Starvation: which troops die first

Every troop eats crop from the granary of the village feeding it, and so does the village's population. When the granary is empty and production is below what is eaten, troops start to die. Buildings never starve - but a village short of crop cannot start building either.

The four groups

Troops starve group by group. The next group only starts once the one before it is gone, or once the village can feed what is left.

1. Reinforcements from other players.
2. The owner's own troops reinforcing somewhere else.
3. Troops at home.
4. Troops marching, troops being forwarded, and troops caught in traps.

Troops standing in an oasis the village owns count as at home: its own troops there starve in group 3, not group 1.

The order inside a group

• Each army - one row in the Rally Point, such as one reinforcement or one outgoing attack - is treated separately, and the army with the most units starves first.
• Armies of equal size take turns, one unit each.
• Inside an army, the unit type with the most units goes first; on a tie, the leftmost.

Two reinforcing armies, one of 6,000 clubs, 3,000 horses and 1,000 catapults, the other of 1,000 clubs and 8,000 horses: the first loses 1,000 clubs to come level at 9,000, and from then on the two take turns.

Crop coming back

Every unit that dies - in battle or of hunger - returns its training cost in crop to the granary: 30 for a Legionnaire, 90 for a Trebuchet. It feeds the rest for a while, but rarely long enough to stop it.

A hidden trap: the hero

When a capital's troops evade an attack and the hero is set to hide, the troops leave and the hero stays - alone, and first in line if there is no crop. Its own 6 crop an hour goes into the village's pool, not to itself. Letting the hero evade with the troops avoids it.

Free crop and building

A village's free crop is its crop production minus its population. It counts oases, the Grain Mill and the Bakery, but not the hero's production or a production bonus. A construction that would take free crop below 1 cannot start, with these exceptions:

• A cropland can always be upgraded.
• A Grain Mill or Bakery can be built or upgraded if it raises free crop - and cannot be demolished if that would take free crop below 1.
• A Main Building at level 1 can always be built.
• With base crop production of 276 an hour or more, the Main Building, Warehouse and Granary can go to level 10 regardless.

A truce stops starvation for its length and the 24 hours after. Otherwise the fix is production, fewer mouths, or crop sent in - and a village that feeds reinforcements is feeding someone else's army. For the upkeep side of an army, see Training time and building levels and the army calculator.