DeletedUser
Wow! That is really stretching to avoid admitting that you're wrong. Your spreadsheets have gone to your head. It's a pity that such a work ethic comes with such an arrogance.
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DeletedUser26965
I think being an asset to a GvG and/or GE guild is so highly relative to the individual and guild it would be impossible to say with any certainty what "strategy" is best and when.
DeletedUser
Oh, but the HQS strategy is always the best! Haven't you been paying attention? (I know it's hard to stay focused when CR rambles on endlessly, but trust him, it's in there...somewhere.)
DeletedUser29206
@yochananmichael thank you for the confirmation and validation on direction
nice city too ... that's a whole lot of alchemists
nice city too ... that's a whole lot of alchemists
DeletedUser28021
Thank you for writing this. I find this sort of story very useful.
I haven't been as brave and decisive as you, so instead I started a from-scratch HQS city ;-) I also have 2 not-quite-there HMA cities without CF (yet), still having extra buildings. OTOH, I guess I had more territory than you when I started, since I have a similar number of alchs running.
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yochananmichael
New Member
@yochananmichael thank you for the confirmation and validation on direction
nice city too ... that's a whole lot of alchemists
Thanks
DeletedUser8152
Not sure there's any need to keep busting on CR like this. It's a thread about his method. Seems like plenty of people like it. If you don't, why not just ignore the thread?
DeletedUser
Well, I made 2 small comments on specific statements of his that were slightly wrong, and he jumped all over me and acted all high and mighty, as if he could never be wrong. So, I've busted his chops for a while. Since I have great respect for you, jaelis, I will do as you ask and ignore it from now on.
DeletedUser8152
Indeed I had the same experience But no need to keep arguing about it.
But no need to keep arguing about it.DeletedUser23444
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.
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 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".
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 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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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DeletedUser23444
You should be saving diamonds up so that after you jump to CA, you can immediately purchse the 2 diamond expansions from LMA and the two from CA. Each higher period adds 2 more premium expansions and they get progressively more expensive. Think ahead, and plan ahead.
The upcoming summer event (assuming it is similar to the Summer Casino of past years) is usually a very good place to score a number of special buildings, including Champions' Retreats, Rogue Hideouts, SoKs, and Renovation Kits.
I would expect most events will offer these. Also completing GE through level 3 on a consistent basis will produce a number of these for you.
DeletedUser28021
Lots of useful material in this response, but I'm particularly interested in this. I was just about to check the GB section of this guide to see what you thought of the CdM. I have the prints for it, and I'll have the goods for it when my next batch of trades gets picked up. But I don't yet have a CF.
My inclination is to keep my goods and trade up for the CF goods, rather than building the CdM now, unless I manage to find an FP-for-PE-goods trade (no luck so far), or Inno offers me a 2-for-1 diamond purchase and I decide to simply buy my CF :-(
OTOH, I'm gradually convincing myself to sell the level 6 ToB. It's only giving me the equivalent of 3 townhouses worth of population, no cash, and 11 daily goods. It's just so hard for me to give up on already sunken costs :-( And I have 3.9M more cash than supplies right now, so the real question is whether losing it would let me squeeze in another pair of alchs.
DeletedUser29206
so playing with a city layout tool and came up with this: --- yea or nay?
-- I can have the resources to build it in about 5 days
-- missing the last 3 expansions I get one from medals the other two I do not know yet
-- so would basically be running without military for a week or two -- unless I do sectors on the the c-map
-- I suppose one of the bigger questions would be how important is GE at this stage of the game
--- just saw your response above mentioning completing level 3 GE... is this worth more then having the extra alchemists?
-- I can have the resources to build it in about 5 days
-- missing the last 3 expansions I get one from medals the other two I do not know yet
-- so would basically be running without military for a week or two -- unless I do sectors on the the c-map
-- I suppose one of the bigger questions would be how important is GE at this stage of the game
--- just saw your response above mentioning completing level 3 GE... is this worth more then having the extra alchemists?
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DeletedUser28711
so playing with a city layout tool and came up with this: -
TNM, you need to go back to the drawing board as your dimensions of most of these buildings is incorrect, so this plan is invalid. Might I suggest that you use the very popular tool at http://foemanager.com/city-planner/app/ or get the proper dimensions for these buildings from one of the following sources:
https://us0.forgeofempires.com/page/the_game/buildings/
https://forum.us.forgeofempires.com/index.php?threads/great-buildings-encyclopedia.4238/
https://forum.us.forgeofempires.com/index.php?threads/special-buildings.7237/
https://en.wiki.forgeofempires.com/index.php?title=Main_Page
http://forgeofempires.wikia.com/wiki/Forge_of_Empires_Wiki
Edit: Upon further reflection, it seems as though this tool that you used may have the proper dimensions for the buildings but it rotates the layout 90* counterclockwise so it looks as though everything is wrong.
That being said, as CR as pointed out previously, you'll want to rework this so that you have buildings on both sides of your roads as well as to have your roads run along the short side of your buildings, such as the 2x tile side of the Alchemist instead of the 3x tile side.
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DeletedUser29206
so in the redesign with vertical roads on the 2x side... i get:
72 alchemist and 2 extra pieces of road for happiness -- which I think is pretty darn good based on the limited land available
I dropped 3 multistory house in return for the above. -- I don't mind -- it is less population to keep happy and I am over flowing in population
--- any expansion beyond what was is being shown can be used for alchemists exclusively, or an additional 36 alchemists, or 13 expansions without having to increase population or happiness.
keep in mind in this case the road is part of the strategy to offset the habitat -- i get almost 4000 in happiness just from roads
-- guild hopping is another piece which offsets the lack in housing for coins.
-- as it stands now I only need about one 30 member guild per day to do the gather 25k coins quest twice a day. for another four 70 member guilds I can hit it three times. based on the HMA level HQS builds I have seen so far I do not think you can hit the gather 25K quest more than this unless you have higher level
--- my current build with 25 multistory houses allows me to hit the 25k quest 4 times without guild hopping with another 125 or so m/ps guild hopping I can hit this quest 5 times.
--- my thinking being I lose about 66k in coin per day but gain an additional 22 quests a day, which is currently sitting at a meager 14 quests a day.
--- to match the current build for coins i would need to do about 735 mps a day guild hopping. its a lot of clicking
the flipside of this is it takes me longer to get to the ubq checkpoint, but I have a tremendous amount of other resources and my GBs are in much better shape too perhaps closer to level tens vs. level 5... in the mean time it gives me time to also collect SoK and other offsetting pieces, I will be needing later on. -- so better to crawl now then later --- who knows the habitat may end up being a godsend moment of instinct, for my style of play. i.e something to slow me down and actually stockpile.
DeletedUser23444
You are still wasting A LOT of land on unneeded road tiles. You don't need the road running along side of the GBs. Sell that entire road move all of the Alchs next to the GBs. And move the road on the outer edge of the city West two tiles.
- Land expansions are 4x4, which is an even number. This means our city is always an even number of tiles wide.
- Many of the GBs we construct are are 6 tiles wide, which is an even number.
- Alchemists/Clockmakers and also any house from: HMA/LMA/CA are all 2 tiles wide which are all even numbers.
- However we always must have 1 (and only 1) vertical road running North↔South in our city, to connect each horizontal neighborhood of Alchemists/Clockmakers to the other neighborhoods and to our Town Hall.
Click Here to study the city plans I posted in the guide section named: "Detailed Walk-Through of Designing an HQS City for HMA or CA"
The goal in any good city plan is to get as close to 0 extra population that is required for all of your production and to have Enthusiast Happiness coming from only useful GBs that provide happiness or efficient cultural buildings (ideally certain special ones or premium ones).
You need to change your thinking. I would rather you have a 3 x 3 Church than more roads. Roads are always the least efficient happiness-per-tile out of all things we could add to a city. Roads are the devil and a city should have the fewest number of roads tiles possible.
No, we don't design our city around the collect coins quest. We design it around the "Produce Supplies" quest and the UBQ.
Guild hopping is a waste of time and denies you access to a good guild that can provide the following benefits on a consistent basis:
- Accepting your goods trades, especially when you want to trade your FPS for goods for GBs such as: CF, Trz, Arc, Inno Tower.
- Reliable Aid clicks hitting your city. When you guild hop, how is any guild mate ever going to aid you if you are no longer in the guild when they go to AID anyone? Having 100% of your productions and your houses motivated at collection time is essential to HQS.
- Reliable access to GE so that you can score things such as:
- Premium residential buildings
- Premium cultural buildings
- Storage Kits
- Renovation kits
- Unattached units
- Diamonds.
- You also want a place to find many reliable FP Swap partners, which are usually guild mates. Also being able to take advantage of Stix-to-Brix donations to raise GBs out of the mud to level 1, and mechanisms such as "Helping Hands" or what we callin my guild "Swaps and Swoop" where we post GBS with lots of level progress and there are still reward slots that can still be secured, or even Endless FP Swaps, where you can swap FPS outside on an as-needed basis of a fixed denomination.
My advice is to find a Trade-only or GE guild that has players from as many different time periods as possible.
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DeletedUser29289
Just thought I would share my city after reading your guide. It may not be perfect but i was a few months into the game before i came across your guide. Being a new player, your guide has been extremely helpful and given me direction. Thank you, -Oxrin (USA F-World)
DeletedUser29206
so due to the habitat I can run just about pure alchemist, and simply concentrate on supply quests for now.
question will GE give out special buildings like a SoK, or are these event only?
In GE can I negotiate the first two levels or is it too costly? -- assuming I am running without military for a few weeks?
--- or just hold off on GE pending a few more land expansions?
-- had a great day yesterday with my meager questing 125 medals and 4 medium forge packs --- that was like wow... I know this is rare considering it was 7 majors out of 20 or so quests
question will GE give out special buildings like a SoK, or are these event only?
In GE can I negotiate the first two levels or is it too costly? -- assuming I am running without military for a few weeks?
--- or just hold off on GE pending a few more land expansions?
-- had a great day yesterday with my meager questing 125 medals and 4 medium forge packs --- that was like wow... I know this is rare considering it was 7 majors out of 20 or so quests
DeletedUser28021
IIRC, GE has been known to give out SoK, but rarely, and more likely as last thing from level IV (50% chance)
For some minimal experience with GE, see:
https://forum.us.forgeofempires.com...on-statistics-wanted.17772/reply"e=145890
City 5 has no Traz, but lots of unattached troops from prior GEs. It has no CF yet. It has no goods buildings, and its only combat building is a rogue hideout. It fights through level 1 and into 2, then negotiates through the end of level 3. It seems to be doing a bit better than breaking even on goods. It has fewer alchs than you, but possibly better combat bonuses.
DeletedUser29218
GE doesn't give any SoK. What sometives gives is a similar (worse) 3x2 building, which also gives one FP when motivated, and it is has a very good gold/tile ratio.