Has anyone figured out how to extract the tech tree from the XML files? I poked around with English/TechTree_Amarian.xml, and am puzzled. From my limited familiarity with XML I'd have expected some form of nested tags to display the tree, such as Civics Specialization_Amarian Administration_Amarian Entertainment_Amarian
In reflecting on my own reaction to the game and to people's comments in various threads, it seems to me that our various reactions can be fit into three categories that we need to think about differently: Things that are clearly "broken" by some reasonably objective criteria. For example, the stuff about resources flipping from one city that has the relevant improvements to one that doesn't violates "
[quote who="phazonfreak" reply="134" id="2750638"]As for the elemental ones, fivecoins said that you obtain them by researching the Master spellbook, I haven't had the time to check it out myself. If it's true, then it might be sensible to stick to the one preferred elemental book and get the other ones later in the game.[/quote]I don't see the elementals in the Hiergamenon. Arcane Research > Arcane Mastery > Advanced Spellbooks gives you the Enchantment book; Master Spells "allow
CreeDakota: I think most of your suggestions make sense, though I haven't quite been able to think them through, but I'm not so sure about #1. I think having a resource inside your city walls is quite valuable; I've had resources outside be destroyed because I didn't have the gildar to build troops strong enough to protect them and didn't notice the nearby monsters in time to teleport an emergency stack to do so. Something that valuable ought to have a cost, I think.  
I seem to have lots of questions the last couple of days! If a minor faction city has only a resource you can't use, e.g. ogre village if you're Kingdom, what is the value of capturing it, since you can't improve it? Just the minor increase in influence radius? Strategically it might prevent a nearby Empire faction from making use of it, I suppose, but if they're far away that might not be an issue. Does anyone have any advice on when it makes sense to lea
Right -- I forgot about Nature's Bounty. However, if you have N high-food cities, the first N "nature's bounties" still go best in those cities rather than in no-food cities, don't they? So with 1 food city I could have used an Enchant slot for it, one for another city, leaving room for a familiar, arcane weaponry, and arcane armour (or, later, additional summoned creatures). I begin to think Imbue Champion might be worth it just for the extra Enchant slots on the champion
I took a closer look at my food production after reading this thread and performed an experiment. Most of my cities produced -1 or -2 food because of huts, and my farm city produced +7.2, for a total of +1. I built caravans connecting two of the cities to the food one. What I didn't understand before was that trade adds a percentage to food produced in the city -- it doesn't add food directly. So the two cities producing 0 base food got no benefit from it directly but
I think these are more about strategy than about mechanics, so I hope they belong here: In the early game (before researching the more-food-resources Adventure tech) I've usually had only once city with any food resource nearby. Is that the only one in which it makes sense to build food-improving resources? or can granaries and irrigation help cities without such a resource? Each city can only build one caravan, so if I want to improve a food-poor city I apparen