Source of: Sanctuary: hero cap, buildings and clinic

← Sanctuary: hero cap, buildings and clinic

The **Sanctuary** sets the limit on almost everything in the city: hero levels, the levels of the
other buildings, and the pace at which new features open. It in turn depends on a Research Lab
one level below and on clinic stars, so a construction queue stalls on those far more often than
on missing resources. The building itself has its own page, [[building-sanctuary|Sanctuary]],
while this one covers what it limits.

## Hero level cap

A hero's maximum level follows the Sanctuary and from level five equals five times it:
25 at five, 115 at twenty-three, 150 at thirty. The very start works differently, because the cap
sits at 5 for the first three levels and jumps to 15 at the fourth. The building itself also
grants flat stats to every hero.

Once heroes reach that cap, only the next Sanctuary level helps, and it lifts the bar by five
levels at once.

## No building outruns it

From about level seven, any building of level N requires Sanctuary level N. The plan
"grow production first, Sanctuary later" does not work, because both branches run into the same
number.

## The lab is always one step ahead

The [[building-research-lab|Research Lab]] is first required at Sanctuary level eleven, which
asks for a lab of level seven. From level twelve to level thirty the lab sits one level below the
target. The second requirement changes every time, while the lab is never skipped after that.

## The hidden requirement: clinic stars

Alongside its building requirements the Sanctuary asks for clinic stars, and that condition is
rarely noticed in advance. The threshold starts at level three and rises at almost every step,
and the table gives it for every level.

| Sanctuary level | Clinic stars needed |
|---|---|
| 3 | 17 |
| 4 | 19 |
| 5 | 28 |
| 6 | 47 |
| 7 | 61 |
| 8 | 80 |
| 9 | 96 |
| 10 | 112 |
| 11 | 142 |
| 12 | 155 |
| 13 | 173 |
| 14 | 193 |
| 15 | 201 |
| 16 | 215 |
| 17 | 225 |
| 18 | 231 |
| 19 | 237 |
| 20 | 247 |
| 21 | 254 |
| 22 | 260 |
| 23 | 270 |
| 24 | 282 |
| 25 | 292 |
| 26 | 304 |
| 27 | 314 |
| 28, 29 and 30 | 326, the clinic maximum |

A player who treats the clinic as a side minigame eventually finds territory growth stopped as
hard as it would be by an empty warehouse.

## What the top costs

Level twenty runs to about 60M :res-grain: grain, the same in :res-wood: wood, 18.4M :res-herb:
herbs and five days of construction. Level thirty asks 1.356B grain, 1.356B wood, 441M herbs and
about 102 days.

Production never covers that, since four level-thirty farms need over a year to gather a billion
grain. The top levels are carried by map gathering, events and speed-ups.

## A pleasant side effect

Every upgrade pays a large one-off reward in hero experience: 46M at level twenty,
122M at twenty-five, 199M at thirty. That is enough to raise heroes right after the Sanctuary
lifts their cap.

What a particular city is missing for the next level and in what order to build it is shown by the [build calculator](/en/wiki/build-calc).

## Related pages

- [[buildings|All buildings]]
- [[building-limits|Building limits]]
- [[research|Research]]
- [Build calculator](/en/wiki/build-calc)