Advanced Farm and Mine Analysis

This original post was made approximately 1.5 years ago. I wonder whether the original poster and those who posted that they will not max and/or level the advanced farms and/or mines still haven’t maxed them yet. I dunno if @Wharflord is still playing as I don’t see his name anymore in the leader boards of various challenge events, which was previously a common occurrence when I was still a fledgling in the game (still a fledgling but an experienced one :sweat_smile::sweat_smile::sweat_smile:).

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@Ultra I thought it had been merged tbh…

I’m lost anyways, I’ve misunderstood the question but I did the final Quest in Farholme with a 100 emblem rare team a way back. Can’t remember the items I used but it was possible. You just need to colour stack against the final boss colour.

And I’m out :joy:

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Nah. For me, this thread was dead after I posted my response agreeing with @Gryphonknight. I just didn’t know back then that there is already a forum feature muting a thread and mostly ignored this subject whenever it got to the top when a recent response was posted. It just recently came to my attention because I was curious on the recent like I gathered on that said post.

@Cheds

TBH, I didn’t read everything here. After rereading my post that was recently liked, I reread the OP and didn’t bother to read the subsequent responses anymore. I dunno if several threads were merged here. Gryphon’s contention was valid then as it is now still… for me anyways. Well, I maxed all the available structures to be maxed. Didn’t come to regret it and I don’t think I will in the foreseeable future.

P. S. Back then, I didn’t like the analysis of the OP and thought that some tinfoil hatmen were out just to keep low-level players lagging behind to those who were already experienced than us, propagating such analysis that it is impractical leveling those resource structures to hinder its good effects masked as a negative one while they themselves are leveling or maxing those structures. That is why I asked whether they maxed those advanced buildings or not. Not really interested in their replies.

Anyway, ignoring this thread for the last time by muting it. Happy weekends, everyone.

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3* Heroes

With the right team you can finish Season 1 with only 3* heroes ( Gunnar 3* 3.50 has the defense stat of Grimm 4* 4.70 ).

Play style

If you want to use high level Battle items to finish rare quests and get 4* ascension items then…

Do it.

It is your game.

Have fun.

Marathon

But in my experience, Empires and Puzzles is a marathon, not a sprint.

In my opinion, players should enjoy the journey.

It is a game.

The game is most fun, and enjoyable, before Stronghold 13.

But it is still quite playable for a while after that.

Notes

Click for notes

Below post includes a lot of the core game play. Warning, lots of links leading to even more links. Like a link Hydra. Click on one, and more grow back.

(4* to 3-60 or 3* Maxed? - #6 by Gryphonknight)

Resource comparison for food, Hero XP and ascension items

(Glenda or perseus? - #15 by Gryphonknight)

FIN

The original post is still very valid. Figuring out the opportunity cost / ROI for farms and mines is a good idea, and can really help optimize your build for early/mid game.

Importantly, how much you should work on mines (and to a lesser extent, farms) depends on if you’re F2P or not. I had a second F2P account, and it just didn’t need the same level of mines to keep up — only 1 builder makes a huge difference.

Late game it doesn’t matter as much. I’m close to finishing my second advanced mine. After that I’ll work on my advanced farms. Already have maxed HA and AL (and all that implies), I’m maxing my advanced house because recruits don’t matter now, and once everything else is done I guess I’ll work on HL.

Another key thing to learn is what your daily iron and food earn rate is, which is a combination of mine/farm/watchtower, map stages, and raids. For me it’s about 2M food and 1.5M iron a day. So I can closely estimate how long I’ll need to stop using before the next building upgrade (or HA9 / 10 retraining).

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Feedback

Oh this post is a classic example of the Devs do actually read the forum.

No need for high level buildings, fine, we will change the game design for advanced training camps ( now Hero Academy ) and Alchemy Lab.

Academy and Lab

If I recall correctly, Hero Academy 4* retraining, and Alchemy Lab 4* ascension item roulette, requires close to maximum storage buildings, and lots of food and iron.

Budget

But I have not done a base food budget recently.

Lots of things ( looking at you 5* Battle items ) that seemed important before Alchemy Lab v2.0, and Hero Academy v1.0, are just.

Meh.

Lab v2.0

I cannot believe I am saying this, but after the disaster of v1.0, Lab v2.0 is actually usable. Not what the players want and the game experience needs, but usable. Given the profit protection the company’s investors require, the Devs managed to squeeze out some benefits to the players.

Emblems

While emblems v2.0 is still a mess, but less a mess than v1.0 .

As a player, and a game designer, I severely dislike the model for emblem resets, especially v2.0 decision about gem resets not returning food and iron.

(Reset token used but no food/returned - #7 by VeryQuietly)

But Devs want to encourage Advanced production buildings. Even if many F2P players will just not reset.

Failure?

So the Devs attempt to encourage Advanced production buildings may have failed.

The 5* HotM business model does severely restrict innovation, creativity, and fun ( looking Tavern of Legends summons right in its bloodshot eye ).

Notes

Click for notes

Alchemy Lab

Hoarding food

([Math] Hoarding resources in Training camps versus Hero Academy)

Specific Classic 5* hero

Summons

5* HotM Business model

Some of my top posts, are rants about 5* HotM Business model

FIN

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@Gryphonknight

I was able to beat the last level of Shiloh desert without Time Stops, so I guess you were right and Forge level 18+ is unnecessary.

However concerning mine and farm upgrades - where do you store all your food prior to making Hunter’s lodge? I have constant troubles with food and iron storages filling up to the max - even with 2 builders (I am F2P, just created 20 extra accounts and leveled them to 10 for the free 120 days VIP + gems, plus got invited for 10 additional VIP days) I cannot expend all of that, and I am forced to make tons of items like axes or mana potions just so I don’t waste any food or iron. Feeder heroes and troops are not enough to expend the extra food. Any tips on that?

Edit: Naturally I store all my recruits + 1000 food per each 2 recs in a 11 lvl training camp, and it’s still not enough to contain the food production.

Excessive food is stored in TC20. If you don’t have it then use food for upgrading mines/watchtower. Then at last make small and big mana potions. Believe me they are needed for later.

Also alchemy lab is a good place for burning food. And did you upgrade the troops ? Troops burns tons of food.

My stronghold is level25/player level 58 and I’m still low on food.

How to burn food:

  1. TC19. It uses lots of food, training with 1s uses even more.

  2. TC20 as food storage. Although I can count the number of times I’ve actually taken food out on one hand. TC12 is better if you don’t want more S1 5s.

  3. Alchemy Lab.

  4. Hero Academy 3 — fastest way to level a hero. But actually uses less food (net) than TC19.

  5. Item production in forges. As noted, you’ll always need more mana potions. Eventually.

  6. Troops. Easy to use 1M+ food once they’re near or above 20… but you’ll find that when you’re at that point the issue will be actually having troops to train with.

  7. Reroll in raids. It uses SH level * 100 food.

  8. Just want to burn food to no actual benefit? Get near max storage and convert an advanced food storage back to normal. Then convert back. Now you have empty storage.

But if you’re routinely overrunning your storage… STOP IMPROVING FARMS AND MINES. Work on storage (you’ll need all of it for HA10. Every single one), work on SH, work on anything else. Which brings us back to the OP.

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QFT there. I’m closing in on my first lvl 23 Mana (Purple) and that is going to exhaust pretty much all my saved up feeder troops.
image

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I just got my first (blue). I’m now out of 2 and 3 star troops. I ran out of 1 star reds and my red is 18 or 19. Green and yellow I need more 2 star. A lot more.

Purple… I need a freaking mana troop.

Hoarding Food

This is a good list.

Notes

Some more in depth posts.

Click for Notes

Click through to posts to see actual math and other related information.

Before Hero Academy

After Hero Academy

FIN

Hero Academy 2 — fastest way to level a hero. But actually uses less food (net) than TC19.

You mean HA3. HA2 actually uses iron for training common troops. But thanks for the list !

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Thanks for the info. However my Stronghold is still at level 17, after all, I am only 2 and a half months in this game, so no TC 19 or 20 or alchemy lab for me yet. But yeah I make tons of mana potions, I already use them and I see they are needed on many occasions. Probably I should start training 1s and burning through my wooden swords, that would help. My 3 and 4* troops are leveled, however I cannot find the time to upgrade the barracks yet since I am still developing the base, so there are tons more important upgrades to do, plus I really lack on feeder 1* and 2* troops - burned through almost all of them.

@Zathrus - thanks for the info, I definitely don’t want to just waste food for no benefit (I prefer rerolling when filling the hero chest, that helps a bit). Improving storages, however, doesn’t help as much as you would think - I accumulate resources much faster than I burn them via upgrades. Probably there is something wrong with my playstyle or eventually everything will normalize after I get Hunter’s Lodge and Alchemy lab. Thank you everyone, I wanted to see if I missed something at my current Stronghold level, by the looks of it and your advice - seems I didn’t.

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Getting off topic here, but my priority at the start was SH so I could get to TC20; everything else was done towards that. If you have VIP then you can find time to sneak in a few barracks upgrades too, but it definitely feels like so much to do.

Nah. I found myself in the same dilemma. Still do, a year and a half in. I’m perpetually running near max food/iron and finding things to do to keep from hitting max.

Added rerolls to the list and fixed the HA level as pointed out by @Blord.

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I am late to the party on this, so sorry. If I didn’t go to the Keys Iwould have all that money. If I didn’t go out with all of my friends I would have all that money. If I didn’t hang out with all my friends after after a tough shift, I would have all that money. I am glad I did all of it and I am in this game for the long run. I know that I will lose out on some stuff but its a long fun ride. That’s all I got.

What do you guys do with excess Iron, after you have fully upgrade ALL buildings?

Low on titan parts
Low on Dragon bone
Low on nugget

I now have 1000+ axe attack and working towards 1000 bomb attack.

Pls tell me how to use my iron cause I still have 300+ rare troop in training as an alternative storage and its tying up my recruits…

Pls don’t suggest emblem as it’s unsustainable

When I ran out of the items to make better stuff, I switched to making turtle banners. I then run those through alchemy lab (7 every 12 hours) to manufacture rare battle items from uncommon battle items. I save or use all of the battle items except for the miracle scrolls. Those I put into the alchemy lab(5 every days) to get an epic battle item from rare battle items.

Works for me, at least for now!

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You just have to accept that there will come a time where you can’t do nothing anymore…

Iron doesn’t have that many uses:

  • building troops in HA
  • battle items in the forge and hunters lodge
  • limit breaking and embleming

All those things are limited by something else than iron…

I have filled up the troop lvl in HA for some time, now I don’t have more mats.

Limit breaking and embleming is extremely limited by emblems and limit break mats, so not really helpful for constant use of iron.

Hunters lodge I’m missing Titan parts for iron items.

And for the forge I’m missing mats. Whenever I get something I build whatever is possible, but that’s so little that I can fill the iron up just with farming and raiding.
(this mats shortage could be solved with more farming, but than I would have to buy energy flasks and even better loot tickets, just with the normal energy and free flasks I can’t farm nearly enough mats to hold my iron stock low…)
Mines are most of the time just full.

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You left the mine uncollected? I guess that would help me but not for long either…