Economy and Income: Staying Solvent and Growing
A strong realm position is not just about having a big army or a wide map presence. It is about running an economy that funds those things without stalling. Your economy is a balance between what flows in each tick and what flows out, and the players who win long realms are usually the ones who keep that balance positive while still pushing forward.
Where your income comes from
Your baseline income is passive production: your Metal Mine, Oil Well, Energy Reactor, and Farm generate resources every tick (workers every 24 ticks). Leveling these structures is the most reliable way to grow income, and because mine and well output is multiplied by worker efficiency, the Farm indirectly boosts your raw materials too.
Two other sources add on top of the baseline:
- Tax income from conquered colonies. When you conquer another colony, you collect a tax in Metal and Oil every tick based on that colony's workers. The conquered player does not lose those resources, the tax is generated on top, so conquest is a genuine income stream rather than a transfer.
- Alliance resource outposts. If your alliance holds resource outposts, every member gains a steady bonus: roughly +5 Metal and +4 Oil per tick per resource outpost, plus a small worker-growth and power boost. These are alliance assets, not something you build alone.
Where your resources go
Spending falls into a few buckets:
- Construction and recruitment. Structures and units are your biggest deliberate outlays.
- Movement and actions. Squad moves cost Oil; scans, spies, and gates cost Energy.
- Army upkeep. Your standing army reduces worker growth (roughly one point of worker growth per 50 soldier value). Outposts, planted agents, and armed heavy weapons each shave off worker growth too. A large military quietly taxes your economy every single tick.
- Recruitment overhead. The more army you already have, the more each new unit costs. Overhead climbs by about 12% for every 100 soldier value you field, with no upper limit. Replacing losses gets more expensive the bigger you are, so a wiped army is a real economic setback, not just a military one.
Staying solvent and growing
The practical rules:
- Keep production ahead of upkeep. If worker growth is being eaten alive by your army and outposts, scale back or level your Farm before expanding further.
- Do not let resources sit at the cap. Capped production is wasted income. Spend it on upgrades that compound.
- Use conquest and alliance assets to break ceilings. Tax income and resource outposts are how strong players fund armies their own structures alone could not sustain.
- Grow your economy before your army. Income compounds; an oversized army that stalls your workers does the opposite.
A colony that out-produces its own upkeep can always rebuild and push again. One that runs its economy into the ground is fragile no matter how big its army looked yesterday.
See also
See Resources for caps and what each resource is spent on, read Workers and Production to understand the upkeep that drains worker growth, and check Conquest for how tax income works.