What does gold reserve me specifically? Do you just start with 10 gold extra? Its not income because there's a specific extra option for income. I'd rather save my 'energy' if i'm starting a shard with only 10 extra gold. Doesn't seem worth it.

from what I can see you just start with the extra gold, yeap does not seem like an exciting option but it is cheap :)

(bump) Anyone know for sure?

I picked it real quick as an experiment on my second shard (restarted as I had two terrible starts in my first playthrough and didn't want to end up losing so many potential shards to my foes so quickly >_< ) and I got a tutorial message claiming that the amount of gold I had "in reserve" would be my absolute minimum I could have - so I guess that means if I allocate 20 gold there, my treasury would never drop below 20g?

A bit of clarification would be nice ^_^
(I haven't had my treasury drop that low yet this game since I got plenty of income. Got really lucky and had tons of wood and iron nearby my starting point and all loosely guarded.)

it is the amount of extra money you get on the start of a shard (on beginner where you get 1k gold those 20 extra aren't that important - but if you play on experienced you only get 500 gold and than any little extra counts -because you will spend those 500 on your first hero

edit: scratch that the first hero only costs 100 gold but still with only 500 starting gold every little bit extra is important)

Yep, Teach is right, its just the amount of gold extra, it lets have you have a somewhat faster start,thats all.

Ok thanks folks.