Kingdom's Resources

= Kingdom's Resources =
There are six resources of a kingdom: gold, commerce, books, faith, food and levies. They are shown in the top-right side of Main HUD and hovering the mouse over them shows tooltips with additional information and breakdowns. Furthermore, clicking on the gold resource opens the royal treasury, where details about income and expenses can be seen, and clicking on either the books or piety resource ____ . Buildings, upgrades, knights, skills, traditions, armies and others require spending resources to be acquired.
Resources have a current amount and, besides commerce and food, an income rate (how fast they are produced). In some cases these values can be negative, which means the current amount will decrease, instead of increase, over time. Some resources have limited capacity, which cannot be exceeded by the current amount. 
== Gold ==
Among all resources of a kingdom, gold is the most important one, needed for practically everything; buildings and upgrades, action cost and their upkeep, army recruitment, knight wages and hiring, skills and traditions, etc. Gold amount and income/expense balance are indicated in the top-right side of Main HUD and clicking it opens the Royal Treasury, where details about income and expenses can be seen.
There are may ways to earn gold, but the most common are income from royal lands (full income of all governed provinces), provinces (small percentage of the income of ungoverned provinces), as well as income from merchants and trade centers. Crown authority, religion and corruption modify the total of your income, positively or negatively, and so do tributes to a sovereign, if you are someone's vassal, as a percentage of it is paid (listed in the expenses section).
Province income comes from its settlements, buildings and upgrades and traditions, as well as governor bonuses, depending on their class and skills. These often work in combination, so it is important to set the proper governor in the proper province and learn suitable skills. It is important for players to watch their upkeeps - paying the wages of many knights of the same class is really costly. Some actions also have significant upkeep cost. Inflation can be rather significant and the more gold you have in your treasury, relative to your gold income/expenses balance, the higher inflation will be, so it is avoidable by not stockpiling too much gold.
Only constant income sources and expenses are listed in the royal treasury. All the others, related to specific actions, events and outcomes, are only mentioned in other ways, e.g. the prices of actions and buildings are shown in their tooltips. Gold received from event or diplomacy are shown in the corresponding messages. 
== Books ==
Books represent the knowledge, wisdom and education in a kingdom. Their amount and production are indicated in the top-right side of Main HUD, and clicking on them opens the Religion and Culture window, where more details on the kingdom's books and religion can be seen. 
Royal lands provide significantly more books than ungoverned provinces. Things that contribute are settlements, buildings and upgrades and traditions, as well as governor bonuses, depending on their class and skills. These often work in combination, so it is important to set the proper governor in the proper province and learn suitable skills. Merchants provide the highest commerce production bonuses.
There are additional ways to gain books, like Learning/Studying with a pagan Shaman, sending a christian Cleric on a mission, or making a journey with a muslim Scholar. 
As governors, clerics provide the highest book production bonuses and buildings and upgrades in the religious district contribute most, often based on the religious settlement count in the province. Cardinals and Patriarchs have even higher bonuses. Books are mainly used for learning new skills and adopting new traditions, but rarely for buildings and upgrades as well. Once the kingdom's book capacity is reached, instead of book production, gold income is increased a little.
== Faith / Piety / Tradition ==
Faith (piety/tradition) represents the power of religious leaders and institutions in a kingdom. Its amount and production are indicated in the top-right side of Main HUD, and clicking on it opens the Religion and Culture window, where more details on the kingdom's books and religion can be seen. This includes the kingdom's current religion, culture, current piety and piety income, current books and books income, cultural power and influence, as well as the effects of the current religion on the kingdom and the current leader of the religion, if applicable. 
Royal lands provide significantly more piety than ungoverned provinces. Things that contribute are settlements, buildings and upgrades and traditions, as well as governor bonuses, depending on their class and skills. These often work in combination, so it is important to set the proper governor in the proper province and learn suitable skills. 
There are additional ways to gain books, like sending a christian Cleric on a mission, or making a journey with a muslim Scholar. As governors, clerics provide the highest piety production bonuses and buildings and upgrades in the religious district contribute most, often based on the religious settlement count in the province.
Faith is used for increasing Crown authority, most cleric actions and, sometimes, for buildings and upgrades. There are several ways to have part of the faith produced converted into books. Once the kingdom's faith capacity is reached, instead of faith production, gold income is increased a little. 
== Commerce ==
Commerce represents the trade potential of a kingdom and is used in merchant actions. It is indicated in the top-right side of Main HUD - total commerce and how much of it is used. This resource is not "produced" or "spent", but instead a kingdom has commercial potential, which can be "allocated" for different ongoing trade actions.
Royal lands provide significantly more commerce than ungoverned provinces. Things that contribute are settlements, buildings and upgrades and traditions, as well as governor bonuses, depending on their class and skills. These often work in combination, so it is important to set the proper governor in the proper province and learn suitable skills. Merchants provide the highest commerce production bonuses.
By far the most commerce is required for maintaining large scale trade (e.g. large, exclusive, imperial), as well as trade expeditions and imports of goods. There is no benefit from unused commerce, but some opportunities for merchants - like import and export of food or expanding trade - will arise only if you have enough commerce to upkeep that trade action. 
== Food ==
Food production mainly represents the food available for the army. The top-right side of the Main HUD indicates the difference between production and demand of food. If it is negative, army opinion, stability and growth rate decline. Exess positive food provides no benefits, though. 
Royal lands provide significantly more food than ungoverned provinces. Things that contribute are settlements, buildings and upgrades and traditions, as well as governor bonuses, depending on their class and skills. These often work in combination, so it is important to set the proper governor in the proper province and learn suitable skills. The farming district and sea shore district, as well as some buildings like Irrigation, stockfarming-related ones and others can provide a lot of food.
Each army squad a kingdom possesses require some food upkeep, as well as the additional troops in armies. Thus, the amount of available food restricts the army size of a kingdom, though in dire situations, having negative food is a lesser evil than having a small army. Garrison units are supplied by local food production. This makes a lot of difference in ungoverned provinces: Squads there consume the province's food, which barely contributes to the kingdom's food, so recruiting and keeping garrison squads outside of royal lands has almost no effect in the kingdom's food.
Local food production and food storage play different, yet important, roles in recruiting and supplying armies, population growth rate and siege defense. 
== Levies ==
Kingdom levies represent the level of training and preparation of men to join a kingdom's army as regular soldiers. Currently prepared levies and the speed of training new ones is indicated in the top-right side of the Main HUD.
Royal lands provide significantly more levies than ungoverned provinces. Things that contribute are settlements (mainly villages and castles), buildings and upgrades and traditions, as well as governor bonuses, depending on their class and skills. These often work in combination, so it is important to set the proper governor in the proper province and learn suitable skills. The military district can ensure the fastest levy training, Village militia can also play a significant role. Once the kingdom's levy capacity is reached, instead of levy production, gold income is increased a little.
Recruiting almost any army squad type, besides peasants and militia, requires some levies and the more professional the soldiers are, the higher the cost. Providing additional troops also requires a lot of levies.
== Crown Authority ==
Crown authority represents the respect the population - from simple commoners to respected noblemen - have towards their rulers. It is indicated with a progress bar (ranging from -5 to 5) in the top-left side of the Main HUD. Depending on its value, crown authority affects a few important factors like income from taxes, espionage defense, and kingdom stability positively or negatively. A kingdom with low crown authority is highly susceptible to external interventions and disorder and rebellions in its provinces can be expected.
The most common way to increase crown authority is by spending gold and faith (simply by clicking the crown authority icon), but the cost scales up with the current value of the authority, as well as with the kingdom's size. There are other ways to increase it like gaining a vassal, claiming caliphate, executing a rebel, etc. The events and actions that can lead to a crown authority loss are much more numerous though; losing wars, rebellions making advancements, dishonouring pacts, dynasty changes, executing foreign knights during peace time and many others... Chaos can easily reign in kingdoms ruled in a reckless manner. 
== Opinions ==
Opinions show the satisfaction of the different social groups and their attitude towards the rulers of a kingdom. These vary between -10 and +10 and are indicated in the top-left side of the Main HUD (below the Crown Authority scale). They provide different bonuses and penalties, depending on their value and type. Many of them affect Kingdom Stability. The actions and events that change opinions are also unique to every group. Effects and changes additionally vary, depending on the religion of a kingdom.
Things that can lower opinions are generally more common than those that increase it. Though Diplomats can be really helpful in improving opinions, it is still a slow process and avoiding drops when possible is often the best strategy. 
Below are the different groups and the effects their opinions have, depending on value, listed as (effect at -5) / (effect at +5) opinion
=== Nobility ===
* +100 / -50 Crown Authority increase cost
* -50 / +100 Cost of bribing our knights
* -15 / +15 Espionage defense
* -20 / +20 Influence
* -10 / 0 Stability
=== Army ===
* -5 / +5 Army morale
* +20 / -20 Strength of enemy "Army revolt" plots
* +50 / -25 gold cost for hiring squads
* +50 / -20 Hire cost and upkeep for Mercenaries
* -10 / 0 Stability
=== Merchants ===
* -50 / +20 gold Merchant trade income
* -50 / +20 More profit from colonies
* +20 / 0 Corruption
* -5 / +5 Espionage defense
* -20 / +10 Influence
=== Clergy ===
* 0 / +10 Piety income
* 0 / +5 Books per Cleric
* -25 / +25 Cultural Power
* -3 / +3 Army morale
* +100 / - 50 chance for Heresy to spread
* +100 / -50 cost for Autocephaly 
* -15 / 0 Stability 
=== Peasentry ===
* -10 / +5 Stability
* -25 / +25 food production in all provinces
* -5 / +5 morale of peasants and militia squads 
* -20 / +20 Population growth in all provinces
== Kingdom Stability ==
Kingdom's stability represents the global problems and advantages throughout the kingdom. It is added to the local stability of each province and the resulting value defines defines whether the rebellious population there will increase or decrease. If kingdom happiness is positive, it can mitigate some negative stability. If it is negative, it is added to the stability, thus worsening the problems that might arise in a kingdom. Crown authority also modifies stability, besides adding or subtracting a value to it, thus low crown authority often leads to problems. Some other factors that affect a kingdom's stability are opinions, traditions, hunger, death of a king, war exhaustion, rebellions, etc. 
One direct way to tackle low stability is by using a Cleric with the Charity skill, since they can "Commit the Charity" and thus increase stability. 
== Espionage defense ==
Espionage defense helps against all foreign spy actions within a kingdom by reducing their chance of success. It is gained primarily by spy skills and traditions, and can be further increased or decreased, depending on the nobility opinion. 
= Province Resources =
The province selection panel in the bottom-middle part of the Main HUD shows all resources produced in the province, including the province's contribution to the kingdom resources, but also the resources that are specific to the town. 
== Workers ==
The total population (workers) of a province is indicated above its town as well as in the province selection panel. Hovering over the population icon in the province selection panel shows the province's loyalty and culture. Each population slot can have one of three states: standard worker, empty or rebellious population.
=== Types of population ===
Standard workers can be used for troop recruitment and contributes a little to the province income (0.5 gold income per worker), as well as the town's defense (villager squads are formed to help the other defenders). 
Empty slots mean that some people were recently recruited to the army and are not available for other purposes, until the population "recovers". 
Rebellious population represent those highly dissatisfied with the conditions in the province or kingdom when you have low local or global stability. They cannot be recruited and, the more of them there are, the likelier it is for problems to arise in the province. 
=== Growth rate ===
Indicates how quickly the population grows, further modified by food production in the province and food sufficiency in the kingdom. 
=== Production ===
Determines the speed of constructing buildings, upgrading/repairing fortifications and pillaged settlement recovery. 
== Local Stability ==
A province's Stability indicates various factors which add tension within the province. Low stability might lead to some of the province's population becoming rebellious, while positive local happiness reduces the likelihood of this happening. The province stability is modified based on the Kingdom's stability. 
== Siege Defense ==
The siege defense of a town adds significant bonuses to defending troops, and also slows down the drop in their resilience. It also dictates the durability of the town fortifications (walls, towers and gates) in battle view. The Siege defense increases the manpower of all town defenders, including garrison troops, town guards and peasant/militia squads.
== Stored food ==
Local food reserves are used to replenish the supplies of stationed armies. They also play an important role during siege battles, leading in some penalties for defenders when fully depleted. 
== Town defenders ==
The amount of troops stationed behind the town's walls. A town's garrison, its town guards and the province's population all participate in the defense of the town.