Greetings. I've been lurking this thread since I stumbled on it about 6 weeks ago. ... thank you to CR and others that have helped convince me to take a chance and go down this road. It is certainly not for everyone, and it takes a shit ton of planning and commitment to get it up and running especially with guildies that don't get what you're trying to do. But here I am on day 1 of my CF, and I'm convinced. Cheers.
I'm glad you took the plunge and also glad you took the time to post your experience. I'll make some comments for the benefit of you and everyone following.
I had already latched onto a quest loop build that was working well - I thought - and I was making some progress. Then comes this thread, and blow a huge hole in how I was approaching things. It took what I was trying to figure out and slowly get setup to a whole different place much more efficiently.
Now you are in a good place to understand what I meant in the very top of the guide where I tried to draw a stark contrast between "quest looping" and "Heavy Questing"; and also why I choose a different name for this strategy. I spent over 2 years of game play developing this system and it isn't fully documented yet. Not only did I bumble my own way through figuring this stuff out; but along that same time frame, I coached as many as 50 different players, some of them on different worlds. I even once ran as many as 4 different HMA test cities at the same time to compare and contrast different combinations of GB construction and leveling.
This is why I'm as adamant as I am when the detractors come around and try to tug at the strands of advice in this strategy (you can even see in the first guide section I wrote that I alluded that there would be such players). Players from outside paradigm of the complete strategy will
always approach this topic from their own paradigm how they or their in-game friends play FoE. As stated in the guide, we toss out most of what other players do and we do not play the game their way. And until a transitional player can actually see how a properly designed HQS city produces, most of the strands of advice in the guide and throughout this topic are either not going to make as much sense, or will be points of contention. In general, a lot of non-HQS gaming advice doesn't apply to an HQS city. It is a completely different way to play the game. And believe me, half-assing it is much less effective than going all-in on it.
I had to start by selling off stuff to make room for more Alch's. It hurt a bit.
I cannot tell you how many times I've walked Noob Minions (players CA and below without an HQS city setup) through the process of purging all of the inefficient crap, and plunder bait, from their city in order to set up a more powerful economic engine that cannot be plundered. And the pretty-city-builders of FoE absolutely hate me, because I'm often telling them to lose all of these pretty "special" buildings that they just remodeled their city to fit in after during the most recent event. You cannot imagine the constant disbelief and debate that almost always ensues: "But I need this building for... And I want that building for... But that building looks so much prettier than this building you want me to construct!" The words "great" and "special" do not mean the same thing as "valuable".
I sold off my level 4 Babel, and my level 4 CoA, I opted to keep ToR and the OBS because I want to. The OBS for guild help of course, and I like the gambling aspect of the ToR. It's sitting at level 3 and I couldn't bring myself to dump it too.
ToB — As I'm sure you can guess, I'm always okay with selling ToB, and at just about any GB level. There are so many other GBs in the game that produce 24-hour goods, where the other GBs offfer a much better secondary benefit. You will eventually never miss your ToB. Land is such a finite resource and there are so many other great and special buildings that produce much more value-per-tile of land than ToB can, no matter what level your ToB is at, for the total cost of constructing, leveling, and owning of the building.
CoA — It troubles me that you sold your level 4 CoA. If you had asked me first, I actually would have said keep your CoA, since it is both substantially leveled, and it is also a GB we would have eventually constructed and kept. Now this is not the worst move make, because as you can quite easily and quite quickly replace all of the lost: construction goods, FPs, and even the spent blueprints. However, this had to be a very tough decision to sell off a large chunk of game progress. Myself, I already had a level 4 or 5 CoA before I even started working quest loops; and back then I couldn't bring myself to sell any GB I had in my city. HQS wasn't even a thing yet and not theory crafting with GB order had been put into practice yet.
Obs — The Obs is small at 3x3 and it shows your guild you are willing to help. An HQS city almost always needs a few 3x3 buildings to make use of the land efficiently and Obs usually is easy enough to squeeze in somewhere. All of this being said, I tell Noob Minions in my own guild to postpone Obs construction until they reach Colonial Age, since it will actually help our guild more in the long run, the faster that player can make his jump up from HMA questing to Colonial Age questing. So I would never pressure HMA noob minions to construct Obs right away, instead letting them expand their city faster. This being said, if a player has already constructed Obs before I start coaching them, I would never advise selling it, but I would advise to just idle leveling it up in favor of leveling up the snowball GBs.
NOTE: I must also point out to everyone that Obs should never be constructed solely for the purpose of Guild Goods. Both the Arc and the Atomium are much better GBs (both for the individual player's city and for the guild as a whole) for the purpose of producing discounted refined goods (see Glossary for this term) for our Guild Treasury. The Obs is actually only of substantial valuable in a heavy GvG guild, since it provides the most Support Pool bonus per GB level (+10 support pool per-level up through level 10), which is its main GvG benefit. Also, Obs GB levels are much cheaper in terms of FPs spent and it has much cheaper construction goods costs than either Deal Castle or St. Basil, both of which only provide +3 support pool per-level through level 10. So if a player is a member of a GE-only or a trade-only guild, the Obs is a much less effective utilization of land and GB construction costs than either Arc or Atomium.
Tor — I would have advised you to sell your ToR and keep the CoA. The ToR is actually much less valuable in an HQS city than either 6 more Alchemists in HMA or 6 more Clockmakers in Colonial Age. The reason is that most of the relics that we can score are 100% completely worthless in the context of a proper HQS city in either HMA or CA. Most of the special buildings you can score from relics will not become viable option to an HQS cit until PME and later, and by them you can always score more copies of those buildings that are age-locked to the appropriate period.
Click here to read my break down on GE and ToR.
All of the above being said selling about GBs, deciding which GBs to keep or sell when transitioning to HQS has to do with two factors:
- Are we eventually going to construct this GB anyway?
If this is answer is "no", then it should be a fairly easy decision to sell GBs like: ToB, Col, ND, SN, and LT. (If you have a level 7+ ToB, then maybe keep it as long as it still can compete with regular houses in terms of population density. But don't invest any more into it. And once regalar houses start providing more pop-per-tile,or you construct Inno Tower, just sell the ToB with no regrets.)
- However, if the answer to 1 above is "yes", then what level is our GB level?
GBs from the very earlier ages (or the no age GBs) are reasonably cheap to construct, and selling one that is level 1 or level 2 doesn't hurt too much, which would include GBs: like ToB, ToR, CoA, and to a lesser extent Obs (Obs goods are really cheap, but the completing the BP set can be challenging). However, selling a GB in the level 4+ range does hurt. The fact is that you, or someone in your guild you swapped FPs with, has already paid substantial game progress (1 FP = 1 hour of time, which is our most valuable resource) to get your GB constructed and leveled up to level 4+. With the exception of GBs on my "Losers List" (ToB, Col, ND, StB, DC, SN, and LT). I almost never recommend selling a level 4+ GB. And I never coach another player to sell a level 4+ GB that we will eventually construct anyway. This doesn't mean that selling the GB isn't a viable strategy; but it is a very hard decision to make and I leave that one to the individual player.
I burned all 5-fp and 10-fp packs on the swaps to get the CF prints. In the end, I bought the last two with diamonds because I was tired of waiting. I also worked a deal with 3 other players for trading PE goods for FP. I still owe two of them about a weeks worth of FP's but they took a leap of faith (non guildies) and gave me the goods up front to save FP on market trades. I had never considered trading goods for FP until i read it in this thread.
I am slowly working on several missing guide sections, one section will be how we expedite the process to propagate valuable GBs, such as CF, Traz, and Arc, to our noob minions.
Inno tower and arc in colonial age don't seem as daunting now that I know goods to FP trading can work.
If you can get your guild mates to agree to my good trading chart
here, then it is quite easy, fair, and equitable for all parties, to get you Arc + Trz + IT in Colonial Age. This is also part of the reason why I advise delaying Traz until Colonial Age. Paying 350 FPs for a CF kits and another 350 FPS for a Traz kit is delaying too much game progress in HMA. CA produces even more resources per day than HMA, in the same amount of land.
The new CF even at level 1 is HUGE. I didn't quite make back the same amount of goods as I would have doing the quests without CF + my goods buildings, but it was close. That gap will be overpassed once I level CF a bit.
This is precisely why the CF is at the forefront of all GB leveling priorities in HMA and why in the Colonial Age the CF will only play 2nd fiddle to the Arc. Both of these GBs are such force multipliers. However, do not neglect the other GBs on the list, since they all feed the HQS process in different ways.
I also gained almost 200 medals . . . crazy since I'd been fighting for the top PvP spot for weeks at only 100 in a week. This works . . . and it works well.
On my world, I currently rank 75th overall in medals, and most players listed near me have played the game longer than me and have 10s of 1,000s more battles than I have. It is not even a contest, HQS produces more medals per day, than winning 1st place all of your PvP towers per week can produce. And since HQS is also about swapping more FPs than other players typically do, and we prioritize Arc in Colonial Age, we are also working the FP Swaps and donations for FPs and medals. And guess what? In Mid-to-late Colonial Age we can fight just as much, if not more so, than other players can because we leveled our GBs up faster than they they did across the board.
I'm a few BP's short of StM still, but should have them by the time I have CF up to level 4-6. I already have the full set of prints for CdM also, but I'm going to wait on that until the other GB's are all 5+ or I hit CA.
I always harp on players to not fill up a city full of low level GBs. With the exception of CF and StM, both if which can be game-changing even at level 1, most GBs should reach about level 4, before we consider constructing yet another GB that is below level 4 in our city. This advice is true HQS or no HQS. Most low-level GBs are largely still a waste of construction goods, FPs, and land, until they get to about level 4+. And these are the cheapest GB levels to reach.
Cherry Garden set is producing 5FP / 5 goods per day ... CdM will need to be level 9 before it produces 5 FP a day for the same amount of tiles. Yes cherry set can be plundered, but I have it timed for a period of day that I'm also able to collect it. Eventually the CdM will go in and the garden will be sold off.
I can respect the choices and rationale you have made here. However, the CdM is a building that is about more than just FP production. It is the 1st combat bonus GB in our HQS. So it is prioritized to help you through parts of the game such as the Barbarian Quest line, and to complete as much of weekly GE by fighting as can be feasible without all of the FoE Combat Kit (Alcatraz + Rogue Hideouts + high combat bonus). Getting three combat bonus GBs all to level 10 takes a really long time and 1,000s of FPs and we need to start eating that elephant somewhere. The CdM, while the most expensive and largest of the three combat bonus GBs, is the only one that helps pay for its own levels. Also, there are more hidden secrets here. In a neighborhood comprised of mainly HMA players, you rushing to construct CdM is highly likely to attract the best FPs in the entire game — Free FP donations from your hoodies who look enviously at your CdM and want the BPs for their own. In contrast, most players are going for the SoZ ASAP, and to a lesser extent the CoA. But if we can be the first player in our hood with a CdM up and running, it can help produce more FPs for us than just the 24-hour ones it produces itself.
I also am using the Lord's Manor which makes more pop and gold then x4 town homes so it's worth it to keep.
I analyzed the Lord's Manor in an earlier post
here. Long story short, it's a keeper and hands down a tier-1 special building. Just be sure you keep some Renovation or 1-Up kits in reserve for this building as you advance through the game.
I also have done my final (i hope) redesign for HMA and have managed to fit 56 alchemists along with space for all of CR's GB's. 56! I'm please as hell at that. Even with my non square map, I got 56!
Yeah that section of your city where most of your GBs are now is going to be a major headache for you throughout the remainder of the game, especially when two lane roads come around. My comments below are only about your "Alchemy district".
- You want to place 3x2 buildings alone horizontal roads, not vertical roads. You are wasting far too many tiles of land on roads in this city district.
- Never, ever, ever run roads along the edge of your city! If you don't have buildings on both sides of each road segment, go back to the drawing board and start over with empty land.
Check out the sample city layouts in the Guide here:
Detailed Walk-Through of Designing an HQS City for HMA or CA.
I also have a question. How many techs in the middle of the HMA tech tree did you unlock? My guess is all of them and you didn't save any for future events.
Still all-in-all, you have done a ton of transformation that I'm sure was difficult. But it will start to pay off for you as your GB levels rise. Your city now has "snow" with which it can start to snowball.