Having a rough time starting out... Any resources?

from Elemental Forums

So, I figured I'd give Legendary Heroes a try, I had preordered Elemental, tried it, disliked it, and set it aside.  However, I'm now getting my butt kicked by the AI.  My city develops so slowly and I seem to pick up very few units compared to even a "novice" AI.  Which means I am doing something wrong.  I've looked around for a FAQ or walkthrough or something that might give me some ideas as to where I'm concentrating wrong and I can't seem to find much on the game at all.  I'll outline kind of my general strategy below, maybe you guys can help me out a bit.

 

-First city, look for a tile with a decent amount of starting food (typically 5).  

-Start out with the market, then a pioneer.

-Explore with my hero - try to get some treasure before doing quests.

-Usually 15-20 turns in, I run into an AI with a way stronger stack and who seems to be able to pump out units way more quickly (takes me 7-9 turns for a pioneer).  So, what am I doing wrong?  What's your usual starting strategy?  Where can I go to figure this out for myself?

Thanks for the Help.

8,308 views 5 replies
Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Lower your taxes to o% at the start of the game.

Like Primal said, focus on production and unrest reduction buildings. You can safely ignore Gildar buildings until you decide to focus a specific city on it.

Always use all your Essence (the blue circles) slots on your cities. Best spells: Sovereign's Call (Life), Inspiration (Water), Meditation (free), Enchanted Hammers (Earth). Water, Earth etc are Spell Schools, your leader (Sovereign) starts with 1 or 2.

Basically everything Primal said, although I usually build a Conclave first.

It's best to start questing and defeating monsters asap. If your army is not strong enough, you can build a Tower of Dominion first. This will give you an extra hero. Multiple heroes in an army do split their xp, though.

The easiest way to get a headstart is to play a Beastlord or Summoner Sovereign. Those are professions you can select for your Sovereign.

Offworld Trading Company
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Thanks for the quick responses and advice!  I want to like the game, but it's a little bit of learning curve as to what to focus on first, I guess.  Galciv was the same way, as I'm trying to remember what my "crush the AI early" build order / strategy was in that and also trying to figure out what the right moves are early on in this as well.

Thanks again.

Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top

Materials are a lot more important than food.  One above poster said it would be OK to go with just 3 food, but I would go even farther and say that it is OK to go with even 2 food.

Having 4 materials is a lot better than 3.  It means you can build things 4/3 = 133% of regular speed right from turn 1.  Further, that means you can build buildings that increase your production faster (Lumber Mill, etc).  Bringing those online faster brings everything else online faster.

It is a snowball effect.

I will take a good 2/4/2, 2/5/2, or 2/4/3 tile starting out over a 6/3 any day.  Having higher level cities is nice, but if you die before you ever get there then it doesn't really matter.  Also take note of the natural resources nearby to where you start.  Start your city next to a forest or river tile if at all possible, forest especially.  They give you early buildings that boost production (see Lumber Mill).

As far as what you should try with your sovereign to get an early game advantage, I find Binding to be very powerful.  It gives lots of free units starting from really early in the game.  If you go this route, research the magic tech early that lets you make the more powerful shard shrines and you can get the mid tier units starting only a few turns into the game.  If they die they just respawn again too a lot of the time.  At the very least you can use them as city defenders and make your cities really hard to defeat.

Binding is great, because elemental shards are very abundant in the game.  One shrine will give you a "young" elemental right away and then a "normal" elemental when you upgrade the shrine to the next level.  That is 2 separate units per shrine early game.  It can make a third "ancient" level elemental, but that won't be for a really long time.  Luckily, the units you do get pretty much ensure that you indeed survive a long time.  Those units are pretty tough too when they do come out, and completely free again.

Make sure you take some kind of magic with your sovereign too, because if you are getting the most out of Binding you will have a lot of mana available to use spells with.  I like Air, Earth, and Death the most (in no particular order).

- edit - typo

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Just leave tax at low, there's basically no benefit turning it to 0%. But, definitely lower your tax to 'low', that is important. Tax creates unrest and unrest slows your production and research. You don't need gildar early on, the other two are much more important.

 

Build a Scout before anything else. Or two. Your goal is to find a location for a new city that is only lightly guarded. You want your capital to grow to size 2 and as soon as it is then safe to do so, build a Pioneer and create a new city... and another, and another, as many cities as you can find decent spots for that aren't too dangerous. The faster you can settle new cities, the better - this is the most important thing of all. Settling many cities fast will help you more than anything else. Have the new cities build militia if monsters are still around, just a few should scare most off. Your Sovereign should be out getting experience from beating easy monsters like wolves and bandits, finding equipment from loot chests, doing 'weak' and perhaps 'medium' quests when he gets a little stronger and clearing city spots for settlement.

 

Try this strategy of expanding as fast as you can and I think everything else will fall into place for you.