The economy in Xconq is based upon materials. Games that do not include any material types do not have any of the activities described in this section.
In many games, units have a base production that is the amount of material that they produce automatically each turn. This will often depend on the terrain, so that explorers in the forest will always "produce" enough water to drink each turn, but will start to use up their water supply when in the desert.
Units may also be able to produce additional material by doing explicit production actions.
Another way to produce material is by extraction.
Units consume their supplies, both in the course of existence, and by motion/combat. The rate depends on game and unit type; it consists of an overhead consumed each turn without fail, and consumption for each cell of movement. The total is a max, not a sum, since units with a constant consumption rate are not likely to need additional supplies to move (consider foot soldiers who eat as much sitting around as they do walking). Supplies may also be consumed for production and repair, again depending on game and unit types, but this consumption happens as part of doing actions. Consumption is not affected by the situation of the consuming unit; armies in troop transports eat just as much as when in the field.
It is often the case the units will produce more material than they can use. In those cases, Xconq will attempt to distribute the excess to nearby units.
This redistribution occurs automatically between units that are close enough (as set by the game), and there is no need for explicit manipulation. This redistribution is not affected by the intervening terrain. Supply redistribution also does not account for special needs anywhere; it just tries to utilize production excess. The redistribution method is rather adhoc; units try to get rid of all their excess supply, and try to take up supply from other units within supply range. Each direction is controlled independently, so for instance airplanes can get automatically refueled from a nearby city, but not from each other. No unit will transfer all of its supply via supply lines. Normally units in the same cell can exchange supplies, but some games can disable this behavior, so that explicit transfer using the give and take commands is always necessary.