Cornerstone tier list

[arjensmit79]

1 is lowest, 5 is highest.
I am currently on prestige 9. When rating, i try to think ahead of what the game will be like on high prestige. but thats a bit speculation of course.
Sorry it reads like ♥♥♥♥.

1 Advanced Fuel I rarely produce fuel. If i do, the value is about 1/3th citizen production
3 Ancient Pact I think this is generally underrated. People act like the knowledge has no value. I think the knowledge is pretty valuable. It may require you to open 1-2 fewer glades during a game, resulting in 30-60 less hostility. It may also reduce problems caused by events and it may enable you to find ruins to restore and plan your blueprint choises around that. The cost is probably 4-5 citizens over a whole game since we don't open small glades anyway.
2 Back to Nature With the rather common Living Matter event, storing food for long term isn't a great strategy anyway. With some micro management you can make sure the downside doesn't bite you too hard. Double production on farms can be worth several citizens production. Still, its not super awesome.
4 Baptism of Fire Over the course of a game, the effect of this will grow from near zero to like 30 hostility per year. Over the total game, it can easilly be worth -100 hostility.
3 Bed and Breakfast 10 gold every time a trader comes in. At low to medium prestige levels gold is pretty plentiful and this is only useful in early game. At higher presige levels gold should become harder to get and this can be more valuable. In total i'm thinking this can be worth about 100 gold during the game.
2 Biscuit Diet. Situational. Can be a 4 if you have biscuit production going anyway.
5 Blight Extractor 3 amber per minute is 30 amber per year. Thats massive. At lower-medium difficulties, you can easilly disable even 2 buildings from being purged and gain 60 amber per year from this. At high difficulties you will have to clear your buildings, but you may still get plenty of amber out of this.
1 Blood Price Contract Losing citizens is not a good plan. I am however tempted to give this a high(er) score because its a mechanic that helps you in dire situations rather than a win-more thing. Maybe on high difficulty i will change my mind on this and other similar cornerstones.
1 Bread Peels Situational, and when its being used, its value is still limited to about 1 citizen of productivity.
4 Burnt to a Crisp Similar to baptism of fire, but 20 coal instead of 10 hostility. If we compare the sell value of that to the traders selling us -50 hostility books, this is worth more, but i don't go out of my way to buy that book on every occasion without a reason. Hostility reduction is king. Baptism of Fire is slightly better. (but i put them in the same tier)
5 Calming the Forest One of my favorites. Opening a glade every year this is worth about -30 Hostility per year to no downside or extra cost.
1 Canibalism See blood Price Contract, but worse.
2 Cheap construction The downside isn't that terrible, there's usually plenty resources, but the upside isn't that great either. Its nice to pick up in late game though just after you opened a bunch of glades and before you start building those expensive service buildings.
2 Chicken or Egg Sure in combination with other stuff it can produce insane things, but even then, insane population comes at a cost. Better keep population under control. In normal circumstances it can provide you with a few extra harpies wich is useful.
3 Clay delivery line 30 clay per year. some 200 clay per game. Thats pretty useful.
2 Copper extractor For your tool production, you either go dew or you go copper. When you go dew, this is absolutely terrible. When you go copper, this is good. Point is, its more more terrible than it can be good, and i go dew much more often than copper. Still, if you already decided to go copper, take it.
1 Cosmetics Spec. I havent even produce 70 cosmetics in all my games together so far.
3 Crowded Caravan. Extra people is nice in the early years.
2 Crowded Houses. I usually get about 20 houses worth of people in a game. Now i can house those in 14 houses, saving building materials for 6. Thats nice, but not too special.
0 Deserted Caravans Whut no trading !?
1 Deye Extractor Situational and not super awesome when it works.
3 Exploration contract Nice bonus that happens basically once a year.
5 Exploraion Expedition Indeed this might be the nr1 cornerstone out there. Its probably be an utter fail at high prestige levels though when storm takes 4 minutes and solving glade events take extra long.
1 Exploration Training Yes it has the potential to be pretty strong, but its involves quite a lot to make it happens only late when it no longer matters.
1 Export Specialization Decent bonus, but i don't usually produce a lot of packs of goods. Maybe on high prestige i will have to do more of it and it will pick up in value, i will have to find out.
1 Extraction Tools I get plenty of artifacts from settling next to the correct modifiers.
2 Family Gratitude Reputation from Resolve happens later in the game. When this happens, i don't need the water skins anymore, but i guess it might be possible to incorporate this into some wine or beer strategy where the first point of rep gets things goin.
3 Fiber Delivery line See Clay Delivery Line
1 Fiery Wrath I never sacrifice anything. Maybe this will change at high prestige.
2 Firekeepers Armore This is not usefull yet at medium prestige levels. It probably will be at high level ones though.
3 Firekeepers Prayer This one is hard to valuate before i get to p20. On low levels the downside is a non factor and the upside is nice, but not super needed.
2 Flame Amulets I don't really care much. I take them off during storm anyway. But it gives you some more flexibility and makes it easier to get reputation trough resolve.
2 Frequent Caravans I dont really use caravans so far. I might have to as my goods are losing half their value in the tradepost with prestige 9 i believe. Either way, it isn't useless, it can be helpful in getting rep tru resolve.
2 Friendly Relations I like this a tad bit more than Frequent Caravans but still not great.
1 Fungal Guide Has some nice potential, but these effects come in rather slowly and by the time it really gets rolling, the game is over. (and you simply have way more than you can use)
2 Generous Gifts Sure its more and no downside, but nothing too special.
3 Giant Veggies This is a significant increase as your gathering goes from 1 to 3 and farming goes fro 3 to 5.
1 Golden Marrow Situational and when its in effect, it will only give you a trickle of amber.
1 Grain Bags This tends to happen after i have won the game
3 Grain Delivery Line 30 grain per day, thats half a plantations production for free
2 Guild Catalog If its early in the game, you will get offered a hand full of extra cornerstones, but its at the cost of this one and the cost is now, the reward is later. I will choose a tier 3 over this.
2 Hidden Reward Thats a hand full of gold per year.
1 Hunter Gatherers Can be good situationally when you dont get hostility from opening glades and/or faster gathering when you use many of them. But outside that situation, i mostly farm rather than gather.
2 Improvised Tools Thats maybe worth 10 gold per year at the cost of ~2-4 beaver resolve. You take them off during storm so the cost is fine.
2 Leather Gloves Less good than Giant Veggies because i like veggies a lot and rarely produce or gather reed.
1 leftover Crops If you produce herbs, you get packs worth 2 or 3 gold per year. Unimpressive to say the least.
1 Local Taxes 100 frickin Ale, what do you think i am ? Heiniken ?
2 Lost in the Wilds an extra free villager each year. Half as much as crowded caravans. It was nice when we still were naive enough to open small glades. It will be nice again when those are balanced.
4 Lost Supplies I consider Meat a prime resource and 40 is a lot. 40 grain is also pretty nice. Better than Exploration contract.
2 Lumber Tax Handful of gold per year.
2 Meat Specialization Pretty good when meat comes from the forest, otherwise less impressive. Still one of the better +1 per 25s
1 Metallurgic Prof. Only speed, not production numbers. You probably need 1 less worker for your tools production. Not impressive.
3 Mist Piercers Same as Ancient pact except on medium/low difficulties, the downside of this is a non-factor. On high difficulties it might be as costly as ancient pact. Don't know yet.
2 Moldy Grain Seeds Thats ~20 shrooms per year when i have a farm doing grain. It helps.
1 Moss Brocolli Seeds Seriously i dont know. I have never even built a greenhouse.
1 Mushroom Seedlings Is this needed ?
3 Old Feodora Hat I suppose thats worth about 10 extra gold per year. (Or is it also 50% more reputation? in that case this is a 4)
1 Over Diligent Woodwor Free Barrels, probably like 10-15 per year. That might be a little useful, or not at all.
3 Peasant Supplies About 10 gold worth of packs per year
2 Prayer Book 10-30% faster glade event solving is nice. It is however more nice in early game than in late game, and thats when its only 10%. Still with the longer times needed at high prestige this might be a 3.
3 Prosperous Archae Basically about 1 global resolve per year. Good, but not as good as the -hostility ones.
4 Prosperous Settlement This has gained me many easy victories on medium-low prestige where i can get 10 global resolve out of this easilly. Will probably be much, much less impressive at high prestige.
5 Protected Trade Even better than Prosperous settlement as its better to prevent high hostility levels than to try and cure the problems they cause
1 Rain Pumps Who cares, really...
4 Rebelous spirit This rating is based on higher prestige levels where this will much of the time be 4-5 global resolve.
2 Reinforced Tools More goods helps.
1 Religious settlements As often explained to newbies, this game is not simcity. By the time this starts to kick in, the game was long won.
2 Rich Glades It helps but nothing impressive
3 Root Delivery Lines Same same.
4 Rooty Ground +1 wood is frickin awesome. The downside is a bit meh.
4 Safe Haven Lets value this at -15 hostility per year. Sort of similar to Baptism of fire
3 Sahildas cookbook When you are producing Pie, its a 4-5, but you aren't always producing pie.
2 Sharp Sickles See Leather Gloves
5 Silent Looting Thats a -30 hostility per year.
2 Small Distillery I dont think i ever produced Resin. And i need Crystal Dew in vastly different amounts anyway.But ill give it a 2 because dew is such a valuable resource and it just might happen.
2 Small Press If you're producing flour, its usually in decent quantities, so this sorta works and provides some free fuel that can also be used to solve glade events.
4 Smugglers Visit I so love smugglers, gimme the good stuff.
1 Spices Slow, by the time this starts to do something, it wont matter anymore.
2 Steel Pickaxes Its situational, it can turn a stone-poor map into a stone-fine map. In that case its surely a 3.
1 Stormwalker training Eh yay...
2 Surprise Chile See Chicken and Egg
3 Survivor Bonding Its not too much, maybe only a 2, but still speed and global resolve are 2 mighty fine resources even if its only a little.
2 Training Racks See Leather Gloves
4 Trade hub Another one of those key cornerstones for my favorite strategy at low-medium difficulty. Might be much less good on higher level espescially since it has a cost that doesnt go down in value.
2 Trade Logs 25% faster trader is nice.
1 Training ground Another one of those useless post end game bonusses.
2 Urban Planning See crowded houses
2 Value added tax Might be good on high difficulty levels where gold is harder to get.
1 Vineyard Town Another one of those useless post end game bonusses.
1 Well-Rested Workers Another one of those useless post end game bonusses. Yep this one goes right on the same pile as the "70" ones...
3 Without Restrictions I dont use consumption control very much, so this is a nice bonus
4 Woodcutters Prayer I love it
3 Woodcutters Technique similar to the delivery lines
1 Work Safety Guide And yes, also that pile....

[Hauw2x]

el Darkness eredeti hozzászólása:

Honestly I never thought of it this way before, but it definitely is not wrong to avoid getting "bonuses" that will start working after you invest in them heavily. This Cornerstone is slow to start, but after it starts it is among strongest Cornerstones. Of course you need to survive until it fully kicks in, so if you are struggling with survival, it may be wise to avoid it.

As for Survivor Bonding, I tried it a few times (in 3 games I believe) and it never felt impactful, even when I stacked it. Rebellious Spirit is stronger than 2-3 Survivor Bondings and makes significant your life with higher Resolve. But maybe I just could not notice value of that Cornerstone yet.

Obviously! If you get a powerful start that you're darn sure you can make it through, pick the future!

IMHO the winning way to play this game is to understand whether you need face value or can invest into future value

With that being said, hostility reduction is always a premium stat

Edited : by any chance you did realize that Survivor Bonding is villager speed not production speed, right?

[kory]

Hauw2x eredeti hozzászólása:

el Darkness eredeti hozzászólása:

Protected Trade even after P9 can give you around 150 Hostility reduction, it is still awesome. As for Survivor Bonding it feels underwhelming for me, I had taken it twice in single game and I think it was almost detrimental (compared to other Cornerstones) despite looking ok on paper.

I do stocks for a living and there's a key concept we call face and future value

The future value of Protected Trade is astronomical, but the face value is negative. You read that right, it's not zero, but negative. Why? Because if I'm scrambling to feed the villagers, how am I supposed to produce the red pouches?

Due to steep increase in prestige difficulty, I admit I am usually biased against cornerstones with negative face value

Its face value isnt negative, you can just not produce packs of procvsions, and it wont hurt you. When you get into a position that it is time to produce them, then it will start helping you. It cant hurt you except in that you chose it over something else (and every cornerstone has that).

[el Darkness]

Hauw2x eredeti hozzászólása:

Edited : by any chance you did realize that Survivor Bonding is villager speed not production speed, right?

Yeah, but I think production speed might be more beneficial. Maybe I will give it a try few more times (when I find time to play AtS), but probably it will be the times when other options suck more. :)

I am not saying this Cornerstone must be avoided at all costs, I just had better experience with numerous other Cornerstones. :)

[Lil brekky]

Cannibalism is insurance.

Survivor bonding is so weak. Its benefits are vague, slight, and it has no scaling at all.

While Protected trade is incredibly strong, as it throttles the most direct threat to villager resolve, while also pushing you to play with another powerful mechanic which you should be using anyway. As for Trade hub, p9 does not reduce value of trade routes, so unless youre selling to trader, it should have no bearing on tier score. The $ threshold does not change.

Exploration expedition is perhaps the single best cornerstone throughout the prestige ladder. I genuinely think it needs adjusting to not be acwin button, as small glades are risk-free, and youre very unlikely to need more than a handful for a full half-hour of super saiyan resolve.

Hauw overweighs prestige modifier effects in this evaluation.

[Hauw2x]

kory eredeti hozzászólása:

Its face value isnt negative, you can just not produce packs of procvsions, and it wont hurt you. When you get into a position that it is time to produce them, then it will start helping you. It cant hurt you except in that you chose it over something else (and every cornerstone has that).

I guess this argument is correct. Still it's usually going to take awhile until it's reliable

el Darkness eredeti hozzászólása:

I am not saying this Cornerstone must be avoided at all costs, I just had better experience with numerous other Cornerstones. :)

In all honesty the flat movement speed is awesome by itself. You can have standard road, and it works like stone road.

Lil brekky eredeti hozzászólása:

Exploration expedition is perhaps the single best cornerstone throughout the prestige ladder. I genuinely think it needs adjusting to not be acwin button, as small glades are risk-free, and youre very unlikely to need more than a handful for a full half-hour of super saiyan resolve.

Hauw overweighs prestige modifier effects in this evaluation.

Right, I never thought of opening small glades with exploration expedition. Didn't open one in the past 80 hours 🤣🤣🤣🤣

And double right, I'm a person who overweighs face value, but probably that's why I have yet to lose a game so far and never bothered with Cannibalism.
There's a lot of times I'm inches from losing, though

In all honesty, I know trade hub works with trade routes just now. I guess it does deserve high rating. I barely picked it, I thought it was like Protected Trade. I bought a perk, and it didn't made any progress 🤣🤣🤣🤣

[Lil brekky]

Hauw2x eredeti hozzászólása:

Right, I never thought of opening small glades with exploration expedition. Didn't open one in the past 80 hours 🤣🤣🤣🤣

And double right, I'm a person who overweighs face value, but probably that's why I have yet to lose a game so far and never bothered with Cannibalism.
There's a lot of times I'm inches from losing, though

In all honesty, I know trade hub works with trade routes just now. I guess it does deserve high rating. I barely picked it, I thought it was like Protected Trade. I bought a perk, and it didn't made any progress 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Something I admire about this game is that successful players can bicker viciously about optimal strategies, yet still all be successful. The paths to victory are many and the rng favours the player more than it hinders him.

Makes the very concept of a tier list pretty funny

[Hauw2x]

Lil brekky eredeti hozzászólása:

Something I admire about this game is that successful players can bicker viciously about optimal strategies, yet still all be successful. The paths to victory are many and the rng favours the player more than it hinders him.

Makes the very concept of a tier list pretty funny

Agree that you can win regardless, and agree that tier list is pretty funny itself

I'm facerolling a P11 Coral Forest game right now
I'm offered Meat Specialization at first drizzle. OP said it's 2
Second drizzle reroll, I got Safe Haven. OP said it's 4

I had 1500 meat at 6th year, I take every caravan with highest population, and I literally turned off every food except meat in consumption

I didn't get Druid Hut until 5th year, but 2nd year I found 2 coal nodes. Coal takes care of my fuel needs and soon Oil is going to be perpetually sacrificed 🤣🤣🤣🤣

It is 700-ish meat now because I paid traders with meat, amber go for blueprints, I'm collecting 'em all even if I don't need 'em! 🤣🤣🤣

Because I'm going for 3 Utopias achievement at once!
I got the Guild Hall and 53 people right now. I hope I can get Bath House and Clan Hall. If everything else fails I'll just reroll blueprints!

This run is going to be ridiculously crowded 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Any advice you can give me about managing 100-population cities? I'm not gonna let this chance flunk! 🤣🤣🤣🤣