The Law Of Leveling Up

Every village has 18 resource fields and 20 building sites (excluding rally point and walls). There are four types of resource fields: woodcutter, clay pit, iron mine and cropland.

Each village starts with level 0 resource fields and these can be upgraded up to level 10. Capitals can be upgraded infinitely although the cost would be unaffordable.

The Law of Leveling Up states that the higher a resource field is upgraded, the more expensive it gets and the lower your return of investment. To maximize your gains, the rule is to upgrade lower level fields first.

So if you have 4 woodcutters, then to gain the maximum return of investment, upgrade all four fields evenly. Upgrade your fields so they are not more than 1 level apart.

The following illustrates the building cost for a Woodcutter at different levels :-

lvl						CP	Production	ROI (%)
1	40	100	50	60	2	1	5	2.000
2	65	165	85	100	1	1	9	0.964
3	110	280	140	165	1	2	15	0.863
4	185	465	235	280	1	2	22	0.601
5	310	780	390	465	1	2	33	0.566
6	520	1 300	650	780	2	3	50	0.523
7	870	2 170	1 085	1 300	2	4	70	0.369
8	1 450	3 625	1 810	2 175	2	4	100	0.331
9	2 420	6 050	3 025	3 630	2	5	145	0.298
10	4 040	10 105	5 050	6 060	2	6	200	0.218
11	6 750	16 870	8 435	10 125	2	7	280	0.190
12	11 270	28 175	14 090	16 905	2	9	375	0.135
13	18 820	47 055	23 525	28 230	2	11	495	0.102
14	31 430	78 580	39 290	47 150	2	13	635	0.071
15	52 490	131 230	65 615	78 740	2	15	800	0.050
16	87 660	219 155	109 575	131 490	3	18	1 000	0.037
17	146 395	365 985	182 995	219 590	3	22	1 300	0.0328
18	244 480	611 195	305 600	366 715	3	27	1 600	0.0196
19	408 280	1 020 695	510 350	612 420	3	32	2 000	0.0157
20	681 825	1 704 565	852 280	1 022 740	3	38	2 450	0.0106
Sum	1 699 410	4 248 545	2 124 275	2 549 120	41

Pay attention to the ROI column. It is based on hourly Return of Investment. You will notice diminishing returns the higher the Woodcutter is upgraded.

During the early game, resources are so crucial. To maximize your return of investment, as soon as you have your second village, push resources to it and upgrade your fields there. When you have excess, then continue to build up in your first village. This gives you the highest return of investment for your resources.

A good approach is to upgrade all your resource fields (wood, clay, iron) evenly. Although Teutons may not need as much iron as Romans, but any excess can be traded off for a profit at the marketplace. Croplands however can be upgraded as desired, but also keep your croplands evenly upgraded.

However, there are some exceptions to evenly upgrading your fields. As soon as all your fields have reached L8, upgrade one field to L10. Then build a factory (Saw Mill, Brickyard, Iron Foundry, Bakery) to L1 and L2.

Then upgrade the remaining fields to L9, followed by factory to L3 and L4. Finally, upgrade all remaining fields to L10 and then the factory to L5.

This is only a general rule because it differs slightly between 6, 9 and 15 cropper villages. For 9 and 15 croppers, build Grain Mill and Bakery earlier.

In 15 croppers, do not build Saw Mill, Brickyard or Iron Foundry as they are not worth the price.