Training time and building levels
Each level of a Barracks, Stable or Workshop cuts training time by 10%, compounding. Why level 20 is not twice as fast as level 10, and where the Great buildings fit in.
Updated 13 September 2026
Most players know a higher Barracks trains troops faster. Fewer know the shape of the curve, which matters because it decides whether the next upgrade is worth the resources.
The formula
Training time for one unit is:
time = base × 0.9^(level − 1) × artefact × helmet × alliance ÷ serverSpeed
Every term is a multiplier, and they are independent. A 50% artefact and a 20% helmet give 0.5 × 0.8 = 0.4, not some blended figure.
The 0.9^(level − 1) is the part worth internalising. Each level multiplies the remaining time by 0.9, so the savings compound - and shrink in absolute terms as you climb.
What the curve looks like
| Barracks level | Multiplier | Clubswinger (base 12:00) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1.000 | 12:00 |
| 10 | 0.387 | 4:39 |
| 15 | 0.229 | 2:45 |
| 20 | 0.135 | 1:37 |
Going from level 1 to level 10 saves 7 minutes 21 seconds per Clubswinger. Going from 10 to 20 - the same ten levels, at vastly greater cost - saves 3 minutes 2 seconds.
That is the practical lesson. Early Barracks levels are the cheap ones and they buy the most time. The last five levels are a throughput optimisation for an established village, not a way to get an army out of a new one.
Level 0 is not a slow level 1
A building that has not been built produces nothing. Written as a formula this is a real trap: 0.9^(0 − 1) is 1.111, which would suggest a level 0 Barracks trains troops slower than level 1 rather than not at all. If a calculator shows troops flowing from an unbuilt building, that is the bug.
Great buildings
A Great Barracks or Great Stable does not train faster. It trains three times as many units in the same time, at triple the resource cost.
That matters for planning: a Great Barracks is a second, parallel production line on the same unit, not a modifier on the first one. Total output is the sum of the two lines, which is why a level 20 Barracks plus a level 20 Great Barracks gives four times the output of the Barracks alone, not three.
Server speed
Server speed divides the time directly. On a 3× server every training time above is a third of what it says - see Server speed: what changes at 2×, 3× and faster.
Try it
The army calculator applies all of this at once, including both Barracks queues, the Stable, the Workshop and the crop the new troops will eat.