Dawn of Fantasy/Vassal Interface

Vassal and City Interface:

 * In Kingdom Wars you will encounter several types of NPC (the Computer) controlled cities. These may include:
 * Trade Partners where you have a diplomacy greater than 2. These cities will allow you to utlize city services (such as markets for mercenaries, resources, healing and training).
 * Allies where you have a diplomacy greater than 4. These cities will perform the above services at a discount.
 * Vassals where you have subjugated the population and have additional options to manage resources and recruit units.
 * Neutral Cities where you can not utilize city services.
 * Cities at War with you where you also can not utilize city services.
 * The difference between these cities can be controlled by the player presenting gifts of 2500 gold to raise your diplomacy level by 1.
 * It is a good idea to make the closest city to your home an ally. This will likely be where you do most of your resource trading and unit training.
 * Depending on where you conduct most of your war operations, it may also be beneficial to have an ally near by as well.

City Management

 * You can enter city management by having an army located on the city or by selecting a vassal city.

Manage Economy

 * This city service deserves its own section.
 * Once a city has become a Vassal you unlock:
 * The previously mentioned Recruit Units.
 * A once a day Crown Tribute (at the same time as your daily reward).
 * Trickle Resource Generation in the form of trade routes.
 * A 60 unit cap Encampment that you can also use as a resource work camp.
 * Here you can see all the sources of resource generation for your Vassal.
 * Where there may be several sources (such as workers and mauraders for food) you may see a ? that you can hover over for more information.
 * You can asign any gatherer units to what they can gather here.
 * Each town has a natural trickle baseline displayed.
 * Any livestock that contributes trickle is displayed.
 * And finally, those trade route trickles are displayed.

Trading

 * Our trade routes can be a bit confusing at first, but get really simple very quickly.
 * Each route sells resources your city creates (-) and buys other resources to bring back {+}.
 * Some routes can bring in more resources than they sell.
 * Others may break even; essentially converting your resources.
 * You may have 3 routes; each can have 3 levels of trade (1x, 2x, 3x).

Optimizing your Economy

 * There are a few thoughts for optimizing your economy; and it all starts with trade:
 * First, we know from above that our towns can typically convert between resources at a very favourable rate (92% in the example).
 * With this in mind, we don't care what we trade, only how much we get from that.
 * You'll select level x3 for the 3 routes that give you the highest amount of any single resource.
 * When there is a tie, gold is more efficient for resource conversion and should be prioritized.
 * After establishing your trade, you'll likely see some negative numbers such as the food loss on the screen shot.
 * On your Manage Economy page (not on the Trade, it is ok there) you'll correct any negatives.
 * Keep in mind our town here has a base resource generation that actually covers our trade deficit.
 * If it did not, you would need to assign workers until the gap is made up; otherwise your trade income will be lower (can't trade what you don't have).
 * Keep a balance of Gold and Goods!
 * To minimize the number of times you need to do something about your vassals, your gold income should equal the total goods income. In this way they fill at the same rate and need to be dealt with at the same time.
 * Your balance of Food/Stone/Wood does not really matter (I try to keep them equal to each other). This is because most of the time you'll be converting everything into one or two resources and sending it back to your city to make up for whatever you are spending the most on recently.

Transporting your Resources Home

 * The most efficient way to transport resources is to load up an army and bring it all back with you.
 * The second method is to utilize the Send interface.
 * This commands a 20% tax. If you send 1,000 gold home, 800 will make it into your treasury.
 * With an optimal economy from above, you'll have plenty of time before your vassals become full.
 * Time is money though, and even with the 20% hit, and the 90%ish conversion losses, you are likely still doing better than using your home market.
 * Another thing to note; Vassals make great loot drop points as well.
 * Your Army can move to a Vassal; use the reduced price healing / levelling / recruiting prices; and then have everything left over shipped back home.