Strongholds

Strongholds are settlement-scale or faction-scale holdings in Civilization Crafting.

A Stronghold is not a single building. It is everything the characters construct, everyone they support, and every resource they control.

For construction-scale materials, see Material Acquisition. For workers and project assignment, see Labor Management. For character-scale bases, see Bastions.

What This Is

Your Stronghold is not a single building.

It is:

• everything you construct;
• everyone you support;
• every resource you control;
• every structure you maintain;
• every facility you staff;
• and every supply line you depend on.

You are rebuilding civilization.

Act accordingly.

Strongholds vs Bastions

Stronghold

A Stronghold is:

• your home;
• your population center;
• a faction base;
• a long-term settlement project;
• capable of unlimited growth, materials permitting;
• governed by Structures, Population Capacity, and Room Points;
• too large to require room-by-room mapping in most cases.

Bastion

A Bastion is:

• a smaller outpost;
• character-facing;
• level-based;
• faster to build;
• mapped in room-by-room detail;
• used for expansion, control, and personal facilities.

See Bastions.

Building Settlements

A settlement is built by placing Strongholds near one another and connecting them with infrastructure.

A village, town, fortress-town, port, temple district, guild quarter, castle ward, or city does not need a separate construction system at first.

To build a larger settlement:

1. Build one Stronghold.
2. Build another Stronghold nearby.
3. Connect them with roads, docks, walls, supply lines, patrol routes, markets, or civic infrastructure.
4. Repeat.

Each Stronghold keeps its own Structures, Population Capacity, Room Points, facilities, workforce needs, stockpiles, risks, and defenses.

The settlement is the relationship between them.

A city is not one project.

A city is what happens when many Strongholds become mutually dependent.

Materials

Strongholds use Material Units from Material Acquisition.

The default construction materials are:

• Wood;
• Stone;
• Iron.

Materials must be gathered, transported, stockpiled, and available at the construction site before they can be used.

Building Structures

Strongholds are built from Structures.

Each Structure:

• costs materials;
• takes time;
• provides population capacity;
• provides Room Points;
• may require workers;
• may require skilled hirelings;
• may create new risks or obligations.

Default Structure Facilities

Each Stronghold Structure includes the Basic Facilities required for that structure to function.

These default facilities are already included in the Structure's material cost, construction time, and population capacity. They do not cost Room Points and do not provide Bastion orders.

Room Points represent expansion capacity: additional Special Facilities, upgraded institutional rooms, or named functional spaces added beyond the structure's default form.

Strongholds do not require the same room-by-room maps as Bastions. They are often too large, too layered, or too settlement-like for that to be useful. Instead, a Stronghold should have a clear plan at the level needed for play: major structures, entrances, defenses, important facilities, stockpiles, roads, docks, yards, and other spaces likely to matter.

When a default facility matters during play, the DM may ask where it is located, how it is protected, what it connects to, or how it fits into the larger Stronghold. The answer does not need to be a full architectural map, but it does need to make sense.

Default Basic Facilities explain how the structure supports its listed population and purpose. Room Points explain how much extra institutional capacity remains for expansion.

Individual Structures

Individual Structures are small settlement buildings that support households, trades, local services, or very small institutions.

They are not Bastions and do not grant Bastion orders, level-based facilities, or character-specific Bastion benefits. They are ordinary settlement structures that physically exist on the map and may later be grouped into a larger Stronghold, district, street, hamlet, or settlement.

Individual Structures usually do not provide Room Points by themselves. They may provide a small Population Cap when used for housing.

Single-Family Home

• 45 MU Wood
• 23 MU Stone
• 15 MU Iron
• 30 days

Provides:

• Population Cap: 5
• Room Points: 0

A Single-Family Home supports one household, small family unit, or equivalent resident group. It provides ordinary shelter, cooking, storage, and domestic space, but does not support settlement-scale commerce or specialized production by itself.

Default facilities include:

Default Facility	Size	Function
Bedroom / Sleeping Quarters	Roomy	Household sleeping space, including beds, pallets, loft space, or a small family room.
Kitchen / Living Room	Roomy	Cooking, eating, warmth, daily life, and household gathering.
Storage	Cramped	Food, tools, clothing, firewood, household goods, and personal supplies.
Latrine / Washroom	Cramped	Basic sanitation and daily washing.
Yard / Garden Plot	Cramped	Small outdoor work area, kitchen garden, firewood stack, animals, laundry, or repairs.

Skilled Trades House

• 105 MU Wood
• 53 MU Stone
• 35 MU Iron
• 45 days

Provides:

• Population Cap: 8
• Room Points: 0

A Skilled Trades House supports a household-scale trade business where skilled workers live and work in the same building. The front may serve as a shop, the side or rear as a workshop, the upper floor or attached rooms as living space, and the cellar, shed, or back room as storage.

Examples include a tailor’s house, smith-house, carpenter’s house, cobbler’s house, apothecary, baker’s house, scribe’s shop, potter’s house, weaver’s house, or similar mixed-use artisan building.

Default facilities include:

Default Facility	Size	Function
Bedroom / Sleeping Quarters	Cramped	Household sleeping space, loft beds, upstairs room, or attached private quarters.
Kitchen / Living Room	Roomy	Cooking, eating, warmth, household life, and apprentice or family gathering space.
Workshop	Roomy	Primary skilled trade workspace, tools, benches, forge, loom, cutting table, oven, wheel, or other trade equipment.
Storehouse / Shop	Roomy	Front shop, customer space, finished goods, raw materials, records, locked storage, and trade supplies.
Latrine / Washroom	Cramped	Sanitation and daily washing for residents, apprentices, and workers.
Yard / Work Area	Cramped	Deliveries, drying, scrap, fuel, refuse, small repairs, animals, carts, or outdoor work.

Trade Variant Rule:

A Skilled Trades House may be reskinned as any household-scale trade, production, repair, or service structure. Keep the same cost and construction time unless the variant is unusually large, unusually fortified, magically specialized, or infrastructure-heavy. Swap the default facilities to match the trade.

Skilled Trades House Variant: Sawmill

• 105 MU Wood
• 53 MU Stone
• 35 MU Iron
• 45 days

Provides:

• Population Cap: 0–3
• Room Points: 0

A sawmill is a Skilled Trades House variant focused on timber processing rather than mixed household life. It replaces most or all residential space with work yard, tool storage, covered lumber storage, and machinery.

Default facilities include:

Default Facility	Size	Function
Workshop	Roomy	Saw frame, cutting floor, blade maintenance, timber processing, and skilled mill work.
Storehouse / Lumber Storage	Roomy	Cut boards, beams, raw timber, tools, wedges, pegs, spare blades, and drying racks.
Yard / Work Area	Roomy	Log staging, carts, draft animals, waterwheel access, sawpit, outdoor cutting, and loading.
Office / Records Nook	Cramped	Tallies, orders, labor assignments, claims, and lumber accounts.
Latrine / Washroom	Cramped	Sanitation for workers.

Farmstead

• 125 MU Wood
• 60 MU Stone
• 40 MU Iron
• 60 days

Provides:

• Population Cap: 10
• Room Points: 0
• Food Production: See below

A Farmstead is an Individual Structure that supports agricultural production, animal keeping, food storage, and rural household life. It is larger than a single-family home or skilled trades house, but smaller and less institutionally complex than a Trading Post or Guildhall.

A Farmstead usually includes a farmhouse, one or more barns, storage sheds, animal shelter, fenced yard, tool storage, root cellar, kitchen garden, and nearby cultivated land.

The listed material cost represents the built structures of the farmstead, not every acre of surrounding farmland. Fields, orchards, pasture, irrigation ditches, fences, paths, wells, and cleared land must still exist in the fiction and may require additional labor, time, protection, or site preparation at the DM’s discretion.

A Farmstead is not a Bastion and does not grant Bastion orders.

Default facilities include:

Default Facility	Size	Function
Farmhouse / Sleeping Quarters	Roomy	Household sleeping space, farm family quarters, worker bunks, or seasonal labor lodging.
Kitchen / Living Room	Roomy	Daily cooking, meals, warmth, household work, food preparation, and farm management.
Main Barn	Roomy	Livestock shelter, hay storage, feed storage, tack, carts, and weather-protected work.
Secondary Barn / Granary	Roomy	Grain, seed stock, tools, preserved food, dry goods, harvest storage, or additional animals.
Root Cellar / Cold Storage	Cramped	Roots, vegetables, salted goods, preserved meat, cheese, medicine, seed stock, and temperature-sensitive stores.
Tool Shed / Workshop	Cramped	Plows, scythes, hoes, axes, harness repair, fence tools, barrels, baskets, and minor equipment maintenance.
Yard / Kitchen Garden	Roomy	Kitchen herbs, vegetables, chickens, wash area, compost, drying racks, small repairs, and daily farm work.
Latrine / Washroom	Cramped	Sanitation and daily washing for residents and workers.

Farmstead Production

A staffed Farmstead can produce Food MU if it has access to suitable land, water, seed stock, tools, and protection.

As a default, a functioning Farmstead can support 1 Work Crew assigned to farming. During the growing season, that crew may produce:

Condition	Food Production
Poor land, bad weather, damaged fields, or unsafe conditions	0.5 Food MU per Bastion turn
Ordinary productive land	1 Food MU per Bastion turn
Rich land, good weather, established fields, or strong skilled support	1.5 Food MU per Bastion turn

During harvest season, the DM may allow a Farmstead to produce an additional burst of Food MU, especially if the fields were tended for the full season.

A Farmstead does not produce Food MU automatically if abandoned, understaffed, besieged, flooded, burned, blighted, overrun, or cut off from its fields.

Farmstead Workforce

A Farmstead normally requires:

Requirement	Amount
Unskilled Laborers	10, or 1 Work Crew
Skilled Hirelings	1 farmer, gardener, herbalist, steward, cook, animal handler, or equivalent

Additional workers may help clear land, expand fields, build fences, dig irrigation, protect livestock, harvest crops, or preserve food, but a single Farmstead does not usually support more than 2 Work Crews efficiently unless expanded into a larger agricultural holding.

Farmstead Variants

A Farmstead may be reskinned as any household-scale or hamlet-scale food production holding. Keep the same cost and construction time unless the variant is unusually large, fortified, magical, or infrastructure-heavy.

Examples include:

• grain farm;
• vegetable farm;
• orchard house;
• vineyard;
• sheep farm;
• goat farm;
• dairy farm;
• pig farm;
• poultry yard;
• fishing stead;
• mushroom farm;
• root-cellar farm;
• apiary and herb farm;
• managed wetland farm.

A variant changes the default facilities and production flavor, but not the basic structure unless the DM rules otherwise.

Small Structures

Trading Post / Guildhall

• 150 MU Wood
• 75 MU Stone
• 50 MU Iron
• 60 days

Provides:

• Population Cap: 35
• Room Points: 6

A Trading Post or Guildhall supports commerce, organization, storage, negotiation, and specialized activity.

Default facilities include:

Default Facility	Size	Function
Sleeping Quarters	Roomy	Main bunkroom or staff quarters. The full Population Cap also assumes lofts, side rooms, attached quarters, temporary beds, and other abstracted sleeping space.
Kitchen	Cramped	Basic food preparation for the post.
Dining Room / Common Room	Roomy	Shared meals, meetings, negotiations, and guild gatherings.
Storage	Roomy	Trade goods, tools, records, supplies, and secured goods.
Office / Records Room	Cramped	Ledgers, claims, contracts, guild records, and correspondence.
Latrine / Washroom	Cramped	Sanitation and daily population support.
Courtyard / Yard	Roomy	Loading, unloading, carts, pack animals, outdoor work, and market activity.
### Communal Housing
- 250 MU Wood
- 125 MU Stone
- 85 MU Iron
- 150 days

Provides:

• Population Cap: 55
• Room Points: 8

Communal Housing supports a larger resident population and provides space for families, workers, refugees, followers, or settlers.

Default facilities include:

Default Facility	Size	Function
Sleeping Quarters	Vast	Dormitory, family sleeping hall, worker housing, refugee hall, or shared rooms.
Kitchen	Roomy	Daily cooking for residents.
Dining Room / Common Room	Vast	Communal eating, meetings, warmth, and indoor gathering.
Storage	Roomy	Food, blankets, tools, household goods, and basic supplies.
Latrine / Washroom	Roomy	Sanitation for a large resident population.
Infirmary / Care Room	Cramped	Basic care for sick, injured, elderly, or exhausted residents.
Courtyard / Work Yard	Roomy	Laundry, repairs, children, animals, outdoor cooking, and daily work.
Office / Steward Room	Cramped	Assignments, ration records, resident disputes, and supply tracking.
## Defensive Structures
### Fort / Outpost
- 450 MU Wood
- 225 MU Stone
- 150 MU Iron
- 100 days

Provides:

• Population Cap: 80
• Room Points: 10

A Fort or Outpost provides defensible space, garrison support, watch positions, controlled access, and a hard point for regional control.

Default facilities include:

Default Facility	Size	Function
Sleeping Quarters / Barracks	Vast	Garrison bunks, guard quarters, militia sleeping space, or worker quarters.
Kitchen	Roomy	Food preparation for the garrison and workers.
Dining Room / Mess	Roomy	Military mess, command meals, and shared gathering.
Storage	Vast	Rations, tools, weapons, repair supplies, ammunition, and emergency stores.
Guard Post	Roomy	Watch rotation, alarm point, patrol staging, and local security.
Gatehouse / Entry Control	Roomy	Controlled access, inspection, and chokepoint defense.
Courtyard / Muster Yard	Vast	Drills, wagons, mustering, emergency assembly, and field organization.
Latrine / Washroom	Roomy	Sanitation for the garrison population.
Office / Command Room	Cramped	Duty rosters, maps, orders, and local records.
Workshop Yard	Roomy	Repairs, barricades, carts, scaffolding, and field maintenance.
### Keep / Castle
- 1,500 MU Wood
- 750 MU Stone
- 500 MU Iron
- 400 days

Provides:

• Population Cap: 200
• Room Points: 18

A Keep or Castle is a major defensive and political structure. It can anchor a settlement, defend a region, and support a large permanent population.

Default facilities include:

Default Facility	Size	Function
Sleeping Quarters / Barracks	Vast	Soldiers, servants, workers, retainers, or household guard.
Private Bedrooms / Officers' Rooms	Roomy	Commanders, nobles, senior staff, and important guests.
Kitchen	Vast	Large food operation, ovens, cauldrons, smoke prep, and staff cooking.
Dining Hall / Great Hall	Vast	Meals, assemblies, judgments, celebrations, and public authority.
Storage / Stronghold Depot	Vast	Food, tools, arms, building materials, siege supplies, and emergency stores.
Cellar / Cold Storage	Roomy	Preserved food, drink, medicine, seed stock, and sensitive supplies.
Gatehouse	Vast	Major access control, portcullis operation, guard rooms, and defensive entry.
Guard Posts	Roomy	Internal security, towers, patrol staging, and wall access.
Courtyard / Bailey	Vast	Muster space, wagons, training, public work, and emergency refuge.
Latrines / Washrooms	Vast	Population-scale sanitation.
Office / Records Room	Roomy	Administration, claims, taxes, maps, correspondence, and orders.
Infirmary	Roomy	Recovery, battle injuries, plague isolation, and worker accidents.
Workshop Yard	Roomy	Repairs, carts, scaffolding, siege maintenance, and rough assembly.
Parlor / Council Room	Roomy	Strategy, negotiation, private meetings, and noble reception.
## Specialized Structures
### Temple / Tower
- 1,500 MU Wood
- 750 MU Stone
- 500 MU Iron
- 400 days

Provides:

• Population Cap: 100
• Room Points: 16

A Temple or Tower supports specialized magical, religious, scholarly, administrative, or institutional work.

The exact function depends on the structure's purpose and facilities.

Default facilities include:

Default Facility	Size	Function
Sleeping Quarters	Roomy	Acolytes, apprentices, scholars, attendants, guards, or resident staff.
Private Cells / Chambers	Roomy	Priests, mages, senior scholars, meditation cells, or guest rooms.
Kitchen	Roomy	Food preparation for residents.
Dining Room / Refectory	Roomy	Shared meals, study meals, and religious or scholarly community.
Storage	Roomy	Supplies, ritual goods, tools, records, and mundane reagents.
Cellar / Secure Storage	Cramped	Valuable texts, relic-adjacent goods, wine, medicine, or sealed materials.
Main Hall / Ritual Hall / Lecture Hall	Vast	Worship, teaching, ceremony, magical work, or civic assembly.
Office / Records Room	Roomy	Rites, research notes, civic documents, and correspondence.
Latrine / Washroom	Roomy	Sanitation for residents and visitors.
Courtyard / Cloister / Yard	Roomy	Reflection, gathering, outdoor rites, work, or waiting.
Infirmary / Care Room	Cramped	Healing, triage, spiritual care, and exhausted residents.
Workshop / Preparation Room	Roomy	Mundane preparation, copying, ritual setup, and tool maintenance.
### Palace
Endgame structure.

• 15,000 MU Wood
• 7,500 MU Stone
• 5,000 MU Iron
• 1,200 days

Provides:

• Population Cap: 500
• Room Points: 40

A Palace is a civilization-scale statement of power, administration, ceremony, and permanence.

It is not just a residence. It is an institution.

Default facilities include:

Default Facility	Size	Function
Noble / Command Bedrooms	Vast	Ruler, family, high officers, honored guests, and senior officials.
Servant / Staff Quarters	Vast	Domestic staff, attendants, clerks, guards, and workers.
Guard Barracks	Vast	Palace guard, elite troops, and gate rotation.
Kitchens	Vast	Large-scale food operation, feast preparation, and daily staff meals.
Dining Halls	Vast	Formal dining, staff meals, banquets, and diplomatic meals.
Great Hall / Throne Room / Audience Hall	Vast	Ceremony, rulership, judgments, and public authority.
Council Chambers	Roomy	Government meetings, strategy, and faction negotiation.
Offices / Records Rooms	Vast	Administration, claims, taxes, laws, correspondence, and active archives.
Storage / Depot	Vast	Food, supplies, furnishings, uniforms, and emergency goods.
Cellars / Cold Storage	Vast	Preserved food, drink, medicine, seed stock, and luxury goods.
Courtyards / Gardens	Vast	Processions, markets, public gatherings, private gardens, and muster space.
Gatehouses / Entry Control	Vast	Major access control, inspection, and layered security.
Guard Posts	Vast	Patrol staging, internal checkpoints, towers, and alarm network.
Latrines / Washrooms	Vast	Population-scale sanitation.
Infirmary	Roomy	Palace staff, guests, guards, political casualties, and plague response.
Workshop Yards	Vast	Repairs, decorations, carts, scaffolding, and event construction.
Guest Quarters	Vast	Diplomats, nobles, petitioners, and visiting officials.
Parlor / Reception Rooms	Vast	Waiting rooms, salons, private diplomacy, and faction meetings.
## Population and Capacity
Structures determine how many people your Stronghold can support.
### Capacity Rule
> You cannot support more people than your Stronghold allows.

If population exceeds capacity:

• work slows;
• morale worsens;
• disease risk increases;
• food pressure rises;
• crime and disputes become more likely;
• the DM will make it your problem.

Population Capacity is not only beds. It represents shelter, sanitation, storage, heat, food handling, defensible space, work areas, and basic organization.

Room Points

Structures provide Room Points.

Room Points represent expansion capacity: usable institutional space, support infrastructure, staffing capacity, circulation, storage, and the ability to make a facility function as part of a larger settlement.

Room Points are not literal square footage. A Stronghold's default Basic Facilities are already included in its structure cost and population capacity. Room Points are spent only on expansion beyond that default.

Use the Room Point costs in Bastion Facilities:

Facility Size	Room Point Cost
Cramped	1 RP
Roomy	2 RP
Vast	4 RP

You spend Room Points to add Bastion-style Special Facilities to your Stronghold.

Special Facilities in Strongholds

A Stronghold may build Special Facilities even if no character gained those facilities through level advancement.

Stronghold-built facilities represent institutional infrastructure rather than personal Bastion advancement.

Examples include:

• Armory;
• Library;
• Barracks;
• Arcane Study;
• Teleportation Circle;
• Workshop;
• Sanctuary;
• Garden;
• Training Area.

Stronghold Facility Cost Increase

Stronghold-built facilities cost more than level-granted Bastion facilities.

Stronghold-built facilities cost +50% materials.

This represents institutional scale, staffing needs, integration with the larger structure, public or faction use, greater durability, more support rooms, and less reliance on personal character advancement.

Stronghold Facility Costs

Cramped Facility

• 22 MU Wood
• 12 MU Stone
• 8 MU Iron
• 20 days

Roomy Facility

• 45 MU Wood
• 23 MU Stone
• 15 MU Iron
• 45 days

Vast Facility

• 135 MU Wood
• 68 MU Stone
• 45 MU Iron
• 125 days

Facility Requirements

A Stronghold Special Facility must:

• have available Room Points;
• be assigned to a specific Structure;
• be located clearly enough that the DM and players know where it is;
• be staffed if applicable;
• have enough materials;
• have enough workers;
• fit the structure that contains it;
• make sense in the Stronghold's layout or site plan.

Unlike Bastions, Strongholds do not require complete room-by-room maps. A site plan, district map, labeled structure list, or functional layout is enough unless a specific scene, attack, infiltration, fire, siege, or construction problem requires more detail.

Construction

To build anything in a Stronghold, you must have:

• required materials;
• required workers;
• required skilled hirelings;
• required time;
• access to the construction site;
• enough safety for work to proceed.

Workforce rules are found in Labor Management.

Workforce Minimums

As a quick reference:

Build Size	Unskilled Laborers	Skilled Hirelings
Small Structure	20	2
Fort / Large Structure	50	5
Keep+	100+	10+

If the minimum workforce is not available, construction stalls.

Parallel Builds

You may run multiple Stronghold projects if:

• you have enough workers;
• you have enough skilled hirelings;
• you have enough materials;
• you have enough transport;
• and the projects do not block each other.

Each project must meet its own requirements.

Teleportation

Teleportation Circles can be built in Strongholds or Bastions if the appropriate facility is available.

Teleportation Circles can:

• connect your network;
• enable rapid travel;
• support logistics;
• move people;
• bypass dangerous routes;
• create strategic vulnerabilities;
• become valuable targets.

Teleportation does not remove the need for materials, workers, maps, or defense. It changes the logistics problem.

Risks and Consequences

Strongholds create obligations.

• Populations need space.
• Workers need direction.
• Stockpiles need guards.
• Roads need protection.
• Fortifications need maintenance.
• Special Facilities need staff.
• Supply lines can be attacked.
• Poor layouts affect defense.
• Idle workers attract problems.

A Stronghold is a promise the party makes to the people who live there.

Final Rule

If it exists, it must be built.
If it is built, it must be supplied.
If it is supplied, it must be defended.

A Stronghold is not a purchase.

It is civilization made visible.

Referenced by

• Andórë Crafting System
• Bastion Facilities
• Bastions
• Civilization Campaign Tracker
• Civilization Crafting
• Labor Management
• Material Acquisition
• Party Bastion Trackers