What to do with wildfire essences?

[joshuadmwilliams]

I can't seem to find any documentation on the benefits of choosing order rewards that contain wildfire essences.

• Does the Queen want these?
  
• Do I just sell them to traders?
  
• The fact that they light hearth fires leads me to believe that if I run out, it is game over. Is that true? If so, how can I view how many I have from the main land screen?

Just looking for some guidance and recommendations.
Thanks in advance!

[DG]

These are components in building hearths. That's it. If you have more than you'll need then yes you can sell the excess.

[joshuadmwilliams]

Originally posted by DG:

These are components in building hearths. That's it. If you have more than you'll need then yes you can sell the excess.

This is what I needed. I'm not even to the point yet of needing to build more than one hearth per location. Makes sense now. Thank you!

[Narandia]

They do sell for a pretty nice penny to traders too, though you won't be seeing trade routes asking for them. Unless you play with the Prestige 5 modifer that increases building costs, you'll never really need more than the 3 you start with. In fact I usually sell at least one of these to the first trader unless I play on that prestige or higher.

Just keep in mind, its a very rare resource otherwise. Aside from Citadel resources and Ancient Tablets, they are the only resource you can never produce anywhere, and unlike even these, there aren't even any cornerstones that could give you some extra. Very rare for traders to have them, too.

Originally posted by joshuadmwilliams:

• The fact that they light hearth fires leads me to believe that if I run out, it is game over. Is that true? If so, how can I view how many I have from the main land screen?
  
  Just looking for some guidance and recommendations.
  Thanks in advance!

Just to be specific on that mechanic. Nothing to do with the essences but keeping the hearths going with fuel. If a fire goes out in a hearth, it can be used to rest and housing buildings in their range stop working until fuel is supplied again. If the Ancient Hearth goes out, you also get a huge global resolve penalty until then. Its not an instant Game Over condition, but it can certainly lead to a loss.

[joshuadmwilliams]

Thank you for the extra details, Narandia!

[ulzgoroth]

Not to discourage cashing some out if you have an occasion to, but I will note that you probably want to pick up the technique of building expansion hubs. You may not strictly need it, but it helps considerably - you lose a lot of time when citizens have to walk halfway across your entire explored region for their breaks.

[Samseng Yik]

They are always extra cash for me.
I will still keep at least 1. Because I like to build a 2nd hearth, but not 3rd

[Silberfuchs]

Originally posted by Samseng Yik:

They are always extra cash for me.
I will still keep at least 1. Because I like to build a 2nd hearth, but not 3rd

I believe it was prestige 5 or 6, at that point your buildings take more materials to build. A small hearth goes from 1 => 2 wildfire essence.

Sure, most of the time you will find a few extra nonetheless, but selling them becomes a harder choice.

[Zip Zap Rap]

I'm not being mean when i say this but are all of you playing on an easy difficulty?. On harder ascensions that hostility reduction and global resolve bonus you get is mandatory to keep your people around. I always go for the wildfire rewards and build as many hearths as possible.

[Kalisa]

wouldnt say its mandatory, even on p20 i usually dont need to go more then 2 hearths, depends on allot of things though, by the time i have cleared room and have the pop to support a 3rd that -40 hostility and +2 resolve doesnt really matter anymore. some maps it can be useful tho, espically if you dont roll any resolve or hostility cornerstones.

I usually focus more on getting my hearths to 20 pop each for that extra chance of double production, and by then thats 2 service buildings, which at that stage is usually well on the road to victory.

[Alt-F4]

Originally posted by Zip Zap Rap:

I'm not being mean when i say this but are all of you playing on an easy difficulty?. On harder ascensions that hostility reduction and global resolve bonus you get is mandatory to keep your people around. I always go for the wildfire rewards and build as many hearths as possible.

Kind of depends on level. Once you get to the point where you can get the third unlock (20 pop plus the decorations and a service building), it's better to build a bit tall in my experience than it is to build wide.
I usually pick a destination for the second hearth and get it set up based on fewest trees to clear to get there (just extending in a grid layout), then build those two to 20 population. I'll do that with the third rather quickly, too - but by that point in time, I'm pretty much on the last stretch to the end of the run.

I'm still leveling up my citadel stuff, so stuff may change as I get higher level for some reason. The hardest part of the game, so far, for me is keeping food consistently supplied. When I have tons of farmland, I have no farms and when I have all the farms, I have neither farms nor nodes. On the plus side, stuff that destroys your food stocks is rather moot to go up against. Too bad it's usually morale killing stuff that stacks with the morale penalty from people starving. It could just be a confirmation bias thing, but the game does seem to have some kind of mechanic to lower your odds of getting ideal draws. Dump all your amber into re-rolling blueprints for all the fields, and never get one. Go onto a map with no farmland and you end up picking farms because it's all it gives you. We need a mechanic to bribe the blueprints guy at the city, or have the queen investigate him for sabotaging towns. Find the blightrot cyst on his head, or something.

[Silberfuchs]

In many settlements food is the limiting factor, hence i'm not a fan of building up a huge population. Folks just eat way to much. xD

The hostility reduction from small hearths gets eaten away and then some by higher population numbers anyways.

If you can do it: go for a really large population, but it's not always the best of ideas.

[Samseng Yik]

2 hearth usually are very very enough.
Just sell the extra unneeded

[pcdeltalink]

Originally posted by Alt-F4:

Originally posted by Zip Zap Rap:

I'm not being mean when i say this but are all of you playing on an easy difficulty?. On harder ascensions that hostility reduction and global resolve bonus you get is mandatory to keep your people around. I always go for the wildfire rewards and build as many hearths as possible.

Kind of depends on level. Once you get to the point where you can get the third unlock (20 pop plus the decorations and a service building), it's better to build a bit tall in my experience than it is to build wide.
I usually pick a destination for the second hearth and get it set up based on fewest trees to clear to get there (just extending in a grid layout), then build those two to 20 population. I'll do that with the third rather quickly, too - but by that point in time, I'm pretty much on the last stretch to the end of the run.

This is somewhat my same impressions as well. Yes, I am still playing on lower difficulties until I get city upgraded more but by the time I consider or set up a second hearth the game is usually almost over anyway.