Game Mechanic clarifications

[VahnNoa]

I'd played about 50 hours now, love it, but just wanted to clarify a few things.

What exactly does food do? I take it (besides the benefit of having 1/2 of its production turned into gold) that as long as your in the positive there is no additional benefit. I know if you go negative it mentions your cities are starving, but what does that mean, exactly? I thought it slowed/stopped city growth but my cities expanded at exactly the same rate as my brothers (who was the control for the turns I was starving.)

The god system seems to be based on a 100 point-scale. That is, if I get loved with Agrela, I cannot get loved with Dauras at the same time, because building a new temple reduces relations with Agrela. Why? I thought it was only supposed to reduce relations with the opposing god.

What exactly are the city zone of control thresholds? I.e. when do they expand to 2,3,4, etc tiles in every direction? Is this affected by cities that are nearby (but not touching)?

The A.I. builds a ton of cities very close to each other, giving each one little to no building room. I prefer several cities with a large zone of control over a bunch of small ones, but is there any benefit to copying the A.I.? Having those cities so close together inhibits building production, right?

When a city increased in "level" you can always build a new building, any way to increase this? Spells like prosperity increase population but they do not give a noticeable effect.

I seem to be having some gameplay issues involving the otherworlds. In particular, by the time I'm strong enough to colonize them, I'm strong enough to literally take over all of Ardinia, making them by and large fun, but useless. There are so incredibly many, many monsters there that sometimes it takes me 4-5turns of defending with a whole army for them to throw themselves at me enough to even have tiles to move to. Is this because they continue to spawn there throughout the game, and striking sooner would mean less of them?

Sorry for the manuel-sized post, but intermediate questions bro.

 

[loki100]

some partial answers.

the gain to a close pattern of building (I believe) is that you can more quickly build onto tiles that slow movement - so you create roads across your territory.

portals, I've only played a little with the latest patch, but it used to be the case of if you got into one early, the monsters were fairly low level so you could build up with early game units (& gain a huge bonus in terms of resources etc), later on they are full of strong stuff but as you say if you are strong enough yourself to deal with it, you are on the way to winning anyways. I've not got far enough with a post-patch game to meet the dremers, but from other posts, they may be so hard to handle, you'll need a strong set of units to survive. If so, training up your mid/late game units in a few portal worlds might be a good strategy.

Some of the gods are opposed - so if you get on with one, you don't with the other, others can be combined.

food is good for growth, growth determines the speed at which you can lay down new improvements in your city tiles.

 

[Dalwin]

Cities gain a second ring at population 5 and a third ring at 10. I am not sure if they ever get a fourth one.

The god thing is a circle and your position will be somewhere on that circle. you can only have +100 with one of them. This yields a -100 with the opposite one. The two nearest neighbors will be roughly +80 and their opposites -80. The two in the middle will still be close to zero. All in all, regardless of your position on the circle, the total of all relations will add up to zero, always.

Building the cities closer together lets you make use of special tiles more quickly and scales up your economy overall more quickly. If they are futher apart, the cities eventually get bigger, but it takes a long time to get there. Population growth slows down substantially past 10 or 12. The first two rings include 18 tiles. Adding another 18 with the third ring is a lot of space you are likely never going to develop. The game will be over long before.

 

[unmerged(492719)]

I'd played about 50 hours now, love it, but just wanted to clarify a few things.

What exactly does food do? I take it (besides the benefit of having 1/2 of its production turned into gold) that as long as your in the positive there is no additional benefit. I know if you go negative it mentions your cities are starving, but what does that mean, exactly? I thought it slowed/stopped city growth but my cities expanded at exactly the same rate as my brothers (who was the control for the turns I was starving.)

Food is an upkeep system. You pay food upkeep for units and buildings. While you total food (Produced minus upkeep) is positive, the extra food turns into gold. While food is negative, the growth rate of your non-undead cities is reduced. Check the tooltip to see how much, I do not know the exact calculation for it. Early on, the flat reduction in growth rate can be a huge negative, but rarely does it STOP you from growing at all, just decreases it.

The god system seems to be based on a 100 point-scale. That is, if I get loved with Agrela, I cannot get loved with Dauras at the same time, because building a new temple reduces relations with Agrela. Why? I thought it was only supposed to reduce relations with the opposing god.

Look at the diplomacy screen. Your relation is based on your gods position in the grid. Gaining influence with a god moves you directly towards that god by the amount of the influence. Losing it causes you to move towards the opposing god. Since this is a 2d plane, the actual effects of gaining/losing influence are a little complex. If you gain favor with Dauros, you will also gain favor with Agrela and Helios... up to a point. After a while you will actually lose it (once again up to a point).

What exactly are the city zone of control thresholds? I.e. when do they expand to 2,3,4, etc tiles in every direction? Is this affected by cities that are nearby (but not touching)?

At 5 and 10 they get another ring. IT is only effected by city size. And city size is for each 1000 growth points in the city. (So you are size one at 1000, and size 9 at 9000). As a city grows, it's 'growth rate' decreases, until it eventually stagnates. Getting spells like Blessing of Life, or Prosperity, give a flat bonus to the growth rate of a city (Greatly increasing its growth rate if the city is large or off-alignment). Races other than your primary race have -50 growth rate, and grow much slower, and max out at a much lower size.

The A.I. builds a ton of cities very close to each other, giving each one little to no building room. I prefer several cities with a large zone of control over a bunch of small ones, but is there any benefit to copying the A.I.? Having those cities so close together inhibits building production, right?

Not really. A city has a hard time getting passed size 10 to 12 unless you give it some major growth boosts (See above). A city has 6 adjacent hexes, so you only need about those, and a little of the second ring, and maybe a few in the third ring. Also, each city gains an initial boost to gold and food from its 'castle'. You DO want some 'large' cities (with prosperity and blessing of life if possible!) To maximize the effects of % boost buildings like Treasure houses, or to produce highly perked out units.

When a city increased in "level" you can always build a new building, any way to increase this? Spells like prosperity increase population but they do not give a noticeable effect.

See above. Prosperity is a flat increase in growth rate to a city, and is more noticeable in larger cities. Prosperity gives +40 growth rate, you get a building each 1000 growth, so prosperity will give you an additional building every 25 turns. While you grow in 5 to 8 turns early on, you will eventually take much longer, or stop, growing completely, at which point the prosperity bonus will be very very noticeable.

I seem to be having some gameplay issues involving the otherworlds. In particular, by the time I'm strong enough to colonize them, I'm strong enough to literally take over all of Ardinia, making them by and large fun, but useless. There are so incredibly many, many monsters there that sometimes it takes me 4-5turns of defending with a whole army for them to throw themselves at me enough to even have tiles to move to. Is this because they continue to spawn there throughout the game, and striking sooner would mean less of them?

As soon as a portal is entered (Potentially by a fleeing earth elemental) the buildings inside will start spawning troops. Getting into a portal early (turn 40ish) or by making sure they are not entered, will keep them weaker, allowing for you to pick through them more easily. In Armageddon mode, you will have to enter portals to defeat the Anchors there, making it even more important to get to clean them out early.

Sorry for the manuel-sized post, but intermediate questions bro.

I help as much as I can.

 

[VahnNoa]

Thread answered! Thanks for all your help guys, and especially Zechnophobe for breaking it down and answering everything. I thought (due to the text on the buff) that prosperity and blessing of life gave a flat population bonus, not a growth per turn bonus. That makes a lot of sense.

 

[Efyian]

Just an add-on comment.
In the city screen, in the bottom left corner is your city's population, and its current growth rate in (+###)