Supply Warehouse is a type of commercial building in Napoleon: Total War.
Description[]
A supply warehouse contains all the military necessities that an army on the march requires, and has the carts needed to move them.
All armies can, if needs must, forage for supplies in the lands that they pass through. This can ruin the countryside for years, if the depredations are particularly savage. Food, shelter, and firewood are easily obtainable items, though take these usually means that the local population starves; is thrown out of its hovels, or palaces; and finds that every stick of furniture has been burned. However, an army cannot forage for what does not exist: gunpowder and arms. These have to be supplied from a central depot of some kind, and carried to the battle by a long train of supply wagons.
Unlike the French and other continental armies, the British army was under orders to refrain from large scale foraging and pillaging. This decision was not based on mercy or some kind of misplaced politeness, but a result of a cold calculation. It was considered a better bargain to pay for most supplies, even if only in promissory notes, than alienate a complete population. As a result, British provosts were sometimes very busy hanging looters, but the British army never really had to worry about "banditti" or "guerillas" falling on their lines of communication.
General Information[]
Supply warehouses provide almost double the replenishment rate of their predecessors, supply posts (16%). In the mid-game, no other building provides as much of a boost to replenishment rate as this. Supply Warehouses provide the largest boost to replenishment for quite some time until Logistics is researched and Supply Depots become available.
Supply warehouses competes for the same building slot as merchant houses, buildings that generate large amounts of money but have no direct military benefits. As building one precludes the other, supply warehouses are best built in areas that are near fighting, while their relative lack of use makes them prime candidates for conversion to merchant houses in regions far from conflict. Damaging enemy supply warehouses through sabotage or raiding can be an effective strategy.
The Peninsular Campaign[]
In The Peninsular Campaign, supply warehouses require 900 gold and 4 turns to build.