supplies vs. gold?

[LintMan]

Originally posted by Merry Jolkar:
I'm sorry if this is answered elsewhere....troops have both a supply and a gold cost to create. I realize they continue to cost supplies and food to maintain. But, it appears that they also cost gold, right? How do I calculate the food, supplies and gold costs associated with keeping troops alive? (or, where can I go to find the answer myself...?)
Thanks!
Merry

I'll just add one thing here: troops don't have a supply cost to create them. You're probably thinking of their resource cost. Supplies and resources are two different things:
- Supplies are food, and you need enough in each province to feed all the troops there that eat, else they will start to starve. Provinces produce a certain amount in a turn, based on terrain type, population, and domain scales. These supplies do not accumulate over time, so they are not saved up. Nature mages provide +5 supplies per nature level. You can also make certain items for your troops that generate extra supplies, which reduces the amount the troops will need from the province.
- Resources are the representation of the materials and labor needed to make the equipment your troops need when they are recruited. Every unit you recruit has a resource cost at the time you recruit it (though it might only be 1), but once the unit is recruited, resources are no longer needed for it. Typically, heavily armed/armored units like heavy cavalry require many resources to create, while unarmored units like mages and priests cost very few resources.
Like supplies, resources are generated by every province based on terrain type, population, and domain scales, and they do not accumulate. But castles take some resources from the surrounding provinces and concentrate them in the castle's province.

Hope that helps.