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    Your Elvenar Team

Evaluation of Elven Tile Space for Chapters 1-6.

BrinDarby

Well-Known Member
What is a reasonable size for a beginner city?
My CH 3 cities have 24 expansions, so says ElvenStats.
I think mh CH4 city has 30 expansions per Elvenstats.

Not sure if this is ave/tiny/big ... currently with No AWs
and a hybrid city setup. ( mainly cater'n Spire )
 

crackie

Chef, Scroll-Keeper, Buddy's #1 Fan
So while wonder levels in general should be fine, those wonder levels in particular (Sanctuary and Needles) aren't actually doing me any good as a catering-only city, while still affecting how expensive it is to climb the Spire.
I hear you! I have a Mountain Hall and BTG in my main city that I have stopped throwing KPs into bc I mostly fight. Mountain Hall is at 12 and BTG is at 6. Mountain Hall is more like a population building right now is why I haven't ditched it yet, but I skipped it in my other city altogether. BTG, I'm holding on to see if settlement stuff gets unbearable in later chapters. It hasn't been a problem bc I chapter slowly waiting for RRs. My BTG is @ 17 in my other city bc that one is scroll boosted so I'm adapting to needs.

But mainly, most of the peeps in my FS are in late chapter. A lot of them are still doing 10-14k in tourney and most of their wonders are maxed out (My AM has 732 wonder levels in a chap 19 city and did 16266 in tourney). They haven't let techs or wonders stop them. If they've figured out, then it's doable and hopefully they'll teach me! I'm only at 180 wonder levels so plenty of room to keep upgrading.
 

Gustoff

Member
I am so sorry, thought I replied to this days ago, just saw I didn't ....

Yes, Chapterize, bringing all placed bldgs to current chapter, excluding
if you are specifically leaving a few in earlier chapters.

[snip]

Thanks for you response. I'm only just starting Chapter 2 (don't have any T2 Mfg yet), so I'm not even thinking Spire at this point.
My rationale for upgrading MH was purely because I hit the Gold/Supply cap due to Neighborly Help and not spending on troops. On my 'new' town I'm trying to not overscout and use troops to resolve encounters (minimal negotiation/catering).

My biggest reason for exploring remains city expansion. This is especially true in my Steel villages where 2x2/2x3 is harder to fit. The Plank villages have them to level 6 and still have wiggle room for more armories. Culture buildings (aside from upgrading paths) pretty much require an expansion each (Magic bldg/willow/boat) and I can't upgrade residences without culture.

Almost all my towns have 12-14 expansions. I've followed suggestions of miminum road exposure (short side to road) and tried to get 8x T1 in the village along with 3 armories, but it is tough.
 

BrinDarby

Well-Known Member
@Gustoff ,
I completely understand, my rationale was maybee 1 more steel factory
was better than a MH upgrade. I noticed I didn't need a MH upgrade, yet
the personal tasks said to do so. While giving help and looking @ other
ppls cities, I'd see someone with 1/2 the production, and a MH 50% bigger
than mine and think ....... hmmm, yeah that xtra 5-800 pop/1-2k cuture they
spent on that MH is why they have 1/2 what I do.

Some ppl log once/twice a day. That playstyle lends itself to a bigger cap.
if you're on every 2 hrs all day, perhaps ya can get by better with a smaller cap.

You're @ the stage where you get the 3x3 boat & 3x4 or 4x3 wispering whatever.
They are buildable culture bldgs, yet once ya get Magic academy, craftable stuff
kicks the crap outta either of those, and most buildable culture stuff.... Problem
is there, then you need fragments and catalysts, hense getting @least to CH3
so the Spire opens up.

Event bldgs also kick the crap outta most buildable culture bldgs, so while yeah
you will need to build 1 for a personal task, then you can just sell it since other
stuff will be more efficient.

This is why if someone joins 1 of my FSs, and is < CH3 , I'll "grant"/loan them
the goods to get into CH3 if they want. 1 time offer... CH 1-2 isn't hard, its
just a pain in the butt... then untill Boost gets close to 700% alotta things are
also still a pain. A good FS softens to a degree these pains....

Bottom line, it suck'd to keep need'n pop/culture just cause my MH was bigger.
I rather used that pop/cul for more production, getting me to CH 3 faster.
 

Diellashana

Member
Overscouting early on, and in CH1-6, in my opinion of 4 things....
Being gung-ho, and since CH 1-3 require so few provinces to advance, its very
easy just to plow thru till ooooops, very-hard.....

This is exactly how I hindered myself. In the Winter Magic event there was a quest to fight and win 3 encounters or do spire encounters. As a chapter 2 city I couldn't do either and could no longer progress in Winter Magic.
 

MaidenFair

Chef - Head Philologist
But mainly, most of the peeps in my FS are in late chapter. A lot of them are still doing 10-14k in tourney and most of their wonders are maxed out (My AM has 732 wonder levels in a chap 19 city and did 16266 in tourney). They haven't let techs or wonders stop them. If they've figured out, then it's doable and hopefully they'll teach me! I'm only at 180 wonder levels so plenty of room to keep upgrading.
Wow, those numbers are wildly impressive!! It's definitely interesting to hear a different possibility because almost all the threads I've seen on the forum about number of wonder levels are late-game players complaining about how their tourney scores have tanked, and they've "had to" delete a bunch of wonders, and nothing's actually worth building, etc. It's exciting to know that doesn't have to be the outcome. Thanks for sharing that info! When you find out how to follow in their footsteps, come and teach me in turn, would you? ;)

(edited for grammar)
 

crackie

Chef, Scroll-Keeper, Buddy's #1 Fan
Well, I didn’t fight my second city until Orcs. I was experimenting to see if one could use Needles to overcome the early military production problem. During Fairies, I had 8 maxed out fairy level armories and still couldn’t stretch my queues to cover my overnight. Simply ran out of room. Wasn’t gonna buy premium plots to further the experiment since 8 armories is already ridiculous. So you can’t do it with Needles alone. You need Bulwark too, which doesn’t come until end of Dwarf. Then you gotta get Bulwark up and running, hence Orcs is around when fighting turns around.

I just reached sentients in my main city and all my pop from magic res upgrades (6) went to supporting the two new sentient factories. They gobbled up A LOT of pop! Now I will need to bring some more residences out of inventory to handle workshop and armory upgrades for this chapter. I feel like the pop needed to support more factories in a cater only city would require more space. Bulwark/Shrewdy combo can minimize number of armories you need in a fighting city, but we do need heck of a lot more workshops so maybe it evens out. Fighting also lets me not use any diamonds in the Spire. I prob would use some diamonds to cater gate bosses in the Lab out of frustration, but fighting it means pure diamond gains from Spire. If I get bored enough to start a 3rd city, I would try a cater only city for the halibut.
 

Sprite1313

Well-Known Member
Well, I didn’t fight my second city until Orcs. I was experimenting to see if one could use Needles to overcome the early military production problem. During Fairies, I had 8 maxed out fairy level armories and still couldn’t stretch my queues to cover my overnight. Simply ran out of room. Wasn’t gonna buy premium plots to further the experiment since 8 armories is already ridiculous. So you can’t do it with Needles alone. You need Bulwark too, which doesn’t come until end of Dwarf. Then you gotta get Bulwark up and running, hence Orcs is around when fighting turns around.

I just reached sentients in my main city and all my pop from magic res upgrades (6) went to supporting the two new sentient factories. They gobbled up A LOT of pop! Now I will need to bring some more residences out of inventory to handle workshop and armory upgrades for this chapter. I feel like the pop needed to support more factories in a cater only city would require more space. Bulwark/Shrewdy combo can minimize number of armories you need in a fighting city, but we do need heck of a lot more workshops so maybe it evens out. Fighting also lets me not use any diamonds in the Spire. I prob would use some diamonds to cater gate bosses in the Lab out of frustration, but fighting it means pure diamond gains from Spire. If I get bored enough to start a 3rd city, I would try a cater only city for the halibut.
AAANNNDDD... how many brown bears does your AM have? ;)
 

crackie

Chef, Scroll-Keeper, Buddy's #1 Fan
I'm not sure I would pet a brown bear :eek: :p
You would if it gives you 300% more troops!
When he finished chap 18 and was twiddling his thumbs, we asked if we could time share some of those brown bears. He said no. I also tried to claim a brown bear as commission for recruiting and was also denied :( We did suggest he build one of each settlement in his down time so if people visit his city to try to learn the secret of the poopy bums, they'll think they need to build all the settlements too. So @MaidenFair, maybe you want to take our advice with a large grain of salt. Shenanigans happen. :D
 

MaidenFair

Chef - Head Philologist
Sorry about the late response, I seem to have lost several days somewhere this week. o_O (Those are my confused, time-warp eyes, in case you can't tell...)
Thanks for giving me details! I love hearing how differently people have approached specific aspects of the game.

I feel like the pop needed to support more factories in a cater only city would require more space. Bulwark/Shrewdy combo can minimize number of armories you need in a fighting city, but we do need heck of a lot more workshops so maybe it evens out.

According to my math upthread, as long as I don't fully upgrade my manufactories, I have to put out more of them to compensate but the space I save on population and culture which I DON'T need as a result actually saves me squares in the long run. I haven't fully compared the numbers to what a military city would need but based on how large and culture-hungry the armories and barracks get and how many extra buildings (Fire Phoenix, Brown Bear, 5-day boosts, etc.) I see people talking about needing, I can't imagine that it would take up less space than I'm using. But that's the beauty of this: there's more than one way to achieve similar results, and everyone is free to focus on the aspects that are fun for them.

Fighting also lets me not use any diamonds in the Spire. I prob would use some diamonds to cater gate bosses in the Lab out of frustration, but fighting it means pure diamond gains from Spire.
I used 75 diamonds (I think) to top the Spire this week. That felt acceptable because my fellowship bar was already above the Laboratory/High Halls line, so I knew I'd be getting 125 diamonds minimum reward. As it turns out, I won the 125 at the top, plus a number of smaller ones along the way and so even with the diamond expenditure, I think I made a profit of around 200 diamonds. I usually don't use any getting through the High Halls weekly. The key is to not let yourself spend diamonds unless you know you're so low on goods you can't afford to try the gate again, or you've already tried it more than 7-8 times. Even then, only spend them when it is an absolute "if I spend these diamonds I will get the gate open in one guess" kind of scenario, not one where you'll still have to depend on luck to finish. Would I have gotten 75 more diamonds if I had fought the Spire? I guess maybe, but on the other hand, I hear many players who fight complain about having trouble topping the Spire until later chapters, so I might not have gotten that far at all.
If I get bored enough to start a 3rd city, I would try a cater only city for the halibut.
Likewise, if I start another city, I might try a military city, just to see what it's like on the other side. I'm very experimental, and it's interesting trying new strategies and finding new ways to do things.

When he finished chap 18 and was twiddling his thumbs, we asked if we could time share some of those brown bears. He said no. I also tried to claim a brown bear as commission for recruiting and was also denied :( We did suggest he build one of each settlement in his down time so if people visit his city to try to learn the secret of the poopy bums, they'll think they need to build all the settlements too. So @MaidenFair, maybe you want to take our advice with a large grain of salt. Shenanigans happen. :D
Lol!! I'll keep that in mind. I forgot who I was talking to for a little while there. ;) On the other hand, a city with all the settlements could look really cool...I'm not sure I'd mind being tricked into that. :p
 

Iamaita

Well-Known Member
This has been an interesting thread to read. I have enjoyed all the different perspectives and insights. I am considering doing one of my smaller cities as a cater only, and I will likely incorporate some of the ideas I have found here if I do.

I see all of the discussions about stopping in earlier chapters to keep spire and tournament easy, but my experience has been that everything got easier as I unlocked new techs, built new wonders, and upgraded my buildings. My main city is in the middle of chapter 15, and it all feels very comfortable. So far I can’t look back and see a spot where I wish I had stopped progressing or where the tournaments and spire were easier than they are now.

re: wonders - In my experience they help much more than they hurt. They save space, boost production, reduce decay, make troops fight harder and live longer, etc. Wonders are good. I tried building a city without them, and I hated it so much by orcs that I abandoned it.
 

Diellashana

Member
I wanted to analyze the chapter 6 ancient wonder Mountain Halls with chapter 6 buildings considering only the goods output of the building. The output is not affected by relic bonus. Using similar ratios as before I came up with the following calculated at max relic bonus:

1644112918119.png


The marble, crystal, and gems columns are ORs. Example: For a newly placed level 1 mountain hall you will need 25 marble OR 23 crystal OR 14 gem buildings to be equivalent or better to the base building efficiency. This does not take into account population at all which would increase efficiency.

If a person wants their mountain hall output to be equal or better to their manus they need at least that many buildings. Nobody has 25 marble buildings in chapter 6. This shows that the mountain hall starts off as inefficient. This means that a best practice would be to immediately pump in about a half dozen or so AW levels into your mountain hall to bring its efficiency up. Notice that there is a bit of diminishing returns around mountain hall level 7-10 depending on what tier goods you use. I'm considering a strategy where in chapter 6 I sit in chapter 6 for a bit until my mountain hall is around level 8 then reassess.

Another way to look at this is tile space. If in chapter 6 I have around 120 tiles of manus, then my goal for my mountain hall is to be around level 8 before proceeding to chapter 7 or prosperity towers.
 
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