Hi boring stuff here

v0.1 of the guide. [02/02/16]
v0.2 several changes and improvements [04/02/16]
v0.3 Sooo yeah 10 months later making a few more updates. Will be updating a bit and changing things. [17/12/2016]

Well for all basic stuff play the tutorial, it's a bit slow but works perfectly for learning the most basic things.

When starting a new game you should always check for a few things.
Things to look for:
- Enough free space to start building and enough space around.
- There should be no cementeries, troll dens or warlock tower close.
- Keep yout town away from the edges of the map.
- Look for shrooms and at least a small forest to start your medicine chain easily.
- Iron and coal deposits at 1/4 of map (if you plan on using it, if not doesn't matter).

Extra points for:
- Large clean forest with tall dark green trees (give more logs per tree).
- Closer to the north (top part of the map).
- Haunted mines close for future expansion.

* The new settlers will always come from the north of the map. The more close you are to that part, the faster they will be added to your city and the easier will be to start out (from top to botom they can take a bit more than a month for the new settler.
* The enemies always appears at specific spots of the map, regarding the route to you (needs more testing). They can appear in your town if you are unlucky enough so keep away from the edges.
* I Never was close to Warlock's tower so never received the warlock's attack however undead and trolls will atack you at a random point, after that they should attack you every other month after.

For old Impression game players you know what i mean, for the rest it means a city block with the citizens and all the needed services trying to get the golden ratio (so you have as many workers in the smalles place possible without redundancies or excess.

You should try to create your own to suit your own style but for me 6x3 with extra line to the side worked wonders. Will try to update later with stadistics of workforce and consumption.

You can place gubernamental buildings later on on the clean side, also remember to leave 2/3 squares empty all around the block to improve the appeal so houses can fully evolve (middle block will require fountainst to achieve Lv11, that means stone).

For that block 1 peddler and 1 medicine seller should be enough at all levels. They should be able to stockpile enough material for a full round. Later on you can improve the amount of things they can stockpile so it can last longer or you can work on a larger block.
This is a half block so after placing and closing the gubernamental buildings you can mirror it however take note that you WILL need a second peddler and medicine seller AND placing roadblocks so they stay each one on it's side, they are unreliable at best so be carefull. Also if expanding to a full block do note that your consumption will duplicate.

With the new update im testing a few new blocks. will update later.

Before your people start arriving you should plant your farm, that way you can have a few starting turnips to feed early on.

That is a basic western plot (should have 6 farms nor 5) for turnips and grain.
Turnips are good for the first feed and only that. Eache turnip provides 1 food x 1 unit of turnip vs 8 food x 1 unit of bread (bread requires 1 flour and 1 wood, is a nice improvement).


After setting up the farms then you should set up a medicine production line (photo of a direct production line with a single medicine getter yard, works wonders for when you have few workers).
Dunno why, but i always required 2 herbalists/woodcutters to make the needed ammount of medicine (actually produces stockpile wich is usefull).

Lv2 means booze and going for a high tier food (ALWAYS).
Bread for westerns, wurst from hunting lodges for easterns, haven't played the rest yet.
A single line of each one should do the trick for most blocks 'till lv4/5 (westerns should add a second bakery while easterns will take a second brewery before that).

Lv3 will require furniture to evolve. depending on you population 1 of each should work from the start, again as medicine the math should work but it never did for me, always needed 2 woodcutters, 2 sawmills and 2 carpenters in a chain.

Once you reached this point every other upgrade will require more appeal meaning that your population will spike faster and easier. that's good and bad, be sure to check that your consumption stays withing your production and if needed improve your production.

Lv 5 means clothes and as westerns you can add 48 (2 full plots) of cotton (plan ahead so you dan't have to wait till next year) to the farms taking out half the turnips (let's be real turnips are good if your workers are doing nothing, this is the first food they get or if you have pigs, if not turnips shouldn't be a priority) leave at least 2 turnips plots for pigs later.
For lv 7 try to get 2 shoemakers taking leather from pigs and be ready to make 2 smokehouses for the extra meat.
Last improvement it's pillows. At this point i fully recommend having at least 2/4 archer squadrons. The you can redirect the feathers that you no longer use to make pillows. Just add a few farms and plant more wheat and cotton.

Once your houses are lv 11 depending on your block desing we are talking about 3/4 of every basic maker (carpenter, shoemaker, pillow maker, clothier) and 6/7 food makers. As western you should have 8 and at least half with bread (usually end with 4 bread, 2 eggs and 2 wurst), as an eastern 6/7 is ok, export extra food if you want/can however do keep up you alcohol industry, your consumption will be very high.

Cheat sheet.
Requirements to evolve
Lv1 Food
Lv2 Booze
Lv3 Furniture
Lv4 Appeal
Lv5 Clothes
Lv6 Appeal
Lv7 Shoes
Lv8 Appeal
Lv9 Pillows
Lv10 Appeal
Lv11 Can't evolve again.

Once you have a stable production rate and lv5 houses you should be ready to make improvements.
There are 3 things that you need to improve (there is no specific order, i tend to favor population growth).

Military power is great to put preassure in other and to clean you map early on.
Archers are the go to unit early on (westerns have the best archers) and will remaing usefull always.
Start stockpiling logs for wooden turrets (very usefull against pesky goblins and the first assaults).
Would be cool to later on create crossbows to improve the archers (crossbows from planks, iron, feathers or something like that + a research so weaponsmiths will create the new weapons and send them to the platoons or form new platoons).

Economy is usefull check the trade routes and sell what you can (usually alcohol, pillows and furniture are good ways to make money).
More money more you can buy and also more that you can import in case of need.

Population growth is necesary to get more workers. Simply put continue with clothes, shoes and pillows while adding more production to the basic goods so the incresed population don't consume too much your resources and end destroying your city.

As a recommendation after Lv5 houses you should start stockpiling all basic resources (food, alcohol, furniture and the rest just in case ♥♥♥♥ happens).

Now i mentioned chains several times, they are a way to streamline your production line.
A chain has 3 parts, production, storage and distribution or end.
As an example i will use medicine production line.
First chain is the woodcutter that produces logs. It will store it's load in the first yard and go back to cut wood. The second yard is requesting logs, so once the first has some logs it will send a few haulers to transport the product and store it. Then the herbalist will pick the logs that are very close to him and start a new chain storing the medicine in the yard that accepts medicine.

There is a sweet spot in wich a chain is not usefull because is too close, however because of the lazy/bugged workers haven't been able to properly check that distance.

Chains have a few pros and cons.
* They isolate a product assuring that the components will be used only for that final product.
* They allow you to transport things in long distances.
* They bypass the producers lazy/bugged haulers (pic related*).
* They increase the effectivity of the workers making them spend less time hauling and more producing, also haulers (can anyone confirm if this applies only to storage yard haulers or too all?) can improve their speed through research.
* Can be used to easily add a new line with more product or to expand a current line (seeing as if you stop a line it won't impact on anything else.

Chains DO have a few issues.
First they tend to stockpile product wich is not effective.
Second they will take a toll in your workforce.
Third, it takes more planing, time (yours) and will cost more gold.
Fourth, it takes more time (more steps to be filled to start) to start working.
As a bonus if done poorly you will have tons of extra issues and will hinder future expansion.
If done right will allow you to control more easily the flow and production of goods.

* Maybe is because a getter was set the hauler from the bakery never leaves and the hauler from the storage yards comes to find 1 unit from the first bakery. Still a stockpiling storage yard fixed the issue. Also happened to me that even using a stockpiling storage the producer didn't send the product. Dunno why, if i can reproduce it i will upload a photo later on.

For now this is v0.2 and will try to update and improve this guide, if you have comments, corrections, tips, etc do post them and will try to change things here.

Also some suggestions to players and to the dev.

Logs are required by most things so it will quickly become a bottleneck if you have few woodcutters. All buildings produce and take 24 units however woodcutters are not 100% effective (maybe in a man made forest). If you see that you don't have enough logs just place a few more. Also i tend to unify all woodcutters and place several stockpiles with several exits (storage yards with the get order) that way if you have extra logs produced you can quickly send them to another place that needs it (also stockpiling wood means tons a wooden turrets when in a pinch).
Quick recap of log requirements.
Medicine, Wurst, Bread, Beer x2, Furniture and Weapons (spears and arrows). Also is used for and by constructions, Quarrys, Wooden tower and all final buildings use logs.

The see through buildings is bad, if possible i would like the graphics to just be erased so you can actually see through or rotating the screen, however that means that you should be building from north to south that way you can see easily.

Once your houses are lv4+ you should be gathering lore, mana and fame however there is no way to easily check if all houses are being collected so check every now an then if you are collecting all (you can check how much you make and how much you collect on the resources tab).

Don't bother too much with politics, the other kings and queens will ask for things but will not give you that much, also at later moments they will have almost no resources you can ask except money but at that point money shouldn't be a problem anymore and also. Who cares don't you want to be king of the world? Also if they attack you you can easily kill them with a few turrets and troops.

Pigs should be used only if you need the leather or you can sell it, if not you are wasting resources (worforce, time and turnips). Get hunters or go for other food sources.

For baddies:
* I never had issues with warlocks but i guess they should be something like the trolls.
* The goblin village should be walled of the second you start playing (they never attack the walls).
* The cementeries are the worst, they attack with several troops and give nothing (bait + triple walling + 6 wooden turrets should work).


* Gotta love trolls, once they spawn they will attack constantly (1 month after you kill one it respawns on the same lair) so do your best to farm them, walling and towers will make them drop goodies that you can farm forever (they drop XP, gold and fame). After a time it's no longer usefull so do it if you just started training your army or you are lacking money (fame is basically useless). Do be carefull, i have been attack by 3 trolls at the same time and had to rush archers to destroy the lairs. got saved by towers however my worker base took a big hit, almost lost all.
* Phantoms are easy to deal with, wall them in and place several turrets around them.
CAUTION They will become agressive as soon the attack order is given, that means that you should have all your soldiers ready and the walls made or they will disperse around the map destroy everything they can (they can cause tons of damage if you are unlucky, use baits if needed).

Baits are buildings you just made for the to destroy. Devs: Enemies focus on attacking walls even if they have a clear shot at a tower or soldiers. Please change that, makes things waaaay to easy.

Now this are my questions maybe someone knows and can answer them.

Does the bonus from the ultimates building stacks?
If you have 2 coliseums, do the troops receive more xp or 2 Magical institutes give a 40% of extra mana?

Does anyone know how many resources uses a house in a year?
If possible at each level how much will they take.

Well then thanks for reading and i hope this helps you.
Also sorry for the english, if a made a mistake please tell me so i can correct it.

Just a small rundown.
Westerns

Pros
Has clerics.
Most varied food source.
Can sell beer and bread for an excellent price.
Has bread, a bit more complicated that wurst but excellent food source.

Cons.
50% extra food for extra taxes is worthless. Is an aweful exchange, even more considering how hard is to make bread.
Also bread. Bread is the best and worst (above turnips and apples) if you make a mistake and your wheat production is not enough you will have to compensate with other things for the rest of the year.
Beer is the most complicated alcoholic beverage available, needs 2 logs, hops, grain, water and several workers just to make 1 (well beer is great but still).

Mhe.
Cotton, not really a fan but very usefull if you plan accordingly, is very stable and you can make your farmers work full year between turnips, grain and cotton.
Gold, money is incredibly useless mid to late game, thanks to taxes and trades you can easily make 200.000 a year that will sit uselessly on your chests except when you get some t

Personal view.
A good basic starting culture, not the best nor the worst, does take quite a bit more of workforce, timing and planning to keep with the growing needs.

Easterns.

Pros.
Can hunt for feathers and wool (from bunnies).
Can breed sheeps for wool.
50% extra alcohol for 20% more workforce is GREAT (you can never have too many workers).
Spell that improves your production.

Cons.
Must hunt for feathers.
Wurst is a very good food source but you must locate a target for the byproduct or you will be wasting workforce and spave.
To start out you NEED to find already grown apple trees or no alcohol 'till 2nd year.

Mhe
Cider is like bread, you ♥♥♥♥ up the timing and your houses will devolve incredibly fast. BE CAREFUL.

Personal view.
Again all in all a normal culture with the greatest boon of all. 20% more workforces is extremely useful.

Southern.
Not exactly appealing for me. Haven't played with them since the update.

Northerns.

Pros.
Can get feathers, leather and wool.
Berserkers.

Cons.
This is where they shine.
Mead is the worst drink ever (quite tasty) because it depends on honey, and to produce honey you need TONS of flowers for EACH hive. Not only that if the hives share flowers the produce honey much more slowly.
You must carefully hunt everything to get enough leather and feather and depending on the map you simply cant get enough of one or maybe both. Also at the start they just clutter your deposits.

Mhe.
Fish is not great but not bad. They don't help at the start (must build boat) and gives less food per fish than wurst but requires way less people and no logs.

Personal view.
Actually one of the worsts if not the worst. They have lesser workforce but consume less mead. Mead is extremely dificult to prepare in the first year, (usually takes 2/3 years) because you have to make the flower gardens with herbalists and they will not be optimized (8 flowers for hive) so you will have to make 12/16 hives per mead maker (that ocuppies way too much space).

Another guide here has all this info.