Material Acquisition

Material Acquisition covers construction-scale resources in Civilization Crafting.

Use this page when characters gather, salvage, quarry, harvest, transport, stockpile, raid, protect, or spend construction materials.

Rules for assigning workers to these tasks are found in Labor Management. Rules for spending these materials on bases and settlements are found in Bastions and Strongholds.

Core Concept¶

Gold does not build Bastions or Strongholds by itself.

Materials must physically exist, be gathered, be transported, and be protected.

A pile of stone in a ruined fortress does not help the party unless someone recovers it. A stack of lumber in a forest hex does not help the party unless someone cuts it, hauls it, and brings it to a usable stockpile.

Material Units¶

To keep construction playable, large-scale building materials are measured in Material Units.

1 Material Unit (MU) = roughly 1,000 pounds of usable material.

A Material Unit is not raw wilderness mass. It represents usable, recoverable, transportable construction material.

Examples include:

cut lumber;
dressed stone;
salvaged masonry;
workable scrap iron;
beams, planks, blocks, fittings, nails, hinges, braces, and other construction supplies.

Core Construction Materials¶

Civilization Crafting tracks three default construction materials.

Wood represents lumber, beams, planks, scaffolding, doors, furniture, framing, poles, stakes, carts, platforms, docks, and other timber construction.
Stone represents masonry, blocks, rubble, dressed stone, foundations, walls, towers, roads, arches, floors, and heavy structural work.
Iron represents metalwork, nails, braces, hinges, gates, bands, locks, tools, fittings, reinforcements, weapons racks, portcullises, chains, and structural hardware.

Other materials may matter for specific projects, but Wood, Stone, and Iron are the default construction resources.

Gold Conversion Reference¶

Gold values are used only as a reference when converting existing costs into construction materials.

1 GP ≈	Amount
Wood	30 lb
Stone	15 lb
Iron	10 lb

This is not a shopping rule.

In a ruined, isolated, or moneyless campaign, the party is usually not spending coin to buy a Bastion. They are using these values to estimate how much usable material a project consumes.

Common Material Sources¶

Source	Typical Yield
Forest hex	5–10 MU Wood
Ruins, small	3–8 MU Stone, 1–2 MU Iron
Fortress ruins	10–25 MU mixed materials
Quarry	8–15 MU Stone
Salvaged city	Jackpot, DM discretion

These yields are guidelines. The DM may adjust them based on danger, access, quality, available labor, tools, weather, distance, ownership, and how much of the site the party is willing to strip.

Gathering and Salvage¶

Harvesting Wood¶

Wood is usually gathered from forests, old structures, wrecks, abandoned camps, siege debris, shipwrecks, palisades, docks, or fallen timber.

Harvesting wood usually requires laborers and basic tools. Skilled carpenters, woodcutters, shipwrights, or foresters may improve quality, reduce waste, or identify better sources.

Quarrying Stone¶

Stone is usually gathered from quarries, ruins, cliffs, collapsed fortifications, caves, mountain cuts, roads, walls, or abandoned structures.

Quarrying stone requires labor, tools, and transport. Skilled masons or engineers may be required when the stone must be dressed, shaped, stabilized, or safely removed from a dangerous structure.

Salvaging Iron¶

Iron is usually recovered from ruins, gates, weapons, armor, tools, chains, hinges, braces, nails, siege equipment, carts, machinery, wrecked ships, forges, workshops, or fortifications.

Salvaging iron often requires more care than gathering wood or stone. Skilled smiths, tinkers, engineers, or metalworkers may be needed to identify usable scrap and prevent waste.

Stockpiles¶

Materials must be stockpiled before they can be spent.

A stockpile is a known physical place where usable materials are stored.

Examples include:

a ship hold;
a warehouse;
a Bastion storage yard;
a quarry camp;
a fortified ruin;
a covered lumber stack;
a stronghold depot;
a guarded supply beach.

A stockpile must be accessible to the project using it. Materials stored far away must still be transported before they count.

Transport¶

Transport matters.

1 wagon carries roughly 1 MU.
Ships can carry large amounts of material and are often the party’s greatest logistical advantage.
Materials must be moved to the Bastion, Stronghold, or construction site before they can be spent there.

The DM may adjust transport capacity for terrain, roads, draft animals, weather, ship size, crew size, magical assistance, or enemy pressure.

Supply Lines¶

A supply line is the route by which materials move from source to stockpile or from stockpile to construction site.

Supply lines can be:

roads;
rivers;
wagon routes;
ship routes;
mule trails;
tunnels;
teleportation circles;
secured wilderness paths;
guarded ruin corridors.

A supply line does not need to be safe, but unsafe supply lines create risk.

Your Ship¶

In this campaign, the ship is more than transportation.

Your ship is:

a mobile base of operations;
a logistics hub;
a transport vessel for Material Units;
a defensible stockpile;
a way to move workers;
and a narrative anchor for your faction.

A ship can let the party salvage, transport, and redeploy materials faster than a purely land-based group.

That advantage matters.

Risks and Consequences¶

Material Acquisition is a living system.

Stockpiles can be raided.
Caravans can be attacked.
Ships can be ambushed.
Ruins can collapse.
Workers can be lost.
Materials can be stolen, burned, spoiled, buried, or claimed by someone else.
Leaving supplies undefended invites problems.

The party may assign workers to defend stockpiles and supply lines using Labor Management.

Player Decisions¶

When managing materials, the party must decide:

Do we gather or build?
Do we transport now or risk stockpiling at the source?
Do we guard the supply line or accept danger?
Do we salvage deeply or move quickly?
Do we spend materials on expansion, defense, repairs, or population support?
Do we use the ship for logistics or keep it free for adventuring?

Final Rule¶

Materials are not numbers floating in the air.

If you want to build with them, they must be found, claimed, moved, stored, and defended.