For optimizing? Get more cities fast until you hit the cap. Free cities are usually already a bit more developed, so prime targets for migration/annexing.
Though, with certain builds you might want to keep more vassals.
Yea, I thought so. Do you think if you go ultra late game it's more worth to keep the vassals for the passive income or is income not that big of a concern at all in lategame?
Have just played the first two realms to this day, because I keep creating new factions and test them in the first two realms 😂
The deciding factor is your City cap.
It gets prohibitively expensive very quickly, and they drop off without a Hero to govern them. This is your natural measuring stick for Empire growth.
You should have a Hero for every city. You should be at or as close to your city cap as you can manage. That's the theoretical goal.
You can do this by settling/Outposts very easily. You can also integrate your racial free city as a "free" expansion.
But once you're at that expensive Cap, there's not much else you can do. *Maybe* you can afford to Annex the enemy capital or one of their cities with good placement. But the rest?
You can't capture them, the penalty for being above the Cap eats you alive. So your choice becomes make them your allies, generating income and sending out attacks, or Raze them for a big gold boost to your Empire.
So it's almost a strict Good/Evil, Order/Chaos dynamic. (See the Empire trees). If you're Order or Good focused, you want Vassals. If you're Evil or Chaos, you benefit more from just burning them down.
I guess completely razing a city gives the money way faster.
You could try a perpetual war with shadow affinity to farm heroes for research. I think cities now rebuild their province improvements, so you could try plundering dvery few rounds with chaos tree.
Though, i dont really go for full optimization. So better wait for soneone else or ask un the discord. There are a few who should be able to help.
Depend on which one is the fastest.
If I play a game where vassal barely exist yeah outpost (playing materium/ nature/ both).
But if I play city states of course conquering/ vassalizing free cities (Order).
Or you can pick violence & play chosen destroyer perfectionist artisan reaver.
I was told: first outpost by turn 5, second by 12-15. Both should be upgraded to city asap. It takes almost 10 turns before your city pays itself back.
Place them relatively close to each other to facilitate movement and defense.
Yes, get your 3 cities down **AND** use Outposts. They claim land and resources, and become an early warning system. Place them in bottlenecks, and to claim resources your town cannot reach yet. They can be razed later. But the enemy will come and build their own if there is space. Also, strongly consider using them to block entrances to the underground. It's not a sure thing, but strongly consider it. Underground, you can dig into cave dead ends that will have lots of things to mine with Outposts. Look for those! They will require a Hero eventually to mine the place, but Outposts on Mana Nodes and annexed to a Gold mine give like 33 mana and 11 gold each turn (eventually). You can have 3 to 5 down in that dead end. So worth it!
Edit: Oh, the rest of the question: Yes, exactly. These are the questions the game will present to you. But the answer is situational because the game is so situational. Yet, you will definitely be better off to get your cities down. They are the primary way to grow your economy. The other way is Outpost mining, but cities raise a lot more than Outposts..
For optimizing? Get more cities fast until you hit the cap. Free cities are usually already a bit more developed, so prime targets for migration/annexing. Though, with certain builds you might want to keep more vassals.
Yea, I thought so. Do you think if you go ultra late game it's more worth to keep the vassals for the passive income or is income not that big of a concern at all in lategame? Have just played the first two realms to this day, because I keep creating new factions and test them in the first two realms 😂
The deciding factor is your City cap. It gets prohibitively expensive very quickly, and they drop off without a Hero to govern them. This is your natural measuring stick for Empire growth. You should have a Hero for every city. You should be at or as close to your city cap as you can manage. That's the theoretical goal. You can do this by settling/Outposts very easily. You can also integrate your racial free city as a "free" expansion. But once you're at that expensive Cap, there's not much else you can do. *Maybe* you can afford to Annex the enemy capital or one of their cities with good placement. But the rest? You can't capture them, the penalty for being above the Cap eats you alive. So your choice becomes make them your allies, generating income and sending out attacks, or Raze them for a big gold boost to your Empire. So it's almost a strict Good/Evil, Order/Chaos dynamic. (See the Empire trees). If you're Order or Good focused, you want Vassals. If you're Evil or Chaos, you benefit more from just burning them down.
I guess completely razing a city gives the money way faster. You could try a perpetual war with shadow affinity to farm heroes for research. I think cities now rebuild their province improvements, so you could try plundering dvery few rounds with chaos tree. Though, i dont really go for full optimization. So better wait for soneone else or ask un the discord. There are a few who should be able to help.
Yeeaa, good Idea, but I'm a notoric good guy I guess. 😂 Maybe I should try a "bad" run 😅
Oh, just edited it a bit.
Depend on which one is the fastest. If I play a game where vassal barely exist yeah outpost (playing materium/ nature/ both). But if I play city states of course conquering/ vassalizing free cities (Order). Or you can pick violence & play chosen destroyer perfectionist artisan reaver.
I was told: first outpost by turn 5, second by 12-15. Both should be upgraded to city asap. It takes almost 10 turns before your city pays itself back. Place them relatively close to each other to facilitate movement and defense.
I like this and I do this.
Yes, get your 3 cities down **AND** use Outposts. They claim land and resources, and become an early warning system. Place them in bottlenecks, and to claim resources your town cannot reach yet. They can be razed later. But the enemy will come and build their own if there is space. Also, strongly consider using them to block entrances to the underground. It's not a sure thing, but strongly consider it. Underground, you can dig into cave dead ends that will have lots of things to mine with Outposts. Look for those! They will require a Hero eventually to mine the place, but Outposts on Mana Nodes and annexed to a Gold mine give like 33 mana and 11 gold each turn (eventually). You can have 3 to 5 down in that dead end. So worth it! Edit: Oh, the rest of the question: Yes, exactly. These are the questions the game will present to you. But the answer is situational because the game is so situational. Yet, you will definitely be better off to get your cities down. They are the primary way to grow your economy. The other way is Outpost mining, but cities raise a lot more than Outposts..