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Player Draqone's Journal

Draqone

Corporal
Hello and welcome to my journal!

The response thread can be found >>>>> HERE <<<<<< .

I promised a few of my guild mates that I will post my progress, explaining some of the steps and my game philosophy. My philosophy is mainly about a focus on combat and efficiency. So, not only will this journal be well... a journal, it will also be a guide. Kind of like the book "Heart of Darkness" was not only a journal but also a social commentary. Except I doubt I'll win any literature prizes. Oh well, we will see. Maybe some of the people who are able to nominate for Literature Noble Prizes play FoE.

For those that don't know me, I am a member of the KSA guild on Korch, and I came back to FoE 3 months ago, having played it previously in late alpha in 2012. I am currently in HMA, planning to move to LMA tomorrow and probably colonial in the next few weeks.

My city.png

I am happy with how it looks for now. The FP production is decent. I am fine on population despite not having an Innovation tower thanks to the Event buildings which are more space efficient anyway. My goods production allows me to complete some negotiations in GE and GBG. I have also maxed the chairs my Tavern, which means I can easily activate either the negotiation or attack boost, again, to progress the GE and GBG. Right now, I can fight GE lvl 4 with same-age troops and can push 20-30 attrition on the GBG everyday, with sustainable losses. Fighting the GE allowed me to build 3 lvl 2 Terrace Farms which provide me 36 FPs a day - TFs are not great, but good enough for the stage I am in.

My Himeji Castle provides me with 200k supplies a day and my Event Building provide me with 180k gold a day, which is pretty balanced and more than enough for early ages. Not having to run houses or early age supply buildings is very efficient. I have 4 million of each saved up already, when I move up an age I can use them to place new buildings. Not only that, I can use them to complete repeatable "Unbirthday" quests (UBQs) which through random rewards will give me an instant access to new age goods.

My combat bonuses for Attacking Army right now are 140 A and 100 D but they'll go up whenever I have a chance to upgrade them!

Map progress.png

As you can see, I pushed into the colonial map and conquered all by one of the LMA bonus provinces. I am leaving the last province for roleplaying reasons and because 8 cannons are annoying as hell.

I am waiting a few hours for the GBG to start and then I'll move to LMA, which will grant me the Side quest. The side quest, which concentrates on conquering the bonus provinces will give me access to a few Colonial troops which combined with my Rogues should make this weeks GBG and GE a breeze. GBG and GE will be HMA, since they start before i move to LMA. Later, when I move to Colonial I will progress into the Industrial and PE maps, giving me Progressive Era tanks to fight (or rather smash) colonial.

I will still use my HMA troops in the GE and a few GBG fights, just to show which army compositions I use, but this I'll save for tomorrow, I need to keep my readers committed somehow!

GBs.png

Last but now least, those are my GBs. I am happy with them.

I will level what I can until I run out of blueprints and then I'll level my Arc to level 80. The only other space efficient building I could put in would be the Space Carrier for it's negotiation bonus which is very strong even at early levels but I am not going for it since I don't always negotiate every day and anyway, it wouldn't look good in my HMA city.

There is no point in building coin or supply boosting buildings for the reason I outlined above when talking about my city. There is also no point in building Great Buildings that produce goods. In early ages Goods buildings are small and the goods don't cost much, which means it's much more space efficient to have 10 goods buildings and trade whenever needed. Which is exactly what I am doing. Later on, my CF + Arc quest combo will provide me with goods anyway, so I never really plan to have any Goods buildings. I'd need to level GBs like the Lighthouse to level 30 for them to be as efficient as a Goods production building which is simply not an option due to my limited FPs.

That's it for today; keep tuned for my GE and LMA progress tomorrow!
 
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Draqone

Corporal
This post only appears small, but grows to amazing sizes once you push the spoiler button, so be warned!

A bit late today but I was busy, both in game and out.

I made some nice progress in GE. In my experience any GE fight in LMA or below is doable as long as you have 50% higher attack army bonuses than the enemy. So, if you enemy is at +100/100, you should be at minimum +150ish. Below are the more interesting fights, LARGE IMAGE warning!

FIGHT 1
Starting off easy, I sent in Heavy units against 2 waves of lights. Heavy counters light, outsworded and outnumbered, the enemies stood no chance.
Fight1.png


The next fights were more tricky!

FIGHT 2


In this fight I relied on sheer firepower. I can kill the archers since I outrange them. Then I deal with the spearmen as they approach. Last, I onehit the rogues when no units are left. The second wave was dealt with similarly. The enemy cavalry had no bonuses so with my 170% Attack strength I could two-hit them.
army2.png

army21.png


FIGHT 3

I cheated a bit and used higher age units here but regular heavies would work just as well. As you can see, I also started using rogues - they are invaluable in GE but a combination of Alcatraz and 3 rogue hideouts provides me with all the rogues I need.

I just waited and let the enemy advance on my positions. Rogues dealt with everything, easy fight even on autobattle. Rogues combines with heavy units give the heavy unit mobility and even more tankiness which makes it a great combination!
army3.png

army31.png


FIGHT 4

Now the fights got tricky... as you can see the enemy unit composition had all kinds of units which made picking a counter very hard. If I had some more attack bonuses I could goo for 8 artillery or 5 arty + 4 rogues but my bonuses are not that great so I decided to risk losing a rogue or two. In this fight we need to advance because of the enemy arty, we can't just wait....
army4.png

army41.png


FIGHT 5

Going for raw firepower again! I prioritise the cavalry, hoping the crossbowmen take 2 turns to get in range to shoot us. Not ideal for the first fight, I hope for some good luck when killing the cavalry to kill them in 2-3 hits, but the only good way to counter 4 arty + 4 heavy in the second wave is 8 artillery or 4 arty + 4 rogues. In the second wave, I hit the enemy artillery, making sure to kill those that fire first before they have a chance to shoot. The low range on LMA cannons makes them a huge pain to use, I can't wait to get colonial cannons that are so much better! Once the enemy arty is dealt with, the slow moving heavies are easy pickings. I also failed cropping the picture, but oh well, no one is perfect.
army51.png

army52.png


FIGHT 6

An incredibly easy battle in the next stage since all enemies but one are melee. I just autobattled it, no losses. My bonues were +160/+110, enemy was +70/70 or so but as you can see I "cheat" using higher age troops again. In my army, 1 heavy + 7 rogues again, just like previously.
army61.png

army62.png


FIGHT 7

Now I am nearing the end of Ge4! My favourite type of battle: the enemy has 4 arty + 4 heavy. If I play it right and the terrain is good, i can take no losses. I use Trebs over cannons because cannons range makes it hard to hit the enemy artillery. Did I mention LMA arty sucks? Well, in case I didn't, LMA arty sucks.

I can kill 2 enemy trebs before they shoot, and I do so. I have 2 rogues, 6 trebs, enemy heavies are advancing! Thankfully, the terrain has a lot of hills and rocks to slow them down. Remember, as the attacker in GE you can always retreat and come back to fight if the terrain is not to your liking. Anyway, in the next turns, my 4 trebs kil the remaining enemy arty. 2 trebs weaken weaken 2 heavies, making them easy pickings for rogues that should deal 8-9 damage to a heavy unit at this stage of a game. Rogues kill the 2 weakened heaves easy, but the fight doesn't end. The 2 remaining heavy units target my rogues, but all it does is change them into trebuchets! Why does my spellchecker not recognise the word "trebuchet" ?!?!? 8 trebs vs 2 heavies? I like those odds.

In the second wave prioritise the enemy arty. Afterwards I target the cavalry, too weaken it. As he advances and hits one rogue the other rogues deals with it. I am left with 5 trebs + 3 rogues vs 5 heavies, an easy fight.

army71.png

army72.png


FIGHT 8 - THE FINAL SHOWDOWN

The last fight in GE4! It looks not only familiar, but doubly so actually, giving me a sense of, what do the french call it? dajawee? Something like that. I deal with it like I dealt with wave 1 of the previous fight, just the enemy bonuses are higher. I activate a boost in my tavern for this fight since the enemy heavies are quite beefy. Thankfully I have maxed my tavern last week, so I have a lot of spare coin, those boosts come in really handy for both fights and negotiations! With a boost the fight is easy, Ge4 done for the week!
army81.png

army82.png


Ending notes:
Not seen above, a combination of 1 champion and 7 rogues is amazing at countering a mix of enemy cav with arty or archer support. Thanks to rogues we always get the first hit against cav and then our rogues turned horsemen deal with archers and artillery easily. This combination is very common in GBG, but I did not encounter it this week in GE. If you don't have a champion it can be easily replaced with a regular cav unit, that also works! The only problem is that on autobattle this combination suicides the single horseman at the very start, leaving rogues vulnerable. A way around it is to manually start the battle, skip a turn on the horseman, making him stay behind, and then autobattle from there on.

Light units and archers aren't too useful in this era in my opinion, if I have them I use them as throwaways in earlier fights to save health on rogues.

I have only been playing for 3 months but I already managed to get some good rewards from the GE. I have a few deocrations (lvl 2 face of the Ancient and gate of the Sun god) that help my attacking armies and MOST IMPORTANTLY I got really lucky and completed 3 lvl 2 terrace farms. Each one of those gives me 12 FP a day, which in my lowly ages is an amazing boost to my daily income.

Next instalment will talk about my quest progress, discovering the new continent of northern America and making new friends there.

Stay tuned!
 
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Draqone

Corporal
So, I did make it to the New World.

I made some good friends in the south, traded a little with the Natives and attacked the rich lands in the North to burn down their riches and plunder their houses.

I am slowly preparing to move my techs into Colonial, all I need it my Himeji Castle and Alcatraz to level 10.

As a small side project I erected the Galata Tower and domesticated a Kraken. The first is just for the looks, the other helps me get through harder GE fights with no losses but is generally useless. Well, not useless, I feed him all the dissenters that arrive from my newly conquered provinces, it saves on prison rations.

Not a huge achievement but I did get 3rd place in GBG the last season, with a staggering 700ish fights/negotiations.
 

Draqone

Corporal
I feel like I owe those following an update.

Not much to say honestly, I am just working on my GBs.

My plan for the Spring event is to get a set of the cherry garden, I dont care much for the main event building but I might build it if I get a fully set (unlikely).

My GB levels are as follows:

Gbs.png

As you can see I like those level 10s for maximum FP efficiency, though I do feel like levelling the Kraken so high was a mistake. I won't cry for a few Fps though. Once my Alcatraz is level 10 I will start working on my arc. Meanwhile I have been gathering blueprints, so far have enough to level it to lvl 35.
 

Draqone

Corporal
Have you guys ever seen such a perfect viking settlement?

wowkings.png
We have a cultural zone, an industrial zone and a residential zone. It's not some filthy dark age Vikings, it's amazingly modern WOWKings! Well, ok... still lacks plumbing and hot water taps as far as I am aware but i'll dare say baby steps are better than none.
 

Draqone

Corporal
Two large milestones.

Not only did I advance to Colonial, I also changed guilds! Since my old guild was not very actuve I decided to join NRV. So far, so good.

In Colonial, my plan is to get a whole load of Industrial Units as well as 2 Progressive Era Tanks. A guide on how to do it should be coming tomorrow, so stay tuned! Using tanks to shoot knights will be charming!
 

Draqone

Corporal
As I am progressing through the Industrial Map I decided to incorporate a small guide into my Journal.

This is going to be Part 1 of my guide: "How to get 2 Progressive Era Tanks while in Colonial Age"

It's important to not research Colonial Age technologies before a quest requires it or we might run out of them. I'll talk about the technologies later and lay it all out step by step, but first lets have a look at the map!

We need to complete the Colonial provinces and use the ship that appears to reach the Industrial Map.

The Industrial Map looks like this:

InAMap.png

Now, as you see I have marked the sectors on this map. Following the steps is very important, it allows us to reach the Progressive Era map and maximises the Industrial Age troops we get from quests. Those will come very handy later on.

N sectors you MUST negotiate
A sectors you should attack at least once at the start to make the owner, Cartwright, an enemy. Also, do not scout or fight in the final "A" province before you get the quests "Scout out!" and " Garrincton Blues". It might or might not break the story line, so lets not risk it.
AVOID! is a province you should not conquer until you reach Industrial age. It'll start a bonus quest that will block one of your recurring quests!

I am 99% sure you can conquer the northern "Canada" sectors above the ones portrayed, those unlock an extra expansion, but as I haven't done it yet myself, I don't want to mislead you. The southern "Mexico" sectors don't have anything of interest and are a waste of time in Colonial Age.

Now that I explained the map, lets look at the key quests. I'll only list the quests that ask us to make a choice or force us to research a technology. As mentioned before, we can not research ahead if we are to succeed!

Colonial Quests:
1 Varseilles' Beauty
- This is the first quest that requires a Colonial Age technology. Get to this quest before you begin your journey. You need 2 Colonial Age decorations so lets research "Maritime Shipping" and build them.
2 Betrayal! - This requires we research "Colonies" to build roads. Easy enough. We research Muskets so lets temporarily build 2 or even 3 Musketeer Barracks. They'll be useful in later quests!
3 The Savior - We need to research "Arcade Houses" and build 3 of them.
4 Mandrubar's and Fernikus' support - This quest asks us to research any technology. It's important to NOT research a Military technology but all others are fair game.
5 Reclaim the Throne - requires we have a few Colonial troops. Recruit musketeers. It's also possible to get them from Guild Expedition or Guild Battlegrounds. Again, do NOT research military techs.

After that it's easy cruising. We complete the Colonial quests, take the boat and arrive in America. We negotiate with the natives in the first area and we reach the next quests:

Industrial Quests:
1 North or South
- Once we get this quest we choose to FIGHT in New Cragshire.
2 New Challenges, New Dangers - If you negotiated with the natives, this quest asks us to research a military technology. We finally can research "Exploration" and get Rangers.
3 New Lands, New Dangers - For this quest we need to research 2 technologies! "Plantations" and "Country Houses" are an obvious choice.
4 Caught Off Guard - Forces us to recruit units. Lets use the Musketeer barracks we built earlier and recruit at least 8 Musketeers. You'll send them on a mission in a later quest.
5 Towards Garrincton! - We need to research yet another military technology. Lets get "Rapid Response". Do not fight or negotiate in Garrincton before
6 Garrincton Blues - Now we can finally fight in Garrincton!

Once we conquer Garrincton, we are ready to move into the Progressive Era map! This part, as well as the final Colonial Age technologies, will be covered in Part 2 of this guide!
 
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Draqone

Corporal
After many weeks (since I was busy) we finally arrived to the Progressive Era map:

c1.png

We arrive in Havre. That's an area that corresponds to modern day Belgium so just from that it's obvious we want to Attack them and steal their waffles.

After this we need to make a hard choice. We want to get either 2 Snipers (not really good), 2 Tanks (which are Heavy units good against everything except artillery) or 2 Conscripts (who are good against everything except ranged archers like Archers). I chose tanks as proof of concept but Conscripts are probably marginally better.

The choice is made when we reach the quest:

Let the Wars Begin

The quest asks us to acquire one sector. To get conscripts, we need to always negotiate when a quests asks us to acquire a sector. To get tanks start to NEGOTIATE! sector of Kriegreich (red, marked N on the map). To get Snipers start to NEGOTIATE! a sector of either Uxrow, Omoien which correspond to England and France.

The next important quest is Peacebringer. It asks us to acquire 4 more sectors. Again, we don't want to attack anyone yet. We want to NEGOTIATE! 4 more sectors of the same area.

Negotiating 4 sectors brings us to a quest called 08/15 . We need to research a tech that is not a military tech or an expansion. I chose Porcelain but there are other choices. Anything is fine is fine as long as we have a colonial tech that unlocks a decoration left on the research tree.

08/15 is followed by a quest with a promising name Blood in the Trenches. We need to get two more sectors. If we continue to negotiate, we get Conscripts. To get Tanks or snipers we ATTACK! whoever is the enemy of those we negotiated with. If we negotiated Kreig, we fight Uxrow or Omoien, and if we negotiated Uxrow or Omoien we attack Krieg!

Once the choice is made we are presented with a quest called "Gratitude". This quest gives us our reward. After that there are no interesting quests. Trench Fever is possible if you have 3 open technologies but the rewards aren't really worth it.

That's the end of this part of my journal, I will describe my journey to a (soon-to-be) level 80 Arc next.
 

Draqone

Corporal
Not much has been happening in my city, I am growing my FP stash, leveling some GBs and grinding the final level of the viking settlement BUT

I did just win 500 diamonds in the Forum Contest organised by our CMs! Feels pretty great!
 

Draqone

Corporal
I just passed 10 million points! I also advanced to the Progressive Era, it's looking good.

PE is such a wonderful time, The World Wars and some OP artillery units going boom boom, putting people to sleep. I switched my army composition to 6x Rapid Fire Cannon and 2 rogues, works great.
 
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