Imperial cathedral

Icon	File:Cathederal.png

The Imperial cathedral is the most expensive and difficult monument in the game, requiring vast numbers of building materials and taking almost 3 hours to complete. It requires 3500 Noblemen to complete (88 full Noble houses). (While the Sultan's Mosque requires 5300 Envoys to complete, Occidentals have many more needs and classes.)

When done, it fulfills all building requirements of Occidental housing in a huge area of influence. It also grants you access to some of the most difficult (Emperor's) quests and best purchasable items.

Effects

Once finished, it satisfies all structural requirements of Occidental populations (community, faith, entertainment, and security, for peasant to nobleman) in a huge radius. However, you still need support buildings (carpenter, firehouse, and surgery).

Finishing one upgrades the selection of items Lord Northburgh offers (especially crewmen) in his left-most Noble slot and grants access to quests from the Emperor himself. Also, Lord Northburgh gives you 1,000 Honor for every Imperial Cathedral you complete.

The help incorrectly says that it "satisfies all building needs of the Occident, even when under construction", but it only allows you to place any building in its radius during construction.

Hints

It is inadvisable to start an Imperial Cathedral unless you have a good cash flow and have, or will soon have, 3,500 Noblemen on that island. There are several expensive production chains to build (like candlesticks), as well as expanding the capacity of existing chains, as you approach 3,500 Noblemen.

A construction plan item for the foundation exists, but it's usefulness depends on what version of the game you're playing:

• In Anno 1404 (Dawn of Discovery), blueprint items permanently require a socket. (The building is destroyed if the plan is unsocketed, even a finished Cathedral!) Since blueprints only save the initial placement resources, the socket can be put to much better use. Selling a Cathedral blueprint yields 175 Honor, which is always useful.
• In Anno 1404 Venice, plan items were changed to be consumed upon use. This means that they save you the placement cost of buildings. Using them can save you considerable resources, especially with expensive placements like foundations.

Once you have socketed a plan, its tooltip will tell you if unsocketing the item will destroy the structure. (Save your game first if unsure.)

Requirements

Although you can start construction with 2,000 Noblemen, construction stages will require 2,500 and finally 3,500 Noblemen on that island to finish (see table). The Nobleman requirements are for the island that your first cathedral is on; subsequent cathedrals on other islands don't require any population there at all (like Historic Warehouses). This makes them a useful choice for greatly expanding your Occidental population late in a game, such as for scenarios requiring 10,000 Nobles: You can get about 3,500 Nobles on your starting island with 3 regular church-and-marketplace population clusters, then make your first Imperial Cathedral on that island to bring the total to roughly 7,000 Nobles, and finally make a new Imperial Cathedral on some unpopulated island to bring your total to 10,000 Nobles.

A warehouse or market building must be within the area of influence of the construction site in order to supply the resources to be used.

Construction

• Without time reduction bonus:

Name	Gold	Tools	Wood	Stone	Glass	Time (mins)	Maint. after completing phase	Total Maint.	Noblemen required to start
Foundation	50,000	40	80	100	-	-	500	-	2,000
Scaffolding	-	160 (2.00)*	300 (5.00)	-	-	40	600	20,000	2,000
Masonry	-	360 (3.)	-	540 (4.50)	-	60	750	36,000	2,500
Windows	-	720 (4.00)	-	-	270 (3.00)	90	1,000	67,500	3,500
TOTAL	50,000	1,280	380	640	270	190	~	123,500	~

• With 10% time reduction bonus (unknown item):

Name	Gold	Tools	Wood	Stone	Glass	Time (mins)	Maint. after completing phase	Total Maint.	Noblemen required to start
Foundation	50,000	40	80	100	-	-	500	-	2,000
Scaffolding	-	160 (2.22)*	300 (5.56)	-	-	36	600	18,000	2,000
Masonry	-	360 (3.33)	-	540 (5.00)	-	54	750	32,400	2,500
Windows	-	720 (4.44)	-	-	270 (3.33)	81	1,000	60,750	3,500
TOTAL	50,000	1,280	380	640	270	171	~	111,150	~

• With 15% time reduction bonus (Ibn al Hakim):

Name	Gold	Tools	Wood	Stone	Glass	Time (mins)	Maint. after completing phase	Total Maint.	Noblemen required to start
Foundation	50,000	40	80	100	-	-	500	-	2,000
Scaffolding	-	160 (2.35)*	300 (5.88)	-	-	34	600	17,000	2,000
Masonry	-	360 (3.53)	-	540 (5.29)	-	51	750	30,600	2,500
Windows	-	720 (4.71)	-	-	270 (3.53)	76,5	1,000	57,375	3,500
TOTAL	50,000	1,280	380	640	270	161,5	~	104,975	~

*Parentheses by materials show how many factories are needed to supply this amount over the time period of the phase, for the curious. For example: A Stone mine outputs 2 tons of stone/minute. To supply 540 tons in 54 minutes would need 5 Stone mines (10 tons/minute times 54 minutes equals 540 tons). Of course, you can use reserves instead of having 5 Stone mines, but the comparison helps put your factory count into perspective.