Four numbers decide how strong a town is: culture, hammers, beakers and happiness. They are linked. Culture makes your border bigger, a bigger border yields more hammers and beakers, and happiness multiplies everything.
/town info shows all four for your own town.
Culture
Culture is the area your town has influence over. It is larger than the land you claimed.
Inside your culture:
- you can claim land and build towers and a Trommel;
- nobody else can found a camp or civilization;
- nobody from another civ may place lava;
- each chunk counts towards the yield of your town, according to its biome.
How culture grows
Structures make culture each hour: the Capitol 50, a Town Hall 25, a Monument 200 and a Temple 100. The government and the happiness of the town multiply that. When no research is running, the unused beakers of the town become culture too, at 1 culture per 10 beakers.
At each threshold the culture level goes up and the border moves out.
| Level | Culture needed | Reach from the centre (chunks) |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 0 | 4 |
| 1 | 500 | 6 |
| 2 | 10,000 | 8 |
| 3 | 20,000 | 11 |
| 4 | 100,000 | 13 |
| 5 | 250,000 | 15 |
| 6 | 500,000 | 17 |
| 7 | 1,000,000 | 20 |
| 8 | 2,000,000 | 24 |
| 9 | 4,000,000 | 30 |
| 10 | 5,000,000 | 38 |
The shape of the border
Culture spreads from the Town Hall or Capitol, chunk by chunk, straight to north, east, south and west. The result is a diamond. The reach in the table counts along those straight lines: at level 0 the border is 4 chunks straight from the centre, but diagonally only 2 chunks in each direction.
When the borders of two towns touch, a contested chunk goes to the town of the highest culture level, weighted by distance. The claimed land of another town always stops your culture.
The web map shows the culture of each civ as a coloured area.
What a biome yields
Each chunk in your culture gives your town the values of its biome per hour. So choose your spot according to what you want to become.
- Hammers: build speed and units. Mountains and hills give most.
- Growth: how fast Farms grow. Rivers and plains give most.
- Happiness: counts towards the state of the town.
- Beakers: research. Oceans, swamps and ice plains give most.
| Biome | Hammers | Growth | Happiness | Beakers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Badlands | 2 | 0 | 0.03 | 1.5 |
| Bamboo Jungle | 2 | 0.25 | 0.03 | 1 |
| Beach | 0.25 | 0.5 | 0.06 | 1.5 |
| Birch Forest | 1.5 | 0.75 | 0.025 | 0.5 |
| Cherry Grove | 2 | 0.15 | 0.02 | 0.5 |
| Cold Ocean | 0.5 | 0.25 | 0.02 | 1 |
| Dark Forest | 1 | 0.5 | 0.025 | 0.75 |
| Deep Cold Ocean | 0.5 | 0.25 | 0 | 1.5 |
| Deep Frozen Ocean | 0.25 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| Deep Lukewarm Ocean | 0.5 | 0.25 | 0 | 1.5 |
| Deep Ocean | 0.5 | 0.25 | 0 | 1.5 |
| Desert | 0.25 | 1 | 0.03 | 1 |
| Eroded Badlands | 2 | 0.5 | 0.01 | 0.25 |
| Flower Forest | 1 | 1 | 0.05 | 0.75 |
| Forest | 1 | 1.25 | 0.025 | 0.5 |
| Frozen Ocean | 0.25 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| Frozen Peaks | 2 | 0.25 | 0.02 | 1 |
| Frozen River | 2 | 2.5 | 0.015 | 1 |
| Grove | 2.5 | 0.15 | 0.02 | 0.25 |
| Ice Spikes | 0.5 | 0 | 0.03 | 3 |
| Jagged Peaks | 4.5 | 0 | 0 | 0.5 |
| Jungle | 0.5 | 1 | 0.02 | 1 |
| Lukewarm Ocean | 0.5 | 0.25 | 0.02 | 1 |
| Mangrove Swamp | 2.5 | 0.1 | 0.02 | 0.5 |
| Meadow | 2.5 | 0.5 | 0.015 | 0.5 |
| Mushroom Fields | 1 | 0.5 | 0.03 | 0.5 |
| Ocean | 0.5 | 0.25 | 0.02 | 1 |
| Old Growth Birch Forest | 2.5 | 0.5 | 0.01 | 1 |
| Old Growth Pine Taiga | 1.5 | 0.25 | 0.02 | 1.5 |
| Old Growth Spruce Taiga | 2.5 | 0.25 | 0.01 | 0.25 |
| Pale Garden | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0.5 |
| Plains | 0.25 | 2 | 0.025 | 0.5 |
| River | 1.5 | 3 | 0.025 | 0.5 |
| Savanna | 1 | 1.5 | 0.03 | 1 |
| Savanna Plateau | 1.25 | 1.25 | 0.025 | 1 |
| Snowy Beach | 2 | 0 | 0.01 | 1 |
| Snowy Plains | 1 | 0.5 | 0.02 | 0.5 |
| Snowy Slopes | 2 | 0.25 | 0.02 | 1 |
| Snowy Taiga | 1 | 0.25 | 0.02 | 1.5 |
| Sparse Jungle | 1 | 0.5 | 0.03 | 1 |
| Stony Peaks | 4.5 | 0 | 0 | 0.5 |
| Stony Shore | 3 | 0 | 0.015 | 0.15 |
| Sunflower Plains | 1 | 1.5 | 0.04 | 1 |
| Swamp | 0.25 | 1 | 0.02 | 1.5 |
| Taiga | 2 | 0.5 | 0.02 | 0.5 |
| Warm Ocean | 0.5 | 0.25 | 0.02 | 1 |
| Windswept Forest | 4.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Windswept Gravelly Hills | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0.5 |
| Windswept Hills | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0.15 |
| Windswept Savanna | 4 | 0.25 | 0 | 0.25 |
| Wooded Badlands | 1.5 | 1 | 0.02 | 0.5 |
/town survey adds this up for the spot you are standing on, before you found anything there.
Hammers
Hammers are the building power of a town. They decide how fast structures and units are finished.
A town gets hammers from:
- each chunk in its culture, according to the biome;
- Mines, the Blacksmith and the Stable;
- trade goods carrying the Construction or Advanced Tooling buff.
The government and the happiness of the town multiply the total.
Happiness
Each town has points of happiness and points of unhappiness. The share of happiness in the total decides the state of the town, and that state multiplies its hammers, culture, beakers and coins.
| State | From | Output |
|---|---|---|
| Revolt | 0% | 20% |
| Unrest | 20% | 50% |
| Unhappy | 40% | 75% |
| Content | 50% | 100% |
| Happy | 70% | 115% |
| Elated | 85% | 130% |
| Ecstatic | 92% | 150% |
A town at 50% is Content and produces normally. Below 40% it loses a quarter; above 92% it gains half.
What makes a town happy
- Each town starts on 12 happiness.
- Each chunk in the culture gives a little, according to the biome.
- Temple +5, Monument +3, Market +1.
- The Hedonism buff of a trade good: +3 each.
- The Truffles and Herbs events.
What makes a town unhappy
- 1 per resident of the town.
- 1 per town in your civ, for each town.
- 2 per captured town in your civ.
- The distance to the capital, up to 15. Towns whose culture does not touch that of the capital count heavier.
- A Blacksmith: 3.
- War you declared yourself: 3 per war, and more the stronger you are than your opponent. A Barracks removes 3 of that.
- A spy running the Incite Riots mission, and a failed Slime Plague.
Events
Once per 12 to 24 hours something may happen in a town. /town event show shows the current event and what to do; /town event activate starts an event that is waiting for you.
| Event | Chance per round | Length |
|---|---|---|
| Slime Plague | 5% | 48 hours |
| Truffles! | 5% | 72 hours |
| Productivity Soars! | 5% | 72 hours |
| Herbs | 5% | 8 hours |
| Gold Rush! | 5% | 12 hours |
- Slime Plague. Slimes appear in the town. Kill enough of them in time, or the town gets 3 unhappiness for 48 hours.
- Truffles! The town gets 5 happiness for 72 hours. Nothing to do.
- Productivity Soars! The town makes one and a half times as many hammers for 72 hours.
- Herbs. Go to the given spot within 8 hours. If you make it, the town gets 5 happiness for 5 days.
- Gold Rush! Somewhere out there is a block holding coins. Whoever finds and breaks it within 12 hours gets 75,000 coins.