Negotiation vs Conquest

[DeletedUser18225]

Is there a reason to do one over the other? Medals? Points? etc. Obviously, if you don't have the army strength and do have the goods, it makes more sense to negotiate.

 

[DeletedUser17462]

I fight through it when I can just for the pvp tower points. Only time I ever negotiate anymore is if I just can't conquer it and I'm getting impatient trying to complete a quest.

 

[DeletedUser10415]

Negotiation is nothing but loss. At least when you fight you have the chance of winning medals in the PvP tower for the highest age troops you use in a fight. Accumulate enough medals and you can trade them in for city expansions. While the cost to negotiate sectors is manageable in lower ages, it gets quite ridiculously expensive as you progress. For example, I'm in the Post Modern Era on the continent map, and a sample sector costs 40 renewable resources (PME), 45 flavorants (ME), 50 gasoline (PE) and 50 tinplate (PE) to negotiate. The amount of resources (coin, supplies, space, & time) required to take that sector by fighting is much much less.

I very rarely negotiate sectors. Only whenI'm in a hurry and I do not have the right troops for the job, or am unwilling to restructure my city to make such troops, will I negotiate, and only if it's the last sector left and preventing me from scouting the next one.

It's worth noting also that even if your attack boosts are low or non-existent, you can still easily take sectors using troops 1 or 2 ages further along on the tech tree. You wont get as many points for the fights, but if that is not a priority for you, this works well.

 

[DeletedUser17558]

I did some negotiations earlier on, but once I realized that the goods that were being wasted could be put to better use, I quit doing that and starting taking them by force. It is great practice and a good way to get to know what the units can do. The medals accumulate faster than you think.

 

[DeletedUser18225]

Thanks for the feedback. I just didn't know if the game rewarded a negotiation or conquest more. I guess the medal reward and lack of loss of goods may be the better reward on conquest. Also, wasn't sure if you were penalized for having negotiated rather than conquered.

 

[DeletedUser6172]

You'll need coins and supplies either way. Training your military required vaguely the same amount of space and resources as does manufacturing goods.

For me it's more about keeping the military busy, and watching how the AI handles the new types of units, so that I'll understand what's needed for my City Defense. There's a different AI for GvG, but you'll still have a head start.

 

[DeletedUser10415]

The main penalty I see for negotiating rather than fighting, and initially why I opted to fight for sectors instead, is the possibility of not having the necessary goods. In the example I gave, I'm only boosted in two of those four goods, and only have production set up in my city for one of them. True - I could trade for what I don't have, but sometimes people just don't have what you want, or don't want what you're offering. That obstacle is eliminated by fighting instead.

As I've progressed in the game, I've decided I'd much rather use my goods on tech tree advancement, and building GBs, and contributing to the GvG effort, than on throwing them at the continent map.

 

[DeletedUser1862]

I negotiate mainly because I don't want to dedicate space in my city to building/maintaining the military buildings needed to fight constantly. Even if I had an Alcatraz producing troops, I'd still use negotiation because I still need the Goods for at least research, which means I need those buildings anyways.
I have some GBs producing medals and two Victory Towers, so it's not like I'm hurting for those either, and I'm doing it without the needless competition.
I'm not militarily-minded either, so fighting seems just pointless to me.

 

[DeletedUser16911]

Thanks for the feedback. I just didn't know if the game rewarded a negotiation or conquest more. I guess the medal reward and lack of loss of goods may be the better reward on conquest. Also, wasn't sure if you were penalized for having negotiated rather than conquered.

There's no penalty for negotiating, you just don't "win" quite as much. (Which doesn't matter if you're not into winning points, though if you are, it does.)
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"Loss" of goods through negotiation can be comparable to loss of troops through conquest if you're not an excellent (or lucky) fighter. One reason I don't bother fighting on the map, I'm just no good at it, so for me conquest would be the bigger loss. (Not every player is a decent tactician.)

True - I could trade for what I don't have, but sometimes people just don't have what you want, or don't want what you're offering. That obstacle is eliminated by fighting instead.

It could also be eliminated by belonging to a large/helpful guild which offers fair trade.

I negotiate mainly because I don't want to dedicate space in my city to building/maintaining the military buildings needed to fight constantly. Even if I had an Alcatraz producing troops, I'd still use negotiation because I still need the Goods for at least research, which means I need those buildings anyways.
...
I'm not militarily-minded either, so fighting seems just pointless to me.

Same here. Some are in it for the fighting/conquest, some are in it for the goods production/trade, some do a bit of both. Negotiation vs. conquest is less about what's better, and more about what style of gameplay suits the player personally.

 

[Czari]

I did some negotiations earlier on, but once I realized that the goods that were being wasted could be put to better use, I quit doing that and starting taking them by force. It is great practice and a good way to get to know what the units can do. The medals accumulate faster than you think.

I did the same thing (negotiations) when I was brand new to the game. Then I ended up negotiating into High Middle Age sectors when I'm still in the Iron Age. That's when I decided to begin fighting for the sectors to save my goods for better use. In my main world I'm in the EMA and thus far my troops still can't take on the HMA ones, so the provinces will wait until I level up; however, in my secondary world I started off fighting for sectors (having learned from my first world) and in the Iron Age have been able to defeat a couple of the EMA sectors thus far.

Primarily for the purpose of expansions, medals have become very precious to me.

 

[DeletedUser17558]

Primarily for the purpose of expansions, medals have become very precious to me.

Same with me, though Goods are also very valuable to me. I don't produce goods so to use them for negotiations when I have a robust military would be wasteful. Again, it comes down to style of play.

 

[DeletedUser]

I conquer provinces, but the main reason is that I like to fight, I participate in PvP, and I have military buildings/units anyway. There is really no benefit for conquering instead of negotiating. If you are not rushing through the ages and spend some time working on GBs, you should have more goods than you need (otherwise reconsider your city building strategy). You can waste these extra goods on GvG, or you can negotiate provinces for no real cost to you. Medals that you might win by fighting on the continent map are just a joke. I usually win my-age tower and take high places in 1 or 2 lower-age ones, but I get more medals from repeating quests (even though I don't have Chateau yet). PvP medals aren't worth the trouble.

 

[DeletedUser17558]

I conquer provinces, but the main reason is that I like to fight, I participate in PvP, and I have military buildings/units anyway. There is really no benefit for conquering instead of negotiating. If you are not rushing through the ages and spend some time working on GBs, you should have more goods than you need (otherwise reconsider your city building strategy). You can waste these extra goods on GvG, or you can negotiate provinces for no real cost to you. Medals that you might win by fighting on the continent map are just a joke. I usually win my-age tower and take high places in 1 or 2 lower-age ones, but I get more medals from repeating quests (even though I don't have Chateau yet). PvP medals aren't worth the trouble.

There is a benefit to conquering vs. negotiating: it is cheaper to produce military units than it is to produce goods. What is valuable to whom is usually caused by the style you are fighting. I am taking my sweet time. Goods are more valuable to me because I don't usually produce them myself. They are the limiting factor to me moving up the tech tree, which I do a whole age at a time. I have enough coins, supplies, and FP's to do the whole CE tech tree, I am just short a few goods. I would be even further away from advancing if I negotiated. My attack GB's are almost all level 10 as is my Alcatraz. Currently I have a few goods buildings, but they will all go away once I advance.

Everyone is going to have a glut of something, and everyone is going to be short of something. I don't think it is cause to reconsider my city building strategy.

 

[DeletedUser3974]

There was a time early in my experience with the game when I decided that military units were too costly to maintain so I only had a defensive army and attempted to negotiate my way through the map. I eventually realized that this was a gigantic mistake. Granted, military units do cost coins and supplies, but the drain on my goods was nearly catastrophic. I went back to using an offensive army and just used my goods for the tech tree.

 

[DeletedUser]

There is a benefit to conquering vs. negotiating: it is cheaper to produce military units than it is to produce goods. What is valuable to whom is usually caused by the style you are fighting. I am taking my sweet time. Goods are more valuable to me because I don't usually produce them myself. They are the limiting factor to me moving up the tech tree, which I do a whole age at a time. I have enough coins, supplies, and FP's to do the whole CE tech tree, I am just short a few goods. I would be even further away from advancing if I negotiated. My attack GB's are almost all level 10 as is my Alcatraz. Currently I have a few goods buildings, but they will all go away once I advance.

If you have attacking GBs and military buildings anyway, then, yes, it is cheaper to conquer. But if you don't really want to fight and have to decide whether to build everything military just for the map conquest or to stick with negotiation, there is no advantage in choosing military way. Additional things to consider when you recommend to conquer the map to a non-fighter player:
- Players that don't PvP usually are not experienced fighters and carry much larger losses than warriors (less battles per military building per day, higher troops replacement costs).
- There are many tough provinces and non-fighters will have to either spend a lot of resources on attacking GBs (which are otherwise useless for them), or delay the map advance, or negotiate them anyway.
- During the times when a non-PvP player doesn't advance on the continent map (make a stop to work on GBs, took all provinces of his age, or just wait for the scout) military buildings are useless, while goods buildings continue to produce goods.
All these things considered, I wouldn't advice non-PvP player against negotiations on the map.

Of course, FoE battle system is quite interesting (especially map battles), and those who don't fight simply cut themselves off this important and fun part of the game. But this is another story.

 

[DeletedUser24246]

I don't like the way negotiations work in this game. If I negotiate control of a sector, I ought to gain the sector's military troops in addition to the goods and gold. After all, the leader/king/controller of that sector ceded control to me and spared his (and my) troops from death. In addition, a negotiated takeover of an entire kingdom ought to count as a victory for purposes of expansion.

That said, negotiations right now are too easy. To make what I'd like to see happen work effectively, negotiations would need to be more expensive, more difficult, and less likely to succeed.

This is just my opinion, not a suggestion ... yet.

 

[DeletedUser13452]

Negotiation is nothing but loss. At least when you fight you have the chance of winning medals in the PvP tower for the highest age troops you use in a fight. Accumulate enough medals and you can trade them in for city expansions. While the cost to negotiate sectors is manageable in lower ages, it gets quite ridiculously expensive as you progress. For example, I'm in the Post Modern Era on the continent map, and a sample sector costs 40 renewable resources (PME), 45 flavorants (ME), 50 gasoline (PE) and 50 tinplate (PE) to negotiate. The amount of resources (coin, supplies, space, & time) required to take that sector by fighting is much much less.

couldn't have said it better myself.

 

[Mustapha00]

I've come to realize that, if your military units are a step- or worse, sever steps- inferior to the troops defending a sector, you're almost certainly rushing the game.