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[Question] Build Frauenkirche of Dresden or keep leveling up Lighthouse?

Cyril the Bold

New Member
I'm stuck! If I build FOD, I must sacrifice my premium Traveling Circus with it's 2800 happiness points. Theres simply no other place I can drop in the FOD. FOD gives me 1000 happiness points, meaning I must add AT LEAST the Water Plant in order to more-less off-set the loss of happiness points. I've enough elsewhere that will keep me in max happiness.
OR! Should I continue spending Forge Points to get to level 7 at the Lighthouse? I keep the Circus along with the Goods producing buildings & Confectionery whose spaces I would need for the Water Plant.
HELP!!!
 

DeletedUser8152

There's no right answer, either way can work. But some questions I'd ask:
- Can you sell other buildings and houses to make more room (including by lowering happiness requirements)? It's not unreasonable to let the FOD replace an existing goods building.
- Do you need the goods from the FOD? The happiness will never be a huge draw, even as it levels up.
- Will the extra supplies from the lighthouse be useful? If so, that's a good reason to keep advancing it.
Finally, if you decide not to build the FOD now, you always can later, when you have more space (and the goods buildings you might replace will be bigger.) But bear in mind that for ME+, the FOD will make unrefined goods. Those are still useful, of course.
 

Cyril the Bold

New Member
Do you know how many happiness points I gain each time I level up FOD?
Another consideration. Great Buildings seem to only give you1 specific type of good rather than a package. It's hit & miss as to what type good you receive. At this time, I better off w/specific goods buildings that target my needs rather than random selections GBs provide.
 

DeletedUser10415

Do you know how many happiness points I gain each time I level up FOD?
Another consideration. Great Buildings seem to only give you1 specific type of good rather than a package. It's hit & miss as to what type good you receive. At this time, I better off w/specific goods buildings that target my needs rather than random selections GBs provide.

The amount of happiness per level varies. You can find out how much exactly it is here:
http://forgeofempires.wikia.com/wiki/Dresden_Frauenkirche

As for it's "hit & miss" goods production, it's like all goods-producing Great Buildings in that regard. It mostly evens out over time though. This city has a level 8 Lighthouse, a level 6 St. Mark's, a level 5 Babel, a level 3 Dresden, and 8 Wishing Wells. I've been soaking in Colonial Age for quite some time...
21fcb88fe2e746728b27db8c0d753701.jpg

Another consideration is that Great Buildings can't be plundered, so if you can't be bothered to collect on time, then they're useful as a primary source of goods. I've got cities in 10 worlds, and only in the most advanced one (Arctic) do I have specific goods buildings. They do become kind of necessary once goods produced from unrefined goods are needed, unless you want to trade for everything. My other 9 cities are Progressive Era or lower though.
 
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Mustapha00

Well-Known Member
If Happiness is the serious concern that it appears to be for you, then I'd not worry about building an FoD at this moment. The Happiness it generates is rather "meh", and the goods can be obtained through other means.

Are you part of a Guild? And do you have a pretty full Friends list? Both of those are ways to get various Cultural buildings and Decorations polished to double their generated Happiness (via Guildies and Friends Aiding you). That makes the most out of whatever plus Happiness structures you have.

On the Lighthouse...I would continue to level it, with an eye towards getting it to level 10 (and, ultimately, possibly beyond). The boost to supply production means that you can produce the same amount of goods with less structures, thus saving space. I'd also encourage you to work towards getting a Royal Albert Hall, which also boosts supply production and its boost stacks with that of the Lighthouse. But it's a big building, so it's not an urgent priority.
 

Cyril the Bold

New Member
I was able to build FOD & am not striving towards Level 3. I sacrificed a Trading Company (900 HP) & gained a net 800 by acquiring FOD & leveling up to 2. I'd say 1700 happiness isn't "meh." After all, only Premium buildings give you more while requiring more space than FOD but without the added Goods FOD gives.

I'm in my 3d Guild. The last two never exchanged ideas, asked me what specific building I'd like polished/motivated (yes, I did ask them to send me their specific request; they never responded). I'm not holding out any hope with this 3d one as there are but 2 members (it just started recently). Read my profile. I think I've spelled it out pretty well.

From what I've read in guide scroll, getting to level 4 with FOD make it worthwhile happiness-wise. It also doesn't require as many Forge Points at level 3 or 4 as my Lighthouse does, currently @level 6. So yes, I'm continuing to level with the main concentration on FOD.

Thanks for your advice.
 

DeletedUser25950

Yea FoD needs to be at about level 3 (or4) in PE to justify it. And note: ME cuts all early goods GB's to "half" value in goods. They go from making, say (10 PE), to 20 Col E. Instead of 10 ME . really you could say their(early Good GB's) goods output is quartered by the jump from PE to ME. So there is a real question if the FoD is worth it all , except for being in PE Era when it making PE goods(yea, also true before PE but PE is the main(only) era for an FoD), the FoD ain't much of a GB.

Suggest upgraded fishing huts,Oasis, Luaus, etc .in ME . Might want to ditch the FoD(and prolly a circus or zeppelin or other Culture B ) for an amusement park.

With Winter event coming , might(prolly) be seeing some reno/1-ups for any lower than ME special goods building built or in storage. Much better to have ME goods rolling in in ME , than trying to produce them (which consumes CA goods) and also takes twice as long because of that using regular goods production. And in ME you needs ME goods almost immediately to advance on the tech tree.

In short the FoD is a Indy/PE era GB only, after that build other/better stuff, unless maybe if you have REALLY upgraded the thing and are getting ALOT of happy out of it. Or you have so much space (diamond grids) you can afford to eat a 5x5 with it.

Another option would be to sit in PE, make PE goods, and trade for a bunch of ME before you jump ages, that would help with all the GB's making Col goods in ME. FoD would do this well, and is what I am doing ATM

As said, bunch of different ways to play the game , not a right or wrong issue
 
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DeletedUser26829

I was able to build FOD & am not striving towards Level 3. I sacrificed a Trading Company (900 HP) & gained a net 800 by acquiring FOD & leveling up to 2. I'd say 1700 happiness isn't "meh." After all, only Premium buildings give you more while requiring more space than FOD but without the added Goods FOD gives.

I'm in my 3d Guild. The last two never exchanged ideas, asked me what specific building I'd like polished/motivated (yes, I did ask them to send me their specific request; they never responded). I'm not holding out any hope with this 3d one as there are but 2 members (it just started recently). Read my profile. I think I've spelled it out pretty well.

From what I've read in guide scroll, getting to level 4 with FOD make it worthwhile happiness-wise. It also doesn't require as many Forge Points at level 3 or 4 as my Lighthouse does, currently @level 6. So yes, I'm continuing to level with the main concentration on FOD.

Thanks for your advice.
Look at the NICE Guild.. They've been good to me.. But they don't do GvG, only the Guild Expedition if you want..
 

Mustapha00

Well-Known Member
By the time you get to even LMA, two Cultural buildings (Library and Academy) both give more Happiness when polished than does a level 2 FoD and in a smaller footprint (4x4 vs 5x5). The disparity gets even larger as you progress between Age-appropriate Cultural buildings (and I'm talking regular ones, not Premiums) and the FoD. The FoD isn't nearly as bad as a Colosseum or a Notre Dame, but it's certainly in that lower-tier of GBs.
 

DeletedUser25273

The big question when comparing cultural building happiness to Great Building happiness is your ability to depend on polishing, and you cost if the happiness is not there. If most of your supply production is long periods, then maybe you can count on keeping the buildings polished (or if you can get a couple of people to be manually polishing at the right times). I personally like to make it so that with minimal polishing, I am at least content, to avoid the 50% penalty in production. This helps to tip the balance towards some of the happiness GBs.
 
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