This is for commanders still walking Castle 1 to 10 who keep feeding Lumber Yard because wood "feels slow." Stone in that stretch is 381,800. Wood is 254,000. Food is 254,910. Iron is the one that actually stops the Castle click.

Institute ranks 1 to 5 add another 161,000 iron and spend no wood, stone, or food on those rows. Run Institute in the same window and the iron hole gets wider, not smaller.

📊 Iron Beats Wood

Castle timers jump fast. Rank 1 is 12 seconds. Rank 2 is 50 seconds. Rank 3 is 2 minutes. Rank 4 is 11 minutes 50 seconds. Rank 5 is 35 minutes 10 seconds. Rank 6 is 1 hour 33 minutes 40 seconds. Rank 7 is 3 hours 7 minutes 20 seconds. Rank 8 is 4 hours 22 minutes 10 seconds. Rank 9 is 5 hours 40 minutes 50 seconds. Rank 10 is 7 hours 23 minutes.

Rank 7 wants 50,000 iron in one click. Rank 8 wants 100,000. Rank 10 wants 200,000. Missing the listed Tavern or House rank still blocks the click even if the iron is sitting in the bag.

Alliance Help shaves time off build, research, and heal queues. It does not print iron. Put help on the long Castle and Institute timers, not on a 24 second Iron Mine rank 1.

🏗️ Four Plot Gates

You cannot spam Iron Mine from minute one. The Castle panel gates the plots.

Castle 1 opens 1 Farm. Place cost is 100 iron and 2 seconds. Rank 1 prints 400 food per hour, and that rank asks Castle 2. A placed Farm at Castle 1 still prints 0 until you finish Rank 1.

Castle 2 opens 2 Lumber Yards. Rank 1 prints 600 wood per hour. Rank 5 prints 2,800. Rank 10 prints 6,800. Castle 7 opens a third lumber plot. Castle 8 opens a fourth.

Castle 3 opens 2 Quarries. Rank 1 prints 500 stone per hour. Rank 5 prints 2,500. Rank 10 prints 5,000.

Castle 4 opens the first Iron Mine, and only one plot. Rank 1 prints 500 iron per hour. Rank 5 prints 1,800. Rank 10 prints 3,800. Castle 5 opens the second iron plot. Castle 7 opens the third. Castle 8 opens the fourth.

Iron Mine ranks spend food and Gold, not iron. Farm ranks spend iron. Quarry ranks spend wood. Lumber Yard ranks spend food. The loop is real: you grow food so Iron Mine can climb, and you grow iron so Farm and Castle can climb.

Institute first places at Castle 4. Rank 1 costs 5,000 iron, 2,100 Gold, and 6 minutes. Do not race it past rank 5 until the next Castle iron is already banked. Community read, not a printed rule.

⚔️ Open Then Train

Train the building that is already up. Do not sit on an empty Barracks waiting for a "correct" first type.

Castle 2 opens Barracks, so Footmen come first. Castle 3 opens Archery Range, so Archers can start there. Castle 6 opens Stable, so Cavalries show up later than the other two. Training 200 of each type is a mixed scrap, not a march.

The cycle under that choice is printed and stable: Footmen beat Cavalries, Cavalries beat Archers, Archers beat Footmen. No fixed global percent. Same type versus same type ignores the cycle; ranks, training, and march size decide that report.

Positive spend: Barracks is up, you train Footmen, you send that stack. Flip: Castle 4 just opened Iron Mine and you still dump the queue into a third Lumber Yard while the Castle panel already shows a five-digit iron ask.

🛑 Stall And Flip

The usual stall is not an enemy counter. It is your own panel.

Castle 1 to 4 want Tavern and House at the matching rank. Castle 7 and Castle 10 also list Quarry. Castle 8 lists Encampment. Castle 9 lists Medical Tent. Castle 5 and Castle 6 list extra rows. Read those names on your panel. Finish the listed building before you start the long Castle timer.

Iron empty because Institute ate it: park Institute, raise Iron Mine, then go back. Wood empty because Quarry ate it: raise Lumber Yard, then go back. Guessing the next resource by "what feels slow" is how Rank 7 sits unclicked with a full wood pile.

A typed enemy march still beats a mixed wall. That fight is not this guide. Fill Fortress after you have a typed stack, not instead of placing Iron Mine.

Live rank cap on these production buildings and on Castle is 25. Ranks 26 to 30 exist in config and are not open. Do not plan food or iron for those rows.

📋 Build This Order

1. Open the Castle panel. Write the listed buildings and the iron number. Do not start a long timer before that list is green.
2. Keep Tavern and House on the matching rank through Castle 4.
3. Place Farm at Castle 1. Place Lumber Yard at Castle 2. Place Quarry at Castle 3. Place Iron Mine the moment Castle 4 opens it.
4. Push Iron Mine ranks on the food Farm already makes. Push a second Iron Mine at Castle 5. Request Alliance Help on anything over half an hour.
5. Place Institute at Castle 4. Stop it at rank 5 until Castle 7 iron is in the bag.
6. Train Barracks first. Add Archery Range at Castle 3. Add Stable at Castle 6. Keep the first march on one type.
7. After a failed Castle click, check the listed building first, then iron, then whether Institute is still chewing the same pile.

🚫 Three Bad Reads

Wood does not run out first. The 1 to 10 totals already show iron ahead of wood by more than two to one.

Skipping House or Tavern to "save a queue for Castle" blocks Castle. The panel will not start.

Waiting for Stable before you train anyone leaves you with no march through Castle 5. Footmen from Barracks are the troops you actually have.

Will you raise Iron Mine before the next Castle click, or keep feeding Lumber Yard while Rank 7 still asks for 50,000 iron?