Section 05

Economy & Speedups

Where resources actually come from, why worksite upgrades disappoint, and the timing habit that's worth more than any of it.

Why meat and coal are always tightest

Production is calibrated to the same 1 : 1 : 0.2 : 0.05 ratio as the costs — so from zero, all four resources would reach their thresholds together. In practice they don't, because meat and coal have continuous drains and wood and iron don't.

Meat feeds survivors and troops. Coal burns in the Furnace constantly. Wood and iron just accumulate. That's the entire reason iron always looks over-supplied while meat is always short, despite identical requirements.

What to do with that Weight meat gathering above wood even though FC costs are identical — only meat is being eaten. Watch coal more than its 0.2 ratio suggests. Iron marches are close to wasted — redirect them.

Worksite upgrades: tested, not theorized

The level itself produces nothing Levelling a worksite gives zero output on its own — it's a gate that unlocks internal workstation upgrades, and only those raise production. Measured directly: a Sawmill level-up moved output 0%. The workstations behind it added about +4%. A Hunter's Hut chain added under +1%.

Each production building holds workstations you upgrade separately. The Sawmill, for example, has 6 workbenches (max level 40 each), a design bench (max 20, each level adding +0.8 to production), a steam engine, 2 bellows and a changing room. If you've been levelling buildings and ignoring what's inside them, that's where your missing output is.

The return, honestly

A +1.7K/min wood gain returns roughly 73M over 30 days with a production boost active, or ~52M without — paying back a 20M wood cost in 8–12 days. That's a genuinely good return.

But worksite upgrades cost meat and wood — the exact resources everyone is short on. Spending 20M meat to gain wood moves you backwards if meat is what gates your Furnace. Do them in the order your gaps demand, or not at all when a Furnace push is close.

Order to do them

Hunter's Hut — meat is the binding constraint for nearly everyone
Coal Mine — second-tightest due to Furnace burn
Sawmill — best raw ROI, but wood is rarely the true blocker
Iron Mine — last, and arguably never

Multipliers stack additively

This changes what every buff is worth, and almost nobody accounts for it.

A Minister appointment advertising +80% production delivered ~+40% in direct testing, because the account already held roughly +100% from research and VIP:

(1 + 1.00 + 0.80) ÷ (1 + 1.00) = 1.40

Measured across all four resources: meat +39.8%, wood +40.7%, coal +42.4%, iron +42.9%. Consistent enough to confirm a single additive multiplier.

The takeaway The more production bonuses you already have, the less each new one is worth. Know your current total before evaluating any offer, buff, or appointment — a headline percentage is not what you'll receive.

Where resources actually come from

At Fire Crystal scale, passive city production is a trickle. A 65M requirement is closed on the world map, not in your city.

Four gathering marches, continuously. The single biggest lever. Command Tactics research adds queues.
Alliance help and the alliance stockpile.
Secured Alliance Gathering Node — no risk of attack, unlimited members, 12 hours. Set it to meat.
HQ placement near level 6–8 nodes — shorter marches mean more cycles per day from the same four queues.
Productivity Day policy — +100% output for 24 hours, 10 Mood.
Rush Job edict — five days of production instantly, 1-day cooldown.
Six survivors in every production building. A passive multiplier people leave half-empty. Short on survivors? Upgrade Shelters.

Speedups

The biggest source isn't a source

Your Embassy. Higher levels mean more helps from allies and more time cut per click. In an active alliance that's free construction time every day — worth more over a year than any stack you'll accumulate.

Free sources worth working

Daily and Growth mission chests, and the sign-in calendar
Intel missions at the Lighthouse — refresh throughout the day
Alliance Mobilization — the highest-yield repeatable
Exploration chapter chests — one-time but substantial
Bear Hunt, Foundry Battle, Alliance Championship payouts
Event missions that pay you for what you were doing anyway

Two rules that save more than any source

Rule one Never spend a speedup on a short timer. Burning a 1-hour pack on a 5-minute build wastes 55 minutes. Across thousands of packs, this is where large stacks quietly disappear.

Rule two Know which day scores which type. Construction, research, training and hero development each have their own scoring day. Spending construction the week before an event is the classic mistake — and the most expensive one available to a free account.

The five-second habit

Before spending resources, speedups, or shards, open the events tab and check what's live and what's queued. The game telegraphs upcoming events, and the Daily tab in the Overview panel now shows current windows. That check is worth more than any optimization on this page.

The pattern to avoid Banking 50 days of construction speedups, then spending them the week before a scoring event. Same items, same progress, half the value. It happens to nearly everyone at least once.