Early Focus: if working with a new account

I’m new, so what should I focus on early?
Increasing Population, Upgrading “important” buildings, Research, Research, Research.


Why Population?
1) Increases how much money you make
2) Increases the amount of people you can afford to work on the mills, mines, and academies.
3) More people on Mills/Mines/Academies = more (bigger) building upgrades quicker, and faster research

In order to get a higher population faster click on your town hall. Take notice to how many people are allowed there and the growth rate. When just starting out, you never want growth to be at ‘0’. Upgrade the town hall, and to make the population increase faster, upgrade your tavern while waiting for your people to fill up. When you notice that the town hall is almost filled increase it again.


Why Research?
Research is “everything”. It makes your colonies function more efficient, it lets you use “better” units, it lets you build “important” buildings, it reduces costs of things.

ALWAYS make sure you have as many people as you can researching at all times.


Building is 2/3 your score, so what buildings should I work with?
SET SHORT TERM GOALS!
Work on getting these buildings up to level 8. (can expand to 2 colonies when these are around level 4)



* Warehouse (upgrade first whenever you start a new colony! otherwise if put too many resources inside you wont get them all and they will all go down the drain)

* Town Hall (to hold more citizens. Never have 0 growth)

* Walls (try to keep even with Town Hall)

* Academy (to hold more scientists)

* Barracks (allows you to build certain troops the higher it is and level determins build speed)

* Tavern (increase population in town hall faster)

* Hideout (catches people spying on you, and lets you spy on them. try to keep them 5 levels higher then your town hall with ALL SPIES in the hideout. If you have spies out in other cities then your level is based off how many you actually have avalible to protect your city)

* Port (higher level determins the loading time when you are pillaging, trading, and transporting goods)

* Gov Residence (must be equoal level you have cities in ALL cities otherwise you will have corruption. Corruption effects your growth rate)

* Trade Port (so that you can sell excess resources for gold- level 4 should be good)





What resources should I plant a colony on?
It depends what colony you start on.


If you start on Marble….go

1. Marble (original)
2. Crystal
3. Sulfur
4. Wine



Try to support yourself by pillaging inactives. This means have a pillaging crew in all cities and when you build cities, try to spread them out a bit so they arent right on top of another. Build your next colonies depending to your playing style. Wine should be in abundance in the inactive players but is still something you will need more of as you get bigger. Sulfur is also quite important because when you get bigger you'll need more to build troops.


Why stick to that order?
Marble will be used from day 1 to your last day on upgrading buildings. Wine is going to help boost up your population in your colonies which will allow you support more citizens depending on your tavern. (just make sure you make more wine then you spend)


Why Crystal?
Crystal is used for building up your academies which is very important early on in the game. It also I used for Unit upgrades (workshop) which you’ll do a little later)


Is sulfur not important?
Not that early. Sulfur is used for the Bigger Palace/Governors Residence upgrades, and for building units. You can always find people trading it inside the alliance, or at your trading post. If you really need it, trade for it, or buy it. Eventually you’ll want a sulfur colony to get some kind of sulfur income. Another option is pillaging for it. If you are new and just starting out you wont be focusing on troops till you’re a bit bigger, so small amounts will help you out a bit. If anything, get your sulfur city up and use it to help you get more lumber and gold.

**Note: depending on your troops and everything else Gold is something you have to have at all times if you have troops. Otherwise if you get to 0 gold, you will lose everything. It is better to max out on building lumber and the other resources than saving a little people to earn gold. Feel free to disagree but the math doesn't lie.

For example, if you can sell 10k lumber at 10 pieces per, you gain 100k gold. On the other end of the spectrum, you decide I don’t need that extra wood and rather have the gold, those people earning gold instead will earn you 30k gold instead (since one person at the lumber yard counts as 3) Which would you rather have? 100k gold or 30k gold? As long as you are selling the lumber for more than 3, you will gain rather than lose. The only con of it is, those transporters out trading could be used in pillaging. All depends in what you are doing and your playing style.