[Guide] Fallen Enchantress City Progression Guide 1.1

from Elemental Forums

In FE, your cities also level up (based on population size), and can go all the way to Tier 5.  Each tier increase also give you a choice of 3 upgrades (which takes up a quarter slot of a tile, but you have no control where it is placed) which gives you specific bonus.

Progressing from tier 1 to tier 2 branch your city off into 1 of 3 direction:

  1. Military (Fortress)
  2. Research/Mana/Potion vendor (Conclave)
  3. Economy (Town)

While they share a good number of improvements, they also have specialized improvements only available to them.

 

Village (Tier 1 -> 2):

Fortress (+1 Level for Train Units)
Town (+1 Zone of Control)
Conclave (+50% Research when Idle)


Fortress (Tier 2 -> 3):

Infirmary (Trained Units gain Endurance Trait [+1 HP per level], +1 Growth, Heal 10 Hit Points per season to all stationed units)
Strike Garrison (Trained Units acts first in combat)
Watchtower (Trained Units gain Charge Trait [+3 atk, +3 move on first turn], +1 catapult when defending)

Fortress (Tier 3 -> 4):

Prison (-10% Unrest in All cities, -1 growth for this city)
Gallow (Unrest doesn't effect production in this city)
Mining Guild (+2 Metal)

Fortress (Tier 4 -> 5):

Great Arena (+1 Attack & 3 Hit Points to trained Units)
Obsidian Throne (-30% Unrest in all your cities)
Underforge (-50% Production of Armor, +1 Earth Power)

 


Town (Tier 2 -> 3):

Guild Grocer (+5% Max Health for all units)
Slums (+3 Growth, +5% Unrest)
Guild Warehouse (+4 Gildar when the city is idle, +10% Gildar when the city is idle)

Town (Tier 3 -> 4):

Governor's Office (+1 Production per Material in all your cities)
Embassy (+1 Influence per turn)
Almshouse (+1 Faction Prestige)


Town (Tier 4 -> 5):

Guild Lendinghouse (+2000G - one time sum)
Guild Tribunal (+2 Production per Material in All Cities)
Mint of Ruvenna (+5 Gildar per Material [in that city])

 

Conclave (Tier 2 -> 3):

Archivist (+50% Research when the city is idle)
Oracle (+1 Essence)
Scroll Scribe (+20% Research for this city)


Conclave (Tier 3 -> 4):

Academy of Revelation (+10% Research for your faction)
Amethyst Vault (+2 Crystal)
Pyre of Anniellum (+2 Fire Power)

Conclave (Tier 4 -> 5):

Tenfell University (Unrest does not effect research)
Tower of the Magi (+10 Spell Resistance for Units train in this city, Protect city from spell of enemy caster?)
Hedigah Bathhouse (+1 Water Power, -30% Unrest)

 

 

Tips:

  • The most important leader trait that helps your city is Enchanters, which unlocks the Scrying Pool improvement (+1 essence)
  • Ideal setup for your first city is 4 Grain, 3 Material, 2+ Essence
  • FE being a game around magic, # of Essence has huge impact on your cities later on
  • Water II + Air II gives you the Gentle Rain spell, which increases Food per 25% per essence, critical for your city growth
  • Tile with 3+ essence is ideal for creating fortress to train elite troops.  There are a few city spells that gives permanent bonus per essence for troops train there.
  • Tile with 1 or less can be salvaged with conclave.  Scrying Pool gives +1 essence, as does the oracle upgrade (Tier 2->3), turning it into a 3 essence tile.
  • Building your city next to a river tile unlocks the Pier Tree (any of the 8 cells)
  • Building your city next to a forest tile unlocks the Logging Camp (any of the 8 cells), but be sure to build your camp on the forest tile before destroying it with other buildings
  • Birth of Summer...  this spell revives the fallen/dead land to lush grassland, and unlocks hidden essence...  There is a better chance of finding hidden essence near nodes/special structures.  Best save before you use it, as the spell is rather costly and might not discover any essence at all.

 

Wishlist:

  • In-game option to have a balance start where all factions start with similar/same map stamp layout, preferably with balance resource and/or accelerated start (wild grain, clay, monument and crystal nearby).
  • Pioneer/city-zerg at the beginning has far too much advantage, nullifying most other strats.  Civ V's implementation allows for more variety in strats.
  • Relax the forest/river tile to within 2 tiles of city, so you can expand your city and then build the pier/logging camp once your city stretch out enough
  • Options to add more essence seeding during map creation.  City spells play a big part in our cities, would be nice if we have more opportunities to make use of them.

 

154,037 views 25 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

List of City Planning mods:

 

To use the mods, make sure you have mods enabled in the options.  As I test out the mods, I am going to classify them in 2 categories (based on my opinion, of course):

 

Non-game breaking (minor tweak/life improvement for city related):

Snaking Mod: Relax rules to forest/river being adjacent to city.

River Bridge: City improvement that lets you build a bridge across water.

 

 

Game-changing (FE will play very differently with these):

Ecomental: add more essence on map

 

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top


you can add more essence by upping shard density and world resources.

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

I never have a plot with 4 grains, or 3 essence, moreso a 4/3/3 one. Does this is my bad luck, or do I have to spam restart?

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Village (Tier 1 -> 2):

Fortress (+1 Zone of Control)
Town (+1 Level for Train Units)
Conclave (+50% Research when Idle)

 

There is a typo here. should be:

Fortress (+1 Level for Train Units)
Town (+1 Zone of Control)
Conclave (+50% Research when Idle)

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

bonus when idle = low creativity at Stardock. I just hate those bonuses. Good post. Sorry to rant

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Agree on the idling.   SOme of these level up bonuses should have been wonders instead of bonuses, especially on lvl 5.

 

 

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

ecomental mod makes essence more plentiful, recommended.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

When my cities have expanded into a forest, it has unlocked logging camps for that city.  In contrast, for piers, I remember only being able to build them when a river directly faces my city (four tiles).

I have used the "research when idle" bonus in the early game when I did not have much hope that the city would survive long enough for anything I built to have greater value to me than that research (when my cities were being gutted by the queen of spiders).

 

Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top

Nice post.  I was planning to make a progression guide myself.

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

Relax the forest/river tile to within 2 tiles of city, so you can expand your city and then build the pier/logging camp once your city stretch out enough

My snaking mod relaxes this condition.

Quoting dihir, reply 9
When my cities have expanded into a forest, it has unlocked logging camps for that city. In contrast, for piers, I remember only being able to build them when a river directly faces my city (four tiles).

It is currently the 8 tiles surrounding your city only. If a forest touches your main city hub, or on the diagonal you can build a logging camp same with a pier at present. (Unless you download and use my snaking mod).

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

this particular bit of info is missing from your guide 

 

Cities get bonus research/production/gildar/population_treshold/level 1/0/2/0/1 2/2/6/50/2 4/4/12/200/3 8/8/24/400/4  16/16/50/800/5

Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top

@hareamao: Fixed, thanks.  Death of copy & paste...

 

Quoting Glowing_Ember, reply 2

you can add more essence by upping shard density and world resources.

In my current game I have everything turned up to max.  But the landscape seeding is still pretty random, it has to do with the stamps they have on template.  Perhaps they should update the stamps so each one have some a decent tile or 2 for city (Civ V has some pretty good setup for their map generator, I wouldn't mind seeing some of that terrain balance over here).  Also, there is also a particular tile that change from 2 essence to 4 essence after I kill a storm dragon... not sure if that is intended.

 

Reply #13 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting joasoze, reply 6
bonus when idle = low creativity at Stardock.

Not really. Games of this ilk (civilization, AoW, MoM) usually have this, it's just called differently, like 'build housing' or 'produce merchandise'. The principle is the same, the city's production goes into producing a resource instead of unit or building. It's just not called 'idle.'

Quoting dihir, reply 9
When my cities have expanded into a forest, it has unlocked logging camps for that city.  In contrast, for piers, I remember only being able to build them when a river directly faces my city (four tiles).

In the unmodded game, this does not happen.The forest has to be in one of the 8 squares surrounding the spot where the city was founded.

However it sometimes fools you into thinking it did happen: when you place the town center so that it is next to a forest but diagonally, then there is no lumber mill on the build menu(because all buildings of the city have to be built next to an existing building, and diagonally doesn't count), but once you build something so that the lumber mill can connect to the rest of the city normally, it will appear on the build menu.

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Reply #14 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting stax77, reply 14
However it sometimes fools you into thinking it did happen: when you place the town center so that it is next to a forest but diagonally, then there is no lumber mill on the build menu(because all buildings of the city have to be built next to an existing building, and diagonally doesn't count), but once you build something so that the lumber mill can connect to the rest of the city normally, it will appear on the build menu.

That makes sense, thank you.

Reply #15 from Elemental Forums Top

I might have settle a city too close to another one, it would not let me build any improvements...

Can anyone confirm the minimum distance you need between cities?

Reply #16 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting bladewinddraconus, reply 16
Can anyone confirm the minimum distance you need between cities?

1. Depending on the map there have to be N tiles between cities' original tiles. (N = 6 for large maps)

2. There have to be three non-city tiles between the tile where you start constructing a new building, and the nearest city tile. 

And these the only rules.  So you can really abuse them, and end with cities touching each other.

Reply #17 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Tuidjy, reply 17
2. There have to be three non-city tiles between the tile where you start constructing a new building, and the nearest city tile.

And these the only rules. So you can really abuse them, and end with cities touching each other.

looks at rule, looks at picture.... waaait a minute...

~ Kongdej

Reply #18 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Kongdej, reply 18

> 2. There have to be three non-city tiles between the tile where you start constructing a new building, and the nearest city tile.
>
> And these the only rules. So you can really abuse them, and end with cities touching each other.

looks at rule, looks at picture.... waaait a minute...
~ Kongdej

Yes, when it comes to finding loopholes, you can do worse than ask me to do it...

In the picture, Conclave II was founded after the eastmost building of Farmlands VI was commissioned, but before it was competed. Then I rushed a few buildings in Conclave II, while delaying the completion in Farmlands VI, until Conclave II got sufficiently far away.  The resources got linked later.

As a result, I ended up with two cities that are exactly one tile apart, so that I could travel 13 tiles for 1/4 move. 

Reply #19 from Elemental Forums Top

It's like military starbase catapulting all over again, wee. ;)

Reply #20 from Stardock Forums Top

I liked the post, we nedeeded the city progression info, so thank you.

About essence, I find hard to decide. If we got little, it sucks. But if we have much more (for example, ecomental mod), then the essence loses its preciousness and exclusivity.

Using snaking mod can allow to choose tiles with essence and a bit more of production (with some luck too in the map generation for a close forest), so using this mod will help a lot in what I think is balancing the game (IMHO).

I would suggest a uncommon (but not too rare: at least 1 each around 100 turns should work fine) event that created +1 essence on a random city, and a rare one that created +2 essence.

 

Reply #21 from Elemental Forums Top

I am starting to play around with mods.  If anyone have any suggested mods for me to try, please post here.

Reply #22 from Stardock Forums Top

I'm starting to introduce small mods to certain aspects, as the vanilla still gives a lot of playing. Recommended mods I use:

- snaking cities. I disagree with dev's concept in city expansion: if a city expands to a forest/river, it should be able to build pier/logging camp. I don't care AI balance in that aspect.

- River bridge. Same. The idea of expanding a city across the river is very attractive.

- Huge maps. Now I'm playing medium maps with many AI, but I've played huge maps untill I got bored with the game extension (we need a Diplomacy Mod to give flavor to the late game)

- Mod Manager. I think this will be a must, once mods increase in numbers and compatibility.

 

There are big conversions, that introduce many changes, so you will have to try one at a time...

- Stormworld. Add many changes, so you may like some things and not other, but it is modular, so I recommend to give it a try.

- Master of Affliction. Unfortunately, not played it yet, but it seems very interesting too and it is in my list of "pendant to try".

 

And many more in the Mods forum

Reply #23 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting esvath, reply 3
I never have a plot with 4 grains, or 3 essence, moreso a 4/3/3 one. Does this is my bad luck, or do I have to spam restart?

Ironically, I am seeing 4/3/3 relatively often when using sparse resources.

I think this is because I am using a desert based map, and there's something involving an ogre den that encourages them.

Reply #24 from Elemental Forums Top

Interesting... as I usually turn every option up to max/dense.  The enchanter trait really helps city, as +1 to essence is pretty nice to have, especially when you unlock the higher tier city spells.

Reply #25 from Elemental Forums Top

Updated for 1.1  B)

 

Here are the cities related changes:

Balance

  • Amethyst Vault provides 2 crystal/season (instead of 1)
  • Base city Gildar is reduced slightly
  • Guild Grocer bonus hit points reduced from +10% to +5%
  • Units trained in a city with an Infirmary start with the Endurance trait
  • Mining Guild provide 2 metal/season (instead of 1)
  • Pyre of Anniellum gives +2 fire power (instead of 1) but doesn’t give mana
  • Reduced the unrest penalty from slums from 10% to 5%
  • Guild Warehouse gives +4 gildar/season along with the existing bonus when the queue is empty
  • Watchtower gives units trained in the city the Charge trait (instead of bonus init to defending units)