Economy: gold, resources and upkeep

Where a nation's gold comes from, what recruiting costs, what upkeep takes back each turn, and what happens when the money runs short.

verified 6.37updated 2026-10-02 · Jake9 min read

A nation’s economy is a loop. Provinces pay income into the treasury, you spend gold and other points on recruiting, and every unit you keep then takes a slice of gold back as upkeep. This page follows that loop across a turn. What each figure on the province screen means, and what pushes it up or down, is on Province attributes; here the question is how those figures add up to a budget.

Everything below is the manual’s account except where a sentence carries a Measured mark: those are our own results from hosted test games, and each mark opens to show how we know. Where the manual is silent and we have not measured it, we say so rather than fill the gap.

Where gold comes from

Gold comes from tax on population. A province’s base income is its population divided by 100, so a province of 6,000 people starts at 60 before anything else is applied. The manual then gives the full calculation:

income = (population / 100) x (scale factors) x (1 + administration / 200)

If the province has unrest, the final figure is that result divided by (1 + unrest x 0.02).

Taking the pieces in turn:

• Scales. Order and Productivity add 3 percent per step to income, and Turmoil and Sloth take the same away. Growth and Death move it 1 percent per step. Each step of Heat or Cold away from what your nation prefers costs 5 percent. These are the figures in the manual’s table of scales; Dominion explains how a province comes to hold a scale.
• Fort administration. A fort multiplies income in its own province by one plus half its administration as a percentage. Administration 30 therefore adds 15 percent. Only the fort in the province itself counts for this.
• Unrest. It divides the total. By the manual’s own list a province at unrest 50 pays half its income, and at 100 pays a third.

Two conditions sit outside the formula. First, a province needs a link home: if no run of friendly provinces connects it to a friendly fort, it yields no gold that turn. In disciple games the link may pass through allies’ land. Second, the figure on the province screen is already after all modifiers, so the national total is simply the sum of what you see.

Our hosted tests confirm the formula’s shape and settle the rounding and the scale steps. Measured · n=18 They say nothing about how a temple or any other building changes tax, which the manual leaves out too.

The national summary

The top of the screen shows your treasury, your total income before upkeep, and the upkeep bill in brackets. The Income button lists every income and upkeep line, and the Treasury button lists what you have already spent this turn. Those two lists are the quickest way to see where a budget is going.

Resources and recruitment points

Gold is only one of three things a recruit costs. The other two belong to the province you recruit in, not to the nation.

Resources are the raw materials for weapons and armour. A province only puts half of its potential resources into its own pool unless it has a fort, and a fort also draws a share from neighbouring provinces. Unrest cuts resources more gently than income, dividing by (1 + unrest x 0.01). The detailed rules, including which neighbours a fort may and may not draw from, are in Province attributes.

Recruitment points measure how much a populated area can field in a turn. A province gets a flat 20, plus population / 100 for the first 5,000 people, then smaller shares for each further band (population / 200 up to 10,000, / 300 up to 20,000, / 400 up to 40,000, / 500 beyond). Forts raise the total (for example plus 50 percent for a palisade), and each step of Order adds 10 percent.

One consequence follows from the manual’s own table, which is our arithmetic and not a manual statement. The first 5,000 people give 50 points and the next 5,000 give only 25, so adding population to a small province helps recruitment far more than adding it to a crowded one.

Each unit’s cost reflects what it is. The manual says training shows up as gold, equipment as resources, and recruitment points reflect how rare the people fit for advanced roles are. Skilled units cost gold, heavily equipped units cost resources, and skilled units with heavy kit cost a fortune.

Recruiting

Recruiting is done province by province. Each province offers its own list of recruits. A few national units are capital-only, and raising a fort in a province unlocks the nation’s other troops there. Some nations can also recruit extra units outside forts, depending on terrain.

A unit’s costs are its gold cost, its resource cost and its recruitment point cost. Sacred units add a Holy point cost (see Holy points), usually 1 per unit and per sacred commander, though some large sacred units cost more. The manual’s restrictions, in the order it lists them:

• Commanders. You can recruit only as many commanders in a province per turn as it has commander points, and a commander may cost more than one.
• Gold. You can only recruit up to what is in the treasury now. Units cannot be queued for next turn on gold you do not yet have.
• Resources. The province’s current resources limit what can be recruited this turn, but units may be queued for later turns. That lets a poor province build an expensive unit over several turns. Units that cannot yet be built show dimmed in the recruitment list.
• Recruitment points. These work like resources: you may queue beyond them.
• Holy points. Sacred units are held to a limit set in the home province, equal to your present maximum dominion; you may still queue past it.
• Per-turn limits. Some units have their own cap, such as a maximum of two of a particular guard per turn however much gold you have.

Recruited units arrive at the start of turn resolution, so troops bought this turn defend the province if it is attacked in the same turn. Recruited inside a fortress, they stay there and are besieged with it; see Siege. A province at unrest 100 or more cannot recruit at all. The order of the whole turn is on Turn order.

Upkeep

Nearly every unit costs gold each turn to keep. The manual sets upkeep at the unit’s gold cost divided by 15, with sacred units and slaves paying half that, a divisor of 30. Most summoned units are exempt. Our arithmetic, not the manual’s: a unit costing 30 gold pays 2 a turn, and a sacred unit of the same price pays 1.

Two related points from the manual: province defence costs no upkeep and is restored in full after a battle if you keep the province (see Province defence), and the upkeep list on the Income button shows each bill.

When the money runs short

The turn order puts income first and upkeep afterwards, in the same step as desertion: income is collected, then upkeep is paid, and desertion happens at that point. So a province you pillage is taxed after the pillaging, and units are paid for out of what the provinces have just delivered.

The manual says that desertion happens at this step. It does not say what triggers it, how many units leave, or which. We will not guess here. See also the glossary entry for desertion.

Mercenaries in brief

The manual describes mercenary bands as units who fight for gold and sell themselves to the highest bidder. You bid on a band from the Mercenaries button. A hire lasts three turns, and the screen shows who has hired each band and how long remains. When a contract ends the band becomes available again, and on that one turn the old employer’s bid counts double. If someone else hires the band instead, that bonus is lost and the original employer gets it back when that contract ends. Some nations get discounts on certain bands, and some, such as Ermor, pay more for most. Mercenaries are bought or kept at the very end of the turn.

The manual does not state a mercenary’s upkeep or a formula for bids.

Pillage and income

Pillage raises unrest, kills population, lowers the province’s supplies, and gives the pillaging army gold and food. Bigger forces succeed more often. Fast and large units are better at it, and barbarians and units with Fear are exceptionally good. The supplies gained last one month.

For the budget, the order of steps matters. Pillage is resolved before income in the turn, so a province you have just taken and pillage pays less, or nothing. Fewer people and more unrest both pull the formula above down. A raid is a move followed by a reduced pillage, and its fight must be won first.

The manual does not say when an attempt succeeds or how many people it kills. Our tests found both. Measured · n=138 Measured · n=31

What the manual does not say

• Whether a temple changes income, and how the national total is rounded (our tests settled the rounding of one province’s tax).
• What triggers desertion, and how many units leave.
• Mercenary upkeep, and how bids are decided.
• How much gold a pillage yields, and the pillage strength of a given force.
• The manual’s income passage and its scales table differ slightly: the table gives 3 percent per Order step, while the scales passage says two steps raise income by 4 percent in total. See Province attributes.