Glasteel vs. Titanium

[Xray]

So, I'm pretty much a N E W F A G with this game and I'm playing the Vaulters. Should I use Glasteel armor/weapons or go for Titanium? Or should I just stick with Iron?

[Gilmoy]

Strategic tiers (titanium, glassteel) are always studlier than iron/dust of the same era. Go for them if you can afford them. (That being said, I never waste a precious tech slot to research Titanium/Glassteel weapons or armor of tier 1 or 2, or Adamantian/Palladian tier 1 (Era III). I might deign to research the Era IV and V tiers, but normally the game ends before I get there (and I win). It kinda-sorta helps that the AI (even with the new AI+ mod) is too dog-eager to shift to all-units-all-the-time production mode with no infrastructure, so it never researches the strategic tiers, either. My iron beats the AI's iron.)

Titanium gives +damage, which is always useful. Glassteel gives +initiative, which you might not appreciate until you get into complex (6+8)-vs-(6+4) doomstack duels with both sides reinforcing, and you realize that the other guy's higher-init guys have turned all your dudes into immobile punching bags. Once one (human) player starts init-pumping, all other (human) players must join that rat race, or lose control of big fights (and thus lose endgames).

For your first few playthroughs vs. the AI, go for titanium and just beat down monsters and AI groups. Vaulter Marines with titanium bows are particularly fun. Judit and other ranged heroes can upgrade to the quest crossbows like Valiant Lightning or The 37, if you're way lucky to get those quests.

You can get Titanium/Glassteel tier 3 in quests: Exotic Alloys for weapons, Exotic Armor for armor/accessories. This happens maybe 1 game in 5(?), so don't count on it. That's basically the only time I ever build titanium troops (and they rock, way better than even tier-1 dust in Era IV).

[Жора]

OMG don't listen to this noob:

Originally posted by Gilmoy:

That being said, I never waste a precious tech slot to research Titanium/Glassteel weapons or armor of tier 1 or 2, or Adamantian/Palladian tier 1 (Era III). I might deign to research the Era IV and V tiers, but normally the game ends before I get there (and I win).

He plays on Normal difficulty. Strategics gear is a godsend. Especially tier 1 Adamantian/Palladian. When Endless AI declares an early war on you - this becomes a matter of life and death. That being said, Titanium/Glassteel weapons or armor of tier 1 or 2 - are still kinda meh. Best choice is to rush for Adamantian/Palladian tier 1, and take Titanium/Glassteel Armors tier 2 for the trinkets: improved damage, imroved iniciative, +2 science/dust per pop.

[Gilmoy]

Originally posted by Жора:

OMG don't listen to this noob:

Originally posted by Gilmoy:

That being said, I never waste a precious tech slot to research Titanium/Glassteel weapons or armor of tier 1 or 2, or Adamantian/Palladian tier 1 (Era III). I might deign to research the Era IV and V tiers, but normally the game ends before I get there (and I win).

He plays on Normal difficulty.

Serious difficulty, Normal speed. It's with the new AI+ Mod, though, and the AIs are insanely aggressive against each other, so they never research past Era 1 stuff, and spend all their time building troops and sieging each others' fortifications down below 100. (I don't recall the stock AI being quite so bloodthirsty.)

If I ever met a fight I couldn't consistently win, I'll change my strategy. Until then, I'll use tier 3s if I get those quests, and otherwise race the AIs to Era III/IV stuff.

[ninakoru]

Originally posted by Gilmoy:

Serious difficulty, Normal speed. It's with the new AI+ Mod, though, and the AIs are insanely aggressive against each other, so they never research past Era 1 stuff, and spend all their time building troops and sieging each others' fortifications down below 100. (I don't recall the stock AI being quite so bloodthirsty.)

If I ever met a fight I couldn't consistently win, I'll change my strategy. Until then, I'll use tier 3s if I get those quests, and otherwise race the AIs to Era III/IV stuff.

I didn't touch their diplomatic scores and anything related to it, but yeah, Improved AI for some reason makes the AI more bloodthirsty. But making units all the time also happens in vanilla.

Actually tier1 and tier2 are meh, only a bit better than tier 1 and tier 2 iron. Only tier 3 is comparable to dust tier 3, but much worse than adamantium/palladium tier1. If the AI declared war on you with those, you will be in trouble.

[Xray]

Wait. There's gear other than Iron, Glasteel and Titanium?

Also, Glasteel is by far my most abundant resource (Current have over 260 stock piled)

[𓆚 standardheadache 𓆚]

Originally posted by POSH Xray:

Wait. There's gear other than Iron, Glasteel and Titanium?

Also, Glasteel is by far my most abundant resource (Current have over 260 stock piled)

Yup! Adamantian, Palladian, Hyperium, Mithrite, and Dust equipment are also in the game.

If you have an excess of a resource or resources, you can temporarily produce a unit model using more of the excess and less of your more limited resources. If it can be produced quickly enough where it's practical, it can be used as a garrison for your city. More boots on the ground are always good when your city is under siege.

When your garrison is maxed out, you can give those troops a good general and start sending them afield, now buffed by trinkets to either patch up weaknesses in their build or maximize the aim of their design.

When I've built every building in a city and am good on offensive armies and defensive garrisons, I usually task it with making copies of a high-production unit type that only uses Iron and Dust equipment, then sell the resulting units for Dust. It's like stockpiles, but with no requisite tech and for money!

[Xray]

So I have another question for you fellarinos!

I didn't realize that we 'level up' the Museum of Auriga, city centers, etc by building boroughs adjacent to them. Does it count any expansion (Altar of Auriga, Museum, etc.) or just boroughs?
I ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up the placement of my Museum so I can only place one borough, the other tiles around it are the city center and the ocean :/

[𓆚 standardheadache 𓆚]

If I remember correctly, any expansion counts, including the city center.

As for your current predicament, there's only one ocean expansion: Cargo Docks. They can only be built once per city and require a tech dedicated solely to them, so I'm not sure if they'll save you here.

With your next cities, try building your expansions in two parallel, touching lines. This will ensure you get level two districts, along with all the bonuses that come from them.

[Groo the one]

Originally posted by POSH Xray:

So I have another question for you fellarinos!
I didn't realize that we 'level up' the Museum of Auriga, city centers, etc by building boroughs adjacent to them. Does it count any expansion (Altar of Auriga, Museum, etc.) or just boroughs?
I ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up the placement of my Museum so I can only place one borough, the other tiles around it are the city center and the ocean :/

It sounds like you can have only 3 of 4 necessary district-like buildings around your Auriga Museum (city center, cargo docks and one more borough). So you can't raise Auriga Museum to lvl 2 in this case.

General thread about possible city/district building is shown here:

https://www.games2gether.com/endless-legend/forum/6-game-design/thread/3236-another-alternative-to-the-district-leveling-mechanic

[Xray]

Well, that's sad :/

[Gilmoy]

Yes, every building that says "+ per level" anywhere in its text is a district. (They can also boringly say "District" in plain sight :) This includes City Center, Borough Streets, Era II Cargo Docks, all five Legendary buildings, and the Shifters 3rd winter pearl buildings (Abbey, Winter, Luxury, Strategic), plus Altar itself.

They all level up, level each other up, and gain all benefits that say "+x per district" (including city improvements, hero skills, and empire plan Era III science "+2 sci per district").

Idea 1. Mix and match them freely.
Idea 2. Actually, some of them have blah payouts, and you'd rather not level them up.

Consider their level-up gains, in FIDSJ and H. (J = influence, H = happiness) Let "+2j" denote "+2*L influence", and so on.

++ "Boring" Borough Streets pays +2dsj. That +2j is massive (to Cultist et al.). I'll gladly give up +5f to get +2j, because there's no other way in the game that lets you buy 2 precious influence for 5 cheap food. Hence I want most of my city-pattern (whatever shape) to be Borough Streets.
++ Museum (non-Cultist): +20h.
++ Megapole/Alchemic/Throne/Reliquary: +25i / +25s / +50j / 100d. +25 anything is ++.
+* Luxury/Strategic Intensifier: +10d / +10s. Nice if it fits (both shape and your schedule).
++ Altar of Auriga: +3f +2j.

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[Edit] I changed my mind about this one!
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++++ Winter Borough: +2fi, +1d "on city tiles" (plural!!) during winter only. Every other district uses singular "on city tile" to mean the district itself. Winter Borough has region-wide effect: /all/ of your districts get +2fi +1d (per level!) during winter. (Build it during a single winter, then mouse over your city and read the pop-ups.)

[x] (Confirmed) Here, "per level" means Winter Borough's level, not each district's level. So a level 3 Winter Borough [edit] does add +6fi +3d to all "city tiles" in that city.

[x] It gets better!! "city tiles" includes both districts /and exploitations/. All of those hexes get the +4fi +2d (non-Cultist) or +6fi +3d (Cultist) in winter. With a Cold Operator governor, your city can literally /double/ its productivity in winter. (I actually have a truce city built on cold plains that has 3i total from tiles, so in Era V it still gets ... 6 industry from tiles. Total. That's it. And there's no industry anywhere I can reach with even 4 more districts. A real bummer of a city spot. But in winter, it pops from 6i to 270i, because all of its exploitations get +6i each. Yaas. Do that.)

So its expected value depends on how big your city is, and the ratio of winter to summer. Using a rough guess of 1/5 winter (about 5 turns every 25), getting +5 during winter is like +1 all year long. Then this is a "+1 stuff on district" benefit, which scales up with level (+2 at level 2, +3 at level 3). For a city large enough to build one of these, it seems worth the effort to also level it up.
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For the meh districts, level 1 suffices, since most of their benefit does not scale with level.

-- Museum of Auriga (Cultist): +20h is moot because Cultist already pegs to 100% approval (>= 100h) around the 5th district, and doesn't need it. Caveat: It's OK to build Museum if it's your 5th-6th district and you're using it to /get to/ 100% :) Funnier: Cultist can rule k+1 cities, if you accept k truce offers of 1 city each. You get expansion disapproval like any other empire ... but you can build roads and get trade routes.

-* Abbey of Anomalies: +5f (excluding level 1). I can pump food easier than that.

I don't want these interrupting my stick pattern, so now I use them as 1-hex polyps that protrude sideways. Use them as pure exploitation grabs, esp. to reach out to other good district-able hexes. (Sweet deal: use an Abbey polyp to reach a strategic extractor, and then you can build Intensifier on that. That netted me two more river hexes for my aqua/ice layout.) Later, do Era III Statistical Methods, build Cryometric Monitors, and your Abbey hex gets +15s (because Abbey is, by definition, on an anomaly) x2 (for Abbey) = +30s, which is a bargain for the -8d upkeep.

The mehs could also be end caps at the end of my stick (or vertex of a triangle), but usually when you begin racing to build these, you can't even reach the ends of your region, so it's not an option. So now my cities extrude tendrils, like a bladderwort.