General Questions from a curious new player

[Guurt The Destroyer]

I only started playing 2 weeks ago tomorrow. I have some questions that I have been unable to really find answers for... so going to throw them out there and see what people say.

1) Are all event buildings that I receive in Chapter 1/2/3/4 going to be essentially useless due to the fact that they are Chapter 1/2/3/4 versions? I get that I can use Royal Restoration instants, but since I would need 16 for each Chapter upgrade for my level 1 Queen Fairy Retreat that seems like a resource trap. Am I wrong about this? Is there any way to get a higher level foundation other than the event occurring again? Plus to be honest, the Queen Fairy Retreat doesn't seem very useful to me, but maybe a higher chapter version would be useful? I would have thought event buildings would be more impressive. Am I just failing to see the use of this building?

2) If the event buildings that I get as a fledgling city are useless should I just disenchant them? Or is there some reason I should keep the base piece and the event artifacts?

3) Is the only way to get blueprints from the 10th chest in Tournaments? I think the answer to this is yes. But I just wanted to make sure as crafting Royal Restorations seems to be tied to blueprints.

4) I see some discussion about speeding through chapters, especially to get to chapter 3 for the Spire. But what qualifies as trying to speed? Buying KP with gold and resources? I am trying to get to Chapter 3 as fast as I can, but other than going for KP rewards in the event and spending gold/resources on KP I really don't see any real way to speed up my progress.... I can buy them for gold, but it takes like 45 hours to generate enough gold to buy 20 of them at my current price and gold production, assuming I don't do much else with the gold.

5) Which brings me to my next question.... I constantly see people saying not to over Scout and conquer provinces. But why? I opened up two Very Hard silk provinces before this tournament and that was a great choice. I ended up with 120 silk relics (silk is my boosted commodity) because I could take 5 silk provinces to 6 stars each. I have like 4 times as many silk relics as I do my base commodity. I am tempted to open a bunch more Very Hard provinces just for the KP so I can advance quicker into Chapter 3. I get they are harder to conquer, but what is the other tangible downside?

6) finally, should I be spending rune shards on Ancient Wonders I am not intending to put out? It appears there is a forging step and a building step. Neither of the two Ancient Wonders I have access to at this point seem worth the space at this time.... so is it fine to just ignore them completely while I wait to unlock ones that do interest me?

Okay, I guess that is enough. Thanks in advance for any responses.

 

[Gladiola]

1) With most buildings you refresh them with each event. So for example I have some chapter 3 buildings from the phoenix event that I'll be replacing with chapter 4 buildings from this event with similar culture or culture/population combinations and (fortunately) the same shape. A few buildings are worth upgrading as you progress through the chapters. You will decide which ones those are. Personally I agree that the Queen Fairy's Retreat building is sort of meh. I plan to convert it and its associated evolutions to spell fragments eventually. On the other hand, there are other evolving buildings like the fire phoenix and some of the bears that are so treasured and sought after that the developers have started offering repeat opportunities to receive them. Those are worth upgrading (in my opinion).

2) Personally I keep stuff until I need the spell fragments, just in case I have an epiphany that they are actually useful after all. It's up to you. There's no limit to the number of buildings you can have in storage, as far as I know.

3) The only way to get blueprints is from the 10th chest in the tournament. However, you can also use 300 diamonds in place of a blueprint, and later on when you can win diamonds from the Spire, this becomes practical. You can get Royal Restorations from the tournament from lower chests, even if you are not part of a 10-chest fellowship. There are RRs in chests 4, 6, 9 and 10 I think. (And maybe 8?) There are also some buildings and even a wonder that give RRs, but that comes pretty late in the game. So getting RRs from tournament chests is the way to go.

4) I can't comment much on speeding through chapters as I'm trying to go as slowly as possible. I can tell you a lot about NOT speeding through chapters, such as by putting your earned KP into other people's Ancient Wonders or just letting it accumulate in your Knowledge Bar until it's full. Clearing provinces and participating actively in tournaments is a good source of KP. You don't want to overscout, but even if you clear 2-3 provinces for each tourney and complete them to six stars, that's a fairly healthy amount of KP right there.

5a) There are two main reasons not to overscout. One affects you right now and the other is more long term. The Advanced Scouting research at the beginning of the chapter reduces scouting costs and the cost of negotiating and fighting in provinces scouted after completing it by 25%. Basically that means for every province you scout over the minimum you are requirred to do for that advanced scouting research, you will be paying 25% more to scout it and to clear it (and it will take longer to scout). For a few extra provinces to do a tournament, it may be worth it, but if you do it consistently over time you will not only be paying more but will also run into the next problem ...

5b) Eventually if you scout much beyond the recommended limit, clearing provinces will require resources that must be generated within your city and cannot be obtained by trade, specifically orcs. You cannot generate orcs until you reach the orcs chapter, so if you scout and clear provinces to the point they require orcs to negotiate, you will find yourself unable to fight because the battles are too hard and unable to negotiate since you are unable to get the goods used for the negotiations. Being a few provinces overscouted will not cause this, but if you clear way more provinces than recommended you will hit the "orc wall."

6) There ae rune shards and rune fragments. The only thing you can do with rune shards is fill rune circles. There's no reason to put them in an AW you don't plan to build UNLESS you want to take the gamble that it will "fail" and generate a rune fragment that you can then use with 9 others to fill in a rune in an AW you actually want. This is an edge case and will occur infrequently.

You can accumulate a maximum of 10 rune fragments at a time. So if you have 10 of them and nothing else to do with them, it doesn't do any harm to put them in your AWs. Then you can start accumulating more. You will sometimes see recipes using rune fragments to generate AW KP in your Magic Academy. I generally craft those when I see them.

 

[SoggyShorts]

I agree with everything above and would just add that for early events you can grab a powerful pure culture daily prize or 2 that can help your city but otherwise the prizes that don't diminish are ones like portal profits and instants(troop/timer/coin/supplies) since those each give a % which means you get more in later chapters if you just hang on to them.
Also, you can never really go wrong grabbing KP rewards.

As for artifacts and base disenchanting, I wouldn't. It's the one thing that you can't undo and inno is slowly giving us new ways to get them and may eventually give us a new ways to use them (on other buildings you do want in the future)

 

[Gladiola]

@SoggyShorts I lucked out and got banshees with my 2x bonus today, so 20 squads of banshees. I don't know how useful they are, but I'm gonna wait until my squad sizes get bigger and have a whole coven of them.

 

[Lelanya]

Lol
We're going to get 10 on a push week, soon!
The Queen Faerie base will come up in Crafting at some point, and then it's a good time to disenchant them.

 

[Guurt The Destroyer]

@SoggyShorts I lucked out and got banshees with my 2x bonus today, so 20 squads of banshees. I don't know how useful they are, but I'm gonna wait until my squad sizes get bigger and have a whole coven of them.

I got those Banshee today as well, though only a single batch. My 2x today was on the x2 enchanted flower... so I got 4. The grand prize after today is 15 KP, so I am hoping to complete that before the event ends.

I had heard that the last day of event will have some good daily specials. Do you know if that is true?

EDIT: Oh, wait, it hadn't occurred to me before but those Squad instants for troops actually grow in value as your squad size increases. I was thinking they worked like the normal troop additions, but these are actually squads and not units. I wasn't sure why they were given as instants but now I get how they increase in value over time.

 

[Gladiola]

They increase in the number of units given. I don't know if they increase in "value." They basically keep pace with the increased costs. Personally, I'm definitely saving mine for when my squad sizes are a lot bigger.

The last two prizes on beta were a good 3x3 culture building and a 4x3 population/culture building. I personally am hoping both will appear -- I have almost 5k currency saved up for them. Depending on how you feel about pop/culture you might want to go for just the culture building. In chapter 2 t is about 3x the value of a Flying Boat in the same amount of space, and more than a Spot of Whispering Trees in less space, iirc. Not spectacular, but they will keep you going until you get higher chapter buildings in the next event.

 

[Iyapo1]

6) finally, should I be spending rune shards on Ancient Wonders I am not intending to put out? It appears there is a forging step and a building step. Neither of the two Ancient Wonders I have access to at this point seem worth the space at this time.... so is it fine to just ignore them completely while I wait to unlock ones that do interest me?

Ancient wonders that you have no interest in are a great place to "farm" broken shards.
Every fifth wonder level requires that you fill the rune wheel on each wonder. If you put dedication into leveling the wonders you want you will rapidly run out of specific rune shards.
You can go into the wonders you dont want and break rune shards until you have 10 and then go back into the wonder you want and "forge" a shard for the wonder you do want.
If the rune wheel on the wonder you dont want fills you can build it and as soon as construction is complete you can sell it. This will empty the rune wheel and allow you to break more shards for wonders you do want.

 

[Iyapo1]

Which brings me to my next question.... I constantly see people saying not to over Scout and conquer provinces. But why?

There is a nasty pinch point exactly where and how bad depends upon your unique city build. Roughly it will start pinching in chapter 3 and let you go by mid chapter 5 at the latest.
Basically it is a point where the cost of clearing the provinces outstrips your troop ability/goods production. The more scouted but uncleared provinces you have on the map when you hit the pinch point the longer it will take to dig out. So do not over scout in that tiny window.

After this point your next obstacle is the "Orc Wall". To stay off the orc wall, clear in rings and dont exceed 222 provinces until chapter 8.

Beyond the orc wall...I am not sure if there is a mana wall, seed wall, sentient goods wall, or an ascended goods wall.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

I had heard that the last day of event will have some good daily specials. Do you know if that is true?

Not really. On the last day, there is always a short 3-hour sale on the currency for that event. And it costs real money to buy it, rather than being able to just use diamonds you already have.

 

[onebigscot]

Ancient wonders that you have no interest in are a great place to "farm" broken shards.
Every fifth wonder level requires that you fill the rune wheel on each wonder. If you put dedication into leveling the wonders you want you will rapidly run out of specific rune shards.
You can go into the wonders you dont want and break rune shards until you have 10 and then go back into the wonder you want and "forge" a shard for the wonder you do want.
If the rune wheel on the wonder you dont want fills you can build it and as soon as construction is complete you can sell it. This will empty the rune wheel and allow you to break more shards for wonders you do want.

Aren't all the rune shards specific to an AW?

 

[Revo1]

Yes.

 

[samidodamage]

Aren't all the rune shards specific to an AW?

Technically, yes. What @Iyapo1 was talking about was Broken Shards (I really wish the game had named these Rune Fragments or something; calling them Rune shards and Broken shards is very confusing!) I'm going to call them Runes and Broken shards. All AW's share the one Broken shards bar. When it's full, you can open any AW and forge the Rune, no matter which rune you broke to get the broken shard(s). So, you go into one you aren't going to build but have a gazillion runes for it:
Fill the wheel there, breaking runes as you go. When the Broken shards bar is full, close that AW window. Go to the AW you are trying to find Runes for and forge one Rune (always guaranteed to fit in the wheel of the AW you're in when you click 'forge rune') Then, back to inserting/breaking Runes to get another, etc.
What will stop you is eventually (sooner rather than later for me, since I don't want it to fill up, lol!) the rune wheel is full in the AW you didn't want to build. You can use any AW to continue inserting/breaking Runes. But, if you're out of other options, you can always just build the AW you aren't going to keep, allow construction to complete, then sell it. You're not going to get any of the build resources back when you sell it (so there is a cost to doing it as well as needing the space temporarily; cost will seem negligible when you're in higher chapters) and you lose any runes inserted and are back to a lvl 1 AW with an empty rune wheel to fill. And back to filling the Broken shards bar to forge them for the AW you do want to build.
It's cumbersome, but effective, lol!

 

[Gkyr]

@SoggyShorts I lucked out and got banshees with my 2x bonus today, so 20 squads of banshees. I don't know how useful they are, but I'm gonna wait until my squad sizes get bigger and have a whole coven of them.

For me, Banshees have a specific role to play. Of course when you deploy them, it is wise to make sure that they are not going to be compromised by opposing units that can reach them with higher initiative, etc.
But their genius is that, even as 2 star, they have a built-in 90% buff and an 80% defense against heavy range units. Take that, Steinlings!
I purposely gathered 3 of the instant squads from the event this week.

 

[NightshadeCS]

And don't forget that there are sometimes event quests to use troop instants. I personally think it is a terrible quest, but keeping a handful of those instants in inventory can be helpful down the line.

Edit to say there is usually an alternative to that quest, but there it is.

 

[Iyapo1]

(I really wish the game had named these Rune Fragments or something; calling them Rune shards and Broken shards is very confusing!)

For me it is that they are called shards. In the western USA the word shard strongly implies broken. So its all just broken, drives me nuts, they are so awkwardly named. In my brain I turned "rune shard" into a single proper noun

 

[Iyapo1]

I personally think it is a terrible quest, but keeping a handful of those instants in inventory can be helpful down the line.

I thought it was a lovely quest when troop instants were still being given out as regular consolation prizes.
Now that they are daily prizes only, I like the quest less.