[Guide] Cosmic Raven's Version of Heavy Questing

[DeletedUser23444]

Curious why you recommend Atomium in your must have GBs when you already have Traz and HS for happy and Arc for guild goodies. Seems like an awful big footprint for something you're already getting.

I'm in FE and here are all of the happiness sources in my FE city:

• 12,884 Hap from a level 13 Alcatraz (+11 24-hour unattached units)
  
• 10,174 Hap from a level 11 Atomium (+95 24-hour guild goods from FE)
  
• 7,011 Hap from a level 12 Hagia Sophia (+7 24-hour FPs)
  
• 4,900 Hap from a level 10 Frauenkirche of Dresden (+34 24-hour Unrefined goods from PME)
  
• 23,440 Hap from 2 x polished Concert Halls (FE Premium Cultural building scored in GE)
• 2,696 Hap from 2 x polished Sphinx (special 2x1 decoration scored from Summer Event)
• 3,600 Hap from 35 x Levitation Outlets (regular FE supply production buildings)
• 1,200 Hap from 2 x Lichen Lamps (premium FE decoriations scored in GE)
  
• 1,400 Hap from 2 x TE Smart Material Factory and 1 x TE Papercrete Factory (conventional goods production)
  
• 1,240 Hap from 31 sections of 2-lane Solar Roadway
• 12,060 Hap from 134 sections of 1-lane Solar Walkway
• 625 Hap from one Luau locked to CE (multi-production building used to produce discounted CE goods or FPs)

Total 100% Unpolished Happiness: 67,771
Total 100% Polished Happiness: 81,439
Surplus Happiness 100% Polished: 3,732


A later era city is going to need truckloads upon truckloads of happiness. And we want as much happiness-per-tile as we can produce. And if we can produce a significant pile of that happiness from structures that do not require polish, all the better. However, we should limit which happiness GBs we construct to only those that provide us very high value 24-hour productions. And I noted in my list above the various other benefits that each of my happiness GB provides my city.


If we are in a GvG guild, then our guild is never going to have enough goods going into its treasury for any time period from FE on down to the lowest GvG age our guild actively participates in, since GvG costs more and more goods the more sectors a GvG guild holds in each period.

The Atomium is an excellent GB for both the purpose of providing a large pile-o-happiness as well as a large pile-o-guild goods daily. And remember that these are discounted goods, which means we never need to pay most of the production costs. This is why I coach players to construct it and level it up Atomium in the Colonial Age, which is when we can generate the most extra FPs-per-day of any HQS age. This means they have an Atomium leveled up, before they actually need the happiness it provides. By the time we enter about PE or ME, we are going to need that happiness and we might still require cultural buildings on top of GBs.

Our objective before leaving the Colonial Age behind is to construct as many highly useful GBs that we will need in later eras and level them all up to level 10. With the exception that population GBs should only be leveled up as far as we require the population.

HQS is about more than looping quests, it's about thinking moves ahead, planning ahead, not living hand-to-mouth with resources, and not racing across the C Map, not racing mindlessly through the tech tree, and ensuring that we always have an efficiently planned city, where that efficiency isn't just about production-per-tile, but also takes into account if we can achieve all of our gaming objectives, and that our city has enough Aid clicks coming in such that 100% of all productions are motivated each day.

So the GB construction and leveling priorities are set in such a way not just for the time periods that we are in now, but also looking ahead to where we are going and what we our city is going to require when we get there.

 

[DeletedUser28711]

CR,

Great info as always. Keep it coming.

Per some of your previous post, you stated that supply production in later periods will become constrained due to building size which reduces the quantity of those supply buildings. With that in mind, is there any point in time that it would be considered acceptable to either replace the LoA with the RAH or add the RAH to work in conjunction with a LoA for a greater supply boost?

If so, where would that fit into the list of GBs?

For now, HMA players should construct only the GBs I explicitly list below AND NO OTHER GBs until later in the Colonial Age. Also I have listed the GBs in the Ideal order we would want to level them up; however for obvious reasons we might not be able to construct this list of GBs in this order:

1. Chatea Frontenac
2. Hagia Sophia
3. Castel Del Monte
4. St. Mark's Basillica
5. Lighthouse of Alexandria

...If you just started heavy questing in the Colonial Age, the GB list looks like this:

1. The Arc
2. Chatea Frontenac
3. Hagia Sophia
4. Castel Del Monte
5. St. Mark's Basillica
6. Lighthouse of Alexandria

...Ideally, before leaving the Colonial Age behind, we want all of these GBs at level 10:

1. The Arc (build ASAP in the Colonial Age)
2. Chatea Frontenac (build ASAP in HMA)
   
3. Hagia Sophia (build ASAP in HMA)
   
4. Castel Del Monte (build ASAP in HMA)
   
5. St. Mark's Basillica (build ASAP in HMA)
   
6. Lighthouse of Alexandria (build ASAP in HMA)
   
7. Alcatraz (build in mid Colonial age, after all GBs listed earlier are level 7 or higher and only if a level 7 or higher Hagia Sophia will not keep your Colonial Age city enthused)
   
8. Atomium (build AFTER you own a level 7 Alcatraz)
   
9. Innovation Tower (build AFTER you own a level 7 Atomium and 5 or more SoKs)
   
10. OPTIONAL: Fraunkirche of Dresden (build AFTER you own a level 7 Atomium)
    
11. Temple of Relics (do not build until mid-to-late Colonial Age and only after all other GBs listed earlier are level 7 or higher)
    
12. Statue of Zeus (do not build until mid-to-late Colonial Age and only after all other GBs listed earlier are level 7 or higher)
    
13. Cathedral of Aachen (do not build until mid-to-late Colonial Age and only after all other GBs listed earlier are level 7 or higher)

Thanks in advance for your advice.

 

[DeletedUser23444]

1.1- Between the LMA and colonial age means that after we clear LMA CM we can do "bonus" CM before even starting colonial age? Tecnically, we could do so before even starting LMA? (I want to save techs for events).

Your C Map progress should be such that the following are true:

1. You have the PvP tower for you current age unlocked.
2. You have all Story Quests for your current age completed.

If both of these are true, then stop advancing on the C map. Also, read the Glossary section about "Racing Across the C Map".

1.2- How do we know when the 2nd bonus quest line has been completed?

As I said in the guide under Bonus Quests, After we complete the bonus quest, the quest giver slot will either go away or it will revert to offering us a Side Quest/Recurring quest.

1.3- After completing the 2nd bonus quest line, as long as we don't advance to the next age continental map, we are "safe" from getting new bonus quest in our bonus quest slot, so we can always chain recurring quest if we want to. Is this correct?

As I said in the guide, this is true as far as Bonus Quests go. However as I said in the guide, any time we unlock new technology a recurring quest slot may revert to a side quest slot again.

1.4- Can the same quest be active in the "normal" quest and the bonus quest be active at a time? (so it's completed twice instead of once)

As I said in the guide, there are different types of Quests: Bonus Quests, Side Quests, Story Quests, and Event Quests. These are not the same quest. However, they may ask us to complete exactly the same type actions such as scout a Province.

Just lately in the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle event, I scouted one C Map province and received Story Quest credit and Event Quest credit for only sending my scout to a single province. This is how we want to advance our way across the C Map — I call this moving at "Special Event Quest Speed" There is nothing to be gained and much to lose by racing across the C Map too quickly. Do not even race to conquer goods deposits or land expansions.

As I said in the guide, under Bonus Quests, After we advance to CA and we conquer the bonus area on the C Map, between LMA and CA, we will have two recurring quest slots and we can work Produce supplies in one and collect supplies in the other.

I'm pretty sure you have this noted somewhere, but could you update

I'm not here to update the entire Internet. I have enough to do already thank you.

What's the order of magnitude in the number of samples?

In the guide, under Random Quest Rewards, I already published what the % chances are for each random reward and what my margin of error is. Why are you wasting any time on this at all?

Do you really get 100% motivated buildings?

Even when I was in Colonial Age I was always 100% motivated. A better example is Randy Focher's city that you can find posted in the guide section discussing HMA and CA city design walktrhough. His city is 100% motivated. Now we have 60-70 guild members, and they are all active and we both have full friends lists of 140 players. I also advise aiding anyone in our hood who aids us instead of plundering them. But we make use of mostly 24-hour productions so they only require one motivation per 24-hours.

NOTE: If you are using 8-hour houses,one trick you can use is only to collect them 2 times per day, so as to give other players more time to motivate them all. If a house or two gets plundered its not that big of a deal. But by reducing house to twice per day instead of 3 times per day, each house is more likley to be both motivated and buffed by a StM bonus, which is what we want of every house we collect coins from. This can also help reduce the total number of aid clicks your city requires and help ensure all of your supply productions are motivated when their productions are complete.

Can you picture any scenario where St mark's is not efficient to build?

In the guide, and throughout the discussion topic, I have mentioned numerous times that the Holy Trinity of HQS GBs is CF + StM+LoA. Any FoE player, no matter what strategy they use, that does not construct either LoA or Stm, is simply screwing up. There is never any justification to skip either of these GBs. (Unless you rushed to construct RAH instead of LoA.)

6- Clicking
How do you guys deal with so many clicking when abort-cycling quest? I'm doing 34 cycles at the moment and I'm starting to get annoyed.

I click the mouse and the mouse goes "click". I have never spent more than maybe 15 minutes-a-day collecting my city and working my quest loops and I only play the browser version. I find AIDing players more of a chore than quest looping, since it is just about as many clicks (more now with friends Tavern sitting) and it doesn't pay half as well as quest looping.

 

[DeletedUser23444]

Per some of your previous post, you stated that supply production in later periods will become constrained due to building size which reduces the quantity of those supply buildings. With that in mind, is there any point in time that it would be considered acceptable to either replace the LoA with the RAH or add the RAH to work in conjunction with a LoA for a greater supply boost?If so, where would that fit into the list of GBs?

I raised my LoA to level 10 when I was down in Colonial Age, and I worked HQS. I never had as many Clockmakers as you see in Randy Focher's city (he has 114). When I left Colonial Age, I had about 30-50 million supplies stockpiled. Then I sat in Industrial Age and quested there for 1 month. Then PE for about 3 months, then ME for about 1-2 months. In each of these periods I still worked HQS. So my supplies stockpiles still trended upward, although I did not spam as many UBQs.

PME, CE, and TE are the eras where we can't really spam the "Produce supplies" Quest. In fact, I spent 1 month of my time in one of these three eras with absolutely 0 supplies production in my city. I was fighting a GvG war and I had like 50-60 million supplies stockpiled so I just produced goods conventionally and produced lots of units for the GvG war.

I'm in FE now, where we can work HQS with the "Produce Supplies" quest, which I complete 7 of those quests every day right now. I still only have a level 10 LoA. At this point, I have around 118 million supplies stockpiled, which is actually enough to take me through the end of the entire Tech Tree (all the way through the end of OFE) and I would still have 11 million supplies left over with which I could completely remodel my city at least one time, possible two times.

Now all of this being said, if an HMA player wanted to skip LoA and construct RAH, that would not be an entirely bad move; it would cost more expensive construction goods and significantly more land, but the upside would be 75 supply production bonuses instead of only 40. But is this required? No absolutely not.

So long story short we really do not need to construct the RAH at all. That is, provided we follow the strategy and raise our LoA up to about level 5 in HMA and then raise our LoA up to level 10 in Colonial Age. The RAH is largely redundant with LoA.

 

[DeletedUser]

Stephen, I absolutely agree that Cosmic Raven can be a bit heavy handed. I interpret it as a bit of nerdy exasperation at things which seem pretty obvious to someone who has put enough energy in, but can easily see how it may come off as more annoying.

I see him as willing to share a wealth of knowledge he has amassed. That is super useful. You seem to want to nitpick around the edges of it which can be fine--though if I were in charge of the world I'd rather CR finish his guide than spend too much time on nitpicks. In the spirit of aiding that I'll try to respond to the best of my knowledge (as someone who has mostly followed along with the HQS though I'm only in Colonial on O world) and someone who has in retrospect made some mistakes along the way that don't bother me too much (biggest was building and investing in the Temple of Relics too early, but I enjoy it).

The key to your criticism is "I stand by my point that you don't need the 5 regular military barracks if you have the Alcatraz, 1 Rogue Hideout and sufficient attack/defense boost."

First you're eliding a lot in "sufficient attack/defense boost" That ends up being quite a bit of FPs in Zeus and CoA that could be spent elsewhere. That ends up being quite a bit of space on CoA that could be spent elsewhere. (And if you are talking prize buildings, they come if you're around long enough but you can't count on them otherwise).

Second you're relying on a HUGE Progressive Era building. The Progressive Era is interesting because both of its Great Buildings are very good. You seem to be advocating Alcatraz OVER the Chateau.

For the limited purpose of finshing GE, they are about equal in power. I would argue that the Chateau is probably a touch stronger because for Alcatraz to work you need CoA, CDM and Zeus to be high levels, but the counterargument would be that for Chateau to work you need St. Marks and Lighthouse at high levels. I would respond that you are going to level St. Marks and Lighthouse anyway, so your strategy requires ADDITIONAL great buildings and ADDITIONAL FP investments, but I haven't worked out the perfect balance for your strategy so maybe it is a close call.

For the purposes of overall advancement, the Chateau package is clearly superior. It is letting you finish GE AND get more FPs, AND get more goods, AND get more coins, AND grow faster with medals.

Both are Progressive era buildings. You will probably have both in the long run. Both will take getting some help or trading up to Progressive Era goods. But CR is suggesting that you get Chateau FIRST because leveraging it will get you overall advancement faster (and it is smaller) and that you don't get Alcatraz until later.

You criticize him for picking at small flaws, but you aren't letting him talk in the context of HQS (which is the context of this thread). Yes it is POSSIBLE to finish the limited objective of GE without a Chateau, and with an Alcatraz plus high level attack buildings. However doing that first will stunt your overall growth, which is the context.

Obviously you have the same wordiness problem as Cosmic Raven. I made a small simple post addressing one little flaw in his huge post. He then misrepresented what I was saying, trying to turn it into an early age/later age issue, when it wasn't that in the least. I don't give a rat's posterior about his HQS strategy, but when he strays outside his area of "expertise", as he did when talking about what it takes to succeed in GE, and into something I know more than him about, I will say something. Mainly because there are gullible players that will now be needlessly building all 5 barracks for their era, simply because the great Cosmic Raven said they should. He didn't have to compose multiple enormous posts to try to smokescreen his lack of knowledge in this area, he could have just graciously acknowledged that he isn't the know-all, see-all expert on FoE. He is an expert on HQS, because he invented it, but HQS is not all of FoE. In closing, I will point out to you that you also missed my point. If you go back to the statement of his that I was challenging, he said that the Alcatraz and sufficient attack boost were needed for successfully battling GE. I agreed with that part, but disagreed with the "5 military barracks" part.

 

[DeletedUser23444]

Sorry, wrong again. Again, this is the first line of the post I responded to.

I don't care what freaking line you responded to my post was in response to questions asked by one player who is in HMA and another forum member who responded to his questions before I did. The OP of the actual questions I responded to is actually one and only player who is in HMA named "kobnach".

You'll notice there is no mention of a specific player. Indeed, if you go through the whole post, you'll see that you quoted no fewer than 4 different players.

Really? You need to go look again. There are only two actual forum members that I quoted in my post: "kobnach" who posted the questions and who is in HMA, and "nomad richie"who made several responses to those questions, some of which I did not agree with and I wanted to address. There are in fact, no other forum member quoted. I don't know for certain which age "nomad richie" is in, but he wasn't the OP of the questions, "kobnach" is and he is clearly in HMA. I'm sorry you are so preoccupied with trolling a constructive conversation that you cannot pay attention.

In addition to that, you frequently mention at least Colonial Age in addition to HMA in the body of your post.

That's because I am laying out a specific Strategy that centers around what to do in both HMA and CA And it is often logical to discuss both periods at the same time.

So seriously, you add nothing constructive to this topic, you don't help anyone here. You don't appreciate the strategy and in your own words: "you don't have any use for anyting Cosmic Raven does", so all you are really doing is trolling this thread.

Kindly move on and go somewhere else because all you are doing is detracting from this conversation.

 

[DeletedUser]

I don't care what freaking line you responded to my post was in response to questions asked by one player who is in HMA and another forum member who responded to his questions before I did. The OP of the actual questions I responded to is actually one and only player who is in HMA named "kobnach".




Really? You need to go look again. There are only two actual forum members that I quoted in my post: "kobnach" who posted the questions and who is in HMA, and "nomad richie"who made several responses to those questions, some of which I did not agree with and I wanted to address. There are in fact, no other forum member quoted. I don't know for certain which age "nomad richie" is in, but he wasn't the OP of the questions, "kobnach" is and he is clearly in HMA. I'm sorry you are so preoccupied with trolling a constructive conversation that you cannot pay attention.




That's because I am laying out a specific Strategy that centers around what to do in both HMA and CA And it is often logical to discuss both periods at the same time.

So seriously, you add nothing constructive to this topic, you don't help anyone here. You don't appreciate the strategy and in your own words: "you don't have any use for anyting Cosmic Raven does", so all you are really doing is trolling this thread.

Kindly move on and go somewhere else because all you are doing is detracting from this conversation.

Actually, what I was doing was constructively criticizing one point you made...at least until you turned it into a federal case simply because your ego can't take anyone disagreeing with you. I will take your advice and vacate this thread, because I have found nothing constructive in it, and don't expect to. Your "strategy" is about as exciting as doing the multiplication tables back in elementary school. Have fun with your endless clicking.

 

[DeletedUser29206]

I've been reading this on and off for the last week or so... I have already made a number of newbie mistakes defined in this guide, mainly rushing thru the tech tree ( all techs thru ema done), and c-map (all sectors thru HMA done). -- so basically if I research alchemy I am in HMA, also holding on the c-map so I do not get the LMA tower.

my thoughts were Alcatraz for happiness and military first
--- this opens up more space for alchemists by taking down military buildings, and a portion of the cultural ones
--- allow the Alcatraz produce some EMA troops then cross over into HMA, and get the CF and camp out there for a very long while.
--- in the meantime I am guild hopping for blueprints and coins.

one question I do have is when starting out on guild expedition ... will I be needing military from previous ages?
----------------------------------

This is a diamond build, so it is not normal, and way off what would be seen in a standard game play.

Question being can this still be salvaged in HMA for HQS?



Day 20: (on an 8 hour cycle where possible) -- totals are per day --- happiness demand = 6394 -- 7902 provided unpolished
Deal Castle lvl 2 (46 medals per day + 6% def) -||- The Habitat lvl 1 (4,410 pop. + 10,100 coins)
2 Ebony = 60 -||- 3 jewelers = 90 -||- IA Goods 150 -||- 4 goldsmith = 120 -||- 4 beekeepers = 120 -||- EMA Goods = 240
14 clapboard houses =12,096 -||- lord manor = 3,840 -||- total coins per day =36,036 -- equivalent to 30 clapboard houses
1 confectionary = 384 supplies per day -||- 2 tailors = 5,400 -|| - 2 tanneries = 2460 -|| - 2 shoemakers =3,180 -||- 2 bakeries = 7,200 -||- total supplies per day = 18,624

 

[DeletedUser28021]

I'm responding primarily to your response to me. Also adding some comments about my adventures with one foot in each strategy ;-)

You do not own an HQS city. And actually I do recommend a few Rogue Hideouts (no more than 3) and the Checkmate Square, CF, HS, StM, LoA. The 6 SoKs are also good to have, but they are starting to erode your population density and you could really use an Innovation Tower (not the ToB). The SoZ is tiny so it doesn't waste too much land. The rest of your city is actually costing you lost game progress. If we don't own at least a level 5 CF, then we are not actually Heavy Questing yet; rather we are still in transition from the more conventional FoE strategy to the HQS, which is actually a very rough place to exist.

We can't play FoE both ways in the early ages like HMA or lower. There simply is not enough: land, population, offsetting happiness, nor FPs to swap around to level up every GB in the game at the same time to level them all up to the point where each GB actually becomes useful and no longer a waste of land. The HQS isn't just about looping quests, it is about setting gaming objective priorities in an optimized order that eventually does allow us to play the game both ways (HQS + fight as much as we want) which occurs about halfway through our long stay over in the Colonial Age.

Sprinting to HMA costs a boat load of FPs (like 1,400 or so depending on where you are in HMA) and 100s of each good between Iron Age and LMA, plus a few CA goods. If you are having issues with goods now, then you cannot sprint to CA you can only crawl to CA. Fix the issues as best you can in HMA.

So far, my halfway strategy is bringing in medals and FP. I'll get a new expansion tomorrow, and I've currently got 1415 FP stockpiled. (I'd been collecting FP packs for a while.)

I can handle 3 levels of GE and still slowly accumulate goods. I'm tempted to take advantage of being in a guild without mandatory GE, to pile up goods a bit faster.

I have most of the LMA goods I'd need to get through LMA - but clockmakers are way out near the end of CA, and I have very few CA goods so far. Also, of course, Gambrel Roof Houses are even farther out.

I have 2 CF blueprints, up from zero when I read your guide. I'm working on 2 more. But trading up for Progressive Era goods is going to be very expensive. It would be less expensive from CA. Hence my original question.

So, let's say my goal is to be in CA, with a nicely developed CF, and no more inappropriate buildings than I already have. It looks like I have several choices:
- stay where I am till I have the goods to get to clockmakers, and then do so.
- stay where I am till I have the goods to get CF. Build it, and feed it while accumulating goods to get to clockmakers.
- buy some diamonds, and buy the CF ;-) Only $70, or $35 with a good special. Tempting ;-) Then move to CA as soon as I have the goods for that.
- find an FP for goods trade, ideally one that will also get me CF blueprints. Might as well stay where I am while I do that.
- "sprint" to early CA, then crawl to clockmakers. Not very attractive when I check my goods supplies - very tempting otherwise ;-)
- bite off more of my continent, to get more space in my city, even if that costs me goods, figuring it's an investment in growth (I'm currently just into the LMA section, so can probably make significant progress with troops alone.)

Put another way, I'm trying to figure out the best way to invest my goods (and possibly FP) currently. Which action should be done first, for best long term outcome, given their varying costs and benefits - and my specifc (dis)advantages?

- getting CF
- getting more space
- getting to clockmakers/CA (which not incidentlaly picks up more space)

I'm thinking I've listed them in an appropriate priority order, even though CF will take a looonnnngggg time, short of using diamonds. But since I'm not sure, I'm posting.

 

[DeletedUser28299]

Kobnach. If you are going to Colonial, you want to be able to sprint to clockmakers. Entering colonial makes all of your recurring quests more difficult, so it isn't worth doing without the additional bonus of being able to run the clockmaker quests. You don't need to sprint to Gambrel Roof Houses, I was doing great without them even before I got the Innovation tower (and actually haven't yet properly used the space given by the Innovation Tower).

The CF is a complete game changer. You should definitely focus on getting it. Are you aware that when you get blueprints through aiding you always get the age of the building you motivated/polished? While I was getting CF blueprints I did it mainly through GB donations, but I also got two through manually aiding Progressive Era buildings. Often you can find a high aged friend with a few PE buildings, or a Progressive era friend with a bunch.

 

[DeletedUser23444]

if I research alchemy I am in HMA

Then why aren't you in HMA which is much more efficient questing that EMA?

Now, if your answer is you still want to score 20 diamonds from some of the EMA recurring quests, then fine. But the second each EMA recurring quest has paid 20 diamonds (and if they are paying medals then they already paid 20 diamonds), then your butt should be in HMA where the supply buildings are 67% of the size of the EMA supply buildings.

my thoughts were Alcatraz for happiness and military first

You need to change your thinking if you want to work HQS efficiently.

Alcatraz is not going not going to help you increase your quest reward revenue of: medals, FPs, goods, and BPs. In fact, Traz consumes so much land out of an HMA city that it ends up reducing total city revenue. CF increases city revenue immensely, cost the same goods to construct, and consume less land while giving back more total value. Traz comes later in Colonial, after your city has much more land.

will I be needing military from previous ages?

Why would you? HMA units kill EMA units even better than EMA units kill EMA units. And your GE will be only HMA and EMA units. The only reason to keep lower period units is to:

1. Win lower PVP towers. Scoring a single medals package from a random quest reward in HMA will produce more medals, in a single quest, than scoring 1st place on the EMA PvP tower can, in an entire week. If you want more medals, then work HQS. HQS produces more medals per day than any other FoE game activity. It's not even a contest.
   
   
2. Help our Guild in GvG. If your guild is worried about EMA and IA GvG, then get a better guild. HMA GvG sectors are worth 2x what EMA sectors are worth and EMA sectors are worth 2x what IA sectors are worth. I would rather my HMA noob minions cut the GvG teeth in HMA and don't even worry about the cheap seats (EMA and IA).

Question being can this still be salvaged in HMA for HQS?

Not without major reconstructive surgery

1. Sell your Deal Castle. I'[m not joking at all. The DC is a complete waste of land in an any city, HQS or not. The medals it pays are paltry at any level. And in an HQS city you won't need any a city defense at all, until maybe after reach PME, when we start to produce goods conventionally again. And even up in the later eras, the DC it is STILL and complete waste of land, since by then we will have amassed numerous Watchfires and Ritual Flames which provide more city defense bonus in far less land.
   
   My FE city defense is: 1 unattached Bronze Age Mounted Warrior with a +0%/+5% city defense bonus (and the +5% comes from one of my FE barracks). I NEVER get plundered. I collect what goods I produce conventionally on time and the rest of my city is 100% motivated. If some hoodie attacks me, he can only get 80 PvP tower points and nothing of value to plunder. Why waste any land at all on city defense if I don't need to? Checkmate I win!
   
   
2. You have constructed the Habitat prematurely and it's going to hold you city back by greatly reducing your coins production capacity and coins production efficiency, which will cost you the opportunity of double your daily number of completed quests. You need the coins production capacity that regular housing would provide to afford spamming 1 UBQ for each Produce Supplies quest. We always acquire SoKs before we construct population GBs, and I don't see any SoKs in your city at all. Now the way to mitigate owning the Hab, is to construct as many ultra-efficient coins production buildings as you can, such as: SoK, SoA, The King, The Queen, Haunted House, Ziggurat. To a lesser degree of efficiency, The King Statue and The Queen Statute form the Garden ruins set are okay, but no where near as good as any of the other buildings since they cannot be motivated to double their efficiency and capacity. And you need to be very careful with a population GB not to let it level up past the point of how much pop you actually require for your city and how much you can enthuse given your happiness levels. Happiness GBs need to be leveled up well in advance of constructing population GBs. An HQS city requires far less population than a city producing goods conventionally; I suspect your Hab is way over-leveled and its going to keep you poor on coins and it going to require you to keep more happiness structures than you really require.
   
   
3. The Lord's Manor is okay, but always keep a 1-up-kit in Inventory for any time you advance a period of technology. Always keep this building locked to your current period so its population density and coins production capacity and efficiency are kept as high as possible.
   
   
4. I want everyone following this HQS guide who ever doubted the rationale of constructing and leveling up Hagia Sophia to see your current city and count how many tiles of land, and how many Aid clicks per 24 hours your city is consuming on happiness. If I'm not mistaken, I count 13 cultural buildings + decorations, which means your city consumes 26 Aid button clicks every 24 hours just to keep these buildings polished. And if we add up all the land those building occupy, it is far more tiles than one Hagia Sophia would consume. And a level 5 Hagia Sophia would 100% enthuse the population required for an HQS city in HMA.
   
   
5. We don't use premium or special supply production buildings in HQS; we need regular supply production buildings. Sell the premium ones and store the Confectionery.

 

[DeletedUser23444]

I'm responding primarily to your response to me.

Long story short it sounds to me like you want the benefits of HQS but you dont want to put the work into actually following the HQS.

I'm not here in this topic to help you do it your way, or any other player's way. I'm not here to customize your city, or your play style.

I'm here to document a proven strategy that I know works. It's proven. This isn't me here saying: "I think you should do this or that; and I think you should not do this and not do that." This is me saying that I, and several other players have already tried it numerous different ways and we freaking know which way produces the fastest results.

And if you scroll up and down this very long topic you can see numerous testimonials where players have tried this strategy, applied it, and posted back with how satisfied they are with the results.

The players who are the most satisfied with the results are the ones who have followed the strategy the closest and who own a CF with some levels in it. And the players who don't believe or don't get the same results are the players who are half-assing the strategy and then wondering why they don't get the results.

How you play your city is totally your prerogative. Just don't expect HQS results by doing it your way.

 

[DeletedUser26965]

Long story short it sounds to me like you want the benefits of HQS but you dont want to put the work into actually following the HQS.

I'm not here in this topic to help you do it your way, or any other player's way. I'm not here to customize your city, or your play style.

I'm here to document a proven strategy that I know works. It's proven. This isn't me here saying: "I think you should do this or that; and I think you should not do this and not do that." This is me saying that I, and several other players have already tried it numerous different ways and we freaking know which way produces the fastest results.

And if you scroll up and down this very long topic you can see numerous testimonials where players have tried this strategy, applied it, and posted back with how satisfied they are with the results.

The players who are the most satisfied with the results are the ones who have followed the strategy the closest and who own a CF with some levels in it. And the players who don't believe or don't get the same results are the players who are half-assing the strategy and then wondering why they don't get the results.

How you play your city is totally your prerogative. Just don't expect HQS results by doing it your way.

i saw this infomercial too

 

[DeletedUser29206]

first off thank you for taking the time to respond in depth.

next I have the hag just about queued up for just missing a little copper and few goods I am currently producing so about 24 hours away.
--- I figure this should offset the habitat for a while, and allow me to trim back on the decorations quite a bit at minimum 7 maybe more.

the next GB I was thinking and very close to a complete set of blue prints and resources is the St.MB
--- question... will this also double the coin production of GBs, or is only for residential and special buildings?

the cf is still quite a ways off as far as BPs and resources...

I know this in revers order from what you havelisted but going with what the game has provided me so far, thru guild hopping and trading goods on the market.

-- once in HMA what is the standard camp out period of time? just so I can mentally prepare for it. keep in mind I am currently not in a guild and still guild hopping for coins and blue prints... figuring on at least a few more weeks of this. so I am not benefiting from any GE or guild level bonuses.

 

[DeletedUser28021]

Long story short it sounds to me like you want the benefits of HQS but you dont want to put the work into actually following the HQS.

I'm not here in this topic to help you do it your way, or any other player's way. I'm not here to customize your city, or your play style.

I'm here to document a proven strategy that I know works. It's proven. This isn't me here saying: "I think you should do this or that; and I think you should not do this and not do that." This is me saying that I, and several other players have already tried it numerous different ways and we freaking know which way produces the fastest results.

Ouch.

I didn't mean to come across that way.

The truth is, I'm not going to be following a pure HQS strategy. I don't think it's possible from where I am, short of starting a brand new city. I may wind up converging on something that looks HQS eventually. If you are right - and I don't see why you wouldn't be - my city will be older when/if it converges than a city that had been pure HQS from the beginning.

What I've been trying to do - and arguably hijacking your thread in a small way to do so - is to understand HQS well enough to make intelligent decisions, given that I'm not especially experienced at FOE, and so far HQS is the first thing I've seen that both actually looks like a thought-out strategy and is compatible with my natural gaming style. I apologize for the hijack; certainly writing this guide is contribution enough; it's greedy of me to also want you to guide random strangers' attempts at profting from your HQS development work without actually following the full blown HQS. I apologize for that, and will try to keep any future comments to looking for clarification of the complete HQS strategy.

 

[Sharif]

CR, thanks for your input on the Atomium. I think I'm just not far enough along to need that yet. I've been refining my city to apply a bunch of the principles that you've put forth and I have some observations/questions that I was hoping you could address for me:

1) Why do you want more than one rogue hideout in a city where you have an Alcatraz? What do you gain from having the additional attached assets vs. the large number of unattached rogues? Right now, the only "barracks" I have in my city is a single Rogue Hideout. Is there a flaw in this thinking?

2) I am currently generating about 60fp/day and am using that in swaps to get my GBs leveled. Based on your descriptions, it feels like I might have bitten off more GB than I should have for the age I'm in (HMA) but they are making decent progress. Presently in HMA I have the following GB:

- The Arc (Level 6)
- Hagia Sofia (Level 7)
- CoA (Level 5)
- LoA (Level 5)
- CDM (Level 7)
- Zeus (Level 6)
- Inno Tower (Level 5)
- Chateau (Level 5)
- Alcatraz (Level 5)
- St. Marks (Level 3)
- ToR (Level 4)

I am working on bringing up my SMB and leveling off the rest of the GB with the exception of Inno because I just don't need any more population right now.

3) I have ~68 Alchemists and I'm doing as many coin collection UBQ quests as possible but I'm just not seeing the FP packs streaming in. For the last ~2 months I've been scoring about 2-ish/day which is making it hard for me to envision how to make the sprint to CA without the influx of fp packs. I have no houses as all population is coming from Inno Tower so all coins are from SoK/Skywatch/CoA/CF and Checkmate

4) I've attached a picture of my city (or a link to it) but I'm feeling like I should pick up the Kiosk (EMA) to bring out later and to also pick up the 2x wishing wells.

Can you see anything else in my city that you would recommend changing to accelerate my skip to CA?

Thanks in advance.

FOEMANAGER shared city 80LRPG8UKW

 

[DeletedUser]

CR, thanks for your input on the Atomium. I think I'm just not far enough along to need that yet. I've been refining my city to apply a bunch of the principles that you've put forth and I have some observations/questions that I was hoping you could address for me:

1) Why do you want more than one rogue hideout in a city where you have an Alcatraz? What do you gain from having the additional attached assets vs. the large number of unattached rogues? Right now, the only "barracks" I have in my city is a single Rogue Hideout. Is there a flaw in this thinking?

2) I am currently generating about 60fp/day and am using that in swaps to get my GBs leveled. Based on your descriptions, it feels like I might have bitten off more GB than I should have for the age I'm in (HMA) but they are making decent progress. Presently in HMA I have the following GB:

- The Arc (Level 6)
- Hagia Sofia (Level 7)
- CoA (Level 5)
- LoA (Level 5)
- CDM (Level 7)
- Zeus (Level 6)
- Inno Tower (Level 5)
- Chateau (Level 5)
- Alcatraz (Level 5)
- St. Marks (Level 3)

I am working on bringing up my SMB and leveling off the rest of the GB with the exception of Inno because I just don't need any more population right now.

3) I have ~68 Alchemists and I'm doing as many coin collection UBQ quests as possible but I'm just not seeing the FP packs streaming in. For the last ~2 months I've bee scoring about 2-ish/day which is making it hard for me to envision how to make the spring to CA without the influx of fp packs. I have no houses as all population is coming from Inno Tower so all coins are from SoK/Skywatch/CoA/CF and Checkmate

4) I've attached a picture of my city (or a link to it) but I'm feeling like I should pick up the Kiosk (EMA) to bring out later and to also pick up the 2x within wells.

Can you see anything else in my city that you would recommend changing to accelerate my skip to CA?

Thanks in advance.

FOEMANAGER shared city 80LRPG8UKW

Okay, I lied about staying away. Truth is that you people need a different viewpoint sometimes, and Cosmic Raven only sees things from one very narrow perspective. As one who fights a lot, there is no reason to have more than one Rogue Hideout if you have an Alcatraz. There might have been before GE came along, but not now. You don't need any other barracks, except an occasional Champions Retreat for a very short time, if you have the Traz and 1 Rogue Hideout. Any other troops you need will be supplied by GE, which should be especially easy for an HQS city with its plethora of goods. In fact, since the basic premise of an HQS city is to have as few buildings as possible other than supply buildings, having more than 1 Rogue Hideout with an Alcatraz actually goes against one of the core HQS tenets. The only reason you would want more than 1 Rogue Hideout would be if you had other military barracks, because the Alcatraz' production of troops is tied to how many of each barracks you have. So, if you want more Rogues than other troops, you would need more Rogue Hideouts than other military barracks.

 

[DeletedUser29218]

Thanks for the answers CR

I have read the guide several times, but there are bound to be some things that could be explained better, and even minor improvements to the strategy, otherwise the thread wouldn't have 18 pages, would it? For example:

As I said in the guide, under Bonus Quests, After we advance to CA and we conquer the bonus area on the C Map, between LMA and CA, we will have two recurring quest slots and we can work Produce supplies in one and collect supplies in the other.

I understood that. What I was asking is why don't you have the quest "Produce supplies" in both of our recurring quest slots, as LacLongQuan seems to be doing in OFE. Quoting my own comment:

1.4- Can the same quest be active in the "normal" quest and the bonus quest be active at a time? (so it's completed twice instead of once)
The comment #75 suggest that you can't (what would be the reason to "simultaneously work the "Produce Supplies" quest and the "Collect Supplies" quest" when you could do 2x Produce supplies).

Your C Map progress should be such that the following are true:

1. You have the PvP tower for you current age unlocked.
2. You have all Story Quests for your current age completed.

If both of these are true, then stop advancing on the C map. Also, read the Glossary section about "Racing Across the C Map".

I don't see the point in getting the PvP tower and completing current age story quest. What you describe seems like Advancing across the C Map at "normal speed", when you could Advance across the C at "turtle speed" (that is, being in the C Map one or several ages lower).

As you have stated several times, HQS produces much more daily medals than winning all PvP towers does weekly. So, it is much better to save these provinces to score a highly valuable quest reward, such as a valuable special prize from an Event Quest. Even if you had a lot of spare provinces, a land expansion is better than a PvP tower.

I'm not here to update the entire Internet. I have enough to do already thank you.

I just thought you already have the information, and it would be a great addition to the guide.

In the guide, under Random Quest Rewards, I already published what the % chances are for each random reward and what my margin of error is. Why are you wasting any time on this at all?

Because of this:

"Based on my own numerical analysis, which involved recording 1000s of random quest rewards over a period of months, below are my estimated percentage chances to score each possible random quest reward. I have taken some liberty in rounding my empirical data to the nearest whole percentage point and I estimate my margin of error to be +/- 1% for any specific reward."

Arguably, the FP package is the best reward, and it has a 6% chance. +-1% when the base value is 6% can be a 20% difference, which is a significant relative error. If those "1000s" are 3-4k, I (and others) could collect more statistical data to refine the results. On the contrary, if those "1000s" are >20k, collecting more data is indeed wasting time. Anyways, I'm sure I and others would appreciate if you could show the percentages without any rounding at all.

NOTE: If you are using 8-hour houses,one trick you can use is only to collect them 2 times per day, so as to give other players more time to motivate them all. If a house or two gets plundered its not that big of a deal. But by reducing house to twice per day instead of 3 times per day, each house is more likley to be both motivated and buffed by a StM bonus, which is what we want of every house we collect coins from. This can also help reduce the total number of aid clicks your city requires and help ensure all of your supply productions are motivated when their productions are complete.

Thank you. I've been doing this lately, but I wasn't sure it was a good idea. I still can't get 100% motivated, but that's because my guild is smaller and my friends aren't so active.

In the guide, and throughout the discussion topic, I have mentioned numerous times that the Holy Trinity of HQS GBs is CF + StM+LoA. Any FoE player, no matter what strategy they use, that does not construct either LoA or Stm, is simply screwing up. There is never any justification to skip either of these GBs. (Unless you rushed to construct RAH instead of LoA.)

I know StM is key to the way you planned your strategy, and removing it without making any other changes makes no sense. But the reason you build it is so you can spam as many UBQ as you want. Basically, you don't want coins to be your limiting resource for UBQs.

But there are other ways to achieve that goal. If someone has a lot of shrines, he can already spam as many UBQs as he wants without the need of StM. At this point we are comparing the extra Collect Coins quests and FP purchased with gold vs the cost of lvling StM and the opportunity cost of land use. Which seems quite difficult to do, due to the scaling cost of FP-gold and variances in the number of Soks among several players.[/QUOTE]

 

[DeletedUser23444]

Okay, I lied about staying away. Truth is that you people need a different viewpoint sometimes, and Cosmic Raven only sees things from one very narrow perspective. As one who fights a lot, there is no reason to have more than one Rogue Hideout if you have an Alcatraz. There might have been before GE came along, but not now. You don't need any other barracks, except an occasional Champions Retreat for a very short time, if you have the Traz and 1 Rogue Hideout. Any other troops you need will be supplied by GE, which should be especially easy for an HQS city with its plethora of goods. In fact, since the basic premise of an HQS city is to have as few buildings as possible other than supply buildings, having more than 1 Rogue Hideout with an Alcatraz actually goes against one of the core HQS tenets. The only reason you would want more than 1 Rogue Hideout would be if you had other military barracks, because the Alcatraz' production of troops is tied to how many of each barracks you have. So, if you want more Rogues than other troops, you would need more Rogue Hideouts than other military barracks.

This is not a debate topic about how to play FoE. THis is a guide about how to follow a very specific Strategy to play FoE. All discussion here is about that Strategy and no other strategy. You want debate different ways of play FoE, go start your own topic.

 

[DeletedUser]

This is not a debate topic about how to play FoE. THis is a guide about how to follow a very specific Strategy to play FoE. All discussion here is about that Strategy and no other strategy. You want debate different ways of play FoE, go start your own topic.

I'm not debating anything. I'm just pointing out some basic principles that would actually free up space for your strategy, if you would listen. Instead of dismissing anyone else's input simply because you're the "expert" here. And this is a free forum. If you want a place to talk without me, start your own closed group on Facebook or something.