Reproduction occurs in any building that contains "Maidens" and "Male Units". The ratio of female births to male births depends on the number of females (Maidens) in storage. For example:

The birthrate is twice as high in the peasant huts as compared to HQ. The birthrate is higher if there are more males in a building (up to about ten). Maidens can give birth at any age.

Maidens will only give birth if both their morale and energy is above 40%. After a birth, the father and mother of the child will loose 10% energy and gain 10% morale and the new born will take the father's surname. The newly born will have the same energy and morale levels as the mother at the time of birth.

The fact that both mother and father loose 10% energy for each new born means approximately one unit of food is needed to recover that energy loss. This means a population growth of fifty members will require fifty items of food to maintain balance and general food usage will rise by approximately fifteen items of food per year.

If people are kept healthy, they live to around 60 - 75 years of age. If they are unhealthy, they'll probably not live to be 60 years old. And if morale is low, it's likely that they'll begin committing suicide. Health problems are more serious above the age of 50.

Food increases the amount of energy a person has. Each person eats the same amount of food, and looses about 5% energy each year. Once the energy level of a person drops below 80%, he or she will look for food to eat. The choice of food is random, and is made from the menu of a particular building. If the chosen food is not there, the person will go without food for another year and morale will suffer. This means that a building with only half the food items available will force the occupants to go without food at about the same ratio. So it's best to try to keep all food items in stock in a building, although it's not neccessary to provide all food items all of the time.

Most types of food will give a person 20% of a extra energy. Eating food will also raise morale by 5%. The power of food is different in some buildings:

If a person drinks Wine you can add an extra 10% to the morale figures above and subtract 10% from the energy figures above. So for example drinking Wine in the Church will give a person 10% energy and 30% morale. Drinking Wine in a regular building (e.g. Headquarters) will give a person 10% Health and 15% morale.

• Peasants/Maidens/Wizards generally walk at speed 2
• Guards and Knights walk at speed 3
• Black Knights walk at speed 4

The percentages of energy and morale will affect these speeds but as an example, the Black Knight will walk twice as fast as a Peasant can.

All people in Foundation have Attack Power and Shield Power as in many other games. If you divide the Attack Power of the attacker by the Shield Power of the victim you can work out approximate damage levels. Extra attack points are added for extra experience levels of soldiers, but the values are lowered as energy and morale are lowered. Here's a chart showing the Attack and Shield powers:

The above figures would even out a little when morale and energy levels are brought into the calculation but generally a Peasant has about 30% of the attack power of a Guard and a Black Knight should kill a Peasant with less than five hits.

Try to keep your people INSIDE a building. If they're outside, they'll lose health because they have no food to eat.

Try to keep your population level UNDER CONTROL. A population of around 200 - 250 will most likely be the most efficient level for most circumstances. If you have too many peasants, you'll need more food, and more water, and more peasants to get the food and water. So keep the population DOWN and you'll find you can comfortably supply everyone with what they need.

Do not overuse the speed and time functions. You can specify productive almost all of the time. Speeding up time while you're doing housework enables the enemies to become stronger and faster. Be wary of this feature.

If you're running short of peasants, check your wood levels. If you have enough wood to get by, reduce the number of WORKERS in the foresters' hut to one or two. This will reduce the number of foresters required and you'll end up with extra peasants to send elsewhere.

When you're getting ready to attack an enemy building, send six or seven maidens in first to draw the guards away. Then when the guards come out, send the maidens away from the building and the guards will follow them. Your soldiers and peasants now have an easier time to attack the building.

Maidens can produce offspring in ANY building as long as they have food, water, and a mate. They do it faster in peasant huts, but by keeping some in other buildings you assure that those buildings get replacement workers even if there are no spares in the castle and also you increase the workers' morale in that building so they stay healthier and don't want to kill themselves. Happy workers are good workers as long as they're also healthy and well fed. That's all maidens do but these functions are totally critical to your society. Keep maidens in every building if you can, but especially in your most important buildings. Put maidens where the men are in other words. Your men will thank you by living and working better and your tribe will increase faster. Just make sure everybody has food and water, and preferably all the foods they like.

On rescue-missions, I think the first prison can be done with this. Find a safe path and guide your people that way, normally it includes finding no-mans-land or walking along borders. It usually takes a couple of attempts before it works.

Build two or three barracks, trade iron/wood/stone/ore/coal/oil for gold and armor and make all your peasants into soldiers, then go for the target. On later rescues you'll need to take a few strategic buildings to get your people home. On later prison-breaks you MUST make a secure path to the prison as you need to get almost all of the men safely home. This type takes a first attempt where you only send your knights out to locate the target(s), then restart and build the army.

Start by building a farm, a peasant hut and some form of water supply. The next step is to find what can be easily produced. If you are near water, you can make some water pumps and trade water for what you need. If you're near mountains, build mines. Try to produce as many things as possible yourself. However it's often a waste to build masons and foresters, as they "run out". Better to use your men and resources on mines, water and food, that last forever, then trade for wood.

Always have spare men in your headquarters to do transports, two or three is enough at all times. Be sure to construct peasant huts as you go on. A base ready for battle should have at least five peasant huts with plenty of supplies. Don't build warehouses unless you REALLY need them, due to bugs in the game, they usually give more trouble than benefit.

If you have more than one mine, then have only ONE producing oil for your labs. Don't produce oil if you don't have any labs. Same for farms, only produce grain if you have bakery or brewery.

Build a lab early on and make sure it's filled with scientists, you'll need the "torch" command to make a good battle.

Barracks can usually wait until year 20, the soldiers you have from the start are enough guards until that time.

Don't put guards in houses built away from the enemy, they'll serve much better at headquarters if you are attacked.

If you choose to build an armory early in the game, you should only put two people to work there. More will use you your iron supply. When you build barracks you don't need to have five people in them from the start. Two are enough until you begin preparations for battle.

When the "primary supply" of the enemies are knocked down, go on and burn the rest of their houses. When that's done, send the peasants and soldiers home to relax a bit, wait a year or two, then make the attack on the enemy headquarters. Repeat for all enemies as needed.