Resource Management

G'Day peeps, this post, along with the previous Farming 101 should help you keep control of your RSS and turn you into a provider to those in need.

Why do I need to control my RSS? Essentially, so you aren't a beggar. Now as a league we certainly try to help out everyone with RSS or defence when needed but as we've seen with beacon attacks we can find ourselves all short on a single RSS or in a position where we just don't have enough to give because we're barely keeping up ourselves. The better we control our own RSS the more effective we can be for others and for the league.

How do I get RSS?
Firstly build up your townhouses, mines and farm. They aren't enough to keep up with your needs but it is a passive income that occurs whether you're playing, working or sleeping. It runs 24/7, you don't.
Secondly Farm!
Thirdly take over settlements. This is a poor option however and does require some pre-planning. If you need 1000 food now then taking a farm and having to wait an hour to get 900 food is a bit of a waste.
Finally you can always use those food tokens you get as rewards, either from league chests, daily log on or similar (or paid for!)

Note: There is another source of RSS that I haven't mentioned because of it's inconsistency. That is when it is a reward from a BG. Sometimes instead of units as a reward you will find your coffers nearly filled with RSS. As unit rewards aren't a guarantee, and RSS is a subset of unit rewards I don't suggest using BGs for gaining RSS.

Plan ahead!
This is what I consider to be the single most important part of resource management. Think about what your upcoming costs (Lost Arts, Construction, Maranian Amulets) are before you pour all your RSS into building units. You'll quickly turn into a beggar if you fill up your queues, with no raids left and a lost art upgrade finishing in 40 minutes. By the same token you'll want to try and organise your building construction with an eye to finishing when you have both RSS and are awake to start the next job.
Your profile tells you how much of each RSS you produce per hour. If you know your next building will cost you 12K of each RSS type and you produce 1500 per hour you should either raid up to 12K and save it, or know that if you finish raiding with 8 hours till the current building ends your passive income will cover the cost of the next building.

Save Food!
Food is usually the most sought after RSS, I try to stay above 1K net per hour, if it's below that I use the third point below. There aren't many food multipliers (lost arts, forges etc.) and a chunk of it is always being used to maintain armies, so how can you save food?
Firstly, if you aren't being pushed to build power quickly, build armies with maranian amulets. They don't require food to build and they use a fraction of the food to keep.
Secondly, preference holding your eldritch units. They use half of the food of the non-eldritch unit. If you're sending reinforcements to a castle being attacked send your normal units. You know there's a good chance they'll die so don't send your money saving units unless it's really needed. The same with attacking.
Thirdly, send units to their glorious death in a BG. There is always a good chance you'll get better units as a reward and those powerful units consume less food per power than the ones you should have sent. See the paragraph above for which ones you want to send to their death. Sagas are especially good for this as you are guaranteed units as a reward and they are Eldritch units, it's a Save/Save scenario.
Fourth, build that Spring of Life as high as you can. Preference it above lost arts and unit building until it is done. At 4.5% per level after the first it is the biggest multiplier you will encounter.

Plan ahead!!
Yes I know I've already said it, but it is that important.

Waste not, want not.
You've planned ahead, you  know you'll have enough from passive for the next building/art/etc. so you've used up all your iron queuing up 100 paladins. You now have excess gold and it will reach cap while you sleep.
A better idea might have been to queue up 50 paladins and then use all the rest of your gold and iron on archers. Keeping balanced means you won't find yourself wasting RSS or falling short when you need it. Offence uses more Iron, Defence uses more Gold. Keep them relatively similar and you'll have a balanced force to use for BGs or helping out your fellow league members.

Build Powerful Units
At a certain point in the game you will find yourself with queues you can't possibly fill without some very generous farms. I'll get into power production in a later post but for now consider that more powerful units require less food per power. A dragon eats 4 food per hour, four times as much as a pikeman but is 42 times more powerful. A good return on upkeep.


Enjoy the challenge of resource management and keep your coffers and queues full!