Cranny

Protects resources from raiders. Gauls Crannies hide one and a half times as much as anyone else's, for the same level and the same cost.

• Teutons ignore part of a Cranny's protection when they raid, so a Cranny hides less from them than from anyone else.
• A raiding hero carrying Thief equipment also sees past part of it: Pouch of the Thief, Bag of the Thief and Sack of the Thief each reduce the protection, by more at each tier. The current figures are kept with the items themselves.
• Once the first Cranny reaches level 10, additional Crannies can be built, and later ones do not each have to reach 10 before the next.
• Level 7 is a strong early breakpoint for both protection and Culture Points, and the early tasks pay for much of the way there.

Strategy. Cranny is early-game anti-raid infrastructure. It buys a developing account time against persistent farming, and stops being the answer once the raids are big enough to be worth defending against properly.

The Cranny artefact. It does two separate things, and the second is the one people forget. It multiplies Cranny capacity - the small one by 200 across its own village, the large by 100 across the whole account, and the unique by 500 across the account. It also makes enemy catapults choose at random: aimed at resource fields, any field may be hit; aimed at buildings, any building may be hit, the Wonder of the World always included. It has to be active at the moment the battle resolves. Under the small and large versions a Treasury can be picked out like any other target; under the unique one it can only ever be hit by the random roll.

A step pays that much of each of the four resources, plus the hero experience, and the hero's own level adds 2% a level above the first on top of both. A reward can be left unclaimed and taken whenever it suits: claiming it pays no health, but the experience it carries can push the hero up a level, and it is the level-up that restores full health.