County of Fortune how to unlock higher tier buildings: level the settlement first, then open the Buildings tab, select the green person icon labelled "Commoners", press the plus sign on the first slot and pick the building you want. Tier-2 buildings are not unlocked directly — the settlement's level is the key.
County of Fortune how to unlock higher tier buildings: step by step
- Get the settlement to the next level by meeting its needs. Levelling up has the full order.
- Open the Buildings tab of that settlement.
- Select the green person icon labelled "Commoners".
- Press the plus sign on the first slot.
- Pick the building you want from the list.
The Commoner's own needs are listed in the Needs tab under the same green icon, so you can see what the new tier demands before you commit to a building.
Why a region can only hold so many tier-2 buildings
There is a limit on how many tier-2 buildings a single region may hold, and the limit is intentional. Mills, bakeries, taverns, markets and docks are the kind of building every region wants, and the tier-2 cap is the pressure that forces you to trade between regions instead of making each region self-sufficient. In the demo this shows up as a standstill: you need a marketplace in one region and a port in the other before the second region can trade at all.
What the demo stops at and what Early Access adds
The demo stops at Commoner, because demo settlements are capped at level 2. Early Access lifts the settlement cap to level 4 and adds two new social classes, Artisans and Patricians, together with over 40 new production buildings — including ports, which give access to sailboats able to transport products both upstream and downstream — and 50 new products. Raft ports covers what the new port buildings do for heavy goods.
Two conditions that block tier-2 buildings
- The region needs its own masons' guild. Masonry points cannot be traded, only the stone can, so the stone has to be shipped in and worked on site. Construction points explains why that service cannot be imported.
- A market needs a Village-level settlement. A settlement has to be at Village level (level 2) before it can build a market, which is why a region stuck at Hamlet cannot trade its way out of its missing goods. Trading covers the market rules.