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    Your Elvenar Team

Easy Provinces Strategy

Tauriel Dragonwood

Well-Known Member
Started a new city because I want Elvenar to again be fun,
fighting in Easy Provinces and being able to build a ton.
I’m sharing my strategy for getting provinces that are Easy.
Hope it helps. So far it’s working in my growing elfin city.

Researching Advanced Scouts reduces scouting costs, costs for
negotiating and the difficulty of fights within the scouted provinces.

1. In the Advanced Scouts research, only complete the amount of provinces shown by the 2nd number.
When the research is unlocked for that chapter, look at the next chapter and again stay under the amount
of provinces shown by the 2nd number. This prevents overscouting which causes provinces to get harder.

If you continue to overscout, you’ll need Orcs to trade, which don’t show up until Chapter 8. See Elvenar’s Hint, scroll down a bit:

2. As you progress through each chapter, research Squad Size Upgrades, Promotions and Training Grounds. City Expansions too.

3. Upgrade Barracks/Armories to increase training speed & squad size.
Build & upgrade AWs that increase health & strength of your troops.

4. When ready to conquer provinces, I scout only the Easy Provinces. Once I see provinces turn yellow (medium difficulty), I stop scouting.
I’ll need to build up my military more to get the provinces back to Easy.

5. When ready to start fighting or negotiating in the Incomplete Provinces (which still should be Easy),
only complete 7 Encounters in each one so the game won’t count them as Completed Provinces.

I wait until I’m near the end of the chapter, then I complete the required provinces needed to unlock Advanced Scouts.
As long as you’re keeping your military strong, provinces should stay Easy.

BUILDING TIP:
Try to build residences at the edge of the map because they get huge the more they’re upgraded.
If you need more space, use Teleport Spells from the Spire to store buildings.

Building more Armories helps you train more units.
Many Elvenar players recommend building 4 Armories.
Upgrading Barracks increases training speed and production of units.
Upgrading Armories increases the amount of units you can train.
 

Smooper

Well-Known Member
I am in Chapter 9 and I have scouted a few medium provinces back a while ago. Since I started Chapter 8 I have only scouted Very Easy provinces. This works great for me. It takes hardly any troops and 8 autobattles and I have conquered that province.
 

Zoof

Well-Known Member
Why? "Completed provinces" do not hurt you.
To add to this:

Simply scouting the province is where the hurt begins. That's the point in which the costs to actually complete it is locked in and any further scouting costs increase. No matter what you do afterward, the amount of goods/resources it takes to complete that province is fixed, as is the amount of troops you have to fight against. The only reason its difficulty rating may change is any further research in Squad Size Upgrades, which only allows you to bring in additional troops for an easier outcome.

The best solution to controlling costs is to simply stop scouting once you've scouted all the provinces you need to advance to the next chapter. The decision on whether or not you actually care about the costs is up to the player, though. My horrifically overscouted chapter 10 city has province completion costs that are dreadfully high, but I quit caring a long time ago. They all negotiate the same. My earlier chapter cities, though, have costs that I actually do care about. YMMV.

On the other hand, if the advice regarding not fully completing a province is based on furthering the abuse of quests that want completed provinces, sure. No complaints here. I find myself doing this too.

---

If there's concerns about Spire and Tournament costs, though, that's a bit outside the scope of this topic. For completeness, though, it has to be said that completed provinces do absolutely nothing to those costs. What will do things to the cost is deploying any province expansions you gain from completing a province. If you hold onto them indefinitely, you'll see no cost increases due to it.
 

ajqtrz

Chef - loquacious Old Dog
To add to this:

Simply scouting the province is where the hurt begins. That's the point in which the costs to actually complete it is locked in and any further scouting costs increase. No matter what you do afterward, the amount of goods/resources it takes to complete that province is fixed, as is the amount of troops you have to fight against. The only reason its difficulty rating may change is any further research in Squad Size Upgrades, which only allows you to bring in additional troops for an easier outcome.

The best solution to controlling costs is to simply stop scouting once you've scouted all the provinces you need to advance to the next chapter. The decision on whether or not you actually care about the costs is up to the player, though. My horrifically overscouted chapter 10 city has province completion costs that are dreadfully high, but I quit caring a long time ago. They all negotiate the same. My earlier chapter cities, though, have costs that I actually do care about. YMMV.

On the other hand, if the advice regarding not fully completing a province is based on furthering the abuse of quests that want completed provinces, sure. No complaints here. I find myself doing this too.

---

If there's concerns about Spire and Tournament costs, though, that's a bit outside the scope of this topic. For completeness, though, it has to be said that completed provinces do absolutely nothing to those costs. What will do things to the cost is deploying any province expansions you gain from completing a province. If you hold onto them indefinitely, you'll see no cost increases due to it.
So, if I understand this replay correctly, you hold off completing the province until your troop strength is higher. This works because you can advance your troop strength while the cost of doing that province (i.e. completing it after scouting it), remains remains locked at the level it was when you finished scouting it? Theoretically this should save you a lot of troops as you have a larger troop the longer you wait.

That sounds like a smart idea to me.

AJ
 

MaidenFair

Chef - Head Philologist
Why? "Completed provinces" do not hurt you.
I can't speak for @Tauriel Dragonwood, but I recently hit on the idea of leaving provinces unfinished as she describes until right at the end of a chapter, because then when you complete them, you have the possibility of getting rune shards from them for the new wonders you just unlocked as the final research. Of course, if you're not planning on building any of the wonders in a specific chapter, then that's unnecessary.
 

Tauriel Dragonwood

Well-Known Member
To test out my strategy, I'm only going to scout these Easy provinces. After they're all scouted, I'm hoping they're locked at the Easy difficulty and then I can fight or negotiate only 7 encounters in each as I advance in the chapter. But I'll make sure I don't go over the 2nd number in the Advanced Scouts for the upcoming chapter until I'm ready to start that chapter. Seeing Easy Provinces is a joy to behold.

image_2022-08-17_021237659.png
 

iamthouth

Tetris Master
I took a long break in Ch19 from scouting at 600 provinces completed, but have recently started again in anticipation of Ch20 release. My green ones are 17 away, 18 away is yellow.
 

ajqtrz

Chef - loquacious Old Dog
As you can see, I've left one province unscouted from way, way back. The rest are ring 18 so it's been a couple of years since I left this one. I did notice the cost of scouting does go up. It's currrently at 12,000,000 while my ring 18 hard are at 14,000,000. I'm not sure how this relates to the current thread, but I'm going to scout it and see what the costs of completing it are compared to a ring 18.
13.PNG
easy.PNG
 

Tauriel Dragonwood

Well-Known Member
Well, it worked! I scouted about 11 provinces and they're locked at the Easy Level. I'm only doing 7 encounters in each until I get to the end of Chapter 3, then I'll complete the 45 provinces required for the Advanced Scouts research to start Chapter 4. I hope the game stays like this. As long as I keep my military strong, I should be seeing Easy Provinces. But even Easy Provinces are difficult for a new city. Still not as difficult as this event - A Gateway Into the Past.
 

Mykan

Oh Wise One
if you are doing minimal scouting you will eventually get very easy before too long and they hang about for ages. You don't even need to stick to minimal scouting as you reach the later chapters because you will have so many very easy and easy provinces.
 

Sir Buzz

Member
All the provinces are red. I'm at 320 provinces. Unfortunately I got stalled a bit at chapter 14.
Since I play on the computer and I'm usually boosted for tournament, red is mostly still doable.
But I'm looking forward to finishing 14 and getting back to yellow provinces.
Really my main problem is it takes almost 4 days to scout a province.
 
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Tauriel Dragonwood

Well-Known Member
if you are doing minimal scouting you will eventually get very easy before too long and they hang about for ages. You don't even need to stick to minimal scouting as you reach the later chapters because you will have so many very easy and easy provinces.
Thank you Mykan. Your advice has brightened my day.
 
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