Curriculum comes late, why?

[RandomSanity]

Hi Folks,

I'm now on the 4th map of my first game and I've never once managed to achieve the curriculum because by the time it's chosen I have usually already placed 4 or 5 rooms and then I never end up getting a single room of the required type.

I wonder why you don't get to choose the curriculum at the very start of the level? My first map I got all 3 stars, but everything else I keep getting only one, which is usually the specialisation. The archmage, I haven't managed to complete yet.

Do I just have bad luck getting the rooms I need, or is this normal?

[QQinfinity]

The answer is "yesn't"

What you need to understand is that completing a Curriculum just adds a star to the end of that stage. And you really don't need three stars at all! In fact I personally find the buffs from two stars to generally be more useful than three star buffs.

It is suggested that you start a campaign by choosing the easiest stars available, things such as merchant's 10k gold quest, the 8k mana of a type quest.

Your objectives do not need to align, because more often than not it WON'T align. For example you might have chosen 8k light mana, but the curriculum forces you to train a bunch of nature or arcana students.

The game is slightly annoying like that - things just won't align the way you wish they would. But that's where you need to learn to make the most out of every situation. And that you should always aim to train students that will grant you lasting buffs that will endure throughout the whole campaign (such as Librarians and Scholars).

For a better starting experience, I suggest you do the following:

When the king asks if you need fund or a classroom, choose classroom. This will often provide either a rune or enchantment classroom, or an assassin classroom.
When the peasants ask what sort of magic you teach, choose nature. This will provide enough green mana to let you pull from the green deck once.
When the adventurers ask you what sort of mages you want to train, choose mending. I generally choose the health and money bed. Or choose the blasty mage option, it will often give you arcana classrooms, but not always.

This will secure you at least two colors of mana and a source of gold income for you to purchase other generic classrooms.

You can talk to the sneaky merchant's using the guinea pigs, and you can spend gold to buy basic classrooms from them. This is generally cheaper than pulling from the money deck.

Do not underestimate items that can allow students to passively learn magics, as this can also generate colored mana. So if for example you tried to pull the green deck, didn't get any classrooms but did find some items that could let students passively learn a magic, then you pick those anyway and put them in highly populated areas like Referactories and Dorms; eventually you will get enough mana of the color to pull again.

You always start the game with two houses. The buffs from the houses could be helpful for grinding out the curriculum if you're lucky, but even if doesn't give you any helpful buffs, you can still use the two houses to your advantage. Use one house as a generic house where you dump all your students, then use the second house as your curriculum railroad. Your curriculum wants you to train Nature students? Change the setting for the second house to prioritise Nature and forbid everything else, while the other house forbid Nature and enable everything else. Then you can go about your business while still having a group of students work towards the curriculum goal. Taking the previous example of nature curriculum, all you need to do is keep an eye out for students that learn Nature more quickly and throw them into the nature learning house.

[RandomSanity]

Originally posted by QQinfinity:

The answer is "yesn't"

What you need to understand is that completing a Curriculum just adds a star to the end of that stage. And you really don't need three stars at all! In fact I personally find the buffs from two stars to generally be more useful than three star buffs.

It is suggested that you start a campaign by choosing the easiest stars available, things such as merchant's 10k gold quest, the 8k mana of a type quest.

Your objectives do not need to align, because more often than not it WON'T align. For example you might have chosen 8k light mana, but the curriculum forces you to train a bunch of nature or arcana students.

The game is slightly annoying like that - things just won't align the way you wish they would. But that's where you need to learn to make the most out of every situation. And that you should always aim to train students that will grant you lasting buffs that will endure throughout the whole campaign (such as Librarians and Scholars).

For a better starting experience, I suggest you do the following:

When the king asks if you need fund or a classroom, choose classroom. This will often provide either a rune or enchantment classroom, or an assassin classroom.
When the peasants ask what sort of magic you teach, choose nature. This will provide enough green mana to let you pull from the green deck once.
When the adventurers ask you what sort of mages you want to train, choose mending. I generally choose the health and money bed. Or choose the blasty mage option, it will often give you arcana classrooms, but not always.

This will secure you at least two colors of mana and a source of gold income for you to purchase other generic classrooms.

You can talk to the sneaky merchant's using the guinea pigs, and you can spend gold to buy basic classrooms from them. This is generally cheaper than pulling from the money deck.

Do not underestimate items that can allow students to passively learn magics, as this can also generate colored mana. So if for example you tried to pull the green deck, didn't get any classrooms but did find some items that could let students passively learn a magic, then you pick those anyway and put them in highly populated areas like Referactories and Dorms; eventually you will get enough mana of the color to pull again.

You always start the game with two houses. The buffs from the houses could be helpful for grinding out the curriculum if you're lucky, but even if doesn't give you any helpful buffs, you can still use the two houses to your advantage. Use one house as a generic house where you dump all your students, then use the second house as your curriculum railroad. Your curriculum wants you to train Nature students? Change the setting for the second house to prioritise Nature and forbid everything else, while the other house forbid Nature and enable everything else. Then you can go about your business while still having a group of students work towards the curriculum goal. Taking the previous example of nature curriculum, all you need to do is keep an eye out for students that learn Nature more quickly and throw them into the nature learning house.

Thanks for the tips. I think my mistake is treating these stars like a rating system from other games, meaning if you get 1/3 stars you essentially did a terrible job on that map.

The first map I played, I managed to get all 3 stars without issues, but almost all the remaining maps in that particular campaign were 1/3 because I could never manager to churn out an archmage and I always ended up with competing objectives for the curriculum and specialisations.

[Lemures]

You can refuse or delay some choices. Generally avoid archmage unless you already know the requirements and are happy focusing a school around it. As you've found out the stars are not level ratings and having lasting campaign buffs from students graduating is usually better than some star buffs.

There are many ways to play from heavy specialisation time portals to courting the dark lord for vampires and finding out the varieties is much more fun than getting down over failing an objective you've chosen. Making good use of your houses and occasionally pausing to rearrange some students or classes can help a lot.

[Blacksnake]

You should probably avoid the Archmage quest until you are further along in the game with some buffs. If you decline it, the game will give you another quest.