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    Your Elvenar Team

Orcs (the chapter)

samidodamage

Buddy Fan Club member
Should I even be trying to run 3 rally points right now? I'm really early in the chapter, and I'm trying to put what I learned in Mykan's Guide, Crazy Wizard's Info Page and Gems of Knowledge into practice. I've got 32 mushroom farms (but only upgrading 20 of them), at least 8 are in the space for a 4th rally point later on. I upgraded the portal to lvl 2, then the 20 farms to lvl 2. I'm now running 10 of the upgraded farms on hardshrooms and the rest on psychoshrooms. I cannot keep my rally points making debris because I keep running out of psychoshrooms. I seem to do okay with hardshrooms, have enough and then some for the next portal upgrade. Still only halfway on the debris. My plan *was* to upgrade the portal to lvl 3, then the farms to lvl 3, then the portal to lvl 4, then the farms to lvl 4. [Insert question here: Should I do the portal all the way to 4 before continuing with the farms? That would improve production on the lvl 1 farms as well, wouldn't it? hmmm] Once that's done, I was going to assess upgrading rally points for the improved collection times. Then decide how to go about making goods to make research goods and making the research goods. I've got all armories upgraded and producing orcs, and I have plenty of those.
What I'm thinking now is I may need to sell off a rally point and put in some more farms until I can develop an inventory of psychoshrooms. I know I'll lose some supplies when I sell them off, but that's okay, I'm good with supplies. The chapter is eating supplies at a rapid pace, but I'm well set to replace them. I have 200+ PoP spells and 200+ culture spells as well as a bunch of supplies instants. The other option is to upgrade more than 20 of the farms, but from everything I've read, I shouldn't need to do that. Plus, I'd use up what little debris I'm making doing that and then sell them off later anyway.
I don't really care that the chapter is going to take forever. I've slowed down anyway, and I'm happier. But, I would like to get to the point where I'm making the research goods. At least then I can open up the training grounds (need shrooms of wisdom for the expansion that unlocks it) and associated military units (none of those techs need guest race goods) and work on them while I'm working on research goods. Any input is welcome.
 

MirandaZink

Active Member
Orcs is going to take you ~3 months if you're a daily player. It's the "right of passage" to more good things to come is how to look at it. Here's what I've found.

1. Upgrade your portal to level 3 first. Don't upgrade anything but the portal. This increases production for both farms and rallies.
2. Then upgrade your rally points to level 2.
3. Go back and upgrade your portal to 4 and then finish upgrading your rally points to 4.
4. Mushroom farms are small so upgrading them past 2 is pointless. You won't go any faster and you waste time/resources
5. Early on you are better keeping to 2-3 rally points and building more mushroom farms but you will need to switch at mid point to have 4 rally points.

To gain more space, keep getting territories.
Clear your clutter. Kill all the little culture items and keep only the high value items and use spells to stay above 165%.
You will get "stuck" so use that time to upgrade your wonders and to help your team mates.
Build orcs all the time. Even when you think I have enough, you won't. You will need them for upgrading supply buildings in Orcs and the next chapter.

Patience is the best piece of advice and enjoy the "slow down" to start planning the next chapter because you will need more space for your main hall, tier 1 buildings and supply buildings all have new shapes.

Good luck
 

DeletedUser12423

Guest
Upgrade your portal to level 3 first. Don't upgrade anything but the portal. This increases production for both farms and rallies.
2. Then upgrade your rally points to level 2.
3. Go back and upgrade your portal to 4 and then finish upgrading your rally points to 4.
4. Mushroom farms are small so upgrading them past 2 is pointless. You won't go any faster and you waste time/resources
5. Early on you are better keeping to 2-3 rally points and building more mushroom farms but you will need to switch at mid point to have 4 rally points.
I wanted to ty, Zink ^ ^ Good to know
 

DeletedUser527

Guest
I am HATING Orcs! I rebuilt my city right at the start of the chapter, and I'm already out of space AGAIN! I have no room to put up 20 mushroom farms, I can barely fit 10 in the space I have. Ugh! Sorry to whine, can't help it, I feel like I never have enough space in my city. Thanks for the tips, though, I can see I've already gone down the wrong path, but there is plenty of time to correct things, since I will be here for a while.

Edited: I'm in Orcs over in Beta, not here yet. At least now I can do a better job when I start the chapter over here in the "real world"
 

MirandaZink

Active Member
I have no room to put up 20 mushroom farms, I can barely fit 10 in the space I have.

Here's my suggestion --- Orcs is the time where you have to take a VERY hard look at what you have and if you really need it:
1. Do you have goods factories that are NOT your boost? Kill them. Trade for what you need.
2. Do you have low level culture buildings that were cute when you won them but what you can build now can give you twice the culture? Yeah, that's right kill it. The snowy items from last year or the valentine bridge has out lived it's purpose.
3. Are you scouting territories all the time? If not get that horse out there because you're going to need to really push for territories to earn more space squares.

Just remember once you get to Wood Elves you need manna = new culture buildings. If you can get over your attachment to the things you're hoarding you'll be in a much better place when Orcs are over with. Keep Calm and Kill the Clutter and you'll get through it too.
 

samidodamage

Buddy Fan Club member
Miranda: thank you so much for such detailed responses!
Orcs is going to take you ~3 months if you're a daily player.
I play several times/day, but as I said, I don't really care that it's going to take forever, moving through the tech tree slower makes the game more enjoyable for me. I work on leveling the AW's when I'm stuck. Sometimes I work on them when I'm not stuck, just because it slows down the tech tree. I figure Easter at the earliest and Memorial Day at the latest and I'll be in Woodelves :cool:
4. Mushroom farms are small so upgrading them past 2 is pointless. You won't go any faster and you waste time/resources
This is the kind of info I'm looking for. My only example is dwarves, but the guides for that always had upgrading the granite mines all the way. I think it was the lvl 3 upgrade where I figured out it would take a week per mine to recoup the resources used for the upgrade, so I built 20 at lvl 2 instead of 10 at lvl 4. Didn't make anything go any faster overall, but saved my sanity (or what's left of it, lol!) Since the guides recommend at least 20 farms fully upgraded, does that mean I'll need 40 if they're all lvl 2?
2. Then upgrade your rally points to level 2.
This is also very helpful. The guides say you may never need to upgrade your rally points as they do not increase production amounts, they just decrease the time between collections. As often as I can come on, that seems like it would be helpful for me as well. My only concern at this point is that I can't keep them busy on debris with 10 hr collection times, how am I going to keep them busy with 8 hr collection times? Maybe the answer is go down to 2 rally points now, build more lvl 1 farms there and after upgrading the portal, upgrade the 2 rally points to lvl 2. About mid-way through the tech tree, assess removing some farms and adding back the 3rd rally point; then after a bit, assess adding a 4th rally point and possibly a 5th if I can keep them busy.

**Just remember once you get to Wood Elves you need manna = new culture buildings. If you can get over your attachment to the things you're hoarding you'll be in a much better place when Orcs are over with. Keep Calm and Kill the Clutter and you'll get through it too.**
**Couldn't get that one to quote, so I just did copy/paste**
I'm planning to do that rearranging for culture after the Winter Event ends. Once I know what event buildings I have to work with, I'll set it up for Orcs in a way to make it easier to transition to Willows. This link takes you to a post I made about that (it should be on the right page of that thread if I copied right, my post is #69)
https://us.forum.elvenar.com/index.php?threads/set-buildings.14485/page-4#post-86614
 

MirandaZink

Active Member
Since the guides recommend at least 20 farms fully upgraded, does that mean I'll need 40 if they're all lvl 2?

The key point is "the guides". You have to remember that everyone has an opinion on the matter. For me since I play a few more times a day faster was more important to me versus quantity. That's where you need to decide your game needs versus what a guide might say. My rallies could stay way ahead and in the end what I really ended up needing was armament. In fact the last lag I had only 5 mushrooms left and 5 rally points to finish the chapter up.

And your point on Dwarves, I never upgrade the copper mines past level 2. The amount of goods needed wasn't worth the cost. Granite however I did max them all the way. Overall that chapter was light years easier than Orcs.

My wish to you is that you find your way to do what works with your game play. I've shared my strategy with my FS and others on the map around me and all have come back to say thanks because the guides were just not working for their game play.

Orcs is hard. It takes a long time. The buildings are ugly (not a fan of orange) and you're producing "dung" (need I say more!). I wish you luck and hope you beat the odds!
 

MirandaZink

Active Member
Since the guides recommend at least 20 farms fully upgraded, does that mean I'll need 40 if they're all lvl 2?

Sorry forgot to answer this - No you won't. You'll end up killing most of them in the end. The key is setting them so that the 12/24 collection time is a reasonable time (e.g. 8 am and 8 pm). If you keep 2500~ Psy and Power shrooms in stock at all times you can keep 4-5 rallies running at full speed. Just keep your eye on the balance and use all other shroom factories to produce Hards so you can get all of your upgrades done.
 

DeletedUser8946

Guest
Glad I found this. I'm hitting Orcs REALLY soon! I need a bit more Night Essence, then I get start researching Fairy Wonders. I'm REALLY hoping to get to Orcs before the event ends, so I can claim my Ice Troll with a higher boon. Sadly, the Frozen Orc Portal will never produce Orcs. I can't possibly do it all tomorrow. :(
 

Mykan

Oh Wise One
The trouble with orcs is that there really is no secret method or formula for "build exactly this many farms and that many rally points". It is the most diverse race there is when it comes to strategy. I think this is what makes it hard as there are so many suggestions that vary wildly, but they all work. You need to consider factors about your game play to work out what is best. Other than farm resources are need more near the start and rally point ones near the end it is a pretty open option
  • With rally points only upgrade if the time benefit helps you, This depends on your frequency of play.You may also find you don't upgrade them all but only certain buildings for certain productions. The quantity doesn't change so it is a time issue, this is unique to orcs and rally points
  • I I had 2/3 rally points early on and went up to 5 in the end, can't recall when I went from 2 to 3
  • Farms are great to squeeze in as the number of mushrooms is large. Due to the qty you build it is hard to figure out what level and how many to upgrade. The hint is that unless you only build a very small number you don't need to upgrade them all
  • I have done this on different towns with 12 farms, 20 farms and 30-40 farms. Some people do it with 60+ farms, it all depends on space and approach
  • As mentioned above, prioritise your space, you should be doing this anyway. Areas to consider:
    • Do you remove lots of culture for space and due to mana needs in next race - while some guides recommend this it is not necessary and won't necessarily be any faster. I know of towns with 30ish farms finishing in similar time to towns with space to make 100+ farms
    • Do you need as many residences with the change in population, you might be able to increase population with less buildings
    • Do you need as many armories - The size upgrade for training size is significant in this chapter you may not need as many. Keep enough to make orcs for your needs though.
    • Do you need as many factories as you have or do they all have to be max level during this chapter?
If you like finding your own path the orc chapter is really quite fun and difficult for other to give you "spoilers". If you prefer a specific road map it will be more of a challenge.
 

DeletedUser8946

Guest
If you prefer a specific road map it will be more of a challenge.

I have had a very specific road planned out for the past two chapters. However, I see one distraction and throw my buggy off the paved road. I have a feeling I'll be fine. ;)
 

samidodamage

Buddy Fan Club member
Thank you for the detailed response!
If you like finding your own path the orc chapter is really quite fun and difficult for other to give you "spoilers". If you prefer a specific road map it will be more of a challenge.
This is probably the single most helpful statement for me on this chapter. The first 2 guest races followed some pretty obvious patterns and though I deviated from the 'guides' some, they were pretty straight forward and the deviations were easy to calculate the benefits to my particular play style. Orcs is just all over the place, lol! As you can probably tell from my description of where I was, I like to set things up in my head with 'I'll do this, then that; when I've reached this point, I'll switch to those...etc' While I'll probably never get to the point of not planning some, I'm going to take this opportunity to try to plan a little shorter term. For now, I've switched to running 2 rally points and 40 farms. 20 of the farms are at lvl 2. Portal is at lvl 3. Next step is taking portal to lvl 4. That's about as far as the 'plan' goes at the moment. Since supplies aren't an issue (I'm still having to go into the wholesaler at times!) I can build them, tear them down and rebuild them as needed.
I've not been big on having to have everything at max level in any of the chapters, so as time goes on, I'll evaluate the remainder of my buildings and decide just where to go with them moving forward. I have been hoping to reduce the number of residences with the jump in pop with the Orc houses. Also was planning to look at factories (esp T3 with the change to some of the event buildings I have giving supplies now that will give T3 non-boosted after the next update). Had not considered my armories, thinking I'd wait for that until I get the Shrewdy Shrooms. Depending on how things go, I may look at that sooner.
 

SoggyShorts

Mathematician par Excellence
One change that might have a huge impact on chapter 8 difficulty is the introduction of instants.
The fastest way is obviously the one with the most space dedicated to farms/rally points.
The hardest part about that used to be dropping down to the minimum culture needed for 100% since many players are used to 150% or higher.
Taking such a hit on your supplies production was often painful, but this should now be at least somewhat mitigated by supply instants.

If you are already in Chapter 8 it's a little late for prep, but for those who aren't there yet, I'd suggest cooking PoP spells 24/7 and saving all of your supply instants for when you get there.
 

samidodamage

Buddy Fan Club member
If you are already in Chapter 8 it's a little late for prep, but for those who aren't there yet, I'd suggest cooking PoP spells 24/7 and saving all of your supply instants for when you get there.
This is exactly why I'm not worrying about supplies for this chapter AND why I was able to work on getting the orc buildings in the event with the set bonuses as I don't have to reduce culture to have the space needed. While early in the chapter, and having used several spells and an instant or 2, here is my current inventory: Pop = 233; Culture (to boost PoP even further) = 263 Instants: 50% = 1, 33% = 8, 25% = 2, 15% = 33, 10% = 3, 5% = 4
Looking at those numbers, my play style has been less efficient (and more like a hoarder, lol!) than it could have been up to this chapter, but I'm grateful for it now.
 

DeletedUser8946

Guest
If you are already in Chapter 8 it's a little late for prep, but for those who aren't there yet, I'd suggest cooking PoP spells 24/7 and saving all of your supply instants for when you get there.
I'll take that into account. I'm not Orc yet. Although I was hoping to be by today; when the Frozen Orc Portal came out.
upload_2018-1-2_14-32-40.png

But alas, 100 Night Essence and 200 KP off. :(
 

Mykan

Oh Wise One
The fastest way is obviously the one with the most space dedicated to farms/rally points.

It would be interesting to see how quick this is based on a refined approach. I know the early version of this approach was at max 1 week faster than a smaller number of farms/rally points.
 

DeletedUser8946

Guest
there is a jump in the demand for T3 goods in chapter 8, so It's not a total loss

Silver lining type thing.

BTW, I hit the Gem max in the last tourny. 724%. I didn't know there WAS a maximum. Does the potential maximum for Gem boost go up as you unlock research? Will it increase in Orcs and Halflings?
 
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