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    Your Elvenar Team

Too many provinces to clear for Expansions

Ronaldson

New Member
Hello all, The veterans of the game already know this, so this is for the new players....
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE prepare your cities for when you get to your settlement chapters EARLY! That means no later than the 4 chapter. I see too many newcomers in my FS in chapter 5, and they have no space at all for the upcoming settlement in chapter 6. The reasons vary from "I need this, this, and that building for this and that, so i have no room" to those who don't constantly have a scout going, so are way behind on expansions.
I been playing for over a year, and i started prepping early. The point is, i just hit the Elvenar chapter about 2 weeks ago. Before now, it took me 10 provinces to get an expansion. I always have scouts going (even though they take forever), but i thought i'd finish one of my open provinces to make sure it's still 9 more provinces i have to finish to get an expansion...When i cleared the 8th encounter i thought "this is going to suck, i'll bet they want me to clear 11 more now".....I was wrong, they wanted me to clear 17 more!!! So basically i went from needing 10 to 18. That seems a bit much to me. 10 to 12 would have been less shocking...
So to the newcomers...Start making room for settlements early in the game...starting late in chapter 3 wouldn't hurt, because the demands of the settlements become more, and more...I admit, i am not a "wallet warrior" but i have bought about 6 or 7 premium expansions in the past so i don't know if that affects how many provinces you need, or not...Just prepare early, because YOU WILL NEED THE SPACE!!! The newer players are used to getting several tech expansions in the early chapters, so i think it makes some of them a little "lazy" on keeping up with scouting, but believe me, 5 tech expansions in one chapter ain't gonna last, and you'll be lucky to get one in later chapters! Sorry for the rambling, just wanted to throw that out there. I'm still in shock about having to wait well over a day or more to open a province, and i need 18 of them now?! I'll stop here...The rest is for another post....
 

Enevhar Aldarion

Oh Wise One
I was wrong, they wanted me to clear 17 more!!! So basically i went from needing 10 to 18. That seems a bit much to me. 10 to 12 would have been less shocking...

It keeps going up. The one after that will need 25. And so will the next two after that. And then the next will need 30. And then the final one available will need 40.
 

Maeryn

Active Member
The only problem with your recommendation now for brand new players is this there is nothing else until chapter 4 to throw the extra kp in besides the tech tree.
 

Ronaldson

New Member
I don't know exactly what you mean by that...I'm not talking about KP...I'm talking about new players making room for settlements, and refraining from filling the extra space they earn with other stuff....KP doesn't apply here.
 

The Fairy

Scroll-Keeper, Buddy Fan Club Member
@Ronaldson I disagree with this, I have seen too many new players having the opposite problem, that they are scouting too much!

In my experience it is really tempting to scout a lot early on to get more expansions (not just for guest races, but for all the buildings you may want to build). And I have met many new players who do this. I see two problems with this:
  • At some point you need orcs to cater the map provinces (I think this is when you have scouted around 220 provinces if you scout in a circle around your own city). If you over-scout a lot before you get access to orcs in chapter 8 then you get stuck and can't complete any more map provinces (they are very hard to fight too). This can e.g. be a problem in events! And yes, I have met players who have suddenly needed orcs long before they had access to them :(
  • If you scout more provinces than you need to complete your chapter (that is to open the chest at the end of your research of your current chapter) then the encounters get more expensive to cater / harder to fight. So if you over-scout then even though you don't need orcs yet then it may be expensive to cater your map provinces, and some of these resources might be better spent on upgrading your buildings.
That being said, for new players (before orcs chapter) it can be ok to do some over-scouting AS LONG AS they are aware of the orc wall, and as long as they are ok with the extra cost for completing the map provinces. But I won't generally recommend it, but rather try to teach them to try to optimize their use of the room they have.

Later on (after having access to orcs) my experience is that it is fine to over-scout (and I do this myself). But I really don't think it is a good idea to tell new players to over-scout a lot.
 

Darielle

Chef, Scroll-Keeper, and Buddy Fan Club Member
@Ronaldson I disagree with this, I have seen too many new players having the opposite problem, that they are scouting too much!

In my experience it is really tempting to scout a lot early on to get more expansions (not just for guest races, but for all the buildings you may want to build). And I have met many new players who do this. I see two problems with this:
  • At some point you need orcs to cater the map provinces (I think this is when you have scouted around 220 provinces if you scout in a circle around your own city). If you over-scout a lot before you get access to orcs in chapter 8 then you get stuck and can't complete any more map provinces (they are very hard to fight too). This can e.g. be a problem in events! And yes, I have met players who have suddenly needed orcs long before they had access to them :(
  • If you scout more provinces than you need to complete your chapter (that is to open the chest at the end of your research of your current chapter) then the encounters get more expensive to cater / harder to fight. So if you over-scout then even though you don't need orcs yet then it may be expensive to cater your map provinces, and some of these resources might be better spent on upgrading your buildings.
That being said, for new players (before orcs chapter) it can be ok to do some over-scouting AS LONG AS they are aware of the orc wall, and as long as they are ok with the extra cost for completing the map provinces. But I won't generally recommend it, but rather try to teach them to try to optimize their use of the room they have.

Later on (after having access to orcs) my experience is that it is fine to over-scout (and I do this myself). But I really don't think it is a good idea to tell new players to over-scout a lot.
Perfectly said. Nearly everyone wants to overscout in the beginning. (Raises hand) At the moment, scouts take me around 90 hours to complete. I don't remember how many provinces I have to do to get one expansion, but I know it's at least 25. I save scouting for events and usually only scout as much as needed to get to the next chapter (and only that if I'm halfway through the current chapter). It saves a lot of headaches. Saving room for guest races is good, but when you get to the later chapters there is no way to save enough space for guest races. They keep getting huger and huger. The only thing you can do is save the space from the previous guest race and either sell things or teleport them for a bigger footprint. But I would say to save your teleports and sell anything that you can easily rebuild.

Frankly, I'm getting to the point where I hate guest races and have just stopped the madness for a few months, until I can find the energy to put up the chapter 18 guest race. Chapter 17 really, really turned me off to guest races. Luckily there is still so much else to do in Elvenar that I won't be bored any time soon.
 

Zoof

Well-Known Member
It would probably be better to be extremely picky about what it is you put in your city, rather than demand more space. And also to get used to the idea that things slow down greatly with guest races, and that sometimes you'll need to simply wait for the goods to come.

After you've pruned everything else you don't need* and you're running your city as optimally as you can, perhaps you could consider getting land at that point. Do remember that Tournament and Spire costs increase with the amount of expansions you deploy. If you're trying to make it easier to do those two things, be very careful that you're not actually working against your own interests by buying more land. If you're curious, how much it affects you can be found here at this link. And here is a spreadsheet calculator whose link is buried somewhere in the page after the first link. That calculator can help you figure out what buying more land will actually do to your costs. The last time I made real use of it was about 6 months** ago and I found it to be scarily accurate.

Then again, maybe the things we value are a bit different. I like playing easy Spire/Tournament, since those two weekly events is how I can get a premium city without having to let yet another entity out there know my credit card number. This advice might be at cross purposes against other values which one might hold, such as speedrunning, or building something that's just a bit more pleasing to the eye than making fantasy NYC or Elf Chicago.


* This includes unnecessary roads due to poor building placement
** Not entirely sure of the exact time, but it was sometime this year. More than three months ago but less than nine.
 

Maeryn

Active Member
I don't know exactly what you mean by that...I'm not talking about KP...I'm talking about new players making room for settlements, and refraining from filling the extra space they earn with other stuff....KP doesn't apply here.
Your advising players to overscout to gather extra expansions for guest races beginning in chapter 3 with the movement of ancient wonders to chapter 4, kp will just stockpile until then for players on the new tech tree. We get a enough kp as it is early game from quests.
 

Mykan

Oh Wise One
The other danger with that advice is space is at a premium in those early chapters. It is later chapters where you have lots of it, most just fill it up. There is also the matter of slightly smaller houses in ch6 which helps create some extra space, to assist in finding room for the guest race. The first guest race isn't that big and scoutable and tech expansions should get a person close. With PP instants available in ch6 a town should get by reasonably well from a space context.
 

Katwick

Cartographer
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE prepare your cities for when you get to your settlement chapters EARLY! That means no later than the 4 chapter. I see too many newcomers in my FS in chapter 5, and they have no space at all for the upcoming settlement in chapter 6. The reasons vary from "I need this, this, and that building for this and that, so i have no room" to those who don't constantly have a scout going, so are way behind on expansions.
I been playing for over a year, and i started prepping early. The point is, i just hit the Elvenar chapter about 2 weeks ago. Before now, it took me 10 provinces to get an expansion. I always have scouts going (even though they take forever)
WARNING: Over expanding is very dubious advice. Scouting is OK, but over expanding is a VERY BAD IDEA as it raises the cost of subsequent encounters.

Painful though it may be, your game will go a LOT smoother if you wait until the last minute, after you've upgraded your Military and Manufacturing buildings, and then do JUST enough encounters to get into the next chapter.

In practice, I only do encounters when I can use a slug of KPs, whereupon I drop a bunch of 5 day military boosts and go wild with Tournament, Spire, and Encounters.

If you have plenty of timer instants you can generate troops at will, and the 5 day military boosts allow you to clear your weaker units while still winning the encounters.

(Added on 12/8/22) Finally, in between chapters, after you tear down the old settlement buildings, the temporarily empty space is INVALUABLE as a buffer while you rearrange your city to accommodate the new shapes of the buildings that you'll be upgrading.
 
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Alram

Flippers just flip
I do not remember where the post was but I recall reading about a player who scouted beyond their Main Hall coin capacity. They were stuck with no way to open new provinces.
 

muffy.

Chef - Scroll-Keeper - Chandelier Swinger - EAA
I was an over scouter... ugh bad move.....I wish I knew then what I know now
 

Ronaldson

New Member
I think the problem some new players have is they try to always keep a scout going, but they scout to far in one direction. We had a player in our FS that did this. He was like in chapter 3 or 4, and he scouted so far out that they began to ask him for Orcs to cater with! My strategy on how to scout for the new players is to scout in a circular pattern, or a spiral...Starting directly above or below your city, and just keep scouting around you city.....Never a good idea to go off in one direction. Thanks for a the feedback people!
 

The Fairy

Scroll-Keeper, Buddy Fan Club Member
I think the problem some new players have is they try to always keep a scout going, but they scout to far in one direction. We had a player in our FS that did this. He was like in chapter 3 or 4, and he scouted so far out that they began to ask him for Orcs to cater with! My strategy on how to scout for the new players is to scout in a circular pattern, or a spiral...Starting directly above or below your city, and just keep scouting around you city.....Never a good idea to go off in one direction. Thanks for a the feedback people!
It is definitely better to scout in a circle than in one direction, but even when scouting in a circle new players should be careful to not over-scout for the reasons I listed in my previous post!
 

Maeryn

Active Member
I do not remember where the post was but I recall reading about a player who scouted beyond their Main Hall coin capacity. They were stuck with no way to open new provinces.
Oh, I think remember the post too. except, they couldn’t scout any more due keeping there city in a low chapter for FA or diamond mining.
 

Henroo

Oh Wise One
I didn't find it that hard to make room for a settlement when my cities hit Dwarves. I don't know about the new tech tree, but the old tech tree had 2 province expansion techs fairly early in the Dwarves chapter. But perhaps more importantly, residences get small when upgraded in the Dwarves chapter. A human player will gain 2 squares of space and 1 space of road frontage (assuming they position the upgraded residence with the skinny end facing the road) every time they upgrade a residence in Dwarves. An elf will gain 1 square of space and 1 square of road frontage everytime they upgrade a residence. The combination of the expansions and the space saved from upgrading residences were enough to let me build my Dwarven settlement.
 

Nerwa

Well-Known Member
In both my O.T.T. (old tech tree) cities, finding space was a struggle through chapter 4 but by chapter 5 things loosened up a lot, for a lot of reasons. By chapter 6 I could actually start thinking about the aesthetics of both cities, even with the need for settlement space.
Instead of recommending extra scouting to new players, I'd start with:

  • Planning before placing Go on ElvenArchitect & mock-up various expansions there - both for your current chapter AND a chapter or three ahead. Play around with different building upgrades, add in new AWs, and try out various settlement layouts. Just because lots of people recommend rectangular cities doesn't make it the best for you. Both my cities have spiral layouts & work well for me.
  • Work on Spire skills The individual/personal prizes from the Spire are pretty dang spiffy; even better than the team prizes in my opinion. I suggest doing at least Gateway & High Halls every week; if you can do the Lab as well, even better. Gateway Big Boss is your source for Magic Residences & High Halls Big Boss occasionally doles out Magic Workshops; both are major space savers. Spire also provides Teleports & (starting in ch 6) Portal Profits, both of which are invaluable. Diamonds (individual prizes; team prizes; Genies) can be spent on Premium Expansions.
  • Be prepared to slow down on research Taking things even just a *little* more slowly has direct & indirect benefits.
    • Whether it's regular goods or settlement goods, the faster you research the more goods you need to produce each week. Slowing down growth by even 2-3 weeks reduces the number of production buildings you need (including residences & workshops) - thereby reducing space needs. Stretch it out an extra month (or more!) for even more significant weekly savings.
    • More weeks in-chapter means more weeks to stockpile Spire prizes. Given how Spire access has been bumped back, I'd say this is even more important for people on the N.T.T. (new tech tree).
    • Event prizes (both the grand prize & the dailies) are better than anything you can research. Staying in chapter for a couple of events can give you a chance to replace low-value & out-dated buildings. Exception: If the grand prize is a Set, moving up a chapter pre-event saves one extra round of upgrades. The most recent Sets have been 3-4 times the size of regular grand prizes; that's a lot of Royal Restorations!
 

bkbajb

Well-Known Member
Hello all, The veterans of the game already know this, so this is for the new players....
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE prepare your cities for when you get to your settlement chapters EARLY! That means no later than the 4 chapter. I see too many newcomers in my FS in chapter 5, and they have no space at all for the upcoming settlement in chapter 6. The reasons vary from "I need this, this, and that building for this and that, so i have no room" to those who don't constantly have a scout going, so are way behind on expansions.
I been playing for over a year, and i started prepping early. The point is, i just hit the Elvenar chapter about 2 weeks ago. Before now, it took me 10 provinces to get an expansion. I always have scouts going (even though they take forever), but i thought i'd finish one of my open provinces to make sure it's still 9 more provinces i have to finish to get an expansion...When i cleared the 8th encounter i thought "this is going to suck, i'll bet they want me to clear 11 more now".....I was wrong, they wanted me to clear 17 more!!! So basically i went from needing 10 to 18. That seems a bit much to me. 10 to 12 would have been less shocking...
So to the newcomers...Start making room for settlements early in the game...starting late in chapter 3 wouldn't hurt, because the demands of the settlements become more, and more...I admit, i am not a "wallet warrior" but i have bought about 6 or 7 premium expansions in the past so i don't know if that affects how many provinces you need, or not...Just prepare early, because YOU WILL NEED THE SPACE!!! The newer players are used to getting several tech expansions in the early chapters, so i think it makes some of them a little "lazy" on keeping up with scouting, but believe me, 5 tech expansions in one chapter ain't gonna last, and you'll be lucky to get one in later chapters! Sorry for the rambling, just wanted to throw that out there. I'm still in shock about having to wait well over a day or more to open a province, and i need 18 of them now?! I'll stop here...The rest is for another post....


Lol. The game is not meant to be easy. Wait until you need 40 provinces and 5 plus days to scout 1. I have always enjoyed the challenge and have made many mistakes in the 6 1/2 years that I have been playing. As others have said. Get to the top of the Spire. You can win Magic residences and ws. I have no regular residences and ws. Have not in many chapters. This will increase your pop and supplies and take less space. Get with a top FS. They will help you grow. Use Elven Architect to help eliminate roads. Every chapter gets bigger and the settlement grows. Finally, enjoy the game and the challenge. Do not be in a rush. If you slow down, upgrade your AW's, get to the top of the Spire and get better in the tournaments you will see a difference
 
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