Mykans Guide - Guest races

[Mykan]

This guide forms part of a larger guide Mykans Guide

Guest races
Guest races do not add any points to your town but you will unlock new building and troop upgrades that will progress your town. When approaching these eras be sure to plan for spare expansions that can be used to host the guest race. Each guest race has its own set of unique resources that are needed to unlock the new technologies.

Guest races are designed to take up a certain % of your town. How much depends a lot on your approach, up to 15% is a reasonable estimate. The mainline quests often provide a minimum suggestion of buildings and are normally targeted to be 2/3 of what you need. Here is a discussion about the space allocation different people have taken for the different races.

Here is a spreadsheet to help you determine how many resources you need for each guest race and track your progress during the era.

Dwarves
This guest race focuses on basic goods, specifically Steel factories.

Unique aspects

• Copper and granite mines for special resources
• Guest race resources used to unlock technology tree

Resources

Strategies

• Go straight for the mine technology and ignore any non-essential research. You will need to start developing your mines and portal as well as stockpiling goods. This will reduce your risk of becoming tech locked.
• Number of mines needed. A ratio of 2:1 for granite to copper mines is a good rule of thumb, if leveling them all to level 4. Plan for at least 10 granite mines and 5 copper mines at level 4. A 12:6 option is also very good and close to standard for many players. More mines can be built if desired and space is available but it is not necessary to level the extra mines.
• Alternate number of mines. If space is available you may choose to not upgrade your copper mines and instead build 10-12 copper mines at level 1 (a couple could be level 2). You would still want 10-12 granite mines at level 4.
• Your portal will need to be upgraded to level 4, a 5x5 grid, to hold enough resources for the later technologies.
• Plan to upgrade the portal and granite mines first before upgrading copper mines.
• Build streets later in the era once you are comfortable with resources and the speed that you can produce them. In fact streets can be done while starting fairy era as you will have plenty of time to gain resources and build roads before the fairy farms.
• Focusing on technologies that require the special resources allows you to spend the stockpiled goods and keep your mines working as much as possible. You can return to the other technologies after you do not need the mines.
• If you do become tech locked invest your KP into Wonders.

Fairies
This guest race focuses on crafted goods, specifically Silk factories.

Unique aspects

• Day and night farms for special resources
• Mercenary camp
  • Blossom Mage
  • Drone Rider
• Interdependent production - your day farms produce goods that are required by your night farm, cocoons, and your night farms produce fireflies that are needed by your day farms.
• Guest race resources used to unlock technology tree
  
• Low level portals do not allow Ambrosia and Night Essence to be stored until upgraded. You must get to level 2 for Ambrosia and level 3 for Night Essence to be able to store these.

Resources

Strategies

• Go straight for the night farm technology and ignore any non-essential research. You will need to start developing your farms and portal as well as stockpiling goods. This will reduce your risk of becoming tech locked.
• Plan for 4 day farms and 3 night farms at level 4. More can be built if desired but do not level the extra farms as they will likely sit idle numerous times.
• Plan to upgrade the portal first, you may choose to get day farms to level 2/3 to assist. Once the portal is at level 4 focus on upgrading day farms and then night farms.
• If you are low on supplies coming into this era you may need to research the workshop technology to acquire the upgrade. This race is very greedy on supplies so plan your town, spells and factory numbers accordingly.
• Build streets later in the era once you are comfortable with resources and the speed that you can produce them. Streets can always be done after the wonder technology while research advanced scouts and the early technologies of the next guest race.
• Focusing on technologies that require the special resources allows you to spend the stockpiled goods and keep your farms working as much as possible. You can return to the other technologies after you do not need the farms.
• Night essence requires cocoons (day farm) and dream sheep (night farm). When you first open a night farm you will see them costing diamonds as you do not have the other resources initially.
• Ambrosia requires fireflies (night farm). When you first open a day farm you will see them costing diamonds as you do not have the resources initially.
  
• If you do become tech locked invest your KP into Wonders

 

[DeletedUser2737]

Is there any reason to keep the guest race buildings after completing the era? I just completed Dwarf, and was considering taking the space back.

 

[DeletedUser61]

There's an upcoming quest for deleting the portal itself, and you should keep the upgraded roads, but you can dump the rest of the guest race infrastructure.

BUT

Don't forget that you're going to need the space AGAIN for the next guest race.

 

[DeletedUser3942]

How many armouries will I need to build?

 

[DeletedUser6271]

I am stuck. I use the Mykans Guide - Mainline Quests for the Dwarves chapter. I play as Human and I got as far as quest 29 - "Research Tavern and temple". Quest 30 is supposed to be "Research Dwarven Style residential buildings", but instead I got "Build a Wayfarer's Tavern", which I did. But then I got this Quest: "Research Advanced Scouts". What's up with that? That is like the first research in the chapter! Or do I have to wait for the next chapter - Fairies? Then, what happens to the rest of quests 30 to 57 of the Dwarves chapter?
What do I do to get unstuck?

 

[Mykan]

Orcs and Goblins
This guest race focuses on magical goods, specifically Magic Dust factories

Unique aspects

• Mushroom farms and Orc rally points for special resources
• Must have an armoury to at least level 20 where it enables the production of Orcs
• Interdependent production
• Guest race resources used to unlock technology tree
  
• Low level portals do not allow Shrooms of Wisdom and Loot to be stored until upgraded.
• New training grounds units
  • Orc Warrior
  • Orc strategist

Resources

Shroom of Wisdom and Loot are required to unlock technologies.

Strategies

• Go straight for the mushroom farm, Armoury and rally point technologies and ignore any non-essential research. You will need to start developing your armouries, farms and portal as well as stockpiling goods. This will reduce your risk of becoming tech locked.
  • If space is an issue you could go for residences first and start rearranging your town while researching the unique resource technologies
• Research armoury and build to level 20+ early to start producing the orc resource which will be used at the rally point, for negotiating encounters 11 or more provinces from your town and some building upgrades, specifically workshops. 2 rally points is sufficient, if you have the space and extra supplies then go for 3.
• Do not build a rally point before you have a level 20+ armoury. All production in the rally points need the orc resource.
• Residences change in size so expect a lot of rearranging of your town and deleting of some existing residences. This is a bigger challenge for elves where the buildings change orientation as well.
• If you do become tech locked invest your KP into Wonders. You are more likely with this race then prior ones to need to use KP outside of the technology tree while you gather resources.
• Once you have a rally point mass produce armaments, you will use these a lot for loot near the end of the era.
• Priortise Mushroom farms near the start of the era and rally points later. You could keep some farms at level 1 as temporary fillers until you replace them with rally points.
• Generally leveling a rally point will depend a lot on your availability. Higher levels only increase production time. If you log all day long having a couple rally points at level 4 will help you a lot. If you log once or twice a day leaving them at level 1 or 2 might be fine as you may gain less actual benefit with higher levels. Not all buildings need to be the same level, don't be afraid to have 1 at a different level each if it works for you.
  
• The number of farms and rally points varies a lot for this race. Your desire to avoid been tech locked, options for KP if you are tech locked will play into your strategy here. Some options
  • Minimalist approach - Plan on at least 12 mushroom farms at level 4 and 3 rally points. You will need 3 rally points for one of the quests. You will be tech locked, plan how you research carefully to minimise tech lock and have alternate uses for KP, like wonders.
  • Moderate approach - 20 to 30 mushroom farms at level 4 will help with production. Ideally 20 farms would be level 4 the extras could be less then level 4 or kept at level 1 to be replaced by a rally point later if space is tight
  • If you have the space 3 to 5 rally points makes a big difference. You can then dedicate some to different production options or focus all in one area as needed. 4 is nice and you can drop some mushroom farms late in the era to fit in a 5th rally point. I found mushroom farms sitting idle later in the era (even on towns with only 12 farms).
  • Full throttle approach - A strategy suggested by @Bobbykitty is to delete culture buildings and some population 20-30% of houses and focus entirely on resource production to get through the technology tree as fast as possible and then rebuild your town at the end. If you clear enough space focus on 80-100 farms (various levels) with an emphasis on hardshrooms and powershrooms. As you near the second half of the tech tree delete half of the farms and build 6-8 rally points, more if you can. Move focus to shrooms of wisdom and build loot while waiting on the shrooms of wisdom. As you will need to rebuild your town at the end you could target some early wood elve techs like culture and put those in skipping orc culture entirely.
• Remember it is expected we would take approx. 3 months to do this chapter, have patience and enjoy the journey.

Wood Elves
This guest race focuses on basic goods, specifically Plank factories.

Unique aspects

• Culture buildings produce Mana which depreciates at 10% per day. Culture buildings will require roads to produce Mana and receive neighbourly help.
• New Mercenary camp unit
  • Ranger
• Late access to unique resources for the second half of the era

Resources

Strategies

• Your maximum mana is 10 times your daily production. You need to have a maximum amount high enough to upgrade your main hall. The higher your maximum mana the easier and faster to get to the amount you need.
• Wood Elve culture buildings do provide culture when not connect to roads but not mana or neighbourly help
• Plan for at least 10 weeping willows. You can use 7-8 early in the chapter but later on the demand on mana from your unique buildings and trying to save for technologies become rather slow if you do not have more mana production.
• There is a mainline quest requiring 4 forest fabrications, 6 marble grafting, 6 steel grafting and 4 plank grafting sites. This is actually a very good guide for what is needed. If desired you might like an extra fabrication or two especially at the start while trying to produce mana tears to build grafting sites. You may choose to keep any extra (any above 4) fabrications at lower levels. A 5th plank grafting site is also very helpful as there is a large demand for planks needed, refer to spreadsheet at the start of this section to see total resources needed.

Sorcerers and Dragons
This guest race focuses on crafted goods, specifically Scroll factories.

Unique aspects

• No guest race road connections, everything must be touching a central building, Campus.
• Due to no roads space required is roughly square shaped, previously guest race could be squeezed into avilable space.
• New Mercenary camp unit
  • Valorian Guard
• Balancing mana producing culture buildings and pure culture buildings

Resources

Strategies

• Your maximum mana is 10 times your daily production. You need to have a maximum amount high enough to upgrade your main hall and technologies. The higher your maximum mana the easier and faster to get to the amount you need.
• Wisdom Square is the connector between your Main Hall and the University. It produces apprentices. A base of 6 apprentices plus 6 for each faculty, the more faculties you have the faster you can produce them. Its production is not affected by the Blooming Trader Guild wonder or Campus level.
• At maximum size you can fit 4 faculties for each 3 types allowing a total of 12 faculties
• If following the quests read the quest section of the guide as some quests require technology upgrades before finishing building upgrades.
• Faculties produce goods that are used to upgrade buildings which you will not need once the buildings are upgraded. They also train apprentices.

Halflings
This guest race focuses on magic goods, specifically Elixir factories.

Unique aspects

• Mixture of guest race road connections and no guest race road connections, Fields must be touching a Farm. Farms must be connected by a guest race road to the portal.
• Field levels determine the type of production and do not increase output
• New Mercenary camp unit
  • Faineant Frog (Heavy Melee)
• Balancing mana producing culture buildings and pure culture buildings
• Divine Seeds - a new resource that decays 10% each day
• Collection bonus for Divine Seeds

Resources

Strategies

• Divine seeds are collected from your trader when it is upgraded to level 2. Focus on getting this tech early so you can start collecting saving this resource. Speed of collection is based on your main hall level x completed provinces to get your max production of seeds each day.
• You receive a collection bonus when you collect divine seeds based on your Main Hall level x Wonder levels. The more often you collect the seeds early the more often you receive the bonus.
• Fields have 4 different resources but only produce one resource at a time determined by the level of the field. Consider carefully when to upgrade a field as you can't go back to a prior production type unless you delete the field and start again.

 

[DeletedUser18437]

Hey, EU player here
Thank you for your hard work in setting up the guide Is it still supported? I would love to see some hints for Elementals!
Also, I have noticed that the google docs spreadsheet posted seems to stop working in Wood Elves (and some techs in orcs have wrong costs), at least when I downloaded it a few months back. I have written a Wood Elves and a S&D spreadsheet myself. If someone can give me access to the doc, I can make them available to everyone.

 

[Mykan]

I have been very busy lately and haven't had time to update some of the information. Gamers Gems of Knowledge is a great website for a guide on the races. If I find some time I can try to update the spreadsheet.

 

[GCRElve]

Hi, I need Orcs to complete all my Provinces. They ask for Orcs (VIII) on the map !???? I've almost finished dwarves ( VI) only !!!
Where would I get all the Orcs from at that level ?

 

[Iyapo1]

There is absolutely no way to get orcs until you enter chapter 8. You are in chapter 6. Once you get into chapter 8 you can craft an orcs nest to start immediately making orcs(if you craft it before you hit chapter 8 it wont make orcs). Once you are in chapter 8 you can research the Armory(breeding ground) upgrade and start producing orcs in your armory.

Just a note: you do not need orcs on province encounters until ring 11 around 222 cleared provinces if you cleared in perfect rings. Check your scouting costs. You might still have lower ring(cheaper) provinces that dont require orcs.

 

[GCRElve]

So I have to explore it ringwise, thank you ! I explored it vertically only.

 

[crackie]

So I have to explore it ringwise, thank you ! I explored it vertically only.

Welcome to the Etch-A-Sketch Scouting Club (and forums). I'm a member too