This is just one idea of how to grow your empire.  If it does not work for you, that's fine, if someone in chat tells you a different route, again fine.

 

 

Why might this not work for me?

 

• Your initial city layout might have a resource node layout that is more helpful towards certain resources 

• You may have a friendly neighbour or alliance mate who is sending you resources regularly

• You could be using denari (in game currency) to purchase items which give resources

• The amount of time you can be online will affect how much time you can devote to adjusting what is happening in your empire

 

Any of the above will affect exactly how you play.  Don't stress over not doing as well as you'd like, concentrate on having fun and understanding how everything works.

 

 

Your target: to settle a second city and have plenty of resources 

 

You will need the following to be able to settle a second city:

 

• You need to research the promotion, to be allowed another city - which means a Sorcerers Tower Level 10    

• A Senator - which means an Academy at level 10

• 250 carts or 25 trade ships - which means Forums or Ports - most people build these up while their Senator is enlisting

• 100k wood, 100k stone, 25k iron, 25k food

• A free command slot, so if you have 5 raiding parties busy, you need to cancel one to allow the senator to leave

 

In the immortal words of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.... A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitch hiker can have.  

 

Oh wait, wrong quote!  What I mean to say is  "Don't Panic!"

 

 

Here is how to get there.... 

 

First things first

 

• To get your city off to a good start, you'll need to have finished the tutorial.  That will give you a few resources to be going on with.

• Early on you are going to need  wood and stone and not a lot more.  

• Place 12 Forester Huts, 6 Stonemines and 2 more Cabins (there's not a lot of benefit in a faster construction speed at this point, your resource production probably won't keep up).  Use the City Optimisation tool to plan where to place your resource buildings.  Place them to get maximum bonus from resource nodes, with cabins next to them to boost further.

• Add 2 more Iron mines and 2 more Farm Estate too.  They won't produce much, but you'll need a little of each soon.

• Demolish the Guardhouse and the Hideaway, you can add them back later if you need to.  While you're at it, demolish the Ranger Post.  

• Upgrade every building evenly, including the basilica.

• You may find yourself waiting for resources to be produced before you can upgrade anything.  If this happens, add a few more buildings of that type, or increase those resource buildings a bit faster. You might also move cabins around so they boost production of more of the resources you're short in. 

• Remember to enlist some more troops as you get the resources - probably more vanquishers.

 

Once you seem to be OK on resources, maybe when your buildings are at level 3 or 4, and you have 20 troops.

 

• Let's get some cavern raiding going on.  Overall the returns from raiding are better than producing it yourself, but you need resources to make the troops in the first place....

• Add a couple of extra barracks (they use stone)

• Add one more Training Arena (there is no point in having super fast enlistment at this point)

• Enlist as many Vanquishers as you can.  You could enlist rangers, but they use wood you probably need elsewhere.

• Set them off raiding.  Depending on the Caverns around you, check which ones you have the best chance of getting a good result from.  Pick the nearest Level 1 cavern you have.

• Don't forget your Basilica too - it adds storage and gives more building slots

 

Send out raiding parties.  Use the cavern raid tool.

 

Check your rewards.  There may be resources there, or resource items.

 

Carry on doing this, as your Basilica upgrades you can add more building types

 

• At level 7 - you can add your Sorcerers Tower.  If you are waiting for resources to build up for every upgrade, don't worry yet - add more resource buildings instead.  Let it upgrade slowly, you'll need it to be Level 10 eventually with 50k of each resource

• At level 8 - add your Academy.  Again, it will need to be Level 10 eventually.

• You will also want to add more barracks to get more raiding parties.  

• I do NOT recommend building a castle in your first city.  You may lose it.  If you lose your only city you will be reset back to zero, zip, nada.  Any items, gold, resources, buildings you may have will be lost.  Only denari will be kept, but there is no refund for any that have been spent.

 

At this stage, everything is a balancing act.

 

Based on the caverns you have, and what troops you're making, you may be perfectly balanced in resources but probably not.   Everyone will have their own opinion on the 'best' ratio of production: roughly 35% wood, 40% stone, 20% iron, 5% food.  

A good target to aim for at this stage might be 8k wood / 10k stone / 5k iron / 2k food, per hour.

 

My suggested order of action is:

 

• Construction speed to 1,000 ish (Upgrade cabins)

• Sorcerer Tower to L10 (this will take twice as much stone as wood)

• Save up 50k of each resource to refine

• Research the Title Advancement

• Academy to L10 (also needs a lot more stone than wood)

• Enlist a Senator (50k iron, 100k gold).  Tip: to enlist faster, add a few low level Academies next to your barracks.  

• Forums to 250 carts**

• Save up 100k wood/stone and 25k iron/food

• Settle your city - pick a spot near caverns, at the level you're currently raiding.  Don't go more than a few spots from your first city, unless you are in an alliance who give you an area.  You can use city 1 to support city 2 while it grows.  Your first city will be a water spot, so landlocked might be a good choice.  

• ** If you're going to move to a different continent, you will need 25 trade ships.  To build ports your basilica will need to be L10.  Making your second city on a new continent is going to take you a long time.  

 

 

What shall I do with City 2?

 

• If you're in an alliance, they can advise.  If not, you'll probably want to make it more of a troop city to be able to raid for resources.   Rangers are cheap, good at raiding and also a defensive troop.

• Make sure to send in resources regularly from your main city.  Set up the trade councillor to Request Resources from your main city if you're using her.  

• You MIGHT want to have a few wood and stone producing buildings, but don't go overboard - concentrate on cabins and barracks. 

• You will NOT need a Sorcerers Tower or Academy, unless you're going to make those troops that use them.  

• You WILL probably want a forum or two, to send all the resources you're going to be raiding back to base.

 

 

What shall I do with City 1 now?

 

• Carry on upgrading everything!  

• As you might now take your Basilica to 9 or 10, more building slots open up for you - more storage would probably be a good idea, but by now you probably know what you're doing.  

• As you get more in control of your growing empire, there are more buildings you may need to add, the Crown of the Gods website here has information on all buildings and what they can do for you.

• Carry on using the Sorcerer Tower to refine excess resources (if you have the Trade Councillor, she can do that for you.)

• You'll need 400 more of each refined resource to be able to research your next promotion.  Don't panic though, the one after that will be free if you've built a castle in one of your cities.  For information on the resources and ranks, visit the Crown of the Gods website, here.

 

Now I am ready for City 3

 

• Once you've refined another 400,000 of each resource and researched your Title Advancement, enlist your next senator

• Save up the resources, make sure the carts are home (hopefully they're being kept busy delivering to City 2?)

• Send Senator off to settle a new city.  

• Use your knowledge and friends to help you decide what to do with it.  Maybe horsemen?  Druids can be useful.  

• You probably don't want to look into Artillery just yet, it uses a lot of resources and will not bring in resources as they cannot raid caverns.

• Navy also takes a lot of resources, but Stingers and Warships can be used to raid water caverns (Siren's Coves) which bring in more food.  They are few and far between though.  

 

And after that?

 

• Before you know it you'll have 10, then 20, 50, 100 cities.  

• To move to a different continent you will need 25 trade ships, instead of 250 carts. 

• You don't have to settle every city like this - once you get more confidence and troops you may siege and capture cities from other players.  Of course they will try to stop you, and may also try and capture your cities from you.

• It is also possible to siege and capture abandoned cities, but beware - they may have  been abandoned with troops in that you'll need to kill, or they may not have the buildings or layout that you would like.  

• Note that every 4th Title Advancement (up to 100 cities) is free, if you have sufficient 'Castled' cities, but don't castle everything, you could lose everything!