Oases are patches of wild land that you can hunt, raid or hold. They do three different jobs, and the right choice depends on whether you need Gold, a quick load of resources or a steady income. This guide gives the numbers behind each.
The oasis levels
Grove makes Wood, Quarry makes Stone, Ore makes Iron and Meadow makes Grain.
When a world’s map is made, 79% of its oases start at level 1 to 5, and only one in a thousand starts at level 10. Groves make up 40% of them and each of the other three kinds 20%. The guards at each level are the most that can be there, and a raid or a scout shows the real count.
| Level | Output an hour | Guards (Footmen, Riders, Bowmen, Catapults) | Most a raid takes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 100 | 5, 1, 1, 0 | 200 |
| 2 | 200 | 12, 2, 3, 0 | 400 |
| 3 | 350 | 26, 8, 8, 0 | 1,050 |
| 5 | 850 | 249, 49, 24, 9 | 4,250 |
| 7 | 1,900 | 999, 99, 49, 49 | 15,200 |
| 10 | 5,000 | 9,999, 499, 99, 499 | 70,000 |
Output is the Wood, Stone, Iron or Grain a held oasis adds to your city each hour. A level 20 field makes 2,695 an hour, so a level 10 oasis makes nearly twice that.
Hunting for Gold
A hunt ends in Gold, a treasure or nothing.
Hunting is the safe way to earn Gold. Send troops to a free oasis and they camp there until you call them home. There is no fight, and beginner protection doesn’t stop you. You can run two hunts at once, or three with VIP.
Each troop gathers Gold in proportion to its type and the oasis level. This is what one troop brings back from a full twelve-hour hunt:
| Troop | Level 1 | Level 5 | Level 10 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rider | 3.3 | 4.5 | 6 |
| Footman | 1.65 | 2.25 | 3 |
| Bowman | 1.1 | 1.5 | 2 |
| Catapult | 0.55 | 0.75 | 1 |
Hunters count for up to twelve hours, and the Gold grows in a straight line with time until the haul reaches 2,500. After that it grows with the square root of the time, so doubling the hunt does not double the Gold. 500 Footmen bring home 825 Gold from a level 1 oasis and 1,500 from a level 10 one. 1,000 Footmen on a level 10 oasis bring 2,739, not 3,000, because they pass the 2,500 line.
Past twelve hours, hunters gather nothing more, so call them home. They return by themselves after ten days. Hunters still marching out can be called back for 2 Coins.
What comes home
The outcome depends on your general’s fortune, which starts at 20. These are the odds:
| Fortune | Nothing | Gold | A treasure |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20 | 25% | 50.5% | 24.5% |
| 60 | 21% | 48.5% | 30.5% |
| 110 | 16% | 46% | 38% |
A treasure is picked from those whose price matches the value of your haul, so a bigger hunt finds a better treasure. You also get a little Gold with it, up to 99. If your bag is full, you get the Gold instead.
A successful hunt of eight hours or more can also find an extra-large haul, about 7% of the time at the starting fortune and 10% at fortune 110. The extra is 200 Gold for each title level, times a random 1 to 5. At title level 5, that is 1,000 to 5,000 extra Gold. Every successful hunt also earns prestige equal to 2% of its value.
The report lists everything your hunters found.
Raiding an oasis
A raid takes what the oasis has made and comes straight home.
A raid beats the guards and carries off a number of hours of the oasis’s output, from 2 hours at levels 1 and 2 to 14 hours at level 10, limited by what your survivors can carry. That gives resources, not Gold. Raid isn’t on the map sheet: tap the oasis, tap the top of the sheet to open its page, and choose Raid there.
A cleared oasis stays empty until its next level change, so a second raid straight after the first brings less.
Holding an oasis
A held oasis adds its full output to your city every hour.
Occupy an oasis by beating its guards. Your title sets how many you can hold: one at the start, two from 1st Freeman, and one more every two titles after that, up to ten at Prince Regent.
A held oasis loses a level a day and is gone when it reaches zero, so a level 10 oasis lasts about ten days and a level 3 oasis about three. A free oasis wins back three levels a day, up to the level it was made at. The ones worth taking are high-level oases that have been left alone. Your own Truce Seal stops you occupying until it ends.
Which to choose
Hunt when you want Gold for studies and upgrades, and send Riders if you can, since they gather six Gold each at level 10. Raid when you need a load of one resource now. Hold when you can win the guards and will use the output, and expect to retake the oasis as it slips.
Scout every oasis before you send anyone, because a free scout report shows the guards. The world map guide covers scouting, marching and Truce Seals, and the troop guide shows what each unit can do. Barbarian villages work differently, as the raid guide explains.