When looking at games, one must look at the limitations the game puts on play. These limitations to advancement could be looked at as Gates. A Gate can be opened to varying degree but even when wide open, it is still constraining what can pass through its opening. Some typical gates include resources such as Logs, Silver, Stone and Provs. The Resource Gate is well known though not as straight forward as in other games. Resource Gates can be covered under other terms. Today we will look at some additional Major Gates (I personally separate Gates into Major and Minor and we will only discuss Major Gates). These may not be Gates that are immediately identifiable as Gates as are resources but limitations to play they are certainly. Interestingly, the three gates below are intertwined.
Gates:
A Clan starts with 1 Tribe. A Tribe can attempt two skills per turn. So, a starting Clan can only gain two levels of skills a turn. With 83+ skills currently in the game and 10 levels of advanceable levels per skill that gives 830+ skill levels to max out every skill in the game. 830 / 2 = 415 turns or 34.5 game years which comes out to 16 real life years if, and only if, every skill attempt was successful. I’m not sure about everyone else but my luck does not hold out for perfect skill successes at 10% chance of success for 16 real life years. So, the question becomes how does a Player ensure that their Clan can advance faster than initially provided for?
The two main ways of gaining more skill levels are to utilize Teachers and to gain more Tribes. Between these two, a Clan can drastically increase their skill attempts each turn at a minor silver cost. Dip 5 and Silver are the key to increase the gaining of Knowledge for your Clan.
Starter clans start with a variable but ever increasing number of people from my experience. This helps to bring them closer to established players. Population is very important. It determines population growth, with growth being a percentage of the current balanced population. It determines the maximum number of research topics a Tribe may attempt each turn.
It determines the amount of Offense / Defense that may be utilized. A unit may utilize 1/3rd of its warriors in a single combat. More Warriors => More combatants and thus more offensive / defensive capabilities.
But just as or even more crucial is that it determines the maximum amount of work that a Clan may perform in a given turn. Your workers are Warriors and Actives. Your non-workers are Inactives. More people => more work => more advancement of the clan in regards to material goods. The output of a single person for a single month/turn is called an AM (Active Month).
Your people grow at a set rate each turn outside of any modifications. This is a set percentage of balanced people. If you don’t understand balanced population in regards to WAI, (Warrior (W), Active (A), Inactive (I)), we can discuss it another time, but suffice to say you want to keep your units having a balanced population among your WAI.
In addition to WAI population types, there are Hirelings, Slaves, Auxiliaries, Locals, Guards, Mercenaries, Militia, Knights, Janissaries, etc. Hirelings are basically Actives which do not grow (increasing your total AM). Slaves are actives which increase independent of passive population growth numbers but require people to keep them in line (overall increasing your total AM). Auxiliaries and Locals come from Local Support Settlements on a yearly basis or by hiring them for silver (increasing your total AM). Guards don’t perform actions but do protect specific locations. Mercenaries don’t perform actions but do perform combat activities. Militia are ‘virtual’ population in that they will not show up on your report but are there to assist in defending your Home City. Knights and Janissaries are specialty Warriors for Cavalry/Infantry purposes and require high upkeep.
Passive Population Growth: Your standard (WAI) population passively grows based upon the lowest of the three types in the unit. It is set at 2% of that number and is divided among the 3 main types with an attempt to balance out straggling numbers first. So, 100 / 100 / 100 population would become 101 / 101 / 100 at the end of the turn. The next turn, it would become 102 / 101 / 101 and so on. 200 / 100 / 100 would become 200 / 101 / 101. Then the next turn 200 / 102 / 102 until 200 / 200 / 200 is reached and then the gain will be even among them.
Modified Passive Growth: TribeNet has many passive population growth modifiers. These increase the base passive growth by a small fraction. You won’t get +1% or anything but it’ll be noticeable turn after turn.
Research: Some research topics such as Sewers, Hospitals, etc give a bonus to the passive population growth. These are typically higher end research topics and can be a bit hard to reach.
Special Hexes: There are several special hexes out there that once their demands are satisfied, will grant the Tribe a passive population growth modifier. Again, it won’t be +1% or anything but it’ll be noticeable. My personal experience is that these special hexes are very valuable and worth some antagonism. Local Meeting House is one name for these special hexes. While not increasing the population, a second type of special hex increases the percentage of warriors that may participate in a given combat.
Auctions – GM: GM Auctions are announced in the TribeNews. They give one player, the highest paying player, a small population boost. We are talking small (a couple of dozen) boost but any boost is needed. Recently (I use this term to mean in the last 2 RL years), the GM has split the auction between Old and New Players so there’s a winner from each group. If you are in the new clan auctions, please bid and try and win. You’ll appreciate the boost in the long run. As an aside, from time to time auctions provide skill increases.
Combat/Raiding: If you win a combat and their unit is large, you’ll gain a good number of slaves. It will be a trade off for the warriors that you lost in the battle. If your goal is to increase your population, this is a gamble so beware.
Fair: During Fair, you can trade desired commodities for Slaves and Hirelings. ASK THE GM for your desired commodities so you can start figuring out how to get these specialty population types. These will help you get additional workers for performing tasks and increases your overall AM. There is Research that increases the amount of Slaves/Hirelings you can gain in a fair. This is called Fair Multiplier.
Local Support Settlements: This is an entire sub-system ruleset involving building and upgrading settlements near your home city and requiring cultural skills. Local Support settlements give you Locals and Auxillaries, which increases your overall AM pool.
Politics / Home City: The Politics path gives you access to yearly increases of your WAI. This is an entire sub-system that will need to be studied. It gives people based upon the size of your controlled territory and specific research topics involving Politics.
Archeology: Archeology draws in people to your Clan by digging up artefacts and basically bribing them to join you. You can gain Warriors and Actives through Archeology. Archeology involves a hard to get to personalized special hex and a bonus element that is able to dig up artefacts and transport it to your home. Once you have enough artefacts, you can turn them in at Fair for more Warriors/Actives. A lot of research exists around Archeology.
Do everything in your power to keep your units balanced and your people reproducing. Its exceptionally hard to get more WAI to get more growth to get more WAI to have a larger production pool of AM. Look into all your options and decide what interests you and go that direction. I recommend Home Cities via Politics and Fair purchases.
How many places you can exploit and defend is directly related to how many units your clan can field. If you want to mine Iron, Coal, Copper, Tin, Zinc, Lead, Diamond, Frankincense, Gold, Silver and Kaolin all at the same time, you need 11 units for the mining. You’d need some units to do the moving. You’d need your tribes stationed somewhere to use a University, etc. You’ll need a lot of units to get stuff done. Caveat: When I originally theorized the three major gates of TribeNet, it was 2017 and the Garrison skill didn’t exist. The Third gate is no longer as narrow as it once was and may eventually make way for a new Third Gate.
Hard Limits (Code): This is truly a hard limit under the current ruleset. This code limits you to 1 Clan, 10 Tribes, 10 Elements per Tribe, 10 fleets per Tribe, 10 Garrisons per Tribe and 10 Couriers per Tribe for a theoretical code limit of 1 * 10 * (1+10+10+10+10) = 410 units on the map. “That’s an insane number, Nich!” you might be saying. It is true, the theory is there. You could be in 1 hex out of every thousand on the map. You and your alliance of 10 people could theoretically have a unit in about 10% of the map. Theory though based upon code limitations is just theory.
Hard Limits (Ruleset): The actual rule set limits you much further. You get 1 Clan per Player* (See Hydra below). Every clan may have a 10 Tribes. Each Tribe may have a maximum of 3 Elements or Fleets (combined limit between the two of them) and 10 Garrisons. That is 110(1+3+10) = 140 maximum units of which 100 of them can’t move. Additionally, every Clan gets a Trade Element and a Bonus Element/Fleet. That brings us to 142. Couriers are limited to 10 per Clan (9 in one Tribe and 1 in another though one tribe needs to have Courier 10 skill). This brings us to 152. And Archeology allows some additional units (I’ll have to recheck this in a bit, it used to be 1 but new memory tells me 2). Which sets your units to 153(154?). Of this 153-154, 101 can’t move. You have to make sure they get to the right spot and are kept equipped. It also takes a LOT of skills to level 10 to make it work.
Ways to increase # of Units:
Hydra: An outdated conceptual experiment in which 3 or more players controlled single tribes in a new Clan requiring them to work together. The experiment did not produce good results and is not currently utilized.