Buildings

Note:

When you build 1 of something, you only build a part of a building; each part takes 1 land. Having 1 part of a 10-part building is less than half as effective as 2 parts of a 10-part building. The closer to the completion of a building, the more efficient it becomes. For example, 10 of 10 Training Fields is 100% effective while 9 of 10 Training Fields is only 81% effective.

Type	Short Description
Villages	Villages will cause 2500 more people to live on your land and require 15 parts for a complete village. Population is very important in this game. with more villages you will receive more gold from the taxes, your mana seed will increase and most of the Race Specials are more useful with a higher population.
Farms	Farms are the normal way to produce food and provide a small amount of housing (exactly 25 per complete farm) for your people. A complete farm requires 5 parts and produces an amount of food based on your race. You need 1 Population for every 3 food your farms will potentially produce, so be sure to have enough population to work in the fields.
Granaries	Granaries can store up to 50,000 food per complete granary and take 5 parts to make a complete building. Granaries can protect half as much food as they store from passing thieves and raiders.
Barracks	Barracks reduce the maintenance cost of all hired Military Units and store Weapons and suits of Armor. A complete barrack requires 2 parts and houses 1,000 troops and stores 1,000 Weapons and 1,000 suits of Armor. You need to have troops housed or they will leave your kingdom.
Outposts	An Outpost serves as an early warning of enemy attacks, allowing your Military Units to be prepared for the enemy thus boosting their defensive power. A complete outpost requires 2 parts and protects 600 units (increases their attack and absorption by 40%). The Weapons, Armor and War Machines also receive the bonus.
Guard Towers	Guard Towers work much like Outposts and they help you to prevent enemy covert operations. They require 2 parts to build a complete guard tower and it boosts the defense of 500 troops (increases their attack and absorption by 65%) and the covert defense of 100 Rangers on top of that. The Weapons, Armor and War Machines also receive the bonus.
Schools	Schools increase the ability of Scholars to learn faster. A complete school requires 5 parts.
Armories	Armories are used to store War Machines, Weapons and suits of Armor. It stores 5000 Weapons and pieces of Armor and 1000 War Machines and requires 5 parts for every complete armory. 1 complete armory will protect 2,500 Weapons and Armor and only 250 War Machines from being looted. Note that this is the only means of storing or housing War Machines so be sure to erect Armories before building or buying War Machines.
Vaults	Vaults store 1,000,000 gold and keep it safe from enemy Thieves. A vault requires 5 parts.
Cathedrals	Cathedrals allow your people a place to worship, increasing their morale and focus, which will allow you to draw more Mana for spells. They also train Clerics better than Training Fields can. A full cathedral trains 10000 clerics. Requires 25 parts.
Smithies	Smithies help Labourers build faster. They require 15 parts.
Market Places	Market places produce extra income and require 30 parts and 10,000 population to produce full gold. This should be the first structure a new kingdom makes (until you have 16 parts, enough to cover your starting population). Gold is the central factor of what you can do in Shadowmere, and the economy should always be as strong as possible.
Training Fields	Training fields will automatically train your Military Units every turn. They take up 10 parts each and can train up to 5000 troops. Clerics gain significantly less experience per turn from Training Fields. Mages do not benefit from Training Fields. When taking turns you should have enough training fields for all of your non cleric and non mage military units. Training field benefits are tied directly to your races base hire percent. The benefits taper off at around double the base hire percent but there are no caps.
Coliseums	Coliseums provide entertainment for your people and also provide you with some extra money. Requires 50 parts and needs 50,000 population to produce full gold. Coliseums are one of the rare instances where building only a portion of the building has great advantage. Use the Buildings screen to see how much Population can work in the Coliseum pieces that you have erected and try to match that with your Villager count. This is of course until you can build better and have 50k villagers.
Mage Towers	Mage towers house Mages, give a Study bonus when studying Magic skill and the Magic spheres, train Mages, give a little bit of Mana per turn when Mages are housed in them and also works as a mana bonus building, like Cathedrals. A full mage tower trains 15000 Mages, and houses 30000 of them. Requires 70 parts.
Castles	Castles are the best Buildings but are extremely hard to build. They are huge and require 500 parts. They are extremely time-consuming and expensive to build but are a tribute to the kingdom's leadership and will have dramatic effects on the population, Laborers and Scholars in the kingdom. A full Castle will greatly increase your study and build rate and will act as five full Training Fields. They provide storage for 100,000 Weapons and pieces of Armor, to keep them from rusting away, they protect 10,000,000 gold and 25,000 Weapons and pieces of Armor from looting by enemy Thieves and they even house 100,000 troops. They also provide a nearly impossible breach defense against attacks for 50,000 troops (increases their attack and absorbtion by 100% - weapons, armor and war machines too) and they increase the Mana your population generate.

There are several buildings available.

To find out more about the different buildings follow the links.

Type Short Description

Villages Villages will cause 2500 more people to live on your land and require 15 parts for a complete village. Population is very important in this game. with more villages you will receive more gold from the taxes, your mana seed will increase and most of the Race Specials are more useful with a higher population.

Farms Farms are the normal way to produce food and provide a small amount of housing (exactly 25 per complete farm) for your people. A complete farm requires 5 parts and produces an amount of food based on your race. You need 1 Population for every 3 food your farms will potentially produce, so be sure to have enough population to work in the fields.

Granaries Granaries can store up to 50,000 food per complete granary and take 5 parts to make a complete building. Granaries can protect half as much food as they store from passing thieves and raiders.

Barracks Barracks reduce the maintenance cost of all hired Military Units and store Weapons and suits of Armor. A complete barrack requires 2 parts and houses 1,000 troops and stores 1,000 Weapons and 1,000 suits of Armor. You need to have troops housed or they will leave your kingdom.

Outposts An Outpost serves as an early warning of enemy attacks, allowing your Military Units to be prepared for the enemy thus boosting their defensive power. A complete outpost requires 2 parts and protects 600 units (increases their attack and absorption by 40%). The Weapons, Armor and War Machines also receive the bonus.

Guard Towers Guard Towers work much like Outposts and they help you to prevent enemy covert operations. They require 2 parts to build a complete guard tower and it boosts the defense of 500 troops (increases their attack and absorption by 65%) and the covert defense of 100 Rangers on top of that. The Weapons, Armor and War Machines also receive the bonus.

Schools Schools increase the ability of Scholars to learn faster. A complete school requires 5 parts.

Armories Armories are used to store War Machines, Weapons and suits of Armor. It stores 5000 Weapons and pieces of Armor and 1000 War Machines and requires 5 parts for every complete armory. 1 complete armory will protect 2,500 Weapons and Armor and only 250 War Machines from being looted. Note that this is the only means of storing or housing War Machines so be sure to erect Armories before building or buying War Machines.

Vaults Vaults store 1,000,000 gold and keep it safe from enemy Thieves. A vault requires 5 parts.

Cathedrals Cathedrals allow your people a place to worship, increasing their morale and focus, which will allow you to draw more Mana for spells. They also train Clerics better than Training Fields can. A full cathedral trains 10000 clerics. Requires 25 parts.

Smithies Smithies help Labourers build faster. They require 15 parts.

Market Places Market places produce extra income and require 30 parts and 10,000 population to produce full gold. This should be the first structure a new kingdom makes (until you have 16 parts, enough to cover your starting population). Gold is the central factor of what you can do in Shadowmere, and the economy should always be as strong as possible.

Training Fields Training fields will automatically train your Military Units every turn. They take up 10 parts each and can train up to 5000 troops. Clerics gain significantly less experience per turn from Training Fields. Mages do not benefit from Training Fields. When taking turns you should have enough training fields for all of your non cleric and non mage military units. Training field benefits are tied directly to your races base hire percent. The benefits taper off at around double the base hire percent but there are no caps.

Coliseums Coliseums provide entertainment for your people and also provide you with some extra money. Requires 50 parts and needs 50,000 population to produce full gold. Coliseums are one of the rare instances where building only a portion of the building has great advantage. Use the Buildings screen to see how much Population can work in the Coliseum pieces that you have erected and try to match that with your Villager count. This is of course until you can build better and have 50k villagers.

Mage Towers Mage towers house Mages, give a Study bonus when studying Magic skill and the Magic spheres, train Mages, give a little bit of Mana per turn when Mages are housed in them and also works as a mana bonus building, like Cathedrals. A full mage tower trains 15000 Mages, and houses 30000 of them. Requires 70 parts.

Castles Castles are the best Buildings but are extremely hard to build. They are huge and require 500 parts. They are extremely time-consuming and expensive to build but are a tribute to the kingdom's leadership and will have dramatic effects on the population, Laborers and Scholars in the kingdom. A full Castle will greatly increase your study and build rate and will act as five full Training Fields. They provide storage for 100,000 Weapons and pieces of Armor, to keep them from rusting away, they protect 10,000,000 gold and 25,000 Weapons and pieces of Armor from looting by enemy Thieves and they even house 100,000 troops. They also provide a nearly impossible breach defense against attacks for 50,000 troops (increases their attack and absorbtion by 100% - weapons, armor and war machines too) and they increase the Mana your population generate.

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The Numbers

Buildings Effectiveness

Partially completed building effectiveness (%) = 100 x [parts built x parts built] / [total parts required x total parts required]

So for example 37 coliseums will be [37x37] / [50x50] = 54.76% effective as a full 50 parts.

Reverse Engineering the Formula

- how to make it work for you today! ;)

For another quick reminder, if you've got an odd number of barracks, you can't house an even multiple of 1000 troops. If you only have 1 single barracks piece, you can only put 250 troops in it, since that is 25% of 1000, we got the 25% from parts built squared = 1^2 = 1 / 4 = 2^2 parts required squared... so when you see that 250, remember, it's just 25% of 1000, because (1/2)^2 = 1/4, or 25 per cent... 250 per 10 cents.

To tie into the example above, we would only know that we wanted 37 coliseums after we had figured that we wanted at least 27380 population to be 'served' by the coliseum. To make the example more general, assume the kingdom has 77380 population.

Step 1 ) Build complete buildings for as many as can be 'served' by a multiple of the building's 'serving number' (in this case, a coliseum serves 50k pop, so we can only build a single complete coliseum, or 50 parts.

Step 2 ) Subtract the number served by complete buildings from the total, to get the number that needs to be served by partial buildings, in this case, 27380.

Step 3 ) Divide the population to be served by complete buildings by the number that a complete building serves, that is 27380 / 50000, to get the effective percentage of a coliseum that we need to just serve this many.

Step 4 ) Eliminating the squares from both sides of the equation, I find it easiest to simply take the square root of this number now, (on windows calculator in scientific mode, it's the x^y key, where y = .5) and multiply it by only the number of parts required for a full building (not the square of that number) -- so in this case, sqrt(.5478) =~= .7401 * 50 =~= 37.

Step 5 ) Now, with 50k pop served by 50 coliseum parts, the other 27380 is served by an additional 37 coliseum parts for a total of 87 parts to build.

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