Reagents please?

[Parthon]

I went through 14 explore cards (42 actions) over 2 nights and only got 1 reagants.

Meanwhile I'm getting brutalised by an enemy fairy city and voidlings coming out of those explorations.

Healing early on is too expensive and reagent cards are way too rare. I didn't sell any and I had to sacrifice my 2 familiars just to avoid dying, and then I still died anyways.

[Alexander]

You can get reagents by recycling land cards in the corresponding building. 2 lands -> 1 reagents. Traders also sell reagents sometimes, but that's random.

The best way to heal your familiars is by de-training, then re-training them. If you do it in a Barrens village they'll also get 2 armor. That saves tons of reagents.

But yeah, it is a resource shortage that takes you by surprise in your first run.

[ulzgoroth]

Early on, you're likely to not have that building I'd think? Once you have it you can pretty soon resolve the reagents problem.

(Personally I found +1 health to all familiars for 1 reagent a lot cheaper than at best +3 health and +1 armor for 1 mana, once I had access to that spell, though maybe on higher difficulties it is different.)

If you're the celestial witch, you want their special building in play as soon as you can use it, because it effectively doubles your building outputs without increasing inputs.

[Alexander]

Originally posted by ulzgoroth:

Early on, you're likely to not have that building I'd think? Once you have it you can pretty soon resolve the reagents problem.

(Personally I found +1 health to all familiars for 1 reagent a lot cheaper than at best +3 health and +1 armor for 1 mana, once I had access to that spell, though maybe on higher difficulties it is different.)

If you're the celestial witch, you want their special building in play as soon as you can use it, because it effectively doubles your building outputs without increasing inputs.

I run out of reagents pretty quickly when new moon started spawning that blobs that split into smaller blobs. And I played Celestial witch and had x2 production, too.

Reagents are cheaper in coins than mana, yes, but you can produce mana from nothing, while reagents can be acquired only via exploration and unreliable trade. They are limited resource.

Also the value of the healing spell grows with the number of familiars you have. In the first half of the game I was limited by the building slot number, so I had to choose between production and more familiars. I had about 5 of them until I unlocked and built a Village in the bottle. And only some of them were warriors, I had a trader, a diplomat and an apprentice.

[ulzgoroth]

Originally posted by Alexander:

Originally posted by ulzgoroth:

Early on, you're likely to not have that building I'd think? Once you have it you can pretty soon resolve the reagents problem.

(Personally I found +1 health to all familiars for 1 reagent a lot cheaper than at best +3 health and +1 armor for 1 mana, once I had access to that spell, though maybe on higher difficulties it is different.)

If you're the celestial witch, you want their special building in play as soon as you can use it, because it effectively doubles your building outputs without increasing inputs.

I run out of reagents pretty quickly when new moon started spawning that blobs that split into smaller blobs. And I played Celestial witch and had x2 production, too.

Reagents are cheaper in coins than mana, yes, but you can produce mana from nothing, while reagents can be acquired only via exploration and unreliable trade. They are limited resource.

Also the value of the healing spell grows with the number of familiars you have. In the first half of the game I was limited by the building slot number, so I had to choose between production and more familiars. I had about 5 of them until I unlocked and built a Village in the bottle. And only some of them were warriors, I had a trader, a diplomat and an apprentice.

Exploration isn't a limited resource if you have mana to burn (for coins), and you get a lot of reagents once you're processing surplus lands into reagents at a 2 -> 2 rate. At least, I did.

(One thing I consistently did was use most of my familiars offensively - apprentices aren't for combat, but they're still able to squash voidlings and having them absorb some of the damage is effectively free since the heal spell is wide-angle.)

I also have a number of the dubiously-useful Fated Familiars, which do the heavy lifting in monster outbreaks. They were annoyingly space-filling before I got the bottle village population explosion going.

[Alexander]

Originally posted by ulzgoroth:

Originally posted by Alexander:

I run out of reagents pretty quickly when new moon started spawning that blobs that split into smaller blobs. And I played Celestial witch and had x2 production, too.

Reagents are cheaper in coins than mana, yes, but you can produce mana from nothing, while reagents can be acquired only via exploration and unreliable trade. They are limited resource.

Also the value of the healing spell grows with the number of familiars you have. In the first half of the game I was limited by the building slot number, so I had to choose between production and more familiars. I had about 5 of them until I unlocked and built a Village in the bottle. And only some of them were warriors, I had a trader, a diplomat and an apprentice.

Exploration isn't a limited resource if you have mana to burn (for coins), and you get a lot of reagents once you're processing surplus lands into reagents at a 2 -> 2 rate. At least, I did.

(One thing I consistently did was use most of my familiars offensively - apprentices aren't for combat, but they're still able to squash voidlings and having them absorb some of the damage is effectively free since the heal spell is wide-angle.)

I also have a number of the dubiously-useful Fated Familiars, which do the heavy lifting in monster outbreaks. They were annoyingly space-filling before I got the bottle village population explosion going.

Again, we a talking about the situation when player has ~5 familiars, and they are busy doing stuff. If they are battling voidlings, they are not exploring, and it is very easy to run into a spiral of death situation if you do not prepare for it. My first run ended this way, with 2 -> 2 reagents production and all. I used up all the lands, then all the reagents, then all my familiars, then it was clear I'm not going anywhere.

Mana production is just much more reliable and giving a single unit +4 hit points in total is much more effective in the early game. The spell would give ~5 hit points in total if every familiar was wounded, including non-warriors. Pretty much the same, except you are healing a familiar with attack 2.

Well, I think it may be a matter of preference. In my next run I over-prepared in the matter of reagents, so I had more than I ever needed. Either way, for someone who gets into situation with reagent shortage retraining could be a way out.

BTW dubiously-useful Fated Familiars can be retrained into regular ones.

[Alexander]

Forgot to mention in my initial advice:

There are enemies with low health and high damage. Killing them with spells, like shackles or fireball, is more reagent-efficient than healing familiars after the encounter.

[ulzgoroth]

Originally posted by Alexander:

Again, we a talking about the situation when player has ~5 familiars, and they are busy doing stuff. If they are battling voidlings, they are not exploring, and it is very easy to run into a spiral of death situation if you do not prepare for it. My first run ended this way, with 2 -> 2 reagents production and all. I used up all the lands, then all the reagents, then all my familiars, then it was clear I'm not going anywhere.

Battling voidlings is fast, and I experienced essentially no time pressure at that stage - if I wasn't exploring I wasn't progressing, but I also wasn't hurting.

My perspective is influenced by a number of apparent divergences of game experience, too:
- I didn't see the de-training structure until comparatively late - some time after I had plentiful reagent production.
- I had two fated familiars by the time I had population 5, which AFAIK are incompatible with the detrain/retrain approach.
- I also built the badlands village late, since I kept hoping the others would have useful effects and being disappointed.

[Moen]

Originally posted by ulzgoroth:

- I also built the badlands village late, since I kept hoping the others would have useful effects and being disappointed.

How were you disappointed about village effects?
They all but spell out their effects in the description of most of the land cards, how could you possibly expect something different enough to end up disappointed?

[ulzgoroth]

Originally posted by Moen:

Originally posted by ulzgoroth:

- I also built the badlands village late, since I kept hoping the others would have useful effects and being disappointed.

How were you disappointed about village effects?
They all but spell out their effects in the description of most of the land cards, how could you possibly expect something different enough to end up disappointed?

They spell out what they give benefits to, but not what those benefits are.

What those benefits are for the other 'regular' land villages, are a 10% time reduction for their respective function. That's a pitiably small impact. (I have similar views on the astrolabe-trained familiars - I have one, I can't see ever getting a second.) Frankly I don't think that's been worth anything except for the forest and mountain - mana and reagent production are input-limited when they matter, and I've got overwhelming excess of the healing herbs.

(I'd rather have spent moondrops on population growth than on the bog village, in particular.)

[Parthon]

All of this advice is very good, but there needs to be a balancing system for explore. I got the quest on day 8 to give him 2 reagents. I had my witch and 2 familiars all exploring the whole time and I just ended day 8 without getting a single one. That's like 30 explores, 0 reagents. I know it's just pure RNG, but considering if you don't get reagents you can't get familiars, or heal, or complete quests for the oh so limited moonstones, it's brutal to get zero. This is my third restart as the cooking witch simply due to RNG.

[Shey]

last run I did on celestial witch I got the (I think it's called) grand alchemist wonder as my first wonder super early on and was set for the rest of the run. Aside from that, keep in mind that you don't have to keep your upgraded explore card slotted. if you're getting beat up, pull it out and do some 3 coin explores. You'll get more lands and crystals and reagents with less danger at that level.

[Parthon]

Yeah, this is mainly before day 9, after I get the first explore upgrade and a maxed out village I'm great. It's just that first 6 reagent cards, 2 for familiars, 2 to heal and 2 for the quest, sometimes you can just get unlucky and not get all 6.

[Navi]

Not sure if anyone is interested but one of the way I got around the issue of regents was to train warriors, have them attack and get to 1 HP. I would then demote them back to normal and train them back to Warriors. This would heal them back up to 4 HP.

It was expensive but I had a lot of crystals which were easily converted into mana. Where as I was still waiting for the Terrain Recycler and Herbalist spell cards to appear.

If you are having trouble early game it is better to use your witch as you most likely will not have enough Familiars to make up for the cost of Healing Wave. Get your potions and crystal quarry up asap and then it's a matter of deciding which direction you are able to go.

Cycle familiars or convert lands into Regents.

[Bob McBob Jr]

So here's my two cents
Very Early - You're better saving your reagents for summons. Use mana to heal with soul trainer. If you don't have soul trainer and have few familiars, then the most efficient use of reagents is to summon - attack once - train familiar to job, preferably warrior.
Early - Healing wave is worth it once you have 10ish minions exploring. Maximize the healing potential by spreading out your damage amongst all your minions. I even use apprentices, merchants, etc. to fight low-tier enemies that can't OHK them to further it along.
Mid Game - Once you get the terrain recycler, you have a steady source of reagents. Still, don't waste them.
Late Game - the wonder that produces reagents for every potion will drown you in them.

[Lanosa]

The only think that can lets you farm reagents, besides luck, is the (very very very lucky) chance to get the wonder that lets your alchemists craft a reagent each time a potion is created.