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🏗 Building Projects

Starting a project, how it completes, population scaling, and the Town Hall ladder.

Building Projects

Buildings are the engine of city growth. Each one produces resources every tick, unlocks city roles, or provides economic advantages. Only one project can be active at a time. The mayor or the city's Minister of Urban Development can start or cancel projects.

A project being under way doesn't shut the catalogue. Tap 📖 Browse buildings on the progress screen to read through everything your city could build next — anyone in the city can, not just the mayor — and 🏗 Back to project returns you to the progress bars. You can open any building to read its full cost while a build is running, too; there's simply no Build It button on it until the current project finishes or is cancelled, and the screen says which project is holding the slot.

Starting a project

/build Shows the active project progress, or the build catalog if none is active. The catalog lists your full range of buildings — one line each — grouped into 🏗 Standard Buildings (upgrades to your existing city buildings), ✨ Tier 3 Specialties (the luxury production buildings unlocked at TH3), and 🏛 Premium Landmarks (visitor attractions), so you can read the whole catalog at a glance. Each line also names what that level unlocks where it opens something new — the Bank's Promissory Note, the Trading Post's Invitation, Charter and permanent queue slots, the Chamber's extra commercial zone types — so you can see what an upgrade buys you without opening it. Below the list is a category button for each group: tap one to open its buildings with tap-to-start buttons and full details a tap away, and ← Back to return. This keeps the menu readable even for a big Industrial-era city with dozens of buildings, instead of one endless wall of buttons.
/build sawmill Mayor starts a Sawmill project by command. Shows what the building produces per tick and material costs scaled to your city's population. Upgrades show current → next production.

How projects complete

Each tick, the game automatically draws required materials from the city's shared stockpile toward the project. There's nothing manual to do — keep gathering and the project progresses on its own. When all requirements are met, the building is constructed and everyone in the city is notified.

While a project runs, the panel shows each material's progress bar and what it is still short of. A ⚠️ line names how much more is needed after the stockpile goes in next hour — that is the figure that tells you what to go and produce or craft — while a ✅ line means the city already holds enough and that material will finish on its own. Underneath, a single line says how many materials still need work, so you can tell at a glance whether the build needs you or just needs time.

The build status message is a snapshot from the moment it was drawn — it doesn't update on its own if you leave it open while the hourly update runs. Tap 🔄 Refresh on the panel any time to pull the latest progress, or to see the finished result once the building lands.

Your city's City Score is the running sum of everything your members produce — points are awarded the moment goods are made (gathers, crafts, building output), so spending or building with those resources never claws the points back. Members visiting other cities' premium buildings also add points. Score only ever goes up.

Population scaling

Material costs scale with your city's population so that bigger cities don't automatically dominate. A larger city needs more materials — but it also has more players gathering them. The math is designed so build times stay roughly equal regardless of city size.

Cancellation

While a project is active, the mayor sees a 🚫 Cancel Project button directly on the build status message. Tapping it cancels immediately — no command needed. The text command also works:

/build cancel Mayor cancels the active project. 50% of consumed materials are returned to the stockpile.

Reputation from building

When a project completes, reputation is paid out proportional to each player's gather contributions. The top contributor earns up to +25 reputation. Everyone who contributed earns at least +1, plus a one-time 🏆 Builder medal bonus of +10 on your first project.

Town Hall progression

The Town Hall is the civic backbone of your city. Its level gates what the rest of the city can build:

Buildings

🏛 Town Hall /build town_hall

Produces Treasury each tick. The civic heart of any city — its level determines what the rest of the city can upgrade. Reach Level 2 to unlock Lv2 upgrades; Level 3 to unlock Tier 3 luxury buildings.

🪵 Sawmill /build sawmill

Produces Timber each tick. Timber is the primary Tier 1 construction material. Level 4 upgrade requires 🧥 Leather.

🌾 Farm /build farm

Produces Grain each tick. Grain sustains your population and feeds future mechanics. Requires Grain to build — stock up before starting the project. Level 2 upgrade requires 🧥 Leather.

🪨 Quarry /build quarry

Produces Stone each tick. Stone is used in heavy construction. Level 3 upgrade requires 🧥 Leather.

🔩 Mine /build mine

Produces Iron Ore each tick. Used to craft Iron Ingots ingots (1× Iron Ore + 1× Coal + Crucible).

⛏ Coal Shaft /build coal_shaft

Produces Coal each tick. Required for smelting Iron Ingots, Steel, and Charcoal.

🏺 Clay Pit /build clay_pit

Produces Clay each tick. Used to craft Bricks. Requires Clay to build — gather some before you start. Level 3 upgrade requires 🧥 Leather.

🧵 Textile Mill /build textile_mill

Produces Fiber each tick. Used to craft Rope. Requires Fiber to build — gather some before you start.

🏪 Market /build market

Boosts wages for all citizens by +10% / +20% / +35% / +55% / +80% per level. Applies to home and away workers alike. Requires Fiber to build. Level 3 upgrade requires 🧥 Leather.

🏦 Bank /build bank

Pays each home-working citizen a gold dividend per tick: +3g / +6g / +10g / +15g / +22g by level. Away workers miss out — one more reason to stay involved locally. Level 2 upgrade requires 🧥 Leather.

📚 Library /build library

Grants +1 reputation per hour per Library level to every active member of the city — a Level 3 Library pays +3 an hour, a Level 5 pays +5. Up to 5 levels. It has a panel of its own (🔦 Library, from your city screen): Level 4 fills your open queue slots with what the city is short of, and Level 5 also advises — recommending what to do next, and queueing only what you tap. Level 2 upgrade requires 🧥 Leather.

🏬 Trading Post /build trading_post

The city shop. Level 1: tools (Shovel, Axe, Scythe, Pickaxe, Crucible, Workbench). Level 2: consumables (Queue Boost, Rested Potion, Rush Token, Hired Help). Level 3: Luxury Goods — the Mayor or Minister of Treasury can purchase Tier 3 rare goods with city Treasury (500💸 each). Level 4: unlocks the Master's Charter — a one-time personal purchase that raises your tool cap to Level 10 and lets you lease any Masterwork for high-volume crafting, for life. Level 2 upgrade requires 🧥 Leather.

⚒️ Craftworks /build craftworks  ·  /craftworks

Requires Town Hall 3. A guild of NPC craftspeople who produce refined goods each hour — no player queue slots required. The Mayor or Minister of Manufacturing uses /craftworks to assign workers to recipes. Workers = city population × 20 (base), split evenly across all active recipes, each producing 1 unit/hr per worker. Each recipe requires its source building at Level 3: Planks → Sawmill, Bricks → Clay Pit, Iron Ingots → Mine, Rope → Textile Mill, Charcoal → Coal Shaft, Steel → Mine + Coal Shaft. The build confirmation shows which recipes are already unlocked. Workers consume each recipe's input materials from the city stockpile (e.g. Leather spends pelts, Steel spends iron ingots + coal) — output each hour is capped by whatever inputs you have on hand, so keep the raw materials flowing.

The panel also shows what your city's active build (or any Residential District under construction) still needs, right where you assign recipes — but only the parts of that need your Craftworks can actually help with. A shortfall in a rare luxury good or a raw gathered resource won't show up here, since no recipe can make either one; it only lists resources one of your recipes actually produces, so every line is something you can act on. If there's nothing a recipe can help with — everything under construction is out of the Craftworks' hands — it shows your Tier 2 stockpile instead, the numbers you're actually choosing recipes against.

Labor Contracts: The Mayor or Minister of Manufacturing can spend Treasury to temporarily hire additional NPC workers — always +50% of the Craftworks' current base workforce, for 24 ticks (1 day) per contract, stacking up to 240 ticks (10 days). Use the 📋 Hire Labor button in /craftworks, which always shows exactly what a contract costs and how many workers it adds before you buy. At an ordinary Craftworks, cost scales with your city's population; once your Craftworks has been upgraded to a Masterwork (see Crafting), a contract is priced per worker instead — a full +50% boost there is +1,400 workers for 2,800💸 at Town Hall 4. A Masterwork's workforce grows again at Town Hall 5, and the contract grows with it: +2,200 workers for 4,400💸. The price per worker is the same at both, so the larger contract is a bigger one rather than a better deal. Contracts were cut to less than half their old price on 29 July 2026, after we measured every Masterworks city and found most of them could not make a contract pay off at the old rate. The thing worth weighing now is not the price but whether you can feed the extra workers: a contract buys hands, and your materials arrive at a fixed rate, so nobody gets more out than their slowest input allows. The panel always shows your city's current 💸 Treasury right below the Workers line, so you can see what a contract costs against what's actually in the vault. If Treasury can't cover the next one, the panel warns you and the button itself tells you how far short you are, instead of letting you tap a contract you can't afford.

🏹 Hunter's Lodge /build hunters_lodge

Requires Town Hall 2. Unlocks the hunting mode in /gocamping and makes the Bow and Tanning Rack available at /vendor. Players go on timed hunt quests and bring back game; the Lodge processes it into Pelts (Tier 1) at each hourly tick. Higher Lodge levels unlock new hunting areas with larger animals and give hunters more queue slots (3 at Lv1, up to 5 at Lv3). Max level: 3.

Most buildings have up to 5 upgrade levels. Higher levels produce more per tick and may unlock additional city features. All 7 Tier 1 resources appear in building requirements from Level 1 onward. Level 2+ upgrades require significant Tier 2 crafted materials (Planks, Bricks, Iron Ingots, Rope, Steel, Charcoal) — and your Town Hall must reach the matching level first. Several buildings also require 🧥 Leather at specific upgrade levels — see the individual cards above. Leather comes from the hunting system (Hunter's Lodge required).

Level 3 upgrades require 3 different Tier 2 materials at 45–60 units each (~3–4 queue crafting ticks per resource, 7–9 ticks total). Craftworks (Level 1, Town Hall 3 required) sits just above that: 3 Tier 2 materials at 68–76 units each. Tier 3 specialty buildings are harder still: 4 Tier 2 materials at 90–110 units each (~6–7 ticks per resource) plus 1–2 luxury goods (Tier 3 resources, 5 units each) assigned randomly to your city when Town Hall 3 completes. Check /build to see which luxury goods your city needs for each specialty building — the assignment is permanent and unique to your city. See the Building Encyclopedia for exact costs per level.

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