I've seen some questions about this so here is a breakdown of your (well, my) early gamepriorities (say the first 30-50 turns).
The BIGGEST LIMIT early game is Materials, period. Managing how you spend yourmaterials is your primary concern.
Here is your checklist of what you need to accomplish ASAP:(K) means Kingdom and (E) means Empire
- Get your first city founded- Start producing Materials - Build a workshop / labor pit - Prioritize finding/claiming an Old Growth Forest, Stone Quarry, or Clay Pit - If Kingdom, research "Production" and build the "Great Mill" but be warned, it takes 15 turns to build) - Get out there and find as many "Unclaimed Crates," "Abandoned Caravans," and such as you can. You are hoping for materials.- Start producing food and housing - Claim your Fertile Land (will need 25 gold and 2(K) or 5(E) materials) - optionally if you start with the "Green Thumb" talent, ignore Fertile Land until other priorities are met. - Build your first hut/hovel (takes gold/food but not materials); this is so your population will go over 10 ASAP which pumps your influence radius out faster.- Start producing gold - Janusk the Scribe usually has the "Merchant Master" ability (+1 gold) - You can start with either/both of "Wealthy" or "Merchant" - Claim your gold mine (will need 10 materials)- Build a pioneer (will need 10(K) or 13(E) materials) - Debate: As soon as I have 10 (or 13) materials I build a pioneer. However you also need 10 materials to build a gold mine. The exact order in which you construct your first pioneer, gold mine, and subsequent buildings is still experimental.- Start producing Tech - If you have a Lost Library nearby, awesome. Just be aware they take 10 turns to complete (and 5 materials) - Otherwise build a study/archievist, but be careful as these have a 1 gold per turn upkeep (and cost 4 precious materials).- Start producing Arcane - This is my lowest priority, but one can argue getting flame dart ASAP has strong merits.
You need to decide betweenfounding your first city where it touches your Fertile Land and/or Gold Mine,or one tile away. The advantage of touching them is you can theoretically start improving them on turn 2 (if you found some materials in a crate). Thedownside is when they touch your city they take up your city's production queue, meaning you can't also be constructing any other building. If you go onetile away it is going to be about 13 turns before your influence expands toinclude them, but then you can improve the tiles without it tying up yourproduction queue.
At present I would say build right next to your Fertile Land, but leave aspace between your city and your Gold Mine (when possible)
Once the above foundations are in place I worry about caravans and military units.
Just remember: before you do ANYTHING think "how many materials will this cost, and how long until I have enough materials to build my next important thing?"
i usually opt for pioneers first over gold mine because then i get get another workshop and arcane as quickly as possible that way. food before gold, then tech after gold is my priority. It's just the way the requirements work for maintenance. so when i play its food > gold > tech and matts and arcane whenever possible.
Whenever i build an outpost i plop down workshop and arcane as quickly as possible, then other stuff depending on what i can comfortably maintain. (food is irksome, so much depends on that resource being available as kingdom - dunno about empire).
I've found decking out my sovereign so he produces arcane knowledge and tech knowledge on his own is very beneficial. What it means is that I can focus my starting city on getting gold and materials rolling, and skip over research until later. Economically, your top priority is to get those first few levels of adventure/domination going, because you can earn far more from doing these tasks than what your first city can offer.
It varies based on spawned resources for me and what I find in the first few lootables. Usually, I go for a hut and pioneer with a workshop as needed. I've tried playing without an research producing sov and with; both are nice, but the production sov has the benefit of immmediate research. Since currently, AdvenTech spawns things in your city radius (or close to, at any rate) if there's a few gold mines available or food, I may even hold off on a second city in order to 'force' the spawned gold mine and food resources near the starting city for maximum % bonus. Other than that, the early game for me is generally fairly slow - but then, I play on Huge maps on Epic speed so that's to be expected.
I wrote pretty extensivly on this topic in the Number of Turns important thread, so I won't go into great detail. I think speed and timing are significant as they are in most games. I've found in this game that defeating the AI is easier early on in the game while they're weak, which is generally true of many 4x games as well.
With the above in mind, the first think I do on turn 1 & 2 is build that workshop, since metal & material might be hard to come by the first 20 turns or so in some games. Hire janusk asap, equip both your sovereign and janusk with travelling boots & imbue janusk as soon as you can. Your guys should be moving 3 & 4 squares a turn (I usually give my sovereign a +1 speed improvement on initial design). Send all guys out for goodie huts & search, avoid monsters until you get fire dart, as you won't be able to beat them yet. You should be able to find another couple of heroes fairly easily (I always do). I've always been able to find plentiful supplies in goodie huts early in the game to easily cover my very early expansion: turns 1 to 50. I've pretty much always been able to pump out pioneers early, later match them with observers for defense. Send all you early heroes out on exploration, don't base them in cities at this point in the game.
It's really not a problem to expand very quickly in this game very early on, especially sinced they nixed wandering monsters in the 1.08 patch. I always play on large map with ridiculous settings. Always get travelling boots for your new guys at start, that extra +1mp is big early in the game. Make sure you imbue those early guys asap & get them fighting as soon as you can so they start leveling up. They can get extremely strong if you can keep them fighting. I've had champions get to level 12 by turn 400ish, that's 12 upgrades. I'm sure other guys have gotten their guys even stronger than that. Caravan routes will become more & more important to expading your kingdom with that road bonus. Horse archers move very nicely on caravan routes. In fact, I'd go so far as to say teleport is no longer a factor once you have well established road network with multiple stong armies everywhere. 50+ caravans can create an amazing road network.
By the time I find my first AI, I typically have several cities, anywehere from 5 to 20, and I've researched caravans, merchants improvement & irrigation, military through several levels. As far as spells: familiar, imbue, fire dart, fireball, fire giant, earth giant, boulder throw ... these are all you need to beat most AI within the first 200 turns or so. Toward mid game you'll need archers, and that's all you need to win the game on conquest. Crystal & shards are important for making military & spellcasters stronger, so beeline a pioneer there once you find one, or take the AI city that's there by conquest ASAP. Don't raze any AI cities you capture, that's just foolish since their production becomes your production & you don't have to waste resources building the same improvements over again .. yerk the labor of others. I play large map, ridiculous, max # AI and always win. The same strategy would probably work faster on small & medium maps.
double post
I find the Materials are not limiting or limited if you explore and scavage... But that's just me.
Sometimes I find multiple +25 material crates and it isn't an issue. But if you don't find ANY materials from early scavenging, you'll feel it. Having a turn go by with nothing producing is like 4X gamer hell
heh - i used to think i would never run out of materials ever - but i'm on turn 433 of the game that started this thread and i'm scrambling for every single piece of resource i could find. I killed 2 ai early on and slowed down on expanding my number of cities and went monster hunting to level up my cities - i left some wilderness area's to spawn them so that helps a bit - lets me get xp for my sov so i can imbue more heroes. This works since the spouses mana pool contributes to the kids so its ok im my sov has 10 pool. As it turns out i had to spam lots of little outposts so i could get the +1 bonuses that i intentionally avoided doing - simply so i could catch up with military production. Yarth, unfortuneately, is a smaller area than mine but a stronger military so i had to suck it up and man up to archers after all.
units are costing me about 600 gold, 300 matts, 40 crystal with 6 gold upkeep with a 50 turn manufacture rate. that's a long time to build them.
thank god i found a second crystal mine hidden in my backwoods in the corner.....
The single thing slowing down my conquests at the moment is the healing times. I imagine the ranger pack adds 1 hp regen/turn, haven't got that tecj yet this game to try it yet, but the highest regen rate i cn find atm is 5 points per body in a city. that's longer than it takes to train them in the first place, which is a problem. i could just dismiss the squad and build a new one faster if i have the spare cash. I hate that.
With regards to those blasted catapults: as it turns out a 12 man squad has the godly amount of hit points to absorb the damage, but i still swear that armour is not reducing the damage.
lessee:
helmet -> blunt
body armour -> slashing
greaves, shield -> piercing ?
i wish their was a pop of window or description included in the item that said it.
cloak = body ?
while it was amusing to take down a variety of monsters with my stick wielding peasants, they have since been upgraded to padded armour kit macemen with shield. Now if only i had more gold for their pay. (can i pay them in food ? i still have too much food lol)
You know, while the manual SAYS there are different damage types and that different armors resist better against those types, I personally do not believe it is actually in the game. I read the manual this morning (after playing the game for a month, just read it) and I'm pretty sure it was written VERY early in Elemental's design phase. So I wouldn't worry about armor much except for what your end Defense rating is. Of course I would love to be proved wrong. Kind of off topic for my own thread, sorry
I just thought of something. I typically play with Altar and their special ability is 10 material and 10 metal at start, othersiwe they're average, no pluses & no minuses, which is sort of the way I like to start. I'm assuming that means all the other factions start with 0 metal and 0 materials?
This in addition to my early exploration emphasis & expansion might be why I've never really had any problems running out of materials, it seems to be a fairly common resource from my POV.
That would be correct. Other factions only start with 100 gold, nothing else. Though materials are pretty common after the first few turns. I have had a game where I just didn't find any materials in goody huts which made things slow to start, but even still after I got a few cities up I stopped having any problem with materials.
The benefit of "resourceful" is essentially a gamble. If you can scavenge some materials in the first few turns, it's a moderate boost, but not worth sinking an entire faction perk into. If you can't scavenge some materials... this is game-changing, putting you ten turns ahead of where you'd otherwise be. Problem is, you don't know until you're actually in the game which trait is worthwhile.
The metal boost is close to useless. You don't even have a use for metal until you're well into the military tree. That ten metal is going to get you little more than one singleton with metal equipment. By the point at which metal equipment is available, that's negligable. So the metal bonus from resourceful can be effectively ignored.
Agreed for the most part. I could argue metal-wise that with a custom faction with both Resourceful and Brilliant, and playing Kingdom, I could have an Axe-wielding troop by about turn 16, but is that really game changing? Probably not. But the 10 materials from resourceful IS game-changing,b ecause it means I can start producing a pioneer at turn 2 as Kingdom. Without that +10 materials up front you can't theoretically start production on a pioneer until about turn 13 baring any finds from crates. Huge difference.
I can agree with this, but Alter also doesn't have any weaknesses. They're completely average and start with 100 g, 10 m & 10m. Other factions have a useful ability that is matched with some type of disadvantage. I prefer to avoid the disadvantages ... but that's just me.
My second choice would probably be the archer faction, but I can create uber strong archers anyway if I have enough crystal, so it's not much of an advantage.
I agree 100%, early extra resources are big. I typically always play on large maps, ridiculous setting, and max # opponents, so I typically don't find enemy AIs until the turn 50-80 range on average, so spending that initial surplus on an ax-wielder would be useless, better spent on pioneers & a workshop. By the time I find my first AI I usually have summoned monster spells and they serve as my army in early game. Monsters are good for conquering the first 1 to 3 AI all by themselves, with perhaps a weak observer squad or two. I put a big emphasis on searching & scrounging early game, both to find my enemies & thouse goodie hut things.
Personally, I rank crystal as one of the great resources, I never have enough of this stuff. It's the one sure way of creating very strong squads, but it's very expensive. Even if you can find 4 of these, +4 crystal doesnt go far when you can build an uber archer squad that costs 160 crystal in one plop. Hence, metal becomes the next most useful resource. I can usually get good defense strength squads using only metal and no more than one crystal, but I can't get their attack up as much as I can with crystal, which you need against those ridiculous 100+ defense strength units.
Ok, thanks for that info. I've never used any other faction than Altar, personally I like them with the extra starting resources which suits my strategy approach very well.
That archer benefit would be huge on small maps, especially with lots of opponents, but you're right, on large maps I'd probably have archer tech by the time we meet.
One of the things I get out of this thread is that I want to see factions rebalanced... and custom factions mean something.For instance, any custom faction I put together seems to have ridiculous advantages vs. regular factions. Would be nice to see you spend points on the faction's "base unit" the same way you can customize your Sov. IE: spent 2 points, gain 1HP on base units, another 2 points, same deal... have a 7HP peasant/base unit while other factions have 5HP units. Or increase strength or dex by 1-2 points. ETC!
Brain just turned on. Right:2 points: +1 str to base unit2 points: +1.5 dex to base unit2 points: +1 con to base unit5 points: +1 movement to base unit5 points: +.75 combat speed to base unit
.. etc.
Also FWIW and for hilarity, "books of X" work on the quest dragon. +1 base attack is +10 attack for her....
I customized my sovereign, but I wasn't aware that you could customize factions in this game?
There's nothing in the manual about it.
Great post!
I lined to it here:
http://www.ultimateelemental.com/news/2-elemental-news/19-early-game-strategy.html
I personally concentrate on building arcane, because I wish to be a 'master of magic' and out-channel my opponents. We'll see how v1.1 affects this strategy.
I always build the workshop first (unless I just happen to be sitting on a materials resource), and get pioneers going asap. Then arcane laboratory or study, depending on which is most needed. I.e. if I find a library, it's arcane. If I fine an arcane resource, then it's the study. Due to the food issues, markets are usually a 'luxury' choice if I have boatloads of food, otherwise I've been avoiding them lately.
If there is a material resource nearby (lumber mill, clay mine, etc), it becomes a priority. Once one or two of these are 'active', and I am generating more materials per turn, then I don't worry as much. After all, you need materials to get the gold mining going later. And build pioneers. And some other stuff...
I build huts as soon as they are needed (i.e. when a city is reaching it's maximum population). City growth is more important, especially in the early game (so you can get those cool building upgrades for larger cities online as soon as possible, such as temple of essence).
I pick familiar as soon as it becomes available as a spell choice. Familiars are disposable. Sovereigns aren't...
I also play a female sovereign, and marry Janusk as soon as he's willing to accept (once I've earned the necessary reputation). This gets the kids in play as soon as possible.
Janusk gets sent one way to raid the goodie huts/notable locations/etc. and my Sovereign goes the other. The hope is to find a sand golem early...
That and the usual build on any nearby resources as soon as you can, and try to have each city straddle several resources if possible for efficiency.
Summoned creatures are a priority in my research. I like having giants, familiars, elementals, etc. running blocker for my sovereign. See disposable familiars, above. This saves gold for all the other things, and also allows me to save my troops for early/mid game assaults on other sovereigns.
Finally, any time I come across a hero, and have the cash on hand (or will shortly), I add them to the roster, unless I see an even cooler/cheaper hero nearby. With the new food rules, farmers are a lot more important, especially later for the mid/endgame.
Once the kids start showing up, they get put on goodie hut/location detail as soon as they are available, and start summoning creatures to protect them as well. Once at least two kids are in play, that's when I more seriously start to focus on eliminating enemy sovereigns/kingdoms/empires.
Bows are critical. This gives my heroes and sovereign escorts the ability to shoot/kill opposing forces, with my summoned creatures acting as minor spellcasters and shock troops. Again, better to burn through mana than gold/units. Bows are expensive for heroes, after all!
Building up my sovereign stack to 8-12 units fairly early is another goal of mine, and I steamroller through any kingdoms/empires I think I can get away with with said stack, before they research enough military tech to make this difficult.
Also, non-aggression pacts with not so annoying neighbors are early game priorities, unless I have to pay significant gold to enact them. Any empires who demand a LOT of extra gold are usually marked for early extinction in my book, before they become too much of a menace. Any empires who will pay some extra gold for the non-aggression pact in the early game are helpful, because you can always use more gold in the early game. Plus, those pacts expire after a time, should you wish to invade them later...
Tech-wise, what I focus on depends on how close other kingdoms/empires are, but exploration is a priority, as are a few military techs. Militarily, I go for group/squad techs, bows if I don't have them already via empire choice, and axes/armor. Also, food production is often an early priority (irrigation, grain silos, etc.). Working towards the temple of essence is a (lesser) priority, as soon as the food and military situation are resolved to a comfortable level for the moment.
Regarding exploration techs, the goal there is to get the additional 'lost' resources in play as early as I can, and to also boost up the location levels I can visit early to help bring a lot of gold in earlier. Hero techs are a lesser priority, but I will research them on a whim if the other techs look sufficient at the moment.
Caravans are nice, so I research diplomacy once I've gotten immediate priorities out of the way.
One other thing. Any essence boosters (potions of essence, rings of essence) are split between available heroes (on a one per hero only basis) as soon as possible, so they can start raising their essence stats on level ups, giving me more spellcasters for the midgame. I'm not sold on 'imbuing' champions as of yet, at least not until the mid/late game. My Sovereigns don't have enough Mana as it is, at least not until much later in the game.
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