Work Camp

The Work Camp is the backbone of floodplain agriculture. Floodplain farms have no workers of their own — they rely entirely on peasant laborers dispatched from nearby Work Camps to till, sow, and harvest their fields. Without a Work Camp within walking distance, a floodplain farm will sit idle and produce nothing.

Work Camps serve a second role during the annual Inundation, when the Nile floods the fields and no farming is possible. The same laborers are redirected to the city's monument construction sites, hauling stone and bricks to skilled guild workers who build the great monuments of Egypt.

Meadow farms operate independently and do not need a Work Camp — only floodplain farms require peasant labor.

Stats

2×2Size

20Workers

−3Desirability

---

Cost (Normal)

40 Db

Cost by difficulty

VE 12 · Easy 20 · Normal 40 · Hard 80 · VH 120

Labor category

Industry & Commerce

Fire risk

Medium (4)

Damage risk

Low (2)

Growing season (Nile receding)

Inundation (fields flooded)

Overview

Ancient Egypt's agricultural system was built around the Nile's annual flood cycle. Each year the river overflowed its banks, depositing a layer of rich, dark silt across the flood plain. When the waters retreated, the land was extraordinarily fertile — but the window to farm it was narrow, and the farms had no permanent buildings on the floodplain since the next flood would destroy them. Peasant labor gangs, organized from nearby settlements, were assigned to work the fields during the growing season.

The same peasants became monument builders during the Inundation. The construction of the great pyramids and tombs was not slave labour — it was organized corvée, a seasonal obligation fulfilled by free farmers who had nothing to do while their fields were underwater. The state fed, housed, and provisioned them. Work Camps in the game represent these staging points where peasant gangs were organized and dispatched.

Mechanics

A farm signals that it needs a new laborer when it is halfway through its current work cycle (at day 47 of 96). This pre-emptive request lets the Work Camp dispatch a replacement in time for seamless, uninterrupted farming across the nine-month growing season. If the Work Camp is too far away, or already has a laborer en route, the gap between laborers will cause the farm to stall.

Staffing and output

The Work Camp requires 20 workers from the city's labor pool. Understaffed camps dispatch laborers less frequently — a camp with very few workers may go months between dispatches, leaving farms idle. Keep the camp fully staffed by ensuring a nearby housing cluster can reach it via road.

Distance and output

Distance from Work Camp to farm has two effects:

1. Travel time. The laborer must walk the full distance on foot using the road network. A distant farm means the laborer spends more time travelling and less time working, which reduces how many farms a single Work Camp can service.
2. Worker effectiveness. When a laborer arrives, the number of effective farm workers is calculated based on how far the laborer walked. A laborer from a camp right next to the farm grants the farm its full workforce (up to 10 workers). One from a camp 20 tiles away grants only the minimum (2 workers), reducing the farm's yield.

One fully staffed Work Camp can support four to six nearby floodplain farms without interruption. Beyond six farms, some will occasionally miss a labor cycle and produce less. If monument construction is also needed, fewer laborers are available for farming during the inundation, which can leave some farms short at the start of the following growing season.

Monument work

Work Camps are also the primary source of unskilled labor for monument construction. Guild workers (Bricklayers, Stonemasons, Carpenters) provide the skilled craftsmanship but cannot move materials themselves — that task falls to the laborers from Work Camps, who haul blocks from Storage Yards to the construction site by sledge.

Monument construction speed is directly tied to how many Work Camps are active. During the growing season, laborers split their time between farms and monuments. During the Inundation, all laborers become available for monument work exclusively. Building additional Work Camps beyond what your farms require accelerates monument construction by keeping more laborers available year-round.

The laborer walks to the monument site, works on a single uncompleted tile, then returns to the Work Camp and the cycle starts again. If all monument tiles are either completed or already being worked by other laborers, the laborer turns back immediately.

Placement

Place Work Camps close to both the farms and the monument site. Laborers have a finite walking budget — a long walk means fewer work cycles per month and lower farm yields. As a rough guide, keep Work Camps within 10–15 road tiles of the farms they serve.

Work Camps require road access. Laborers leave via road and cannot reach farms or monuments on disconnected paths. Always verify road continuity between camp, farms, and monument.

Desirability is −3 at the building, falling off over 3 tiles. This is relatively mild compared to other industrial buildings. It is still worth grouping Work Camps with other low-desirability buildings — granaries, bazaars — on the edge of the farming zone, away from the housing cluster you want to evolve.

Tips

• Build your first Work Camp as soon as floodplain farms are available — no camp means no farm output, regardless of how many farms you place.
• One Work Camp per 4–5 farms is a reliable ratio for the early game. Add a second camp when farms start missing their labor cycle (right-click a farm to see its worker status).
• Place Work Camps closer to farms than monuments — during the inundation laborers will walk farther since there is nothing else to do, but during the growing season travel time directly costs yield.
• If a monument is stalling with guild workers idle at the site, the bottleneck is usually Work Camps, not materials. Add more camps to accelerate delivery.
• Multiple construction sites compete for the same laborer pool. Avoid running two monument projects simultaneously unless you have significantly more Work Camps than your farms require.
• Fire risk is Medium (4). Route a Firehouse patrol through the Work Camp cluster, especially when it sits next to wooden farm structures.

building_work_camp = {
  animations : {
    preview : { pos:[0,0], pack:PACK_GENERAL, id:77 },
    base    : { pos:[0,0], pack:PACK_GENERAL, id:77 },
    work    : { pos:[25,-12], pack:PACK_GENERAL, id:77,
                offset:1, max_frames:19, can_reverse:true, duration:3 },
    minimap : { pack:PACK_GENERAL, id:149, offset:160 },
  },
  labor_category : LABOR_CATEGORY_INDUSTRY_COMMERCE,
  meta : { help_id:81, text_id:179 }
  info_sound : "Wavs/eng_r.wav"
  building_size : 2,
  cost          : [ 12, 20, 40, 80, 120 ]   // VeryEasy … VeryHard
  desirability  : { value:[-3], step:[1], step_size:[1], range:[3] }
  laborers : [20],  fire_risk : [4],  damage_risk : [2]

  flags { is_food: true }
}

// Floodplain farm eligible when:
//   - Nile is in FLOOD_STATE_FARMABLE
//   - farm has road access
//   - farm->requested_workers() returns true
//     (no current worker, labor_days_left <= 47, num_workers == 0)

// Monument eligible when:
//   - monument phase < 2  (still under construction)
//   - monument needs workers

// ACTION_10_WORKER_GOING — walking to destination via roads
// On arrival at a floodplain farm:
b_dest->num_workers = std::clamp<int>(
    (1.f - bhome->tile.dist(b_dest->tile) / 20.f) * 12,
    2, 10
);
d.work_camp_id   = bhome->id;
d.labor_days_left = 96;   // ~6 months
d.labor_state    = LABOR_STATE_JUST_ENTERED;

// ACTION_10_WORKER_GOING — on arrival at a monument:
// Find first uncompleted tile, set its progress to 1,
// walk to that tile and level it (ACTION_12_WORKER_LEVELING_GROUND)

// ACTION_13_WORKER_BACK_FROM_WORKS — returning to the Work Camp

bool building_farm::requested_workers() const {
    auto &d = runtime_data();
    return !d.worker_id && d.labor_days_left <= 47 && !num_workers();
}

uint8_t          labor_days_left;   // 0 = idle, 96 = freshly assigned
e_labor_state    labor_state;       // NONE / PRESENT / JUST_ENTERED
building_id      work_camp_id;      // ID of the Work Camp that sent this laborer
figure_id        worker_id;         // ID of the laborer figure currently assigned

if (b.has_road_access == false)  → "no road access"
else if (b.num_workers == 0)    → "needs workers"  (text_id 2)
else if (dest.is_farm)          → "working on floodplains" (id 5)
else if (dest.is_monument)      → "working on monuments"   (id 6)
else                            → "idle / looking for work" (id 3–4)