Saturday 15 January 2011

Research

Updated for 2.0!
In 9/10 cities I conquered I had to reset some research in the academy wasting my Culture Points. Its amazing how many useless technologies people have in their cities! I will give a brief description of all of them and will tell you on which you should never waste your points. All technologies help more or less but since we cant have them all in one city then its important to prioritize them and to have really important ones.

I found out that in most of my cities I have almost the same set of technologies no matter what is the specialisation of a city. So I want to make a list of things we should always have and which to avoid in every polis.

As a basic rule, always have researched technologies which provide extra firepower and speed of production. Then you can focus on costs and movement speed.
All technologies help more or less but its important to prioritize them. For example Meteorology wont help you if 99% of your enemies are based on other islands (usually are, except very early stage of the game).


Must Have Techs

Farm Spaces (army size):
  • Plow - instantaneously receive 200 citizens, every extra FS is good

Firepower:
  • Phalanx - MUST, your troops fight 10% stronger than normal
  • Battering Ram - MUST, the fighting power of your ships increases by 10%

Resources:
  • Booty  before 2.0 - your units carry 30% more resources
  • Booty after 2.0 - With this researched, it will give you 4 more options of looting and demanding. I dont think they are that good for looting (default ones are good enough), however they give you extra flexibility in Demanding tab. Now you can Demand every 10, 40, 180 and 480 min. Of course default  option to demand every 5 min gives the most resources but who has time for it? 2x10min will give more than 20 min option, 2x40 more than 90. However the most important is 480imn option, as it is 8 hours total, which is long enough for a healthy sleep ;) 240 was to short and we cant loot each night.
  • Horsemen - great farmers and offensive units
  • Ceramics - warehouse can store an additional 2500 resources, spillage is bad

Navy:
  • Shipwright - speed of production is important and you will produce boats in all types of cities
0 points (so why not if you can afford it to have in every city for even fake attacks purpose)
  • Conquest - must have to conquer another players city and make it yours
  • Colony Ship


Sometimes, depends on specialisation 

Land army city
  • Trainer - essential, your barracks work 10% faster, to fast rebuild your troops
  • Light Transport Boat - excellent, must have for quick attacks and support (read more here)
  • Bunks - transport ships can carry 26 units instead of 20 and fast boats 16 instead of 10
typical defensive
  • Archers - to farm villages (before 2.0) and excellent defensive
typical offensive
  • Slingers - excellent offensive (def city doesn't need slings)
  • Conscription - good for assault cities, cost of land units reduced by 10%
  • Catapults - very useful, mix with land nukes (read more here)
  • Breakthrough - for land nuke cities its a must (read more here)

Naval cities
  • Biremes - essential for naval defense
  • Lightship - essential offensive and for escorting transport ships
  • Mathematics - costs for ships are reduced by 10%
  • Cartography - 10% faster ships 
  • City Guard - increases your militia, is good as it increases the amount of damage you deal if you dodge an  attack. Not bad to have in offensive or pure naval cities.

Conquest City
  • Chariots - only useful for conquering forces mixed with hoplites or Cyclops
  • Trireme - the same as chariots
  • Hoplites - for colonising, sharp attack or blunt defense

Other
  • Fireships - if you want to change a city into a defensive fort, but moving them around is pain in a... There used to be a trick (maybe still is) that sending 1 fire ships with your CS would save it in case of wipe. You see, Fire Ships in battle mechanics fight before CS but they cant be sunk when they are attacking (they can only be sunk when being attacked by LS). Therefore If your CS wave would wipe, then at least your CS could come back home.
  • Diplomacy before 2.0 - dont trust it 100%. Without diplomacy researched, the chance of a revolting farming village starts at 75% mood, with diplomacy researched this becomes 60%. So you can farm away till 60% with no risk of losing your units. But, this way you cannot farm every farming village more times a day because the mood increases at the same speed as before. Instead, you can farm more resources in a short period with longer delays (nights) between these periods. When I played I never had problem with that but for some people who log in less often it might be useful rsearch.
  • Diplomacy after 2.0 - In 2.0, it will allow you to loot to 64% mood without fear of revolt, instead of 80%. If you really cant log in often enough to farm resources or have to many cities to look for its ok to take it.


Useless techs (in the advanced stage of the game)

Some of these technologies MIGHT be helpful in the very early stage of the game, but can you afford to reset them later on?

  • Architecture - resource cost of buildings lowered by 10% in the early stage it can help
  • Crane - increases building speed in Senate by 10%
  • Demand Troops - it saves time to produce units but its a lottery what you get, pretty useless. After 2.0 the demand troops research was removed from the tech tree. In all worlds with 2.0 or higher implemented, the demand troops option for farming is available automatically after you upgrade the village to level 3.
  • Meteorology - its a joke, maybe useful in the first couple of weeks of game

Absolutely worthless techs:
  • Cryptography - put some silver in your cave instead
  • Democracy - yeah right, like if these extra 2 hours gonna save you
  • Espionage - Spies travel 10% faster...eee how does it help? you want reports quicker? send them before. Well maybe in Heros world it might be used for many quick spy missions and time is essential there.


If you have any doubts or questions post a comment. I encourage you to debate :)


23 comments:

  1. I find diplomacy VERY useful if you're playing a lot - espcially in the early part of the game with only a few cities -- it allows you to farm twice as often.

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  2. you are right, in the early stage of the game it can help

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  3. with diplomacy you can farm village and lower it's mood to 20% and get loads of resources :)

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  4. @Anonymous as I said: "Some of these technologies MIGHT be helpful in the very early stage of the game, but can you afford to reset them later on?"

    There are more important technologies to spent points on. Maybe if you have only first few cities it might be good for you but not later on in the game. Also getting mood to 20% is risky, your troops still can be killed even around 30-40% > diplomacy just make it less likelly to happen.

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  5. Hey!

    If i research phalanx and i send my units to support an ally, who doesnt have phalanx yet, my units will get the bonus?

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  6. Shortly - no, they will not.

    When defending,the bonuses are granted based on where the troops are fighting, not where they came from, so if the city being supported does not have the researches, the troops supporting it will not benefit from them.

    Naturally that doesn't apply to the attacking forces, which always benefit from the researches of their home town.

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  7. Meteorology is good for manticore/pegasi/harpy cities. Architecture is a must if there's still a lot of build to do in the city. I usually reset it when city is fully built.

    City festival costs 48k resources, Architecture saves you over 100k in the long run.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "Your FOOT troops move 10% faster." - unless you discovered a bug then it will not affect flying units.
      Re Meteorology - fair enough.

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    2. All land tech from the academy and land bonuses and buffs from quests and events apply to flying myth units. Not a bug - something that everyone takes for granted now.

      I research Meteorology in all my flying myth nuke cities. It's a must if you are going to have a flying nuke.

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    3. The description is "all troops from your barracks" so should affect flying units too.

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  8. Should you find a town with a library built as a super biulding and the 12 points invested in tech what would happen if you demolished the library? Would you keep the tech? This then would allow you to build the baths.

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    1. In order to demolish the library you must have at least 12 unused Research points.

      When demolishing your Academy you do not lose research, however you will not be able to train certain units if you demolish the Academy past it's research level. For example, you can no longer build Colony Ships if the Academy is below level 22. You should not demolish your academy and if possible always have it at lvl 30 (for festivals).

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  9. I was reading the replies and I wondered:
    If you do not lose the researches, can I demolish my academy to level 22 once I've got everything I've wanted in the upper levels. I don't need any units past level 22 (I don't use triremes), and supposing that I don't need city festival ability in this city, is it possible to maintain researches like conquest if I demolish to 22?

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    Replies
    1. Yes.
      Research will stay, however each unit (like a CS) has a specific requirement to be built. CS requirements are: Harbour Level 20, Academy Level 22, Research Colony ship. Since research will not be cancelled if you demolish Academy, the only requirements are Harbour and Academy level.

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  10. Hi Grom, u have made a great work with all the tutorials and seems really helpful but i want to ask before i start using them 100% are these guides updated for "today" usage? I am noob cant understand if there is any difference i started game just 3 days ago. Thank you.

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    1. Hi, as far as I know there were no big changes after 2.0 update. They have added new mythical units but thats all. I cannot know for sure as I dont play Grepolis any more.
      However remember that these are only guides, not recipes, so always use your judgment. Thanks to my guides (I hope) you will be able to understand 90% of the game mechanics, to understand logic behind my advises and on that basis make the best decisions for yourself.

      For example you see here technologies - check them in the game, read their description and then come back here to compare. Grepolis is such a successful game because there is no only 1 way of "winning" it. Every unit has its own advantages and disadvantages (purpose). You can focus on building a perfect city and army, while other players will be more successful because of their diplomatic efforts and skills (being able to get into a strong alliance etc). Big alliance made of bad players will fall under attack of only a few but skilled warriors.

      I could go on and on but I hope you have the picture - it is a quite sophisticated and diversified game but still rather simple to understand and play.

      If you have time read all my guides and you will get an inside into the game that most people need years to learn. If new units or technologies are introduced you will know how to adapt in the best possible way. I try to make people to think and understand why I propose this or another way of doing things, not just follow blindly any specific tactic. I think that after reading my guides and some experience you will gain enough knowledge to decide for yourself, what is the best way for you to play Grepolis.

      Best of luck!

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    2. First of all thank you for your answer. I didn't plan to follow blindly the guides you have here i just didn't want to spend like 1 week to read em all and realize that are out of date. From what i read so far your guides are up to date and awesome for understanding the game.

      To be honest i am more into defensive type of game but that doesn't mean that i don't make offensive units but i focus more in defense so i can defend strong attacks or reinforce allies that getting attacked. Your guides with the units comparison helped me a lot to take a decision which path i ll take.

      Thank you again for the great guides you have here and i wish you good luck too. Farewell!

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    3. So what game are you playing now. I'm 1/3 way into building my city and wouldn't mind starting a new game going somewhere else.

      Mark

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    4. I am not playing any game right now.

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  11. GROM, just read all your guides. I just came back from a long long break and came to find 2.0! You have helped me so much. But is there a guide which gives me a step by step building guide. So I can literally upgrade my buildings in a specific order for my first city?

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    1. Unfortunately I haven't prepared a guide like this.

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  12. Thanks for this grom
    But is there possibly a step by step building guide of what to upgrade in beginners protection in order?

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    Replies
    1. Unfortunately I haven't prepared a guide like this. Maybe in the future

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