Struggling with this game, looking for clues

[WalkerInTheVoid]

So, I enjoy this game I find it interesting et cetera but I'm clearly not understanding something about it. I keep getting tunnel-visioned about trying to make THIS mage some uber-whatever and then time goes on and then I have my first breathstealer and then suddenly I'm dealing with 2 breathstealers at a time and it is SUCH a slog because I only have ONE fire mage on staff and keeping up with his Victory need has been... difficult, as he ends up all his time at the cook pot and only hunting when I specifically order him to...

So... yeah. I'm clearly not grasping a few basics.

Few questions:
1. When do you replace your initial staff?
2. What criteria do you use to decide "yes, this student should be an apprentice" (or become staff for that matter)
3. How do you decide when it's not worth it to do a student's Trial and just graduate them anyway?
4. How often do you replace staff?
5. What part of the game does making apprentices work?
6. What rooms do you prioritize building? (Last game I didn't have a commons or house commons for so long and between that and keeping an apprentice around way too long... well, it caused issues)
7. How do you decide which rooms to build and how to upgrade them? My brain keeps wanting to think in terms of building the final room rather than getting something going now
8. How do you keep up cooking wise?

[Kahri]

1 As soon as can replace them with improved staff (eg better wands or apprenticed)
2 Early on as staff if they fit a need (eg cook or spindle operator), or later on as apprentice->staff if they fit an improved staff profile (eg a gifted initiate that spawned with a very particular set of skills, or perhaps gained a very particular set of skills when upgrading their wand)
3 If they're not a student that I'll be apprenticing or hiring, then if I can complete the trial within a short time from them becoming fully trained, I'll keep them to gain the trial. If it takes them longer than a day or so I'll just churn them. If they're a student I'm looking to potentially hire, then I'll take as much time as needed so long as the trial is achievable and there is no urgent need to hire them on asap.
4. No schedule, just as needed/if opportune.
5. ? Not sure what you're asking. If you're asking how to make an apprentice, then you'll need to have researched the relevant apprentice teaching mechanism. If you're asking why your teachers aren't training your apprentices, it's because teachers only teach in classrooms. If the teaching mechanism is in a room that isn't a classroom, they won't teach.
6. Ones needed to fulfill needs or trials and to keep conviction covered best. Usually:
* a roof to stop the rain
* mage's workshop to make research more efficient
* sleeping
* eating, and dancing
* basic classroom
* lightning rods
* meals
* medical
* improved classrooms
* rec rooms
* basic ritual room
* relic rooms
* anything else
7. I use a spreadsheet program and background cell colouring to create a vertical floor plan based on the room keywords at the very start of the game. Then I just refer back to it every now and then as playing. Is better than being stressed out trying to keep up with re-arranging rooms in the middle of a play through. I might temporarily use a room for a different purpose early on until the main spine of the building has been built up. For example geomancers are more often than not needing to be grounded. I might use the room planned to eventually be the geomancer as a generalised classroom at the start, or even a mage's research room to get some early research buffs, since, as it's on the ground floor it'll be one of the first rooms built and available to use - but I'm unlikely to need a geomancer's room until late game.
8. They'll make do with what they're given. There are starving kids in Africa who would love gutberry soup, and these picky students dare whinge to me? Bah!

[WalkerInTheVoid]

Thanks bunches for the reply! For #5, I guess I was asking is what point along progression does it make sense to make an apprentice vs just hiring or graduating an initiate. I think part of my problem (part of the "MAXIMIZE THIS MAGE" rather than "do what I can and let's see what the next one offers", which I think is the more correct mindset for the game) is that I was holding onto initiates to apprentice them *before I had the apprentice stations*, which, in hindsight... probably not the best plan, regardless of how awesome they ended up being?

And to understand your answer for #7, you kind of plan out your school at the very beginning (at least the broad strokes of it?) and then just refer to that plan as you go on?

Also... am I missing some huge source of Gnosis shards? You get like one every time a mage increases a skill, and a few from resource nodes (but those are finite/one time), and of course I know you can pulverize relics but at one shard per relic that doesn't seem to be of much use. But... things like Sal Alembroth wants a shard per unit so scouting would cost a handful *per battle*... am I missing something?

[Philtre]

Originally posted by WalkerInTheVoid:

Also... am I missing some huge source of Gnosis shards? You get like one every time a mage increases a skill, and a few from resource nodes (but those are finite/one time), and of course I know you can pulverize relics but at one shard per relic that doesn't seem to be of much use. But... things like Sal Alembroth wants a shard per unit so scouting would cost a handful *per battle*... am I missing something?

The primary source of gnosis shards is from leveling up students. Remember that this is a school; you should always have some students being leveled. Once they're maxed, don't keep them around unless you need new staff or are trying to get all their trials to get a better relic. I think the various changes to how students work and how hiring/improving staff works have on the whole made the game more interesting, but they also have had the effect of making it less obvious that you actively want student turnover: bring them in, level them up, and graduate them.

Eventually you get the ability to display relics, which can give you buffs, and one of the possible buffs gives you extra relic shards when people level their skills. So eventually you will end up with a massive excess of the things.

[TheNightglow]

for 3:
the trials determine how powerful the relic will be, and the relic will always be of one of the students affinity slots
if I get a student with a relic slot of a relic I really want (like lets say 'Dilligence'), then I put in a lot more effort into completing their trials
beyond that, trials are mainly worth it for apprentices with a T3 wand, as those allow you to get the max lvl relics

for 5:
If a mage is already the specific species and magic type I want and is gifted, then I like to give them time and apprentice them (especially if they also have good relic affinities and base skill caps)
for everything else I d just hire or graduate depending on what I need at the moment, after all you can always retire and get more students later on

for 7:
I search in the room keywords for 'grounded' and then plan out all the grounded rooms, even if I cant build them yet
for all the other rooms I just build whatever I can, and if something new or better gets unlocked, I just add it on top and the old inferior rooms just get repurposed or become storage
for instance in my current playthrough with chaos keywords, one of my rooms changed from 'austere bedroom' to 'mages study' to a generic storage room to a 'painting studio' over time

for gnosis:
the main source of gnosis shards are those battle crystals, they often appear when you repel fog and they typically only stay around for less then a day
each of those battle crystals gives you at least 40 shards if you win (they can also give you a lot of other rare resources)

for breathstalkers:
the best way I found for dealing with them is to explore as much of the underground as fast as you can
the breath stalkers are only allowed to spawn at the unexplored underground fog, so if you explore very deep then it will also take the snails forever to climb up to your school, giving you a lot of time to shoot them
and for this I also scatter mana lanterns in the underground, allowing the defense mages to quickly refill mana while shooting at the snails

[WalkerInTheVoid]

Originally posted by TheNightglow:

for 5:
If a mage is already the specific species and magic type I want and is gifted, then I like to give them time and apprentice them (especially if they also have good relic affinities and base skill caps)
for everything else I d just hire or graduate depending on what I need at the moment, after all you can always retire and get more students later on

So, for you, it's just graduate or hire, presumably for gnosis shards, then when you have a bunch summoned a gifted student, and maybe that student is worth an apprenticeship?

Originally posted by TheNightglow:

for gnosis:
the main source of gnosis shards are those battle crystals, they often appear when you repel fog and they typically only stay around for less then a day
each of those battle crystals gives you at least 40 shards if you win (they can also give you a lot of other rare resources)

40?! Okay maybe best gear up to take on those cyrstals then. Hadn't had a chance to since the more recent updates.

[TheNightglow]

Originally posted by WalkerInTheVoid:

Originally posted by TheNightglow:

for 5:
If a mage is already the specific species and magic type I want and is gifted, then I like to give them time and apprentice them (especially if they also have good relic affinities and base skill caps)
for everything else I d just hire or graduate depending on what I need at the moment, after all you can always retire and get more students later on

So, for you, it's just graduate or hire, presumably for gnosis shards, then when you have a bunch summoned a gifted student, and maybe that student is worth an apprenticeship?

yea, creating an apprentice also costs gnosis shards, so it feels a bit of a waste if you dont really want that student to become a long term staff member (or the student has a rare relic affinity and you want to have another shot at gambling for a relict of it)

Originally posted by WalkerInTheVoid:

Originally posted by TheNightglow:

for gnosis:
the main source of gnosis shards are those battle crystals, they often appear when you repel fog and they typically only stay around for less then a day
each of those battle crystals gives you at least 40 shards if you win (they can also give you a lot of other rare resources)

40?! Okay maybe best gear up to take on those cyrstals then. Hadn't had a chance to since the more recent updates.

yea, at low levels they arent always beatable, but sometimes the game also gives you 'free wins' for them (like a battle field where you have 1 of those earth walls that give AoE defense vs 4 AoE enemies, allowing you to be invincible)
so take a look at what enemies and effects those battles have before trying them