Almost everything in Anvil Empires is made by a player. Weapons, armour, food, structures, and siege engines all start as raw materials gathered from the world, processed through workshops, and assembled into finished items. The game ships with around a hundred and fifty distinct resources spread across nine categories, plus the ingot tier system that drives gear progression.
Resource Categories
Category | Examples | Use |
|---|---|---|
Raw natural | Branch piles, berry bushes, flint, clay, stone chunks | Starter tier; gathered with bare hands or basic tools. |
Wood | Mireland Beech, Briar Spruce, North Astrian Pine | Trees yield logs that become planks and reinforced planks. |
Mineral | Iron ore, coal, cassiterite, lead | Smelted into ingots at a Furnace. |
Animal products | Bones, fat, meats, pelts, sinew, feathers, eggs | Hunting and fishing yield; feed cooking and leather processing. |
Crops | Wheat, cabbage, flax | Farmable; each yields seeds for replanting plus a primary product such as flour or fiber. |
Smithing components | Bronze armour plating, blade types | Intermediate parts for the Forge. |
Processed materials | Ingots, planks, leather, linen, stone bricks, mortar | Output of workshops, fed into structures and gear. |
Munitions | Arrows, scorpion arrows, catapult boulders | Ammunition for combat and siege. |
Currency | Silver | Earned via the bounty system and trade; spent at town vendors. |
Ingot Tier System
Smelting raw ore at a Furnace yields one of four ingot tiers, which form the backbone of weapon and armour progression. Higher ingot tiers consistently outperform lower ones for the same item type.
Tier | Source | Typical Use |
|---|---|---|
Iron | Iron ore | Standard mid-tier weapons and armour: Iron Sword, Iron Shield, Iron Mace. |
Bronze | Bronze alloy from cassiterite and copper-bearing ore | Early to mid-tier kit: Bronze Sword, Bronze Knife, Bronze Axe. |
Lead | Lead ore | Specialised use; trade resource and component material. |
Steel | Higher-tier processing | Top-tier weapon and armour material in the current build. |
Workshops
Forge: Turns ingots and components into weapons, armour pieces, and tools.
Furnace: Smelts ore into ingots and processes specific raw inputs into refined materials.
Grain Mill: Processes wheat into flour and seeds into animal feed; can be operated manually or driven by a Hand Crank Adapter.
Tilled Field: The base unit of Farming production; planted with seeds for wheat, cabbage, or flax.
Hearth, Oven, Pantry: Cooking stations that turn raw food into cooked meals and store them for the household.
Repair Bench: Maintains tools and equipment in the field.
From Wilderness to Front Line
A typical production chain in a faction looks like this: a homestead farmer plants Tilled Fields with wheat and flax; a hunter brings in deer meat and pelts; a miner extracts iron ore and clay; ingredients flow into a town Furnace and Grain Mill; ingots feed the Forge for arms and armour; cooked meals stack in the Pantry; and a caravan packs barrels of bread, arrows, and ingots and takes them out to the supply camps. Players are free to specialise in any link of the chain; almost no one does the whole loop alone.