Help with Alchemist

[ACGreenIZ]

I am playing as nature/nature Alchemist on balanced.

My biggest problem is gold income. After the early game, when T2/T3 units become important, I find that I just don't have enough gold to support more than one stack. By week 10 I usually have 2 apprentices and a hero. The first apprentice usually has the main stack which has 1-2 tier 3 units and the rest tier 2. The second apprentice has 1-2 T2 units and the rest are usually the goblins from the start of the game. The hero sits in the tower either with no units or a stack of militia. I know I can use disciple lodges to get resources but usually I need them to hold landmarks. Should I prefer resources over landmarks? What can I do so I can afford more powerful stacks?

I know I can build stacks of free beasts from the kennels upgrade, but this leads me to my second problem which is low amount of ingredients. I usually never have enough ingredients to build the feeding pit(especially high level life ingredients). Are there good tower rooms I should build to get useful ingredients or areas I should rush to visit for their plants/ores?

Also can someone recommend which tower rooms I should build/rush?

[Jimib4158]

yeah do you have your money tower rooms? they do help, yeah its a pain cuz they cost you, thats why at start you build them, just look at your tower picture, what rooms do what,and fight with free army first couple weeks and wisps.

to see what troops cost, who is free just click on them, your cost troops first couple of weeks are expendale for sure.

if you have your rooms in that does help bottom line :/.....then again every book has ways of saving you money...i dont know what books you like but im sure you can come to some conclusion there whats best for you?

oh yeah....selling harvested and drops, in a pinch, will tide you over

[Robineus]

How about, don't hire expensive units you can't afford, hire low tier ones and then build up until you can? Hire workers and send them out to collect resources which you can then either use or sell.

Anyhow the human barracks from the middle city will let you build potion labs in them which give you 2 potion randoms a week, you can build 3 of them for a total of 6. You shouldn't need this as an alchemist, you can use potent water plus 4 points of any element to make 4 units of a whatever level 3 potion you need. After the first time you can use one of the potions you get plus ingredients to give you another 4.

There seems to be a misconception about this game, you don't need to rush it, you can take all the time in the world to just get things and figure it out.

[ACGreenIZ]

Originally posted by Jimib4158:

yeah do you have your money tower rooms? they do help, yeah its a pain cuz they cost you, thats why at start you build them, just look at your tower picture, what rooms do what,and fight with free army first couple weeks and wisps.

to see what troops cost, who is free just click on them, your cost troops first couple of weeks are expendale for sure.

if you have your rooms in that does help bottom line :/.....then again every book has ways of saving you money...i dont know what books you like but im sure you can come to some conclusion there whats best for you?

oh yeah....selling harvested and drops, in a pinch, will tide you over

Hey thanks for the reply. Yeah, I always build 2 workshops and upgrade them with trade contracts for the extra gold. It helps. I would build more but with tower space being limited I don't think more than 2 workshops are worth it. I also build troop quarters and human barracks for the free upkeep. Still these alone are not enough, they barely support the current stacks I have plus a bit of surplus income so I can have gold reserves for buying stuff from merchants.

I have a hoarder mentality so I usually never sell my ingredients but I should probably start doing that, I have many ingredients that are probably not worth hoarding.

[ACGreenIZ]

Originally posted by Robineus:

How about, don't hire expensive units you can't afford, hire low tier ones and then build up until you can? Hire workers and send them out to collect resources which you can then either use or sell.

Anyhow the human barracks from the middle city will let you build potion labs in them which give you 2 potion randoms a week, you can build 3 of them for a total of 6. You shouldn't need this as an alchemist, you can use potent water plus 4 points of any element to make 4 units of a whatever level 3 potion you need. After the first time you can use one of the potions you get plus ingredients to give you another 4.

There seems to be a misconception about this game, you don't need to rush it, you can take all the time in the world to just get things and figure it out.

Hey thanks for the advice. Between the world getting more dangerous every week and the posts about people winning the game within 20-30 weeks I always feel that I am getting left behind, so I always try to rush. Thanks for pointing out that it is not necessary.

As for the potions advice i just haven't found a recipe that provides potions with four pips that seem necessary for the feeding pit since the regular 3 pip ones are not enough. i need to experiment more with the crafting system it seems.

Are the upgrades that speed up crafting or the ones that increase the alchemy yields for threshold 1 or 3 recipes worth it?

[Robineus]

If you use potent water it gives you double the potions but subtracts 1 pip from the recipe hence why the need for 4.

[ACGreenIZ]

Originally posted by Robineus:

If you use potent water it gives you double the potions but subtracts 1 pip from the recipe hence why the need for 4.

I understand that. I meant potions that as ingredients offer 3 life pips and 1 elemental pip for example. The reason I am looking for them is because the feeding pit needs 9 life pips and 6 elemental ones iirc and since I can only add 4 ingredients I think I need ingredients that add a bit of both life and elemental pips for example 2 life and 2 elemental. I am sure there are such potions I just haven't experimented enough.

[Robineus]

Ah well what you need for that ideally is the philosopher stone, you get that by combining 3 pips of Elemental Death and Arcane, this will give a bonus 2 pips to any other ingredient for it's first use, you can then use those things with 3 and 1 pips to meet the requirements. 2 life and 2 elemental is either very rare or I haven't found it.

[Robineus]

You can also mix 3 aria to get distilled aria which will give you the potent water effect without the negative useful for making philosopher stones.

[ACGreenIZ]

Thanks. Can't believe I forgot about the philosopher stone. I built 3 of them for the alembic chamber and then forgot about them.