COLLECT    <item> [number] [days]               time: as given  priority: 3

Catch, harvest, collect or produce the given item from the unit's current location, if possible. Collection proceeds until the desired quantity of the item has been obtained, or the given number of days has passed, whichever comes first.

If neither number or days is given, collect will continue until the location's supply of the item is fully depleted.

Collection ceases when no more of the resource is available in the location. Thus, `collect 87 10' may obtain less than 10 fish [87], if the current ocean province's supply of fish runs out.

Examples:

collect 10         # Recruit as many peasants [10] as possible
collect 68 2       # Harvest two yew trees
collect 87 0 10    # Fish for 10 days
collect 87 25 10   # Fish until 25 fish [87] have been caught, or
                   # for 10 days, whichever comes first

Many collection commands have aliases so they can be more easily remembered. For example, the above orders could be written:

recruit
yew 2
fish 0 10
fish 25 10

Most collection tasks require the unit to possess a particular skill, and to be in a likely location to obtain the desired item.

num  item        who     where              qty  skill  chance  alias
---  ----        ---     -----              ---  -----  ------  -----
 10  peasant     noble   city, province[1]   10   none   100%   recruit
 68  yew         worker  yew groves           5    703   100%   yew
 77  wood        worker  forest              30    702   100%   wood
 78  stone       worker  mountains           50    683   100%   quarry
 87  fish        sailor  ocean               50    603    50%   fish
 51  wild horse  noble   plains               5    655    50%   catch

Other rare items which may be collected are listed in the lore sheets for Collect rare foliage [704], a subskill of Forestry [700], and Collect rare elements [696], a subskill of Alchemy [690].

Explanation of table columns:

num

item

The resource to be collected. For example, Fish [87].

who

Some tasks may only be performed by a noble, while others must be done by men, such as workers or sailors. For instance, recruiting requires the attention of a noble. Additional men are of no benefit.

Fishing, however, requires sailors. The noble himself does not participate. The more sailors available for fishing, the quicker the fish will be caught.

where

qty

Resources are replenished at the end of each month. Every province (forest, mountain or swamp) will have ten recruitable peasants at the beginning of each turn. Each ocean province will have 50 fish that may be caught. Mountains yield up to 50 stone per turn.

skill

Skills are required for most collection tasks (except recruiting):

activity        subskill                  category
--------        --------                  --------
recruiting      none                      none
cutting yew     Harvest yew [703]         Forestry [700]
cutting timber  Harvest lumber [702]      Forestry [700]
quarrying       Stone quarrying [682]     Construction [680]
fishing         Fishing [603]             Shipcraft [600]
horse catching  Catch wild horses [655]   Beastmastery [650]

chance

The rate of collection is certain for most tasks. Cutting timber yields one wood [77] per day per worker, as long as the forest has a supply of wood.

However, some tasks have an element of randomness. Horse-catching, for example, is a difficult, uncertain task. Each day there is only a 50% chance that a noble will catch a wild horse.

The chance is for the unit as a whole, not for individual men engaged in the task. Thus, a unit of sailors will collect fish about half of the days they spend fishing. The other half, no fish will be caught.

alias

Common collection tasks have an alias so they are easier to remember.

task            alias
----            -----
collect 10      recruit
collect 68      yew
collect 77      wood
collect 78      quarry
collect 87      fish
collect 51      catch

For example, the orders `collect 51 0 10' and `catch 0 10' are equivalent.

Note that if no arguments are supplied to the collect order (or one of its aliases), it may never terminate. For instance, suppose a unit with one sailor fishes alone in an ocean province:

fish    -or-    collect 87

Since no arguments were given for the fish order, fishing will continue as long as the ocean has a supply of fish. The sailor will produce, on average, a fish every two days, or 15 fish per month. Since this is less than the monthly supply of fish in an ocean province, the sailor will never exhaust the supply, and thus is likely to continue fishing forever, until interrupted with a stop order.

[1] forest, plains or mountain