Is it practical to be a trader/negotiator AND a fighter?

[DeletedUser39762]

When I entered the EMA, I got rid of most of my military after unlocking the first few provinces. The sector defenders were harder than the military I had at the time and I was irritated by how slowly troops regenerate. I decided to sell all military buildings and double down on goods production.

Last week I did the first two levels of GE by negotiating as much as possible. I also negotiated almost all of the remaining sectors/provinces. I quickly found my goods almost completely depleted. I've been working on replenishing as quickly as possible and more than half my current city is goods buildings from BA, IA, and EMA. My stock is growing again, but harvesting every 8 hrs is a bit boring.

I'm wondering if it's possible to be a trader/negotiator AND a fighter in FoE? Is it practical, or will splitting just slow me down? I feel like I'm missing out on a vital aspect of the game by not fighting, but I don't want to have to choose one or the other, and I don't want to slow my gameplay pace as I'm enjoying where that's at right now.

 

[DeletedUser29726]

In general it's actually optimum

Fighting is generally cheaper (in coins, supplies, and city space) when you're setup for it. Goods generally take less setup (GBs) to produce enough. You can for instance do difficulty 4 of GE by negotiation your very first week after you start - but it might take you some months before you could think about fighting it. And it'll help you along to that goal not to have spent goods on negotiating provinces when you can fight them. There's also places in story where being nice to one leader (by only negotiating) will give you benefits later in the story - and places where you may prefer the line that comes from fighting.

 

[Mustapha00]

I'd say that it is viable, absolutely.

One impediment, in times past, to being a hybrid Trader/Fighter was that it was difficult for a city to provide enough population for the several Goods buildings you'd need to produce in order to always have enough Goods for the negotiations. Since Inno has determined that every single Event building reward has to offer Population, this is no longer the case.

 

[Algona]

Agreed with both preceding posters, you can and should consider doing both.

Since Inno has determined that every single Event building reward has to offer Population,

I hadn't really thought about that. Great point. Do you see any implications? Any reason you thinkINNO is doing so?

 

[DeletedUser29726]

They were doing it with happiness for a while instead of population - to the extent that happiness had become largely irrelevant in most active cities because of amazing event buildings. Population is a bit more divided - some people need tons of it and even with all the population base event buildings still have housing to get more barracks up for instance. Some people consider it a downside that makes them work in more happiness (and allows things like the Carousel coming in this event to potentially be appealing). For this reason I consider population a more interesting effect to have on the event bases personally

 

[DeletedUser27889]

Yes it certainly was something you had to choose between in times past but it is no longer. I don't think it's so much the extra population but rather the large GBs making it all possible. You can now use a high level Chat to get all the goods you want for negotiating/trading/selling and use a large Traz for loads and loads of troops to fight. Not to mention a high AO and attack/defense boost so you lose much less.

I tend to negotiate through 3-4 just so I can save troops for GvG. If I was wiling to part with some of my FP farm to put down any barracks thats not rogues and champs I'd have much more troops to go around but currently pairing all the rogues with either the champs or the UA from expeditions works for some part time GvG playing.