If you’re playing Fallen Enchantress, which is best?
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It just occurred to me that he's probably asking this so he knows which setup to make impossible for us to have.
@Stillsingle
The reason 4/2/2 is picking up some votes is because it is very good for Conclaves - a tier 3 conclave can get an oracle for 3 essence and the extra food helps you get there. The city doesnt build everything or train many units but instead leaves the build queue empty alot of the time and usually any improvements are purchased. The 2nd and 3rd cities can always pioneer spam.
A conclave focusing on research with 3 essence can easily produce 20+ research a turn and materials become unimportant for this type of city.
I voted 4/3/1. I really think people underestimate the benefits of an extra point of material. It is literally a 50% increase in production from 2 materials, far superior to 5 production flat from enchanted hammers.
Edit: 3/3/2 is obviously better, with nature's bounty you can make a 3/3/2 into a 5/3/2 - higher if conclave.
3/3/2; gotta love the essence!
You know there's trouble when the warden asks "what's your favorite meal?"
Hopefully Beta5 will more rigorously enforce settlement specialization, providing compelling reasons to not go 3/3/2 in some cases.
I think there's a balancing point made here. We think Grain is useless.
Partial solution:
Level-up buildings for level 3/4/5 need to be boss, and NOT be "while idle", which very few people end up using.
Level 4/5 city bonues should be borderline broken.
City size is completely meaningless. The bonuses are nice, but not NEARLY good enough to justify building even a single food building in the empire/kingdom.
I chose 3/3/2 because it was the option with the least amount of grain (which, as I said, is a useless stat). I Would rather settle 2/4/2 or 2/3/3. In fact, I would settle 2/4/2 before I would settle 4/3/2.
3/3/2
Population is useless aside from tax income, and money is never a problem after ~100 turns. Materials + Essence is all that matters.
So long as population is in no way a function of production or research, grain will never be an important factor in city placement.
<deleted>
Gonna use Grain/Material/Essence:
4/2/2>5/2/1 in ALL cases. Starting with an enchantment that gives 1grain/essence means that, assuming you got nothing better, you turn the first city to 6/2/1, while trying something similar in the second city yield 6/2/0.
The same goes for 3/3/2>4/3/1.
4/2/2?3/3/2
I believe that one production is always better than one grain. 3 food or 2 food+granery gets the city to level 2. Levels 3-5 in current balance are pretty minor improvement, and money is not a big issue. The material, on the other hand, lets you produce troops/buildings faster, which mean faster research for conclave, more units from fortress, or more sitting on+money/research while idle in towns/conclaves.
This means that 3/3/2>4/2/2
Do note, that if these options were possible in your list, I'd choose these:
2/4/2 (depends on enchants available)<=>2/3/3>>3/3/2<=>3/2/3>all other options given
Population also affects city size, and a city that grows gains unique city advantages as well as new buildings. But that's a reason for liking 3/3/2: the flexibility of switching the city back and forth among growth, research, and production oriented builds.
That is the absolute best part of the new essence system, it really helps make many more starting points acceptable or better.
I know, but the upgrades aren't worth sacrificing either an essence or a material for.
But as of now (.952) those 'new buildings' are so mediocre that it is much more worthwhile to have the extra material than any extra food (I would say that 1 material is equal to 2 or more food.)
I think if towns also included as level-up options of building production bonuses, that would make them more useful than they currently are.
3-3-2
The thing is, before beta4 I would take 5-2 over 4-3 any day (I love myself some big cities). But using essence to make-up for grain shortfall is easy and there's little difficulty to push to a level 5 city with 3-3-2. Coupled with the notion that once you've reached level 5 you can disregard the grain issue and use essence for other options makes it enticing indeed.
I would just like to add that this is the very first thing I thought of, too, and I was sad someone beat me to the punch.
for me, it's essence > production >>>>>>> grain.
Essence makes a city more flexible, city enchantments are really powerful right now. Production increases building time immensely, so that you can construct +food improvement quickly and therefore negate the lack of grain.
picked 3/3/2 of the given choices, but 3/4/1 is better than any of them
3/3/2 - Although the starting city gets those trade bonuses from routes to other countries and u always could use more money from higher population those don't stand a chance to rapid early development, which means materials and essense. More Cities at high level early are always better than one big city that only gives you more money. You can easily reach lvl5 on every 3/x/2-city, even on 3/x/1 if it's conclave. As of now, due to essense, conclaves tend to be much bigger than towns anyway. So i agree with above posts, population has become too unimportant for it to be a real choice.
Ctrl+N?
In my humble opinion I generally go with 3/3/2 as most have stated, but for a different reason. As I generally play on epic research, casting enchanted hammers and inspiration is generally my go to start. I almost always have the scrying pool built after a building or too also which will allow me to put that last point into sovereigns call or specialize. As I do not view the bonus from sovereigns call as significant. For example, most cities level up fairly quickly, reaching their max grain usage and requiring more buildings or enchantments to allow them to progress further. A .5 or 1 increase in growth early game will get me a second tier city a fair amount sooner. But as population has little to no effect, and buildings are not restricted by level, just by pre-required buildings. I often opt for research over sovereigns call.
I probably wasn't clear. I wasn't referring to new buildings in the sense of high level ones--which I'm sure will be tweaked for greater bonuses, and more resource requirements, before the game is finished--but to the strategic tradeoffs earlier in FE between fast growth, higher research, and quick production. Objectively, in a simulation environment where you're not playing against anyone except possibly time, quick production is the initial way to go, since it makes every first level building queue and build much faster: a couple of essence invested in Enchanted Hammers and Set in Stone does wonders for this. But that also means you starve your empire/kingdom at an early stage for research when it really needs it, and your city hits tier two with some very good buildings slower.
But with essence, you at least can remain flexible, stopping enchantments and putting new ones in place. My simple point was that you don't have that luxury if you build a city without essence (unless you can get the scrying pool).
As of 0.95 (didn't check it in 0.952) city levels beyond 2 awarded 1 research/level and a building, depending on type of city. There is extra commerce from taxes on the population, but that is a minor issue in most cases.
That's it. Nothing really important here. Leveling the city to 5 is nice and helpful, but it's in no way close to having a material/essence rich city. Heck, 0/5/3 is the best possible location I can think of with a sum of 8 points, by far.
Regarding the flexibility of Essence- I believe it's actually a problem. Essence bring more than the other resources, and has the flexibility issue, with little to no cost. I do believe that Essence should see a slight nerf in this regard.
The main reason Essence needs to be nerfed is not because it's flexible. It's because it's exponential - see my post below.
Having a second essence doesn't just give you one more research, or +2 research. It also lets you have a second enchantment, say +grain, also at double strength. For a third essence, it's even more dramatic.
Indeed. I think city enchantments should benefit from caster's magic level (as should all spells btw), not from essence rating.
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