Is there a strategy guide

from Elemental Forums

Is there a strategy guide for how to play FE well? or perhaps one from WOM that might serve as a first approximation? I just downloaded the Beta over the weekend and have just started reading the forums, so have probably missed a lot of potentially relevant posts.

I haven't played through a whole game yet, but replayed one game (with a good start) a few times as I discovered mistakes I made.  Here's a few things I think I've figured out, most of which are standard strategy game stuff, plus a couple of things I realized I don't know.

  1. Maintenance can be a killer in the early game. Specialize your cities: one that won't build troops anytime soon won't need all the military buildings. Watch for maintenance-reducing buildings that appear when your city levels up.
  2. You're going to lose troops in battles; make sure your military cities churn out replacements at a reasonable rate.
  3. Some improvements require an empty production queue; identify which cities have them, and don't build units there unless you're in somem emergency.
  4. Combined arms.  There are a lot of possible different units, so presumably various combinations are better than a single type.  For example, a few expensive blockers shielding a few cheap archers worked out well for me several times.  But what about catapults? They slightly damage several units but in the few battles I tried, they didn't help a lot; one more knight would have been better.
  5. What should you do with the various champions you hire?  They need to battle to get promotions, but some seem better suited to settling in a city.  Do you put several in one army or spread them out among several.

I'm sure there's lots, lots more!

17,593 views 9 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

I AM THE STRATEGY GUIDE  :ninja:

But seriously, any questions you have I would be happy to answer. 

Keep in mind that having one city for the first 50-100 turns is a good option as the fewer cities you have, the faster they will grow. 2-3 cities by turn 50-150 is a well rounded strategy. Just make sure the tile you settle on has 4-6 grain if you want it to be able to get to level 5. 

You almost always want your Sovereign out in the field battling monsters. Find a few heroes to go along and you should be able to level rather quickly. Remember that the more units you put in an army, the more total XP you get. Ex: A Bear gives 50XP. Attacking with one unit gives that unit 50XP. Attacking with 6 units gives each unit 50XP. 

As far as combined arms, you seem to get it already. I have never used a catapult, lol, didn't think they were in this version. Heroes are currently always better when out fighting. They can lead an army or group together, up to you. 

Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

I'm sketching out a survival guide to the beta for the new players, since we have another wave getting in with the .76 patch tomorrow.

I'll put it up sometime tonight/tomorrow.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

@seanw3: Thanks! I may well ask you more questions as I think of them -- though I presume I should post rather than hide them away in private messages. I still wonder about one specific things at the moment:

What's the right thing to do with champions that have city-improvement abilities like "faster construction in the city they're in"?  There are higher-level versions of those abilities that they can only get by adventuring, but it seems like one ought to be leaving them "at home" for at least part of the game.

@sjwt: Thanks; I actually have a copy of Art of War at home, but I was hoping for advice that was more game-specific.

@Mtrixis: Looking forward to it!

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Right now the strategy is go out and recruit a couple of level 1 champions and start killing stuff.  It doesn't matter what you research or what you build because your little band of 5 champions will wipe the map.  Ask us again in a few months, hopefully there will be some strategy behind what you build and what you research once SD has had a chance to implement some of our beta feedback.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

I was never sure if I was playing properly, the monsters got pretty hard pretty quick and the only way I could survive was to not build fighting units just have a bunch of champions with me at all times.  Now that I have so many trained champions I can build out military units and spread them out across the map...  I was glad to see from the reply here, that keeping my champions together was a valid strategy  :)

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Actually I think they may have already changed the XP gain in the XML as I'm noticing my champions are leveling alot slower now.

Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top

I have found that creating 3 cities at the begining of the game (and a few forts to capture resources) is a good start. Watch what yopu build in these cities but as you gain money (build growth and money buildings first) try to build all the buildings that the city has but WATCH YOUR INCOME. Builds Slums and other population management buildings as soon as they come avaliable as this will help you beter raise the tax rate on your empire/kingdom. 

And of corse build troops. When you can conqure as many cities as you can the more the better. And wait till that city has been built up a bit before you conqure it.

This stratagy has worked well for me so far.

I was afraid that this game would penilize you for having a lot of cities due to what has been said by some on the forums over the last couple of years but thank the gods the devs did not listen to this group.

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

You grow faster technically with more cities due to things like Pub. The trade is that you will get level 5 cities slower. In the early game I get to level 4 before expanding with cities (I use outposts alot) to make sure I have access to those faction wide bonuses you get from level 4 and 5 buildings. But the AI is much better at expanding now, so this might be dangerous to do.