Settlement Levels and Needs Guide

Every settlement climbs the same ladder: Hamlet (Peasants) → Village (Commoners) → Town (Artisans) → City (Patricians). To move up a level, supply every Food and Equipment need the settlement has, then press Level up in the settlement window. Each new level brings in a new social class with its own buildings and its own, more expensive needs, so you’ll want the next class’s supply chains planned before you press the button. The production chain planner lays out any meal’s chain across your settlements.

How Leveling Works

Needs come in two groups, and they do different jobs:

• Food raises building efficiency. Food is the biggest factor in how fast every building in the settlement works, so a hungry settlement falls behind across the board.
• Equipment unlocks building slots and lets buildings hire more workers. Each settlement has three building slots per social class, and they open as you supply more of that class’s Equipment.

You choose which meals a settlement eats. Pick up to three from the class’s list below, and pick the ones whose ingredients your region already produces. Higher classes eat more, too: a Patrician eats about 1.7 times as much as a Peasant.

Settlements get one vendor for every 50 residents. Vendors carry products between settlements in the same region, but only when another settlement needs them as food, equipment or a production input. That means a meal’s ingredients can come from anywhere in the region, which matters when each settlement only has three slots per class.

Region Limits

A region’s level matches its highest-level settlement, and that level caps how many settlements of each level the region can hold. Charters you issue as you gain levels can raise that cap, and the capital’s range, further. When you hit the cap, the Level up button stays locked. Your options are to found a new region far enough from your existing ones, or to downgrade a settlement to free its place. Downgrading is expensive: you have to destroy every building of that settlement’s highest class first.

Read each row as the limits that apply while your best settlement in the region sits at that level.

The capital’s range also grows a little at each region level, so a higher region can reach settlements farther out.

Hamlet Needs (Peasants)

Peasants choose from seven meals and need two Equipment items. Meeting all of them lets you level the settlement up to a Village. The Chain column lists every building you need to make the item, starting from raw materials. Building stats are on the production chains page.

Peasant Meals

Peasant Equipment

Village Needs (Commoners)

Commoners choose from six meals and need six Equipment items. Meeting all of them lets you level the settlement up to a Town. The Chain column lists every building you need to make the item, starting from raw materials. Building stats are on the production chains page.

Commoner Meals

Commoner Equipment

Town Needs (Artisans)

Artisans choose from five meals and need six Equipment items. Meeting all of them lets you level the settlement up to a City. The Chain column lists every building you need to make the item, starting from raw materials. Building stats are on the production chains page.

Artisan Meals

Artisan Equipment

City Needs (Patricians)

Patricians choose from four meals and need six Equipment items. This is the top level. The final King’s task, Build a thriving county center, asks for a City with every need met and 260 Patricians, held for 350 days. The Chain column lists every building you need to make the item, starting from raw materials. Building stats are on the production chains page.

Patrician Meals

Patrician Equipment