Gold

There are at least five methods in Kingdoms of Camelot to add to your gold supply. These methods can be combined in multiple different ways -- one is described below as the "Increase Gold Strategy". The basic methods are

1. Conquering barbarian camps or other players
2. Taxing your population -- increasing the population or the tax rate
3. Winning quests
4. Selling excess supplies on the market
5. Using the "increase gold" option at the castle

Each method's prerequisites and drawbacks are described below.

Methods

Conquering Territory

First is attacking and being victorious or conquering other players or barbarian camps. This requires you to have an army consisting some units depending on the strength of your opponent. You will probably lose some of your troops. If you do not send enough troops, you may lose many of them as well as the battle and not win anything. When you attack another player, there is the additional risk that he or she may strike back and take your supplies. If the other player is a member of an alliance, other members of that alliance may also attack you.

Taxing Population

The second way to gain gold is from taxing your population. Of course the higher your taxes are the less happy your people are. Not only that but as people become less happy they start to move away. Fewer people means fewer taxes. So, the question quickly becomes how much should you tax your people to get as much gold as possible. Additionally, what happens if I need to have a certain number of “idle” workers? After all, you need to have some people left over that you can turn into troops. To start with lets look at the interaction between happiness, population and maximum population. It turns out that the following formula accurately represents this relationship

Pop = (Max population)*(Happiness)/100

so, if for example your maximum population is 5000 and your happiness is at 90. Then your actual population will equal to 4500.

Next we’ll look at the relationship between happiness, tax rate and your tavern level. This is represented accurately with the following equations.

Max Happiness = 100 Happiness

Actual Happiness = Tavern Level + (100 - Tax Rate)

So, if you had a tavern level of 5 you could tax your people a 6% tax and their happiness level would be 99. Any tax of 5% or less would result in a happiness level of 100.

What is the maximum tax rate for money?

well, to start with the money you get is calculated the following way

Money = (Tax Rate) * (Current Population)

Given the equations above the plot for a given tavern level looks like this

Experimentally we discover that to get the maximum money for any given tax rate can be found using the following equation

Optimal Tax Rate = 50 + (Tavern Level) / 2

It should be noted that for every Odd tavern level 2 numbers will result in the same amount of money. However, the lower number is ideal since this will result in more people being in your kingdom.

The number of idle people can found using this calculation Idle Population = (Current Population) – (Work force)

It should be noted that raising your population can be done one of three ways. You can build/upgrade cottages, lower your taxes or increase your tavern level. Their effects are as follows

• For every cottage you build/upgrade you will gain population equal to the increase in your maximum population multiplied by your happiness level divided by 100.
• For every 1% you lower your taxes by, You will gain population equal to 1% of your maximum population
• For every 1 level added to your tavern you will gain population equal to 1% of your maximum population.
• Please note that by maximizing your money output, you will take a large hit at your happiness.

Winning Quests

As you develop your abilities and resources in the game, King Arthur will reward you for completing quests. Some of the rewards will include gold. This is especially useful early in the game when you have many things that need development (city, buildings, fields, might, level). Later in the game it is not sufficient.

Selling Supplies

At various times you may find that you've developed more supplies (e.g., wood) than you need. And you may even hit the capacity limit where your population cannot produce anymore of the supply. You can sell the excess in the market for gold.

Using "Increase Gold"

Another way to gain gold is to use the Increase Gold function found on the Overview page, which is accessed by clicking on your castle from the City view.

Increase Gold does two things:

1. immediately adds 10 gold to your total for each member of your population
2. reduces your current happiness value by 20

Increase Gold may only be used once every 15 minutes.

The happiness will recover back to its stable value over time. It takes 2 hours to recover 20 points of happiness. Your population will drop slightly due to the reduced happiness, but it will also recover over time. In practice, by the time the happiness is back to normal, the population has recovered as well.

Combining the Methods Strategically

By using combinations of the different methods, you can balance the risks and side effects of each method. Keep in mind that the best strategy for a player who has just started may be different than for a player who has been playing awhile and increased other resources (troops, supplies, etc.).

Increase Gold Strategy

Increase Gold is effectively a 1000% tax on your population, usable without any cost every 2 hours when you allow your happiness time to recover. The larger your population, the better this works. This leads to a gold management strategy like this:

• Increase your population by building and upgrading cottages. 8-10 cottages per city is a good target.
• Further increase your population by reducing your tax rate as much as possible. A good target is to collect just enough tax to pay the upkeep on your knights, so your net gold income is positive. In a new city, your tax rate will be at or under 5%.
• Build and upgrade your Tavern to allow you to keep your tax rate higher without reducing your happiness.
• When you need gold, to make a purchase in the market or to pay for research in your Alchemy Lab, go to the castle and use Increase Gold to get the gold that you need.
• Do not keep gold in inventory unless absolutely necessary. Your storehouse will not protect gold from being raided. If other players are attacking your city, they cannot steal gold if you do not have any in inventory. If an attack is coming in, buy some resources from the Market at whatever price is being offered. Better to get something out of your gold than to be guaranteed to lose it in a raid.
• Even if you plan to hoard gold, this strategy is very effective. Just use the Increase Gold function every time that your happiness has recovered. You will collect more gold than with taxes, and you will have a large idle population available for building up your troops.

Example

This player has 3000 might (Level 13 Viscount) and two cities setup using the Increase Gold strategy.

The primary city has 8 level 2 Cottages and 1 level 3 Cottage. It also has a level 1 Tavern.

Happiness is stable at 98. The stable population is 2,940 people.

The tax rate is 3%. The city collects 88 gold/hour in revenue and pays 80 gold/hour in Knights' salaries. The net income is 8 gold/hour.

Increase Gold in this city will collect 29,400 gold when used. The most expensive Research available at his level costs 16,000 gold, so there's plenty of gold available to research anything.

As the city develops, the player will upgrade the cottages to gain even more population, and thus more gold from Increase Gold. Taxes will need to increase to pay for Knights' salaries as they advance in level, but building up the Tavern will be able to keep the net happiness around 98.

Credits

Some of the research above was originally done by Steelowl and has been modified since. See the history of this article for more information about its editors.