Storage and Protected Stock

The ceiling

Every city has one store, and all its goods share the same room: wood, stone, marble, iron and grapes are counted together, not one by one. No good has a ceiling of its own. The Warehouse raises that one ceiling.

For example, if your store holds 12,000 units and has 8,000 wood and 3,000 stone in it, 1,000 is free, and it goes to whichever good arrives first. Stone does not have 12,000 of room of its own.

The store limits more than overflowing output; it limits upgrades too: the materials of a level have to fit in it together. A level whose price does not fit the store cannot be taken; the upgrade window says so and asks you to raise your warehouses first. At high levels the room a Warehouse adds grows as fast as the prices of buildings, but a store you have left behind will still stop you. Details: Cost.

You see the same store on the Economy screen and in the Warehouse window: one bar, each good in its own colour, with how full the store is and each good’s hourly production beside it. If you are Pro, the panel that opens when you hover over the figures in the top bar shows every city’s store as a small bar; a city whose store is full has its row turn red.

Protected stock

The Warehouse has a second job: what it protects cannot be plundered. When your city is raided the attacker cannot take everything — only what sits above the protected amount. The same share holds against a pirate raid.

That is the reason to raise a Warehouse for war: it does not reduce your store, it reduces what an enemy can carry off. The protected share grows with the Warehouse's level, and a city that fits a lock to its store enlarges everything it shelters. The lock is paid for once, in Gold from the treasury.

When a delivery hits the ceiling

If a voyage brings you more than you can hold, the surplus is lost: it does not go back and it does not wait anywhere. Check your store before a big shipment arrives.

The same rule applies to cargo from a forward base: goods you ship home from a base store, the raid commission paid to your occupied city, and what passes to your city from the occupier's base store when an occupation ends all go in as far as your store has room. The base store has a capacity of its own too. Activity records how much went in and how much was lost.