Ellaria - EconomyThu, 9 July 2020
Good day, Ellarians!
We are back at our weekly dev blog, where we are showing you more details about the upcoming full release version of Legends of Ellaria. In the past, we have discussed a few times how in Ellaria you are not only a hero yourself but also the ruler of a kingdom. And it doesn't matter how fantastic a setting is, there is something that all rulers have to take care of: the economy of their kingdoms. Today we're discussing how the economy works in Legends of Ellaria!
Even though the economy of this game is not as complex as it can be in a 4X game, it plays an important role in your story. Your management of your kingdom affects its general happiness, which in turn affects its productivity. Military victories, good management, certain world events and completing quests raise happiness. A bad economy management, overbuilding, crime rates and unhappiness will reduce your income and productivity.
If that happens, it's a slippery slope. If you can't pay your troops, your soldiers will desert you; if you don't pay the upkeep costs of your buildings, they will stop working. If you don't produce goods and food, more soldiers and people will desert you, it will raise unhappiness in your kingdom, which in turn will lower your overall production… You see where this leads.
Does that mean that you will have to go through complex economic planning to play Legends of Ellaria? Not really: you can play as an adventurer/conqueror king à la Richard Lionheart and ignore most of your kingdom management. You'll have to invest a minimum effort in building some buildings and defending your kingdom, mind you – but the minimum kingdom management is provided through quests and is quite easy to understand. The goal of the game is not to build and manage an empire.
However, if you do increase your economy and develop an empire, you'll have a strong army by your side and more tricks up your sleeve, since you will have money to spend in researching, items, etc. Take libraries, for instance. If you can build one and spend time researching, you can discover more advanced buildings and increase your tax efficiency and resource production. And with the surplus that will get you eventually, you can get bigger armies and arm them to the teeth…
There are four types of resources: gold, food, manpower, and raw materials. You produce food mostly in your farms, and your citizens and armies will need it for obvious reasons. Raw materials (wood, stone and iron) are produced through specific buildings such as lumberjacks and mines. You need some gold for the upkeep costs of your kingdom, and you can use your surplus income to build more buildings, raise armies and hire mercenaries. And lastly, the more manpower you have, the more taxes you can collect and the bigger the army you can hire.
So, what can you do to produce gold? This resource is generated by taxing your citizens and through trade buildings. The more cities, people and buildings you control, the more citizens you have and the more taxes you can collect. You do decide the tax level and manage its gathering, though – if taxes are too high, your people will get angry, their production will be reduced and they may even cause unrest.
The tax efficiency is also affected by the level of research in tax gathering, your kingdom management level, and crime rate. So, if you have built too many houses, but without the infrastructure needed to support them, your tax gathering may stay the same. On top of that, some special buildings like gold mines and taverns can generate revenue without taxation. You can also sell your surplus resources in the market, which means that you can create a trade-based economy if your kingdom is efficient enough to gather a certain resource.
Apart from building, you can use your gold to found new villages and strongholds that will expand your territory and defend key positions. You can also buy epic magic items, and most importantly, raise armies for your military exploits. If you also invest in research and military buildings, you can train a strong army, but if you'd like to skip that, you can hire mercenaries – they cost more money and have a higher upkeep, but they don't lower your manpower, so you can hire as many as you want!
This is a brief overview of how the economy works in Legends of Ellaria. As you can see, it's not something we force more adventure-oriented players to go through – but those willing to manage their kingdom and make it prosper will have even more options and possibilities in their hands.
That's all for today, see you next week, Ellarians!