Bakery

Economic

An inconspicuous economic building that is worthwhile wherever you maintain a large permanent garrison - elsewhere it is unnecessary.

Quick overview

Category	Economic
Max level	8
Size	6×9
Priority	Medium priority

The Bakery is an inconspicuous economic building that does not increase production or defense, but instead reduces food consumption for all soldiers you garrison in the castle. When your food balance goes into the negative and every new unit pulls it down even further, this is exactly the building that will help you out. I appreciate it mainly because its benefit grows with the size of the army - the more soldiers you feed, the more it actually saves you. It’s not a building you look forward to, but in the long run, it saves you food and gold that you would otherwise spend on its purchase.

When to build it

Build it when you start maintaining a permanent garrison and food is no longer sufficient. In the very beginning, when you have a few soldiers and are mainly dealing with wood and stone, it doesn’t make sense to allocate space for it - production takes precedence. However, once you are pushing the castle's defense, maintaining large units, or entering war seasons where the army stays in one place for a long time, the Bakery gets a decent priority. It occupies 6×9 tiles, which is quite a lot of space, so think ahead whether you need that space for a resource building.

Is it worth upgrading?

Upgrading is worthwhile, but wisely - a low-level Bakery feeding a large army is wasted potential. If you have it in the castle and maintain a permanent garrison, gradually upgrade it to higher levels (max is 8) to maximize your savings. Conversely, rushing it to the maximum doesn’t make sense until you have enough soldiers for the savings to be noticeable. Keep the level of the Bakery roughly proportional to the size of the army you are actually feeding in the castle.

Pro player tipPrimarily build the Bakery in castles and keeps where you maintain a large permanent defense - there the savings multiply with the number of soldiers and will return to you the fastest. In camps and border outposts, where units only pass through and do not stay long, do not worry about it and leave the space for production. The larger the army you are actually feeding in one place, the sooner the Bakery will pay off and the larger garrison you can maintain with the same food balance.

Common mistakeThe most common mistake is to build the Bakery at a low level, check it off, and never return to it. Then players wonder why their food keeps dropping, even though "they have that building". The second classic mistake is the opposite - cramming it into the castle right at the beginning instead of a production building, where a small garrison would save almost nothing and you would just lack space and resources elsewhere.

Related buildings

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