Which Villagers To Promote? Foundation Jobs & Status

Balancing and growing your village population in Foundation can be a challenge. In this guide we’ll take a look at which villagers to promote, how to promote, what jobs are offered, and how to increase and balance population in your Medieval city.

Jump To: Population – Balance – Jobs – Promote – Job Promotion List

How to Increase Villager Population

The Immigration status in the Villagers menu will show Low, Average, or High. When you hover over this icon the factors needed are displayed. Here are the factors and what they need to be high:

Happiness – Villager needs are fulfilled, plenty of food, goods, luxury, services.

Employment – Provide enough jobs for all your villagers, make sure everyone is employed and there are no unemployed villagers.

Residential Space – Allow enough land to be zoned residential for more villagers to move in.

Potential villagers will join the village when these factors are met, the higher the rating the more villagers may join at one time. If no one is joining the village this is likely because there are no jobs available, not enough housing, and their Happiness is not high enough.

Balancing Population

A good ratio to follow is 5 Serfs for every 1 Commoner, and about 10 Commoners for every 1 Citizen or something along those lines. Happiness is key for success along with growth at a normal pace.

There were times when I immigrated too many Newcomers and built more than I could keep up with this caused a lot of issues with the economy and happiness. I didn’t have the funds to provide new jobs or expand the Territory, and Newcomers kept lining up at the Village Center.

You can pause immigration at the top menu under Villagers, click the orange plus sign and tick the box to stop immigration until you’re ready to take on more population.

Sometimes in Foundation you will be anxiously wanting more people to join the village while other times you may have too many. If you have too many villagers, you can send them to the Keep to become Soldiers, or add more Markets, Granaries, Warehouses, and jobs to fill.

How to Assign Jobs

There are three ways to assign jobs for villagers in Foundation:

1. Select the Workplace building and assign a worker from the drop down list.
2. Open [F2] Buildings and review what jobs are vacant, from there you can assign villagers jobs.
3. Click on a Villager and select a job from the drop-down list.

What are Job Levels?

Each job has 6 Levels to complete, as of right now I don’t see any change in villager performance besides the ability to promote a Novice to Soldier and Soldier to Knight. Monks can also be promoted to Prior at level 6.

How to Promote Villagers

The first week of each month Promotion available! will appear in the Opportunities section, clicking this opens a new window where you can pay with gold coins to promote your villagers status and rank from Newcomer – Serf – Commoner – Citizen, and special instances for Knight and Prior.

Which Villagers to Promote?

The chart below displays all available jobs in Foundation and suggestions for villager status promotions based on the type of work they perform. Promoting villagers depends on varying factors and your village needs. These suggestions derive from my experiences with the game and may differ from another play through.

Market Tenders and Transporters can be any status because they are often on the move. Market Tenders don’t always need to be at the stall to make a sale, they can be good Citizens, or even Newcomers.

Changes Can Be Made

A villagers job can be changed, except for Monks, so if you find something isn’t working out make changes and experiment further. Check on housing and happiness to troubleshoot.

I hope this Foundation guide was helpful, best wishes with your village growth! 🏰