Some basic tips

A couple of tips who could help beginners. Tips than i would love to have when i started playing this game.

Story tips

Time is up ! : Do the tasks they ask you before the end of the party. Else, you will get a game over and you will waste hours of playing. (The remaining time before the end is time left for reaching the population asked.)





A real mess : The city you begin with in story mode is pretty wrong designed. Feel free to destroy stuff (houses, shops, workshops, ...) to make it more optimize.

Some story task explanation : There is some mission task in the story who are not really clear. People don't know what to do. I will try to help with spoilers.

- Market transaction : You need to find in your city the icon showed in the explanation. It happen around the bazaar. Sometimes it takes time to trigger, the best way to trigger it is to have excess of goods. So make sure than you have enough goods in this mission. Then exchange goods against money by clicking on this icon. It's time sensitive because you need to finish those task before the end of the scenario.



- Build two swings : There is a translation error here. The game want you to build two stone wells.

General tips

Buffs : Try to discover new buffs by trying to mix stuff together. Some buffs can be really useful to get some bonus from time to time. But don't rush it, most of the buff are about tourist, it's not than important, even if it give more money.

Happiness and city growth : Happiness is important. More the city is happy, bigger is the wave of newcomers every years. When you need 300 more folks, it can take years to fill it up if the happiness is under 50.



Knowledge is power : Use the statistic tool to know the problem of your city. It's the best way to know if you produce enough resources to fulfill the city needs. You can also see if some tourist are leaving without carriage (so you know if you need to build more guest house).



Annual report : Check the annual report from time to time, you have more details about the stats and more summarize than in the graph. It can help to understand an unknown problem. It give more details than the window on the bottom left of the screen. I find it more helpful combined with the stats of the party.

Here, my economics and industrial building consume a lot of food. I'm lacking of 400+ food to provide the buildings.



Queue : Sometimes, too much citizen are waiting. When it happen, you have an icon on the building showing it. For the moment, i've only see the apothecary being concern by this feature.



Bankrupt : If your finance are equal to zero, you will start to see this type of newcomers coming into your city. They go into your storage, your building to steal supplies. Then, they leave your city.



I will add more tips in the future.

Builder features

About the green area : When you select a building to build, there is a green area. The area is use for multiple purpose.

- Positive or negative happiness influence on the area who is green.
- Range for specific building like the lumber cabin (They will not plant trees outside this area)
- Range of irrigation of wells
- Range of inspection for fire tower.
- Range of the tea house for positive buff for field and for industrial building for the lodge
- Range of the Confucius shrine, schools need to be inside this range if you want to see the students visiting the shrine before going to the capital for the exams.

Note :

- It is not a delivery range for economics building (like the tea house or the lodge).
- Lodge have no effect on Mill and pickle shop.


Quarry happiness range


Tea house buff range for fields


Lodge buff range for industrial buildings

Buff needs : A building who can get a buff from a lodge will have a special stat in the panel detail of the building. Same for the tea house for fields, irrigation, ...

City tips

City Design : The economics building green area is not a delivery range area, so, you don't need to make sure than every house is in the green area. It's only for happiness. Just make sure than everyone is happy. And use the happiness range to fulfill their happiness with cosmetics/economics building.



House happiness : You can see what make an house happy by hovering your mouse on the happiness stats in the detail panel of the house.



House needs : When a house want something in particular, a bubble appears with the icon of what it need (example below with the tea). When the bubble is completely red, you get a red thumb.

Two reason can make this bubble happening :
- The tea house don't have the supplies needed to produce enough tea for everyone.
- The tea house didn't deliver the food in time.

It is often a deliver issue for both reason.



Mansion & loan : Build a couple of mansion when possible. You will get loan from rich people. Loan than you need to pay back in a couple of years. It is less risky than a central loan since the family will just be angry at you if you don't pay in time.

Logistic

Carriage between storage : To transport supplies between storage ( 2 warehouses or 2 granary), you need to put one in supply and the other one in needs.


If you want a warehouse to receive certain goods, put those goods into "needs".


The warehouse providing the goods need to be put into "supply".

If you let the good into storage, nothing will happen. Both storage need to be set correctly.


The warehouse transporting the goods is the one who will receive them. There is a limitation of carriage number, so don't ask too much from this warehouse.

If it's working, you will see a carriage going back and forth between storage. (If there is goods to pick up)



Note : A small warehouse have one carriage. A colryut have two carriage. This can be improve with technologies.

The warehouse giving the goods is idle. His carriage don't supply the warehouse in needs.



Optimizing supplies : Cut travel time as more as possible. Meaning than a village have needs (alcohol, coal, ...). So, you need to build industry and agriculture nearby to be able to do all the production chain. (Coal mine, tavern, plot, farmlands, lumber, ...) as close as possible from the city. For the mine (Who are pretty far away), it is better to use carriage to move goods into and industry area.

Using logistic between storage is a good way to optimize, the carriage are pretty quick. Even more true if you build something. It avoid seeing the builders walking through the map for some stones.

Be careful about happiness, some building give negative happiness. But not every industrial building give negative happiness. Best is to test, to see what can be build inside the city and what need to be put far away from it. Warehouse and granary can be build inside the city, it allow to develop a good logistic network.

Deliveries

Food deliveries : For economics building like the tea house or the lodge, it's one of the assistant working in the economics building who will deliver the food into the house.

You have 4 assistant. The best is to see if they manage to make the food and deliver everyone without delay. Use the stats of the specific economics building to figure it out.

The green area of those economics building is not a delivery range. It's only an happiness buff range.


Lodge assistant delivering foods to a house in needs of it.


Storage drop and pick-up : For the storage building, below is the behavior with supplies.

Pick-up :
- The supplies needed will be pick-up by the host of the house who will go to the closest storage to get them.
- The supplies needed will be pick-up by one of the worker of the industrial/economics building.
- It's the storage who want the supplies who will pick them up into the storage who have them.
- If it's possible, The host will pick-up pickle or flour inside the pickle shop and the mill.
- If it's possible, the rancher worker will pick up pickle into the pickle shop instead of vegetables.
- If it's possible, the lodge assistant will pick up pickle into the pickle shop instead of vegetables.

Drop-off :
- It's the building producing the supplies who will drop it into the storage.
- It's the storage who want the supplies who will drop them off into his own storage.


Hosts taking coal from a warehouse.


A lodge worker picking up pickle into the pickle shop to drop them into the lodge.


A host picking up flour from the mill & a host bringing back meat from the ranch.

About flour, pickle, jerky meat & dried fish : If you have a mill, a pickle shop, a jerky shop or a fish shop, everyone will go pick this source of supplies for their house, their workshop instead of raw foods.

But, be careful, if a granary is closer, the workers of a workshop will take supplies into the granary instead of the mill. So, it's important to correctly place those building to be sure than people pick the supplies in the good place.

For economics building worker and house host, i didn't saw this behavior about the shortest trip to find supplies.

A tavern can use flour to make alcohol. A ranch can use pickle to feed their pigs.


Winemarkers going back from the mill after having picking up some flour.

The outside world

School and exams : Try to always have unemployed people, called "vagrant", because they will pop-up all the time and be send into school. Until the school is full. Research go faster and you have students who will be able to pass exams. The exams are spaced through time, so, you don't want to miss any of them, else you will have to wait a couple of years until the next exam. It should be your main priority when you start a new game.

Note : One time, i had no exams for more than 38 months. So, it can be really long, you don't want to miss it.

Don't get too much vagrant, else, you will have thieves in the street. Get enough house to have a complete workforce and a bunch of vagrants.

If you want student to visit Confucius shrine, you need to put the school in the range of the shrine. (Green area)



Tourist commodities : Always build a guest house stick to a Thespian inn. Then, you will have plenty of wagon bringing tourist inside you city. (For the why, it's just because a guest house stick to a thespian inn give a buff).

The buff don't work with large guesthouse. But those guest house are also interesting to build. So, do as it fit you the most.

Note : The large guesthouse have faster coach and can bring more tourist inside the carriage. Else, the cost is double in terms of wage and fees. So, it give you more tourist money at the end.



Waiting tourist : By clicking on a guesthouse, you can see how many tourists are waiting on the edge of the city. And also, in which "post road entrance" with the arrow pointing in the direction of the post road entrance.



Angry tourist : If an economic building (like a thespian inn or a tea house) don't have supplies. The angry tourist who was inside will get angry. First, they will go into the guest house. But if the problem is not solve soon and get bigger, they will go at the parliament to complain about it. Making the tourism attraction of the city dropping down a lot.


Angry tourist going back to a guest house after seeing a thespian inn lacking of supplies and takeout food.

Talent Office : You can get special citizen working for you by using the talent office. They have different buffs who can be very useful (It can be everything about the game). Nothing much to say about them. If you are not happy with the 3 proposed by the game, you can reroll the list by paying again. Be careful, they come with a big wage. Be sure to have enough money to not broke your economy. When hired, you also need to activate them to get the buff and starting paying their wage.

Example of industry chain

Note : The layouts below are just for display purpose, they are not optimize in terms of efficiency. It's just to show the needs of a type of goods production. With a good warehouse logistic, it's not mandatory to do that. You can split each step in different area.

Folk Kiln production :



Alcohol production :

A farmland produce 14 grains (with buffs) PER YEAR. A tavern produce 20 alcohol PER YEAR and need 8 grains to produce 4 alcohol. So you need a bunch of farmlands to provide a tavern all the years long (2 should be enough).

A tavern can go to 25+ if you have grains and workers during the entire year.

Military and war

Your people warn you a lot : If you start seeing message from your folks telling than they fear about your neighbors behavior, than it is better to start building troops and walls. Don't hesitate ! Build some defense and recruit some troops. Raiders are coming to you soon, in a couple of months or a year.

When the raiders are close, you will start to see message from your general about your scouting parties. This mean than the raid event will start soon. You better be ready at this point in time.

If you don't have time to build walls. At least, build some archer tower and recruit a couple of squad. It should do the trick.

Raiders behavior on your city : Some factions like to raid your city. Their behavior are pretty simple.

First, when they arrive on the side of the map, close the gates !

If you have a gate blocking them, they will attack it to be able to go through it.
If a tower or a squad attack them, they will attack the tower or the squad.

If there is nothing blocking them, they will go for the parliament and start to attack it.
Sometimes, they roam around into your city, attack farmlands and buildings, they even put fire.

A raid is compose of multiple waves. Don't think than you are done after beating the first enemy squad. More will come.

Raiders can't cross rivers.

Best strategy against raiders : Rivers are your best friends, if you have the goods, build a bridge, walls, towers and gate. You will be able to choose the battlefield.

Sometimes, you can't build a wall all along the map, in that case, it is better to put a bunch of tower around the parliament. And recruit three or four squad into your army.

Be careful with archer, they can't fire when they move, they need to stop to start firing.

Be careful about the mountain and the edge of the map, (The red tiles where you can't build) because it's a gap where the enemies can go through. A wall need to go from the bank of a river to another bank. Don't waste your time building a wall closing on the edge of the map, it is not worth it.

Note : There is another type of raiders who steal supplies into your buildings. But i only saw them during bankruptcy. I don't know if they appears from time to time for random reasons.

House happiness stats

Basic happiness :
Shack = +9
Farmhouse = +19
Tiled house = +20
Mansion = +40

Water happiness :
If irrigation >= 10, water happiness = +7
If irrigation < 10, water happiness = +6
If irrigation < 5, water happiness = +5
If irrigation < 2, water happiness = -7
If irrigation = 0, water happiness = -9

Road happiness :
If no road, road happiness = 0
If road, road happiness = +6

Note : Road happiness change with the type of house and the type of road. Stone road give +7 to a tiled house and +8 to a mansion. The number of road tiles doesn't matter.

Neighbor happiness :
If neighbor, neighbor happiness = +3
If no neighbor, neighbor happiness = 0

Note : Count as 2 tiles range around the house. Doesn't stack. Neighbors don't need to be stick against the house.

Needs met (Grains, vegetables, coal, alcohol, ...) :
If the need is essential and met : +8
If the need is not essential and met : +5
If the need is essential and not met : -5
If the need is not essential and not met : 0

Note : It depend of the type of needs and the type of house. For a mansion, coal essential need not met is -11. Alcohol and ceramic essential needs not met are -5. If they are met, they are all at +10.

Takeout needs :
If the takeout need is met : +5
If the takeout need is not met : -5

Special system settings

Just some explanation on the behavior of some settings of the game.

Upper limit of lens range : Allow to zoom out wider.

Resident fade in and out : When someone enter or get out of a building it fade away. If you deactivate this feature, carriage passing through a building still fade away.

The same building display is enabled by default : When you click on a building, It highlight the same buildings in the area.



Reverse scaling : Invert the mouse scrolling when you zoom in and out.

Display water conservancy and happiness value : It show the numbers on the map for irrigation and happiness.




Close tourist display : Hide tourist on the map. But their bubble still appears.

[[BLK] Telu]

Make tourists happy. So, they want to stay in your city. More you bring tourist into your city, more people would want to stay in it.

[Andy Mil]

How to do that?

[[BLK] Telu]

To get pop, you need to flip tourist into vagrants. Vagrants become citizen.

[Andy Mil]

Are there guide for getting lot of pop? later on story game want Salon to be build in 2 years when literally only got about 300 pop

[Andy Mil]

Got tips for increase rep? hiring staff wont do @$!@ if rep are not enough

[Fiscal Responsibility]

(copying my comment here)
Do the bonuses only grant benefits in their area of effect (the green zone) or are they global?
If they only apply locally and not globally, which should I put the delivery price increase ones near, the houses ordering food, or the takeout producing buildings?
How does the tourist consumption work?
Do multiple of the same combination stack benefits (like having two firetower + two stonewells)?

Also, Telu, or others, what is the way that you manage happiness and housing from the beginning to the middle of the game?

[[BLK] Telu]

There is a window where you can activate them.

[MyeongRinRin]

How to activate the talents. I hired them but it seems to do nothing. :(

[[BLK] Telu]

You're welcome. This game is not easy to handle at first hand.

[Lofidi]

Thank you for this guide, it was very useful for me as a beginner.