Best AW to max first

[teeniez]

Heh. I'm also in Dwarves, and a bit competitive. I'm struggling just to find enough space to place the AWs I've completed.

I am just trying to upgrade my buildings atm to the dwarvin style to free up space. I feel your pain.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Does the EE spell still only work if you have a "natural" 125% culture? If so, then the best theoretical city is one that would have exactly 125% and gets enough visits to hit 170% +5% per EE

Pretty sure this is still how it works.

 

[Dew Spinner]

Again, entirely dependant on playstyle. It is very easy late game to attain maximum culture (170%) without a single culture building in your entire city which makes the watchtower's efficiency as a culture building worth pretty much nothing. Those 15,000 KP would be MUCH better spent on one of the ~8 wonders that are actually good.

Enar's, Maze, WT, thrones, and LH are total bottom tier wonders and KP in them instead of a good wonder is KP wasted for most cities.

Soggy, I would be very interested in seeing what your top 8 AWs are, I am trying to keep my total AWs down for obvious reasons. I only want to build the very best ones. I know it depends on individual play style but seeing experienced players top AW lists helps younger cities decide for themselves.

 

[teeniez]

Soggy, I would be very interested in seeing what your top 8 AWs are, I am trying to keep my total AWs down for obvious reasons. I only want to build the very best ones. I know it depends on individual play style but seeing experienced players top AW lists helps younger cities decide for themselves.

Same, I would love to know the AW builds. Will help me decide what to do now.

 

[Darielle]

If you fight a lot, the Dwarven Bulwark will really help with that. My squad size went up amazingly, and I was therefore able to make troops all night instead of have them waiting for me five hours or more before I awoke and collected.

 

[teeniez]

If you fight a lot, the Dwarven Bulwark will really help with that. My squad size went up amazingly, and I was therefore able to make troops all night instead of have them waiting for me five hours or more before I awoke and collected.

oooh, yeah, I'm close to opening that up. I would love to be able to fight through mostly everything and not waste my supplies negotiating too much. That's great info, thank you.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Like others have said, it really depends on what you want to do with your city. Do you want to be a pure fighter in tournaments and Spire and world map provinces? Do you want to be a pure caterer/negotiator? Do you want to be a balance of both? Do you care at all about how the number of levels of AWs effects your squad size and negotiating costs in the Spire and tournament? Or do you want to keep those easier to do and thus have fewer AW levels?

But regardless of which you choose, there are probably only three or four AWs that everyone should build, not eight, though there is some disagreement on even that. lol

I think the one that is at the top of everyone's list is the Golden Abyss. It gives more pop as you level it and it also gives you more pop as you grow your city.

 

[Sprite1313]

Maze is too large and many other bldg produce more mana by far. After the winter set over the past years mana has become a non-issue.
The decay reduction is nothing to even think about.

Thanks.

Cheers,

 

[Sprite1313]

The maze was almost decent when it was first introduced but in the years since they keep giving us better mana producing event buildings all of which are more efficient per square than the maze and require zero KP.

When the maze was invented the standard advice for woodelves was to build at least 10 preferably 14 of the 5x5 weeping willows for mana. When's the last time anyone had to do that?

Also, you unlock the dragon abbey at the same time which gives instant mana that totally bypasses the decay mechanic AND it buffs your mages which are one of the most important units.

Thanks, Soggy.

Cheers,

 

[Darielle]

I had the maze for a while. I sold it. Just too big a footprint for too little gain. But I still have a ton of Festival Merchants that produce mana, and I won't upgrade them while my mana needs are so great. Since you're just finishing up dwarves, I suggest you be on the lookout for Festival Merchants in the MA once they start producing mana (I think that may be in Wood Elves, but check.) Once they do, get all the festival merchants you can. Best things I ever got, and MUCH better per square than willows. In fact, after I saw how well Festival Merchants worked, I got rid of all my willows in order to save space, despite the fact that Elvengems still recommends them. Sure, they give more culture, but I have plenty of culture. I like the most mana per square I can possibly squeeze out of them. In later chapters that may be mana sawmills, but in the chapters where you first start using mana, it's definitely FMs. I wish I could go back to Wood Elves and get more Festival Merchants just to store them in case I have bigger mana needs in future. Once you get into Halflings, you won't be able to get the mana producers, only the ones with seeds. (They're useful too, but the mana producers are fantastic.)

Also, don't forget to tuck a few little things from the spire into corners for mana. For example, one endless scroll combined with one gum tree and one mana plant will give a surprising amount of mana, in addition to the scrolls and goods. You don't need the library to put down the small things to the set, which in my opinion, are more useful than the library itself. The CC is nice, but getting one per day doesn't really matter when you can easily churn them out in the MA. You'd probably laugh if you saw my city, because I have moonstone gates, endless scrolls, mana plants and gum trees all producing the max, without a single library. It's just a more useful use of space (I have 4 libraries in storage, if I want to use them someday. Right now, space is tight.) Anyway, that's my take on mana. People in more advanced chapters may have better ideas. (I'm a little over half way through Elementals.)

 

[Dew Spinner]

Like others have said, it really depends on what you want to do with your city. Do you want to be a pure fighter in tournaments and Spire and world map provinces? Do you want to be a pure caterer/negotiator? Do you want to be a balance of both? Do you care at all about how the number of levels of AWs effects your squad size and negotiating costs in the Spire and tournament? Or do you want to keep those easier to do and thus have fewer AW levels?

But regardless of which you choose, there are probably only three or four AWs that everyone should build, not eight, though there is some disagreement on even that. lol

I think the one that is at the top of everyone's list is the Golden Abyss. It gives more pop as you level it and it also gives you more pop as you grow your city.

I'm not asking Soggy for advise in my city, I am asking him what his top 8 are for his play style. I want to compare his top 8 to mine and my play style to his and see where I can make adjustments to better my lot. No offense but I see "depends on your play style" all the time and it is extremely useless to younger players. Young players DON'T KNOW what their play style is yet, they are trying to figure that out! By listening to veteran players from different play styles and then deciding which way they want to go. Or, they have chosen a play style and realize later through listening to veterans of different play styles that the one they pick was not right for them after all. I would be very interested in hearing what your top 8 are and why and what your play style is also!

 

[SoggyShorts]

Soggy, I would be very interested in seeing what your top 8 AWs are,

Same, I would love to know the AW builds.

First I should probably mention as many of my personal biases as I can admit to:

1. I don't care how a wonder looks.
2. I don't care at all about score/ranking.
3. I like the added challenge of trying to get through chapters quickly.
4. I go for efficiency in buildings over all other considerations.
5. I prefer to fully cater until the end of chapter 6 and convert to all military by the end of chapter 8.
6. I fight encounters in the Spire, Tournament & World Map 99% of the time.
7. My FS gets gold spire every week, wins ~12 tournament chests on average, and visits me every day.

Keeping in mind that playstyles vary here's my list more or less in order

Spoiler: Martial Monastery/Sanctuary

Having better troops is far better than making more troops because it's cheaper and sometimes you win fights that you otherwise would lose.

Spoiler: Timewarp

This wonder not only really improves your real life but saves you pet food and most importantly lets you use the 5-day booster buildings for 2 full tournaments and 2 full spires at higher levels.

Spoiler: Needles of the tempest

Light ranged are the core of your army and your barracks will be your main producer for a long time.

Spoiler: Shrine of Shrewdy Shrooms/ Dwarven Bulwark

at least one of these is pretty much a necessity for any city using a military. Armories alone take up too much space(and pop) to run your troop makers 24h a day.
You can use a simple calculator to try different combinations and see what works for you here:
www.tinyurl.com/trainingcalc

Spoiler: Dragon Abbey

The ability to gain instant mana on demand is a game-changer, and mages are your second most important unit.

Spoiler: Prosperity Towers

With a reasonable number of collections this out produces a normal workshop.
More importantly, the power of the PoP spell is crazy a decently leveled PT turns 1 workshop into 4 for an entire day.

Spoiler: Simia Sapiens

Free troops are better than making troops faster and it affects all 3 of your troop makers. For comparison:
A level 30 needles doubles your barracks production (+100%)
A level 30 Simia adds 40% to your Barracks, Training Grounds, and Merc camp. (+40% x3)
But, it's multiplied together, so if your Needles is at +100% AND your Simia is at +40% you are making 280%

Spoiler: Mountain halls/Golden Abyss

These are solid wonders, but slow. The impact that they have on your city is significant, but not until they are leveled quite high and I've found that focusing on military wonders will advance your city further faster.
What's noteworthy about these two is that although the MtH has a much larger footprint, unless you have very few factories the mountain halls is actually more efficient. Obviously, the more factories you have the greater the difference.

Mountain Hall analysis By SoggyShorts

Sheet1 Based on end of chapter 11 normal buildings. I factored in everything I could think of, including roads, culture, pop, supplies. Not included is the pop you get from the mountain halls as this was originally intended to compare with the Golden Abyss Just change the number of buildings in ...

docs.google.com

It's important to note that the population boost is based on your working population which for an efficient military city is much lower. Having event buildings produce goods means fewer factories and more military means fewer goods are needed as well.

Spoiler: Flying academy

For elves this building becomes very important about halfway through chapter 10 when you unlock 2-star blossom mages. since the merc camp is your only source of long-range mage units and 2-star blossoms are better than 3-star sorcs/banshees.
For humans getting free Priests is pretty great since they are super troops right out of the gate.
Later the 3-star frog will become another pillar of your forces which is also produced in the Merc camp.

Spoiler: Temple of the Toads

For elves Until you get good frogs, your main Heavy Ranged source will be Golems who remain useful throughout due to their tankiness, so having better ones combined with free ones is nice. For humans, this wonder only really starts to shine after unlocking good frogs as mortars are generally considered pretty weak.

Some honorable mentions:

Spoiler: Endless Excavation

More efficient than any workshop that isn't under a PoP spell especially regular workshops. Drops off once you move up to all magic workshops and pretty much dies if you are a heavy PoP user.

Spoiler: Tome of secrets

Excellent starting wonder, far better than the Golden Abyss out of the box but becomes obsolete late game. I wouldn't take it past level 6, and if I was a slow player, I wouldn't build it at all.

Spoiler: Victory Springs

With the obvious double dip of making better dogs and faster dogs this was a nice wonder before the changes, but now that wonder levels increase all of your troop costs its desirability has dropped. 90%+ of fights can be handled without Melee units so you can give this one a pass.

Spoiler: Elvenar Trade Center

You don't need seeds all the time, and the Festival Merchant is better at that anyways. Where this wonder is useful is in making your MM spells last all day and giving them a little boost. This can help you get through chapters faster when applied to Sentient factories but realistically using the space for another factory does the same thing and can be teleported when not needed and won't require any KP investment. If you aren't using a lot of MM spells you can give this one a pass too.

The rest are basically trash for any playstyle similar to mine.
The ones that give culture bonuses simply aren't needed past the wood elves chapter where all mana buildings give culture on top of all event buildings so you're maxed all the time anyways.
The non-culture ones are either score-based or inferior to event/craftable buildings.

 

[Dew Spinner]

First I should probably mention as many of my personal biases as I can admit to:

1. I don't care how a wonder looks.
2. I don't care at all about score/ranking.
3. I like the added challenge of trying to get through chapters quickly.
4. I go for efficiency in buildings over all other considerations.
5. I prefer to fully cater until the end of chapter 6 and convert to all military by the end of chapter 8.
6. I fight encounters in the Spire, Tournament & World Map 99% of the time.
7. My FS gets gold spire every week, wins ~12 tournament chests on average, and visits me every day.

Keeping in mind that playstyles vary here's my list more or less in order

Spoiler: Martial Monastery/Sanctuary

Having better troops is far better than making more troops because it's cheaper and sometimes you win fights that you otherwise would lose.

Spoiler: Timewarp

This wonder not only really improves your real life but saves you pet food and most importantly lets you use the 5-day booster buildings for 2 full tournaments and 2 full spires at higher levels.

Spoiler: Needles of the tempest

Light ranged are the core of your army and your barracks will be your main producer for a long time.

Spoiler: Shrine of Shrewdy Shrooms/ Dwarven Bulwark

at least one of these is pretty much a necessity for any city using a military. Armories alone take up too much space(and pop) to run your troop makers 24h a day.
You can use a simple calculator to try different combinations and see what works for you here:
www.tinyurl.com/trainingcalc

Spoiler: Dragon Abbey

The ability to gain instant mana on demand is a game-changer, and mages are your second most important unit.

Spoiler: Prosperity Towers

With a reasonable number of collections this out produces a normal workshop.
More importantly, the power of the PoP spell is crazy a decently leveled PT turns 1 workshop into 4 for an entire day.

Spoiler: Simia Sapiens

Free troops are better than making troops faster and it affects all 3 of your troop makers. For comparison:
A level 30 needles doubles your barracks production (+100%)
A level 30 Simia adds 40% to your Barracks, Training Grounds, and Merc camp. (+40% x3)
But, it's multiplied together, so if your Needles is at +100% AND your Simia is at +40% you are making 280%

Spoiler: Mountain halls/Golden Abyss

These are solid wonders, but slow. The impact that they have on your city is significant, but not until they are leveled quite high and I've found that focusing on military wonders will advance your city further faster.
What's noteworthy about these two is that although the MtH has a much larger footprint, unless you have very few factories the mountain halls is actually more efficient. Obviously, the more factories you have the greater the difference.

Mountain Hall analysis By SoggyShorts

Sheet1 Based on end of chapter 11 normal buildings. I factored in everything I could think of, including roads, culture, pop, supplies. Not included is the pop you get from the mountain halls as this was originally intended to compare with the Golden Abyss Just change the number of buildings in ...

docs.google.com

It's important to note that the population boost is based on your working population which for an efficient military city is much lower. Having event buildings produce goods means fewer factories and more military means fewer goods are needed as well.

Spoiler: Flying academy

For elves this building becomes very important about halfway through chapter 10 when you unlock 2-star blossom mages. since the merc camp is your only source of long-range mage units and 2-star blossoms are better than 3-star sorcs/banshees.
For humans getting free Priests is pretty great since they are super troops right out of the gate.
Later the 3-star frog will become another pillar of your forces which is also produced in the Merc camp.

Spoiler: Temple of the Toads

For elves Until you get good frogs, your main Heavy Ranged source will be Golems who remain useful throughout due to their tankiness, so having better ones combined with free ones is nice. For humans, this wonder only really starts to shine after unlocking good frogs as mortars are generally considered pretty weak.

Some honorable mentions:

Spoiler: Endless Excavation

More efficient than any workshop that isn't under a PoP spell especially regular workshops. Drops off once you move up to all magic workshops and pretty much dies if you are a heavy PoP user.

Spoiler: Tome of secrets

Excellent starting wonder, far better than the Golden Abyss out of the box but becomes obsolete late game. I wouldn't take it past level 6, and if I was a slow player, I wouldn't build it at all.

Spoiler: Victory Springs

With the obvious double dip of making better dogs and faster dogs this was a nice wonder before the changes, but now that wonder levels increase all of your troop costs its desirability has dropped. 90%+ of fights can be handled without Melee units so you can give this one a pass.

Spoiler: Elvenar Trade Center

You don't need seeds all the time, and the Festival Merchant is better at that anyways. Where this wonder is useful is in making your MM spells last all day and giving them a little boost. This can help you get through chapters faster when applied to Sentient factories but realistically using the space for another factory does the same thing and can be teleported when not needed and won't require any KP investment. If you aren't using a lot of MM spells you can give this one a pass too.

The rest are basically trash for any playstyle similar to mine.
The ones that give culture bonuses simply aren't needed past the wood elves chapter where all mana buildings give culture on top of all event buildings so you're maxed all the time anyways.
The non-culture ones are either score-based or inferior to event/craftable buildings.

Very Informative, especially the reasons why you have them. I think our play styles are pretty similar and your list is almost exact to mine which makes me feel like I am heading in the righ direction as far as trying to keep my tournament penalty as low as I can but still have good benefits from the AWs I do build! Thank You! This AW and tournament issue is very confusing for new player to navigate and where they need the most help.

 

[Deleted User - 849192770]

thanks @SoggyShorts i agree with all the ones i have unlocked!

 

[Deleted User - 1178646]

Again, entirely dependant on playstyle. It is very easy late game to attain maximum culture (170%) without a single culture building in your entire city which makes the watchtower's efficiency as a culture building worth pretty much nothing. Those 15,000 KP would be MUCH better spent on one of the ~8 wonders that are actually good.

Enar's, Maze, WT, thrones, and LH are total bottom tier wonders and KP in them instead of a good wonder is KP wasted for most cities.

Watchtower is awesome. it's a real room saver.
170% easy? not everyone has a no houses city with only pop culture buildings

without martial monestary / sanctuary + watchtower affording those insane culture demands and keep a decent culture bonus in the late chapters becomes pretty difficult.

I use about 1m culture in my city and 80% of that si delivered by those 2 wonders.
I also have 500K spare culture this gives me either 125 or 150% not sure, another 500K is granted by (boosted by watchtower) neighourly help, this gives me a natural bonus of 160%, it's very very very rare that I hit 170%

 

[SoggyShorts]

170% easy? not everyone has a no houses city with only pop culture buildings

That's new since Christmas. Prior to that I got 50% of pop from regular residences for years with 170% after woodelves forever.

Please keep in mind that you play a very different game with your all max-level wonders, others have to pick and choose where to place KP.
As a quick estimate you have what, 500,000 more KP invested in wonders than an average player?

 

[teeniez]

First I should probably mention as many of my personal biases as I can admit to:

1. I don't care how a wonder looks.
2. I don't care at all about score/ranking.
3. I like the added challenge of trying to get through chapters quickly.
4. I go for efficiency in buildings over all other considerations.
5. I prefer to fully cater until the end of chapter 6 and convert to all military by the end of chapter 8.
6. I fight encounters in the Spire, Tournament & World Map 99% of the time.
7. My FS gets gold spire every week, wins ~12 tournament chests on average, and visits me every day.

Keeping in mind that playstyles vary here's my list more or less in order

Spoiler: Martial Monastery/Sanctuary

Having better troops is far better than making more troops because it's cheaper and sometimes you win fights that you otherwise would lose.

Spoiler: Timewarp

This wonder not only really improves your real life but saves you pet food and most importantly lets you use the 5-day booster buildings for 2 full tournaments and 2 full spires at higher levels.

Spoiler: Needles of the tempest

Light ranged are the core of your army and your barracks will be your main producer for a long time.

Spoiler: Shrine of Shrewdy Shrooms/ Dwarven Bulwark

at least one of these is pretty much a necessity for any city using a military. Armories alone take up too much space(and pop) to run your troop makers 24h a day.
You can use a simple calculator to try different combinations and see what works for you here:
www.tinyurl.com/trainingcalc

Spoiler: Dragon Abbey

The ability to gain instant mana on demand is a game-changer, and mages are your second most important unit.

Spoiler: Prosperity Towers

With a reasonable number of collections this out produces a normal workshop.
More importantly, the power of the PoP spell is crazy a decently leveled PT turns 1 workshop into 4 for an entire day.

Spoiler: Simia Sapiens

Free troops are better than making troops faster and it affects all 3 of your troop makers. For comparison:
A level 30 needles doubles your barracks production (+100%)
A level 30 Simia adds 40% to your Barracks, Training Grounds, and Merc camp. (+40% x3)
But, it's multiplied together, so if your Needles is at +100% AND your Simia is at +40% you are making 280%

Spoiler: Mountain halls/Golden Abyss

These are solid wonders, but slow. The impact that they have on your city is significant, but not until they are leveled quite high and I've found that focusing on military wonders will advance your city further faster.
What's noteworthy about these two is that although the MtH has a much larger footprint, unless you have very few factories the mountain halls is actually more efficient. Obviously, the more factories you have the greater the difference.

Mountain Hall analysis By SoggyShorts

Sheet1 Based on end of chapter 11 normal buildings. I factored in everything I could think of, including roads, culture, pop, supplies. Not included is the pop you get from the mountain halls as this was originally intended to compare with the Golden Abyss Just change the number of buildings in ...

docs.google.com

It's important to note that the population boost is based on your working population which for an efficient military city is much lower. Having event buildings produce goods means fewer factories and more military means fewer goods are needed as well.

Spoiler: Flying academy

For elves this building becomes very important about halfway through chapter 10 when you unlock 2-star blossom mages. since the merc camp is your only source of long-range mage units and 2-star blossoms are better than 3-star sorcs/banshees.
For humans getting free Priests is pretty great since they are super troops right out of the gate.
Later the 3-star frog will become another pillar of your forces which is also produced in the Merc camp.

Spoiler: Temple of the Toads

For elves Until you get good frogs, your main Heavy Ranged source will be Golems who remain useful throughout due to their tankiness, so having better ones combined with free ones is nice. For humans, this wonder only really starts to shine after unlocking good frogs as mortars are generally considered pretty weak.

Some honorable mentions:

Spoiler: Endless Excavation

More efficient than any workshop that isn't under a PoP spell especially regular workshops. Drops off once you move up to all magic workshops and pretty much dies if you are a heavy PoP user.

Spoiler: Tome of secrets

Excellent starting wonder, far better than the Golden Abyss out of the box but becomes obsolete late game. I wouldn't take it past level 6, and if I was a slow player, I wouldn't build it at all.

Spoiler: Victory Springs

With the obvious double dip of making better dogs and faster dogs this was a nice wonder before the changes, but now that wonder levels increase all of your troop costs its desirability has dropped. 90%+ of fights can be handled without Melee units so you can give this one a pass.

Spoiler: Elvenar Trade Center

You don't need seeds all the time, and the Festival Merchant is better at that anyways. Where this wonder is useful is in making your MM spells last all day and giving them a little boost. This can help you get through chapters faster when applied to Sentient factories but realistically using the space for another factory does the same thing and can be teleported when not needed and won't require any KP investment. If you aren't using a lot of MM spells you can give this one a pass too.

The rest are basically trash for any playstyle similar to mine.
The ones that give culture bonuses simply aren't needed past the wood elves chapter where all mana buildings give culture on top of all event buildings so you're maxed all the time anyways.
The non-culture ones are either score-based or inferior to event/craftable buildings.

Thank you, that's some great info!! I would prefer to just fight through eventually so this is very informative.

 

[Deleted User - 1178646]

That's new since Christmas. Prior to that I got 50% of pop from regular residences for years with 170% after woodelves forever.

Please keep in mind that you play a very different game with your all max-level wonders, others have to pick and choose where to place KP.
As a quick estimate you have what, 500,000 more KP invested in wonders than an average player?

and just the same to you with loads of pop/culture buildings and half tot none residence.

My example is how extreme it could be, how powerfull it could become.
As for 170% without neightbourly help outside the first chapters?

I remember in the past the game tips itself wrote that your not supposed to have 170% and that it's reserved for neighbourly help.
if you have 170% bonus without neighourly help then you have dedicated way to much space to culture buildings. space you could/should use for races, factories, wonders or anything else that helps your game.

 

[SoggyShorts]

if you have 170% bonus without neighourly help then you have dedicated way to much space to culture buildings.

I have zero space dedicated to culture buildings and am at 170%, so how should I dedicate less than 0% of my space?
It's a simple side-effect of choosing efficient hybrids over buildings that increase your score.

and just the same to you with loads of pop/culture buildings and half tot none residence.

Again, you're looking at my city now instead of the past 4 years where I only had half of my residences replaced by event buildings, and as I said I've had 170%+ culture ever since I unlocked mana in wood-elves many years ago.

So no, it's not the same. My city having 50% pop from event buildings was not extreme, any player could look at my cities from 2017-2020 and copy them in a couple of events by choosing to spend event currency on the best pop/culture prize days. Most players could have done it for Christmas.

How do you think a player could copy your city by adding 300,000-400,000 KP into wonders?

 

[SoggyShorts]

I remember in the past the game tips itself wrote that your not supposed to have 170% and that it's reserved for neighbourly help.

Actually, that tooltip said it's impossible to get 170% without neighborly help, so it was simply wrong.