I see that moving forward there is a lot more demand on sentient goods and seeds, less on standard goods... is this an ongoing trend?
The only constant is change. You are in chapter 14 right now. Which means the easy part of the game in terms of chapters (where you can skip chapters by using PPs) is about to be over. The good news is your military is going to get a hell of a lot better soon. You get Blossom 3 stars and 2 of the most important AWs in the game in chapter 14. If I was in your place I would upgrade those 2 AWs any chance you get (they are much more expensive to upgrade than previous AWs). Focus on the FA otherwise as those units are about to go through the roof in chapter 14 and 15 with the 3 star upgrades.
- lose some of my standard goods buildings to make space/population available to build another armory
- build more sentient manus... and which? (currently I'm very short of obsidian/ink/velvet... does this change?)
Your need for Sentients will explode next chapter. 15 is by far the biggest need for sentients of any chapter, it will go down again after 15. Chapter 15 will need T6 more than anything else, but you still need silly quantities of T4 and T5 as well. Start building up Sentient and Seed production for the upcoming chapter, if you have a Storm Phoenix it will help, so will the ETC. I was running 8 Sentient factories in that chapter (and a whole field of seed producers, like 15 Festival Merchants and 20 of whatever seed producing building the previous event spit out), fewer will do but prepare for slow going.
Standard goods are no big issue. You need a few for Sentient goods production of course, but nothing major. I don´t quite remember, but I am sure I had not more than 3 (probably less) standard factories (something like 1 T1 and 1 or 2 T3?). I do have Spire libraries for T2 and old Sets/Evolves for additional production though.
- is my mana production over-kill? Elvengems only advises according to city progress & research, not spire/tourney needs, so its flippen difficult for me to assess my needs... specially when I don't always understand WHAT I'll need in the future.
Mana usually stops being an issue in chapter 13 but picks up again in the currently last chapter from what I have heard (I don´t play it, so don´t take my word for it), but for your foreseeable future there should not be a problem. All you need is a Dragon Abbey.
I also see you have 4 armories in your Winyador city... is this helping?
- @Gargon667 also mentioned Heros Forge a waste of time, I'm terribly confused by that as currently I'm getting free orcs (which I badly need to produce Orc Warriors & Orc Strategists) and 115% boost to Heavy Melee damage.
Orcs are the second biggest problem in 15 (after sentients). You will need tons of them , like orders of magnitude (not 10s of thousands like previously, but a million or 2) more than in any previous chapter (and that problem will grow even bigger in chapter 16). The Heroes Forge is not going to solve your problem unfortunately. The production will disappear in the rounding error... like a drop of water on a hot stone as we say
So you need to find FAR better Orc producers anyway. 3 Options are: More armories (which has the added benefit of bigger training size), Crafting Orc Nests en masse (not nests but dozens of nests) or the occasional event daily prize (like entire event currency of the event spending on that 1 day). If you have the Forge already, keep it, but upgrading it will do nothing to solve your problem. And no, do NOT produce Orc Warrior or Strategists in the Training grounds, you simply do not have the Orcs to spare. Better start saving up right now, too. Orcs do not produce quickly, even if you do all of the above.
- Elvengems is very detailed about which wonders are for fighting strategy & which catering... but is there a hierarchy between wonders? ie, is it better to have some and not others of same category?
The AW part has already been answered by
@CrazyWizard just add the Simia Sapiens to the list
(I bet he didn´t intentionally skip that one) and I also agree to skip the Vic Springs. Not a horrible one, but also surely not in the top10 of important AWs, focus on those until you have them all well developed (or IMO at lvl 30) before spreading points into "nice" AWs
I do try craft boost buildings, but find I spend most of my catalysts on pet food & supply windfalls to keep up with troop demand. The amount of catalysts I'm actually winning from Spire is negligible. The dwarven armourers I win (maybe), I end up using for next Spire, so I'm not really gaining anything there, am I? I actually do put a hell of a lot of effort into Spire/tourney, which is why I'm exhausted and frustrated. It just seems the effort & resources used in Spire are not worth it... the stuff I win, I just use to battle the rest one... never-ending story.
Don´t try, DO craft every boost building coming through your MA. First thing! Saves you more troops than you can pay for with supply instants and also costs less catalysts than feeding a Firebird through a tourney.
Although apart from that I completely agree with your choice. I also craft every pet food and every big Supply instant (as well as every purple time boost) in my MA
I don´t know what you use your Pet Foods for, but it usually is possible to save up a few more. All you really need to feed is your Firebird 3 times a week (until your get the Timewarp, which reduces the need for Pet Food further) and your brown bear once a month when you use all your time boosts on it. Everything besides that is a luxury (not a bad one don´t get me wrong, but still a luxury)
About catalysts, i think ther are 3 things to increase production outside of making them 24/7 in the MA:
1. Finish the spire every week (small increase, but the goal is to do that anyway, so no real cost there)
2. Place Spire library sets (every library produces 1 CC per day, having 5 of them makes an additional 35 CC per week, you can translate how much that makes you in crafting goods yourself.
3. Improve your FS, Either by actually improving your current FS or by joining a "better" one. team rewards are a HUGE source of CC, if you finish the Spire every week you certainly can play in a FS that gets gold every week
In EN3 there are currently 8 FS to choose from that get gold regularly or always, and an additional 3-5 that have managed at least once and are therefore only a few good towns away from getting there regularly.
Those are the aforementioned positive feedback loops. The more you do the more you get back and the easier it becomes to do more again. These loops only get stopped by the tourneys drastic increase in costs in higher provinces.
The dwarven armourers I win (maybe), I end up using for next Spire, so I'm not really gaining anything there, am I? I actually do put a hell of a lot of effort into Spire/tourney, which is why I'm exhausted and frustrated. It just seems the effort & resources used in Spire are not worth it... the stuff I win, I just use to battle the rest one... never-ending story.
Yes do DO win! If you get an armorer and use it next week you DO gain because your next spire and tourney will be that much easier, you gain everything that you would otherwise have to spend to achieve the same result without the armorer.
It sure is a never ending story, that´s the whole point of it. We´re spinning a wheel, we just spin it faster and faster, but all it does is go round and round lol But the point is the faster you spin it the more goodies fall off it.
I guess the big question is: what do you want out of the game? Which part is the one you enjoy? Focus on that one and leave the other parts to those that enjoy them. There is no law that says you have to play a certain way.