I want to emphasis, that this guide comes from my very own personal experiences, points of views, priorities ...

Everyone has own ways to go, and everyone is valid.
So I like to encourage you to make your own experiments and researches to find your own personal way. This guide might be some help, but it is no strict prescription.

You start with one piece of land, and a carriage in the middle. Observe, and plan things ahead: Where are the stones, where to put the woodcutter hat, where is a good place for farms.

Also take into account the land beyond the borders. In what direction you want to expand. Is there a big stone heap in a neighbouring tile of land?

Forest? Your woodcutters and foresters are able to also work with trees beyond the border!. Some ppl even decide to start over, when the map design is not to their liking.

Lets say in the north of your starting tile is a lot of dense forest. A small stone heap is in the south-east corner. Just below that - next tile - is a big stone heap (lucky case).

In this example, its advisable to start with a horizontal road in the north, and above it will be the wood industry (between road and forest). This will contain lumber camps WITH forester add ons, coal, sawmills, stockpiles.

In the south-west corner is a good place to start your village center (small areas of trees can be ignored).

Btw. do not place hesitate to place roads. In case you find out that you misplaced them, you can delete them and get all your money back.

Same with buildings. You always get full refund of money. You lose your resources, but as long as the workers did not bring resources to the construction site, nothing is lost with deleting.

In this example map, with forest north,
stone south-east,
village center south-west,
expansion to the south tile (with big stone heap),
you have an easy start.

Farming is enough space as a buffer between industries (wood and stone) and homes, where villagers are livig.

The next chapter will contain details about desirability, which leads to happiness.

Village design is a question of taste, and everyone can make experiments with this.

What I personally found out as best solution is to start a village center in one corner (in this case south-west corner), and put the homesteads of the peasants around it.

The innermost center is a square of 4x4. As soon as available inn and messengers guild are placed here. Homesteads spread out to the north and the east. Later to the south as well. West in late-game.



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In late game puppet shows are also available, one might be sufficient, but you have place for 2.

Since these "desirability buildings" cover quite some area, you have extremely high happiness in homesteads around the center. This gives you the freedom to have some "low-happiness-homesteads" far away, close to secluded industries - much later in the game. Its the average of all homesteads which counts.

Atm, happiness has only an impact on the number of newcomers (1 or 2).

At start you get 2. When your game reached spring day 20, you need to have a happiness of or above 60% to get 2 newcomers every time. With 50 to 59% you get 1 out of 2. Below 50% - nothing.

Much later, with pop 150 (city), it’s 3 out of 3, as long as you keep happiness at 70% or above.

Do the balancing in a way that you have not more happiness than necessary (e.g. 62 – 65%, a little buffer does not hurt). Taking out the worker from the inn saves you the upkeep (5).

To delete the well to save 3 upkeep is a bad idea, coz later for building farms, you need to have – at least – one well somewhere on the map.

Astonishingly you do not need water to run the farms with full output, but you need just this single well anywhere to build new farms.

In later updates of the game, there will be much more impact from happines, as well as with nobility and other stuff. So we can look forward for this. :)

It is possible to build the peasants homes in a 2x2 format, as well as in a 3x2 format.

From an efficiency point of view, there is absolutely no point of having them bigger than 2x2.
No advantage at all.

If one has a better feeling with 3x2, one has the freedom to do. But learners and beginners should be aware that this makes the start of the game a bit harder.

This might be what beauty lovers accept, and what “challenge-seekers” look out for.
To have it harder!

With 2x2 you save 33% space. This means: More buildings can be covered with the happiness bonus from inns and wells.
There is less walking time for villagers.
Players have a better overview.
And 2x2 is not ugly in any way.

Unfortunately, the game tutorial doesn’t give a hint, that more than 2x2 doesn’t have any advantage. Therefor many beginners might start with 3x2, coz they do not know any better.

I myself did so too. Thought there might be an advantage some time later, but there is no advantage.

You have 2 kinds of sub-buildings for the garden.
One kind is for food (apple, bees ...), the other kind is for higher desirability (+3 each).

Default is random, so you get any two of them. 2 food, 1 or no food at all.

I did a lot of experiments and found out that 2 subbuildings for food suits best.

This will bring you through winters and springs without starving or dying issues, even with only 2 vegetable farms in the second and third year. Thats quite a game-changing fact for a smooth and easy start.

For high desirability we have the inn and alike. This does the job well.

How to do it?
Click the trashcan to delete - and toggle out the randomness.
Then click on the subbuilding of your choice and place it in the garden by hand. One and another one. I personally like the view of 2 apple trees.

One vegetable farm should be sufficient for the start, in case the homesteads have 2 homegrow subbuildings.

Atm 3 farmworkers are able to succeed with a 30 to 40 field farm (assuming they have a short distance from the farm building to their home. They only eat at home).

Also have your thoughts about the shape of your farm (compact) and the position of the farm-building. Also consider roads around the farm area (and possibly within), coz they often like to walk around the field to be faster.

Edit: I did some research with farm sizes: 20 30 40 tiles running for half a year.
Clear winner was 40 tiles.

With 40 you might be short of money and grow slower with other buildings, but thats no really much of an issue. You might also start with 30 and add the missing tiles later.

There are many kinds of food in the game.
Homegrown has a feed value of 10, same like vegetables.
Bread has 50.
Later we get pork (70, pigs eat vegetables),
And we get eggs (25, hens eat wheat).

Bread looks good at first sight, but we have to consider that – until we have bread – we have to build and to run windmills and bakeries. Windmills take 9 spots (3x3), while bakeries take 6 (3x2).
Upkeep for bakeries is not only 5, but 10, which is a lot.

First I was fond of the happiness bonus of bakeries (5), but when I realized that happiness is not a thing which has to be increased to “the higher the better”, I lost some interest in bread.

Ofc, there are quests where you need bread, so its not wrong to keep a bit in store (later you even can trade for bread with neighbors). But no need to feed ppl with bread through expensive bakeries.

Growing vegetables is super easy.
Together with lots of homegrown food, this will be sufficient.
Head of homes bring 30 food from barns and produce 20 homegrown food, thats plenty for long winters. Have a barn close to the homesteads, and activate it only when necessary.

Meat you can only have when you find flying pigs in new land. One pigsty for every wild pig cluster on the map.

Eggs you can have as much as you want. More effective than bread impo.
Two eggs have the value of one bread.
Hens make wheat useful.

Egg farms have a happiness malus btw., as well as pigsties.

Food nutrition values:
4 vegetables . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40 . . . no upkeep in farms
4 wheat -> 2 flour -> 1 bread 50 . . . upkeep 5+10 = 15 (long production chain, space!)
4 wheat . . . . . . . . . -> 2 eggs 50 . . . upkeep 2x5 = 10
4 vegetables . . . . . -> 1 meat 70 . . . upkeep = 10

Meat is extraordinary, but limited (rare).
Chicken coops are cheap to build.

In winter, ppl need coal. Freezing in winter through lack of coal should make ppl unhappy.

Since the happiness concept is not fully implemented with the update from July 17, freezing will not couse unhappiness atm (but it will be in one of the next updates).

No one is freezing to death atm. But you get a red alarm sign on the homes when there is a lack of coal.

This tool helps a lot and in many cases.

Second submenu is "Workplaces".
When you sort by name, you see e.g. all farms listed. You see how many workers are engaged, if the building is closed, and where it is located.

From this menu one can easily add or remove workers. I use it a lot.

First submenu is "Population".
Here you see the villagers individually. Its useful to check their status from time to time.
In later game, fablings get sick occasionally. In case you see some with this status, better aktivate your hospital to cure them. You might deactivate it (take our workers) to save 30 upkeep temporally.

In case you see a red "!" status symbol. Thats high alert!
It means a fabling is stuck somewhere, for whatever reason (sometimes for no observable reason).
Go on the "i" action symbol of that villager. An info windows opens, and you find an orange "!" symbol on it. Click on the "!", and problem should be resolved.

If not, then click on the camera symbol, and you get a very close view of this certain fabling.
In all cases I had this, the villager was free again, moving again and doing its job again.

Clicking on "Profession", you find unemployed ppl first in the list.


For those who are into optimization, not bothering about some micromanagement, here is an extremely effective hint.

In the first years, I dismiss all farmers for the winter time, coz they are idle anyway.
(This will change with future game updates btw.)

I send them to barns, stockpiles, laborers huts. I also might create some lumber camps for them, just in time for start of the winter-time.

On the first day of spring, farmerst start to work again.

This occasion of assigning some workers to their work places, I take as a reason to assign ALL workers new.

In the overview tool - "workplaces", I dismiss ALL workers from their job.

Then, in the sequence of their importance, place them again.
Most important are jobs with planks and stone, last are woodcutters, followed only by inns and the messenger guild.

Like this we not only have the advantage to have all workers in "green distances" to their home, but to have this one worker with the absolute closest placement of his home.

And that is valid for every building.

During the year, many changes are happening. New fablings will come and be placed.
So, once a year, there will be a re-arrangement for optimizition.

(Tbh. I stop doint this every year when having about 70 to 100 ppl - would be just too tedious.)

For beginners this is an issue very often.
Hints to avoid that:

- Do not long for more happiness than necessary (short above 60%, starting at 2nd spring day 20)

- Watch out for unnecessary upkeeps of buildings. Take the worker (temporally) out, and the building is instantly free of upkeep. To have unemployed ppl is no disadvantage (atm).

For productivity reasons better create jobs for them, but its better to have some unemployment than unnecessary upkeeps.

- When you are short of money and you need a farm soon and urgently, you are able to start just with the farm building, which is only 25 gold. Add as much farm tiles as you can afford.

This means your laborer can start already with the procress of building, before you have got all the money together.

Add more tiles after you got the money.

- Have efficient pathing to save travelling time for the villagers.

- Watch out for short distances between workplace and home.
Green point means short distance, yellow medium,
and red means far, far away (should be avoided).


In the beginning everyone has green.
Later, when you find someone with yellow, you can dismiss him and click again to get green.

Very useful is the “manage workers” option in the building’s menu.
Here you have an useful overview of all the workers.

First you see the workers who are engaged at this place.
Beside the distance to home (green, yellow, red), you also see if these workers are peasants or commoners.

Below that you find unemployed ppl who can be placed in this building for work.
This is especially helpful when you want to pick a commoner (black) instead of a peasant (brown).

Tests have shown that the unemployed ppl are sorted according to their distance to home. Villagers with a home across the street will be first in the list.

Consider that there is “family aid” beside upkeep costs. You find this in the money menu on the top of the screen (3 coins). Family aid steps up with every upgrade of the settlement (like from village to small city to big city). The value of family aid stays unchanged, until the next upgrade.

This explains why ones income drops suddenly without any obvious reason. Beginners wonder if they have done something wrong. No, all fine. Just a family aid on a higher level kicks in.

Why is there a "family aid" at all. Dont care about the term. Its just there to do some income balancing.

In case the settlement is still growing (and thats the idea of the game), you will compensate the backfall soon, and gain much higher income levels than before - just from the tax of a higher number of ppl.

This will specially apply on newcoming commoners, coz from town houses (2nd tier homes) and condominiums, you will get even more taxes.

Remember, commoners refuse to do lower work: e.g. on farms, with pigs and with chicken.
But most jobs are for both: peasants AND commoners.

When your settlement has grown bigger and bigger, and when you have learned your stuff and got the hang of it (might need a few start-overs), then you will have increasing income.

You will grow, expand, send your hero and … have a lot of fun.

After your settlement got 65 ppl you are able to build town houses and receive commeners as newcomers. Thats a huge advantage, coz in the long run, through higher taxes from commoners you will get much higher income.

Since you need a lot of planks and stone bricks for town houses, you should be prepared for this first.

Asap, build the smallest town house possible (3x3) as a start.
Click on "randomize" until you got what you want.
Impo best is to have a single town shop and no courtyard arch. All others town houses (6).

Then you get one condominium, which can take 4 commoners. Its somehow their "job" staying there and paying you very well for it. They are called “Head of condominium”, which is comparable to the HoH for the homesteads.

You also get the town shop. There is a shop keeper (his profession). He keeps some food for the other inhabitants. But just one kind of food. (My personal priority is vegetable, since there is no egg option. May be meat, if there is plenty).

The other town houses are the homes of commoners who work somewhere else.

Btw. commoners do not like to live close to homesteads (leads to lower happiness).

Later, you can design bigger blocks, up to 30 tiles. Keep in mind that sewer drains reach 3 tiles.

Beside the condominium, max number of buildings is 12 town houses, 4 shops and (if you like for beauty reasons) 2 arches. That’s 17 buildings who can contain commoners.

You might place each house by hand. Faster is the random function, where houses are located on the boundary of the property, with the entrance directed outwards.

Then click the red button “Exit edit mode”. Delete some houses and click on the condominium. Now you are able to place more houses as you wish. Remember, “r” rotates the entrance of a house. Buildings within the yard should have the entrance to the inside. Also place an arch to let residents enter the yard.

I did a lot of experiments with tier 2 homes, and there are 2 designs which I consider really beautiful, max dense and optimal effective (concerning residents to space relation).

First the “Single Block Design”

It's a 5x4 design, 2x8+1 houses and 1 arch:

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Now the “Double Block Design”

It's two 4x6 designs, 17 houses and 2 arches each:


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And putting 4 Blocks together:



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Hint: You can delete some of the foundation in the yards, so you are able to place decos or whatever there.

Next map is a totally different kind of design. I want to add it here to show you how different maps can be, from different ppl with different ambition.

It is a screenshot from Chompers. On discord, you will find tons of interesting designs, in case you want to see.


Here you see the inner city, surrounded by walls, and with lots of tier 2 homes. Outside the walls are homesteads, and farms as a buffer between tier 1 and tier 2 homes.

For my personal taste I would not place bakeries within the walls, coz they take a lot of space (6), while barns would have taken only 2. Streets also take a lot of space in this map.

From that you can imagine that space-efficiency is not a high priority here. But obviously it works. May be not for all beginners, but for those who know the basic game mechanics and seek for some challenge, it definitely works.

Many players of this game want to create a city to love it. To love to have a chance to live in it. And - when you click on a single persons camera symbol - you really are able to live in this of your own creation. You have the view of that very person, walk through the city right behind it, pass houses, farmland, industry, and experience the difference of the seasons and the weather condidtions.

Developers really did a great job to produce this masterpiece, to give everyone the possibility to create a world to his personal liking.


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What else to tell about late game.

There is an embassy which enables you to have quests with neighbours, and - very important - you can trade good with them. This might help you out with many shortages of kingdoms.

Also it unlocks the 2nd date. (do have only ONE person for dating!)

Activate your embassy for this, but stop the speed to zero, to avoid 40 (!) upkeep in the mean time.
Deactivate when coming back.

Deactivate also your hospital, unless you find sick ppl (check in the overview as described before).

There are some things to discover with the hero and with military, but when you have gone so far, you might be like an advanced player already and will succed on your own with that. Good luck ;)

In case you did a few successful playthroughs and learned most of the tricks and "how to do's",
you might find the game to easy to repeat it again and again.

So how do you like some self-imposed challenges?

There are many ways to make the game harder, even close to impossible hard.
To add some "beauty-conditions" also might increase the difficulty a lot.

Some examples (to give you some ideas):

- Build your kingdom on only 3 land tiles (or 2 for more challenge). You have to build really dense, use every spot, do lot of planning ahead.

- Do not cut any trees. Welcome trees as a beautiful chance to cooperate with nature. You are forced to build somehow uneffective (from an economical point of view). Admire natural forests as a beauty worth to keep. (Hint: you may build homesteads in lines or in "L" form around the trees).

- Lets have homesteads with 6 tiles instead of 4. This will increase the peasants homing area by 50%, making it more costly, and therefore harder to keep them happy. Fablings have longer ways to go. Also lets have your commoners lots of decos (like 1 deco for each commoner).

- Lets have homesteads with random subbuildings instead of just homegrow food. You will need a lot more farm land to fed your fablings.

- Make them happy! Keep the happiness level above 80%, as soon as you got inns. When your settlement has crown to "City" (150 pop), lets have 90%.

Some of them you might even want to combine.

Having more ideas? Please contribute them.

Since I am not a native speaker for English, and since I am not coming from a country where the kids already learn English from TV (coz of the lack of synchronization), my English might come over a bit rough or edgy.

I apologize for that. Still have to use a lot of google translate.

And – according to gameplay – when you (experienced or not) find anything to make this mini-guide better, feel free to contribute to it, or comment it.

Questions are also welcome.
Thanks for reading, … and enjoy.


Btw. this is a part of my "Kingdom" with 260 pop. Took me almost 28h and 12 ingame years.


This is a bigger part (farms at the right are cut off, sadly).