Question Stuck on Chapter II

[DeletedUser12405]

Well, I've got all my residences to level 8. Cannot upgrade them to level 9 until I start making Crystals, Scrolls and Silk. But I don't have enough population or expansions to build those next level manufactories. I'm also about as far as I can go on Scouting and World Expansion. I guess I'm stuck here for a couple weeks getting all my workshops and marble manufactories to level 8 and getting my Tomb of Secretes built.

I guess that was more of a rant than a question, but any feedback or tips would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Alcaro]

On what server are you?
It's a bit hard to give an advice without seeing your city.

 

[kimkimkim]

I took a quick peek and IMO....first look at your layout of your city, there are wayyyy too many roads.....also you have 9 marble factories, maybe cut back to only 6 marble factories......once roads are cleared up, build another residence or 2.....and lastly, you only need to build silk factories cuz that's your boost, then use the silk to trade for scrolls and crystal......I recommend checking out ElvenArchitect on the ElvenStats website, it's a great city planning tool to help with rearranging and setting up your city (do take note though, once you have your city set on the site, you will then have to set it up in your city manually, the site will not do it for you)

 

[Alcaro]

ok, I found you.
First, you have too many roads, meaning you are wasting space. Place buildings on both sides of the road, or to say it different, a building must not have roads in more than one side of it.
Cultural buildings (which aren't producing something) DO NOT NEED road.
Your Marbles have unnecessary roads on sides.
Main Hall - the roads to be considered active must touch the MH with a single tile. There's no need to surround the MH with streets.
You need more residences, that's for sure. Once you gain a bit of space by reducing the roads, u can also get rid of 1 maybe 2 Marbles and get back space and population to build residences.

EDIT
I suggest as first wonder to place to be Golden Abyss not the Tome. You will get population, it's easy to upgrade it and it's the smallest wonder around, just 3x3 tiles. For goods, your FS should help you with 0 or 1 stars trades since it has some big players (my opinion) who could easily take some trades of couple hundreds goods, maybe thousand.

 

[DeletedUser12405]

Good advice, thanks guys.

 

[Pauly7]

I suggest as first wonder to place to be Golden Abyss not the Tome

In the early game I would suggest getting both AWs built as a matter of priority. The Tome will give you way more supplies than any of your workshops will, tile for tile.

 

[Sir Derf]

Place buildings on both sides of the road, or to say it different, a building must not have roads in more than one side of it.

Slight correction - A building should not have roads on opposite sides... There need to be corner properties somewhere with roads on two sides.

Extra tip- When placing rectangular buildings, try to place the road along the shorter side.

 

[DeletedUser12405]

I did some rearranging and opened up a lot of space, the road tips you guys posted were very good. Thank You.
As far as too many workshops and manufactories, I stand by my strategy of over building in the early stages of Inno games. I have two Wonders to build and they are going to cost thousands of goods to build them, Thanks to overbuilding I am making enough marble to be able to afford that. I always knew I was going to need to demolish some of them by chapter 3 or 4.
And I will be building the Tomb of Secrets as my first Wonder because those are the shards I'm getting.

Thanks again for the tips guys, much appreciated.

 

[Gargon667]

don´t bother with the Golden Abyss in the beginning, it will give you much less population/square than your regular old residences. It will be the best source for population in later chapters, but it takes quite a few upgrades and chapters behind you to get to that point, so don´t waste your space right away... The ToS is your best friend though! Much better that any WS you can build until you reach chapter 15

 

[Sir Derf]

Hmmmm, makes me want to work out an approximate GA Level to Residence level efficiency curve...

 

[Sir Derf]

Okay, not possible to get a clear-cut answer on this, as Golden Abyss provides % of Working Population, and there is no definitive answer for what a required or reasonable value that should/could be per chapter.

First, a breakdown of the best efficiency residence per Chapter (I'm an elf, so I did Elf values; I don't know if humans are different.)

Chapter	Population	Squares	Pop/sq	GA Equiv Pop
1​	100​	6​	16.67​	150.00
3​	420​	9​	46.67​	420.00
6​	470​	8​	58.75​	528.75
7​	550​	8​	68.75​	618.75
8​	900​	12​	75.00​	675.00
9​	1200​	12​	100.00​	900.00
10​	1820​	15​	121.33​	1092.00
11​	2200​	15​	146.67​	1320.00
12​	2800​	16​	175.00​	1575.00
13​	3400​	16​	212.50​	1912.50
14​	3900​	15​	260.00​	2340.00
15​	4700​	15​	313.33​	2820.00
16​	7500​	20​	375.00​	3375.00
17​	9200​	20​	460.00​	4140.00
18​	11100​	20​	555.00​	4995.00
19​	16200​	24​	675.00​	6075.00

Now, here's where it get's a little tricky. Look at that first line. A GA at Level 1 provides 2.25% of the Working Population, so to provide 150 pop means you need to have a Working Population of 6,666, where 6,516 must be coming from residences, and at 100 Population from Residence, this means you would have to have 65.16 Residences for a Level 1 GA in Chapter 1 to be as efficient as Residences.

Here's a table showing how many Residences you would need to have to produce an equally efficient GA for each Chapter and various GA levels. I picked levels just before

	1​	6​	11​	16​	21​	26​	30​
	2.250%​	4.500%​	6.750%​	9.000%​	11.250%​	13.500%​	15.000%​
1​	65.17​	31.83​	20.72​	15.17​	11.83​	9.61​	8.50​
3​	43.44​	21.22​	13.81​	10.11​	7.89​	6.41​	5.67​
6​	48.88​	23.88​	15.54​	11.38​	8.88​	7.21​	6.38​
7​	48.88​	23.88​	15.54​	11.38​	8.88​	7.21​	6.38​
8​	32.58​	15.92​	10.36​	7.58​	5.92​	4.81​	4.25​
9​	32.58​	15.92​	10.36​	7.58​	5.92​	4.81​	4.25​
10​	26.07​	12.73​	8.29​	6.07​	4.73​	3.84​	3.40​
11​	26.07​	12.73​	8.29​	6.07​	4.73​	3.84​	3.40​
12​	24.44​	11.94​	7.77​	5.69​	4.44​	3.60​	3.19​
13​	24.44​	11.94​	7.77​	5.69​	4.44​	3.60​	3.19​
14​	26.07​	12.73​	8.29​	6.07​	4.73​	3.84​	3.40​
15​	26.07​	12.73​	8.29​	6.07​	4.73​	3.84​	3.40​
16​	19.55​	9.55​	6.22​	4.55​	3.55​	2.88​	2.55​
17​	19.55​	9.55​	6.22​	4.55​	3.55​	2.88​	2.55​
18​	19.55​	9.55​	6.22​	4.55​	3.55​	2.88​	2.55​
19​	16.29​	7.96​	5.18​	3.79​	2.96​	2.40​	2.13​

Just a wild-assed guess, but I think a reasonable start would be about Chapter 8 Level 6, where equally efficient GA takes place with about 16 Residences.

 

[Pauly7]

Interesting numbers. I actually thought that the GA would be a bit more relevant earlier. The only other curveball, of course, is the coins. These are often useful for those people who like catering in the Spire.

 

[Giraffi]

If you have lots of marble, you can also trade that for the crystal, scrolls or silk you might need. You will get less per number as it is a tier 1 product asking for a tier 2 product.

 

[Gargon667]

Interesting numbers. I actually thought that the GA would be a bit more relevant earlier. The only other curveball, of course, is the coins. These are often useful for those people who like catering in the Spire.

Nah GA is a complete piece of garbage for new towns, the problem is, when they ask for advice everybody recommends it because they never do the math for small towns. They just see the 50k pop they get and think it´s awesome lol.

I always say for hyperactive people that go to the max of what is possible chapter 6 lvl 6. For anyone less ambitious a couple chapters later. Then again you have the slow pokes that do need 6 chapters to level a GA to lvl 6... in that case I tend to say do what you feel like, because it won´t change your game much either way

Also I should add: It is a common misconception that wasting space early pays off later on. The contrary is true! Wasting space early compounds! You are far better off building the most efficient buildings early on and replace them later with something even better. The time you spend space covered in non-productive buildings is lost time!

 

[Silly Bubbles]

The biggest benefit of GA is it's size and also it's offered earliest and in early chapters there's not much of choice of good AWs and it's not the best strategy to waste KPs by not having any AWs at all and waiting for the right ones to unlock. In early stages, the proportion of AWs to available space is huge and the size does matter in this situation.

 

[Stucon]

I seem to remember being stuck for coins at one point fairly early on. GA was useful then.

 

[Alcaro]

small towns are struggling for coins and tools. If the goods problem can be solved or at least alleviated by your fellows, when it comes to coins and tools, beside visits there's nothing they can do for you. So, I stick to my opinion that GA is a very good wonder, even in the first chapters.

 

[Pauly7]

I agree that the GA's coins output is a big factor and is useful for that alone, for many people.

 

[SkyRider99]

First, a breakdown of the best efficiency residence per Chapter

Awesome breakdown and explanation Sir Derf! Overwhelming actually, but as per usual you have captured the moment.

 

[Aisling1]

Well, I've got all my residences to level 8. Cannot upgrade them to level 9 until I start making Crystals, Scrolls and Silk. But I don't have enough population or expansions to build those next level manufactories. I'm also about as far as I can go on Scouting and World Expansion. I guess I'm stuck here for a couple weeks getting all my workshops and marble manufactories to level 8 and getting my Tomb of Secretes built.

I guess that was more of a rant than a question, but any feedback or tips would be greatly appreciated.

A lot of great advice has been given, but there's also trade and FS. It may sound daft but put up what you have for what you want. A player like me will see you, and your city and encourage you.. maybe even contact you, - because we've all been there - and swap your boosted for theirs at what might seem ridiculous prices. A Fellowship that takes you on should help, encourage and nurture you - that means help with trades, AW's and advice. Finally, this is a game where racing ahead in one area slows you down in another, and you'll grow into your city as it grows. Take your time, take it easy and enjoy!