You now know the core loop. The next question every new mayor asks is: what powers it? The answer is energy. Think of energy as the stamina of your whole operation - the budget you spend to act. Clearing land, building, hiring, producing - nearly every meaningful action draws from this one pool. When you understand energy, you understand the natural pace of your town, because energy is really a clock dressed up as a resource.
I want to take the fear out of this word right away. Energy is not a punishment or a fuel gauge that strands you. It is more like an allowance that quietly refills whether you are paying attention or not. You will never be permanently locked out for running low - you simply wait a little, or top up, and carry on. So as we go through the costs below, read them as a feel for the rhythm, not a wall to dread.
How energy fills back up
Energy regenerates on its own at a default rate of 1 point per hour. You do not have to do anything to earn it back - it simply ticks up while you live your life. There is a ceiling, though: your energy is capped at 1000, and you cannot store more than that. Once your bar is full, regeneration stops dead. It does not overflow, it does not bank for later, it just sits there waiting. Picture a cup under a slow tap - the moment the cup is full, the water just runs over the side and is gone.
Do not let the bar sit full
Because regen halts at the 1000 cap, a full idle bar is wasted potential. Every hour you sit at maximum is an hour of energy you never collected. The fix is gentle - just spend a little before you log off, so the bar has room to keep climbing while you are away.
You are not stuck with the default trickle, either, and this is a cheerful thing to look forward to. Some wearable gear can raise your regeneration rate, so the right equipment makes your whole town tick faster. That is something to anticipate rather than worry about now - just know that the 1-per-hour figure is a starting point, not a hard limit. As you grow, your town can quietly learn to refill itself quicker than it does today.
What things cost
Most build and production actions spend energy up front, the moment you start them - not slowly over time, but as a single charge when you press go. It helps to have a feel for the common prices so nothing surprises you. Here are the ones you will meet constantly, and once you have seen them a few times they will become second nature.
- Clearing a tree patch: 10 energy.
- Building, upgrading, or renovating: 5 energy per level. So a level 3 build costs 15 energy (5 times 3).
- Hiring a worker into a building: 1 energy.
- Training a specialist at a school: 1 energy.
- Collecting finished production: 1 energy.
- Starting a production run: whatever the recipe lists, charged the moment you start it.
Let us walk through a small example so the per-level idea sticks. Say you want to put up a level 3 building. The cost is 5 energy per level, so you multiply: 5 times 3 gives you 15 energy. A level 1 build of the same kind would only be 5. The pattern is the same everywhere - higher level, proportionally higher energy - which is exactly why steady, level-appropriate growth feels affordable while sudden leaps feel expensive. There is no hidden surcharge for being ambitious; you simply pay in proportion to what you are reaching for.
Notice how cheap the small, repeated actions are. Hiring a worker, training a specialist, and collecting finished production each cost just 1 energy. Those are the little moves you make constantly, and at a point apiece they barely dent your budget. The bigger drains are clearing land at 10 energy and the level-scaled cost of building, upgrading, and renovating. So a useful instinct to build early is this: the day-to-day running of your town is nearly free in energy terms, while expanding your town - new land, taller buildings - is where you should plan your energy around. When you log in with a near-full bar, that is the moment to spend on the expensive expansion work and let the cheap upkeep tick along in between. Treat the big jobs as the things you save your full bar for, and the little jobs as the change you spend without a second thought.
The one free action
There is exactly one common action that costs no energy at all: recruiting new citizens at the City Hall. Instead of energy, recruiting uses materials and time. Keep this in your back pocket - when your energy is low, you can still grow your population.
When you run dry
Sometimes you will want to act faster than 1 point an hour allows, and that is completely fine. You can restore energy directly by consuming food and drink from your inventory. So energy is not only something you wait for - it is also something you can top up on demand if you keep a little food on hand. A new player who stocks some food early never feels truly stuck; a snack becomes a second wind whenever a big plan needs more than the bar can offer.
There is a comforting way to think about all of this together. Energy is the one resource that quietly says no when you are trying to do too much at once, and that is a kindness, not a cruelty. It paces you. It stops a brand-new town from sprinting in every direction and burning out, and it gives the world a sense of time passing. The slow regen, the cap, the up-front charges - they all add up to a game that breathes in and out rather than one you can rush to the finish. Once you stop fighting that rhythm and start working with it, energy becomes a friend that tells you exactly when to act and when to rest.
So here is the whole shape of energy held in one thought: it is a capped pool that refills slowly on its own at 1 per hour up to 1000, spends up front in a single charge, and can be topped up with food when you are impatient. None of it is meant to trap you - it is just the heartbeat that keeps your town from doing everything at once. With your action budget understood, the next lesson covers the very first place you will spend it, claiming and clearing land, where that 10-energy figure suddenly becomes real and you get to put theory into practice.