Building, Mana Shortages and Decay

Building and training work the same way in Kingdoms: a Barracks training an Archer follows the same rules as a Mage Builder raising a wall. When mana runs short, Kingdoms slows every job down by the same share instead of stopping them, so the store never goes below zero.

The Cost of a Job

A builder adds its build power to the job every second, a thirtieth of it every tick. The job takes the unit's build time divided by the build power, in seconds, and its cost is drawn evenly over that time:

mana per second = build power × cost ÷ build time

Several builders on one job add their build power, with no limit on how many can help.

When Mana Runs Short

Each tick, the game compares the mana in your store with what all your builders together want to spend in that tick. If the store holds less, every builder works at the same reduced share:

share = mana in store ÷ mana wanted this tick

A builder at 75% does 75% of its normal work and pays 75% of its normal cost. No builder is given priority, none stops completely, and no builder can take more mana than is left in the store, so the store never goes below zero. This is the slowdown the manual warns about when your stores run empty.

Abandoned Buildings Return Their Mana

When no builder is working on an unfinished building, it comes apart at 0.5 build points a tick, 15 a second. As it shrinks, the mana that was spent on it comes back to your store at the rate it was paid in. When nothing is left, the frame disappears without a wreck. Almost all of the mana returns; only the share of the very last tick is lost.

Unlike Total Annihilation, Kingdoms gives nothing for reclaiming. A builder ordered to reclaim a wreck, a tree or a rock clears it away, but no mana comes back. Abandoned buildings are the only way to get mana back.

Worked Example: Training With Too Little Mana

An Aramon Barracks trains an Archer, whose build time is 125 and cost 325. With a build power of 10, it takes 12.5 seconds and draws 26 mana a second.

Your store is empty, and your income is 20 a second, from Elsin and a Lodestone on a 1.0 stone. Each tick, 0.67 mana arrives and the Barracks wants 0.87. It works at 20 ÷ 26 = 77% of its normal speed and uses all of the income as it arrives. The Archer takes 16.25 seconds instead of 12.5, and the store stays at zero without going below it.

Worked Example: An Abandoned Barracks

A Mage Builder leaves a Barracks half built. The Barracks has a build time of 600 and costs 1955 mana, so 300 build points of work and 977.5 mana have gone into it. It takes 300 ÷ 15 = 20 seconds to come apart, and nearly all of the 977.5 mana returns to your store as it does.

In Total Annihilation, the same abandoned building would return only its metal, and its energy would be lost (see unfinished buildings).