game incentivizes mega cities

eventually there is a spell in the tech tree which counters the debuff of the added city unrest from # of cities in your empire

late in the tech skill tree the arcane mastery tech gives the spell 'bless city.' for 250 mana this city enchant spell gives minus 25% city unrest, enough to negate the+24% city unrest from having eight cities in your empire. but your empire may grow much bigger than this, particularly on large maps. so having one or more lev 5 FORTRESS onyx throne are still needed for empires with at least nine cities in them

a problem for the spell 'bless city' spell is having the 'spare 250 mana' to cast this spell on in each of your non tower of dominion (CONCLAVE or FORTRESS) cities. see posts below on how to build up a source of mana

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NOTE - 'the Decalon'  faction trait also unlocks fire, water, earth, air spell books for purchase in the shop after researching shard harvest -> sorcery -> spell books

picking the faction race of Altar (the race of men) enables henchman unit to be trained after researching harvest -> sorcery ->henchmen

FEAW (fire, earth, air, water) spell books (from the Decalon faction trait) combined with henchmen (faction Altar, race of men) as mage or warrior hero class creates Uber Mages & Uber Warriors since unlike heroes (champions) henchman mages & warriors do NOT split XP with the sov/ruler and other heroes (champions) in the army stack. the only advantage of a hero (not henchman) mage or warrior is that such a hero may come leveled up with various schools of magic already enabled or come leveled up with warrior beneficial promotions or race (twisted)

I have not tested henchmen defenders or assassins. not sure if there is any benefit. will update this post if they are worth building

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NOTE - 'the Decalon' faction trait after researching shard harvest -> sorcery -> spell books does NOT unlock either the Life spell book or the Death spell book for heroes (ruler/champions) to buy in the shop. a hero (sov/champion) must already have life magic with a kingdom faction or death magic as an empire faction -- unless by some miracle one of these spell books becomes available after a quest

strangely enough the Altar (race of men) henchman units (unlike heroes) are able to learn life magic as a kingdom faction or death magic as an empire faction

since a hero comes with the skill first aid by default the most useful life magic spell in my opinion is 80 mana life 4 magic 'call to arms' spell which builds next unit in the city build queue. but playing as a Kingdom you will be in a LOW MANA game (go to two posts below for details) so you will take a long time to build up enough incoming mana to justify using this life 4 magic spell instead of outright building the unit using city production

death magic on the other hand has many useful spells in my opinion, including death 1 curse, death 1 (city enchant) oppression, death 3 drain life, death 3 siphon strength, death 4 mass curse, and death 5 (insta)kill (target unit unless it resists). there is plenty mana available to cast these spells if you have cull the weak and raise skeleton horde to be in a HIGH MANA game (see post below for details)

continued in 3rd post

being short of mana to cast combat spells, etc is a challenge for FE LH (this game)

1)

the most straightforward way to combat lack of mana is pick an empire faction with the one allocation point faction trait flesh bound tome which gives the spell 'cull the weak' to eat one of your units to gain 20 mana

but you say it takes time to train units so this not practical. the workaround for EMPIRE factions is that as a hero mage you can unlock necromancy and greater necromancy which respectively allows you to raise one skeleton for ZERO mana or to raise a skeleton horde (of 9x skeletons) for 40 mana. if you eat all 9x units in this skeleton horde you net 180 - 40 = 140 mana for each time you cast the spell. (the spell is also very useful to surround a 3 x 3 grid of foes to easily distract them with attacking the relatively worthless skeletons)

to cast raise a skeleton horde multiple times in one combat you need other heroes (champions) leveled up with the greater necromancy skill or the 'sovereign blood' sovereign/ruler trait which allows you summon a familiar which can cast ALL of its rulers spells (including 'raise skeleton horde' from greater necromancy) once your sov/ruler knows how to cast it

having an empire faction with the faction trait flesh bound tome (enabling cull the weak) and hero mages knowing greater necromancy (enabling raise skeleton horde) means you are in a HIGH MANA game

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imo the one point faction trait flesh bound tome is best coupled with two point faction trait 'the Decalon' 1+2 = all 3 faction allocation points. (see post above about 'the Decalon' faction trait)

faction trait 'the Decalon' enables the tech to buy tome books of Fire, Earth, Air, Water (but not Life or Death) magic. coupled with an Altarian (race of men) henchman mage so have a great mage for each army stack that levels up as a normal unit and does NOT split the battle XP like a normal hero (champion). NOTE - henchmen can also be useful as warriors so you do not have to depend on luck that your fame gives you the chance to hire a warrior hero. unknown how useful henchmen are as assassins or defenders (too defensive a hero class for me)

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if also want to also have the one point faction trait master scout which allows rapid army and scout movement (very useful) you are up to 4 total faction allocation points so in that case need to get back down to the max of 3 faction allocation point

so you have to also pick one of the minus one allocation point faction trait weaknesses (max of one faction weakness is allowed)

continued in 4th post

in a HIGH MANA game you can use your raise skeleton horde spell to SLOW DOWN and distract foes in combat by casting the 3 x 3 target grid in their midst so as to prevent easy foe movement (with zone of control) in that 3 x 3 grid and also have the raised skeletons help with fight with pack tactics to raise the possible number of your allies which can initiate or help the attack versus a foe unit

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having plenty of mana to spare you can easily cast the following relatively HIGH MANA spells -

A) cast 50 mana 'arcane monolith' spell (with 'the Decalon' faction trait) to create arcane monoliths (outposts) without losing training time & 30 village/city pop to train (build) a pioneer

'B') cast 200 mana 'destiny's insight' (after researching shard harvest -> sorcery) to give a hero or high value unit 25 XP to rapidly level it up. NOTE - this also works on henchmen if your faction is of the Altar race (race of men) and have researched shard harvest -> sorcery -> henchmen to be able to build henchmen (and hence custom design henchmen)

C) cast 250 mana 'bless city' (after researching shard harvest -> sorcery -> arcane mastery) to lower your city unrest by 25%.in that city

'bless city'combats city unrest from # of cities in your empire along with more powerful FORTRESS lev 5 onyx throne which lowers city unrest by 30% in ALL cities in your empire

D) cast almost limitless spells in combat. to further extend this have a hero/ruler/champion learn water 3 magic to get access to the 25 mana 'mantle of oceans' spell which gives 40% cheaper spell mana cost with ZERO mana upkeep. cast 'mantle of oceans' spell on all of your spell casting heroes (and henchmen if faction race Altarian, race of men) since you are a HIGH MANA faction and can easily afford the cost in mana

===

gold in the early game

an early game edge from having gold will occur if your have the sov/ruler trait of wealthy since with it you start with 400 gold

if you follow the advice in the posts above  you will lack TOWN cities (founding none of them and razing all captured TOWNS) and will also choose to have ZERO taxes from turn one so as not debuff your res and production (see posts above)

but you initially will nonetheless generate enough gold (in game called gildar) from conquering lairs, completing quests, and tech trading with other factions to be able to afford simple items in the game shop

NOTE - ALL factions will continue to trade & sign eco treaties to build a caravan between capital cities so long as your relations are better than hostile. over time kingdoms will continue to like each other more and like empires less and vice versa. if you are perceived to be in the lead, ie have more land tiles (power) than other kingdoms then they will also start to move towards hostile, similarly for empire factions

it is possible a faction that declared war on you reconsiders, either because there has been no military action with you or because you have taken most of their cities. if you accept their offer of a peace treaty to end the war their relations with you will improve greatly to slightly less than neutral and you can sign treaties and trade with them. a tech treaty may give you a huge boost in res if your empire is much bigger than their empire

continued in 5th post

2)

without eating skeletons as an empire faction you are stuck (for most of the game) in a LOW MANA game (whether playing as a kingdom or as an empire)

you may have no choice of faction and its associated empire or kingdom such as having Lord Relias of the KINGDOM (not empire) of Altar as your ruler when play the 2nd (final) scenario of Anthys. or you may prefer to roleplay in your games and have more challenging fights in combat that do not use the admittedly cheap trick of spamming out skeletons nine at a time

for a LOW MANA (initial) game you have to adapt by generating mana the old fashioned way by A) using outposts (or preferably arcane monoliths with 'the Decalon' faction trait) to acquire magic shards, 'B') creating improvements (altar, shrine, temple) to max out the mana from each magic shard, and C) adding mana directly from improvements such as the CONCLAVE herbalist & the CONCLAVE apothecary, and D) eventually researching the magic tech refined arcana to add 25% to the mana generated by each of the cities in your empire each time this tech is researched. so continuing to research this tech leads to as much mana as you want

in other words eventually a HIGH MANA game -- even as a kingdom. and without the ongoing tedium of an empire faction with the cull the weak spell eating all those raised up skeletons every single battle (see posts above)

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to restate my advice concerning city building strategy at the start of the first post of this thread -

1)

only build or keep cities which have at least two native city essence. maps tend to have much fewer city sites with 3 native city ess but these are more desirable and if possible should be settled first. if a random map has no city tiles with at least two native city essence re roll a new map

build CONCLAVE cities by default for the res and mana. only a CONCLAVE can build the bldg lines starting with sage & herbalist and hence will always produce the most research & mana of any city type. these are the outputs most desired after a city has been built out and is producing research (or perhaps city growth if not yet a lev 5 city)

build enough lev 5 FORTRESS onyx throne cities to offset the city unrest from # of cities in your empire (each onyx throne counters the debuff from 10 cities in your empire (3 city unrest x 10 cites = 30 city unrest debuff of onyx throne). a FORTRESS city also helps train units, a feature more needed by empires which lack the 80 mana life 4 call to arms spell used by kingdoms

to avoid the 15% city unrest non contiguous to your capital city debuff string along a series of outposts or arcane monoliths (with 'the Decalon' faction trait) to connect any potential cities to be added to your empire BEFORE YOU actually conquer them. otherwise the non contiguous debuff will drag down the production of the city you just added to your empire.even thought you do not own them you can see the details of any foe city and even rename their city in single player mode in you so desire

out of your control is a bug which seemingly at random decides cities which previously were contiguous to your capital city are no longer so even in the absence of any territory ownership changes on the world map. sometimes after a few turns the bug will disappear and your city unrest will go back down by 15%

TOWNS should NEVER be built & all captured TOWNS should be razed, even if they have a desirable bldg like a tower of dominion (see above in this post for explanation of why not to build or keep TOWNS). if there are desirable city sites (at least 2 ess) left after a TOWN is razed a new CONCLAVE (for res & mana) or FORTRESS (to control city unrest & to train better units) can be built there

2)

despite the temptation it is NOT a good idea to just have one HUGE CONCLAVE mega city since you that would severely cripple the total of amount of res & mana your empire can generate, each added city can build bldgs which generate res & mana out of thin air. for example, a CONCLAVE city generates 6 res as soon as a village becomes a CONCLAVE at lev 2

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useful city enchants to boost city output -

10 mana life 4 (kingdoms only) sovereign's call, +2 city growth but max of 5 city growth, 7.5 max with researching city growth

0 mana meditation, 1 mana per city essence (no tech needed)

15 mana (empires only) oppression, minus 15% city unrest (unlocked by any hero with death1 magic)

100 mana 'arcane forge', 1 material per city essence (from sorcery -> arcane mastery -> glyph stones -> arcane apparel -> magical forging tech)

250 mana bless city, minus 25% city unrest (from sorcery -> arcane mastery tech) 

25 mana nature's bounty, +1 grain (same as harvest festival) in the city boosts city food production (from sorcery tech)

10 mana 'enchanted hammers', +1 material (same as ritual site) (unlocked by any hero with earth 1 magic)

15 mana inspiration, +1 research (unlocked by any hero with water 1 magic)

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to boost material -

many clay pits (build quarries) close to a given city

alchemy lab (CONCLAVE only bldg), +1 material per city essence (from sorcery -> arcane mastery), ensures CONCLAVE will have more material (giving more ess with meditation) than a FORTRESS (unless FORTRESS is connected to an unusually high number of clay pits)

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to boost grain (& hence food) -

many wild grains (build farms) or fruit groves (build orchards) close to a given city

farms -> irrigated farms, +1 grain to +2 grain, enabled by agriculture tech

===========================

other resources -

horses, wargs, crystal crag, iron ore

ogre & troll lairs (empires only, build camps)

twilight bees (build apiaries) each give minus 2% city unrest in ALL cities

temple ruins (build ancient temple) each give +5% research to ALL cities

gold deposit (build gold mine, not worth it since ZERO taxes is best, see posts above)

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NOTE - in the Anthys (2nd & final) scenario you play as kingdom Lord Relias of Altar faction 

===========================

ALL of the five empire factions Relias of Altar needs to conquer (the standard four empire factions plus a novel faction called Yithril Invasion located in the SW corner of the same large landmass as the four other kingdoms) have their tower of dominion (AND tower of knowledge) in a FORTRESS city with less than two city essence. ZERO city essence in fact for each captured empire city in this scenario. I boosted each captured tower of dominion empire city by building a ritual site that gave +1 city essence. (I could not build a scrying pool which also gives +1 city essence since the Altar faction does NOT have the enchanters faction trait)

===========================

after finishing the Anthys scenario I played on some random maps

on a random map-- the tower of dominion is NOT only in a FORTRESS city, the tower of dominion & tower of knowledge are NOT always built in the same city. strangely enough the AI usually fails to pick a high city essence city for the tower of knowledge & sometimes it fails to pick a CONCLAVE city. the AI does not see the problem in bldg a TOWN & falsely assumes they are worth the meager amount of gold generated by a TOWN by raising the tax rate above ZERO taxes. the AI on hard game difficulty must be given a stat boost since they do NOT fall far behind in research, even with all the worthless TOWNS they build

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continued in 6th post

the 3x faction factory bldgs each give +1 production per city material. the mythic factory bldg upgrades an existing factory so that it is boosted to +2 production per city material

if the goal is to have max city production then for the great mill WW (+25% prod in that city) & the four factory(3)/mythic factory(1) bldgs location the top four production cities should be selected

before the great mill WW or any factories are built the CONCLAVE cities likely will have the highest city production (with their arcane forge & CONCLAVE only alchemy lab) than the FORTRESS (do not build or fail to raze a TOWN, see posts above) cities which have the most connected clay quarries. the possible production boosts from these five bldgs in four high production cities leads to a possible alternative strategy for playing the game (see below)

===========================

the original strategy in the first post in this thread was to just build one CONCLAVE mega city before capturing and NOT razing other FORTRESS (or TOWN) faction cities which have an already built tower of domination, eventually also turning them into mega cities using outposts to add resources & add tiles of your territory between cities to avoid the non contiguous cities debuff of 15% city unrest.

as currently in the first post the above original strategy has been revised. the current best known strategy is to build all CONCLAVE cities except except enough FORTRESS cities so that lev 5 onyx throne can offset the # of cities city unrest debuff, ten cites at a time (3 city unrest x 10 cities, 30 total debuff offset)

NOTE - discarded alternate build theory is still listed below for historical reference. it ignored the huge gain in res and mana from having more and more good (2+ city essence) CONCLAVE cities generate more and more res and mana. it also ignored the lev 5 FORTRESS onyx throne city level improvement which provides debuff of city unrest for ten cities at a time (3 city unrest x 10 cities, 30 total debuff offset)

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discarded alternate build theory for playing the game which emphasized city production

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as noted in previous posts above CONCLAVE cites tend to produce the most production with their eventual arcane forge city enchant & eventual CONCLAVE only alchemy lab bldg BOTH giving +1 material per city essence

since production boosts are possible with the five great mill and factory bldgs (see above) this possibility for added production may be enough to found or keep cities which have production capability but are NOT exempt from the number of cities debuff provided by the missing tower of dominion bldg. ASIDE - this tradeoff of city unrest debuff v other buff was discussed in the very first post in this thread on whether or not to keep a captured city which only has the tower of knowledge but NOT the tower of dominion

since for the most production it makes sense to build the great mill bldg in a city which has (or will have) a factory or mythic factory bldg this leads to a total of up to four high production cities (some of which will lack a tower of dominion & hence need added bldgs (town hall, shrine, etc) or city enchants (bless city, empire oppression) or city lev improvement (lev 5 FORTRESS onyx throne) to reduce city unrest

if none of your FORTRESS (do not build or fail to raze TOWN, see posts above) cities have enough connected clay quarries to have more production than your actual or projected CONCLAVE cities then all these up to five high production bldgs will be in up to four CONCLAVE cities (unless you want to specify a FORTRESS city as being your place to train units, more important for empires than kingdoms since empires lack life 4 call to arms to rush units, see five paragraphs below)

an alternate build theory is to instead identify the top up to four production cites and build or capture these cities even if such a city lacks a tower of dominion (which it certainly will for all but one of your own faction cities after a tower of dominion has been built in CONCLAVE city in your empire (it is a unique bldg so a faction can only build one of them)

using this alternate build theory you may have up to four CONCLAVE mega cities in your empire before you ever capture a city from another faction which has a tower of dominion bldg

but building four CONCLAVE mega cities in your own empire may not in fact be the wisest choice. it leads to the most possible research prior to civilization 'refined research' tech which every time it is researched adds 10% to your city research. unfortunately that tech is near the end of the civilization research tree so will not be a factor until the very late game

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end of discarded alternate build theory

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continued in 7th post

eventually lack of TOWN cities and collecting ZERO taxes will start to cost you enough gold (known in game as gildar) you need another source of gold other than conquering lairs, completing quests, and tech trading (but still with ZERO taxes)

when that happens you can level up a commander hero (champion) or henchman (if playing as Altar = race of men but imo hm mages or warriors are a better use of hm ) choosing the commander hero skills of merchant 1 to 4 giving a total at merchant 4 of 14 gold per turn. with two such leveled up merchant commanders you will be generating 28 gold per turn, enough to offset unit wages for quite some time

NOTE - the next commander hero skill after merchant 4 is wealthy which gives a one time payout of 500 gold (gildar) so in most cases it is best to take that skill next before learning build roads or admin 2 (which gives minus 40% city unrest if the admin 2 commander is stationed in a city)

===

if you are very fortunate after defeating a quest or lair you will randomly get the alchemy spell as a reward. (alchemy spell is not to be confused with various bldgs of a similar name - alchemy bldg, alchemy lab bldg in CONCLAVE cities)

the alchemy spell allows you to convert 100 mana to 100 gold (gildar). whether you start as a HIGH mana empire faction or slowly use life shards, etc to later become a HIGH mana (empire or kingdom) faction (see details in posts above) receiving the alchemy spell as a quest reward means the end of worrying about a lack of gold. the huge amount of mana you collect each turn from magic shards, etc or as an empire with cull the weak from eating skeletons in combat can easily cover any gold (gildar) shortfall from unit wages or rush building city bldgs

===

with the alchemy spell as a HIGH MANA faction you are now also a HIGH GOLD faction. meaning you can afford to rush city buildings (one per city per turn per city is the limit). once all your desired city buildings are built you can 'convert city production to'

A) city growth (+50% faster city growth in that city, 5 max city growth is boosted to 7.5) to reach a higher city level (and hence its city level up benefit improvement), OR 

'B') produce research (+50% faster research in that city) and further accelerate mana growth with a speedier magic 'refined arcana' repeatable tech research (adds +25% total mana for each city each time) OR further accelerate research with civilization 'refined research' repeatable tech (adds +10% total research for each city each time)

===

produce mana is not efficient since it only gives one mana per city essence (much less mana than instead taking turns to research magic 'refined arcana')

===

produce wealth (boosting gold = gildar from city income) is not desirable since it boosts gold (gildar) city income which in turn is based upon the very bad idea of having a NON ZERO faction tax rate

as noted in post #6 above ZERO taxes from turn one is the most resource efficient way to play due to the lack of the debuff to city production and city research caused by the city unrest that is generated by having a non ZERO tax rate (which does collect gold as city income but debuffs production & research)

the gold (gildar) generated from even the highest city income at the oppressive tax (giving 70% debuff to city production and city research) is a pittance in comparison to the gold (gildar) that can be generated with the alchemy spell and being a HIGH MANA faction (hence being a HIGH GOLD faction)

with ZERO taxes there is NO city income from taxes. gold (gildar) is instead generated by commander merchant heroes, by economic treaties & trades with other factions. gold (gildar) is also a possible outcome of defeating lairs or receiving quest rewards in general. it can also come from commander heroes with merchant skills (see top of this post)

continued in 10th post (reply #8)

Thank you for taking the time to denote this thread and expand upon it with your findings, its proving very informative

well at least person has read it, albeit part of the development team

I have continued to play the 2nd (Anthys) scenario (last scenario available) assigned by the scenario to be Lord Relias of Altar and am now at the point I just need to crank up the research per turn to crank up the mana per turn to create a big enough mana stash for the mana shield spell. it is a possible key to defeating the 2nd battle of the forge of the overlord since you can only attack with one unit v a horde of foe units. other possible keys would be a higher initiative for your hero (champion) stack leader caused by repeated use of the air 5 celerity spell, 2x attack by casting the earth 5 giant form spell, and more attack and def caused by repeatedly researching advanced attack and advanced defense. I end up using most of these keys to defeat the 2nd battle and finally beat the scenario

===

finally defeating this scenario taught me that my original gameplay strategy of focusing in on first one, then around four or five mega cities (my revised alternative strategy) in the end does not provide a continually growing amount of res and mana, the most desired outputs of your cities once they have been built out and are just producing research (or city growth if not yet lev 5)

===

I found out by playing thru to the end of that scenario and then playing on random maps that having a large number of SMART cities is a better way to go. by SMART cities I mean that each city has at least two native city ess, is a CONCLAVE by default, a few cities are FORTRESS lev 5 onyx throne cities to offset the growing city unrest caused by # of cities city unrest debuff, and TOWNS are never built and are razed if captured

my findings are summarized at the start of the first post of this thread. (NOTE - I originally started this thread since I found no other newbie guide talked about the desirability of fewer, larger, mega cities. some newbie guides did point out that a min of two native city essence is a good idea)

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it is highly desirable to build up research per turn by repeatedly researching refined education tech which gives +10% research each time, a lot less than instead researching refined arcana tech which gives +25% mana each time

repeatedly researching these two techs cranks up research & mana in ALL the cities in your empire. by also continually adding SMART cities (see above in this post) to your empire this further speeds up the snowball of getting more and more res & mana for your empire

===

do not neglect commanders

not mentioned in any of the other posts of this thread but effective as a way to decrease city unrest is to train commander heroes (or henchmen) with admin 2 since they can then lower city unrest by 40% if garrisoned in a given city

I had mentioned in a prior post that commander heroes (or henchmen) with the merchant 4 skill each add 14 gold per turn, the best way to gain gold prior to defeating a quest or lair and randomly (this may take up to 200 turns) getting the alchemy spell which converts 100 mana to 100 gold. if you are a HIGH MANA faction (see posts above) then the alchemy spell solves your lack of gold problem and you now also a HIGH GOLD faction. it also means no more commanders need to be trained for this purpose of generating gold with merchant skills

prior to getting the alchemy spell AFTER each commander hero (or henchman) gets the merchant 4 skill they can then go on to fight battles for XP to get up 3x more very useful skills - wealthy which gives a 1x 500 gold bonus, admin 2 to combat city unrest if garrisoned in a given city, and road building to help create the road network in your empire

if other units solely dedicated to building roads are available then these commanders can finally retire, stationed at a given city to reduce its city unrest

your empire will grow so big that it is desirable to use a much more efficient & faster method of quelling city unrest than using retired commanders with admin 2 skill,namely having as many FORTRESS lev 5 onyx throne cites as necessary (each such city offsets the # of cities city unrest debuff for ten cities, 3 city unrest x 10 cites = 30 city unrest debuff)

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ALL cities in your empire (10 cities at a time) will benefit from the city unrest debuff of having FORTRESS lev 5 onyx throne cities. they will also benefit if any FORTRESS lev 4 prisons were built (each reduces city unrest by 10% in ALL cites, see prior post above on advisability of building this city improvement) 

overall city unrest is also reduced by 2% for each apiary built on a twilight bees resource (some quests create this resource), reduced by 10% for each ancient temple built on a temple ruins resource, and reduced by 10% for each CONCLAVE lev 4 academy of revelation (a COMMON improvement so usually a choice to pick from)

===

some cities will also have other further city unrest debuffs from retired commanders with admin 2, towers of dominion, or a palace

Maybe you do not get the attention your posts deserve, but spamming the thread with irrelevant empty posts sure does not and have been deleted.

sorry about that. those empty posts you deleted were a mistake. I saw no way to delete them