Research Bottleneck

[DeletedUser231]

I love the fighting so much. But it does cause me severe problems with research. I waste most of my resource points due to needing Wood, steel in significant qualities. My space is very limited and I am stuck with waiting for more and now cannot do any more battles. If I do the points are wasted.

The Goods necessary are TOO HIGH at my level. Hate to see how much I need a little ways down the road....This is going to cause a HUGE problem.

 

[DeletedUser231]

When I go to upgrade My marble and steel I also need the very same item to upgrade it. Sort of like the chicken and the egg, which comes first. I need planks to upgrade my planks and I need marble to upgrade my marble....??????????

So much is needed that all research again suffers because they need the same items as well.

So much so that it almost forces a player to purchase premium. But alot of the premium items are quite expensive. And more than likely they will be adjusted somewhere down the road being this is a BETA version, that purchasing PREMIUM makes it a very difficult decision. Because if adjustments are made, there will be no refunds to anyone who has purchased items at a higher cost...

 

[DeletedUser]

I take it you mean Knowledge points? Or are you talking about supplies here?

 

[DeletedUser231]

Knowledge points....Research points same thing....Marble = goods.

 

[DeletedUser]

I'm having a hard time understanding what you mean. Knowledge points can only be used in the research tree to research things. You can't buy goods with it, and you don't need them for fighting either. What i think you mean is you're using supplies (workshops) to buy wood and steel from the wholesaler? And therefor you cannot use them to recruit troops?

 

[DeletedUser]

I checked your city and here's the deal. If marble is your boosted good, you don't need 4 steel and 4 wood factories, they will never be able to manufacture the amount you need. What you want to do is upgrade those marble factories and trade your marble at the trader for wood and steel. Try to get at least 170% culture bonus, 200% would be perfect so you can produce more supplies and money. Don't waste anymore supplies on the wholesaler. I don't know how far you are in the research tree, but getting to advanced marble manufactory is what you want to do first, so you can upgrade your factory to level 5 and get a nice amount of marble per 3 hours depending on your boosted percentage. After that, trading will become easier, there's always someone who needs marble and will be more than happy to give you some wood and steel in return.

 

[DeletedUser170]

I have come to a conclusion if I will start the game in my main language, that you should create a lot of lvl 3 manufactory of your boosted good as long as you could not upgrade 5-8 of them to a bigger one. At the moment i have 12 planks manuf, two of them already got a size upgrade, and for now its enough, though i slowed down in the past week.

 

[DeletedUser118]

To me the bigger problem is, the higher you want to build your factories, the more goods of their own production they need. And those amounts are way too high if its not the good you have a bonus on.

For example if you wanna upgrade your planks manufactory it needs 82 planks to get from Level 3 to 4. But you only get 16 planks a day on Level 3. That means you have to spend more than 5 days till you get the amount of planks before you can upgrade it. I'm not sure if that is really necessary.

 

[DeletedUser170]

Thats why you build more lvl 3 manufactory then you will upgrade further. After a while it brings back its costs.

 

[DeletedUser]

I don't even have steel and wood factories anymore, everything i need comes from the trader. If it's not boosted, it's not worth it.

 

[DeletedUser]

I don't even have steel and wood factories anymore, everything i need comes from the trader. If it's not boosted, it's not worth it.

Yes, this is a good idea. But it only works, if there are active neighbours. I have not enough active neighbours to stay my hunger. I can buy from 35 towns without to pay tax, so I must wait and hope .

 

[DeletedUser]

I think starting with 3 boosted only factories is ok. Then you go up to 4 and then to 5 ... once having 5 you start seriously leveling, I think seriously leveling 3 of the boosted only factories would be enough, because later you get a boost on another/advanced factory type, so 3 from the first, 3 from the second, all well leveled should it do ... but we will see.

That's regarding to factory type/levels.

You should always produce the shortest possible production-time, best would be 3 hours (forget sleeping or work ...).

You start a couple of days producing and offering all what's over 100 of your boosted product on the trader. Don't make 'big offers', people need 3, 5, or 7 ... and even if they need 100, twenty offers with 5 are also hundred (and not more expensive ...).

When you reach this way 100 of the two not boosted products, you start offering all what's over 150 of your products on the trader, until all reaches 150 , next 200, 250 etc. etc.

If you have 'nice' numbers of all products you can act/buy whatever you want without waiting a long or endless time.

Logically, when you act/buy spending products, you should 'restart' your product-collection as described above ...

Surely it's not the only strategy, but it is a strategy which even works if you are not playing with diamonds/real money.

Best regards,
Extranjero

 

[DeletedUser]

Yes, this is a good idea. But it only works, if there are active neighbours. I have not enough active neighbours to stay my hunger. I can buy from 35 towns without to pay tax, so I must wait and hope .

Yeah the neighbour thing, that's a pain in the ass. If you have plenty supplies or gold, you can buy a little bit from the wholesaler if you don't have other options, but it should always be your last resort.

 

[DeletedUser]

Me too ... and the mentioned strategy targets 'poor neighborhoods'.

I only have 3 - 4 active neighbors, but not only neighbors can 'buy'/interchange your goods, there a a selection of more players, who can buy your goods (50% more expensive), and if you make small offers its easier to 'sell' to these players, because paying 9 and getting 6 seems not to be equal expensive like pay 90 and 60 ... and you need to be patient.

This is why I said(and what's the idea of the concept): put your offers as soon as possible, sell your goods as soon as possible to create a certain equilibration between the goods you own.

If you have a working and active neighborhood, there is no need for this strategy: you put the offer you want and within minutes you receive what you wanted.

Best regards,
Extranjero

 

[DeletedUser231]

99% OF my discovered neighbors do not trade anything. Those that do have huge premiums. My little territory is utterly useless for player trading thus it hampers me. Lots of player inactivity and no one bothers to answer my mails. How can a player get a hold of another if they never bother to respond? How does a player get Wood planks if I do not manufacture them? The wholesaler only gives me steel and marble. I could destroy my steel....But do not need to. Space is not an issue for me.

As for level of research...I am at MAIN HALL UPGRADE.

 

[DeletedUser231]

Me too ... and the mentioned strategy targets 'poor neighborhoods'.

I only have 3 - 4 active neighbors, but not only neighbors can 'buy'/interchange your goods, there a a selection of more players, who can buy your goods (50% more expensive), and if you make small offers its easier to 'sell' to these players, because paying 9 and getting 6 seems not to be equal expensive like pay 90 and 60 ... and you need to be patient.

This is why I said(and what's the idea of the concept): put your offers as soon as possible, sell your goods as soon as possible to create a certain equilibration between the goods you own.

If you have a working and active neighborhood, there is no need for this strategy: you put the offer you want and within minutes you receive what you wanted.

Best regards,
Extranjero

My neighborhood hardly trades anything and no one responds to their mail.

 

[DeletedUser]

As for the topic "research bottleneck":
I had a large problem getting all the goods needed for the advanced scouts, which in the research tree is a real bottleneck; as nobody in my neighbourhood wanted to trade, I had to buy the goods from the wholesaler.
In the beginning the game istn't well balanced.

 

[DeletedUser]

Huge premium should not really be your problem : it is still less expensive than the wholesaler (5 for 1). If you produce your boosted goods, you can afford 50%, 100% even 150% more asked goods (with taxes) because you produce really much more.


As for number of manufactories, build a lot, then when you upgrade (size change) you will start to remove some because of goods produce per space, and number of workers requirements.

 

[DeletedUser486]

What I see as the bottleneck is military research. The research tree is too linear. Not enough diverse branches. I've fought all around me to a point that the opponent has a boost that I'm having difficulty overcoming. I've got a ways to go on the research tree until my first unit boost and further for a more advance military unit. Village expansions on the tree are also few and far between. So I've been relying on taking provinces to expand my village. Now that that is becoming more difficult I'm kind of stalled. I guess the developers wanted a tamer more gentler world in which expansion is achieved by negotiating.

And regarding the comment about building only your boosted production and trading for the others seems to further support this claim. I think you'll have to have a pretty big and friendly neighborhood to be able to find traders for your missing goods. Something I haven't seen yet. I plan to be more self sufficient and so far its working for me. I've got the goods just not the military might.

 

[DeletedUser58]

You don't need active neighbors with different boosts than your own in order to obtain the goods you're missing. It's the preferred option, but you can also trade your boosted goods for non-boosted goods at the wholesaler. It's much cheaper to do so than build and upgrade buildings for non-boosted goods. Plus, once you're able to complete repeating quests you get a lot of coin and supplies, the coin is easily spent on scouting/upgrading/KP, while the supplies aren't easily spent and you can use a good portion of them to buy the goods through the wholesaler as well.

I have not been producing non-boosted goods since my first two weeks with the game, there's no one to trade Silk and Gems with despite my number of discovered players, yet I manage to meet my needs through the wholesaler. It's more efficient than wasting city space, other goods, and valuable time for a non-boosted goods production.

To touch on the topic itself, I think the research bottleneck happens at specific points when you're A) able to solve many encounters B) you're using goods for upgrades as much as you're using for research (if not more) and the upgrade times aren't too big C) you don't have a lot of active players in your hood which is preventing your city from being as efficient as possible D) you're not doing repeatable quests yet. For me B and C are still true, yet A and D are no longer true and while I could use more goods I manage to meet my needs just fine.