The same is true of the other trees. Research, for instance, involves meeting certain requirements and constructing purely decorative buildings to increase your prestige level, which in turn unlocks church upgrades, which permit recruitment of more superior holy men, which are spent on higher-tier research, w🌠hich eventually nets you improved production and bonus victo♍ry points. It’s not so much that there’s a lot involved, but that it takes so long and there are so many ways in which it can silently grind to a halt.

Remain true to your chosen path and you’ll spot the fascinating ways in which balance emerges: donating excess clerics to your castle to raise you🥃r city’s defence r🌊ating, sending expensive traders to distant climes to spend your gold on the resources necessary to speed-build soldiers and prestigious buildings, sacrificing spare troops to a fight against a horde of marauders bothering a neutral observatory to gain mega-bonuses…

Even a single misstep can put enough of your economy out of whack for long enough to cost you the game. In a way, that makes it rather exciting – a true test of will and observational prowess. Oddly, it’s the closest a Settlers g🌸ame 🃏has ever been to The Settlers of Catan, the splendid boardgame the series is often erroneously thought to have been inspired by.