Economy

Ironhold is pre-alpha. Everything here is checked against the current build, and all of it is subject to change.

Resources

Wood, stone, food, gold, iron and honour are the six that appear along the top of the screen. Wood and stone build; food feeds; gold pays for your most expensive troops; iron exists almost entirely to be forged; honour is earned rather than gathered.

Your supply chains also include wheat, bread and military equipment. Farmers harvest wheat into the granary; bakers turn it into bread. Fletchers make bows, and blacksmiths make weapons and armour. Many troop types need this equipment in stock before training can begin.

Storage is not automatic

Food, wheat and bread need a granary before deliveries become usable, while weapons and armour need an armory. Deliveries wait until the required storage exists. Losing your last granary stops new deposits from becoming usable, but preserves food already in stock.

Workers and population

Workers arrive on their own over time, up to a population cap. Hovels raise that cap, and your keep contributes some on its own. Each production and gathering building has a limited number of worker slots; filling them is what turns a built structure into actual income.

Idle workers are not wasted — they are your buffer. But there is a ceiling on how many will stand around, so if growth has stalled, check housing first.

Tax, rations and popularity

Popularity is the dial everything else hangs off. Raising taxes brings in gold per head and costs you popularity. Raising rations feeds people better, costs more food, and buys popularity back. Let popularity fall far enough and people start deserting — and a shrinking population means fewer workers, which means less of everything.

Variety in the diet also lifts popularity. Bread from a baker alongside other food is worth more than the same amount of a single food type, which is a quiet argument for building the wheat-to-bread chain even when you are not short of food.

The market

The market lets you convert one resource into another. You buy above the base rate and sell below it, so every round trip loses value — treat it as a way out of a specific shortage, not as an income strategy. Gold and honour cannot be traded at all.

Honour

Honour comes from fighting: killing enemy units earns it, losing your own earns a smaller amount, and kills you score yourself while possessing a unit are worth noticeably more. You spend it on the barracks upgrade that unlocks your heavier troops, and on heroes. There is no way to generate honour passively, which is what makes it the resource that rewards fighting.