As Rota said...it's inflation-inflation, which is pretty bad since there gold doesn't get generated any faster, but it's still easy to make by sales.

Generally prices will forever go up. You'll see them take dips now and them (usually whne the larger alliances are not at war) but they only ever go up.

Food is expensive to start out with, but becomes cheap. Lumber/Iron are worth their weight in gold....several golds...

Stone is worth it's weight in...well...stones...

Quoted from an earlier thread:
Quote Originally Posted by Darkbrady View Post
It'll get better.
The newer the server the higher food prices are, but inevitably it shifts to lumber/iron.
Jus' look at the prices on the older servers.
Supply/demand. NPC10s produce 19,5m food per hit...once people start doin' that, they won't have any need for buyin' food anymore...you can make hundreds of mils of food per day.
NPC10s only give like 500k lumber/iron?

The demand for that is higher and the supply is way, way lower. Food is only high at early stages because not everyone can farm NPC10s regularly.
server5:
food: 9
lumber: 19
iron: 23

I think server4 has like 29 gold/lumber right now as an all-time high.

At early stages havin' food cities might be handy, but not worth it in the long run. Buildin' iron/lumber mills can be looked at as an investment if you protect your goods.