WaveCatcher Tutorial

Tribal Economy

A well fed tribe is a happy tribe. Happiness often leads to increased birth rate so the population should start to rise. However, a high population isn't enough to allow your nation to reach its goals. Your people need resources. You can take a look at your adjacent cells for a terrain with good resource production. You can do this by clicking on the cell and again displaying the Terrain Information (like you did when you were first looking for a good cell to settle on). This will show you the Resource Potential graph of the selected terrain. The higher the 'R'(esource) bar graph, the better the mining.

Good mining cell image
Find a good nearby mining cell and claim it for your tribe. This will transfer some of the population from the adjacent cell and settle them in the new terrain. However, you will have to ensure that the new settlers have the right mix of professions for the job. This new terrain will be primarily a production cell, so change any farmers that came along to be miners.

Don't worry about where the food for the new cell will come from. Food and resources are distributed throughout your tribe, so all of the food that is produced in your farmland will help to feed those in your mining fields. Again, remember to keep a few healers around to keep your workers happy.

Now we will look at the relationship between miners and producers. All of the terrain of the Tendril World has a certain amount of mine-able material called Scrap Thorn.

This is the dead organic material from the world core that your miners will harvest and deposit in the global reserve so they can be converted into resource points. That's what producers are for. They will take the raw material from the global reserve and turn it into something useful, namely Resource Points.
Miner and producer images

So the ratio of miners to producers is a tight connection, and is what you will need to work with to put your resource points on the rise. A general rule of thumb is that a single miner can generate enough material for a few producers to use each economic cycle. So generally you should have more producers than miners. However, if you mine more than you can produce, the extra will go into storage which the producers will constantly draw from.

Initially it's a good idea to mine as much as possible to give the producers something to work with. You can check out your raw material stores by clicking the "Global View" button.

This will show you the total amount of raw material you have, how much was mined in the previous turn, and how much was used by producers in the previous turn. If the amount consumed is about the same as the amount mined, you may need to increase your miners to ensure that the producers have enough to work with.

And that's how to start an economy. If, for some reason, your resource points should go negative, don't panic. It is possible to turn your economy around and dig yourself out of the dumps. The best way to do this is by studying your global mining and production numbers to see what the problem is. Chances are you have depleted your global reserves, and need to increase mining.

Sometimes you have plenty of resources in reserve, and simply need to increase the number of producers turning them into RP’s. You can also check your national budget to see where the money is going. Perhaps you are spending too much on settlement costs, and need to re-evaluate the terrain you have selected to work on. Use the Terrain Info Graphs to find less expensive land to farm or mine, or maybe move the terrain-independent professions, such as producers or scientists, to cheaper land. Remember, producers draw from the global reserves, and can set up shop away from the mining camps if need be.

Finally, remember: when you find yourself stuck or unsure about how to improve your nation's situation, you can always ask Nigel Willit for advice. Just click on his icon in the upper left corner of the screen, read the information that he gives you, and you should be able to figure out what to do in no time!

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Now we will look at the relationship between miners and producers. All of the terrain of the Tendril World has a certain amount of mine-able material called Scrap Thorn.
This is the dead organic material from the world core that your miners will harvest and deposit in the global reserve so they can be converted into resource points. That's what producers are for. They will take the raw material from the global reserve and turn it into something useful, namely Resource Points.