End of the Year

End of the Year

At the End of the Year, you need to start updating various things so the changes you've made during the year start to take effects, such as updating the Realm's Resources and Population.

1. Updating your Resources

The first step is to gather and harvest your Realm's Resources. Do this by totalling up each Resource your Settlements are producing. Then make sure to set, not add, the Realm's Resources as those totals.
For example, if your Realm's Food total is 2 Food, and the settlements are producing 4, the realm gets 4. In other words, what your Settlements make is what you get.
Remember, the resources are not an accumulation but a metric or measurement of the growth/decline of each Resource.

2. Population Growth

Food is the Resource that determines Population growth or decline. Once you have finished gathering your Realm's Resources, update your Realm's Population count.
If you have any displaced Pops at this point, they are all lost. So make sure everyone is assigned somewhere to keep them. After that, look at your Realms food supply.
If the Food supply is above 0, your population grows by the same amount. Likewise, if the Realm's Food supply is below 0, you lose that same amount of Pops. Finally, if your food supply is 0, which means no Pop change; in other words, you neither gain nor lose Pops, your Realm's growth is stable.
For example, if your Realm produced +3 Food this year, you gain 3 Pops. Just as the other way -3 Food and you lose 3 Pops.
Use the Displaced Pop box on your Realm Sheet to mark that you have Pops that needs allocating or settling somewhere in your Realm in the next year.
If you lose Pops, make sure to also reduce Pops from any of your Settlements and update their production per pop columns.
In short, make sure the total number of Food that your Settlements are producing is above 0 to grow and survive.

3. Lost Settlements

Lost Settlements are Settlements that have lost their population, or the Realm cannot provide enough Materials for its maintenance. Thus, the settlement has crumbled and decayed.
If your realm has a negative number of Materials, you must choose a Settlement and flag/tag/mark it as a Lost Settlement; all Pops are then Displaced, who you must assign to something in the year ahead.
Lost Settlements continue to take up a Settlement Slot in a Region, and they cannot be reclaimed or resettled.

4. World-build!

The power of Project Forge Realms is that numbers and mechanics are guides for writing and worldbuilding. This is the part where you can match the numbers with your imagination.
Map your realm and its settlements; describe the new lands your empire has discovered, or even tell the story of how explorers have found a new county and what it meant to your people.