tips and priorities

[GeoCrusader]

I'm good with understanding the game but there is so many different things to put research into, on the one hand gathering top tier materials is great, on the other having more things to craft makes it easier to research faster, then there are building which have important uses. I dont know where i should start each new game

[love to resign]

The game begins with a bunch of push-over monster dens and treasure locations sprinkled around your village, so there are plenty of materials to accumulate in order to craft some basic stuff. I believe it's correct to hold off on teching into a gathering resource until you grab all the goodies, because A) plundering gives you much more stuff, much faster and B) plundering may obsolete whatever you planned to tech into & gather. For example, if you wanted to harvest some Wicker for baskets, you may be able to skip it if you get a fair amount of Vine from your plundering.

Unless something really weird happens, I begin each game by teching into my first weapon. Almost always spears (at a whopping 3 research points). Being able to contend with 2-Skull fights is an urgent priority, so getting some decent weapons out is my first objective.

The best advice I can give you is to not tech into anything until you are ready to take advantage of it. There's no penalty for floating research points, so don't tech into a building or schematic until you are ready to start forging it that turn.

[Hugo]

Unfortunately, Love if correct. I have tried to play with Mokosh and becoma relatively close to a point where gathering is remotely useful, but in the main, you get what you need from random events. If not, consider playing on a harder level. (btw. Mokosh is considered a bad choice, I'm only playing mokosh becouse I like beeing forced to gather ... but even then, it is not a good strategy really ... it's just another way of playing the game)

[glythe]

Something to note is that not all materials are equal.

Given the choice take silk as one of your first materials..... but only if you find some silk nearby.
Wicker isn't as good but if it is really close then that can be better than silk. Pretty much you learn to make these decisions as you play through the game.

What a lot of people do is start with craftsmen ( I always do this actually). Then you get some gatherers and warriors. Why Craftsmen? Because they can talk/sneak their way out of difficult events and this is critical when bad things start happening like if your village gets the well poisoned.

When you start make some gathering tools. Better gathering early on leads to more of an advantage later. Leave one "ok" gatherer in the town and have one go on the expidition. Go out and gather some stuff and come right back to the town (because in this game bad stuff is always about to happen).



There are some materials I get every game because they are "the best". This includes Mithril, dragon bone, dragon leather and silk. Most people will strive to get a well early on with a +2-4 bonus depending on what kind of resources you get. Go here and look at the construction options:

http://thea-the-awakening.wikia.com/wiki/Construction

(click on a building and then when you do that click expand to see all options)

Note you can get free resources per turn with a well. Note you can get a +3 bonus (means you get 3x free resources a turn in small quantities) with very cheap materials. Why would that matter? Because many high level buildings require 25 of a resource. Say you get 10-15 of a resource from the well. Quite often that will be enough with what you were able to find through quests/encounters to make a top tier or nearly top tier building. Note that you can make a +2 well (and depending on what difficulty options you have selected) and make another one after destroying the old one (to get a better bonus) or if playing without realism you can make a +4 or +5 well to replace the old one (wells dont stack so destroy the old one after).


Attracting a goblin is rare but they can be very useful if you get this building early. To make a long story short you have a natural chance to get humans but if your only bonus is to attracting goblins then you can somewhat rig the game to get a goblin early. Why would you want a goblin?
Because some talk events require an elf/goblin/demon/orc/dwarf/ghost for the "best" result. I always have an elf/dwarf/orc/goblin in the party because it opens up event choices.


Note that the new "best" building is the Blessed Path. It increases the passive gather radius of your town. The best bonus here is +2 and you will note there are like 20 combinations that will give you that bonus. So if you have an early well you can luck out and have enough to make the best in slot Blessed Road. With a little luck sometimes you can gather a tier II or III resource without leaving town. This allows you to group your village together safely AND get good stuff. That is another key to the game..... getting more powerful without losing villagers.


About now you will probably ask what are the other most important buildings?

I would go with something like Well-Road-Watchtower-Smithy-Totem/Meeting Hall.

The tower warns you that stuff is coming to kill you and that can keep your game from being a failure (more relevant when 4-5 skull encounters flood the map).

The Smithy lets you build much better gear and helps you build it faster.

The Totem gives everyone currently in the village +2 magic (lose it when you move away). This is "op" because people chilling in town can get a magic level up from having it via the totem by proxy. Magic is one of the harder skills to get on characters and when you have lots of it the game is changed completely. This is why I think Veles is one of the more powerful gods in that he gives every villager raised by the village +2 magic.

I would say this is pretty equal to the Meeting Hall. You get a passive bonus to 3 different skills while people are chilling in the village. Once again this can allow people who don't have those skills to get the skill permanently when they level up.



Obviously sometimes you need to choose different buildings first. You must have a medic in the town and one in the 'away team'. At first one in the expidition is more important. Why? Because if everyone is out of the town then there won't be an annoying event while you are gone (the downside is that a monster can touch your town and that's game over - this is why you need that watchtower).

Once you have 2 medics you can smash the Herbalist hut and build something better.




Read all this and once you understand it you'll do a lot better with the game. Feel free to ask questions.

[FlyingFrills]

-On high % Gathering is worthless because it takes too long, even ignoring the RP investment. Sometimes, people will take the Wicker point just for the initial +5 in village because it gets you the first good Gathering basket. Recently I've cooled off on that and try to hold out for the herbalist event which is relatively common.
But, even on a lower % moving around will yield more and better resources generally. The best advice I learned was that getting food variety for buffs and moving around the map quickly is king.

-Smithy is the only super important building early. Cabbage Patch can be easily timed for when you run out of kids(Some starts you have 4 kids and it's not a problem,or get the Dwarf Smith quest for a bajillion kids, sometimes you only get 2 kids which quickly grow up and it becomes more priority). Watchtower is gonna be good around T90-100 when you'll be doing Divine Quest or Cosmic Quest and need to go further away from the village.(By then you'll have 25 quartz/25 dark wood for +3 bonus).
Smithy into some sort of weapon, or light armour depending on loot will always be a pretty good start.

Originally posted by glythe:

Something to note is that not all materials are equal.
Obviously sometimes you need to choose different buildings first. You must have a medic in the town and one in the 'away team'. At first one in the expidition is more important. Why? Because if everyone is out of the town then there won't be an annoying event while you are gone (the downside is that a monster can touch your town and that's game over - this is why you need that watchtower).

I think Medic class is not useful; their stats make them a liability in almost every challenge, and having them in a Fight challenge is more likely to give you Wounds because they weren't a more useful class dishing out damage or First Action-ing. If going for Medic skill I think a Witch or Sage would be the way to go, and you can get those from events too.

[XenoReaver]

Originally posted by FlyingFrills:

I think Medic class is not useful; their stats make them a liability in almost every challenge, and having them in a Fight challenge is more likely to give you Wounds because they weren't a more useful class dishing out damage or First Action-ing. If going for Medic skill I think a Witch or Sage would be the way to go, and you can get those from events too.

While their stats are a liability you don't have to play them in any battle, you can always keep them in your hand. Plus on average they have a higher medic skill than witches and sages, plus witches and sages aren't guaranteed to even have or gain the medic skill.

[FlyingFrills]

Originally posted by XenoReaver:

Originally posted by FlyingFrills:

I think Medic class is not useful; their stats make them a liability in almost every challenge, and having them in a Fight challenge is more likely to give you Wounds because they weren't a more useful class dishing out damage or First Action-ing. If going for Medic skill I think a Witch or Sage would be the way to go, and you can get those from events too.

While their stats are a liability you don't have to play them in any battle, you can always keep them in your hand. Plus on average they have a higher medic skill than witches and sages, plus witches and sages aren't guaranteed to even have or gain the medic skill.

What stage of the game are we talking? With bloodbath on? When do you find the class most useful?

Early on I think First Action is more important to not taking damage and getting Stealth to avoid Fights is also a priority. Late game there are elves, or some event/level up that's given Medic skill for you to boost with blood drops etc.
Scholars get can Medic as well right? I forget, it's been a while...

[GeoCrusader]

on another note, what about materials each material has different benefits, like gold gives magic, and dragon bones give leach, can any one list the affects of them all for weapons/armor/and buildings?

[glythe]

Go to the site I listed and you can see everything.

[GeoCrusader]

i've been trying combos out but i can't find what the best magic weapon is, most of the staves dont turn magic material into magic staffs so i dont know what weapon i should give my wtiches, seems like a mirthril/moonstone sword give more magic then any staff i could make

[glythe]

Staves are kidna stupid in that they are usually random stats. That means you have to make like 30 of them to get the stats you want... which is dumb in my opinion.

To buff magic via armor/weapons I think you want enchanted bone armor/weapons. Be aware they are kind of heavy.

[GeoCrusader]

i wish i could find more moonstone i have 3 swords made of it and they are op as hell

[wms]

In this game, to win at max difficulty is all about managing the pace of your progress. To survive early game, keep 1 guy in village to craft or gather whatever you can for RP, gathering tools is a priority here. The rest go out walk around to try to trigger more events. It's important that your party have enough gathering power to harvest the basic wood or food in 1 night. Always plan to camp each turn to gather wood or food to keep the party going.

Early on, you need to start producing leshy's hair as soon as possible to survive 3 skull fights.
By early mid-game, you need to have the best 2h axes for your main fighters to win 4 skull fights.
After that, it's just a matter to round out your gear with better defence and stats, Tastes vary depending on your style, to fight the ultimate giant fights.

As long as you can manage to keep up with pacing of the game, it doesn't matter you achive it by gathering or roaming the world or a bit of both. I prefer a bit of both.

It's important to note, to survive you need good gear and lots of villagers. Therefore i also prioritize attract buildings. I build buildings for the attract bonuses. Watch tower is the exception, because a good tower allows me to roam at night. Early game I go for elven wood, it's on way to ancient wood for mass producing leshy's hair anyways, to attract elves. It's cheap, lots on map and usually close to town, so easy to gather. Afterward dwarfs, orcs or goblins, depends on what material I have. They are all better than human fighters.

[listless]

I only did a few runs on the highest difficulty to get certain achievements, and boy were they ever painful. I'm not sure why anyone willingly subjects themself to such an experience.

Even then gathering was a staple for me, and on any other level of difficulty I always prioritize Wicker and Nimblewood just so I can gather more quickly. After that, it's typically swords and shields, smithing, then back to resources unless Blessed Path makes sense at the time.

If I could only have three resources beside food, I'd pick: ancient wood, ancient bone, and either moonstone or diamonds. Those two are a toss up for me.

[Samseng Yik]

Is it only sword viable for mid-late game?
How about Axe and Spear ?
Weapon priorities for you in such high difficulties ?

[glythe]

You can use a spear but end game pretty much is elf+axe.

Humans with 2h sword+shield are pretty good too.