I have created this for people just starting in the game. I wish I had some clearer direction when I started as the other guides I found were a little unclear in tellig me what I should do first and how to do it.
So where should you start as a beginner? Well the idea of expanding and being able to really do anything requires the mining of resources. There are really 7 resources to build towns, military, etc. Military should be a secondary objective in the beginning. You need to have enough resources to build, research, and maintain a military. Until you have the ability to mine every resource there is very little point in trying attack other villages when you can only do it with a week military force.
The 7 resources
1. People (Created at the Town hall basic)
2. Gold (Created at the Town Hall basic
3. Wood (Mined at the Forest/ Saw Mill basic)
4. Wine (For helping with population increase and satisfaction)
5. Marble (For expanding buildings)
6. Crystal Glass (For Researching)
7. Sulfur (For Military)
The resources that every island has on it are people, gold, and wood. Wine, Marble, Crystal Glass, and Sulfur, are special to each individual island. The island that you are on will only have one of these four exotics. In order to get any of the other three exotic resources you have to trade or build a colony on another island with your desired resource. Trading is usually difficult and really expensive as well as limited. So once your basic town is built your next goal is to build another town on another island to mine a 2nd exotic resource, then the 3rd and 4tha and final. This really should be the first goals of every beginner.
First 3 goals
1. Build up Capital Town
a. Town Hall to Level 4
b. Academy to level 4
c. Barracks to level 2
d. Town Wall to level 2
2. Build defense of Town Wall and 8 slingers (Barracks) to defend the cities and your resources. You may want to build a wharehouse if you have another player continually attacking you and stealing wood, gold and exotic rexources. A Wall level 2 with enough slingers should do the trick though.
3. Build Research to be able to expand (have to build a palace to be able to colonize 1 island)
Once you have established a capital town you then want to expand to another island with marble or wine. This will take a long time (6-10 days) to be able to do. If you were smart and have an expanded your Town Hall to level 4 early by mining a lot of wood you can meet the requirements for colonization early. It requires several resources including 12,000 gold! The more people you have the more gold you can produce. The more expanded you Town Hall is the higher the living capacity is.
Objectives of for expansion
1. Expand to 2nd island – 1. Marble or 2. Wine
2. Expand to 3rd island - 1. Marble or 3. Wine. (if you were fortunate to start on a marble island or wine island then you would move on to Crystal Glass.)
***** Make sure that Marble is your first expansion unless you are on an island that already has it. You will need 525 Marble to be able to upgrade you Palce to level 2 to do your 2nd expasion. *****
Buildings Priority List
1. Town Hall Level 4 Wood (built before expanding)
2. Academy Level 4 Wood (build before expanding)
3. Barracks level 2 Wood (Build before expanding )
4. Town Wall Level 2 Wood (Build before expanding)
5. Palace 635 wood
6. Trading Port Level 2 Wood (to build 5 cargo ships to colonize)
7. Tavern Level 2 Wood (requires research in economy to win press)
8. Warehouse (to protect your goods)
9. Shipyard (to protect your port)
Suggested Research Progression
Economics:
1. Conservation
3. Pulley
4. Wealth
6. Wine Press (If you have vineyard on your island otherwise you may have to wait until expansion)
Science:
2. Well Digging
5. Paper
7. Espionage
Seafaring:
8. Deck Weapons
9. Ship Maintenance
10. Expansion
Military:
11. Dry-Dock
12. Maps
13. Professional Army
14. Siege
Then whatever you want.
How do I increase my population?
Your town Hall will generate people growth rate automatically. Initially this number will be between 2-4 people per hour. Once you have expanded your town hall and have built a tavern you can increase that number above 5 people per hour.
When you build your Town Hall and then click on it you will see some indicators of what is going on.
To build more people your rate is directly related to the Total Satisfaction or how happy your citizens are. The number underneath that reflects your town’s satisfaction and hence your growth rate will be under the second Smiley face on the right hand side You will see a number in green that says 76 happy. Once you build up your town hall and you can build a tavern in the number goes up to 260-280. This can get you over 5 people made per hour. The number in green is the one that tells you how many more people. The Tavern requires wine to serve. If you have no wine than you can’t help keep your population happy.
Other buildings that will bring happiness/satisfaction up are museums, and workshops.
How do I generate Gold?
The more citizens that are in your town the more gold they make. You can click on the gold button on the upper left hand corner of the screen to get an over view of your production, expense, and net production. Remember that when you put a citizen to work outside of the Town – Wood, Research, Soldiers – they are making gold to make another resource.
How do I mine Wood?
Once you have a town hall set you will have people or citizens that you can put to work. To put them to work for mining wood you click on the island view. You will see on the island you are on a stack of logs which is the forest. (Also known as the saw mill) Click on the forest and you will have a sliding bar to select how many people you want to put to work for mining wood.
This is the same process for your exotic resources
This should help you get started and get in the correct direction to be able to eventually build armies and a naval fleet for world domination.
This post has been edited 7 times, last edit by "Jamesicus" (May 26th 2008, 1:53am)