Hearth and Hamlet Resources: All 6 Types & How to Get Them
Hearth and Hamlet resources guide: food, wood, stone, gold, iron, and magic. Learn each resource role, base trade value, and how gold unlocks.
Hearth and Hamlet runs on six resources — Food, Wood, Stone, Gold, Iron, and Magic — that you first gather by clicking, then increasingly hand off to assigned workers. The Steam store page names Food, Wood, Stone, and Gold as the core set, while Iron and a Magic counter appear in later settlement screens as more advanced materials.
The short answer
- Six resources: Food, Wood, Stone, Gold, Iron, and Magic
- Core four (official): Food, Wood, Stone, Gold
- First playable Gold: Demo v1.0.46 (Steam Next Fest, June 2026)
- Base trade values (build 0.80 data): Food 1, Wood 1, Stone 1, Iron 1.5, Gold 2, Magic 3
- Later-game loops: Iron and Magic full production chains are not fully documented — treat costs as To be confirmed
The six resources at a glance
The player-facing job of each resource is already clear, even though exact rates and full-release costs are not fully verified. The table below summarizes what each material does in the available evidence.
| Resource | Role | Base trade value (build 0.80) |
|---|---|---|
| Food | Feeds population growth; shortages stall expansion | 1 |
| Wood | Early gathering and construction material | 1 |
| Stone | Construction and research material | 1 |
| Gold | Economy resource for trade, taxes, upgrades, and quest payments | 2 |
| Iron | Advanced construction, research, and equipment | 1.5 |
| Magic | Late progression tied to magic buildings, research, and alchemy | 3 |
The base trade values come from static build 0.80 catalogue data and are not claimed as final full-game numbers. What matters more for planning is where each resource is spent, which the sections below walk through one at a time.
Food: the resource that drives growth
Food deserves special attention because official descriptions tie it directly to a growing population. More villagers mean more hands for labor, but a larger settlement also means more mouths to feed. That two-sided pressure is why a thin Food surplus can quietly turn into a shortage after a few expansions.
Food is produced by farms, fishing, and hunting, and it also feeds into many policies. The game data links Food to a long list of research upgrades and to starvation-related status conditions, which reinforces its role as the settlement’s baseline constraint. If Food is falling, the safe move is to stabilize it before committing to any expensive new project.
Wood and Stone: the construction backbone
Wood is the first material you learn to gather. You harvest it manually, then assign lumber workers at a lumber camp to keep it flowing while you manage other tasks. It is consumed throughout construction, research, item crafting, and trade, which makes it the single most cross-cutting material in the game.
Stone fills a similar role once you reach quarrying. It is quarried by hand or by stone workers and acts as a core input for construction and research. Both Wood and Stone list a starting worker cap of 3 in the build 0.80 data, and both are traded at eight destinations. Together they are the raw material behind almost every building and research decision, so a build that stalls on either one stalls on both.
Gold: the economy resource
Gold is the resource that opens up the kingdom’s economic layer. The build 0.80 data describes it as unlocked through progression and used for policies, advanced research, trade, and manual quest payments, and it carries the second-highest base trade value at 2. It sits at the centre of trade, taxes, expeditions, advanced upgrades, and defensive spending.
The important caveat is timing. Gold only became playable for the first time in Demo v1.0.46, the patch released for Steam Next Fest in June 2026, so it arrives late in the demo’s progression. You should not chase Gold in isolation: a kingdom that produces Gold while Food falls or essential construction stops has simply swapped one bottleneck for another. See the how to get gold guide for the full progression path.
Iron and Magic: later-game materials
Iron and Magic are visible in official screenshots, but their complete production loops are not fully documented. The build 0.80 catalogue lists Iron as mined after its production chain is unlocked and used for advanced construction, research, and equipment, with a base trade value of 1.5. Magic is described as a late progression resource tied to swamp gathering, magic buildings, research, and alchemy, with the highest base trade value of 3.
Treat these two as evidence of later progression rather than as a source of reliable costs or ratios. Their exact production rates and release-build costs remain to be confirmed against the current game.
Where resources go: trade value and links
Every resource can be traded, and the build 0.80 data lists eight destinations for each one: Ankhet-Nar, Ashenholt, Crimsonvale, Fangmire, Ironrend, Rubescairn, Sephirah, and Sniktcrag. The base trade values give a rough sense of relative worth — Magic at 3, Gold at 2, Iron at 1.5, and Food, Wood, and Stone at 1 — but values from pre-release data may change in future patches.
The number of linked records also hints at how widely each resource is used. In the build 0.80 data, Food connects to 248 research records, Wood to 232, Gold to 222, and Stone to 164, while Magic connects to roughly 124. That spread reflects a design where basic materials are consumed everywhere, while Magic stays reserved for a narrower late-game set of systems.
How to read a stockpile
A useful stockpile is not the one with the biggest number. It is the one whose next decision — a building upgrade, a research pick, a policy, or an expedition — can actually be paid for. A large total can still hide a weak kingdom if the resource underneath it is shrinking, capped, or already committed elsewhere.
To diagnose a resource problem, check the direction of the balance, the demand from your current project, whether workers can be spared without collapsing another input, and whether storage is already full. Then make one small change — move a few workers or delay one purchase — and watch the trend before adjusting further. Moving workers toward one resource always raises its flow while reducing production somewhere else, which is why worker allocation is the real lever behind every stockpile.
Demo v1.0.46 vs build 0.80 data
Two different versions sit behind the facts on this page. Demo v1.0.46 is the final pre-release demo build, and it is the version whose official patch notes confirmed the first playable access to Gold. Build 0.80 is a later static data package, and it is the source of the base trade values, worker caps, and linked-record counts quoted above.
That distinction matters because build 0.80 data is not presented as verified current-release data. Later-game entries — including Iron and Magic details — are embedded in the package but not claimed as enabled or final. When in doubt, treat any specific number as To be confirmed until it is checked against the released game.
Frequently asked questions
What resources are in Hearth and Hamlet? Six: Food, Wood, Stone, Gold, Iron, and Magic. The official description names Food, Wood, Stone, and Gold as core, with Iron and Magic appearing in later screens.
How do I get Gold in Hearth and Hamlet? Gold first became accessible in Demo v1.0.46. Follow the main progression until the Gold-producing step unlocks, then assign only the workers the kingdom can spare. See the how to get gold guide.
Which resource has the highest trade value? In build 0.80 data, Magic has the highest base trade value at 3, followed by Gold at 2, Iron at 1.5, and Food, Wood, and Stone at 1.
Is Food more important than Gold? Food sustains population growth, so it underlies every other plan. Grow Gold only after Food is rising and essential construction is moving.
Ready to put resources to work? Start with the beginner guide, then see how each material feeds into buildings, research, trade, and policies.