Gold Rush Towns is a browser real-time strategy game where you build a town, produce resources, and mine gold. All actions update dynamically without refreshing the page. Below you will find the goal of the game and the full mechanics reference.
The main goal is to build a Gold Mine and extract gold. Gold is the premium resource: it can later be exchanged for real money through micropayments. A global gold pool is available for all players; each time you mine gold or buy it in the shop, the pool decreases.
To reach the Gold Mine you must:
In short: build your town → produce resources → build the Gold Mine → mine gold → exchange for real money.
You have 7 resources (shown in the top bar in-game):
Resources are stored in your inventory. The total amount is limited by storage capacity: the sum of capacity from all your storage buildings. The bottom bar shows storage fill percentage; if it is 100%, you cannot collect more resources until you use, sell, or build more storage.
Types:
Building rules: You need a free worker, enough resources, enough free storage for the cost, and at least 1 energy. You can only build on buildable tiles (e.g. grass). Non-road buildings must be placed next to a road. Build time is set per building type. Adding more workers to the construction (via the construction popup) speeds up the build by 50% per extra worker.
Production buildings have slots (levels 1–5). Each slot has its own recipe: costs (resources and optionally gold), production time (in hours), and output (one or more resources, or gold, or a worker at the City Hall).
Happiness is shown in the bottom bar (0–100%). It is calculated only from your houses of level 2 or higher. Level 1 houses do not add happiness. You start with a base (e.g. 10%); the rest comes from house levels. With 6 houses at level 10 you can reach 100% happiness.
Why happiness matters: It directly affects the lifespan of workers hired from the City Hall. Low happiness (e.g. 10%) means workers live about 10 days; at 100% happiness they live about 30 days. So building and upgrading houses is essential if you want more workers for construction and production.
Population (bottom bar) shows how “full” your city is: total workers vs capacity. Capacity = 8 (immortal workers) + max_workers (from houses). So: many houses and few workers → low population %; many workers and few houses → high population %. The bar is a percentage capped at 100%.
You start with 8 immortal workers. Additional workers are hired from the City Hall (Market) via a production slot. Each house gives +1 to max_workers (how many hired workers you can have). Workers are used for: starting a new building (1 worker per construction), speeding up construction (add workers in the construction popup, 50% faster per extra worker), and running production buildings (1 worker per building to run productions). Hired workers die after a set number of days depending on happiness.
You have 100 energy points (bottom bar). Almost every action costs 1 energy: building, starting production, assigning a worker, demolishing, starting repair. Energy regenerates 1 point per hour (max 100). You can also buy energy for gold in the shop (hover over the battery icon in-game).
Storage capacity is the sum of capacity of all your storage buildings. Your total amount of resources is compared to this; the bottom bar shows the fill percentage. If storage is full (100%), you cannot collect more resources until you use or sell some, or build more storage. Building and production costs also require enough free space.
You gain experience (XP) for actions (e.g. collecting production gives XP). The bottom bar shows your level and progress to the next level. XP needed for the next level increases with each level.
Many buildings can be upgraded (higher level = better production or more capacity). From level 2, the building must have a road path to the City Hall. Some upgrades also require the building to be within influence range of a specific building (e.g. City Hall, Firehall). Costs and upgrade time are shown in the upgrade popup.
Production buildings degrade over time: a small percentage is added periodically and when you start a production. When degradation reaches 100%, you cannot start new productions until you run Repair (Renew). Repair costs resources (about half of level 1 production costs), 1 energy, and takes 1 hour. After repair, degradation is reset and you can produce again.
You can demolish buildings that are marked as demolishable (some starter buildings and the City Hall cannot be demolished). Demolishing costs 1 energy and takes 12 hours. When finished, you receive back part of the building’s value (e.g. about 30% of resources). Workers assigned to that building are released. If storage is 100% full, you cannot start a demolish (nowhere to put the returned resources).
Build the Gold Mine to produce gold. Extraction requires resources (costs are shown on the Gold page and in the production popup). The global gold pool provides gold for miners; when you collect gold, it is taken from the pool. Gold can be used in-game to buy energy or boosts, and can later be exchanged for real money (micropayments) according to the rules published on the site.
The City Hall (Market) is where you hire workers. The game supports referrals: when someone registers via your link, you can earn a share of their production. Gold earned in-game can be exchanged for real money via micropayments. The shop (in-game) offers energy packs and production boosts for gold or real money.