A quick guide on how trading, crafting, and province growth work in Windward Horizon, plus key differences from original Windward.
Windward Horizon: Beginner’s Guide
Trading, Crafting & Province Growth Explained – What’s New Since Original Windward?
Written by: Limdood
Differences from the Original Windward
Many players have found the trading changes in Windward Horizon frustrating and confusing compared to the original game.
In the original Windward, trading was straightforward:
- You bought goods from towns that produced them.
- You delivered those goods directly to towns that needed them.
- Towns grew after completing a set number of tasks-either by selling requested goods or finishing quests.
In Windward Horizon, the system has been overhauled:
- Town Growth: Now tracked by a progress bar instead of fixed task counts.
- Trade Categories: Trading is divided into six primary categories (with a seventh acting as a catch-all):
- Growth-Related: Food, Drink, Clothing (affect town development).
- Industry-Related: Masonry, Lumber, Metal (govern industrial expansion).
- Town Needs: Every town will always either produce or demand items from these categories.
The seventh category serves as a miscellaneous bucket for items that don’t fit into the main six, but it functions differently-more on that later.
Province Growth
Provinces act as shared civilization zones—towns within a province function almost identically, with no unique distinctions. They share:
- The same trade goods pool (all towns buy/sell from the same stock).
- The same workshop access (any workshop unlocked in the province is available in every town).
Because of this, your goal isn’t town growth—it’s province growth.
Tracking Growth & Needs
Open any town’s menu to check the province’s status. The default tab shows:
- Province size (current growth progress).
- Resource needs (via a quick-reference bar at the top).
Growth Resources (Daily Consumption)
- Food (3/day), Drink (3/day), Clothing (2/day)
- These determine if the province grows passively over time.
- If all are stocked, growth continues; shortages pause progress.
Industry Resources (Workshop Efficiency)
- Lumber, Metal, Masonry
- Workshops consume these to level up (e.g., Novice → Apprentice).
- Higher tiers = better production, recipes, and yields.
- Example: A Stonecutter produces Masonry, so it only needs Lumber/Metal.
Stocking & Excess Goods
Provinces reserve 5 days’ worth of each need (e.g., 15 Food).
- Excess beyond 5 days becomes available for purchase (but expensive, since the province doesn’t produce it).
- Other players/NPCs can buy and ship these extras elsewhere.
- Left unused, the province will slowly consume the surplus.
- Strategy: Overstocking helps growth but isn’t foolproof—others might snatch extras!
Focus on balancing Growth (Food/Drink/Clothing) and Industry (Lumber/Metal/Masonry) to maximize province development.
Trading
If you’re coming from the original Windward or are new to Windward Horizon, the market screen might trick you. In the old game, you just bought anything a town produced and sold it wherever it was needed. Not anymore!
Forget the Old Way: You might see a province producing Granite or Hematite and think, “Great, I’ll buy this and sell it elsewhere!” But here’s the catch: most provinces don’t want raw materials like these. They’ll only accept them if they have a specific workshop (like a Stonecutter for Granite or a Smith for Hematite) and don’t produce it themselves. Especially in a new world, your options for selling these can be very limited, or even non-existent.
What to Trade: Focus on the 6 Key Categories
Instead of raw materials, your trading success in Windward Horizon hinges on six specific categories that provinces always need. These are the lifeblood of province growth and industry:
- Food
- Drink
- Clothing
- Lumber
- Metal
- Masonry
Provinces that don’t produce one of these items will almost always be in demand for it. For example, if a province has a Stonecutter, it’ll make plenty of Masonry. But any other province without a Stonecutter will eagerly buy Masonry from you.
“Goods” (Raw Materials) and Why They’re Riskier
The game refers to other items, those outside the main six categories, as “Goods.” These are generally unrefined, raw materials like raw plants (Flax, Wheat), animals, logs, and unrefined minerals (Granite, Hematite).
- Goods can be used by specific workshops to create refined products (like Wheat into Bread or Flax into Linen).
- However, transporting Goods is riskier than transporting the 6 refined categories. You need to know for sure that your destination province has the right workshop and needs that specific raw material. Otherwise, you’ll be stuck with a cargo hold full of useless items.
Rule of Thumb: Unless you’re trying to supply a very specific workshop to produce a high-value item (like Steel, which needs Coal and Iron), you should generally aim to sell the refined versions of the 6 core categories (e.g., actual Food, not just Wheat; refined Metal, not just Hematite).
Province Prosperity: Your Buying and Selling Power
A province’s Prosperity stat (visible on the town screen) ranges from -100% to 100%. This stat directly impacts your trade prices:
- Raising Prosperity: You can increase Prosperity by buying items from the marketplace (any goods, not just ship equipment), fulfilling the province’s 6 core needs, and completing quests.
- Lowering Prosperity: It drops if needs aren’t met or if you sell marketplace items to the province.
- Price Impact:
- Low Prosperity: Items are cheaper to buy, but you also sell them for less.
- High Prosperity: Items are more expensive to buy, but you sell them for more.
Key Trading Tidbits
- Demand is Key: Food, Drink, Clothing, Lumber, Metal, and Masonry are almost always in demand in provinces that don’t produce them.
- Distance = Profit: The farther you transport goods, the greater your profit. Delivering an item across the map can yield more than double the profit compared to selling it to a nearby province.
- Prosperity’s Role: A higher Prosperity stat in a province means you’ll both buy and sell items at better prices.
Crafting
Crafting is how you transform basic raw goods into the refined products that provinces demand. While some workshops (like Cookhouses, Breweries, or Lumber Mills) naturally produce these items over time, you don’t have to wait.
Instant Crafting at Your Fingertips
You can instantly craft anything a workshop can make, as long as you have the necessary raw materials.
- Be in a Town: You need to be in a town within a province that has the right type of workshop.
- Open Crafting Menu: While in town, open your inventory and click the bottom-left tab. This brings up the crafting interface.
- Choose Workshop & Recipe: Select the workshop you want to use (e.g., Stonecutter, Smith Workshop) and then pick your desired recipe. Keep in mind that not every recipe is available at every workshop, especially if it’s a low-level “novice” workshop.
- Combine Instantly: If you have the raw goods in your inventory (e.g., 4 Granite to make 4 Artisan Masonry) and enough free cargo space, hit the “Combine” button. The item is crafted instantly, and you can repeat this as many times as you have resources.
Why Crafting is a Game-Changer
Crafting gives you incredible flexibility:
- Utilize Raw Goods: It lets you grab raw materials from provinces that produce them (like a farm’s Wheat or a Stonecutter’s Granite) and convert them into valuable refined goods.
- Create Desired Products: As long as there’s a province on your map with the right workshop type and level, and you can get the raw ingredients, you can craft the final product.
- Check the World Map: When looking at the world map, you can see a province’s workshops at the top of its info, and its natural resources underneath. This helps you identify where to gather raw materials and where you can potentially craft.
Understanding Item Qualities
Not all crafted items of the same type are equal. Quality matters:
- Baseline Needs: Provinces calculate their needs based on “low quality” items. If a town needs 2 units of clothing, 2 “burlap hats” (a low-quality item) will satisfy that need.
- Higher Quality, More Value: Higher quality items (like a “linen shirt”) count for more “points” towards a town’s needs. They cost more to make but sell for a significantly higher price.
- Trade-Off: While you’ll earn more selling high-quality items, provinces don’t require them for their needs. You can fulfill a need with more lower-quality items just as effectively.
Player-Founded Provinces
In Windward Horizon, you’ll have the exciting opportunity to found new provinces. This gives you direct control over the world’s development and offers unique benefits not found in pre-existing provinces.
How to Found a New Province
- Quest-Based: Established provinces (Size 5+, Prosperity 25%+) can offer you a “Settle a New Province” quest.
- Location Matters: There’s a distance limit from the issuing province for where you can found your new settlement.
- Under Construction: Once founded, the new province will be “Under Construction.” You can’t do much until it reaches Level 1.
- Town Supplies: To level it up, you’ll need “Town Supplies.” These can be earned from quests, bought (at a high markup) from other provinces, or purchased (without markup) from “Team Domination” or “Team Survival” map instances after completion.
Benefits of Being a Founder
As the founder, you gain special control and perks:
- Excavate Ability: You can use the “excavate” ability within your province to remove land, making travel easier.
- Choose Workshops: This is a big one! Provinces get to establish a new workshop at levels 1, 4, 8, 12, and so on. If you’re present when your founded province hits one of these levels, you get to choose which workshop is created.
- If the workshop selection dialogue doesn’t appear automatically, click the dedicated button in the town screen to bring it up.
- Missed Opportunity? If you’re offline or simply miss the level-up, the computer will automatically pick a workshop (often a poor choice). Don’t worry, you can right-click any workshop and “trash” it to select a new one.
Strategic Founding: Picking the Perfect Spot
When founding a new province, take your time to choose the best location:
- Natural Resources are Key: Look for a spot with access to multiple useful natural resources.
- Fill Gaps: Choose resources your world currently lacks to ensure critical needs can be met (or to produce high-profit, high-quality goods).
- Complementary Resources: Find locations where resources work well together (e.g., Wheat and Hops for Ale, or Hematite and Coal for Steel).
- Variety: A province with a wide variety of natural resources offers many options for future development.
- Workshop Guidance: The workshop selection screen will also remind you which natural resources are available in your chosen province and which workshops utilize them, helping you make informed decisions.
Conclusion
Windward Horizon introduces more intricate trading, crafting, and province growth mechanics than the original game, but they’re quick to grasp and work seamlessly once you get the hang of them. Here’s a quick summary of essential tips to help you thrive:
- Focus Your Trades on the 6 Core Needs: Always prioritize transporting and selling Food, Drink, Clothing, Lumber, Masonry, and Metal. Use crafting to transform raw “goods” into these valuable, in-demand items.
- Go the Distance for Profit: Maximize your gains by transporting goods over long distances on the world map. Remember, holding Shift lets you sail faster in single-player or empty multiplayer worlds.
- Invest in Your Own Provinces: Prioritize growing player-founded provinces. You have direct control over their development, allowing you to choose ideal workshop locations and set up highly profitable long-distance trade routes.
- Cargo Hold is King: A larger ship cargo hold makes trading significantly easier and more profitable. You can buy and sell more at once, reducing trips and boosting efficiency.
- Stockpile Province Needs: Don’t just sell the daily minimum! Provinces will buy a significant quantity of needed items at “in demand” prices if you have the cargo space. Use this to stockpile multiple days’ worth of growth in provinces you want to develop rapidly.
By focusing on these core strategies, you’ll quickly master Windward Horizon’s deeper economic systems and build a thriving empire.