Province construction

Building in a province is hands-on work. The council chooses what to build and pays for it; anyone of Worker standing can swing a hammer and bring materials. mission register makes you a Worker at once.

Starting a building

A council member buys the plan in the storehouse's blueprint loft (list plans, then buy plan <number|name>), clears a wild lot with prepare ground, and stands on it to type build <building>, such as build inn. The treasury pays the commission. One project runs at a time, two once the storehouse is Improved. build earmark <type> reserves a prepared lot for a building planned later.

Gathering

Anyone of Newcomer standing can gather on the wild lots:

gather wood               fell timber on a forest lot (carry an axe)
gather stone              break blocks on rocky ground (carry a pick)
gather clay               dig clay on marsh or at the water's edge
survey                    how much the lot you stand on has left

Wood and clay go straight to the stores. Stone comes away as blocks to carry to the storehouse yard. Every lot holds only so much: forest and marsh go from lush to worked, thinning and cleared, rocky ground from rich to quarrying, worked out and spent. Forest and marsh come back over the weeks, rock far more slowly. A cleared forest turns to meadow, good for building, and regrows only over a long time. The province map shades the wild lots by how worked they are.

Stages and inspection

A building goes up in stages, and every stage needs hammer-work and materials. The foreman inspects on the day of the Creation, the last day of each game week (about every twelve real hours), and signs off a stage that is ready; time calendar shows when that is.

build                     hammer-work: carry a hammer or mace
wanted                    what this stage needs, and the ones after
progress                  how far this stage has come
build deliver             draw materials from the province stores
build deposit <item>      give one item from your pack, the floor
                          or a cart you own
build deposit stone       every stone block within reach
build deposit iron        your iron bars (steel, silver, gold,
                          platinum and titanium work the same)

Only what the stage still lacks is taken; the rest stays with you. A log counts as ten units of wood. Clay cannot be carried, so dig or gather it into the stores and build deliver it.

A stage that is not ready at inspection waits a week, and the crew still wants its wages. A Restored or Improved project left too long also loses work, and is in the end abandoned; Advanced work waits safely.

Upgrades

With an upgrade plan from the loft, build upgrade at the building shows each phase's materials, the commission and the upkeep to come; build upgrade confirm starts the work. The storehouse must become Advanced before any other building can.

An Advanced upgrade runs twenty stages through six phases, about ten real days. It also wants metal bars and a carpenter's work: a scaffolding set, and beams, trusses, panels or joinery by the building's purpose (help designs). It waits safely between visits, with no lost work and no stalled wages.

abandon at a site shows what cancelling would return, and abandon confirm cancels. The materials delivered to the current stage come back to the stores; earlier stages, the plan, the commission and the carpentry are spent.

Repair

Buildings wear. In province buildings, * marks one that needs attention and ! one that has stopped. A building in need of repair works at half strength. Neglected further it falls derelict: it closes and makes nothing, though what is stored inside can still be taken out. Nothing is ever destroyed, but a derelict building costs far more to mend.

Stand at the building's lot, outside, and type repair to see the cost, then repair confirm to work (carry a hammer or mace). Materials come from the province stores. Council members can always repair; others need Trusted standing, or whatever the council sets with council repairs.

The treasury pays the crews' wages each month. If it runs dry, the crews walk off and every building wears faster.

Tearing down

The founder can tear a finished building down with demolish at its lot; other members can once the founder has been away for a week. The lot goes back to prepared ground, and nothing is recovered. A dead mine is cleared with mine reset instead, and a path is taken up with build demolish.

Paying for it

Anyone can give to the treasury with province deposit <silver> at the storehouse, inn, treasury or the planning table in the square. Trade pays in too: every purchase at a settlement's shops, inn, forge or stable, and every sale to its general store, sends a small tax to its treasury at no cost to you.

To steer haulers in a crunch, a council member can raise the pool's pay for a while (province bounty) or for good (province set rate). province help bounty explains both. Gathering missions pay more while a bounty runs.

A second province

Once every province it holds has an Advanced storehouse and one other Advanced building, a council may claim another, up to three. Each claim costs more and waits on a cooldown (help claim).

See also

build, repair, prepare, province buildings, designs, wagon