it so you don't lose resources (I typically tear down my original school and put new ones up next to the barracks once I get to that point. Just turn off deliveries, then go through the gold that's there before demolishing.).
The second button toggles whether or not you want the building to be repaired if it gets damaged. You may want to leave this off until needed, otherwise your laborours will get shot as they try to fix your watchtowers that are still under fire.
Since the tech tree starts to branch out at this point, I'll end this section and start covering the buildings in detail, and their uses.
Buildings
We'll begin will covering all the buildings in the game, in roughly the order they'll become available.
Storehouse
Icon looks like a treasure chest.
Costs 6 timber, and 5 stone.
The building is 3 tiles by 3 tiles, in a square, with the door in the middle.
This building acts as a warehouse for any resource, and does not have a maximum capacity (as far as I know, and I've seen multiple thousands of a given item before).
You can control which items are brought here by clicking the icons in the toolbar.
Unlocked at start.
School
Icon looks like a book.
Costs 6 timber, and 5 stone.
The building is 3 tiles by 3 tiles, in a square, with the door in the middle.
By using gold chests, you can train new peasants.
You can que up to 6 people to be trained in sequence.
Unlocked at start.
Quarry
Icon looks like a pickaxe.
Costs 3 timber, and 2 stone.
The building is 3 tiles wide, and 2 tiles tall, with the door in the center.
Needs a stonemason to operate.
The stonemason will dig away at natural sources of stone and cut them into usable chunks.
The stonemason will produce 3 stone with each trip.
Unlocked after building school.
Fisher's Hut
Icon looks like a fishing lure.
Costs 4 timber, and 3 stone.
The building is 3 tiles wide, and 2 tiles tall with the top right corner taken out, with the door in the left corner.
Needs a fisherman to operate.
Must be placed near a body of water with fish in it. The fisherman will go fish from nearby body of water.
The fisherman will produce 2 fish with each trip. The amount of fish in each body of water is finite, and will not replenesh. Don't rely on this for long term sustenance.
Unlocked after building quarry.
Watchtower
Icon looks like a rook chess piece.
Costs 3 timber, and 2 stone.
The building is 2 tiles wide, and 2 tiles tall, with the door in the right corner.
Needs a recruit to operate.
The watchtower is stocked with stone that the recruit can throw at nearby enemies. The range of the tower is less than the range of archer units, so it is not perfect. The stones it throws will kill any unit in one hit, even a knight if they land a hit.
Unlocked after building quarry.
Woodcutter's
Icon looks like a handaxe.
Costs 3 timber, and 2 stone.
The building is 3 tiles wide, and 2 tiles tall, with the door on the right corner.
Needs a woodcutter to operate.
The woodcutter will cut down trees nearby, and plant saplings when no fully grown trees are in reach.
Produces 1 trunk with each tree felled.
Unlocked after building quarry.
Sawmill
Icon looks like a saw.
Costs 4 timber, and 3 stone.
The building is 4 tiles wide, and 2 tiles tall, with the door left of center.
Needs a carpenter to operate.
Cuts down tree trunks into usable timber boards.
Turns 1 trunk into 2 boards.
Unlocked after building woodcutter's.
Weapon's Workshop
Icon looks like a hammer striking a board.
Costs 4 timber, and 3 stone.
The building is 4 tiles wide, and 2 tiles tall, with the door left of center.
Needs a carpenter to operate.
Uses timber to produce wooden weapons in the form of axes, lances, and longbows.
Takes 2 timber to produce any weapon. The amount of timber the workshop can recieve can be controlled in the distribution page. You'll have to give the workshop the order to build weapons.
Unlocked after building sawmill.
Vineyard
Icon looks like a cluster of grapes.
Costs 4 timber, and 3 stone.
The building is 3 tiles wide, and 2 tiles tall, with the door in the right corner.
Needs a farmer to operate.
Allows a farmer to collect grapes from nearby vines. They will then take them back and turn them into wine, producing a single barrel per trip.
You will have to lay out the grape fields for this building to be used. Click on the grapes in the same row as your road tool to lay down grape fields. Each tile of grape fields will cost one timber, so this can get expensive, particularly early in the game, when you have to build a lot. I'd recommend about 10-12 tiles of grape fields per vineyard.
Note: When laying vine fields, the grapes will begin growing as soon as the field is done, so you may want to lay down the fields before finishing the vineyard, so they're ready for harvest when the farmer moves in.
Unlocked after building sawmill.
Farm
Icon looks like a scythe.
Costs 4 timber, and 3 stone.
The building is 4 tiles wide, and 3 tiles tall, with the door left of center.
Needs a farmer to operate.
Allows a farmer to sow corn seeds in a ploughed field, and then harvest corn that is fully grown. Produces one corn on each harvest. Due to the fact that they have to reseed the field after cutting it, farms have a tendency to produce crop seasonally, where they produce a lot some times, and then have periods of no production. Plan accordingly, and build lots of farms.
You will have to have your laborours plough the fields before the farmers can use them. Use the plough tool next to the road tool to lay out the area. This costs nothing, so go nuts.
Unlocked after building sawmill.
Barracks
Icon looks like crossed swords.
Costs 6 timber, and 6 stone.
The building is 4 tiles wide, and 4 tiles tall, with the door left of center.
This massive stucture produces most of the military units in the game. See the appropriate sections for more details.
Unlocked after building sawmill.
Buildings Part 2
Coal Mine
Icon looks like grey crossed pickaxes.
Costs 3 timber, and 2 stone.
The building is 3 tiles wide, and 2 tiles tall, with the door in the center.
Needs a miner to operate.
Allows a miner to gather natural sources of coal (black spots covering the ground). The mine has a reach of the coal it is activily sitting on, along with the spots directly adjacent to it. It will exhaust this supply, and you will have to tear down the mine and reposition it often. (tearing down the old one lets you reuse the miner)
Produces 1 coal with each action.
Unlocked after building sawmill.
Gold Mine
Icon looks like gold crossed pickaxes.
Costs 3 timber, and 2 stone.
The building is 2 tiles wide, and 1 tile tall, with the door on the right tile. This can only be placed against a mountain side with gold seams. (white mountain with gold veins running through it.)
Needs a miner to operate.
Allows a miner to harvest natural suppies of gold ore. This supply is finite and will run out eventually. Each mine can reach back into the mountain as far as the seam goes, and can stretch to each side about 5 tiles from the edges of the building.
Produces 1 gold ore with each action.
Unlocked after building sawmill.
Iron Mine
Icon looks like red crossed pickaxes.
Costs 3 timber, and 2 stone.
The building is 3 tiles wide, and 1 tile tall, with the door in the center. This can only be placed against a mountain side with iron seams. (yellow mountain with blue veins running through it.)
Needs a miner to operate.
Allows a miner to harvest natural suppies of iron ore. This supply is finite and will run out eventually. Each mine can reach back into the mountain as far as the seam goes, and can stretch to each side about 5 tiles from the edges of the building.
Produces 1 iron ore with each action.
Unlocked after building sawmill.
Mill
Icon looks like a windmill.
Costs 4 timber, and 3 stone.
The building is 3 tiles wide, and 2 tiles tall, with the door in the center.
Needs a baker to operate.
Allows a baker to mill corn into flour, so that it can be baked into bread.
Turns 1 corn into 1 flour. The amount of corn delivered can be controlled in the distribution tab.
Unlocked after building farm.
Bakery
Icon looks like a pretzel.
Costs 4 timber, and 3 stone.
The building is 3 tiles wide, and 3 tiles tall, with the door in the right corner.
Needs a baker to operate.
Allows a baker to turn 1 flour into 2 loaves of bread.
Unlocked after building mill.
Swine Farm
Icon looks like a shepard's crook.
Costs 4 timber, and 3 stone.
The building is 4 tiles wide, and 3 tiles tall with the top left corner removed, with the door in the right corner.
Needs an animal breeder to operate.
Allows an animal breeder to raise pigs. When he uses corn, he will either use it to magically create a new pig, or to grow an existing one. He can have multiple pigs out at a time, so it's hard to figure out exactly when he'll produce, or even how much corn he'll use before producing.
Takes 3(?) corn to create and grow a pig to full size. Butchering a pig produces 1 skinned pig and 1 pig skin. The amount of corn delivered can be controlled in the distribution tab.
Unlocked after building farm.
Butcher's
Icon looks like a sausage.
Costs 4 timber, and 3 stone.
The building is 3 tiles wide, and 3 tiles tall with the top right corner removed, with the door in the right corner.
Needs a butcher to operate.
Allows a butcher to carve up a skinned pig, producing 3 sausages.
Unlocked after building swine farm.
Tanner's
Icon looks like a pig skin.
Costs 4 timber, and 3 stone.
The building is 4 tiles wide, and 2 tiles tall, with the door in the center.
Needs a butcher to operate.
Allows a butcher to turn 1 pig skin into 2 tanned leather.
Unlocked after building swine farm.
Armory Workshop
Icon looks like a leather shirt.
Costs 4 timber, and 3 stone.
The building is 3 tiles wide, and 3 tiles tall with the top right corner removed, with the door in the left corner.
Needs a carpenter to operate.
Allows a carpenter to turn 1 leather into 1 leather armor, and to turn 1 wood into 1 wooden shield. You have to give the order to produce products, and the amount of wood delivered can be controlled in the distribution tab.
Unlocked after building tanner's.
Stables
Icon looks like a horseshoe.
Costs 6 timber, and 5 stone.
The building is 4 tiles wide, and 3 tiles tall, with the door right of center.
Needs an animal breeder to operate.
Allows an animal breeder to raise horses. This uses the similarily wonky method that the swine farm uses when using corn to produce the animals, using 3(?) corn to produce 1 horse. The amount of corn delivered can be controlled in the distribution tab.
Unlocked after building farm.
Metallurgist's
Icon looks like a gold coin.
Costs 4 timber, and 3 stone.
The building is 3 tiles wide, and 3 tiles tall, with the door in the center.
Needs a metallurgist to operate.
Allows a metallurgist to turn 1 gold ore and 1 coal into 2 chests of gold. The amount of coal delivered can be controlled in the distribution page.
Unlocked after building gold mine.
Town Hall
Icon looks like a bell.
Costs 6 timber, and 5 stone.
The building is 4 tiles wide, and 3 tiles tall, with the door left of center.
Allows you to spend gold to recruit various units. See the appropriate sections for more details.
Unlocked after building metallurgist's.
Iron Smithy
Icon looks like a pot pouring molten metal.
Costs 4 timber, and 3 stone.
The building is 4 tiles wide, and 2 tiles tall, with the door right of center.
Needs a metallurgist to operate.
Allows a metallurgist to refine 1 iron ore with 1 coal into an iron bar. The amount of coal delivered can be controlled in the distribution page.
Unlocked after building iron mine.
Weapon Smithy
Icon looks like a sword and anvil.
Costs 4 timber, and 3 stone.
The building is 4 tiles wide, and 2 tiles tall, with the door left of center.
Needs a blacksmith to operate.
Allows a blacksmith to create iron weapons. Each weapon costs 1 iron bar and 1 coal, both of which can be controlled via distribution. You have to give the order for weapons to be produced.
Unlocked after building iron smithy.
Armor Smithy
Icon looks like a chainmail shirt.
Costs 4 timber, and 3 stone.
The building is 4 tiles wide, and 3 tiles tall with both top corners removed, with the door left of center.
Needs a blacksmith to operate.
Allows a blacksmith to create iron armor and shields. Each piece costs 1 iron bar and 1 coal, both of which can be controlled via distribution. You have to give the order for armor to be produced.
Unlocked after building iron smithy.
Vehicles workshop
Icon looks like a wheel.
Costs 4 timber, and 2 stone.
The building is 3 tiles wide, and 2 tiles tall, with the door in the left corner.
Needs a carpenter to operate.
Allows a carpenter to use 5 timber and 5 iron bars to create a single siege weapon. See the appropriate sections for more details.
Unlocked after building iron smithy.
Production Chains
Well, we finally made it through every building in the game. If it seems like a lot, it really isn't, because a lot of those building just serve as single parts of a longer process, and those processes are the parts that are actually important. In this section, we'll cover each production chain: where they start, where they end, what the point of it is.
Building Materials
These chains are the first ones you make, and their need is obvious. Without them, you can't build anything. There are two building materials in the game and neither is hard to make.
Stone
Stone is simple. You put a quarry near some rock and that's it. It's not even a chain. Stone, however, is not a renewable resource. It will eventually run out, and you will have to find more if your game goes on long enough. I'd recommend having 2 quarries.
Timber
Slightly less simple. First, you need a woodcutter's to chop down trees, who will also replant them. After this, the trunks go to the Sawmill to be cut into boards. Wood is a renewable resource, and you will never have to worry about it running out. In general, 1 sawmill can handle taking care of 2 woodcutters without getting behind.
Food
Another thing with obvious importance. If there is no food, people will starve to death. Don't let this happen.
Bread
Probably the most reliable source of food in the game. Build a farm and have them grow corn in the fields. Once they harvest the corn, it will be taken to the mill to be ground into flour, and then taken to the bakery to be baked into bread, with 1 corn eventually becoming 2 bread. In general, I'd recommend a full chain of 1-2 farms, 1 mill, and 1 bakery for a fully productive chain. Having 2 chains means you'll probably never worry about running out of bread again.
Sausage
Sausage is a bit of a pain to make, but it fills up a peasant more than any other food. This is generally a side-product of trying to get leather. First, start with a farm producing corn like with making bread. Then, the corn goes to a swine farm, which grows pigs in a rather unpredictable way (see the entry in the buildings section). When a pig is butchered, it produces one pig skin and one skinned pig. The pig is then sent to the butcher's to be cut into 3 sausages. Since it takes about 3(?) corn to raise a pig, and you get 3 sausage out of it, you can see how it's a lot less efficient than bread. Like I said, you usually make swine farms for the leather, rather than the meat.
A single butcher's shop can easily handle the flow of pigs from 3 swine farms, due to how long it takes for them to produce pigs, and each swine farm needs its own farm to supply corn. If you're actually serious about producing sausage for consumption, I'd suggest having about 5 farms, 4 swine farms, and a butcher's, in which case you're getting such a stupidly large amount of leather that I don't see how you can use all of that.
Wine
Wine is easy to make, but takes a lot of timber to set up, and doesn't fill up a peasant as much as bread or sausage. All you have to do is build a vineyard and have some grape fields nearby for them to harvest from. They'll handle the rest.
Fish
Fish is the only food resource that is not renewable in the game. There is a finite amount of fish in each body of water, and once those are gone, that's it. To get these, you have to build a fisherman's hut near a body of water, and that's it.
While fish has a big disadvantage in that it's nonrenewable, and the fisherman takes a rather long time to actually catch them, it's available very early on (unlocked after quarry, rather than sawmill) and takes less resources than any other method to set up. You can't rely on it long term, but it can help you to buy some time while you set up more productive methods (such as your massive sausage farms).
Gold
Gold is a very important resource, as you need it to train new peasants. And since you don't start with all that much in your starting storehouse, you'll need to make more. It's actually important that you moniter how much of your starting gold you have used, so you don't use it all up before you have the means to make more. (If you're really worried about this, just make 2 miners and a metallurgist early in the game so you don't accidentally use up the gold meant for them.)
To make gold, you'll need two things: the actual gold ore that gets refined, and the coal that's needed to refine it. The gold is obtained from a gold mine. Simply place a gold mine on the south side of a mountain with a gold seam and they'll get to work mining it. To get coal, you need to build a coal mine on a source of coal, which looks like black rocks on the ground. Once you have both gold ore and coal, they need to be brought to a metallurgist's, which will then turn 1 gold ore and 1 coal into 2 chests of gold. Each metallurgist's will need it's own gold mine and coal mine to stay fully functional.
It's important to note that neither gold nor coal is renewable, and both will eventually run out. This means that there are only so many people that can be trained per map until all the gold is gone. Food is infinite, people aren't. Try to keep your people alive, and if your soldiers die, make sure it's for a purpose.
Wooden Weapons
Creating wooden weapons is important if you want to create militia, or any of the leather armoured units. Creating these is not difficult, but can be somewhat costly in terms of wood.
This industry picks up off the end of the timber industry; after boards are cut at the sawmill, they can then be brought to the weapons workshop to be turned into various weapons. It takes two timber to create each weapon, so you can see how making a formation of even a dozen troops can take quite a lot of wood. There are 3 different wooden weapons. The hand axe is used by militia, axe men, and the scout. Lances are used by lance carriers, and longbows by longbowmen.
I would highly suggest that you do not have 1 workshop attempt to make all of these by itself. Figure out which units you want to build, and make seperate chains for each. If you want to make axe men and longbowmen, I'd suggest having 2 workshops, one just for axes, and the other just for bows. A full chain for each workshop should consist of 2 woodcutters, 1 sawmill, and 1 workshop. So for the above example, I'd suggest 4 woodcutters, 2 sawmill, and 2 workshops, and that's not including the 2 woodcutters and 1 sawmill that you're using for making timber for building production, or the amount that the armories are using for the axe mens' shields. Don't use up all your timber, make tons.
Production Chains Part 2
Leather Armor
As stated in the section on food under sausage, you get leather from swine farms. Let's go over that a bit more.
Swine farms recieve corn from farms to grow pigs. When pigs are slaughtered, you get pig skins and skinned pigs. Now, the skins will be taken to the tanner. The tanner will turn 1 pig skin into 2 leather, so a single pig makes enough armor for 2 people, and, like the butcher, a single tanner can easily handle the flow of pigs from 3 swine farms.
After the skin is tanned, it is taken to the armory workshop, where a single piece of leather can be turned into a suit of armor. The armory workshop can also turn 1 timber into a wooden shield.
Leather armor is used by axe men, lance carriers, longbowmen, and scouts. Wood shields are used by axe men and scouts.
Since the tanner makes 2 leather at a time, you really only need 1 tanner to supply 2 armory workshops that are producing leather armor, so a full chain would look something like 4 farms, 3 swine farms, 1 tanner, and 2 armory workshops. (provided that both of those workshops are just making armor, and not worrying about shields.)
So let's go back to our above example of making axe men and longbowmen. I'd suggest that the armor side of this consist of 4 farms, 3 swine farms, 1 tanner, and 3 armory workshops, of which one workshop is just making leather armor for the longbowmen, and the other 2 are working on the armor for the axemen; either 1 making shields and 1 making armor, or each working on both.
So a full production chain for making everything you need to churn out a steady supply of both axemen and longbowmen consists of 6 woodcutters suppling 3 sawmills, which supply 2 weapons workshops and the shields at the armory, as well as 4 farms supplying 3 swine farms with enough pigs for 1 tanner to supply armor for 2 out of 3 armory workshops. And don't forget the 1 coal mine and 1 gold mine supplying the metallurgist so that you can hire all the recruits to wear all this stuff.
Overwhelmed yet? Good. Wait until we get to metalworking.
But first let's talk about Horses.
This one is a bit simpler. Start with the farms producing corn, and have them take the corn to the stables. The stables works like the swine farm in that it has to use corn to create and then grow horses, so a fully grown horse takes about 3(?) corn by the end. Each stables really needs its own farm to stay busy (in case you haven't realized by now, you're going to need a lot of farms for everything that needs corn) and due to how long they take to produce, you'll really want about 3 stables if you're serious about cavalry. So if the above scenario is trying to make scouts and longbowmen, rather than axemen, then just add 3 more farms and 3 stables to that list.
Metal Weapons and Armor
Now we get to the fun stuff.
In order to make the most powerful units in the game, you'll first have to go through quite a bit of pain, and a whole lot of coal. Tons of coal.
Metal working starts with an iron mine, which extracts iron ore from mountains that have iron veins (they look blue on the mountains, for some reason). This iron ore is then taken to iron smithy who, along with some coal from a coal mine, refines it into iron bars. These iron bars then go to either the weapon smithy or the armor smithy to be further refined, using more coal, into various products.
The weapon smithy can make 3 weapons. Swords are used by swordsmen and knights. Pikes are used by pikemen, and crossbows by crossbowmen.
The armor smithy makes iron armor and iron shields. Iron armor is used by all 4 units listed above, and iron shields are used by swordsmen and knights.
Now let's crunch numbers. Let say you want to make a whole lot of the most powerful unit in the game, and half the game's namesake. The Knight.
Each knight requires a sword, shield, armor, and horse, along with the recruit who uses all this.
The sword needs 1 iron bar, and 1 coal. That iron bar needs 1 iron ore, and 1 coal, so you'll want 1 iron mine, 2 coal mines, an iron smithy, and a weapon smithy.
The shield needs 1 iron bar, and 1 coal. That iron bar needs 1 iron ore, and 1 coal, so you'll want 1 iron mine, 2 coal mines, an iron smithy, and an armor smithy.
The armor needs 1 iron bar, and 1 coal. That iron bar needs 1 iron ore, and 1 coal, so you'll want 1 iron mine, 2 coal mines, an iron smithy, and an armor smithy.
We already covered horses' and recruits' costs, so how much does this all add up to? A meager 3 iron mines, 7 coal mines, 1 gold mine, 3 iron smithies, 1 metallurgist, 2 armor smithies, 1 weapon smithy, 3 farms, and 3 stables. That's about 24 different people involved in making all the resources you need to make a decent amount of knights. Still think knights are worth it? Trust me, they still are, but you'll probably look at them with a bit more respect when 40 of them come storming down on you.
The last thing to cover on metal weaponry is the vehicle shop. This is a bit of an oddball as it's the only way to use iron bars without needing more coal. The vehicle shop can make 2 siege weapons, the catapult and the ballista, and both cost the same amount. They each cost a full 5 wood, and 5 iron bars, which is pretty hefty, seeing as how even a knight only needs 3 iron by comparison. I'll go into more detail on these in the units section, but it's still something to consider.
Military Units
So we finally made it to discussing military units (for those of you who didn't just skip the whole economy sections). Military units are divided into 4 different categories that don't actually have specific names within the game.
The first division consists of foot troops armed with hand weapons and typically have shields, and their banner is marked with a sword. They consist of militia, axemen, swordsmen, and warriors. They also have a special ability to charge the enemy, which momentarily doubles their speed as they run in a straight line. We'll refer to these troops as "Infantry".
The second consists of ranged troops of various types, and their banner is marked with an eye. They consist of rogues, longbowmen, and crossbowmen. We'll call these "Archers". Note that siege weapons also fall under this category, and can even be grouped with non-siege, but since siege units move at only half the speed of foot troops, I'd advise against this.
The third group is made up of foot troops wielding long-arms that confer a bonus against mounted units, and their banner is marked with a spearhead. They consist of rebels, lance carriers, and pikemen. We'll call these "Spearmen".
The final group is the mounted division, consisting of vagabonds, scouts, and knights. They move twice as fast as all foot troops, but are weak to polearms. Their banner is marked with a chalice. We'll call these "Cavalry".
You may notice that each category has three units (barring the warrior and siege weapons): one with no armor, one with leather armor, and one with metal armor. We can use this to effectively categorize each group further into different "tech levels", even if this game doesn't quite work that way, so that we can compare different levels of units more effectively.
I'll cover each unit in more detail now, and even give a converted resource cost for each one so that you can better see just how much effort goes into making each one.
Infantry
Militia
Trained at the Barracks or the Town Hall
Requires a recruit and a hand ax at the barracks, or 2 gold at the town hall.
Converted Cost: (Barracks) 1 tree, 0.5 gold ore, 0.5 coal (Town Hall) 1 gold ore, 1 coal
Attack of 2 | Defence of 0
The Militia is the only unit that can be trained at both the barracks and the town hall, although I would not recommend using the town hall for this, as it doubles the gold cost in exchange for saving a tree, which is a renewable resource. The cheapest unit to make, short of rebels.
Axemen
Trained at the Barracks
Requires a recruit, a hand axe, a wooden shield, and a suit of leather armor.
Converted Cost: 1.5 trees, 0.5 pigs, 0.5 gold ore, 0.5 coal
Attack of 2 | Defence of 1
A good mainline unit. The cost over the militia may seem like a bit for just one point of defence, but since it's all renewable resources, you may as well take the effort to try to keep your guys alive.
Swordsman
Trained at the Barracks
Requires a recruit, a sword, an iron shield, and a suit of iron armor.
Converted Cost: 0.5 gold ore, 3 iron ore, 6.5 coal
Attack of 3 | Defence of 2
Yeah, that's not a typo on the coal cost. Swordsmen take a lot of fuel to make all that equipment. However, that cost makes one tough unit. Swordsmen are some of the strongest units you can get, simply because of their high attack and defense.
Warrior/Barbarian
Trained at the Town Hall
Requires 5 gold.
Converted Cost: 2.5 gold ore, 2.5 coal
Attack of 4 | Defence of 1
Probably the only unit the Town Hall can make that's actually worth its cost. 5 gold may sound like a really high amount for a single unit, but compare the converted cost to the swordsman. Sure, the gold cost is very high, but it takes nowhere near as much coal. And even though the warrior's defence is lower, they make up for it with their massive attack, which deals as much damage as a rock from a catapult, the highest of all non-siege troops. Note that when you train this unit, there's a 50% chance that instead of a warrior, you'll get a "barbarian". Barbarians are statistically identical, they just look a little different.
Archers
Rogue
Trained at the Town Hall
Requires 2 gold.
Converted Cost: 1 gold ore, 1 coal
Ranged Attack of 1 | Defence of 0
Basically a recruit that throws rocks at people. Unlike other archers, rogues have an irritating habit of not following orders; usually when you give an archer the order to move towards an enemy, they will move until they reach the target, then stop and open fire. Rogues want to stop as soon as they are in range, even if it's keeping the units behind them from getting in range. They also seem to not want to attack buildings, for whatever reason. I don't know if these issues are intentional or some kind of bug, but it keeps me from wanting to use them.
Longbowmen
Trained at the Barracks
Requires a recruit, a longbow, and a suit of leather armor.
Converted Cost: 1 tree, 0.5 pigs, 0.5 gold ore, 0.5 coal
Ranged Attack of 1 | Defence of 1
This will likely be your go-to ranged unit. The addition of the armor generally doesn't make much of a difference, since any good general won't let them get within arms reach of an enemy, so it really only matters against other archers, but since most archer v archer fight simply goes to whoever gets the most projectiles in the air, their biggest advantage over rogues is the fact that they actually follow orders.
Crossbowmen
Trained at the Barracks
Requires a recruit, a crossbow, and a suit of iron armor.
Converted Cost: 0.5 gold ore, 2 iron ore, 4.5 coal
Ranged Attack of 2 | Defence of 2
The strongest archer you can get; these guys are very powerful, and even the metal armor of your enemies won't be able to save them from a volley of bolts. That said, they are still archers, and can still fall very quickly if caught in melee, so make sure they are still defended.
Spearmen
Rebel
Trained at the Town Hall
Requires 1 gold.
Converted Cost: 0.5 gold ore, 0.5 coal
Attack of 1 | Anti-Horse Attack of 3 | Defence of 0
The cheapest unit in the game, rebels have the same cost as a recruit with no weapons, and are only slightly more effective. Due to the low cost, you can actually mass produce these quite easily, but there's really no point, since they are pathetically weak. The only real uses they have are to either defend against vagabonds, or to serve as meat shields to keep enemies at bay while your archers rain arrows upon them.
Lance Carrier
Trained at the Barracks
Requires a recruit, a lance, and a suit of leather armor.
Converted Cost: 1 tree, 0.5 pigs, 0.5 gold ore, 0.5 coal
Attack of 1 | Anti-Horse Attack of 3 | Defence of 1
A mainline anti-cavalry unit. Since they have the same defence as axemen, as you don't have to deal with making shields for them, they serve as a good choice for a front line if all you really care about is protecting archers.
Pikemen
Trained at the Barracks
Requires a recruit, a pike, and a suit of leather armor.
Converted Cost: 0.5 gold ore, 2 iron ore, 4.5 coal
Attack of 2 | Anti-Horse Attack of 4 | Defence of 2
Pikemen are actually pretty powerful units. Sure, they would lose to a swordsman's higher attack, but when facing horsemen, they actually deal as much damage than a warrior, making them rather insanely effective against scouts and knights.
Cavalry
Vagabond
Trained at the Town Hall
Requires 3 gold
Converted Cost: 1.5 gold ore, 1.5 coal
Attack of 2 | Defence of 0
Basically a militia on a horse, the vagabond is awful for its high cost, which is a shame, as it would make just as much sense to let you train them at the barracks, since you can clearly see that all you'd need is a recruit, hand axe, and horse, which wouldn't be hard to put into the game. But no, you can only make these at the town hall for 3 gold, which is simply not worth it. The only use you'd really get from these is for scouting, rushing an undefended position of archers before you can get scouts, or using them for dodging rocks to empty enemy towers.
Combat
(Darn character limits!)
Scout
Trained at the Barracks
Requires a recruit, a horse, a hand axe, a wooden shield, and a suit of leather armor.
Converted Cost: 1.5 trees, 0.5 pigs, 1 horse, 0.5 gold ore, 0.5 coal
Attack of 2 | Defence of 1
An axeman on a horse, pretty much. Scouts have an added bonus (that isn't directly mentioned anywhere) in that they have a larger line of sight that other units, making scouts very effective at (surprise!) scouting.
Knight
Trained at the Barracks
Requires a recruit, a horse, a sword, an iron shield, and a suit of iron armor.
Converted Cost: 1 horse, 0.5 gold ore, 3 iron ore, 6.5 coal
Attack of 3 | Defence of 2
The single most expensive unit in the game, and half the game's namesake, the knight is arguably the most powerful unit you can get, as it is either better than or equal to every other unit in the game other than pikemen, and can move very fast. If you have the ability to get the massive amount of resources needed to obtain this unit, I would highly recommend training these.
Siege
Siege weapons in this game don't really make sense. They don't need a recruit, meaning they are the only units that don't take gold to build; in addition, they aren't pushed by anybody, meaning that they just propel and operate themselves like some kind of medival robot, without even needing food, which breaks the immersion of the game as trying to be somewhat realistic with its dark ages setting. For this reason, I don't like them, but I'll still include them here for completion.
Catapult
Built at the Vehicles Workshop
Requires 5 iron and 5 wood.
Converted Cost: 5 iron ore, 5 coal, 2.5 trees
Ranged Attack of 4 | Defence of 1
The lower damage of the catapult compared to the ballista for the same cost isn't really accurate, as the catapult actually fires 3 rocks with every attack, so there are 3 attacks of 4 damage, compared to 1 attack at 6 damage, meaning that while the ballista is more effective against a single target, the catapult is more damaging against buildings (where accuracy doesn't matter as much) as well as being able to pepper large numbers of units with devastating results, particularly if you can funnel the enemy into a small choke-point, such as a bridge.
Ballista
Built at the Vehicles Workshop
Requires 5 iron and 5 wood.
Converted Cost: 5 iron ore, 5 coal, 2.5 trees
Ranged Attack of 6 | Defence of 1
The ballista has the single highest damage of any unit in the game, being capable of killing anything, even units with metal armor, with a single shot. This basically means that they are as deadly as a tower; only mobile, and with infinte ammo. The slow speed means they're not much help in an attack, unless it's for crushing buildings, but putting some of these at the top of hills or other defended positions make for powerful turrets.
Combat Stategies
Training and arming your troops is only the first step on the road to dominance over your enemy. Once they are on the field, you will have to learn how to control them properly, both in the sense of learning to organize each squad, and how each platoon compliments the others.
Once you order your barracks to churn out a dozen or so units, you can watch as they all pour out of your barracks, getting in the way of your peasants, and each other (try to put the barracks at the outskirt of your town to minimize this). While doing this, they will all start to form a single-file line. This line is the default squad shape, as it has only one column; this isn't a very effective design to order your troops with, however. To change how many columns the formation has, and to change the shape of the platoon, select the group, and look over to the left side of the screen to see their stats and orders. The button you're looking for is along the bottom, a hand holding up 2 fingers. Hit this button to order the squad to add a column, so that your single line of 12 soldiers becomes 2 lines of 6, a bit more reasonable. Hit it twice more, and you'll have a 4x3 rectangle of troops that's compact and easy to manage.
There is no limit to how many units can be placed into a single formation, as long as they are all of the same class. You can mix axemen with militia, but you can't add lance carriers to the mix. However, even though you could throw a hundred units into a massive legion to smite your enemies with, I'd advise against this, for this simple reason: Once a melee group has engaged the enemy, you lose all control over them. They will take it upon themselves to act as individuals to engage the enemy, and will ignore all orders that you attempt to give them. For this reason, I'd suggest keeping your squad sizes small, so that a single enemy can't distract your entire army. Groups of 9 to 15 are what I try to stick to. In the case of ranged units, you can still give them orders even after they've started firing, or if they are being cut down, so these are less of an issue. But keep in mind that you should try to have wider formations with ranged units, as if you have more than 3 rows, the archers in the back might not have a clear shot even if the front is firing.
Now that your units are in formation, you need to get them to the enemy, or at least into position where they can move out without getting in each other's way. As covered earlier, you order your troops about by right-clicking. If you hold the button, you can then select a direction that they will face in upon reaching their destination. The direction your units are facing aren't really that important for melee units, as there isn't any kind of flanking bonus in this game, but it will matter for ranged units, or for front-line infantry if you intend on using the charge feature. Keep in mind that when you order a troop to move, they will try to have the unit leader (the one with the flag above their head) be the one to end up in the tile your mouse is on, and everyone else will find their places around that. Not a big deal if you move along open fields, but if you're ordering troops across a bridge, and you've made the squad size just wide enough to cover the entirety of the bridge, then precision is needed.
To order melee units to engage the enemy, all you need to do is have your formation collide with theirs, and combat will commence, and be completely out of your control from this point. To have front line infantry charge, you simply click on the charge button in their command page (it will appear as crossed swords) and your front line of troops will run forward, doubling their speed temporarily, but preventing them from being able to turn. After the first line has started charging, the second line will, then the third. This is useful for closing the distance quickly, but keep in mind that the whole formation is facing the same way, or people will just charge in the direction they are facing at the time you hit the button; if they're disorganized and trying to put themselves in place, telling them to charge could very well just scatter your forces further.
To get ranged units to attack, just move them to where they are in range, and they will begin firing once they stop moving, or better yet, put them in position and get the enemy to come into range. Your archers will only fire in the direction they are facing, so make sure to rotate them properly. One nice thing is that you can somewhat tell your archers to change targets by telling them to turn while they're firing. Just move your mouse over the squad leader (clicking at their feet works best) and hold down the right mouse button to pull up the compass. Move the mouse in the direction they need to fire in, and then release the button. The formation will quickly turn and start firing, even without trying to actually move the whole formation into line first, so you can change targets very fast.
Strategies
By "Strategy", I'm not refering to military tactics, but rather the overarching way you play the game, from your economy to army formation. It's generally a good idea to think early on in a game as to what you'd like to do, and what resources you have at your disposal. If you're on a map with little to no iron and coal, then you'll have to rely on lower tech units. If there's a lot, you'll be able to field plenty and should take advantage of such. If there is little gold, then you'll have to focus on training more ranged units and keeping them alive to maximise your kill-to-death ratio and rationing of resources. And depending on what you plan to do, you may very well not actually need or use every building and unit in the game for every round, and figuring out what you don't need allows to focus on that which you do need.
So in this mindset, I'll lay out a few basic concepts that you may want to consider, but keep in mind that none of these are flawless or perfect, and situations will always change. Maybe you planned on an iron-heavy stategy, and the round is going on way longer than anticipated, and iron is starting to run low. Maybe you intended to rush the enemy with cheap units, but you failed to take them out and now they're getting stronger units. There is no perfect concept, and you will have to play many times and try out new ideas to keep getting better, but here are a few you may want to start with.
Peasant Rush
The concept of the peasant rush is arguably one of the most common tactics in any stategy game, just rush to churn out the cheapest units possible and overwhelm the enemy before they have time to build a defence.
While building your base, make sure you're creating more wood production than usual to make hand axes as soon as possible. Once the sawmill is complete, don't even worry about food, just build a barracks and weapons' workshop and start churning out hand axes and recruits. Collect some gold and coal to keep up with supply, and maybe build a town hall to add rebels and rogues to your hordes of militia. Then just throw everything you've got at the enemy, and don't let up. Keep making units, and sending them in without delay. With luck, the enemy won't even get the chance to defend themselves, and you'll have won the game without even having to build a food economy at all. Since no non-renewable resouces are needed beyond some gold, this can work in any situation where the enemy doesn't start the game with high tech units (The campaign, basically).
Army of Pigs
I call it this because of the reliance on leather armor units, and the need for swine farms. After building the basics, make sure you have a large wood economy, as you'll be needing a lot of wooden weapons. Then get started on building swine farms and the associated structures, as you'll need a lot of leather. Since you'll be getting sausage, just make some vineyards for wine, and don't worry about bread (you may want to build a fisher's hut in the meantime since it takes a while for swine farms to get their first products).
This tactic is nice because it gives you far better troops than peasants, and doesn't require fighting over iron, so you can very much just keep to one area without having to worry about expanding outwards to take more resources, and everything other than the gold is renewable.
Iron Legion
Quite simply, ignoring leather entirely and just rushing to get metal-tech units. This allows you to not have to worry much about wood, and to entirely ignore swine farms, so you just have to make some bread and wine, which doesn't require a lot of work. Once you've got some basic food production, immediately expand to grab as much coal and iron as you possibly can, and start a massive forging system to make all the metal equipment you'll want.
This is an interesting tactic, as you only need a very basic food economy, but a very robust metal industry, but it gives you units that can deal tons of damage, and are very hard to kill, which can offset a difference in numbers very well. Useful if your map has very little gold, and you need to keep your people alive.
Knight Rush
Certainly an interesting tactic that focuses on only one unit, the knight. I've seen other people try this out and it can actually be rather stupidly powerful for how insane it is. The premise is similar to the iron legion, with the only real difference being that you also build a stables along with your food economy, and have your iron industry only make swords, shields, and armor. Knight are powerful units, certainly. They can beat any other unit besides the pikeman in single combat, and the knight can out-run those; since you can easily create non-mounted knights (swordsmen) that can beat pikemen, the tactic is simple. Personally, though, I'd suggest at least creating a weapons' workshop and some axes to give you some militia to defend yourself until the cavalry arrives.
Just some ideas to try out to get yourself into the swing of things. Personally, I usually do a tactic of leather-tech longbowmen, and rely on them for damage while protecting them with swordsmen. But try things out, and see what works for you.
Tips And Tricks
Just a few things that might help you out in various areas.
Diagonal road building
You can construct roads that only have the corners touching, and your peasants will still consider this valid pathing. Just keep in mind that if an object they can't walk through (such as a tree) is on the corner between diagonal road tiles, then they'll stop seeing it as valid, so you'll have to watch to make sure your woodcutters don't plant saplings on your diagonal roads and mess up traffic.
Clearing out trees for building
As you've probably noticed if you've been trying out the game, you can't place buildings in a spot where a tree is growing, which makes placing structures in a forest difficult. However, you don't have to build a woodcutter's and wait for them to clear the area, as you can get rid of these with your labourers. While you can't place a building where a tree is growing the middle of it, you can place it where a tree is on the western or northern edge of the building most of the time. Just place a building where the west or north border is touching the tree, and the tree will be removed as the labourer flattens the land. You can then take the demolish tool and wreck the foundation (make sure the building doesn't have a connecting road so that serfs don't try to carry resources to the site) so you get more room. Watchtowers work well since they're so small, they can fit into small areas between trees, and don't take long to be dug up. There is also a bug in the game with the Peasant's Rebellion in that two of the buildings it added (the town hall and vehicle workshop) don't check for trees when being placed, so you can drop one in the middle of a forest with no problem and clear out lots of area.
Building roads without stones
Very useful in maps with limited stone (some of the later campaign maps are annoying about this).
As stated before, you have to connect a road to the entrance of a building for it to have materials taken to it. You may have noticed, but when a labourer digs up the tile of the doorway while flattening the land, a road tile is always placed in the doorway tile, so that the street leads up to the door of the finished building. Well, you can take advantage of this. If you place a building, and wait for it to be dug up, and then demolish the foundation before the building is constructed, then the road tile will still be there, and still work perfectly fine. Because of this, you can actually just build a line of watchtowers where you'd like a road to go, wait for them to be dug up, and you'll have an unfilled line of road tiles where all the doorways were. Then just place new foundations, and rinse and repeat until the road is fully formed and connected. Yes, this takes quite a while, but not a stone is needed.
Making fertile ground for farming
This is an interesting one. Not all maps have issues like this, since most maps are grassy, but you can't actually plow fields everywhere. Some tiles, such as sand, coal, and placed road tiles, are infertile, and you can't plow these, but there is a way to change this. Simply construct a building, any kind will do, wait for it to be fully constructed and finished, and then destroy it. When a finished building is destroyed, it changes the tiles under it into a texure that looks like splinters of wood and ashes. The great thing about this is that this overrides anything that was under it before, and this ash and rubble is fertile, and can be plowed. So you can place a structure in the middle of a desert, construct it, and then burn it to the ground to grow corn and grapes in the ashes. This isn't always needed, but does have situations where it's useful.
Final Words
Well, that's pretty much all the knowledge of Knights and Merchants that I can impart here. Keep in mind that the best way to get better at a game is simply to play it, and try new things, and don't get discouraged. If there's anything I got wrong, or forgot to mention, just mention it in the comments and I'll amend the guide as needed to keep it accurate. This took a lot more time to write than I anticipated, and I hope someone will get some use out of this.
Have fun!
Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1227250653
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- [] Knights and Merchants KaM Remake
- v.1.60 SR3 Steam Knights and Merchants [RUS]
- Knights And Merchants -> .