Village Mastery

Village Mastery is the skill for building and running your own village. Your village produces Village Resources, usually shortened to VR, which are used to build more village upgrades, repair buildings, trade for gold, and take part in warfare.

This skill is about balance. A strong village needs workers, food, storage, repairs, and sometimes defence. If you only build production buildings, you may run out of storage. If you add too many citizens without enough food, happiness drops. If you raise taxes too high, your village earns more VR for a while, but the citizens work less efficiently.

TIP

Village Mastery is a more advanced skill than most. It takes more planning, but a well-built end-level village can be very rewarding because it keeps generating passive VR, which can then be traded for gold, while your character works on other skills.

INFO

Village Mastery may also be referred to as village management. The current in-game skill name is Village Mastery.

Getting Started

The basic village loop is:

1. Build dwellings to get more citizens.
2. Build food buildings so those citizens stay happy.
3. Build gathering houses and assign citizens to them.
4. Collect passive VR as your gathering houses work in the background.
5. Use that VR to build more buildings, repair your village, trade for gold, or prepare for Warfare.

TIP

If you ever feel stuck, come back to the basics: citizens need food, food protects happiness, happiness keeps buildings efficient, and efficient buildings create more VR.

When you create a village, you start with the basics already built:

Starting building	What it does
Village Foundation	Creates the village. It does not count toward your upgrade cap.
Starter Storehouse	Adds storage for VR. Starts with 2 of 2 citizens assigned.
Comfortable Dwelling	Provides your first citizens.
Farmhouse	Provides food support. Starts with 1 of 1 citizen assigned.
Weak Gathering House	Produces passive VR. Starts with 1 of 2 citizens assigned.

The starter village begins with all 4 citizens assigned. The Weak Gathering House is only half staffed at first, so its starting passive output is lower than the full-staffed value shown later in this guide.

Your first goal is to make the village stable:

1. Use Gather to collect some VR manually.
2. Keep citizens assigned to your gathering house so it can produce passive VR.
3. Keep citizens assigned to food buildings so your village has enough food support.
4. Keep enough storage so your passive production does not stop at the cap.
5. Repair buildings when their condition gets low.
6. Use the Trade Depot only when you understand how the VR price is calculated.
7. Enter Warfare only when you are ready for the cost.

TIP

Early on, do not rush every new building just because you can afford it. A village with balanced food, storage, and citizens usually grows better than a village with only production.

Village Resources

Village Resources are the main currency of the village system. They are not the same as gold. VR stays in your village storage until you spend it, sell it, trade for it, or lose it through warfare.

You get VR from several places:

Source	How it works
Manual Gather	Gives 25 VR per gather at first. The starting cooldown is 5 seconds.
Gathering buildings	Produce passive VR every minute when active and staffed.
Citizen tax	Converts a portion of citizen surplus into VR.
Trade Depot	Trades eligible items into VR.
Warfare	Successful raids can take VR from targets. Failed or costly wars can lose VR.

You spend VR on:

Use	Notes
Buildings	Most village buildings cost VR.
Repairs	Most repairs use VR.
Warfare costs	Attacking has a cost, and some battles can drain resources.
Selling for gold	Standard characters sell 1,350 VR for 1 gold. Members sell 1,150 VR for 1 gold.

Passive VR and tax VR build up as pending resources until they are collected. Opening the village or performing many village actions will usually bring those pending resources up to date automatically. The village can only accumulate up to 30 days of pending resources, and it stops producing more pending VR when your storage is full.

TIP

Storage is not just convenience. If your village storage is full, your passive production has nowhere to go.

WARNING

Your effective storage can drop if storehouses lose workers, happiness falls, or buildings decay. If your stored VR is above your current storage capacity, the excess can be lost when the village updates.

Experience

Village Mastery experience depends on how VR is gained:

Source	XP rate
Manual Gather	1 XP per 5 VR gathered.
Collected pending VR	1 XP per 25 VR collected from passive production and tax.

Trade Depot exchanges and selling VR for gold do not give Village Mastery XP.

Upgrade Cap

Village Mastery uses an upgrade cap instead of building slots. The Village Foundation does not count toward this cap. Active buildings, buildings under construction, buildings under repair, and decayed buildings all count.

Your starting village has 4 upgrades that count toward the cap: Starter Storehouse, Comfortable Dwelling, Farmhouse, and Weak Gathering House.

Village Mastery level	Upgrade cap
1	7
20	8
35	10
50	12
60	15
70	18
80	21
90	25
99	30

INFO

Old slot-style village upgrades are not part of the current Village Mastery flow. Plan around the upgrade cap instead.

INFO

If an older village is already over its current cap, it keeps its existing upgrades. It cannot start more upgrades until it is below the cap again.

Buildings

Buildings are the heart of your village. Most buildings need citizens assigned before they do anything. If a building can hold 4 citizens and only 2 are assigned, it gives half of its base output before happiness is applied.

Buildings are individual copies, not a single building that upgrades through tiers. For example, you can build more than one Weak Gathering House, and later you can also build Simple Gathering Houses alongside them. The Max column shows how many copies of that exact building or upgrade you can own.

INFO

Each copy counts separately toward your upgrade cap, needs its own citizens if it uses citizens, and is repaired on its own condition timer.

Building output is affected by:

Factor	What it means
Active status	Buildings only work when active. Buildings under construction, under repair, or decayed do not provide their normal output.
Assigned citizens	Most buildings scale with the number of citizens assigned to them.
Happiness	Most staffed buildings work less efficiently when happiness is low.
Food	Food buildings depend on assigned citizens, but their food support is not reduced by happiness.

TIP

If a building looks weaker than expected, check three things first: its status, assigned citizens, and village happiness.

Gathering Buildings

Gathering buildings produce passive VR every minute.

Building	Level	Build time	Cost	Citizens	Base output	Max
Weak Gathering House	1	6h	25,000 VR	2	125 VR/min	3
Simple Gathering House	25	9h	375,000 VR	3	375 VR/min	2
Sturdy Gathering House	50	12h	2,400,000 VR	4	1,000 VR/min	2
Advanced Gathering House	75	18h	15,750,000 VR	5	2,250 VR/min	2
Supreme Gathering House	99	24h	93,750,000 VR	6	4,500 VR/min	No limit

Storehouses

Storehouses increase how much VR your village can hold. Every village also has 625,000 base storage before storehouse bonuses.

Building	Level	Build time	Cost	Citizens	Storage added	Max
Starter Storehouse	1	Starting building	0 VR	2	625,000 VR	1
Small Storehouse	25	6h	625,000 VR	2	1,800,000 VR	2
Reinforced Storehouse	50	12h	3,600,000 VR	4	9,000,000 VR	3
Expanded Storehouse	75	18h	24,750,000 VR	5	45,000,000 VR	3
Grand Storehouse	99	24h	112,500,000 VR	6	135,000,000 VR	No limit

INFO

Storehouse capacity is also affected by staffing and happiness. A storehouse with missing workers or very unhappy citizens adds less usable storage.

WARNING

If your usable storage drops below the VR you already have stored, the village can clamp your stored VR down to the new capacity. Keep important storehouses staffed and repaired.

Dwellings

Dwellings provide citizens. They do not need citizens assigned to them.

Building	Level	Build time	Cost	Citizens provided	Max
Basic Dwelling	1	6h	50,000 VR	2	2
Comfortable Dwelling	25	9h	625,000 VR	4	2
Sturdy Dwelling	50	12h	3,600,000 VR	8	2
Spacious Dwelling	75	18h	27,000,000 VR	16	2
Grand Dwelling	99	24h	125,000,000 VR	32	No limit

TIP

More citizens are only useful if you can feed them and assign them. Building dwellings without enough food support can lower happiness.

Food Buildings

Food buildings support your citizens. Each citizen needs 1 food support.

Building	Level	Build time	Cost	Citizens	Food support	Max
Farmhouse	1	6h	37,500 VR	1	4	3
Crop Field	25	9h	500,000 VR	2	8	3
Granary	50	12h	3,000,000 VR	3	16	3
Irrigated Farm	75	18h	22,500,000 VR	4	24	3
Great Granary	99	24h	106,250,000 VR	6	36	No limit

Food support scales with assigned citizens, but it is not reduced by happiness. This helps prevent a bad food situation from turning into a permanent downward spiral.

Manual Gathering Upgrades

These upgrades improve the Gather button. They count toward your upgrade cap, but they do not need citizens.

Upgrade	Level	Build time	Cost	Gather bonus	Cooldown reduction	Max
Reinforced Tools	1	5m	12,500 VR	+25 VR	-100ms	1
Sharp Axes	3	10m	75,000 VR	+50 VR	-200ms	1
Efficient Gathering	7	20m	375,000 VR	+75 VR	-300ms	1
Seasoned Hands	25	30m	1,500,000 VR	+125 VR	-400ms	1
Master Forager	50	40m	5,000,000 VR	+200 VR	-500ms	1
Village Expertise	75	1h	30,000,000 VR	+300 VR	-600ms	1

Manual gathering can never go below a 1 second cooldown, and each gather is capped at 1,000 VR.

Attack Buildings

Attack buildings increase your village's attack power for Warfare.

Building	Level	Build time	Cost	Citizens	Attack	Max
Recruit Training Yard	1	6h	62,500 VR	1	100	4
Militia Outpost	20	9h	1,250,000 VR	2	450	2
Watch Barracks	40	12h	5,400,000 VR	3	1,300	2
Siege Forge	70	18h	27,900,000 VR	5	3,250	2
War Academy	99	24h	118,750,000 VR	6	6,750	No limit

Defence Buildings

Defence buildings help your village resist attacks.

Building	Level	Build time	Cost	Citizens	Defence	Max
Wooden Barricade	1	6h	62,500 VR	1	125	4
Palisade Wall	20	9h	1,250,000 VR	2	500	2
Stone Bastion	40	12h	5,400,000 VR	3	1,400	2
Fortified Gate	70	18h	27,900,000 VR	5	3,450	2
Citadel Keep	99	24h	118,750,000 VR	6	7,125	No limit

Scout Buildings

Scout buildings help you learn about targets before attacking. Anti-scout buildings help hide your own village from enemy scouts.

Building	Level	Build time	Cost	Citizens	Output	Max
Scout Tower	20	6h	1,250,000 VR	2	600 Scout	2
Ranger Post	40	12h	5,400,000 VR	3	1,375 Scout	2
Lookout Network	70	18h	27,900,000 VR	5	3,000 Scout	2
Spymaster Academy	99	24h	118,750,000 VR	6	6,250 Scout	No limit
Counter Scout Post	20	6h	1,250,000 VR	2	600 Anti-scout	2
Hidden Sentry Post	40	12h	5,400,000 VR	3	1,375 Anti-scout	2
Signal Warden Tower	70	18h	27,900,000 VR	5	3,000 Anti-scout	2
Intelligence Bureau	99	24h	118,750,000 VR	6	6,250 Anti-scout	No limit

Repairs and Condition

Most active village buildings lose condition over time. When a building reaches low condition, it can be repaired. If it is ignored for too long, it decays and stops working until repaired.

Status	What it means
Healthy	The building is active and working normally.
Repairable	The building has dropped to 80% condition or lower and can be repaired.
In repair	The building is being repaired and does not provide its normal output.
Decayed	The building has fully expired and does not provide its normal output.

Free players have a 60 day condition cycle. Members have a 90 day condition cycle. This means members go longer before the same building reaches the same condition point.

Repair cost and repair time are based on how much of the condition cycle has passed. A building repaired early costs less and takes less time than one left near decay.

INFO

Village repairs currently use VR. The repair can never cost more than the original VR cost of the building.

TIP

The same condition percentage uses the same repair fraction, but members reach that percentage more slowly because their condition cycle is longer.

Repair Examples

Situation	What to expect
A building is repaired soon after it becomes repairable	Lower VR cost and shorter repair time.
A building is left near decay	Much higher VR cost and longer repair time.
A building has fully decayed	It provides no output until repaired.

Dwellings are exempt from normal condition decay. Most other useful village buildings should be checked regularly.

Citizens

Citizens make the village work. Dwellings provide citizens, and most other buildings need citizens assigned to them.

Each citizen can only be assigned to one building at a time. If you move citizens away from a building, that building immediately produces less. If a building has no assigned citizens, it usually produces nothing.

TIP

Think of citizens as your village workforce. Buildings are only potential until citizens are assigned.

Assignment

Most staffed buildings scale directly with assigned citizens.

If a building has:

Citizens assigned	Output before happiness
0 out of 4	0%
1 out of 4	25%
2 out of 4	50%
3 out of 4	75%
4 out of 4	100%

Happiness is then applied to most outputs. For example, if a building is fully staffed but village efficiency is 70%, that building gives about 70% of its base output.

Happiness

Happiness controls how efficiently your citizens work. At 100 happiness, your staffed buildings work at full efficiency. At lower happiness, most village outputs are reduced.

Happiness mainly comes from two pressures:

Pressure	What it does
Food shortage	Lowers the target happiness if you cannot feed all citizens.
Tax rate	Higher tax gives more VR, but lowers happiness.

Your happiness target will use the stricter of those two pressures. If food supports only half of your citizens, the food target is about 50 happiness. If your tax rate creates a lower target than that, the tax target wins instead.

INFO

Food and tax targets do not push the target below 25 happiness, but current happiness can still fall lower from other penalties such as warfare. Village output efficiency has a 25% floor, so even very unhappy citizens still provide at least 25% efficiency on most staffed outputs.

Happiness does not change instantly in normal conditions. When it is above the target, it falls by about 4 happiness per hour. When it is below the target, it recovers by about 2 happiness per hour.

Food

Each citizen needs 1 food support. If you have 12 citizens, you want at least 12 food support.

Food buildings need assigned citizens to provide food support. If you build more dwellings and increase your population, check food right away.

Food situation	Result
Food support is equal to or higher than citizens	Food does not reduce happiness.
Food support is lower than citizens	Happiness target is reduced based on the food ratio.
Food support is 0 while citizens exist	Food pushes the target down to the minimum target.

TIP

Food buildings are easy to undervalue because they do not directly create VR. In practice, they protect the output of every other staffed building.

Tax

Taxes turn citizen surplus into VR. The tax rate can be set from 0% to 30%.

Each citizen produces 500 VR per hour of taxable surplus before tax rate and happiness are applied.

Example with 10 citizens:

Tax rate	Happiness	Tax VR per hour
10%	100	500 VR/hour
10%	50	250 VR/hour
30%	100	1,500 VR/hour
30%	25	375 VR/hour

Raising taxes has two effects:

Effect	What happens
Immediate penalty	Happiness drops by 1 for each tax point you increase.
Long-term target	Each tax point lowers the target by about 2.5 happiness.

Lowering taxes helps, but it is slower. Tax reductions can give a small immediate recovery, rounded down. Lowering tax by 1 point may not show an instant happiness increase, but it still improves the long-term target.

TIP

High taxes can be useful for short bursts, but they reduce production, storage, combat power, scouting, and tax income itself through lower happiness.

Trade

The Trade tab lets you do two things: sell VR for gold, and use the Trade Depot to convert certain items into VR.

Selling VR for Gold

You can sell stored VR directly for gold. The rate depends on membership status:

Character status	Sell rate
Standard	1 gold for every 1,350 VR
Member	1 gold for every 1,150 VR

Members get a better rate, so the same amount of VR turns into more gold.

Selling a large amount of VR for gold can temporarily make the sell rate worse across your account. This only applies when VR is sold for gold. Generating, storing, spending, or using VR inside your village does not increase this limit.

The limit uses your recent account-wide VR sales. Every character on the same account shares the same recent sales total.

Recent account VR sold	Standard rate	Member rate
0 to 2,000,000 VR	1 gold per 1,350 VR	1 gold per 1,150 VR
2,000,001 to 5,000,000 VR	1 gold per 1,486 VR	1 gold per 1,265 VR
5,000,001 to 10,000,000 VR	1 gold per 1,688 VR	1 gold per 1,438 VR
10,000,001 to 20,000,000 VR	1 gold per 1,958 VR	1 gold per 1,668 VR
Over 20,000,000 VR	1 gold per 2,295 VR	1 gold per 1,955 VR

Your recent sales total slowly drops over time. It halves about every 36 hours.

Time since selling	Approximate recent sales left
36 hours	50%
72 hours	25%
108 hours	12.5%

Large sales are split across rate tiers. If your account has 1,900,000 recent VR sold and you sell another 500,000 VR, the first 100,000 VR uses the normal rate. The remaining 400,000 VR uses the next rate.

INFO

Selling VR for gold does not give Village Mastery XP.

Trade Depot

The Trade Depot lets you convert certain items into VR. Eligible item types are:

Item type	Examples
Logs	Woodcutting logs.
Ores	Mining ores.
Metal bars	Smelting bars.
Construction materials	Items used for construction-style building costs.

The Trade Depot shows up to 30 eligible item rows at a time.

Each item starts with a base exchange value. A simple way to think about it is:

Item gold value x 513 = starting VR value

The final amount can be reduced by the automatic price calculator.

At the neutral rate, item trade-ins are intentionally weaker than selling the item directly for gold. The VR you receive is worth about 38% of the item's gold value for standard characters, or about 45% for members, before any recent VR sale pressure is applied.

Automatic Price Calculator

The Trade Depot tries to stop one overpriced or overused item from becoming the best answer forever. It looks at recent depot trades and market prices, then applies a multiplier to each item.

Result	What it means
100% multiplier	The item trades at its normal VR value.
Lower multiplier	The item gives less VR than normal.
25% multiplier	The item has reached the lowest possible multiplier.

If an item is traded too heavily through the depot, or its market price is below its normal baseline, the multiplier can drop. That means each copy gives less VR. If an item's market price is unusually high, the system does not boost it above its normal value.

The multiplier moves gradually, up to about 5% per recalculation, and the price data is cached for about 15 minutes.

TIP

If an item suddenly gives much less VR than expected, check the Trade Depot rate before assuming something is wrong. The automatic calculator may be lowering its value.

Trade Limits

The Trade Depot has several limits:

Limit	Amount
Daily gold-value cap	5,000 to 15,000 gold value
Max quantity per request	100,000 items

The daily cap is per character. It is based on the item's normal gold value, not the number of items. A 2 gold item uses 2 of the daily cap each time. A 300 gold item uses 300 of the daily cap each time.

Your daily cap increases with your Village Mastery level. The increase is slower at lower levels and stronger near the end.

Village Mastery level	Daily gold-value cap
1	5,000
30	5,875
50	7,500
90	13,247
99	15,000

The daily cap resets at midnight UTC.

For example, at a 5,000 daily cap:

Item value	Daily item limit
2 gold	2,500 items
300 gold	16 items

The maximum quantity per request is a safety clamp. The actual trade can still be lower because of your owned item quantity, your remaining daily cap, and your village storage space. If your storage is nearly full, the depot can only add what fits.

Warfare

Warfare lets villages fight NPC targets and other player villages. It can be profitable, but it is never free. War can lower happiness, cost VR, and expose your own village to risk.

WARNING

Only join Warfare when your village can afford the risk. A village with weak food, low happiness, no defence, or low storage can struggle quickly.

Joining and Leaving Warfare

You must opt in before you can use Warfare. Once you join, you cannot simply leave right away. Warfare participation has a 30 day minimum duration before leaving normally.

You also cannot start a war if your village is already in an active war. Targets that are already in an active war are not available as normal targets.

NPC Targets

NPC targets are generated for your village. They are meant to give you warfare options without needing to attack other players.

NPC targets:

Rule	Details
Active target cap	Up to 5 NPC targets can be available at once.
Expiry	NPC targets expire after 24 hours.
Difficulty range	Easy, Normal, Hard, and Dangerous.
Scaling	NPC targets are generated around your village's warfare power.

NPC targets belong to your character. They must be active, not expired, not defeated, and not already tied to an active war. If you defeat an NPC through an active war, it is marked defeated when that war settles.

The NPC target names currently include places like Raven Hill Encampment, Mossgate Redoubt, Ashfen Holdfast, Greywatch Camp, and Briarfall Outpost.

PvP Targets

PvP targets are other player villages that have joined Warfare. You cannot attack your own village, and you cannot attack a village that is already in an active war.

Banished characters can use NPC targets, but they cannot attack or scout player villages. Banished villages also do not appear as PvP targets for other players.

Villages on the same account cannot attack or scout each other.

The target list is limited. NPC targets are shown first, then the list fills remaining spaces with PvP targets. You may not see every possible player village.

Target details may be hidden until you scout. Attack-only scout results show attack strength. Defence scout results are the ones that reveal resource details such as available resources, protected reserve, plunder pool, raid cost, condition, and expected gain.

Warfare Stats

Warfare uses several village stats:

Stat	What it does
Attack	Your main stat when starting a raid. Higher attack increases pressure on the defender.
Defence	Helps resist incoming attacks and reduce losses.
Scout	Helps reveal target information before attacking.
Anti-scout	Makes it harder for enemies to learn about your village.

These stats come from buildings and assigned citizens. Happiness also matters. An attack building with no citizens gives no attack. A fully staffed attack building gives less attack if happiness is low.

Defence matters even when you are the attacker, because defender counter-pressure can add losses. A village built only for attack can still pay heavily if it has poor defence.

TIP

War villages still need normal village care. Food, happiness, repairs, and staffing all affect your real combat strength.

Scouting

Scouting compares your Scout against the target's Anti-scout.

A scout attempt can return:

Result	Meaning
No useful result	The scout failed to reveal important information.
Attack only	You learned the target's attack strength.
Defence only	You learned the target's defence and resource details.
Attack and defence	You learned both sides of the target report.

Scout reports last 30 minutes. A stronger scout advantage improves the chance of better results, but scouting is not guaranteed.

TIP

Scout before attacking valuable targets. Guessing can turn a profitable-looking raid into an expensive mistake.

How Battles Work

Active wars play out over time instead of resolving instantly. A war lasts between 3 and 12 hours. One-sided fights tend to resolve faster, while closer fights can take longer.

When a war starts:

Step	What happens
1	The attacker and defender stats are calculated from active buildings, assigned citizens, and happiness.
2	The battle rolls include a small random range.
3	The war stores projected resource gains and losses.
4	Both villages immediately lose 5 happiness.
5	The war timer begins.

Resources are not all taken at the start. The claim and cost grow as the war progresses.

Attackers can leave an active war at any time. Leaving settles the war at the current progress point. This can reduce risk, but it also limits the possible reward.

Defenders can surrender at any time. Surrendering is costly: it gives the attacker 50% of the defender's current village resources. Surrender does not use the normal protected reserve, raid cost, or extra loss rules.

If nobody leaves or surrenders, the war settles when the timer ends or when a resource limit is reached. The final settlement may appear when the village data refreshes after that point.

War Morale

War affects happiness for both villages.

Event	Happiness effect
War starts	-5 happiness to both villages
Victory	+12 happiness
Defeat	-5 happiness

This means a successful campaign can end with a net happiness boost, but a failed one can leave the village worse off.

The start penalty happens immediately. Victory and defeat morale are applied when the war settles. Happiness is still kept inside the normal minimum and maximum range.

WARNING

No warfare comes without cost. Even a good attack starts with a happiness hit, and a bad attack can also cost VR.

Loot, Cost, and Protection

War rewards and costs are controlled by several safeguards.

Rule	What it does
Protected reserve	A normal raid protects 2.5% of the defender's storage from being taken.
Raid cost	Attacking has a projected VR cost that scales with storage, village condition, and power difference.
Weak-target penalty	Attacking a much weaker village can reduce loot, down to 25% of the normal loot multiplier.
Loot range	Normal raid loot is based on a percentage of the defender's available plunder pool.
Attacker storage	The attacker cannot take more VR than they can store.

The projected raid cost is not paid all at once when the war starts. The real cost is applied during settlement and is capped by the attacker's available resources.

The weak-target penalty is important. It compares total warfare power, which means attack plus defence. The system does not simply block every uneven attack. Instead, it makes attacks against much weaker villages less efficient by increasing cost pressure and lowering possible loot. Strong villages can still make bad choices, but weaker villages are less attractive targets.

Poor average building condition can also increase raid cost. Keeping buildings repaired is part of being war-ready.

Resource Generation During Warfare

Warfare does not pause normal village production. Passive gathering, tax generation, and storage updates continue in the background while the war timer runs.

That cuts both ways. A defender can keep producing resources during a long war, but those stored resources may also be part of what gets settled when the war ends. An attacker can keep generating resources too, which can matter if the war cost grows over time.

Manual Gather can still be used during an active war if you have storage space and the gather cooldown is ready. Before the gather adds VR, pending village resources are brought up to date. Any VR stored afterward can still matter when the war settles.

TIP

Do not enter war with storage you cannot afford to risk. Passive generation continues, but war settlement still uses the village resources available when the war resolves.

Practical Priorities

If you are not sure what to improve next, use this order:

1. Keep enough food for your citizens.
2. Keep happiness high enough that your buildings work well.
3. Add storage before production starts capping.
4. Add gathering buildings for passive VR.
5. Add manual gathering upgrades if you check the village often.
6. Repair important buildings before they decay.
7. Build scout and anti-scout before serious Warfare.
8. Add attack and defence only when you can afford the cost of using them.

TIP

The strongest villages are not always the ones with the biggest single number. They are the ones where citizens, food, storage, repairs, trade, and warfare all support each other.