started a new city

[Henroo]

Oh my goddess! What courage!
And yes, infinite patience and/or a fat credit card will be needed on this adventure....hahahaha....

I don't plan on using either. As far as infinite patience, I just went through ch 1 and ch 2 in 6 days. I'm not a patient man! LOL

As for the fat credit card, I'm not going to buy diamonds just for the new city. However, I *DO* have 3 chapter 21 cities on the same account which win diamonds in the spire weekly. So far I have not gone overboard using these diamonds. I want to play the new city fairly closely to what a brand new player would experience. My only diamond purchases so far have been 1 premium expansion (450 diamonds) and 1 extra builder (500 diamonds). So 950 diamonds total. A brand new player would have won enough diamonds by chapter 3 to have been able to afford 1 of these. And would have some of the diamonds needed for the 2nd purchase. So I really have not been extravagant. Especially since I currently have over 14,000 diamonds accumulated on the account I *COULD* spend.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Don't listen to all the credit card jokes. When all the new changes were done for chapters 1-5, I started a new city on Beta and it took me just over a month to get from the beginning of chapter 1 to unlocking the Spire in chapter 5. Only diamonds used there were the free ones earned from quests and completing chapters. I did start crafting as soon as I had it unlocked and I may have won 500 diamonds during that stretch, but it has been long enough now that I do not remember for sure. I did not join a fellowship with that city until chapter 5, so that I could fully participate, but I did make a solo fellowship as soon as I unlocked the tournament in chapter 4, so that I could get some benefit from it for myself. That also meant no help from fellowship members until then either.

 

[Silver Lady]

I too started a new city about 6 weeks ago and I was really enjoying playing this baby city. I found an FS that kindly took in my baby city as soon as I unlocked the tech. The first 4 chapters I got through in 3 weeks. As soon as I unlocked tournament & Spire I started doing all my available provinces & the Gateway in the Spire (cater only as I never built the barracks) Chapter 5 has slowed down because of some serious RL issues. I bought 2 premium expansions (on sale) & upgraded my MA once using diamond I accumulated and I think an extra 200 I had available on that account. I have 2 AWs* that I can’t currently upgrade because of the lack of SF and RR and I sure can’t place any new ones.

* GA level 6 and CL level 3 both placed and upgraded before this asinine change to AW upgrade cost.

 

[Yavimaya]

I will definitely be following this thread as I have been thinking about a 2nd city for a long time now.

 

[BrinDarby]

(laugh-in) " Very in-teresting "
(startrek) "facinating"

I'm enjoying checking in every few days to see which
decisions you're making, 'cause your Elvenar knowledge
far exceeds mine. I may not understand, but fun watching.

 

[BrinDarby]

how goes it Henroo ?
are you overly having probs with Event tasks ?

 

[Silver Lady]

I’m not Henroo but my little city is on task #26. It’s slow but I expect to be able to do the tasks until I get to #52 where you need 24 VV and there isn’t an alternative.

 

[Henroo]

I’m not Henroo but my little city is on task #26. It’s slow but I expect to be able to do the tasks until I get to #52 where you need 24 VV and there isn’t an alternative.

It was only 15 vision vapor for my chapter 3 city. And I have completed it. I studied the quest list and knew this quest was coming. So I went ahead and built the magic academy sooner than I would have liked. If it were up to me, I would have waited until I unlocked the spire in chapter 5 to build it. Then I won some spell fragments and combining catalysts in a couple of quests. Knowing the vision vapor quest was upcoming, I held onto these. A day or so before I got to the vision vapor quest, Mana Plant popped up in my Magic Academy. Since Moonstone Set is a #1 priority, I crafted it but did not collect it until I saw the quest. That way I could get a piece of the Moonstone Set and still count the vision vapor towards the quest. By pure luck, once I saw the quest and collected the Mana Plant the next building to pop up was Endless Scroll. Crafted it also. Then a pet food appeared. Pet food only needs CCs and relics. Crafted that and quest was done.

 

[Henroo]

It has been a while since I posted an update on my new city, so this is going to be a BIG one. I hit chapter 4 today! This was a goal of mine because Copper Dragon is one of the better daily prizes in the event. And I wanted to win chapter 4 versions of it instead of chapter 3 versions of it. And I made it. Overall, I would say the knowledge point requirements were quite a bit higher for chapter 3 compared to chapters 1 and 2. I started the city on Jan 19th and went through ch 1 and 2 in just under a week. So doing chapter 3 took me longer than ch 1 and 2 combined. However: for the last week I have been more focused on the event than on overall city advancement. I was playing in a manner designed to maximize my progress through the event quests rather than a strategy which would maximize my city advancement progress. And because I wanted to win multiple Copper Dragons if possible, I used very little event currency until today. So basically, my city did not really benefit from the event until today. I believe that had the event not been a consideration and had I kept playing in a manner designed to maximize progress that I could have hit chapter 4 one or maybe two days sooner. But not more than that.

As for the event, my baby city is doing amazingly well! In addition to entering chapter 4 today, I also hit the quest lock today. Doing this was *NOT* easy. To start with, my work is somewhat seasonal. And winter is the slow time. So, I've got time on my hands right now. I spent a fair amount of time studying the quest list at iDavis.com. This is something I don't normally do anymore. My advanced cities are good enough that they normally have very little problem fulfilling quests, so I really have not paid that much attention to quest requirements for several years. Not this time: I looked at what was coming up and planned.

I also realized well before the event started that I was not going to be able to unlock the tournament or the spire before the event started. Due to this, map provinces would be all I had to do any quest which wanted me to "complete map, tournament, or spire encounters." Furthermore, map provinces were also going to be the only way I could complete quests which wanted me to "gain relics." Because of this, I stopped doing any map provinces about 5 days before the event began. However, I kept scouting and opening up provinces until I hit the requirement I would need to enter ch 4. Because of this, I had a lot of map provinces open and ready to go when the event started. However: I think that by not doing these easy provinces right away and gaining that quick KP, overall city development and advancement was slightly slowed.

There were a couple of other sacrifices I made to maximize event progress. I truly believe that under the new tech tree it is not worthwhile to build the magic academy until you open the Spire of Eternity. But because I had looked ahead at the quest list, I knew there were quests which could only be fulfilled by either making combining catalysts or by collecting vision vapor. So I went ahead and build the magic academy in chapter 3, before I would have preferred to do so. I also put some level 1 workshops and manufactories in my city just to help with doing event quests. Doing this delayed me building my first tier 3 manufactory by about a week.

Finally: there were some quest options which were flat out impossible for me. Any quest which wanted me to 1. gain witch points or 2. put points in an ancient wonder were flat out impossible for my city. I have not unlocked the cauldron or ancient wonders yet. In each of these cases, there was an alternative which I could do, so I can't complain too much. Except one of those alternatives wanted me to trade with the wholesaler 3 times. Trading with the wholesaler 3 times as a chapter 3 city REALLY hurts. Gold and supplies are really short at this level.

Anyhow, that is it for now. As I am just entering ch 4, I should unlock the tournament in the coming week. I promise to post a new update once this happens to let you know how my first tournament went.

 

[Henroo]

One further update I forgot to include in the post I just made: I finally did spend some real world money for the new city. With the new AW upgrade requirements, I think it will be important to get 2 fully evolved copies of Potionmaker's Pedestal, because each fully evolved copy will give you an extra CC daily. So, I spent the 7.99 required to buy a Stash House for the new city. I did not buy Stash Houses in any of my ch 21 cities, which all have fully evolved Ashen Phoenixes.

 

[BrinDarby]

I have a question please, @Henroo
As a Elf, once my residences got to 3x3s,
rather than keepting all even, I got them to
lvl 15 , 1by1 cause then they earned coins
faster and had a bigger cap.

So can you explain your decision to keep them
even in lvls compared to maxing them out 1st.
I only ask because if I had (12) lvl 9 residences,
I know as they hit lvl15 I will need less/less of them
and I find it counterproductive to upgrade
something 2-3 days later I don't even need anymore.

Im just tryng to compare the 2 schools of thought.
I am in no way saying, how you did stuff was bad.
If your way really is better, I wanna know how/why.

 

[BrinDarby]

I also hit the quest lock today. Doing this was *NOT* easy.

Kudos to you on that 1 Henroo, thats amazing.

 

[Henroo]

I have a question please, @Henroo
As a Elf, once my residences got to 3x3s,
rather than keepting all even, I got them to
lvl 15 , 1by1 cause then they earned coins
faster and had a bigger cap.

So can you explain your decision to keep them
even in lvls compared to maxing them out 1st.
I only ask because if I had (12) lvl 9 residences,
I know as they hit lvl15 I will need less/less of them
and I find it counterproductive to upgrade
something 2-3 days later I don't even need anymore.

Im just tryng to compare the 2 schools of thought.
I am in no way saying, how you did stuff was bad.
If your way really is better, I wanna know how/why.

Right now my biggest issue is gold. I am doing ok on goods and supplies, but gold is in short supply. And I don't have Golden Abyss yet and have not explored a huge world map, so the number of visits I can do to earn extra gold is limited. Since residences are my main source of gold, the strategy I've adopted for upgrading them is designed to maximize gold.

The first big consideration was to get all residences upgraded high enough that they could store enough gold to make it through an overnight period without filling completely up. That way even when I am asleep they never stop making gold. That probably happened somewhere around level 8 or 9.

Once I had achieved that goal, I've looked at the upgrades from a cost/benefit analysis strictly on gold production. 1. How much gold does the upgrade cost? 2. How much will the upgrade increase gold production per hour? 3. How many hours will it take for the increased production to pay for the upgrade? For example, if an upgrade costs 10,000 gold and it increases how much gold the residence makes by 200 gold an hour, then it will take 50 hours for the upgrade to pay for itself.

Generally: I have found that the lower level upgrades are cheaper, so they offer more bang for the buck with regards to increasing gold production. So upgrading a residence from level 9 to level 10 pays for itself faster than upgrading a residence from level 10 to level 11. This has been the guiding reason behind me deciding which residences to upgrade. Something else I just discovered today is that when you upgrade a residence from level 12 to level 13, there is not cost in gold. That upgrade just costs supplies and goods. I have no idea why, every other upgrade costs gold. But this has changed my pattern slightly. Right now I upgrade a residence from level 11 to level 12 and then immediately upgrade that residence again from level 12 to level 13, since there is no gold cost involved.

 

[BrinDarby]

I thought it was something like that, and as a person
whos never had any AW ( like GA ) I was able to wait
on other upgrades a bit, saving me coins to upgrade
the residences faster because my footprint kept going
down or @least not going up. Thanks alot for that most
wonderfully detailed answer, it does give me food 4 thought.

 

[BrinDarby]

You haven't mentioned Boost% yet, how goes it there?

 

[BrinDarby]

I always heard of the 2 direction theory, and what
wondered me the most is how restrictive and
inflexible they seem to quickly become.

2xp = 10 tiles , 3xp = 15 , 4x = 20 , and so on.
So by following the "always use both sides of
every road, theory" , certain combinations don't
work without "lost territory" being created.

At what point will you expand from 2 -> 3 or more,
or do you plan to keep extending the footprint
with 10 tile width restrictions ??

 

[Henroo]

You haven't mentioned Boost% yet, how goes it there?

Not sure if you are talking about relic boost or culture boost. So I will give both. As far as relic boost, my boosts are: marble (279% currently), crystal (266%), and elixer (228%). This is the first week I have unlocked the tournament, so I expect these to improve dramatically in coming weeks since I can now gain relics from both the tournament and from doing map provinces. Up until this point, I've been limited to map provinces to get relics.

Culture boost is mostly around 150%. I can occasionally hit 160% if I get multiple culture visits at the same time. I don't think I have been at max culture boost of 170% since the city was early in chapter 3. There are 2 primary reasons I think I am somewhat struggling with culture. 1. I have not had a chance to win many good culture buildings yet. Right now the best culture building I can make with my builders is Mysterious Cyclone. It is 3x3 in size, so 9 total squares. And it provides 440 culture. Obviously, this is not great. But I have no better options. There are 10 of them in my city right now and this is the majority of my culture. According to iDavis, there is a culture building coming up in a few days called Spectral Moths. It is 4x2 and gives 750 culture at my level. So: 1 square smaller in overall size, yet it provides 310 more culture. I've still got some event currency saved and I plan to save all between now and when it is offered. Then attempt to win as many copies as possible to improve my culture. Hopefully I will be able to replace multiple Mysterious Cyclones with Spectral Moths.

The second reason I think I am somewhat struggling with culture is because I joined a small, casual fellowship. This was intentional on my part because new cities no longer have access to the tournament and you no longer automatically get access to the spire at the start of chapter 3. My original intention was to stay in the small FS until I unlocked the spire in chapter 5. And then look to join a top level fellowship. However, there are only 8 total members in the FS (myself and 7 others). Because of this, I am not getting nearly as many daily visits from FS members as I would in a 25 member FS. This is hurting me in terms of culture. Furthermore, I only have 7 fellowship members to give visits to. In a full FS, there would be 24. At my current main hall level, these 17 extra daily visits would be worth 81,600 gold daily. And at this stage of the game, that is a meaningful amount. Especially daily. Due to these factors, I might move up my original timeline and look to move to a larger fellowship after the current tournament ends instead of waiting until chapter 5 and the spire.

 

[Darielle]

Not sure if you are talking about relic boost or culture boost. So I will give both. As far as relic boost, my boosts are: marble (279% currently), crystal (266%), and elixer (228%). This is the first week I have unlocked the tournament, so I expect these to improve dramatically in coming weeks since I can now gain relics from both the tournament and from doing map provinces. Up until this point, I've been limited to map provinces to get relics.

Culture boost is mostly around 150%. I can occasionally hit 160% if I get multiple culture visits at the same time. I don't think I have been at max culture boost of 170% since the city was early in chapter 3. There are 2 primary reasons I think I am somewhat struggling with culture. 1. I have not had a chance to win many good culture buildings yet. Right now the best culture building I can make with my builders is Mysterious Cyclone. It is 3x3 in size, so 9 total squares. And it provides 440 culture. Obviously, this is not great. But I have no better options. There are 10 of them in my city right now and this is the majority of my culture. According to iDavis, there is a culture building coming up in a few days called Spectral Moths. It is 4x2 and gives 750 culture at my level. So: 1 square smaller in overall size, yet it provides 310 more culture. I've still got some event currency saved and I plan to save all between now and when it is offered. Then attempt to win as many copies as possible to improve my culture. Hopefully I will be able to replace multiple Mysterious Cyclones with Spectral Moths.

The second reason I think I am somewhat struggling with culture is because I joined a small, casual fellowship. This was intentional on my part because new cities no longer have access to the tournament and you no longer automatically get access to the spire at the start of chapter 3. My original intention was to stay in the small FS until I unlocked the spire in chapter 5. And then look to join a top level fellowship. However, there are only 8 total members in the FS (myself and 7 others). Because of this, I am not getting nearly as many daily visits from FS members as I would in a 25 member FS. This is hurting me in terms of culture. Furthermore, I only have 7 fellowship members to give visits to. In a full FS, there would be 24. At my current main hall level, these 17 extra daily visits would be worth 81,600 gold daily. And at this stage of the game, that is a meaningful amount. Especially daily. Due to these factors, I might move up my original timeline and look to move to a larger fellowship after the current tournament ends instead of waiting until chapter 5 and the spire.

I wouldn't blame you in the slightest if you moved now. I think you should do whatever is best for you. I just wish I had a slot for you in Thornwood.

 

[Henroo]

I always heard of the 2 direction theory, and what
wondered me the most is how restrictive and
inflexible they seem to quickly become.

2xp = 10 tiles , 3xp = 15 , 4x = 20 , and so on.
So by following the "always use both sides of
every road, theory" , certain combinations don't
work without "lost territory" being created.

At what point will you expand from 2 -> 3 or more,
or do you plan to keep extending the footprint
with 10 tile width restrictions ??

This is indeed how I started. I ran a row of 2 expansions expansions horizonally (10 spaces wide). And I ran a row of 2 expansions vertically (10 spaces wide). My Main Hall is at the upper left corner. After running the first rows of expansions, I placed 2 expansions to the left of my Main Hall. These 2 expansions on the left side of my main hall have allowed me to place the magic academy and a tier 3 manufactory using only 1 square of road.

I've looked at elvenarchitect and at how my primary buildings are going to grow and expand. Based on this, I think it is much more important to expand the vertical row next. Therefore, the next major step in my city growth is going to be to expand the vertical row from 2 expansions wide to 3 expansions wide. It might require shifting around some culture buildings which are currently on the bottom of my horizontal row, but I believe I can get through the next few chapters with the horizontal row being only 2 expansions wide. But due to the shape of my boosted tier 1 manufactories next upgrade and my workshops, I am going to need a wider space on the vertical row.

 

[BrinDarby]

Not sure if you are talking about relic boost or culture boost.

My brain was wondering relic, after loading your city
into eArchitect. This dovetails into my curiosity on your
residences because as mine got higher I had less of them.
This gave me the room for xtra culture bldgs. I knew
with 1500ish xtra pop, you were kinda setup to need
some constant NH to keep @/above 170%. As this is a
popular city setup to need NH/Culture, I just trusted you
were getting what you needed for 170%.

Size wise, I always thought the 2 roads might max out,
once someone gets to the point where 4x4 event bldgs
are smaller than almost anything else they have/build.
For me its all about having all the routinely click'd bldgs
on the screen @ all times and once-a-day on the edges.
Non clickable stuff even more to the edge.

I'll keep watching and hopefully learning here/there.
thanks again for the explanation.