Never has a more incorrect statement been typed, at least if we are talking about Colonial Age goods. HMA goods we have a more or less finite demand more. CA goods are the unrefined goods for ME goods. And ME goods are the unrefined goods for TE goods. And TE goods are the unrefined goods for AFE goods. So to produce 10 goods of any type that I just mentioned (except CA goods) we actually will consume 10 CA goods.
I left the Colonial Age with a surplus of over 16,000 CA goods stockpiled. I have consumed them all in the conventional production of either ME or TE goods.
On numerous occasions I have sold FE, CE, PME, ME, or PE goods to many different guild mates, or even players from outside my guild, so they could construct higher era GBs. In many cases, these players have sold me 2 CA goods : 1 Higher Era Good, plus some FP donations to make up the difference in value between their goods and mine. This means I have purchased 1000s and 1000s of CA goods from other players still down in CA. I have consumed nearly all of those CA goods in the conventional production of TE goods. I also have traded some of those CA goods up for Ind goods which I consumed in the conventional production of PME goods. I also tradede some of those CA goods down for LMA goods to have enough on hand to help my HMA Noob Minions trade their HMA goods up for LMA goods.
And none of this speaks to being in the middle of a GvG war that spanned multiple ages where I donated 1000s and 1000s of CA goods to my guild when I was in the Colonial Age and later (on top of the guild goods that came from my Arc or Obs).
Long story short, we never have enough goods. And working HQS is just as much about increasing our goods production as it is medals or FPs.
Personally I was talking about HMA, but I think my statement was correct anyways. Once you have
enough goods you gain
"nothing" by getting more. Enough means that you have all the goods needed for your game goals, and varies from person to person, depending on goals, guild and server. It could mean enough to finish lvl 4 GE (my case), finishing all technologies up until the next era where you want to park (many people's case) ,sustaining GvG in a given era for a long time (some people's case), single handedly feeding al trades for lower age guildies, or all of them together (your case).
The fact that CA goods are unrefined goods for ME is more or less irrrelevant imo, because you can get ME and OFE goods by HQS in these ages, and TE goods by trading (there is a lot of TE goods out there because all GB from OFE players generate them). In the end, the reason I said "" when I said "nothing, it's because of the trading value of these goods, which is quite low.
And this brings out another topic: some of your hypotheses and reasoning seem to be based on metrics that are very server dependent. I'll give some examples:
1. Arc. In my server I trade FPs with guildies and higher age friends, I'm not gated to do so with other HMA players. Outside high lvl arca groups (that invest time into maximising their swap efficiency) and people who always levels GB on their own (because of the minimal efford law) there is a large group of people and they mostly do FP chains. So, building the arc in HMA is a decent choice for people like me.
2. Same thing happens with dynamic tower. I have more than 30 friends and more than 10 guildies who are in OFE. If I were to have a DT, I would aid them, not my HMA neighbours.
3. In general, the value you asign to goods is very different to that of my server. You seem to value a lot CA goods, which are practically worthless here.
Obviously, that doesn't mean that goods are useless because they can always be traded, even at low value. But I share the idea of humperdink7 post: highly efficient FP buildings are better than supply buildings for questing. I don't know why you are so adamant about making any changes and try to improve the guide.
It's been mentioned a few times in this thread not to build too many (or more than 1) Sacred SkyWatches when in HMA/CA. The reasoning is that the supply buildings they would replace are worth more because of their ability to do the recurring quest. I'd like to throw out some numbers from my city that (at least for me) makes the SSWs worth it.
For a full comparison:
Clockmaker SSW
3.75 goods 1.875 goods
6,375 coins 53,000 coins (rounded)
11,250 supplies 3,625 supplies
0.3 FP 2.15 FP
0.08 BP 0.04 BP
11.25 medals 5.625 medals
For me I'd rather have the SSW column. You're basically trading just under 2FP and 40k coins for just under 2 goods, 5.6 medals and 7k supplies. I don't count the BP since all the BPs I'm getting via quest are useless to me.
@humperdink7
Since you are in colonial (or any other colonial player for that regard). Do you mind posting the exact amount of coins and supplies you are asked to gather in the collect coins, collect supplies, pay coins + supplies. And the amount of coins, supplies and medals you get when scoring small and large packages of those? Basically, what I asked here
https://forum.us.forgeofempires.com...urrent-quests-and-their-rewards-by-age.17901/
