Another tip is to buy a second hero before you have two cities. What happens very often is your hero goes one way and then your scout finds a good spot to settle another way, but you’ll lose too much momentum clearing camps if you backtrack with your ruler. So sometimes it’s necessary to send out a solo hero and take a hit to your economy to settle as proactively as possible.
Yes! 30g per turn is relatively easy to overcome early game, and having two heroes to place cities to forward settle good areas in between your cap city and the AI. That 30g cost disappears as soon as you build your second city, so it doesn't last long, and gives you such a powerful advantage.
I'm almost always above my hero cap. They aren't just increadible strong units they can provide you with early +3 affinity or other strong effects and you can swap them instantly to get always the city bonus you want.
Going over city and hero cap is something everyone should actively be doing, theres not a huge downside, especially if your cities are big producers. the cost can be negligible (wish I new exactly what it was though)
@@z-rossi3672 the city cap has a massive downturn. It is a minus 25% on everthing per city. So i wouldn't recomend it. Even the fifth city will give you just 20% more cities. But the hero cap is just an incresing cost for new heros and a flat 30 gold per hero. So if you take the +20 gold per city culture your 3 cities will allow you to have 5 heroes. Making pure hero armies a thing.
@@johnhobbes2268 The thing is big cities have such massive incomes that they can bring enough profit to offset the losses. It depends on what youre doing in the match though sometimes its best to just raze them to the ground
@@evanragland4930 and outposts can do their special ability to heal and give movement. You do want the first materium upgrade if you do this though or youll be bleeding money. Scout outposts cost twice as much
Use your barb scouts to make outposts then upgrade to workcamps to steal special materials and wonders in the next province. Saves you from making a whole city for this. Especially useful if there is a node and special material side by side provinces
If you want to (for example) rush a Granary, even though it's not boosted yet, you can still queue it up. Then when you unlock a forester, the boosted effect will be applied retroactively, reducing the turns required to build.
@@endisbegun27 Not if the structure is already built. Queueing unboosted structures that take so few turns to build isn't necessary. It just ties up gold you'd otherwise have access to. This is especially true for higher tier structures. You should only ever queue structures if you know exactly what you want to build next and don't want to potentially waste Production if a structure completes and didn't need the full amount of Production you supplied that round (ie. a structure needs 60 Production to build and you generate 70, so you queue another structure so the 10 remaining carries over onto the next item in queue). Generally, queueing is only useful if you want to leave a city off your notifications for a while and can spare the resources.
My pro tip, spend imperium and get your main cities pop up, and keep building farms and foresters the first few turns. This way you get the bonus for all the early buildings, then get mines. Sheep is always your first focus since early on you want to grow fast, you can swap off growth for free later on so its the best start. Also turn 1 always get a scout and fight as much as you can to rank up your units and hero
@@DyllinWithIt so 3 in total? I mean I can see situations where youd want that many, especially as barbarian or industrial on a mountain map but generally I think I rather start spending my time on army after 2 so you can fast track silver wonders. Personally I like getting more ranger units as fast as possible to start snowballing
@BftBG777 Haha ya my game plan tends to lag (on paper but not in reality) in mid game and then skyrocket. In reality Im farming 3 heroes up to get action spur and all of the units to be legend so I can sweep. unit enhancements just go such a long way Ill go on the record and say a buffed up zephyr archer is better than most units in the game, theyve hit a unit for over a hundred for me end game, literally one shot a hero, was chef's kiss
Arguably the single most important tip you should follow when creating a custom faction, is choosing the best traits to take the most advantage you can get from the environment of the Realm itself. For example, if the Realm you're playing in is dominated by ice, snow and tundra, It's generally going to be a good idea to give your new faction, the Arctic Adaptation Mind Trait, which allows you to build farms on snow covered provinces, without suffering reduced food income, like you would if you were to build huts on those snow covered provinces. Another example, would be if you're playing on a Realm of islands, in which case, the Experienced Seafarers Society Trait, would be beneficial to your new faction in the long run, as it not only grants you the Basic Seafaring Empire Development right at the beginning of the game, it grants your cities additional gold and draft income, for every Fishery Province Improvement in your cities. This has incredible synergy with the Seafarer's Guild, the fourth and final tier of the Shipyard City Structure, which is only unlocked by claiming Ocean and Sea Provinces in a given city, as the Seafarer's guild causes your Fisheries to produce even more resources per turn, for every Fishery Province Improvement in the city that has built the Seafarer's Guild.
I'd really like a guide that's about where to be in development around which turn, and what milestones the NPC enemies will have reached around which turn, depending on map size and difficulty setting. So, around turn A, the enemy will likely have completed milestone X, Y, or Z, around turn D you can expect F, G, H unit types, around turn L easy NPCs will have around P number of armies, etc.
A guide like that would be extremely difficult, each NPC will react to you differently, some will make peace, others straight to war, some like you if you are peaceful, others like you if you are violent. Each one has a different personality, good and evil don't get along, order and chaos don't either. And expect everyone to turn on you if you go for magic or expansion victory. There are too many factors to know exactly what they will do and when.
I usually send a scout underground and then have them excavate as much as possible, first time I did this I found a small cave with 2 of every resource node (except sheep), a silver ancient wonder, and the only entrances to the cave were easily defended chokepoints.
Careful equipping random items willy nilly. If you use auto resolve, watch to see how the AI uses them. I have seen ranged heroes rush in close to use a knockback item and leave themselves vulnerable.
For the most part sound advice. I do want to say I feel your under utilizing scouts and building your cities far too close. Every cultures scout is different and has its own unique benefits. Feudal scouts are low maintenance meaning you can field more. High scouts have greater vision range, Barbarian scouts can set up outposts. Industrious scouts can prospect, Mystic scouts have pass through and dark scouts get extra range when inside hostile territory. For the most part fielding many scouts is a very good thing as early game your city draft is going to waste. Well so long as you don't go over budget. I do want to point out that mounted body traits also affect scouts, save for mythic. That means you can have web on your scouts, or phase, or intimidation aura. The way you want to use your scouts does change with culture though. Feudal and High want to get the lay of the land so they can start diplomacy and quickly plan out their expansion. Barbarian and dark want to use their scouts in a more aggressive fashion. Mainly by setting up forward outposts as barbarian to claim defensive positions and resources or get info on hero movement from the minor and major factions. Industrial and mythic scouts are both out for resources. Scout prospecting is a huge part of early industrial economy and Mystic culture rely heavily on the extra magic from astral echos. Scouts can also be a good early game bump to your army. Once you hit the mid game their role changes. With the crow companion enchant they gain farther sense range allowing them to sit on your borders and watch enemy movement. This makes them a great early warning system for invasion. While weak a single scout still counts as an army which allows you to raid or capture provinces with out tying up your combat units. As for your cities they are a bit too close. As the game goes on they are going to start to stagnate. A large portion of a cities income is in its provinces. You should always take a vassal city until you hit your city cap. The most you can get from a vassal is 50% income where as if you take the city you get 100%. A vassal is great for when your at your city cap because its an imperium cheap way to expand your economy. That allows you to spend your imperium on growing your cities. You only have so much imperium. You would have been in a much better position if you didn't build those two cities and instead used the imperium to grow your throne city, then picked up the two free cities when able. I understand the desire to build victory monuments close together but by the time your able to build them you should have an army large enough to defend three sites and teleporters. So there really is no need to have them right next to each other like that.
i disagree on taking a vassals city unless youre playing champion and its of your own race, or if its a culture that has units you lack (like shock cavalry for an animals build). That is because while it is "only" 50% income, that is still extra income you're gonna be getting, since nothings stopping you from just settling to your city cap normally, it also means you'll have that first supreme vassal sooner and be able to whisper to other city states. My exceptions for the champion is that you vassalize those so fast from opinion bonuses that extra economy boost from a 2nd or 3rd city already being 5+ pop can actually be impactful. Also your analysis on imperium is lacking, since you have to spend even more imperium to integrate vassals, the best thing to do is to grow to 5 to get good tile improvements then settle as fast as possible to get extra gold income.
@@emylily8266 If you actually have the room to expand then you should, but If your boxed in then its better to take a vassal and migrate it to your culture than it is to be several cities behind. Over crowding your starting area is really bad for your mid game transition as it can stunt your economy. As for the imperium you can cover the increased cost by building wizard towers. The boost condition to hit a level 2 city is population and the first two tower segments are fairly easy to get. As long as the free city is a vassal no one can take it but by war. Once its yours you can use your increased imperium to boost the city up.
@@SteveMorris-c2r well if you're crowded in general the best strategy is to just be agressive. And on that line an extra vassal city or not help that much since you'll spend too much money building up a military to invest into infrastructure. But i half agree there, except you don't wanna vassalize those neighboring city states, you wanna massacre them to level up your troops so you can charge into an enemy player. Each wizard tower will take several turns to pay off the extra cost of annexing, not to mention how expensive they are on the early game. Also like i said, all you need is a ton of 5pop cities to get good yields early (and knowledge buildings), once you have that income flowing you'll be able to grow as much as you want. Also not sure what your point is on city state vassals being secure, thats exactly my point. Its extra land, extra resources that you secure without spending city cap if you just keep them as vassals.
@@SteveMorris-c2r i also wanna advertize how good raising is if youre boxed in. You'll be able to resettle that burnt city state later for barely any imperium and the gold boost is valuable to keep the war machine going.
@@SteveMorris-c2r Taking vassals is def situational, generally I find it more beneficial to drop outposts on magic materials and turn those into cities. But I do love getting the first materium and nature upgrade so they start with some nice population. Rally and a larger hero pool is too tempting not to take advantage of most of the time. Some heroes of broken traits like 20% more crit dmg or a free mind control
it may be minor, but i try to send my initial hero stack out in the same general direction as my scout so that the first turn or 2 the scouts can assist in combat
On OP trick is diplomacy and using as many whisper stones as possible to vassalise as many free cities as possible, that way you can "expand" your power without the need to manage many cities by your own. If you then recruit armies for your vasalls and order them to assist you in battle, you can use them as meatshields during a siege against your main opponent before you go in with your own units to clean them up. Diplomacy is very powerful in this game.
I have been able to do some amazing victories. did alot of military victories with my Obsidian Elves, Dwarves ruled by big Daddy Moradin, and My Holy Halflings who ended up being giant, steel skinned angelic beings and got a few score victories with the king in yellow and my deep ones and David Bowie and his Labryinth Goblins. Got my first magic victory with my Humans which was fantastic because they were built in honor of my dungeons and dragon kingdom of magic. But I have failed twice now due to runnning out of time in creating a proper Orc horde that dwells in the deep Earth. Bowie and his goblins made it because he had just his one city and two vassels and just built and built and went full nature and when someone tried to do a magic victory his goblin and beast horde washed over them. But my Orcs on a rampage keeps failing.
I've got a slave race of barbarian Ratkin. They're already swarmers, but the Tome of Hordes drives 'em even further. Life is short but glorious. Eventually I unlock high-end archers and the attrition slows.
This is best format ! And exactly what I am looking. There are many content in UA-cam about this game , BUT you have good quality content, that’s the difference, thank you a lot❤🇺🇦
Whispering stones slowly increase City Stability over time. Usually by the time you meet your first Free City (this usually happens in 5-10 turns at most), you'll want to switch the Stone to the Free City unless you intend to conquer it. Because the Stones apply the Stability boost slowly, you don't actually get any benefit from the Stone unless you can reach a new Tier of City Stability. It's not a bad idea, but it's not guaranteed to have any benefits whatsoever in truth.
Amazing. This video can be used for reference as an example of definition of “confidently wrong.” Not about everything. Some of the basics are right. Overall though…
@@samphyllobates4765 He means Jumbo has a habit of giving tips that are either misleading or incorrect/somewhat incorrect. That, or not mentioning other tips that should be mentioned at the same time, as well as other considerations to weigh when making choices.
I agree that there are definitely parts of the video I disagree with, such as placing cities so close together. All you're doing is limiting the room you have for expansion. And I think it's better to integrate existing cities than found your own ones, even if you need to conquer other cities to do that (since an absorbed city is a huge initial boost in development, potentially the equivalent of dozens of turns). However I think that more of the video is good advice than is bad, in my personal opinion. Were there any other specific parts you feel are bad advice?
@@magesbe It's been like a day now since I've watched it so most of it actually slips my mind, but the things that stick out to me still would be: 1.) The advice to research cheap stuff to get to higher tier tomes? Which sounds great if you know your build and exactly what to rush for. But it's also just a good way to end up with research you don't need while missing out on stuff that would be useful. 2.) Advising to build research buildings and faction buildings first. Which again sounds great, start snowballing with all that tech and culture buffs, but in reality production and food are king and queen early game no matter what build you are going and what special buildings you have. 3.) Choosing not to fight in a wonder when it's a winable battle. If there is a chance for you to win you always take it. Because then not only do you get the rewards for "free" but you also get experience for your leaders and units, which is insanely important. So it all sounds very logical and has a reason and purpose to it, but the logic in the end is flawed and following the advice would generally be a detriment to you. Hence I called it the definition of confidently wrong. There is probably more stuff but I'm not going to re-watch the video just to have this discussion, sorry.
Your expansion wasn't optimal. That second city will be very inefficient with nothing but sea tiles to work with. Sure, you can generate some income from the Seafarer's Guild in the mid game, but it is going to be very expensive to grow that city without 3 Farms, Quarries, and Foresters each. There is no reason to rush additional cities if you don't have the space for it. They won't contribute much and will have a lot of Stability issues. You also gave Yellow the opportunity to gain Grievances against you (as opposed to you gaining them against him) by not building an outpost in that direction ahead of his expansion, which is a mechanic that is very important early game and you didn't cover. The AI will almost always build towards you so they can get Grievances to declare justified wars if you expand towards them. Having a Major war justification gives you huge benefits to Imperium and Relations with Free Cities and any other AI players that like justified wars. So, if you're against an Expansionist AI, getting early outposts to stake your claims is extremely important for giving yourself room to grow and casus belli to kick them back when they inevitably step on your toes. As it stand, you have no choice to grow your capitol and second city but to conquer Flowing Fields, as vassalizing it would still leave you no room to expand Casterlan, so you would need to either raze it (evil act) or conquer it and slowly transfer the provinces off to other domains.
I always make it to turn 89 then get annihilated by the enemy's swarm of armys... I have a huge problem figuring out how they get so many powerful units so quick..
Still new to the game but I can say this. Focusing on a single affinity is probably best. Focusing on 2 has worked for me too. Those tier 4 and 5 tomes are just so strong so getting to a tier 5 asap can really help your game
If youre going to go wide Id do it after getting high tier stuff (150+ turn games etc). I have noticed that some books if you skip you cant get them back (Tier 2 artificer op) but Im not sure why
Typically Tomes of the same Affinity will follow an ability branch (ie. Order’s Faithful and Condemned) but really the only thing you need to keep in mind is making sure you have 6 Affinity for the Tier 4 Tome and 8 for Tier 5.
@@daviddobarganes9115actually you can pick any tome on level up just click show tome library and you can pick it as long as you have the tiers unlocked
Declaring a Justified war actually gives bonus Imperium income. If you give the AI grievances and they declare on you with a justified war, you're actually throwing them a bone.
3:22 it would be significantly better to do that with the economic map mode. And also: literally every single game you will start with a pasture, an iron deposit and a gold mine nearby. Did you not know that?
100% go for pasture first, build farms on all 3, and get your city pop up high as fast as possible so you maximize benefits. The good old Civ strat works great for this game
11:21 bad optimization there in that you have a whispering stone available at turn 2... At turn 1 you always give it to your capital to boost everything.
I thought the whispering stone in your own city only boosted stability directly? I suppose arguably that could apply a small bonus to all collection as stability effects overall efficiency, but it's really not as big of a deal in the first turn because you're not going to be suffering any stability penalties yet, so it doesn't actually give any real immediate bonus (once you get to the early-mid game I think this changes, because it basically means you can put off building a tavern or bath to get extra stability and can use that build time to get more money, production, or draft going)
Whispering stones slowly increase City Stability over time. Usually by the time you meet your first Free City (this usually happens in 5-10 turns at most), you'll want to switch the Stone to the Free City unless you intend to conquer it. Because the Stones apply the Stability boost slowly, you don't actually get any benefit from the Stone unless you can reach a new Tier of City Stability. It's a good idea to assign the Stone first turn, but it's not guaranteed to have any benefits whatsoever in truth.
@@DyllinWithIt it's neither guaranteed that it does, nor that it doesn't. So why not put it to use? Your comment makes no sense. If it's not being used: put it to use. You either gain some extra production, or you don't. If you don't use it you never gain. It's a good habit to have, and this much is undeniable.
2 cities in nowhere is a bad idea. In mid game other 2 cities near them could just take needed territories and you could just saved really needed cap for better places. Imp is a really precious resource. So wasting it on many little cities is a waste. Your opponent could use imp for insta army or on smth else and rush you easily. I don't even talking about how much resources you need to properly defend each city, build def and blockers vs magic. In aow4 best thing is to have max 5 cities or less and a vassal or two.
while many little cities is a greedy play, no one is saying to have a dozen cities, but the quicker you settle those 3-5 core cities the more time they have to actually grow and pay themselves.
Building an outpost on top of a magic resource is usually a great play, the outpost will give you benefit right away and you should be able to find one the proper distance away from your city guarded by a nice XP farm stack. But ya placing it randomly isnt worth while, but with an extra scout you should be able to place it strategically turn 2-4. But hard disagree with your ideal vassal and city limit though, theres no reason to limit yourself like that, going over cap isnt that bad if its developed enough in some cases its negligible and vassals only help. Larger Hero pool to farm better traits, rally, missions, occasional units, magic materials. Its such a long list (and you need them to get to that 150 for the victory condition)
@@Draregkoeliekalie I have 500+ Imperium points, there is no option available either enabled or disabled like other games I have played. It only had 2 options I think, walls and work camp and they were completed ok, but never showed the option to turn into city.
@@z-rossi3672 Its a custom game and I didn't selected anything, I am Wizard King with Tome of Evocation, Race Elfkin Keen sighted, Arcane focus, Mystic, Gifted casters, Powerful evokers
I'm convinced that people aren't actually losing this scenario, as much as giving up when they run into 7 full stacks of units headed their way. The AI rarely finishes what they start, and will even back off after a long siege without any fight at all. Still, fighting the AI on this mission is a nightmare, so I recommend going underground, blocking the exits to the overworld with parked units, and try to race for a magic victory. Despite their seeming head start, the AI really really drags it's feet when it comes to building their heart and casting their doomsday spell.
Pick the mirror upgrade in the beginning, and just focus a single person down whoever is closest to you, I breezed through it on easy was a bore, more fun on hard
Story 5 is BROKEN. Your going so well, estabished yourself. Then Blue rocks up with a 2000+ army and just smashes your armies of 500... How can you fight that? They have mythic units when you only have teir 2.. So annoying !
I beat it on hard (I think? Whatever the difficulty above normal is called) through some strategy. Stacks of decent archers (barbarians or dark get some of the better archers) and abuse of the vine prison spell to pin enemies in place. You only have to win the scenario like an ordinary game so focus on being defensive and build to chokepoints to control where the ai can attack you, and rush for a magic victory rather than aiming for expansion or conquest. Nature tomes also give you glade runners later who can stack debuffs at range while keeping up shots
@@aktyelements8034 I did it by just attacking blue first lol Zephyr archers + seeking arrows and amplified arrows are my favorite thing that just gets better every enhancement. The AI doesnt understand that Zephyrs Aoe adds range so you can get some BIG dmg chunks turn 1 or 2. Lets you fight battles you shouldnt
Underground adaptation. The ai hates going underground and there are some truly labyrinthine town locations with no surface entrances. You can start a magic victory that they couldnt physically get to in time to stop. Take the pyroclast story option, then a spell that lets you rebel their magic victory provinces or destroy them. Your scouts will be a cancer preventing all victory but your own. Finally, with enough mana you can summon move, summon move, repeat units deep into enemy lines to hit soft targets.
Pro Tips at 6:00 ... hes telling us to look what you want to build first and how to boost the building.... then he boosts the wrong buildings wich he didnt want to build first. this already screams "IDIOT!" and I have no interest of watching more. Maybe try to make a plan first before you make a video?
Maybe you should have paid more attention before trying to act like an ass. He said that it's best to build boosted buildings first, even if it's not the ones you wanted first because you depend on the provinces you have. And on your timestamp he builds 2 boosted buildings.
He gave recommendations as to what buildings might be best to boost first (if I am correct about what you're talking about) and then commented that while he could grab a forester which is what is required to boost those buildings he had no good candidates (would have to grab a forest with nothing else in it) so instead he grabbed a higher value province first, which is more valuable than getting the forester boosted buildings a little earlier.
He makes his reasoning clear in the video. The game has randomized maps, so it's hard to go into any given game with a fool-proof plan for every situation.
U build a farm on a gold mine ? U mad? You loose tht extra gold. U need tht gold mine for a guild structure tht boost ur gold for every gold mine. More gold more army. More army More chance to win battle. Tht a terrible advice.😢
Another tip is to buy a second hero before you have two cities. What happens very often is your hero goes one way and then your scout finds a good spot to settle another way, but you’ll lose too much momentum clearing camps if you backtrack with your ruler. So sometimes it’s necessary to send out a solo hero and take a hit to your economy to settle as proactively as possible.
Yes! 30g per turn is relatively easy to overcome early game, and having two heroes to place cities to forward settle good areas in between your cap city and the AI. That 30g cost disappears as soon as you build your second city, so it doesn't last long, and gives you such a powerful advantage.
I'm almost always above my hero cap. They aren't just increadible strong units they can provide you with early +3 affinity or other strong effects and you can swap them instantly to get always the city bonus you want.
Going over city and hero cap is something everyone should actively be doing, theres not a huge downside, especially if your cities are big producers. the cost can be negligible (wish I new exactly what it was though)
@@z-rossi3672 the city cap has a massive downturn. It is a minus 25% on everthing per city. So i wouldn't recomend it. Even the fifth city will give you just 20% more cities. But the hero cap is just an incresing cost for new heros and a flat 30 gold per hero. So if you take the +20 gold per city culture your 3 cities will allow you to have 5 heroes. Making pure hero armies a thing.
@@johnhobbes2268 The thing is big cities have such massive incomes that they can bring enough profit to offset the losses. It depends on what youre doing in the match though sometimes its best to just raze them to the ground
If you’re the Barbarian class your scouts can make outposts which is insanely strong
I did not know this
What? I just started a game as Barbs can't wait to try this
@@evanragland4930 and outposts can do their special ability to heal and give movement. You do want the first materium upgrade if you do this though or youll be bleeding money. Scout outposts cost twice as much
Use your barb scouts to make outposts then upgrade to workcamps to steal special materials and wonders in the next province. Saves you from making a whole city for this. Especially useful if there is a node and special material side by side provinces
@@seb2750 Yeah, and you can get 3 tile, 2 resources, and 1 wonder outposts with wonder architects.
If you want to (for example) rush a Granary, even though it's not boosted yet, you can still queue it up. Then when you unlock a forester, the boosted effect will be applied retroactively, reducing the turns required to build.
does it refund the cost as well?
@@endisbegun27 Not if the structure is already built. Queueing unboosted structures that take so few turns to build isn't necessary. It just ties up gold you'd otherwise have access to. This is especially true for higher tier structures. You should only ever queue structures if you know exactly what you want to build next and don't want to potentially waste Production if a structure completes and didn't need the full amount of Production you supplied that round (ie. a structure needs 60 Production to build and you generate 70, so you queue another structure so the 10 remaining carries over onto the next item in queue).
Generally, queueing is only useful if you want to leave a city off your notifications for a while and can spare the resources.
My pro tip, spend imperium and get your main cities pop up, and keep building farms and foresters the first few turns. This way you get the bonus for all the early buildings, then get mines. Sheep is always your first focus since early on you want to grow fast, you can swap off growth for free later on so its the best start. Also turn 1 always get a scout and fight as much as you can to rank up your units and hero
I'd even recommend two Scouts. Industrialist societies in particular can benefit from their Scout Prospecting for Gold, Production, and Hero Items.
@@DyllinWithIt so 3 in total? I mean I can see situations where youd want that many, especially as barbarian or industrial on a mountain map but generally I think I rather start spending my time on army after 2 so you can fast track silver wonders. Personally I like getting more ranger units as fast as possible to start snowballing
@BftBG777 Haha ya my game plan tends to lag (on paper but not in reality) in mid game and then skyrocket. In reality Im farming 3 heroes up to get action spur and all of the units to be legend so I can sweep. unit enhancements just go such a long way Ill go on the record and say a buffed up zephyr archer is better than most units in the game, theyve hit a unit for over a hundred for me end game, literally one shot a hero, was chef's kiss
As a fellow Kiwi, I approve of prioritising sheep
Arguably the single most important tip you should follow when creating a custom faction, is choosing the best traits to take the most advantage you can get from the environment of the Realm itself.
For example, if the Realm you're playing in is dominated by ice, snow and tundra, It's generally going to be a good idea to give your new faction, the Arctic Adaptation Mind Trait, which allows you to build farms on snow covered provinces, without suffering reduced food income, like you would if you were to build huts on those snow covered provinces.
Another example, would be if you're playing on a Realm of islands, in which case, the Experienced Seafarers Society Trait, would be beneficial to your new faction in the long run, as it not only grants you the Basic Seafaring Empire Development right at the beginning of the game, it grants your cities additional gold and draft income, for every Fishery Province Improvement in your cities.
This has incredible synergy with the Seafarer's Guild, the fourth and final tier of the Shipyard City Structure, which is only unlocked by claiming Ocean and Sea Provinces in a given city, as the Seafarer's guild causes your Fisheries to produce even more resources per turn, for every Fishery Province Improvement in the city that has built the Seafarer's Guild.
More so common sense than tips xD
I'd really like a guide that's about where to be in development around which turn, and what milestones the NPC enemies will have reached around which turn, depending on map size and difficulty setting.
So, around turn A, the enemy will likely have completed milestone X, Y, or Z, around turn D you can expect F, G, H unit types, around turn L easy NPCs will have around P number of armies, etc.
A guide like that would be extremely difficult, each NPC will react to you differently, some will make peace, others straight to war, some like you if you are peaceful, others like you if you are violent. Each one has a different personality, good and evil don't get along, order and chaos don't either. And expect everyone to turn on you if you go for magic or expansion victory. There are too many factors to know exactly what they will do and when.
I usually send a scout underground and then have them excavate as much as possible, first time I did this I found a small cave with 2 of every resource node (except sheep), a silver ancient wonder, and the only entrances to the cave were easily defended chokepoints.
Yeah sometimes there are these golden spots underground.
Sometimes the spots are very impractical instead.
Careful equipping random items willy nilly. If you use auto resolve, watch to see how the AI uses them. I have seen ranged heroes rush in close to use a knockback item and leave themselves vulnerable.
For the most part sound advice. I do want to say I feel your under utilizing scouts and building your cities far too close. Every cultures scout is different and has its own unique benefits. Feudal scouts are low maintenance meaning you can field more. High scouts have greater vision range, Barbarian scouts can set up outposts. Industrious scouts can prospect, Mystic scouts have pass through and dark scouts get extra range when inside hostile territory. For the most part fielding many scouts is a very good thing as early game your city draft is going to waste. Well so long as you don't go over budget. I do want to point out that mounted body traits also affect scouts, save for mythic. That means you can have web on your scouts, or phase, or intimidation aura. The way you want to use your scouts does change with culture though. Feudal and High want to get the lay of the land so they can start diplomacy and quickly plan out their expansion. Barbarian and dark want to use their scouts in a more aggressive fashion. Mainly by setting up forward outposts as barbarian to claim defensive positions and resources or get info on hero movement from the minor and major factions. Industrial and mythic scouts are both out for resources. Scout prospecting is a huge part of early industrial economy and Mystic culture rely heavily on the extra magic from astral echos. Scouts can also be a good early game bump to your army. Once you hit the mid game their role changes. With the crow companion enchant they gain farther sense range allowing them to sit on your borders and watch enemy movement. This makes them a great early warning system for invasion. While weak a single scout still counts as an army which allows you to raid or capture provinces with out tying up your combat units.
As for your cities they are a bit too close. As the game goes on they are going to start to stagnate. A large portion of a cities income is in its provinces. You should always take a vassal city until you hit your city cap. The most you can get from a vassal is 50% income where as if you take the city you get 100%. A vassal is great for when your at your city cap because its an imperium cheap way to expand your economy. That allows you to spend your imperium on growing your cities. You only have so much imperium. You would have been in a much better position if you didn't build those two cities and instead used the imperium to grow your throne city, then picked up the two free cities when able. I understand the desire to build victory monuments close together but by the time your able to build them you should have an army large enough to defend three sites and teleporters. So there really is no need to have them right next to each other like that.
i disagree on taking a vassals city unless youre playing champion and its of your own race, or if its a culture that has units you lack (like shock cavalry for an animals build). That is because while it is "only" 50% income, that is still extra income you're gonna be getting, since nothings stopping you from just settling to your city cap normally, it also means you'll have that first supreme vassal sooner and be able to whisper to other city states. My exceptions for the champion is that you vassalize those so fast from opinion bonuses that extra economy boost from a 2nd or 3rd city already being 5+ pop can actually be impactful.
Also your analysis on imperium is lacking, since you have to spend even more imperium to integrate vassals, the best thing to do is to grow to 5 to get good tile improvements then settle as fast as possible to get extra gold income.
@@emylily8266 If you actually have the room to expand then you should, but If your boxed in then its better to take a vassal and migrate it to your culture than it is to be several cities behind. Over crowding your starting area is really bad for your mid game transition as it can stunt your economy.
As for the imperium you can cover the increased cost by building wizard towers. The boost condition to hit a level 2 city is population and the first two tower segments are fairly easy to get. As long as the free city is a vassal no one can take it but by war. Once its yours you can use your increased imperium to boost the city up.
@@SteveMorris-c2r well if you're crowded in general the best strategy is to just be agressive. And on that line an extra vassal city or not help that much since you'll spend too much money building up a military to invest into infrastructure.
But i half agree there, except you don't wanna vassalize those neighboring city states, you wanna massacre them to level up your troops so you can charge into an enemy player.
Each wizard tower will take several turns to pay off the extra cost of annexing, not to mention how expensive they are on the early game. Also like i said, all you need is a ton of 5pop cities to get good yields early (and knowledge buildings), once you have that income flowing you'll be able to grow as much as you want.
Also not sure what your point is on city state vassals being secure, thats exactly my point. Its extra land, extra resources that you secure without spending city cap if you just keep them as vassals.
@@SteveMorris-c2r i also wanna advertize how good raising is if youre boxed in. You'll be able to resettle that burnt city state later for barely any imperium and the gold boost is valuable to keep the war machine going.
@@SteveMorris-c2r Taking vassals is def situational, generally I find it more beneficial to drop outposts on magic materials and turn those into cities. But I do love getting the first materium and nature upgrade so they start with some nice population. Rally and a larger hero pool is too tempting not to take advantage of most of the time. Some heroes of broken traits like 20% more crit dmg or a free mind control
it may be minor, but i try to send my initial hero stack out in the same general direction as my scout so that the first turn or 2 the scouts can assist in combat
not to mention scouts can initiate combat for the army while they are several tiles away, saving movement early is huge
On OP trick is diplomacy and using as many whisper stones as possible to vassalise as many free cities as possible, that way you can "expand" your power without the need to manage many cities by your own.
If you then recruit armies for your vasalls and order them to assist you in battle, you can use them as meatshields during a siege against your main opponent before you go in with your own units to clean them up.
Diplomacy is very powerful in this game.
Thanks for this, always feel like I am spending to much on maxing my cities.
I have been able to do some amazing victories. did alot of military victories with my Obsidian Elves, Dwarves ruled by big Daddy Moradin, and My Holy Halflings who ended up being giant, steel skinned angelic beings and got a few score victories with the king in yellow and my deep ones and David Bowie and his Labryinth Goblins. Got my first magic victory with my Humans which was fantastic because they were built in honor of my dungeons and dragon kingdom of magic.
But I have failed twice now due to runnning out of time in creating a proper Orc horde that dwells in the deep Earth. Bowie and his goblins made it because he had just his one city and two vassels and just built and built and went full nature and when someone tried to do a magic victory his goblin and beast horde washed over them. But my Orcs on a rampage keeps failing.
I've got a slave race of barbarian Ratkin. They're already swarmers, but the Tome of Hordes drives 'em even further.
Life is short but glorious.
Eventually I unlock high-end archers and the attrition slows.
Thanks for this. Just got the game and your ideas are helping me a ton. Thank you
This is best format ! And exactly what I am looking. There are many content in UA-cam about this game , BUT you have good quality content, that’s the difference, thank you a lot❤🇺🇦
Also the whisper stone assigned to the capital on turn one
Whispering stones slowly increase City Stability over time. Usually by the time you meet your first Free City (this usually happens in 5-10 turns at most), you'll want to switch the Stone to the Free City unless you intend to conquer it. Because the Stones apply the Stability boost slowly, you don't actually get any benefit from the Stone unless you can reach a new Tier of City Stability. It's not a bad idea, but it's not guaranteed to have any benefits whatsoever in truth.
Mm newb here and i feel this is something for folks who have been about the block at least 2 times
This game is sooo good! Thank you for the guide.
Amazing. This video can be used for reference as an example of definition of “confidently wrong.”
Not about everything. Some of the basics are right. Overall though…
Meaning?
@@samphyllobates4765 He means Jumbo has a habit of giving tips that are either misleading or incorrect/somewhat incorrect. That, or not mentioning other tips that should be mentioned at the same time, as well as other considerations to weigh when making choices.
@@samphyllobates4765 Meaning Jumbo thinks he knows what he is talking about, but most of the time he doesn't.
I agree that there are definitely parts of the video I disagree with, such as placing cities so close together. All you're doing is limiting the room you have for expansion. And I think it's better to integrate existing cities than found your own ones, even if you need to conquer other cities to do that (since an absorbed city is a huge initial boost in development, potentially the equivalent of dozens of turns). However I think that more of the video is good advice than is bad, in my personal opinion. Were there any other specific parts you feel are bad advice?
@@magesbe It's been like a day now since I've watched it so most of it actually slips my mind, but the things that stick out to me still would be:
1.) The advice to research cheap stuff to get to higher tier tomes? Which sounds great if you know your build and exactly what to rush for. But it's also just a good way to end up with research you don't need while missing out on stuff that would be useful.
2.) Advising to build research buildings and faction buildings first. Which again sounds great, start snowballing with all that tech and culture buffs, but in reality production and food are king and queen early game no matter what build you are going and what special buildings you have.
3.) Choosing not to fight in a wonder when it's a winable battle. If there is a chance for you to win you always take it. Because then not only do you get the rewards for "free" but you also get experience for your leaders and units, which is insanely important.
So it all sounds very logical and has a reason and purpose to it, but the logic in the end is flawed and following the advice would generally be a detriment to you. Hence I called it the definition of confidently wrong. There is probably more stuff but I'm not going to re-watch the video just to have this discussion, sorry.
Your expansion wasn't optimal. That second city will be very inefficient with nothing but sea tiles to work with. Sure, you can generate some income from the Seafarer's Guild in the mid game, but it is going to be very expensive to grow that city without 3 Farms, Quarries, and Foresters each. There is no reason to rush additional cities if you don't have the space for it. They won't contribute much and will have a lot of Stability issues.
You also gave Yellow the opportunity to gain Grievances against you (as opposed to you gaining them against him) by not building an outpost in that direction ahead of his expansion, which is a mechanic that is very important early game and you didn't cover. The AI will almost always build towards you so they can get Grievances to declare justified wars if you expand towards them. Having a Major war justification gives you huge benefits to Imperium and Relations with Free Cities and any other AI players that like justified wars. So, if you're against an Expansionist AI, getting early outposts to stake your claims is extremely important for giving yourself room to grow and casus belli to kick them back when they inevitably step on your toes.
As it stand, you have no choice to grow your capitol and second city but to conquer Flowing Fields, as vassalizing it would still leave you no room to expand Casterlan, so you would need to either raze it (evil act) or conquer it and slowly transfer the provinces off to other domains.
really quick to slap a farm on a marsh tile :)
Good stuff! Thank you for this. Love your presentation style.
Don't forget to explore and expand into the Underground as well.
Why wouldn't a rush building production if border growth reduces happiness and i need buildings to counteract it?
Good pro tips.
Well Done
I always make it to turn 89 then get annihilated by the enemy's swarm of armys... I have a huge problem figuring out how they get so many powerful units so quick..
One question, so far I've usually stuck with tomes of the same affinity, at most 2 different. Is it ok to just go all around?
Still new to the game but I can say this. Focusing on a single affinity is probably best. Focusing on 2 has worked for me too. Those tier 4 and 5 tomes are just so strong so getting to a tier 5 asap can really help your game
If youre going to go wide Id do it after getting high tier stuff (150+ turn games etc). I have noticed that some books if you skip you cant get them back (Tier 2 artificer op) but Im not sure why
Typically Tomes of the same Affinity will follow an ability branch (ie. Order’s Faithful and Condemned) but really the only thing you need to keep in mind is making sure you have 6 Affinity for the Tier 4 Tome and 8 for Tier 5.
@@daviddobarganes9115actually you can pick any tome on level up just click show tome library and you can pick it as long as you have the tiers unlocked
Go archers, and grab all the archers buff with spawnkin as the first racial trait. One stack of 6 archers can take on a 3 stack easily.
Towers stat flagged to laat empire and u can casr around them with out needing a unit for fog of war
I like being annoying so that the AI declares war on and gets the Emperium drawback
Declaring a Justified war actually gives bonus Imperium income. If you give the AI grievances and they declare on you with a justified war, you're actually throwing them a bone.
3:22 it would be significantly better to do that with the economic map mode. And also: literally every single game you will start with a pasture, an iron deposit and a gold mine nearby. Did you not know that?
100% go for pasture first, build farms on all 3, and get your city pop up high as fast as possible so you maximize benefits. The good old Civ strat works great for this game
11:21 bad optimization there in that you have a whispering stone available at turn 2... At turn 1 you always give it to your capital to boost everything.
That's a good point. This thing is a little bit "hidden" in the menu and it's a great early boost.
I thought the whispering stone in your own city only boosted stability directly? I suppose arguably that could apply a small bonus to all collection as stability effects overall efficiency, but it's really not as big of a deal in the first turn because you're not going to be suffering any stability penalties yet, so it doesn't actually give any real immediate bonus (once you get to the early-mid game I think this changes, because it basically means you can put off building a tavern or bath to get extra stability and can use that build time to get more money, production, or draft going)
@@JimRFF and how do you guarantee that you discover a free city before turn, say, 10? At that point you wasted +20 stability.
Whispering stones slowly increase City Stability over time. Usually by the time you meet your first Free City (this usually happens in 5-10 turns at most), you'll want to switch the Stone to the Free City unless you intend to conquer it. Because the Stones apply the Stability boost slowly, you don't actually get any benefit from the Stone unless you can reach a new Tier of City Stability. It's a good idea to assign the Stone first turn, but it's not guaranteed to have any benefits whatsoever in truth.
@@DyllinWithIt it's neither guaranteed that it does, nor that it doesn't. So why not put it to use? Your comment makes no sense. If it's not being used: put it to use. You either gain some extra production, or you don't. If you don't use it you never gain. It's a good habit to have, and this much is undeniable.
Why do you have extra society traits? I don't have talented collectors
Unlocked through pantheon progression
your accent is highly addicting! may I know where you are from? :)
Sounds like a New Zealand accent to me, though not a strong one
@@Jabberwokee Yeah he is a Kiwi, with quite a neutral accent (lends well to narration!)
You didn't fight....
2 cities in nowhere is a bad idea. In mid game other 2 cities near them could just take needed territories and you could just saved really needed cap for better places.
Imp is a really precious resource. So wasting it on many little cities is a waste. Your opponent could use imp for insta army or on smth else and rush you easily. I don't even talking about how much resources you need to properly defend each city, build def and blockers vs magic.
In aow4 best thing is to have max 5 cities or less and a vassal or two.
while many little cities is a greedy play, no one is saying to have a dozen cities, but the quicker you settle those 3-5 core cities the more time they have to actually grow and pay themselves.
Building an outpost on top of a magic resource is usually a great play, the outpost will give you benefit right away and you should be able to find one the proper distance away from your city guarded by a nice XP farm stack. But ya placing it randomly isnt worth while, but with an extra scout you should be able to place it strategically turn 2-4. But hard disagree with your ideal vassal and city limit though, theres no reason to limit yourself like that, going over cap isnt that bad if its developed enough in some cases its negligible and vassals only help. Larger Hero pool to farm better traits, rally, missions, occasional units, magic materials. Its such a long list (and you need them to get to that 150 for the victory condition)
Do you know why an Outpost doent give the option to turn into a city? I only have 1/3 cities and it is far from any other neighbour provonces.
You need imperium to change your outpost to a city. Click on the outpost and you see how much you need.
@@Draregkoeliekalie I have 500+ Imperium points, there is no option available either enabled or disabled like other games I have played. It only had 2 options I think, walls and work camp and they were completed ok, but never showed the option to turn into city.
@@jondm733 There are certain traits that prevent you from doing it (campaign might prevent you as well) Im guessing its one of those
@@z-rossi3672 Its a custom game and I didn't selected anything, I am Wizard King with Tome of Evocation, Race Elfkin Keen sighted, Arcane focus, Mystic, Gifted casters, Powerful evokers
@@jondm733 Interesting I havent encountered that id need to see it to even have an idea
Yyaaaa Boii
Also, make a video about how to win STORY 5. Soooo hard ! lol
I'm convinced that people aren't actually losing this scenario, as much as giving up when they run into 7 full stacks of units headed their way. The AI rarely finishes what they start, and will even back off after a long siege without any fight at all.
Still, fighting the AI on this mission is a nightmare, so I recommend going underground, blocking the exits to the overworld with parked units, and try to race for a magic victory. Despite their seeming head start, the AI really really drags it's feet when it comes to building their heart and casting their doomsday spell.
Pick the mirror upgrade in the beginning, and just focus a single person down whoever is closest to you, I breezed through it on easy was a bore, more fun on hard
Agreed .. enemies have tier 3 starting unit and high rank .. plus our unit is constantly condemned -3 status resistance .. 😂😂
Why is manor addicted an option for race traits? Is that what happened in victorian times? 😋
Magic is opium confirmed
While I build at least 4 scouts..
this was more like a beginner tips video....
lol doing a help video as your running about in your army with 5 Ranged units and 1 Melee?!? really......
Where are the "Pro" tips lol
Story 5 is BROKEN. Your going so well, estabished yourself. Then Blue rocks up with a 2000+ army and just smashes your armies of 500... How can you fight that? They have mythic units when you only have teir 2.. So annoying !
I beat it on hard (I think? Whatever the difficulty above normal is called) through some strategy. Stacks of decent archers (barbarians or dark get some of the better archers) and abuse of the vine prison spell to pin enemies in place. You only have to win the scenario like an ordinary game so focus on being defensive and build to chokepoints to control where the ai can attack you, and rush for a magic victory rather than aiming for expansion or conquest.
Nature tomes also give you glade runners later who can stack debuffs at range while keeping up shots
@@aktyelements8034 I did it by just attacking blue first lol Zephyr archers + seeking arrows and amplified arrows are my favorite thing that just gets better every enhancement. The AI doesnt understand that Zephyrs Aoe adds range so you can get some BIG dmg chunks turn 1 or 2. Lets you fight battles you shouldnt
Underground adaptation. The ai hates going underground and there are some truly labyrinthine town locations with no surface entrances. You can start a magic victory that they couldnt physically get to in time to stop. Take the pyroclast story option, then a spell that lets you rebel their magic victory provinces or destroy them. Your scouts will be a cancer preventing all victory but your own. Finally, with enough mana you can summon move, summon move, repeat units deep into enemy lines to hit soft targets.
Pro Tips at 6:00 ... hes telling us to look what you want to build first and how to boost the building.... then he boosts the wrong buildings wich he didnt want to build first. this already screams "IDIOT!" and I have no interest of watching more.
Maybe try to make a plan first before you make a video?
Maybe you should have paid more attention before trying to act like an ass. He said that it's best to build boosted buildings first, even if it's not the ones you wanted first because you depend on the provinces you have. And on your timestamp he builds 2 boosted buildings.
He gave recommendations as to what buildings might be best to boost first (if I am correct about what you're talking about) and then commented that while he could grab a forester which is what is required to boost those buildings he had no good candidates (would have to grab a forest with nothing else in it) so instead he grabbed a higher value province first, which is more valuable than getting the forester boosted buildings a little earlier.
He makes his reasoning clear in the video. The game has randomized maps, so it's hard to go into any given game with a fool-proof plan for every situation.
U build a farm on a gold mine ? U mad? You loose tht extra gold. U need tht gold mine for a guild structure tht boost ur gold for every gold mine. More gold more army. More army More chance to win battle. Tht a terrible advice.😢
You don't lose the gold from the gold mine if you build a farm
No, you don't lose the gold. He explained it in the video. You don't lose the benefit of a ressources node by expanding with a different ressource.
@@Cowkillu get extra gold from gold ore if u build a mine. +5 or +15 gold per turn. Wich one is better ? I hope u can count.
@@fischersfritz468u loose extra gold. And gold ore is kinda rare thing. Dumb move.
@@user-rv7kk1to9h you don't lose the Extra gold
Game burns my computer yo
If you say wam bam one more time I will kill a baby rabbit