by Sundown Finesmith (reproduced by kind permission)
I've seen a fair amount of poor advice given about the Fed HUD, so here's mine, based mainly on personal experience (and many constructive comments from the wisest of GVs, Immy). I offer it in good faith, but take it at your own risk. I apologise for any remaining inaccuracies in what follows, please let me know if you find any.
It's said you shouldn't get the Fed hud unless you have a large amount of personal acres (i.e. are a Duke at least - I've even seen 1000 personal acres mentioned), and a lot of spare gold, and a lot of experience.
I agree you need to be happy with the standard HUD first, have done a few traders, and be familiar with using the HUD and understand how income flows and relates to acres and subjects. You also need to have the time and inclination to read and digest what's on the HUD - many of the extra options take up more than one offer page, and require some thought. Having said that, you can park and ignore it too, though if you are of high rank you will be risking some homage income loss.
However, under the rank of Marquis there's no downside that I can see to using the Fed HUD, and potential for an increased income if you have subjects. You can ignore all the Fed HUD extras without penalty and enjoy the fun bits as and when ready. If you are getting a bit bored with the standard game, it's a great way to increase the fun again while you work on building up your acres and subjects. You need to do a little bit of homework before diving in, but there's a lot to be gained for very little effort.
Extra fun comes from:
In what follows, I'm not going to describe all the things listed above, because these are covered in great detail elsewhere on the web, and you will also enjoy discovering them for yourself. However, in exchange for all this excitement, the Fed HUD gives you some new assets to keep an eye on besides acres and gold, these being gold bars and citizens. How these work is not obvious at first, but understanding them will make your new FED life easier and a lot less confusing, so here is an explanation.
Gold bars (not to be confused with gold) are used to buy potions from the alchemist. Potions are boosters for your game - some give you short term benefits (a gold windfall worth at least an acre, for example), others long term (the ability to exceed the 2000 personal acre cap, for example). The alchemist visits a couple of times a day, heralded by the moon turning red - you will not be invited to visit her unless you have at least one gold bar. You only get a couple of turns warning about her visit, and it only lasts 2 turns - one to offer you a choice of three potions and a second to ask for your advice in mixing new potions.
Gold bars come from various sources:
Gold bars are scarce - try to hang on to your last one, as you won't even see the alchemist if you have none, and she is a primary source of more of them.
You won't see them mentioned on the front page of your HUD, they are on the Accounting tab.
Citizens are a truly confusing resource. They are NOT the same as subjects, but much more of a commodity like gold. The number you have is not the important thing - it is the % of your citizen capacity. Your citizen capacity depends on your rank and acres and also that of your subjects. How it is calculated I have yet to determine, watch this space for when I work it out. Suffice it to say, at any given time you have a citizen capacity, and it will increase if you add acres or subjects and decrease if these are lost. You also have a total number of citizens (reported under the gold amount) and the percentage of these over your capacity is reported on the Accounting tab. Keep an eye on this Population % figure - it is what matters.
You would think that you could only go up to 100% capacity, but in fact you can squash more of these hypothetical people on to your land up to an eye-watering 5000% (visions of towering high rises in the corner of every acre).
Every month you get homage income from your subjects, once you are on the Fed HUD this is multiplied by the % capacity of citizens you have, up to a maximum of 150%. So it is BAD to have less than 100% capacity, because your homage income (if any) will be cut. It is GOOD to have 150% or more, because homage income will increase every month over what a non-fed HUD player gets with the same subjects.
Additionally, every second January (even-numbered years) there is a census. The standard HUD will give you a census payment per subject in these months. The Fed HUD will give you that PLUS a payment for your citizens. For a prince it is 1 gold for every 9 citizens. This can be a lot of gold, and is the reason you would try to get up to 5000% capacity.
This all sounds wonderful - get a load of citizens and watch the gold roll in. However, citizens can be lost. For a Marquise and above a disaster will strike your little empire every few hours - famine, disease or crime. Unless you pay a lot of gold to put things right, citizens will leave, quite often in a wooden box. This reduces your % of capacity and thus your income. It's a balancing act though. Paying for disasters costs a lot of money, and the payback period if the extra income is long. Think of it like the production upgrades you were offered when you started, except it is a never-ending process with a downside if you don't pay.
Ignoring disasters is the one thing that can cost you if you just park and ignore the Fed HUD. Eventually your citizens will wander off or die horribly and your homage income will drop below 100% of what it would have been on the normal HUD (strangely, this state of affairs will net a princess an "achievement"). This only matters, though, if you actually have some subjects to give you homage income AND if you are a Marquise or above.
Below Countess (or above and with no subjects) you will have just 1 citizen, and will be at 100% capacity.
At Countess and above your citizen capacity will be more than 1 if you have some subjects, and it is now worth doing things to increase the citizens, or at least not losing too many.
There are ways to increase your citizens:
Unless all your subjects leave and/or your rank is reduced below Countess, you can lose them only one way - by ignoring disasters or only paying a small amount to mitigate a disaster.
When you gain or lose total citizens, the all-important % capacity changes accordingly.
When you change your capacity (by buying or selling acres or by subject changes), nothing happens to your citizen count until a census January. Then you may see a notice telling you that citizens have arrived or left. This is purely to maintain that all important % capacity. So if your acreage goes up, some extra citizens will move into the area keeping your % capacity roughly the same. This happens automatically and doesn't cost you anything.
In every second September you may also see a notice warning you if you have more than 150% of capacity. This is purely advisory and affects nothing, it just tells you that your extra monthly homage is now as big as possible. If you go above 5000%, though, you will lose citizens in this month to keep you at the maximum % capacity. If you get above 5000% therefore, it is a good idea to send some citizens to one of your allies before they abandon you of their own accord.
Hoard your gold bars. Take your first steps towards becoming a dungeon quest obsessive.
Don't worry about citizens if you are not a Countess yet, or have no subjects. Disasters won't kick in until you reach Marquis rank with subjects.
Otherwise keep checking the Accounting tab for the % citizen capacity figure, and increase it when disasters strike if you have the gold to do so (the extra income you are getting should help with this).
Choose a research topic for long-term gain - once complete you will get citizens without cost every time that type of disaster strikes, and each type has extra benefits too. Disease is generally thought to be the best one for long term benefit.
If anything stumps you, ask in Kingdom chat, there are plenty of experts ready to share their knowledge.
The Tiny Empires Realm of FIRE MOON