Anvil Empires Farming Guide

Read This First

This is a launch-watch farming guide for a game that resets. Anvil Empires is in pre-alpha, with a test running November 11–15, 2026 and no release date. The community wiki describes persistence as per-test — settlements, homesteads, avatars and inventory are scoped to the active war world, and the world is reset for the next test — so you are farming for a war that ends on November 15, not for a stockpile that lasts. There is no published drop table, no gathering rate, no silver-per-hour figure and no crafting-cost table beyond scattered examples, and the developer has not published a currency name in material checked — the community wiki names Silver, and this guide attributes that to the wiki. What this guide gives you is the farming game as the wiki documents it: the resource map, the ingot tiers, the workshops, the production chains, the caravans and the Marketplace. If you want the progression side — avatars, attributes, veterancy and the war — that is our Anvil Empires Leveling Guide.

Almost everything in Anvil Empires is made by a player. Weapons, armour, food, structures and siege engines all start as raw materials gathered from the world, processed through workshops, and assembled into finished items. There is no shop menu to buy a sword from, no auction house full of listed gear, and no NPC vendor with a stock list — there are players, workshops and a Marketplace where players trade what other players made. That is the whole economy, and farming is the bottom of it: the branches, flint, ore, timber, crops and pelts that every other system consumes. The game ships with around a hundred and fifty distinct resources spread across nine categories, plus the ingot tier system that drives gear progression, according to the community wiki — and the farmers who understand which category feeds which chain are the farmers the war depends on. This guide follows the chain from the ground to the frontline, in order, so you can see where your work goes and why it matters.

How the Economy Works

The economy of Anvil Empires is a player-made economy in the strongest sense: the game does not generate finished goods, it generates raw materials, and players do the rest. A sword begins as iron ore in the ground, becomes an ingot at a Furnace, becomes a blade at a Forge, and ends up in a soldier's hand at the front — and every step in that chain is a player doing a job, not a system ticking over. The same is true of a meal (wheat from a Tilled Field, flour from a Grain Mill, bread from a Hearth, eaten by a soldier), a wall (timber from a tree, planks from a workshop, a fortification on a frontier), and a siege engine (timber, iron, rope and a crew). The economy is therefore a logistics problem as much as a production problem: the materials have to be in the right place at the right time, and the people who move them — the caravan drivers — are as much a part of the economy as the people who make them.

Two features of the economy shape every farming decision. The first is that it resets: the community wiki describes persistence as per-test, with the world reset between tests and account-level systems still being designed. A stockpile has no value after November 15 except as a lesson, so the farming goal is not accumulation — it is throughput. Farm what the war needs now, move it to where it is needed, and do not hoard against a future that the reset will erase. The second is that the economy had a tenfold Silver inflation in MS 68, for more granular pricing — which means the prices you see in the current test are ten times the prices of two tests ago, and any price list from before MS 68 is describing a different economy. The community wiki is careful about this, and so is this guide: the only prices quoted here are the ones the wiki gives for the current build, and they are quoted as current-build figures, not as permanent ones. Silver itself is the wiki's name for the currency — the developer has not published one — and it is earned through bounties and trade, and spent on upkeep, orders and recruitment, which the Silver section covers in full.

The Resource Map

The community wiki counts around a hundred and fifty distinct resources spread across nine categories, and the table below follows its categorisation exactly, because the categories are the map of the whole economy. Learn them before you learn any single resource, because the category tells you what a thing is for, and what it is for tells you whether to pick it up.

The categories sort themselves into a priority order for a new farmer, and the order is the order of the game: raw natural first, because branches, flint, berries and water are what the first hour runs on; wood and mineral next, because logs and ore are what the workshops consume; crops and animal products alongside them, because food is what keeps everyone working; and processed materials last, because they are the output of the workshops, not the input of the field. The starter tier deserves a note, because it is where every player begins and where the game teaches its loop: pick up branches from the ground, knap flint into improvised tool heads, forage berries and water, and craft crude stone tools from the knowledge built into the starter UI. There is no recipe to find and no vendor to buy from. The ground is the vendor, and your hands are the first tool. Everything after that is a better version of the same loop: better tools, better nodes, better workshops, same shape.

Ingots: The Spine of Gear

Smelting raw ore at a Furnace yields one of four ingot tiers, and the tiers form the backbone of weapon and armour progression: higher ingot tiers consistently outperform lower ones for the same item type. The table below is the community wiki's ingot tier system, and it is the single most important table in this guide, because every weapon and armour decision in the game runs through it.

Three recent changes to the ingot economy matter more than the table itself, because they are the changes that catch returning players out. First, Bronze Ingots are now smelted from Malachite rather than Cassiterite, while Cassiterite Ore is processed into Cassiterite Fragments and then smelted into Tin Ingots, which are required to craft Longswords. A player who remembers the old recipe will waste Cassiterite on Bronze and wonder why nothing works. Second, Iron Ore now breaks down into four Iron Fragments and Coal Chunks into four Coal Fragments, and Malachite Ore crushed at a Smashing Plate now yields six Malachite Fragments instead of four — the fragment economy is the processing step between ore and ingot, and the numbers changed. Third, Heavy Armour now requires Steel to craft, which makes Steel the gate for the heaviest kit in the game. The age gates add a fourth wrinkle: some world resources unlock only after an age has been running for a set number of days — Hemp after two days, Coal after three, Tin after four — so the farming plan for a test changes by the day, and a resource that does not exist on day one exists on day four. Coal mining is no longer restricted by temperature or season, which removes one old constraint and makes the age gate the one that matters.

Gathering: Wood, Ore, Crops, Animals

Gathering in Anvil Empires is four jobs that share one attribute — Logging and Mining, which reduces the stamina cost per swing on resource nodes — and the jobs are different enough that a specialist in one is not a specialist in the others. Wood comes from trees: Mireland Beech, Briar Spruce and North Astrian Pine are the named species in the wiki, and trees yield logs that become planks and reinforced planks — the structural material of every settlement and siege engine in the game. The September 2026 update's regrowing forests are worth knowing here: forests regrow, and they hide players from Beacon Tower intel, which makes a forest both a resource and a piece of cover. Mineral comes from nodes: iron ore, coal, malachite, cassiterite and lead, smelted into ingots at a Furnace, with the age gates above deciding when each one is available. Crops come from Tilled Fields: wheat, cabbage and flax, each yielding seeds for replanting plus a primary product such as flour or fibre — the farming section below covers them in full. Animal products come from hunting and fishing: bones, fat, meats, pelts, sinew, feathers and eggs, feeding cooking and leather processing, and the Hunting attribute makes stealth around hostile fauna easier and unlocks superior bow access.

The gathering advice is about stamina, not speed. The Logging and Mining attribute reduces the stamina cost per swing, which means the gatherer who harvests every day is not just gathering — they are levelling, and the harvesting gets cheaper as they do. Fitness matters here too: it slows the rate at which maximum stamina drains, by up to seventy-five percent at high ranks, and the base drain rate was retuned twice in MS 67 and MS 68. A gatherer with ranks in both attributes can work a node field far longer than a fresh Auxiliary, which is why the faction's miners and loggers are usually Named Avatars with a job, not Auxiliaries passing through. Bring food and water — hunger and thirst tick down constantly — and bring a cart for the haul back, or better, arrange a caravan, because the September 2026 update made personal inventory stacks smaller against larger cart and wagon capacity. The gatherer who walks home with a full inventory and no transport is the gatherer who makes two trips for one load.

Workshops and Processing

Workshops are where raw resources become useful, and each one does one job — learn the list before you build anything, because building the wrong workshop is the most common farming mistake in the game. The Forge turns ingots and components into weapons, armour pieces and tools. The Furnace smelts ore into ingots and processes specific raw inputs into refined materials. The Grain Mill processes wheat into flour and seeds into animal feed, and can be operated manually or driven by a Hand Crank Adapter. The Tilled Field is the base unit of farming production, planted with seeds for wheat, cabbage or flax. The Hearth, Oven and Pantry are cooking stations that turn raw food into cooked meals and store them for the household. The Repair Bench maintains tools and equipment in the field — and the MS 67 rework gave it both manual repair, where you pick individual items, and a repair-all option that services everything eligible in one pass, with nails now covering several items instead of being consumed once per item, which cuts the running cost of keeping a warband's gear serviceable.

Two MS 67 and MS 68 changes to workshops matter for every farmer. The first is ventilation: any structure that burns fuel gives off smoke while it is working, and inside an enclosed space that smoke builds up and starts injuring the people in the room. Fitting a chimney vents it. In practice this means indoor workshops have to be designed around airflow, and sealing a smithy inside a windowless building is now actively harmful rather than merely tidy — the chimney is a farming tool, not a decoration, and the September update adds a Chimney Wall for the purpose. The second is the MS 68 Town Workshop rework, which replaced the old Smithing Area as the central hub: basic blades, weapons, armour and tools are produced there using resources and Silver, with a Repair Bench inside and filter tabs on the crafting UI, while a selection of higher-tier equipment moved out of Town production toward Homestead progression. Iron Hammers, Axes and Pickaxes now need only a single Wood Plank each, and production structures such as Furnaces, Ovens and Hearths received clearer recipe interfaces. The practical read is that the Town Workshop is where a new player crafts, the Homestead is where an established player crafts, and the move between them is the move from beginner to contributor.

Production Chains

A production chain is the whole farming game in miniature, and the community wiki's example chain is the best illustration of how the economy actually works. A homestead farmer plants Tilled Fields with wheat and flax; a hunter brings in deer meat and pelts; a miner extracts iron ore and clay; ingredients flow into a town Furnace and Grain Mill; ingots feed the Forge for arms and armour; cooked meals stack in the Pantry; and a caravan packs barrels of bread, arrows and ingots and takes them out to the supply camps. Players are free to specialise in any link of the chain; almost no one does the whole loop alone. That last sentence is the point: the chain is a team, and the farmer who tries to do every link is the farmer who does every link badly. Pick a link, do it every session, and let the chain carry the rest.

The chains intersect in ways that reward a farmer who knows more than one link. The miner's iron feeds the smith's forge and the munitions chain's arrowheads. The farmer's wheat feeds the mill's flour and the cook's bread and the caravan's barrels. The hunter's pelts feed the leather worker's armour and the clothing chain's warmth. The logger's timber feeds the builder's planks and the siege crew's engines. A faction whose chains are all running is a faction that can fight, build, eat and shoot at the same time; a faction whose chains have a gap is a faction that runs out of one thing at the worst moment. The farming job, in the end, is not gathering — it is keeping the chains fed, and the chains are what win the war.

Farming: Fields, Water and the Coming Rework

Crop farming in Anvil Empires is the Tilled Field and the seed, and it is the quietest farming in the game — which is also why it is the most easily neglected. A Tilled Field is the base unit of farming production, planted with seeds for wheat, cabbage or flax, and each crop yields seeds for replanting plus a primary product such as flour or fibre. Wheat goes to the Grain Mill for flour, and flour goes to the Hearth and Oven for bread, and bread goes to the Pantry and then to the caravan and then to the front — the food chain is the longest chain in the game, and it starts in a field. Flax yields fibre for linen, and linen feeds the clothing chain. Cabbage is food directly. The farmer's job is planting, tending and harvesting, and the harvest is the faction's food supply. A faction that does not farm does not eat, and a faction that does not eat does not fight — which is why the farmer is a war role, not a hobby.

The September 2026 development update previews a balancing pass on farming and water, and it is worth understanding because it changes what farming will feel like, even though it has not shipped yet. The aim is to cut the active, repetitive maintenance farms need while keeping their time and resource cost; the studio says the goal is not to make farming faster or more efficient. Water infrastructure gets a matching design pass: the Canal Wall carries water through Homestead walls, the Canal Fort module carries it through Fort Foundations into Towns and Fortress interiors, and Aqueducts no longer need large elevation changes to keep a constant flow. The studio frames the goal as letting players build shared water networks across the world. None of this is in the live build yet — it is previewed, not shipped — and this guide flags it as such, because a farmer who plans around the rework before it lands will be disappointed, and a farmer who ignores it will be surprised. Farm the fields as they are. Watch the water pass when it ships.

Silver: Bounties, Marketplace and Upkeep

Silver is the in-world currency, according to the community wiki — the developer has not published a currency name in material checked, and this guide attributes the name to the wiki wherever it uses it. Early Silver comes from completing bounties posted at Town Centers and from selling surplus goods at the Marketplace. Silver pays for upkeep on owned structures, fills Place Order requests on the Marketplace, and buys Avatar recruitments at the Town Keep. That is the whole monetary loop: earn it from bounties and trade, spend it on upkeep, orders and avatars, and earn more. There is no other sink and no other source documented, and no silver-per-hour figure is published anywhere — this guide gives none, because there is none to give.

The Marketplace has rules that shape how you farm for it. Orders expire after 72 hours, so a listing that does not sell is a listing that dies, and the farmer who lists at a price nobody pays has wasted three days of shelf life. Place Order requests let buyers name what they want and what they will pay, which makes the Marketplace a demand signal as well as a sales channel: check the Place Order board before you decide what to farm, because the board tells you what the faction is short of. The secure player-to-player Item Exchange, added in MS 67, lets players trade directly without the Marketplace in between. And the tenfold Silver inflation in MS 68 means the numbers are bigger than they were — ten Silver for five auxiliaries at the Recruitment Table, Named Avatar rolls at 1, 40, 90 or 140 Silver — and any price list from before MS 68 is describing a different economy. Upkeep is the quiet cost that catches new players: Silver pays for homestead and structure upkeep, and the getting-started guide warns to carry enough Silver to pay it before logging off. A farmer who earns Silver and spends none of it on upkeep is a farmer whose settlement decays while they sleep.

Logistics: Carts, Caravans and Boats

Logistics is the part of farming most guides skip and most wars are lost on, because a resource that never arrives is a resource that was never farmed. The community wiki's getting-started guide states the rule in one sentence: carts are slow, caravans are fast. For longer hauls, request a caravan with experienced drivers rather than dragging a hand cart across the map. The caravan is a player-driven vehicle in the logistics chain, and it does two jobs that no other system does: it moves bulk — barrels of bread, arrows and ingots packed for the supply camps — and it moves people, because Named Avatars do not respawn freely and must be transported to the frontline aboard a Caravan. Spawning onto a Caravan that is holding a Named Avatar produces it with only fifty percent of its maximum health, which is the deliberate cost of skipping the overland travel. The caravan driver is therefore a farming role: the driver is the link between the farm and the front, and a chain without a driver is a chain that ends at the town gate.

The September 2026 development update previews a naval expansion that will change logistics again: a revamped Cargo Boat with two rower seats and sails that can be furled, Shipyards at most coastal Towns, and Ship Docks for coastal Homesteads, with the map of Calligo expanding beyond the starting central islands with new continental landmasses and islands. The October 7, 2026 studio clip — "Calligo has expanded! Cargo Boats, Water Infrastructure and more" — announced that a test had just concluded with that content in it, although the test's number and dates are not recorded on the wiki. The farming implication is that coastal homesteads and water routes will matter more in the next test than they do in this one, and a farmer who claims a coastal plot now is positioning for a logistics network that does not exist yet. The September update also made personal inventory stacks smaller against larger cart and wagon capacity, which is the game's way of telling you the same thing the getting-started guide does: do not carry it yourself. Use the cart, use the wagon, use the caravan, use the boat.

Siege Farming: Munitions and War Supply

Siege farming is farming for the war's sharp end, and it is the farming that pays in victory rather than in Silver. The munitions category is arrows, scorpion arrows and catapult boulders — ammunition for combat and siege — and the siege engines they feed are battering rams, catapults, siege ladders and the burning oil defences used to break or hold a fortified town. MS 68 added Mantlets and the Makeshift Battering Ram as early-age siege equipment, and the September 2026 update promises an updated Scorpion. The munitions chain is wood, iron and feathers into arrows; timber and iron into rams and catapults; and a crew to operate them. A siege is not a solo activity and neither is siege farming: the arrows have to be made, packed, carried to the siege camp, and shot, and every link in that chain is a player doing a job.

The war-supply view of farming is the one that matters most in the last two days of a test, when the war is decided by logistics as much as by fighting. A faction that has stockpiled arrows, boulders and rams can prosecute a siege; a faction that has not cannot, whatever its soldiers' attributes are. A faction that has fed its frontline with bread and rations can hold a zone; a faction that has not watches its soldiers starve out of it. The military victory condition — capture and hold fifteen territory zones — is a logistics condition dressed as a combat condition, because holding a zone means supplying it, and supplying it means farming, processing, packing and carrying. The siege farmer's job is therefore the least glamorous and the most decisive in the game: make the arrows, pack the barrels, drive the caravan, and do it again tomorrow.

Farming Roles That Pay the War

The faction Discord channels list daily roles every test, and the farming roles among them are the ones this guide is about. Each one feeds a different chain, and each one trains a different attribute — or none at all, which is the point the leveling guide makes about invisible roles. The table below maps the farming roles to their chains.

Pick one role and do it every session, because the attributes reward depth and the test is only five to seven days long. A miner who works the nodes every day will harvest cheaper by the end of the test than a miner who splits time between the mine and the frontline. A smith who works the anvil every day will forge faster. A hunter who hunts every day will unlock superior bow access. And the roles that train no attribute — farmer, cook, builder, caravan driver — are the ones the war depends on most visibly when they are missing, because a faction without food, without walls and without supply does not fight at all. The best farming setup across a test is not one role done perfectly; it is one role done well plus a second avatar that covers the invisible job your faction is short of.

A Test-Week Farming Plan

Here is the plan for the November 11–15 test, day by day, for a farmer. Day one (November 11): do the first-hour loop — branches, flint, berries, water, crude tools, crude gear, cooked food — and claim or join a homestead with a bed and a Keystone. Check the Place Order board before you farm anything, and spend your first Silver on bounties, not on a Named Avatar you do not yet need. Day two: start your role and start it every session from now on. If you are a miner, work the nodes; the age gates mean Coal unlocks on day three and Tin on day four, so plan around the calendar, not just the map. If you are a farmer, plant the fields — wheat and flax first, because flour and fibre feed the longest chains. Day three: Coal is available now, and your attributes should be showing ranks. Feed the forge, check the Marketplace for what is selling, and list your surplus before it expires — orders die after 72 hours. Day four: Tin is available now, and Longswords need Tin Ingots. This is the day for the high-tier push: Steel, Tin, and the siege supply for the endgame. Day five (November 15): the last day. The war ends in victory or stalemate when the window closes, so spend it supplying the deciding fight, not stockpiling for a future the reset will erase. Pack the caravan, feed the front, and let the stockpile go.

Farming Traps

The farming traps in Anvil Empires are the traps of a game that resets, and they all punish the player who farms like the world is permanent. Stockpiling for a future that the reset erases is the first — farm for throughput, not for a chest full of ore on the last day. Farming the wrong recipe is the second — Bronze no longer needs Cassiterite, Cassiterite now becomes Tin for Longswords, and the player who remembers the old recipe wastes a day. Building an indoor workshop without a chimney is the third — combustion gives off smoke, smoke injures people in enclosed spaces, and a sealed smithy is actively harmful. Forgetting upkeep is the fourth — Silver pays for it, and a settlement that cannot pay decays while you sleep. Dragging a hand cart across the map instead of requesting a caravan is the fifth — carts are slow, caravans are fast, and the time you save is time you spend farming. Listing on the Marketplace at a price nobody pays is the sixth — orders expire after 72 hours, and a dead listing is three days of shelf life wasted. And farming alone when your faction needs you in a chain is the last — almost no one does the whole loop alone, and the farmer who tries is the farmer who does every link badly. Pick a link. Feed the chain. Let the war do the rest.

Patch State (as of November 12, 2026)

Written November 12, 2026, on the second day of the pre-alpha test that runs November 11–15, from the community wiki (TheGamesWiki) as updated October 19, 2026, plus MMORPG.com's November 8 spotlight and SteamCharts data from November 11. The facts most likely to change first are the ones the studio changes every test: the economy numbers (the tenfold Silver inflation arrived with MS 68), the ingot recipes (Bronze from Malachite, Cassiterite into Tin), the age gates (Hemp two days, Coal three, Tin four), and the systems still in preview — the September 2026 development update's naval content, Cargo Boats, Shipyards, Ship Docks, the Farming and water pass, and the crossbow, which had still not appeared in a live test as of MS 68. After November 15, check the community wiki's pre-alpha-tests page for the test's outcome and the next window, and treat anything this guide says that the live build contradicts as the build's word winning. The wiki is explicit about its own caveat, and this guide repeats it: wiki articles describe the most recent observed state and should be cross-checked against the current test before treating them as final.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best thing to farm in Anvil Empires?

The thing your faction is short of. Anvil Empires has about 150 resources across nine categories, and almost everything is made by a player, so value follows the war: iron and coal for the forge when the faction is arming, wheat and flax for food and fibre when it is feeding, timber and stone when it is building. Watch what the Town Workshop and Marketplace are short of — that is the farm.

What is Silver in Anvil Empires?

Silver is the in-world currency, according to the community wiki — the developer has not published a currency name in material checked. Early Silver comes from bounties posted at Town Centers and from selling surplus goods at the Marketplace. It pays structure upkeep, fills Place Order requests, and buys Avatar recruitments at the Town Keep.

How do ingots work in Anvil Empires?

Smelting raw ore at a Furnace yields one of four ingot tiers: Iron from iron ore, Bronze from Malachite (three Malachite per Bronze Ingot, no Cassiterite needed any more), Lead from lead ore, and Steel from higher-tier processing — the top-tier weapon and armour material in the current build. Higher tiers consistently outperform lower ones for the same item type.

Do I keep what I farm when the test ends?

The community wiki describes persistence as per-test: settlements, homesteads, avatars and inventory are scoped to the active war world, and the world is reset for the next test. The developer has not confirmed this in an official announcement we could verify. Farm for the war you are in, not for a stockpile that may not survive it.

What is the fastest way to make Silver in Anvil Empires?

No silver-per-hour figure is published, and this guide gives none. The verified income sources are bounties posted at Town Centers and selling surplus goods at the Marketplace, where orders expire after 72 hours. The practical answer is to farm what the war needs and sell the surplus — a miner who feeds a busy forge earns more than a miner who stockpiles ore nobody is buying.

How does farming work in Anvil Empires?

Crops grow on Tilled Fields planted with seeds — wheat, cabbage or flax — and each yields seeds for replanting plus a primary product such as flour or fibre. The September 2026 development update previews a farming and water pass aimed at cutting repetitive maintenance while keeping time and resource costs; the studio says the goal is not to make farming faster or more efficient.

What should I do with my first resources?

Turn them into tools and gear, not a stockpile. Pick up branches, knap flint into tool heads, forage berries and water, craft crude tools and crude gear, and cook food at a Firepit or Hearth. Then claim or join a homestead, where higher-tier crafting buildings can sit — the homestead is where raw resources become useful.

Can I buy Anvil Empires resources with real money?

There is no verified seller market for a pre-alpha game whose world resets between tests, and nothing in this guide is bought — everything is gathered, crafted and traded in-game. The game's economy is player-made from the ground up, and that is the point of it.

Sources

Every fact in this guide carries its source. Resource categories, ingot tiers, workshops, chains, Silver and the Marketplace all come from the community wiki (TheGamesWiki), not the developer, and are attributed as such throughout. Test dates come from MMORPG.com; player counts from SteamCharts. Last checked November 12, 2026.

• TheGamesWiki (community wiki): Crafting and Resources (nine resource categories, ingot tiers, workshops, recent economy changes, age gates)
• TheGamesWiki (community wiki): Getting Started — Anvil Empires (first-hour loop, Silver and bounties, carts vs caravans, survival notes)
• TheGamesWiki (community wiki): Pre-Alpha Tests (test cadence since April 2023, wars, per-test persistence, MS 67/68 changes)
• TheGamesWiki (community wiki): Settlements (homestead to town, Keystone, rent, Town vs Wild specialisation)
• TheGamesWiki (community wiki): Avatar System (Auxiliary rations, recruitment costs, Caravan deployment)
• TheGamesWiki (community wiki): Victory Conditions (military, cultural and religious paths; 27 zones, 15 to win in War 19)
• TheGamesWiki (community wiki): Overview (pre-alpha state, Calligo, core pillars, current test)
• MMORPG.com: Indie MMO Spotlight, November 8, 2026 (new pre-alpha test began Wednesday, runs through Sunday, November 15)
• Gamerficial: Anvil Empires Wants to Put 1,000 Players Into the Same Massive Medieval Battle (Foxhole lineage, 1,000-player battles, release date TBA)
• SteamCharts: Anvil Empires Pre-Alpha (351 playing, 402 24-hour peak, 1,211 all-time peak, November 11, 2026)
• MassivelyOP Betawatch, November 6, 2026 (Anvil Empires: intermittent alpha)
• MMODude: Anvil Empires game page