Need some advanced tips.

[SmilingToast]

I've been playing this game non stop for like the last five days and I feel like i've learned a lot. I keep the treasure / shop / perk lists open when I'm playing to always be a step ahead, play the combat very carefully and have won a few games now. Thing is, even though I can consistently win, I haven't even broken the 5500 renown mark. I was looking at the leaderboard for the last challenge, and even though most of the top scores were anna, people were still getting 10-15k with other captains. It seems like the giant amount of tokens generated causes this, but in all my playthroughs, I have no clue how people can amass something like 13k gold, while also getting 9k research. Is ther something I'm missing? Does anyone have more advanced tips that can lead to results like this?

[The BlackVision]

It takes a fair bit of time to get into the swing of the game - not only is it vital to get high amounts of your main resource, but also to get enough of the other ones to use it effectively.

There's quite a few different ways of extending your scores, but here's a few things to bear in mind:

Firstly, the method of generating tokens. There's several different ways to do this, but the usual accepted methods are:

• Rainbowing: This method involves one of the crew getting as many different perks and stats as possible, both through treasures, gear and entourage. It's probably the simplest to get used to, though every crew member attempting it will take a slightly different path to get the best resuts. The easiest way to learn it is simply to put every single perk or bonus towards the crew member you're trying to Rainbow, and prioritise giving them good gear from shops so they have the best chance of succeeding on every adventure wheel roll.
  
• Stacking perks: Several starting treasures/bonuses give bonuses that give tokens according to how many of one type of perk the whole party has. This has been reduced in effectiveness somewhat since it was first used, but it's still viable with some teams. I'd recommend starting out with Molly a captain and taking a couple of other Rogues along to make the most of her bonus for gold generation.
  
• Specialists: Involves setting up each crewmember to be particularly good at some adventure wheel rolls. This usually involves building on their natural perks and giving them the relevant gear to make them especially good at those adventure wheel rolls. This method can take some work to get right, but when you do, can pay out handsomely. For example, if you take Maria to do speech-related rolls (Diplomat, Beguiler, etc) she already has a strong speech at the start, and it only takes a good Offencive book to start getting her reasonably capable at making most of those wheel rolls. On the other hand, someone like Phillipe will be much better doing engineering and rogue rolls.
  
• Encounter token generation: By this I don't mean 'encounter tokens' but tokens you get from winning encounters in general - again, several starting items and crew/captain/treasure bonuses create a lot of tokens when you win battles in a particular way. Eg. If Yvonne is your captain, you'll want to win almost every encounter Devious, to make the most of her captain perk. If you can aim to get Treasures along the way which give more for each Devous encounter, it means you're reliably generating a lot more tokens in each expedition just because every expedition has multiple encounters. In the first entourage shop, you'll want the 1st and 3rd tabs for specialists in that area too.
  
• Insight spending: Several crew members and treasures will massively increaase the benefits from using insights on the world map. While it tend to be of limited use early on, by the 4th or 5th expedition, you can get a hefty amount of resources for it. Teams that are getting mostly Science as their main resource often can make use of it thanks to the bonuses in the Natural Science research tree and by being able to get some/all the various boosts in Observations, History and Anthropology research trees just by virtue of getting enough science to do so. However, this method is more about topping-up your income than being your main method of generating resources, as it doesn't work well until late in the game, so you'll want to use this as a secondary method, rather than your main one.

That should start you off on the right road towards creating as many tokens as you can. After that, it's about making the most of the tokens you do generate.

There's some treasures that increase this, but the main method is getting helpers from Entourage shops. To begin with, I recommend getting at least 1 or 2 of each of the basic token helpers (Lobbyists, Merchants and Students) as they are comparitively cheap at this point and give a high amount of returns over time. Do this as early as possible.

Then consider what route you're going to be taking through the expeditions. If Gold is your main resource, for example, you probably don't want to be going via Hungary or Transylvania. Then consider your crew's skills and how well they match up to the various perks each expedition requires. For example, if you're going to Mali, it's worth making sure you have a character wih some Beguiler perks at that point, while someone thinking of going to the Emerged Island will want some naturalist, archeaology, and/or survivalist before you start it.

Also worth considering is how high you want your crew's perk trees to go. Specifically, what minimum levels of each perk tree you're after. This will vary a lot with how you get tokens too - if you're Rainbowing, you probably want to aim for around 3 minimum in each perk tree that the character has any of. This may, however, mean that the 4 or 5 star expeditions may not be worth going to as they need 4 or 5 in most of their perk trees to even have much chance o passing the wheek rolls.

This part is one that can take a little mastering - you want to know where and when you can get particular perks - if they'll always be available or if they're luck-dependant - and what you can do to make up for any you're lacking in and maximise the use of those you have lots of.

For example, a Rainbow crew would want to maxmise use of the specialists in the starting and constantinople entourage shops as those give tokens for 4 levels of a perk tree, and those are easily reachable using trinkets, natural perks and the specialists themselves.

On the other hand, Specialised crews may be aiming for the high-end expeditions, in which case they'll want to be getting 5 or 6 in their specialist perk trees, and can maximise the use of the specialists in Rio for your final expedition (and the particular specialists that match their skills from the earlier entourage shops)

There's also Campfire Cards, provided you have the More To Explore DLC as well. These cards can be immensely powerful, both in generating tokens and maximising their worth, and most of the high-scorers you'll see in challenges, etc will be basing a lot of their team-builds around these cards and their use. This doesn't mean that you can't do well without them - you certainly can, but they can really make things easier too (not to mention that if you don't have the DLC, the expeditions there are a great addition to the game, and the Treasure pools are really helpful in refining your choices.)

The Cards also often make generating enough of non-main resources a lot easier - for example, Harry's personal campfire card will end up making a lot of status from collect tokens, meaning you don't have to focus nearly so much on managing to generate campaign tokens while going through gold resource areas.

Lastly, about generating enough basic resources to make these decisions worthwhile - a large amount of your basic resources come from the first two expeditions, both in getting the ball rolling for your main resource and in giving enough resources to make do for the other two. It's worth considering if you'd be better off going via Celtic as your first expedition for science early on, even if you're going to get gold as your main resource later; or in going to Saxon even if you're going to get science at the end, etc.


Phew, lots of info there - I don't recommend trying to learn it all at once - just dip in and out of the game and focus on particular areas to work with and see how your score improves as you go - and good luck!

[Arcturus Asriv]

+1

[Black Balloon]

Thanks for all the tips Blackvision. Have the same problem as OP, but this already helps a lot.
It seems to be normal to go for all the nodes in the first map to get more tokens, but what about the second expedition? Is it common to also gather all possible recources there despite the stat punishments?
My last question is about gear. Would you get the +10 defensive gear after the first expedition or save up for the 450 gold option later on?

Edit: Just want to edit to say that all responses were great! Was able to get 8.7k Renown which is more than double what I usually got. Especially the rainbowing was an eye opener

[brown29knight]

I'll take a stab at this one:

Generally, you start by using up your supplies, then heading to the boss... as you learn more about the fights and how to beat them, you take increasing penalities, until you can prettymuch cover the entire map before taking on the bosses. The true masters of the game can go to almost every node on any map, but that takes a lot of time and practice. I personally can only take an average of a dozen hunger penalities and still beat the bosses, so I still have a ways to go.

So yes, 1st and 2nd exp. are common full-clears, but 3rd 4th and 5th are as well for some of the masters of the game.

I buy starting gear based on the idea of having at least 10 in speech defense and armor. If my team has that, I do not bother with more unless I'm rolling in gold. If not, the +10's are a priority for me. Come around the 4th map, I'll look at upgrading further, as by that time the battles are getting hard with that little defense.

[brown29knight]

As we answer this question every few weeks, it seems, and BlackVision's answer is an exemplary example of said answer, I move that this be Pinned.

[SmilingToast]

Thank you for the responses. It's all very helpful.

[The BlackVision]

+1 to brown29knight's answer.

In detail - basically, depends how comfortable you are with the combat in game. With a team you know and are comfortable with, you can complete the entire game in just basic gear - I've done it. I certainly wouldn't recommend it, and your points will suffer by avoiding valuable encounters, but- it's possible, though certainly not much fun :P

A large part of how many penalties you can take lies in your encounter proficiency, both in using moods and the various character types to full effect and knowing how to manipulate the AI to suit your needs.

[SmilingToast]

With that in mind, I did have one sort of basic question. Is there a trick to the Carribean boss? Most of the bosses kind of spell out their weakness at the bottom, but i still haven't figured out what makes him drop his "next attack will be strong" buff. I guess running away or switching to the +25 grit works, but every time I try it feels like it's just an automatic -1 Resolve.

Also, in regards to Insight spending for a research victory, the few that I've had, I did the old method of Spending it all in Beijing near the end (unless it was Captain Anna) for the discoveries and boadload of study. Is that still the absolute best method? Or is it acutally worth spending some Insight earlier for other things.

[The BlackVision]

Caribbean there's a few things. If you have pedro, Disarming smile after he buffs. Otherwise, getting him into a Terrified state helps if that's possible, the +grit mood or ensuring the only character he can hit has high armour (eg. if you can, standing on the muddy ground to boost their armour too) can all help. Also, he's got comparitively low spirit and defences compared to other 2-star expedition bosses - if you have high enough damage, you can actually take him out before he uses it.

If you have high enough movement or range away from him, yeah, running can work, but he has quite a high movement himself, so usually isn't possible.

For insight, it varies - you'll always get more actual resources spending it later than you do earlier, but one early spend can mean MUCH greater profits over time. It's not usually worth burning a lot, but if 1 spend will get you a vital paper/entourage/item, it can be worth it provided it makes up for it. Eg. If you are going to get the research paper in History that grants you +1 insight per expedition, it's worth spending up to two insight to get it earlier. More than that would be a waste, and preferably getting it with only 1 (or none!) is even better, but that one's an obvious case where gains are greater by spending to get it.

If in doubt, just grab yourself a calculator: if, with the minimum gains you'd expect from an insight prior to your level 5 expedition, you'd gain more from an insight than you do by spending it early to unlock something, don't spend it. On the other hand, if you gain more spending now, spend. If it's close, check the maximum values of an insight spend you could reach. If still close, might be better spending now, as on average, things you get early have greater impact. If not, don't spend.

Each team or composition will have a different answer, so impossible to say definitively, but a general rule is that if it only takes 1 insight to gain a huge bonus to everything, it's worth it. If it starts looking like it'll need 2+, better to wait and spend it later so maximise the profit.


Oh, and be cautious of Beijing. It's not necessarily the best: sure, it gives the most straight research, but the African insight cities are actually better in terms of total tokens, and with the bonuses from treasures and helpers, you often end up with a much greater overall gain there.

That and most of the bonuses for insight per token (Nat sci, several of the campfire cards, etc) are doubled in the African ones because you actually earn more of the basic tokens there and can therefore pickup many more tokens..

That, and in almost ANY given situation, even with the recent nerf to Rio, it's still better to get Rio than Beijing as the last unlock.

[SmilingToast]

Oh I see. Thanks for the great advice. The whole "unlocks later, so it's better" mentality was so ingrained I woudln't have even tried it haha.

[The BlackVision]

Hehe, yeah, definately a thought to avoid in RE:IS - some stuff from early on is absolutely fantastic. It's a bit like the expeditions - with the right luck and tactics, you can make as much renown/resources out of the low-star areas as the high ones; but there's always risk involved.

[Fletchard]

Thanks Blackvision and brown29knight for your detailed responses! I also haven't tried using the Africa spots in quite some time, and I'm still working on getting characters to lvl 6 in a perk to make use of Rio specialists. I have a hard time resisting giving each characters two specialities in order to match more of the encounter types they'll face on each expedition, so I'm working on figuring out which challenges can be met by having a character buffed in the right stat (like your Maria and diplomat+speech power example even as she gains beguiler perks).