Help Mykan's Guide to Elvenar

[Mykan]

A guide like this is always a collaboration of many minds. I have tried to give credit where specific content was taken from someone else.

Contents

• Introduction
• Races
• Starting out
• Town design
  • Boosted V non-boosted
    
  • Design by era
• Fellowships and visitation
• Culture
• Trading
• Game strategy
• Hotkeys
• Provinces
• Fighting Guide
• General tips
• Tournaments
• Magic Academy and Spells
• Wonders
  • Wonder levelling programs
• Guest Races
• Diamonds
• What to do if you are "stuck"
• Other resources
• Mainline Quests
• Repeatable Quests
• Glossary
• Updates and Feedback

Introduction
Welcome to the world of Elvenar, upon starting a city you will have selected one of 2 races; Humans or Elves. This guide is generic for both races unless specified otherwise. You will also find lots of valuable information from the forum (beta and US sites), wiki and Gems of Knowledge.

This guide is designed to take you through various aspects of the game and apply the raw information about buildings, troops and other game components into a successful and thriving city that matches your own unique approach and style.

Races
The two races are very similar in many ways but there are unique aspects for each race.

• The technology tree is unique for the first 5 chapters.
• Residences and factories are very similar but there is a difference on when certain things are unlocked and even what levels each race can build up to before requiring a new technology.
• The armies are also different, typically an Elven army is more defensive in nature and the Humans are more offensive in nature.

Starting out
When you first begin the game can be a bit daunting and there is a lot of information available that can seem overwhelming. A few key aspects to understand and help you out:

• There is no one way to play or on correct style of play. Any advice or guides should be put through your own filter for how you like to play. Stay true to your style and you will have a great town to be proud of
• Take things one step at a time, learn about what you need in the town right now and try not to read to far ahead. Great stuff to know early:
  • Basic town design
  • Exploration, technology and its impact on combat
  • Boosted goods
  • Fellowships
• Combat is at its most difficult in the first 2-5 chapters. Don't be dismayed it does get much easier.
• Join a fellowship - be part of a team and see the benefits. Join an established group so there are experienced people who can help teach you.

Town design
Everyone has to work out how exactly to build their town. The frequency of play and purchasing of diamonds for speciality buildings all impact a town and what is needed, making each town unique. The slight variations between the 2 races and different manufactory buildings all add to the uniqueness of each town's design. Wonder and event buildings also add to the customisation of each town.

As a general guide a basic town layout would be:

• 6-9 workshops. If playing mostly every 9 hours go for 8 workshops.
• 2-3 armories you can vary this up or down to suit you, if you do more you will likely need an extra workshop. You will want 2 armouries by the orc era even if planning to negotiate (refer Orcs).
• Residences start with 10 and work up to 20 and continue as needed. Your gold and population needs will determine the number you need ultimately. This varies a lot as you upgrade buildings sizes and if you buy diamonds for special buildings. You might decrease residence numbers as the size of the buildings increase but you are continually increasing the number of squares allocated for residences.
• Goods manufactories vary by race and good so a guide based on factory numbers can vary from the guide to what you need. The goods produced by square for each factory is almost identical regardless of type and race. Ideally a minimum of 40 squares of factories for each type of basic, crafted and magical good is the aim. This will allow you to fight, negotiate or both and have sufficient goods for average province expansion. Information below is based on building boosted good factories only (see boosted v non-boosted).
  • Basic good factories - 40 squares (usually 4-6 factories)
  • Crafted good factories - 40 squares (usually 2-3 factories)
  • Magical good factories - 40 squares (usually 2-3 factories)
• Monitor your coins, supplies and goods, if they are not increasing a little each day then upgrade buildings or add temporary buildings
• Don’t be afraid to delete buildings
• Upgrade old cultural buildings for new ones, check that the culture per square is higher for the building you plan to place
• Don’t be afraid to keep available space to adapt to changes, new opportunities, and guest races. If your town runs well without all the space occupied using up all the space with more of the same can create future challenges. Fill the space with temporary buildings you plan to remove later to meet future needs..

Elves tend to need 1-2 more factories for tier 1 goods until superior level. Humans tend to need 2-3 more factories for tier 2 and 3 goods until superior level. Human basic good factories are larger than Elves so they produce more. Elven magical good factories are larger than humans until superior size upgrade so they produce more initially.

Starting towns tend to have more actual factory numbers then an advanced town but often the squares occupied is very similar. An era 1 town would look more towards 20 squares of factory space initially and build up towards 40 squares, likely in late era 3.

People visiting your town start at your town hall, try to place the buildings you want them to boost close to the town hall so they are easier to find and faster to help. Better culture buildings closer to main hall for example.

Roads generally offer very little, so plan your town to minimise the number of roads. Consider:

• Culture buildings and builders hut do not need roads
• Buildings only need a single road
• You can fit more buildings per road by placing the road along the short edge of a building rather than the long edge
• Often placing roads in rows or columns lets you group similar buildings and use less roads thus more space for buildings
• Upgrade roads when able for the increased culture, often a single 1x1 culture building gives more culture than a road so you can put culture objects at the end of roads

@Jackluyt golden rules on space optimisation

Elven architect, a fan website with planning tools for the game that can help you plan your town.

 

[Mykan]

What is a boosted good?
There are 3 types of standard goods; basic, crafted and magical. Every town has 1 boosted good for each type, this will be a good you get a bonus for when collecting relics and can produce in large quantities. To quickly identify your boosted goods click on your main hall and then the relics tab. The lower half of the screen shows you which goods you are boosted in as well as the percentage boost and number of relics to the next increase.

Later in the game another 3 boosted goods become available, called sentient goods. Refer elemental chapter.

Boosted manufactories versus non-boosted manufactories
All players must decide what manufactories to build. Due to limits on space, population and culture there are only so many total manufactories that can be built, you need to figure out how many and of which type.

If you have a goal of aesthetic appeal or another goal that is not about efficiency then this part of the guide will not suit your goals. Those considering efficiency are looking for the best use of each square of space in their town to maximize the population, culture and production output. If you can maximize your production and use less people/culture and space it gives you more room to build other buildings.

Focusing only on boosted factories is the most efficient approach as you get more goods per square while using the least space/culture/population possible. The boosted % gives you the additional goods for free.

Calculation of why boosted is beneficial
To help demonstrate why focusing on boosted only is so beneficial the production for a boosted and non-boosted approach was calculated and compared for an individual and a fellowship.

Using some assumptions of 200% boosted production and building one of each non-boosted factory at max level of an advanced factory it is possible to see the math’s of why this is better. Using 1-day production, for Elves a person would produce 1,561 goods less per day then a person who focuses on boost only. For Humans this is 1,638. For a fellowship of 21 people with an equal split of boosts it is 39,000-41,000 less goods per day that can be shared between players.

The factory level, boost % and number of factories used are reasonable to conservative and most people do 3 or 9 hour production thus the numbers above are quite low to the likely reality.

As an individual would an extra 1,500+ goods per day be helpful or would an extra 40,000 goods per day in your fellowship be nice?

Due to the increasing cost of production between good types, basic, crafted and magical, the cost of not focusing on boosts is higher for the more costly good types. Thus building a non-boosted magical factory is far more inefficient than a non-boosted basic factory.

Focusing on boosts only and trading with your fellowship actively is like being boosted in all goods.

Short and long game strategy
Part of the challenge of Elvenar is deciding how best to spend your knowledge points, (“KP”). With the introduction of wonders there is a significant need for KP to level them which will progress certain aspects of your town but not your technology. The KP needed to level all wonders is significantly more than that required to research all technologies. You need to consider your short and long term strategy.

Short-term(Technologies)
While the entire technology tree will take you time to work through each technology is fairly quick to research and progress is comparatively rapid compared to investment in wonders.

Long-term (wonders)
Wonders are an investment for the long-term. The longer you have a wonder the more benefit you receive from it over time. Similarly the sooner it is leveled the sooner you enjoy the benefits from the better level for a longer time, and a better benefit from the space used.

Finding the balance
Most players and many fellowships will tell you to focus entirely on the short-term strategy of technology and only consider the long-term if you get locked from advancing in some fashion. This will allow you to proceed comparatively quickly through the technology tree but leave you with no or very low level wonders until “end-game” before focusing on wonders. Focusing too much on wonders will prevent your progression through the technology tree. Consider several factors:

• How competitive are you? Do you like to race to the end? Have a high score now?
• Where are you in the technology tree? Have you unlocked all 3 types of goods? Do you want certain wonders before unlocking later wonder technologies? Are you approaching a guest race?
• How long do you plan to play the game for? Just a couple weeks or months?
• Do you get bored if you reach the “end-game”?

All of these factors will influence whether you should focus on the technologies or a more balanced option. Rather than focusing only on the short or long term aspects of the game you can focus on both at the same time. Decide how many KP you would like to invest into wonders each day or week and how many on technologies. Of course you can vary this during the game to suit your town's specific needs at a specific time. By balancing your short and long term focus allows you to enjoy the benefits of wonders while progressing your technologies at the same time. When considering how many KP to put into wonders be sure to choose the best method of investing in wonders that suits you, refer to wonders.

Hotkeys
Refer https://us.forum.elvenar.com/index.php?threads/hotkeys.1120/

While in the chat window

• Typing /who in the chat window will show you who is online at that time

While in the world map you can use the arrow keys on your keyboard to navigate

When resetting production click the building – if you count from left to right top row to bottom row you can press that number key to start the production.
Supplies: 1=5min, 2=15min, 3=1hr, 4=3hr, 5=9hr, 6=1 day

Manufactories: 1=3hr, 2=9hr, 3=1 day, 4=2 days

Copy and paste text
Summary steps are:

1. Click the desired text (nothing visible happens)
2. Ctrl+A to highlight all
3. Copy the text into your clipboard using Ctrl+C or whatever keyboard combination does that on a Mac.

Note: In the chat box it only copies one post at a time, not multiple posts.

Provinces
Rings
Every hex on the world map is called a province, each province has 8 encounters. As you move out from your town you move through “rings” of hexes away from your town.

Each battle or negotiation cost increases the further from your town you travel. The time to scout also increases the further away you get. Once you reach the 11th ring and beyond the scouting costs change to include orcs. You have 222 possible provinces before the 11th ring and only 160 provinces are required to unlock the chest for the Orcs and Goblins tech era. Refer Orcs and Goblins for more information

Expansions and Advanced Scout technology
This technology is very important to your province expansion. It will decrease the cost of your scouts, the time they take to explore and the difficulty of the enemy in the province. The difficulty of a provinces enemies is decided at the time it is explored. Consider carefully when to scout new provinces if you are close to an advanced scout technology.

It is expected that each player will have explored a number of provinces close to the amount required for each chest to unlock the next chapter, up to 10-20 provinces more is considered normal for regular players. Scout times should generally be below 24 hours. See table below for expected province range.

 

[Mykan]

Exploration strategy
This table provides a breakdown of the provinces for each ring showing city and relic provinces and the expected exploration range.

Chapter 14 data is a guess as this chapter is yet to be implemented to servers. Also note that prvince 457 is the last province that a province expansion can be earnt.
Modified from data by Heymrdiedier, Katwijk and expectation from posts by @Marindor

There are typically 2 approaches to exploring:

1. Scout in a circular motion completing each ring of hexes before proceeding to the next
2. Focus scouting on boosted provinces only

By focusing in a circular motion you obtain a variety of relics that can be used in the Magic Academy and ensure fights and negotiations are easier.

If you focus on boosted provinces only your world map looks a little like a spider. You will have less relics available for the Magic Academy unless you use Tournaments. Be warned with this approach you could face harder fights and negotiation costs or reach the orc limit in ring 11 prior to having orcs.

Diamonds
You do not need to buy diamonds to build a successful town. If you would however like to buy some things to make life easier or faster then you can choose to buy diamonds. There are a number of options for using diamonds:

1. Expansions
2. Builders hut levels 3-5. You have get 1 builder for each level of the hut
3. Magic Academy levels 3-5. You can produce spells faster, more items to queue and benefits to disenchanting for crafting
4. Culture buildings
5. Rushing times - buildings, scouting, tournaments, missing goods, crafting, etc.
6. Runes for wonders
7. Event packages

What to do if your "stuck:
No one likes to get "stuck" and prevention is always best . Although sometimes it does happen, especially tech locked when you are in the guest races. Here are some ideas you could use when "locked". They are are not listed in any specific order. You need to decide which options suits your situation the best.

Tech Locked
This refers to when your are unable to complete more research as you lack the resources to open a required technology. This can occur due to a shortage of coins, supplies, goods or at the end of the tech tree.

• Short of coins
  • Build/upgrade houses
  • Visit fellowship and neighbours daily to increase supply
  • Consider halting goods production, especially magic goods
  • Increase culture for higher bonus
  • Use ensorcelled endowment spell for better culture bonus
• Short of supplies
  • Build/upgrade workshops
  • Visit fellowship and neighbours daily to increase supply
  • Consider halting goods production, especially magic goods
  • Consider halting builders and barracks
  • Increase culture for higher bonus
  • Use ensorcelled endowment spell for better culture bonus
  • Use power of provision spells
• Short of goods
  • Offer trades to acquire the missing goods
  • Build more factories. More factories gives you more goods to trade
  • Accept offers from the wholesaler
  • Use magical manufacturing spell
  • Visit fellowship/neighbours if you have a Crystal Lighthouse/Bell Spire for goods bonus so you have more to trade.
• Guest race goods
  • Build/upgrade more speciality buildings
  • Check town design to ensure no excess that could be used for guest race space
  • Use portal provision spell

When you are locked one of the best options for your KP is to focus it on your wonders. These buildings grow with you and get much more powerful as you (and they) progress. You will also want a certain number of these by the later chapters as they help with certain resource production. So don't neglect them even when not locked.

Chest Locked
This refers to when your are unable to complete more research as you lack the number of provinces to unlock the chest at the end of each era. Your choices are limited as you have to either negotiate or fight provinces. Refer to combat section for details of combat. A combination of negotiating and combat is likely to be the most economical. You could also build more factories to increase goods production to help with negotiating.

Exploration locked
This refers to when you are stopped from exploring on the world map due to difficult fights or needing orcs for negotiating. In both cases you should hold on negotiating until your technology catches up to your exploration. Refer sections on exploration for information about how many provinces you should aim to do each tech era.

Goods locked
This refers to minimal to no access to one of the 9 goods on the world map.

• Build non-boosted factories
• Offer generous trades
• Use the wholesaler
• Use magical manufacturing spell to increase goods production for trading
• Consider if your fellowship meets your needs or if another fellowship might be more suitable
• Visit fellowship/neighbours to maximize coins/supplies for use at the wholesaler

Other resources

• Tips for completing events
• Elven Architect
• Platinum Leaf Facebook group
• Beta forum release notes for a sneak peak at future updates
• Spreadsheet analysis and lists (Courtesy of @Draconomicon)
• Crazy Wizards Guide (by @CrazyWizard)
• Gems of Knowledge
• Event guides by @SoggyShorts - search the forum for a specific guide

 

[DeletedUser551]

Seeing as this is very detailed and a lot of effort has been put in, I will be making the thread a sticky. Please keep them coming.

 

[DeletedUser4778]

Hi Mykan. Do you know why provinces have such widely different numbers? Is it because of the size of the units? But even the squad sizes vary. I don't recall reading about this in your guide. I just scouted a marble province in Ring 6 because it's my boost and here are the armies:

189x3 wild archers, 47 knight, 32x3 orc generals II = 710, squad size 189
211x2 wild archers, 53x3 knight, 35 orc generals II = 616, squad size 211
1900r; 242 wild archers, 61 knight, 40 can, 40x2 orc generals II = 423, squad size 242
172x4 wild archers, 43x2 knight, 29x4 orc generals II = 890, squad size 172
291x3 wild archers, 49 orc generals II = 922, squad size 291
242 wild archers, 61x2 knight, 40x2 orc generals II = 444, squad size 242
172x6 wild archers, 29 cannoneers, 29 orc generals II = 1090, squad size 172
211 wild archers, 53 knight, 35x4 orc generals II = 404, squad size 211

 

[Mykan]

Hi Mykan. Do you know why provinces have such widely different numbers? Is it because of the size of the units? But even the squad sizes vary. I don't recall reading about this in your guide. I just scouted a marble province in Ring 6 because it's my boost and here are the armies:

189x3 wild archers, 47 knight, 32x3 orc generals II = 710, squad size 189
211x2 wild archers, 53x3 knight, 35 orc generals II = 616, squad size 211
1900r; 242 wild archers, 61 knight, 40 can, 40x2 orc generals II = 423, squad size 242
172x4 wild archers, 43x2 knight, 29x4 orc generals II = 890, squad size 172
291x3 wild archers, 49 orc generals II = 922, squad size 291
242 wild archers, 61x2 knight, 40x2 orc generals II = 444, squad size 242
172x6 wild archers, 29 cannoneers, 29 orc generals II = 1090, squad size 172
211 wild archers, 53 knight, 35x4 orc generals II = 404, squad size 211

I do not know why there is a variance of squad size within an encounter. There was a thread we were trying to find a estimated squad size for a ring if unlocked at the pace expected but this variance makes it rather difficult, plus when you scout can vary it too.

 

[DeletedUser4778]

I do not know why there is a variance of squad size within an encounter. There was a thread we were trying to find a estimated squad size for a ring if unlocked at the pace expected but this variance makes it rather difficult, plus when you scout can vary it too.

Rats, I was hoping you would know. I hope someone figures it out soon or that we are given the info. I scouted that province after unlocking Advanced Scouts in Chapter 5 and the armies are indeed much easier than those in provinces I scouted back in Chapter 4. These variations also occur in tourneys. They don't give much of a learning curve, do they? I've faced cerberi I only once, everywhere else it's cerberi II.

 

[DeletedUser4648]

Another reason for buying diamonds is to support the game, and in general online free to play games. The FTP games are changing online gaming, and even the internet itself. The honor system--pay if you like it or want it, don't if you don't or can't--is working so well that FTP games are making more money than the Pay to Play games. (sorry I lost the link for that) I bought diamonds once for elevenar to support the game and players, but I never used them and they are still in my city, neither did I use magic or even one battle and I got to the dwarves not much more slowly than those who did use these. Of all the fracas going on in the last couple of months, the only thing that effected me were the treasure chests and completing provinces it only held me back a little bit. No technique will work real well without good trades, either fellowship or really good neighbors. I did a lot on my own the first couple of chapters but after that I did need trades. Lots of trades.

 

[DeletedUser61]

I do not know why there is a variance of squad size within an encounter.

There's the obvious ratio that's based on the weighting of the troops. I haven't looked recently, but a Treant was pretty much the equal of 12 Sword Fighter. It's convenient to think of the Treant as a crewed battle unit. Until you kill all 12 of the crewmen, then the Tank can still shoot back.

The number of defending squads was more interesting. If you found an encounter with JUST one type of unit, in the sector, then you could tell "how many" troops you'd need to kill and, once you understood the math, you could use the listed Size for the defending squads.

As the opponents go (went) from 1 unit to 8 units (I've been too busy to research the new paradigm) the number of troops DOUBLED linearly, so you'd have more total troop but each squad was easier and quicker to kill.

Negotiation/Cater costs ALSO varied by a factor of around two (depending on how you want to evaluate the mix of Coins/Supplies/Goods/Diamonds) and those cost were NOT correlated to the number of defending squads. So you COULD/SHOULD negotiate when those costs were on the low end, relative to the likelihood that you were going to win the encounter.

I'll eventually run down all of the details, but that's the pattern that I'd expect to see.

 

[turfboss]

Hi Mikan - This is a superb intro to the game - sure wish I had read it before I noticed that I was paying an awful lot more for scouting and finding that I was not equipped to fight any battles (hence negotiating everything) - also I would have probably been able to save a few dollars - but even with your suggestions I am not sure I could have figured out how to keep enough "residents" around to grow the town.

I have not found it but is there some way to manufacture people other than growing the residences?? I am down to my last 2 people and have no way to build anything new - or upgrade without purchasing some diamonds -- which by the way I have done before in order to continue growth at the pace I was trying to maintain. That pace of building factories and upgrading was probably a bad choice in retrospect - but as someone else mentioned - there are tradeoffs in playing the game and some of those (as you stated) involve paying for playing at a speed greater than the game provides through simple generation.

On another note - not that it is very important - but in your discussion of Hot Keys - note that the headers above the two images showing hot key selection are reversed - that is the hot key selections for Manufactories is shown over the Supplies chart and vice versa - maybe you did that on purpose to see if folks were really reading?? LOL

 

[Mykan]

I have not found it but is there some way to manufacture people other than growing the residences??

On another note - not that it is very important - but in your discussion of Hot Keys - note that the headers above the two images showing hot key selection are reversed - that is the hot key selections for Manufactories is shown over the Supplies chart and vice versa - maybe you did that on purpose to see if folks were really reading?? LOL

With population the only ways to increase this are from building residences, certain wonders and certain culture buildings. The current event has some special culture buildings that provide culture and residences. There are also wonders like the golden abyss that provide population. One of the challenges is finding the right balance for your strategy. As I am unfamiliar with your specific situation please do not take this as direct advice but do remember that deleting buildings is an often forgotten strategy and there are times it can be appropriate to delete a building to further your existing strategy, or to alter the direction of your strategy. There may be other options for you but a deletion of the right building can sometimes make a big difference in the balance of your town.

Thank you for the pick-up on the hotkeys, I have corrected this now.

 

[DeletedUser6379]

Is there a point to using your Workshops to make Brew & Bread rather than focusing exclusively on tools?

 

[Mykan]

The workshops are there simply to produce supplies. The names like beverages and bread are just providing a name for different production rates. Just work out what time frame suits you best and go with that. The names are also used in quests.

 

[DeletedUser4993]

Is there any benefit to spending diamonds for the 3rd slot in the magic academy beyond just a third place? I guess my real question is do you get a new spell different than the first 4? Also just a quick point: If you do buy diamonds do so when they are offering some kind of deal. I bought some to get an extra builder and one for 150 KP.

 

[Mykan]

The extra level on the MA only increases time and gives you an extra spell slot. They are working on things in relation to spells so whether this will change in the future is anyone's guess, although I suspect it won't.

 

[DeletedUser9399]

I didn't see any information on 'blueprints'.
I have a couple magic residences I'd like to keep, but all i know is you need blueprints to upgrade them & I have no idea how to acquire blueprints.

 

[Ashrem]

Currently, the only way to get blueprints is to open the tenth chest in a fellowship tournament. Otherwise, you can upgrade your magical residences with diamonds.

 

[DeletedUser9724]

I didn't see any information on 'blueprints'.
I have a couple magic residences I'd like to keep, but all i know is you need blueprints to upgrade them & I have no idea how to acquire blueprints.

I thought the blueprints were only used if you want to upgrade before the next chapter. don't we still get to use diamonds to upgrade every chapter?

 

[DeletedUser8259]

I have a question about leaving the Dwarven chapter and going into Fairies. I know there is a quest to sell the Dwarven Portal but will there be one to sell the mines?

 

[DeletedUser4993]

I have a question about leaving the Dwarven chapter and going into Fairies. I know there is a quest to sell the Dwarven Portal but will there be one to sell the mines?

No there are no quests to sell your mines. Likewise whenever you have a portal to build it is my understanding you will get a quest to sell it also.