[Guide] Higher Age Units Guide v2.20

[xivarmy]

Ladies and gentlemen, ME troops in IA are possible.

View attachment 21311

[EDIT] The only question is whether we can replicate the skip. I'm not sure if we will be able to do so.

Basically, if you lose your story quests in a lower age, IMMEDIATELY don't do any quests, push the map, and you can get troops. Started with the quest "Heart of the Empire," after scouting Rio Roxo.

This related to the changing storylines with the cancelled speed-up test?

 

[UBERhelp1]

This related to the changing storylines with the cancelled speed-up test?

No, this was first started back in December. We believe they lost the story quests due to a bug, but if we can find a way to reliably lose the story quests, the way ahead is clear.

I know it used to be possible (maybe because of that bug?) to push way ahead on the map and your story quests would disappear... maybe we can do that again? So much more testing needed lol

 

[xivarmy]

No, this was first started back in December. We believe they lost the story quests due to a bug, but if we can find a way to reliably lose the story quests, the way ahead is clear.

I know it used to be possible (maybe because of that bug?) to push way ahead on the map and your story quests would disappear... maybe we can do that again? So much more testing needed lol

What era were you in when it disappeared? Where were you in the story?

I guess the ultimate test for if just pushing map will do it is to just start pushing map in bronze age without doing any story at all until you're so far forward that if it's going to skip it has to now (indy map say, where if you don't skip LMA and colonial blockers by that point, doesn't seem like you would).

 

[UBERhelp1]

What era were you in when it disappeared? Where were you in the story?

I guess the ultimate test for if just pushing map will do it is to just start pushing map in bronze age without doing any story at all until you're so far forward that if it's going to skip it has to now (indy map say, where if you don't skip LMA and colonial blockers by that point, doesn't seem like you would).

It wasn't me, it was another player. They were in IA, on the HMA map, and I'm not sure where they were in the story.

 

[UBERhelp1]

@xivarmy to clarify (from that player)

so what we know at this point is:

while I noticed the story was lost during the iron age, it was lost before the oracle quesline appeared, since I have no blueprints for it

this world has been dormant for quite a while, it was first used simply to view another player's city before being actually used as a city

Story was lost while continent map was at iron age or below, definitely not in EMA or higher

After negotating the continent map using the shortest map up to Rio roxo on TE map, and aborting 1 of the recurring quests, the story jumped to the quest 'heart of the empire' which is the first quest part 4 of the modern era storyline and so far has continued normally from there (currently being tested if it deviates or not after this point)

my current theories:

negotiating the continent map up to the end of ME would've been enough to get the story to jump already, the only question remaining is where exactly is the cutoff, I assume it will have to do with the last 2 provinces since that's roughly how the story lines up, so maybe simply scouting both of the last 2 provinces will be enough already to get the story to jump

the story loss could have been somehow through the long waiting period I had after unlocking the social bar

but maybe more likely is that a weird order of actions during early bronze age made me lose the story quests already. so far I have a few theories:

A little bit of wiki digging found me that after one of the early quests of 'train a spearfighter' where you need to train 3 spearfighters you get a side quest which is not abortable to conquer another sector of dunarsund, perhaps the un-abortable nature of this quest somehow interfered with more story quests appearing thus leaving the entire story gone

in the same boat, perhaps having this quest active and somehow blocking a spawn condition for a new story quest down the line could lead to the story being blocked from appearing

 

[xivarmy]

@xivarmy to clarify (from that player)

It might be the oracle line itself then - because when that line got added was significantly after the rest of the story from that section. And they did make a point to make sure people who would have no interest in it didn't get it "later".

Though it could also be an idiosyncracy with a world that was dormant in a weird spot before it was added or something.

 

[UBERhelp1]

It might be the oracle line itself then - because when that line got added was significantly after the rest of the story from that section. And they did make a point to make sure people who would have no interest in it didn't get it "later".

Though it could also be an idiosyncracy with a world that was dormant in a weird spot before it was added or something.

(They don't have a forum account) but the world was created at the start of 2023, so definitely after the oracle questline was added.

 

[Heliwr Llewpard]

How do you get Titan units in Jupiter Moon? I am fighting in PvP and have encountered SAJM player with Titan units?

 

[2 3 5 7]

How do you get Titan units in Jupiter Moon? I am fighting in PvP and have encountered SAJM player with Titan units?

For light units

 

[WarMachineX]

For the ME questline:

If you are strapped for techs though and would rather potentially miss out on 3 Bazooka Teams and instead go for higher age troops, make sure to negotiate Natsuishu (the second province) to remove the tech research from this age's story questline.

This did not work for me. Not only did I lose the 4 Bazooka Teams (not 3, right?), I got the research quest too. What I did was fight the first province, negotiate Natsuishu fully, and fight + negotiate the next eastern sector (Chigikawa), after which the research quest (Long Lived Man) occurred.

 

[Ben Trovato]

For the ME questline:

This did not work for me. Not only did I lose the 4 Bazooka Teams (not 3, right?), I got the research quest too. What I did was fight the first province, negotiate Natsuishu fully, and fight + negotiate the next eastern sector (Chigikawa), after which the research quest occurred.

Is that part of the guide? It doesn't sound right. There's a quest involved in taking Natsuishu, which if you fight requires you to "research a technology or build a military building of your age" and you can skip that version if you negotiate. However, as the building is "of your age" the quest is not a blocker and the research part easily avoided. The ME mandatory research quest is the Long Lived Man and I don't know of a route that avoids it, although there might be one. The good news is that although you lost four bazookas, three more are available along with other ME units.

 

[King Amir]

Not sure this is known already, but last week I have been fighting through the Industrial cMap in Colonial, and I noticed that except for the Native owned province (Okahe), no negotiation is required for the InA continent map to receive all the units available. As long as you negotiate the Natives, fight the North, and don't touch the South, you will be able to obtain all InA units mentioned in the guide.

See spoiler for my InA map and method:

Spoiler: Minimum Nego InA Map

Above is what my InA map looks like. I followed "only do what is necessary" and ended up with this.
Negotiate: Okahe
Fight: New Cragshire, Rantford, St Marque, Garrincton
Scout: Desperation
Don't touch: Las Penas, Dragon City

I compared my story quest progression to the wiki and the Higher Age Units Guide's ideal quest progression for Industrial Age (see flowchart in InA units section of HAUG v2.20), and it was identical to the quest progression if I followed the guide exactly and negotiated all the southern provinces.

What I don't currently know is the repeatability of this method. Should any of you choose to try it out, please let me know how it goes. The faster and cheaper you can get higher age units, the better.

 

[xivarmy]

Not sure this is known already, but last week I have been fighting through the Industrial cMap in Colonial, and I noticed that except for the Native owned province (Okahe), no negotiation is required for the InA continent map to receive all the units available. As long as you negotiate the Natives, fight the North, and don't touch the South, you will be able to obtain all InA units mentioned in the guide.

See spoiler for my InA map and method:

Spoiler: Minimum Nego InA Map

View attachment 21357
Above is what my InA map looks like. I followed "only do what is necessary" and ended up with this.
Negotiate: Okahe
Fight: New Cragshire, Rantford, St Marque, Garrincton
Scout: Desperation
Don't touch: Las Penas, Dragon City

I compared my story quest progression to the wiki and the Higher Age Units Guide's ideal quest progression for Industrial Age (see flowchart in InA units section of HAUG v2.20), and it was identical to the quest progression if I followed the guide exactly and negotiated all the southern provinces.

What I don't currently know is the repeatability of this method. Should any of you choose to try it out, please let me know how it goes. The faster and cheaper you can get higher age units, the better.

This has been my normal method for years through industrial. It is very repeatable. I'm not sure why the guide tells you to negotiate the southern provinces instead of ignoring them til you're through the story for the map and then you can go back and fight them if you want them.

Negotiating with the natives is only for a bit of diamonds and avoiding a couple irritating but non-problematic quests. You can fight them if you don't have the goods.

 

[King Amir]

This has been my normal method for years through industrial. It is very repeatable. I'm not sure why the guide tells you to negotiate the southern provinces instead of ignoring them til you're through the story for the map and then you can go back and fight them if you want them.

Negotiating with the natives is only for a bit of diamonds and avoiding a couple irritating but non-problematic quests. You can fight them if you don't have the goods.

The Side Quest "Guns for the Natives" requires a negotiation path. Offers 3 Riflemen as reward, which is why I still negotiated Okahe.

 

[xivarmy]

The Side Quest "Guns for the Natives" requires a negotiation path. Offers 3 Riflemen as reward, which is why I still negotiated Okahe.

Fair enough - I generally only really care about the 2 jaegers to fight the rest of the continent with

 

[King Amir]

I also looked at the ME units in IA post from earlier:
What I think the reason could be is the non-abortable side quest which requires to train 3 spearfighters. Mechanically, a side quest must be abortable, and a story quest must be unabortable. We can see something similar in "Truth or Dare" (PME), where we see a Story Quest become a Side Quest. This is probably due to the way Inno coded their game: they probably made two separate classes for the different quest types, which means that if Inno wants their side quest to be unabortable, the only way is to make it a story quest. Now, here is where the weird stuff has to happen. I don't know enough programming to figure out what would cause the game to glitch like this, but when there are two "story quests" in the quest book, one needs to disappear. If the actual story quest is completed and the three spearfighter quest is left incomplete, the game could theoretically be tricked into thinking that you have a story quest. Once you get to that point, get to Rio Roxo, and complete a quest? That could have caused the ME storyline to appear. I'm going to do my own experimenting on a new world soon. If I manage to lose the quest or if it doesn't work, I will make an update here.

 

[UBERhelp1]

This has been my normal method for years through industrial. It is very repeatable. I'm not sure why the guide tells you to negotiate the southern provinces instead of ignoring them til you're through the story for the map and then you can go back and fight them if you want them.

Negotiating with the natives is only for a bit of diamonds and avoiding a couple irritating but non-problematic quests. You can fight them if you don't have the goods.

I never knew that was the case. Afaik no one's mentioned it before.

 

[jaymoney23456]

I never knew that was the case. Afaik no one's mentioned it before.

If you go into Mexico before reaching Indy age you lose a recurring quest. Not sure why it would be different if you negotiate vs. fight also.

 

[King Amir]

Not if you go into Mexico. If you acquire Las Penas, you lose the RQ. There is no difference between fight and neg, only whether you own province or not.

 

[WarMachineX]

Is that part of the guide? It doesn't sound right. There's a quest involved in taking Natsuishu, which if you fight requires you to "research a technology or build a military building of your age" and you can skip that version if you negotiate. However, as the building is "of your age" the quest is not a blocker and the research part easily avoided. The ME mandatory research quest is the Long Lived Man and I don't know of a route that avoids it, although there might be one. The good news is that although you lost four bazookas, three more are available along with other ME units.

Yes, that is correct. I lost the 4 bazookas (the guide mentions 3) and got Long Lived Man. I thought it would be this quest that the guide mentions we can avoid, as it is not a problem to build a military building from the current age and skip the other one.

Make sure to negotiate Natsuishu (the second province) to remove the tech research from this age's story questline.

Reading this makes it seem like Long Lived Man can be skipped.

I will have to skip the TE story now and fight the FE map with PME troops as I do not have any spare research to complete that one.