[Guide] Get your first two great buildings in less than a month

[Emberguard]

Too bad. I was looking forward to see how well it worked, if it was sustainable and can be done by new players.

If it's reliant on Siege Camps to keep goods cost down I'm wondering if it's also relying on obtaining goods from GBG rewards and how much that'd offset goods costs. 'Cause I can easily go through thousands of goods within a GBG season but I'm not looking to only participating when there's 4-5 Siege Camps set up. Vast majority won't be able to get into a Diamond guild because the vast majority of guilds aren't in Diamond league. And some diamond guilds aren't accepting players in low era's due to the cost incurred neither would they be impressed by a player only ever jumping into no attrition provinces. So it would be limited to a specific type of player and guild if it's reliant on Siege Camps. If it can be pulled off in any league without camps then it'd be far more accessible to a new player

 

[DevaCat]

PRJ did respond to that, but the response is gone. I doubt it got moderated. As I remember, it basically said, no, not gonna write it up because I've already spread so much wisdom with my many posts here, that taking the time to write it up would be beneath my dignity. Or something along those lines.

PRJ's response gave me a new appreciation for what Glarg (and Cosmic Raven too) did for this game. They were able to communicate their insight, their strategy, in a way that newer players could follow. PRJ has mostly failed at doing that. I think I mostly get his strategy. I dislike some of it (snipe your guild mates. Get a job at McD's to buy diamonds, etc.) The trade down bit is certainly viable, but not something a newbie can just jump in and do.

Are there better ways to play the game today than when Glarg and CR wrote their guides? Yeah.
Has anyone taken the time to write up a guide for new players that is less outdated than Glarg or CR? We certainly have well written guides on more advanced topics (@UBERhelp1 comes to mind). And who can forget the epic work put forward by @WinnerGR).
But no, I don't know of any better guides. Maybe PRJ will take up the challenge? lol.

Lol. I haven't checked his stats recently, but I did when he first began casting his "pearls." The primary city showed an interesting pattern of brief stays in several guilds until settling (at that time) in one. Looked a lot like Winner's method -- join a guild, get help with cheap goods, prints, gb levels, then move on the the next rinse and repeat until you reach one doing GE and GBG at the level desired. Fits with his other "strategies."

His post above regards a startup city bankrolled by resources from an established primary city, or by diamond purchases. Nothing wrong with that aside from the insulting tone, but basically off topic.

Glarg wrote a guide aimed at new players starting new (first) cities, to help them get prints and get at least a couple of GBs planted in a month or less, without spending diamonds iirc. It still works, so well in fact that players who have cluelessly rushed to HMA or beyond turn to this Guide after deciding their one-gb city can't be redeemed. And it's readable, no bicycles or checkers anywhere.

To me, the gold in the guide lies in the added commentary which helps players set up solid well-balanced early-game cities. Cities that will enable them to later focus on military or negotiating or some blend of both. What PRJ suggests does not do that. It is a mono focus which skips a large part of the game. His aversion to fighting GBs has been expressed, repeatedly -- he thinks that Alcatraz is bugged and needs to be fixed, remember?

 

[UBERhelp1]

Are there better ways to play the game today than when Glarg and CR wrote their guides? Yeah.
Has anyone taken the time to write up a guide for new players that is less outdated than Glarg or CR? We certainly have well written guides on more advanced topics (@UBERhelp1 comes to mind). And who can forget the epic work put forward by @WinnerGR).
But no, I don't know of any better guides. Maybe PRJ will take up the challenge? lol.

I have considered it. The problem comes in just restating a lot of what is already there, and as @DevaCat said, a lot of the commentary is what is so helpful. It's basically 20 pages on how to start off right. But as you said, a lot has changed. HQS isn't as powerful as it once was (debatably), now with event buildings being so powerful those become the primary focus for earlier cities, etc.

In all honesty, I think that the best guide for the game is playing a city without any knowledge about anything. You get somewhere between IA-HMA realizing you did everything wrong (or at least, that's how it went for me, I ended up in a really good guild early on). Then, using that knowledge and the skills you learned from that failure you start a new city doing things right.

The problem with telling someone how to 'start' the game correctly is that by the time they are seeing the info, they are already past it and would have to tear down their city, rebuild, and reassess their playstyle if they wanted to continue playing on the same city. I've tried to help some players, but they don't want to have to recreate a new city to get it to where they are, and so never really fix their mistakes.

Furthermore, with powerful GB being gotten early-game, you don't really have to 'play the game' anymore. You no longer have to care about resources, population, happiness, etc. past maybe IA or EMA, since you have high-age GB providing that for you. If you don't learn how to manage your city without GB, and then start heaping on GB, GE, GBG, settlements, events, and more on top of that, it is pretty overwhelming. Then, once those players reach a point where they do have to start managing resources, they struggle.

And I'm writing a lot more then I meant to when I clicked reply, so sorry for the long post


Oh, and just as a side note, should we still call it Glarging? Because if a player searches for that, nothing will come up since they deleted all the users. Maybe we should start saying "Oh yeah, make sure to follow the DeletedUser10415-ing method of starting the game..."

 

[Emberguard]

You get somewhere between IA-HMA realizing you did everything wrong (or at least, that's how it went for me, I ended up in a really good guild early on). Then, using that knowledge and the skills you learned from that failure you start a new city doing things right

Or keep playing from where you are. Mistakes can be fixed easily enough that early on

 

[Emberguard]

Oh, and just as a side note, should we still call it Glarging? Because if a player searches for that, nothing will come up since they deleted all the users. Maybe we should start saying "Oh yeah, make sure to follow the DeletedUser10415-ing method of starting the game..."

Hmm. Maybe the title should be changed to have “Glarging method” somewhere?

 

[WinnerGR]

@Vger I have not actually wrote any beginner guides and I don't intend to either; those days are behind me - now I just want to be a normal player.

 

[Agent327]

@Vger I have not actually wrote any beginner guides

https://forum.us.forgeofempires.com/index.php?threads/removed.34416/

https://forum.us.forgeofempires.com/index.php?threads/hands-off-diamond-farm-ge-64-weekly.24010/

https://forum.us.forgeofempires.com...aft-guide-to-the-antiques-dealer-draft.31845/

https://forum.us.forgeofempires.com/index.php?threads/coming-soon-more-or-less.31672/

 

[WinnerGR]

https://forum.us.forgeofempires.com/index.php?threads/removed.34416/

https://forum.us.forgeofempires.com/index.php?threads/hands-off-diamond-farm-ge-64-weekly.24010/

https://forum.us.forgeofempires.com...aft-guide-to-the-antiques-dealer-draft.31845/

https://forum.us.forgeofempires.com/index.php?threads/coming-soon-more-or-less.31672/

Firstly the second link is not anything to do with me and secondly I said that I hadn't written any beginner guides , not that I hadn't ever written any FoE guide.

 

[Agent327]

Firstly the second link is not anything to do with me and secondly I said that I hadn't written any beginner guides , not that I hadn't ever written any FoE guide.

So you write "guides", about beginner questions, the AD and how to battle, for established players?

Makes sense.

 

[WinnerGR]

So you write "guides", about beginner questions, the AD and how to battle, for established players?

You have a fair point.

 

[Plain Red Justice]

I am curious though with the strategy of ignoring fighting GBs at the start, the point of going for fighting GBs is (a) be better equipped to complete events (b) reduce goods expenditure so you only have to trade down once and when your traded down goods run out you're self sufficient.

What's your primary source of goods if you're relying either solely or primarily on negotiations? How much of GE are you negotiating as prior to the increase in difficulty I found that chewed up about 1k goods per week when negotiating

Point is:

1. It works
2. It's several times faster than fighting
3. Makes you a major player of your guild faster than being hardstuck because investing 5.5k FPs in 3 (three) fighting GBs to level 10 in order to become mediocre is.... surprise surprise! plain old garb

Here's some visual aids to demonstrate a few of what I did during these 11 days:

1. bought an Arc and Himeji via FP. leveled Arc to 6 too lazy to tryhard for Himeji prints
2. got GBG rank 2 and can stand toe to toe among 3 SAAB players that has been playing for years.
3. didn't post a pic of my swap thread wins bec. too lazy but all in all my invested FPs are almost all returning to my pocket

 

[Emberguard]

So how old's that city you're posting screenshots from? How much did the change in the tech tree slow down the initial entry? By "major player" is that with or without siege camps supporting all that? How long are those goods going to last you? What's your intended main goods income?

 

[Plain Red Justice]

So how old's that city you're posting screenshots from? How much did the change in the tech tree slow down the initial entry? By "major player" is that with or without siege camps supporting all that? How long are those goods going to last you? What's your intended main goods income?

You ask too many pointless questions just await at my end of season/next season stats. I started from literal scratch pre GBG season and I'm also rushing that Halloween quest to at least 40 so tbh I was too preoccupied to pad out my goods. Oh, just in case you'd reason out "D-diamoooonds!" im pretty sure you can look it up with ur privileges

Hopefully at the end of these hard evidences, people would finally realize how unfathomably stupid it is to rush attack buildings to 10 when you're new and actually learn the importance of rushing an Arc.

 

[Emberguard]

pretty sure you can look it up with ur privileges

No I can’t.

You ask too many pointless questions

I’m asking questions to get a picture on how it applies to a new city. If you’re relying solely on siege camps to get anywhere then it changes things from if it can be done without siege camps and who it applies to

I started from literal scratch pre GBG season and I'm also rushing that Halloween quest to at least 40 so tbh I was too preoccupied to pad out my goods.

So the event provided the main source of goods so far

 

[Plain Red Justice]

If you’re relying solely on siege camps to get anywhere then it changes things from if it can be done without siege camps and who it applies to

Remember what I've told you long ago about the 2-3 weeks preparation when starting to do this strat? That is when you're inside a guild that makes abslutely 0 siege camps. I've just pulled off a flashier, more efficient and faster version of that since this time 3-4 siege camps are essential. I doubt literally anyone in this thread (not even myself) can pull off 1k advances a few days into GBG in a few days old city via fighting without Diamonds because I've been saying this long ago any player is not supposed to do fights during early game or invest in anything related to it via FP because if they do, they can barely do anything with it

 

[Emberguard]

any player is not supposed to do fights during early game or invest in anything related to it via FP because if they do, they can barely do anything with it

Early game is the best time for a player to be learning how to fight. You don’t need all three attack GBs straight away, but the Zeus does give a new player use during events and GE. It’s also far more likely a player will be able to build a Zeus before they’ll get access to a Arc

I doubt literally anyone in this thread (not even myself) can pull off 1k advances a few days into GBG in a few days old city via fighting without Diamonds

you said “what you’ve been doing in the last 11 days” which is quite a bit longer than “a few days old city“. Your screenshot is also still a chunk off of 1k advances even taking into account the doubling for negotiations

So not even your negotiations meet that statement. It’s closer to a couple weeks for 900 advances. Though 900 really isn't an accurate number either. Because it doesn't matter how many advances you did, the relevant number is how many encounters in GBG you completed as the amount you completed will determine how many FPs, troops and goods you get back out of it. You're not going to get a reward twice for one encounter. So it's really only 447 as what's a relevant measure

 

[Plain Red Justice]

So not even your negotiations meet that statement. It’s closer to a couple weeks for 900 advances.

I made it closer to 1k just now just because you're literally nitpicking irrelevant details xdd

Can you do this via fighting? No, right? Yeah me too. And what gives more FP, this amount of fighting or this much negs?

 

[Emberguard]

It's not irrelevant. If you're going to make a claim and then blow it out of proportion to the claim being made then no one will be able to match the claim you're making even if they match your results

And what gives more FP, this amount of fighting or this much negs?

I'd have to do 476 fights and 476 negotiations multiple times to compare

 

[Emberguard]

Though if someone were to looking to start negotiating the Winter Event is the perfect time to set up a city for it due to the Sleigh Builders usually being in the Daily Specials

 

[Plain Red Justice]

I'd have to do 476 fights and 476 negotiations multiple times to compare

Oh no you don't have to. It's a fact that negs provides a higher success rate for rewards compared to fights.