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    Your Elvenar Team

Looking for Advice to Get Easy Provinces Again

Tauriel Dragonwood

Well-Known Member
I just realized something. These events give us amazing and beautiful event buildings but if we don't have the space to build them or the desire to delete some buildings to make space, we need to conquer provinces to get expansions. The more completed provinces we have, the more difficult the battles get.

My completed provinces are at 178/100 and I’m only up to the Dwarves. That means I completed 178 provinces but only needed to complete 100. In the research for Advanced Scout at the start of each chapter, I was advised that if we want the battles in the provinces to be somewhat easy, we should only complete the amount of provinces shown by the 2nd number.

If I want to see somewhat Easy provinces again, I’ll have to try to figure out a way to make buildings fit on the land I have now. Getting teleport spells from the Spire would help a lot for storing buildings.

My question is: Should I stop completing provinces until I reach the Woodelves chapter where only 190 provinces need to be completed? Maybe I should stop working on events for a while because there’s always quests to Scout a Province.
 

Flashfyre

Well-Known Member
You have definitely over-scouted for the chapter you are in. I have a city in Dwarves (not my primary one) with only 128 provinces scouted, and my battles are Medium difficulty.
You say you don't have the desire to delete some buildings, but therin lies the rub...this city management simulation requires you to assess your current layout against proposed buildings, and make the hard decisions as to what stays and what goes. And this will only get worse the further you progress (my main city is in Chapter 13), because all your basic buildings (residences, workshops, armories, goods factories, even the trader) will change size and shape along the way.

Answer to your question: yes, stop completing provinces until you reach the next chapter, then see where you are in terms of province difficulty.
 

Zoof

Well-Known Member
My primary city is overscouted to hell and back and at this point. In chapter 9 (Woodelves) and I've got 262/220 completed with 51 provinces not completed. I stopped scouting for about a couple weeks, then put 'em right back to work 24/7.

You're not penalized for battle costs / purposes wrt Tourney and Spire by scouting or completing provinces. You're penalized the moment you deploy (that is, actually put down into the city grid) the Province Expansions that comes with it. All overscouting by itself does is make any future provinces more difficult to cater to, or more costly to put to the sword. Of course, keeping things in control does make it that much more satisfying to watch


If you're not on mobile (phone/tablet), perhaps review your cities through ElvenArchitect via looking them up on ElvenStats. It can reveal a few hidden gaps where you could rearrange and fit more things around.

This one is your city on Felyndral
And this one on Winyandor
But the densest yet is on Arendyll

If you exclusively play the game on mobile, see if you can't make the "Hide buildings" feature work out better for you. I've found that if you select a building far (enough) away from where you're actually interested in while in Move Mode, you get an unimpeded view while being able to freely pan around without concerns of grabbing another building while moving about.
 

Darielle

Chef, Scroll-Keeper, and Buddy Fan Club Member
Absolutely stop completing provinces until they get easier. An advanced scouts will usually make (unscouted) provinces go one step easier (ie, from medium to easy or from very hard to hard.)

The difficulty and challenge of this game is figuring out what to keep and what to throw away. If you really want to keep things, then make sure you play the spire so that you can earn teleports. Then you can teleport the item you love into storage and keep it until later, when you have more room.

There is always an alternative to scouting a province on events. Don't stop events; those really help boost your game. Just choose the alternate. For those in higher chapters, (I'm in 17) we almost always have to choose the alternate, since scouts now take me more than 70 hours to complete and that's just too long to keep the event tasks moving along. Events will be your best bet for getting pop culture buildings which will help so much since they don't need to be on roads. (The crab hotel will come up on the last day of the event. I'm waiting for that one.)

Best of luck to you! I think all of us have done what you did, overscout in the beginning. Inno should have some kind of tutorial to tell players not to overscout.
 
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ajqtrz

Chef - loquacious Old Dog
I classify all three of you cities as organic. That means they sort of grew, like normal cities do, without a lot of regard to long term plans. And, in this game, that means a lot more unusable space. Here are a few tips on how to get more space without losing a thing.

1) Count the sides of your city outline. Start at one corner and trace the perimeter of your city, count each time it turns. Your three are, in order from above, 14, 30, 28. Ideally, the most efficient outline would be 4. Most cities have, at most, 6-8. Obviously, yours are unusual. To adjust this you will need to focus your next expansions on filling in places where you have gaps. There are several place where, if you placed a single expansion, you would reduce your outline count by 3. Do those, then look for reducing them by 2. It will take a lot of expansions but, as you will see, you will gain a lot more space and it will be a lot easier to organize things.

2) Balance building levels. This, too, will help you organize your city. Sets of the same building: workshops, residences, goods, etc.... if they are all at the same level have the same shape and take up the same amount of room. Putting them together in rows and columns makes you city look more organized and allows you to use a lot fewer roads. It also makes administration easier. If you think about it, if you residences are scattered here and there and if they are different shapes and orientations it's pretty easy to miss one when you go collecting. Keeping them all together means you don't have to search for them. So start by making your residences all the same level, then do the workshops, and goods.

3) Organize things. An organized city is one in which various similar or identical buildings are grouped together, usually in rows or columns. In your third city you have 8 of your residences in a block. That's a good thing. Try to get all the other building types grouped together. It will be easier to do as you get them all to the same level...like the Armories in the city on Arendyll that I looked at.

4) Upgrade all roads to the highest level. Your culture is at 105,032 and with the upgraded roads it gains about 4%. Not a lot but once you begin removing culture only buildings you will find that space is important.

5) Remove the 3 non-boosted goods mfrs and replace them with a crystal or marble building. You can produce a lot more of the crystal or marble per square and even if you have to trade it at 3 star to make it move you will come out way ahead.

Applying these ideas to your city gets you the following: almost 6 expansions just by removing the excess roads, 10.6 expansions from now unneeded 52 culture only buildings, and 1.25 from removing the 3 non-boosted goods production buildings. That almost 18 expansions of consolidated room. The only thing I didn't do is add the expansions you would need to make your cities more efficient. Adding those would, I believe add even more usable space.

Here's the map:

AJ
 

Enevhar Aldarion

Oh Wise One
One thing to remember is that the Advanced Scouts tech will only make unscouted provinces easier and cheaper. Once a province has been scouted, only completing Squad Size techs will make them easier, and then only for fighters. People who cater are stuck with the costs to complete for scouted provinces. But if you are a fighter, check your research tree and make sure you did not skip over any optional Squad research.
 

crackie

Chef, Scroll-Keeper, Buddy's #1 Fan
I’ve stopped doing provinces on maps unless events force me to, but I’ve gotten through a few events without needing to do any map encounters. I now find myself with opposite problem where I am done with a chapter but need to complete 20+ provinces to enter next chapter. I prefer this problem over over-scouting because then they are all easy provinces. I now have option to fight or cater. It also ensures I am not increasing cost of Spire/tourney by adding too many unnecessary plots. I've gone with the "make do or do without" strategy instead of trying to place everything. Also can go through events without worry. Have no idea where I stand on this event since I haven't spent my currency yet. Don't matter. Not placing the building. Don't have the space.
 

ajqtrz

Chef - loquacious Old Dog
I agree with @crackie on this. It is better to be more disciplined early on and not over-scout in the first place. My beta city followed this route and scouting when I am required to do it, is so much cheaper. And, if you go that route I'm willing to bet you will learn the finer points of city layout earlier and better. So often I see players in the 8th to 10th chapters with cities anything but efficient layouts and they are usually vastly over-scouted as they try to overcome the basic inefficient approach to city layout they are using by garnering more expansions.

So, don't over-scout and learn city layout better and earlier. It's working for me.

AJ
 

Alram

Flippers just flip
What happens in ch11? Doesn't overscouting help with seed production? Enquiring ch10 minds want to know. :oops:
 

samidodamage

Buddy Fan Club member
Doesn't overscouting help with seed production?
Sort of.
From the Wiki:
  1. Seed icon.png - The Trader generates Divine Seeds every 24 hours. This is based on one Seed per Main Hall level multiplied by the number of Provinces completed.
  2. Seed icon.png - Collection Bonus. Every early collection receives an extra amount based on one Seed per Main Hall level multiplied by all your AW levels combined
The number of completed provinces help with the full amount the Trader will produce every 24hrs. Afaik, that's the only seed production based on completed provinces.
The Collection Bonus is a flat amount. There is an early collect available at 3hrs, and that flat amount will be added to the one eighth of a 24hr production when you collect it early. There is no benefit to waiting to collect this. The next time it's available to collect, you get the full Collection bonus again.
I have been a very conservative scouter since very early in the game. It was not unusual for me to have 20 provinces to clear to open the next chapter. That has changed since I parked my cities and continued to clear provinces for event quests, but that has been post Ch15 in both cities. I didn't see an issue with seed production until after I hit Sentient goods. For me, having a higher number of AW levels was more important for seed production; that collection bonus was arguably the best source of seeds (as long as I could collect them every 3hrs or so!) when I went through Halflings, but Festival Merchants weren't in crafting then; crafting may not have been a thing then either since it's been a few years!
 

Yavimaya

Scroll-Keeper
Sort of.
From the Wiki:
  1. Seed icon.png - The Trader generates Divine Seeds every 24 hours. This is based on one Seed per Main Hall level multiplied by the number of Provinces completed.
  2. Seed icon.png - Collection Bonus. Every early collection receives an extra amount based on one Seed per Main Hall level multiplied by all your AW levels combined
The number of completed provinces help with the full amount the Trader will produce every 24hrs. Afaik, that's the only seed production based on completed provinces.
The Collection Bonus is a flat amount. There is an early collect available at 3hrs, and that flat amount will be added to the one eighth of a 24hr production when you collect it early. There is no benefit to waiting to collect this. The next time it's available to collect, you get the full Collection bonus again.
I have been a very conservative scouter since very early in the game. It was not unusual for me to have 20 provinces to clear to open the next chapter. That has changed since I parked my cities and continued to clear provinces for event quests, but that has been post Ch15 in both cities. I didn't see an issue with seed production until after I hit Sentient goods. For me, having a higher number of AW levels was more important for seed production; that collection bonus was arguably the best source of seeds (as long as I could collect them every 3hrs or so!) when I went through Halflings, but Festival Merchants weren't in crafting then; crafting may not have been a thing then either since it's been a few years!
I had no idea about this info. Thanks for posting it!
 

Alram

Flippers just flip
MANA ON DEMAND! Make a white haze of sparkles enchanting everything until everyone's choking in it. Who needs Burning Pools or festival merchants? My Unicorn Glade is up to 1818d 16hr of sparkles. Also, Dragon Abbey buffs up Buddy and her friends. Win-win.
Lol Crack the mighty!!! I weep at your magnificense.
Does the mana on demand depend upon completed provinces?
 

crackie

Chef, Scroll-Keeper, Buddy's #1 Fan
Does the mana on demand depend upon completed provinces?
Yes, it does, but I have not found this to be an encumbrance despite being a slow mapper. I just got me a Timewarp and Simia, but I am 30 provinces short (370/400) of entering Chap 15.
*what can i do to get some extra popcorn?
Are you sure? Buddy's Nuclear Revenge is barely fit for Orc consumption. I almost knocked myself out eating it. It does contain Swedish Fish. I hear penguins like fish.
 

Nerwa

Well-Known Member
Oooh, now I want to play Tetris with your Felyndral city. Betcha I can free up lots of space AND make pick-ups easier.

Crackie is spot-on about taking the non-world encounter option during events wherever possible. You should have *plenty* of tournament provinces open so you can use those for encounters & relics & suchlike. Plus Spire. I hope you are using one of the guides that Beta players make for doing events? Those are hugely helpful. You can figure out which quests can use Tourney/Spire & time things so you mostly hit those quests when Tourney's open.

It's probably going to be a little frustrating to abstain from scouting/world encounters in order to get caught up. But persevere! One of my team-mates got waaaay over-scouted in ch 4 & early ch 5 before we convinced him to slow down that aspect. Now he's early ch 7 & nearly caught up & MUCH happier. In the process of untangling himself he learned different techniques & is a much stronger player - full Spire & top 5 in our FS tournament weekly (consistently beating players several chapters ahead). Plus he's worked on his city layout so that he has room for a big street fair for FAs. It can be done!

ETA: I couldn't resist - here's a first pass at Felyndral. After looking at your building mix I ended up prioritizing space to upgrade existing buildings rather than big stretches of open ground. (E.g, there's enough space around the armories to get you through Dwarves & Fairies, and even Orcs with only a little shifting.) Depending on your priorities & playing style & items in storage there's several options for improving & moving forward. If you (or anyone) wants details, let me know; I love over-analyzing things!
 
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