Understanding Obtaining FE+ Troops In Ages before Contemporary Era

This might be a bit of a long post, because there's a lot involved with how this works and rather than saying "just do this" I'm going to try and explain everything that's going on.

If a "just do this" post *is* what you want, look here: https://forum.us.forgeofempires.com/index.php?threads/higher-age-units-guide-v1-22.37109/

Ok so the process of getting these troops in Contemporary Era+ I've explained before and is relatively straightforward.  Save what you can for techs, and only progress the continent map and research tree when the story tells you you have to.  The reason you can't do this normally in PME or earlier is because of "hard tech blocks" that once they come up you cannot pass without progressing to the age in question.  At the end of each of the CE and PME continent maps there is one of these blocks.

So how do you get by these quests?  You have to stop them from appearing at all.  Starting in Contemporary Era the story occasionally "breaks" depending on your actions.  Story quests have prerequisites and if you've done something unexpected like fighting ahead on the map past where the next quest would be, it skips that quest - if later quests have that quest as a prerequisite, the story can disappear entirely.  This can be useful to get 3 recurring quests in an age that's not the last - but in this case it's going to be used to skip a "hard tech block".  By completing the last province of the CE continent and moving onto the next map while skipping the optional provinces not required before you advance the quests, it'll skip to Dictator's Death, and then the story will disappear.  Presumably "King of the Desert", the CE blocker quest, requires either you to have completed another CE quest that you skipped or to control the whole map.

So your story's gone, that's all well and good - but how do you get the FE troops then?  At various points, the story is eligible to return without you having completed prerequisite quests - just for being at the right spot on the continent map and not having a Story Quest.  We'll call these "resume points".  FE has a few of these.  So we're able to rejoin the story in time to get FE troops.

Now I mentioned that Postmodern Era also has a blocker, "The End of This Chapter".  I also didn't mention the story "breaking" before Contemporary Era.  So...  this one needs to be avoided via an anomaly in the PME story.  At one point near the end of the PME story, they want to give you a choice as to whether to cover up the actions of Colonel Lang or to tell the truth about what happened, "Your Choice: Truth or Dare?".  Apparently in order to make it eligible to abort, they had to flag it as a Side Quest.  This allows "resume points" checking your quests to see that you don't have a Story Quest and as such let you pick up story from that point.  So the core point for getting them before Postmodern Era is to simply never complete or abort "Your Choice: Truth or Dare?".

Ok so that's it for the extra complications in terms of quests...  But there is another detail to deal with - you do have to somehow manage to take all these continents!  To take ME through FE up to hover tanks by negotiation requires ~40k PE+ goods!  That's a lot of goods to purchase, so you might want to fight as much as possible.  

But for large segments of the map you'll be using units 1 or more eras out of date.  Accordingly you need significant amounts of boost.  The attack of units isn't much of a problem in my experience (i.e. if you have the 3 main attack buildings that should cover most of what you need to 2-shot enemy units), but given the awkward armies you're often using the defense of your attacking units is of paramount importance.  So in preparation for attempting this, you may wish to focus on stacking event buildings that offer defense for attacking army.  You will also need a source of a significant number of rogues.

To fight with rogues on continent map you need to move your "real unit" to the corner and keep it far enough away from enemy units that they don't pick it to attack.  Continent map does not prioritize rogues over non-rogues like the AI you're used to from GvG/GBG/Neighborhood battles.  But it does prioritize proximity to a large degree - so parking the real unit in the corner while you fling forward the rogues does often work.  Rapid Deployment units have a tendency to occasionally blast your real unit before you can move it.  And that's a big part of where the need for defense comes in.

Overall summary of process:

BA-LMA: 

• Skip some unnecessary techs - not crucial to reach Hover Tanks or if your target age is Progressive Era but the more you skip the easier it'll be to reach OF troops in Industrial.
• Try to build up rogues and defense bonus for attacking army.  
• Be as caught up as you can be on Story Quests before Colonial Age (you should get stuck on a quest requiring you to build Colonial buildings)

Colonial Age: 

• Carefully enter it researching a minimum of techs.
• Complete Industrial Story and as much of Progressive Story as you can until you get stuck (there's some quests requiring you to build Industrial or Progressive buildings).

Industrial Age+: 

• Continue carefully dealing with tech only as fast as you have to to complete story.  Extreme option is to win Police Stations from events, daily challenges, or expedition so you don't have to use up techs on researching them.
• Finish PE+ME story in whatever manner you prefer.
• Only negotiate with Che Guerrero when required to take one of his provinces in PME, don't take the other yet and don't fight any sectors inside.  This is necessary to receive the MG Teams that you'll be using to fight for the next while.
• Proceed with story as directed along the peninsula where you negotiated for a province from Che.  Fighting or Negotiating is fine with the other leader.
• Receive 5 MG Teams (and some commandos).
• After finishing the one side and being directed by story, conquer Che's other province by whatever means you prefer (you can fight him now if you prefer)
• Finish PME story up to "Your Choice: Truth or Dare?".  Do not complete or abort this quest until you are done trying to get units above your age or are in Postmodern Era.
• Complete the Contemporary Era map without advancing story while not scouting the 2 optional provinces (in the north-west) that are unnecessary to get off the map (in the north-east).  Once you've scouted the first province of the TE map it is safe to advance story (possibly earlier, but if it doesn't work out you may not be able to get Hover Tanks til Contemporary Era) - it should just vanish for the time being.  Complete TE map as you please.
• TE story can be resumed at "Meet Miguel Mantos" immediately after scouting Rio Roxo - and possibly other spots.  Doing so may enable you to win troops useful to fight the rest of TE and FE continent with but may also require more techs.  If you wish to skip the entirety of TE story, you should do the same as CE and take only what you have to and get off the map before advancing story.
• Only negotiate with Joy Danba in the first province in Future Era.
• Upon finishing your negotiations for her entire province, FE story should be ready to resume telling you to scout the next provinces.
• Follow story as directed until you reach the point where you need to scout Kalabuye and Bisoraba (the two provinces adjacent to Botuku).
• Do not touch Kalabuye until Joy Danba has given you 3 Hover Tanks.
• Continue on with story as you please.  You will get 1 more Hover Tank and some assorted other troops.  Tech count permitting, you may continue following story until about halfway through the OF continent map winning a great deal of additional advanced troops.

Recurring Quest Basics and Minimizing Aborts

This is a topic I've thought on some today because of a nerf on beta to large scale completion of recurring quests.  Basically they're introducing a 3 second delay whenever you abort a quest before it goes away.  This means that doing one specific recurring quest over and over gets damaged.  I have some hope the riot this change is likely to cause will have them reconsider, but even if they do there is something to be said for considering this anyways in terms of reducing tedium.  I'll list quests from best to worst and discuss issues/strategies for completing them frequently.

Bronze Age Through Future Era:

1. R'lyeh - Spend X FP.  If you've got places you can spend the FP and get it back or if you've got a project you're looking to invest some of your savings in, you'd like to do this as much as possible.
2. Unbirthday Party - Pay X Coins and Y Supplies.  If you've got a high level Chateau Frontenac you can afford to do this every time it comes by as well.  If your Chateau Frontenac is not so high yet you can still afford it sometimes probably when you have excess coins and supplies.
3. Fnord - Gather X Coins.  During collection time you can do this many times as event buildings tend to have high coin production.  Combine it with some coin boost such as from St Mark's Basilica, Friends' Tavern, or Boost Bottles to be able to do more completions while going through your collection.
4. The Spink - Gather X Supplies.  This one is harder to keep up on.  You can still manage it in low ages, especially with premium production buildings.  In a new city in Iron Age without many event buildings it's actually one of the more efficient quests to work on - use tavern Supply Boost and get a Lighthouse of Alexandria if planning to work this.  But as your city space starts to get taken over by event buildings (which usually don't make many supplies if they make supplies at all) and you advance in ages, it becomes more difficult to complete this many times.  One thing you can do during collection is hold this as your 2nd recurring quest (requires LMA+) and as you get supply rewards from the other quests, sometimes this one will complete too.
5. Double Research - Research Two Technologies.  You don't actually want to do this one too often, but it will stop showing up as you get near the end of tech for your current age.  And making a quest go away is almost as good as completing it because you still don't have to abort it.
6. 3x Have 4 (unit A) and 4 (unit B).  You may seldom ever see these other than when you've just entered an age - so they do no harm.  A prerequisite to show them to you is that you have 2 or less of each A & B.  So to keep them blocked all you need is at least 3 unattached units of 3-4 of the unit types in the age.  There is a useful time to do these in Bronze Age when training times are really low with Slingers & Spearfighters.  Since Spearfighters train almost instantly you have 1 Spearfighter Barracks plus pairs of Slinger barracks.  You delete down to 2 Spearfighters and 2 Slingers, abort until you get the quest.  Then collect 2 Slingers and quickly train 2 Spearfighters.  Repeat ad nauseum.
7. 3x Produce (A)s - Complete (2-5) 24 hr productions in (specific non-premium production building of the age).  While these used to be the bread and butter of many quest-focused players, these days event buildings are too good to justify using much space on regular production buildings.  As such these 3 quests tend to be ones you just have to accept you're going to abort.

With this in mind you can expect when collecting or spending FP to complete at least 2 quests per 4-5 aborts.  While collecting AND spending FP you can expect to complete as many as 3-4 quests per 3-4 aborts.

Arctic Future:

1. Spend 99 FP, Spend 200 FP
2. Pay 300k Coins & Supplies, Pay 280k Coins & Supplies.
3. Gather 1M Coins
4. Gather 900k Supplies & Gather 1.5M Supplies
5. Build 8 Decorations of your Current Age - This is a new and somewhat useful type of quest.  It's quite possible to do indefinitely even without a very high Chateau Frontenac once you have access to the Ice Flower at the end of the tree, but it does involve a fair bit more clicking to build and eventually sell the decorations.
6. Gain 10k Happiness & Gain 12k Happiness - Even more doable indefinitely, but takes even more clicking still.  Using low age cultural buildings this can be done on the cheap.  But most of the time these will be always-abort quests.
7. 2x Recruitment Quests - unlike in earlier ages, you can't block these out because the task is to recruit more, not to have so many.  These will be always-abort quests.

With this in mind you can expect when collecting and spending FP to complete ~6 quests and abort 5 quests while holding onto a gather supplies quest.

Oceanic Future:

1. Spend 139 FP
2. Buy 5 FP - A new quest type this age, as long as you're below 10 FP you can do this every time you pass it for quite some time likely.
3. Pay 500k Coins & Supplies - Starting to get very expensive, but still manageable in between other quests
4. 3x Finish 6 24 hr productions (any building) - Another new quest type.  You can use event production buildings or blacksmiths for these quests too.  Since there's three copies of the quest you can finish 3 quests at once.
5. Gather 1M Coins
6. Gather 1.5M Supplies
7. Research 2 Technologies - blockable by finishing research for the age
8. Have 4 Hydroelectric Eels and Have 4 C.R.A.B. Mechs - blockable by having 3+ of either
9. Have 20k people available - blockable by having 10k+ people available
10. Gain 16k Happiness - a lone always-abort quest.

With this in mind you can expect when collecting and spending FP to complete up to 7 quests and abort 2 quests.

Virtual Future/SAM:

1. Spend 200 FP
2. Buy 15 FP - Significantly more aggravating than the OF one as you cannot buy more than 10 FP at a time.
3. Spend 150 FP and Buy 20 FP - An annoying semi-overlappable quest with the above 2.
4. Pay Coins & Supplies - Continues escalating rapidly.  You may not be able to afford to do these all the time anymore depending on how many other quests you do in between.
5. Finish 6 24 hr productions (any building) - only 1 copy of the quest anymore
6. Gather Coins
7. 2x Gather Supplies
8. Win 20 Battles and Gather Goods - If you have a source of many battles and have a guildmate list a bunch of large trades this is a viable quest to finish quickly for free.
9. Finish 1hr production 5-6 times in (nonpremium supply building of the age) - Can be targeted to be run many times in a day.  Helps if you're short on supplies.  Will be an aborted quest to most though.
10. 2 Quests: Have More than X people; Have Less than Y people.  One of these will be blocked, the other will not and be an always-abort quest.
11. Gain X Happiness - always-abort

Realistically it starts getting much harder to do many of the quests in one-loop.  I would expect to complete 4 quests and abort 6 quests per cycle during collection.  And complete 2 and abort 8 much of the time.

SAAB:

1. Spend 150 FP, Spend 200 FP
2. Win 12 Battles without Losing - No longer requires a goods trade
3. Defeat 40 Units (or solve a complex negotiation) - New quest, really easy to do alongside the win battles one
4. Finish 6 24 hr productions (any building)
5. Exchange 4 items in the antique dealer or Collect 4 incidents - New quest.  It can probably fit into your rotation a few times a day
6. Aid 30 players or Spend 400 Tavern Silver - New quest.  If doing aid during collection, it fits into rotation nicely
7. (Defeat a Large Army or Finish 5 minute productions 15 times) and Gather 500 goods - New quest.  It can be completed a few times during collection or every time if you have someone setup trades for you to clear regularly.
8. Recruit 5 Units (or pay way too many goods) - New quest.  It will randomly complete when you GBG and win units.  Otherwise having this quest before you collect Alcatraz is worth something.
9. Gather 1.4M Supplies & 2.2M Coins - Replaces individual coin and supply gathering quests.  It tends to be limited by supplies depriving you of potential quests from collecting coins you would've enjoyed in earlier ages.
10. Finish 8 Productions in a Space Farm - Replaces the 1hr production quests of the previous 2 ages.  Can now be 5 minute productions.  A cluster of Space Farms can be a large (annoying) quest source.
11. (Defeat a Very Large Army or Solve a Complex Negotiation) AND Finish 8 4 hr Productions (any building)  - New quest.  4 hour productions not being ideal for much, this is usually an always-abort.
12. Buy 20 FP and Pay 2.4M Supplies - New quest.  Sorta like a really annoying really expensive Unbirthday quest.  I treat it as an always-abort.
13. Gain 30k Population or (pay way too many goods) - New quest.  Always-abort.
14. (Win 20 Battles or Complex Negotiation) AND (pay way too many goods) - New quest.  Always-abort.

With 15 unblockable quests in the rotation and 5+ that are likely always-aborted this can be a frustrating age to quest in.  The trick would be if you can manage to simultaneously be in the middle of your collection and fighting things and aiding and spending your FP all at the same time.

A pure-FP or pure-fighting loop will involve 2 completions to 12 aborts.  Combining them improves things to 4 completions to 10 aborts.  If you add in ones that can be part of your daily tasks at the same time you can get it up to 7 or so completions to 7 aborts.

Arc Past 80 - When and how far?

Level 80 is the first major stopping point for the Arc.  The reason for this is that the rate at which its contribution bonus increases drops to 0.1%/level, while its cost/level is now going up sharply.  You may however have noticed that some people have taken Arc significantly further than 80.  I'm going try to address when this makes sense for you and how far you should go :)

The primary motivation for taking your Arc further can be boiled down to a desire to make FP.  The treasury goods are nice, but you could level one of the other treasury GBs or build Statues of Honor if you wanted to make more of those.  For most buildings the math on how many FP they'll make is rather straightforward and accordingly once they start going up sharply in cost they stop being worthwhile to level for the sake of FP - usually stopping somewhere between level 50 and 70.  With Arc however the amount of FP it makes depends on the amount of FP rewards you get - which can depend on activity in 1.9 threads and sniping.

For the sake of this analysis we're going to make the following assumptions:

• Your Arc benefit is coming solely from 1.9 threads (the daily investments column assumes those investments are at 1.9 - but really it's the amount of rewards you claim not the amount you pay for them that determines the cutoff; so if it's at 1.8 instead say it'd take less "investment")
• You are moving your Arc up in increments of 10 levels - makes the table smaller and from a practical perspective you won't actually see individual levels difference
• You want to payoff any levels you take within 1 year (modifying this to a different standard like 6 months or 2 years is as simple as doubling or halving the investments).
• The table is stopping at level 180 on account of no evidence that Arc's contribution bonus rises any further past that point.

*Level Range*	*Daily Investments*
80 -> 90	7359
90 -> 100	12879
100 -> 110	20928
110 -> 120	32146
120 -> 130	47533
130 -> 140	68220
140 -> 150	95710
150 -> 160	131968
160 -> 170	179425
170 -> 180	241270

The very top levels are simply not going to be worthwhile for all but the most die-hard players.  But levels up to 130-150 or so could be justified for active players who keep the 1.9 threads moving if they adjust their time for a payoff to something somewhat longer.  It all depends on just how much opportunity you have for investment :)

How much would receiving more than 1.9 change the above table?  Not much.  Taking 120->130 as an example, if you were receiving 1.95 instead for all spots you'd be down to 46479 FP/day invested to pay it off in a year - but you're probably also in a position where it's harder to get those investment opportunities in a 1.9 thread since many of your contacts would also be using a 1.95 thread where you're not even making profit yet (if you were taking spots in it anyways, it'd still count in terms of reducing your losses - but simply not taking high spots would reduce your losses further without all the extra investment)

Chateau Frontenac and Recurring Quests

This building is one of the great "not-so-secrets" of longtime players.  Pretty much every top player has one, but it's relied on to different extents.  When should you build it?  How high should you take it?  "It's complicated".  

Intertwined with the great building is the game's recurring quest system, so I should take some time to explain that first.

The game has up to 3 quest slots in the "Story" tab at any given point in time.  When you first start the game you just have one.  Shortly into bronze age you pick up a second.  You gain a third for the first time when you unlock the EMA bonus quest series - but it will only be occupied by those bonus quests and go away once you're completed.  You get the third permanently *just* before you unlock the LMA bonus quest series.

These 3 quest slots will contain one of 4 types of quests:

• Story Quest: The main storyline of the game - this will *usually* consume one of the quest slots and is usually not abortable (occasionally they'll allow it to be aborted as a form of making a decision : complete this quest to do A or abort this quest to do B)
• Bonus Quest: There are 3 bonus areas in the game: EMA Barbarian line, LMA Princess Myciena line, and Industrial Age Canada/Mexico line.  Like Story Quests, these cannot usually be aborted.
• Side Quest: These quests are abortable extras.  Once you abort them they're gone forever.
• Recurring Quest: These quests are abortable extras that will keep coming back as long as you're in your current age.  They will start showing up in any open quest slots when you have no other quests to fill them.  Normally to get to these you quickly complete or abort each Side Quest that comes up.  These pay out a "Random Reward" - 1/7 chance each of a "small coin" reward or "small supply" reward, 5/14 chance of "5 goods of current age", and 1/14 chance each of "random blueprint", "forge points" (medium FP pack before Space Age Mars, then 10 FP to your bar instead), "large coin" reward, "large supply" reward, "20 diamonds or X medals" (first time hitting this for each specific recurring quest will be 20 diamonds - each time after that will be medals).

The main use of Chateau Frontenac is to combine it with Recurring Quests that you do many times a day to get a whole bunch of random rewards.  This can be one of the most efficient ways of making current age goods in the game.

It *is* possible to lose your quest slots to Bonus Quests you cannot complete in your current age - specifically the Canada/Mexico line is not completable until Industrial Age but can be unlocked at any point as it triggers solely off map progress.  It's important if you care about your quest slots and want to work the Industrial Age map early that you *not* take Las Penas (the Southwestern US).  The trigger for unlocking the bonus line is taking both Garrincton and Las Penas.  Garrincton must be taken to move to the Progressive Era map.  Las Penas is optional however.  A further note that if you're trying to get advanced troops without losing a quest slot in Colonial Age, you should also support the south (fight against the north and leave the south untouched) so as not to get asked to take Las Penas by the story.

If you *don't* particularly enjoy that style of play then Chateau Frontenac will be a lower priority for you.  You probably still will want one eventually as there's some rather large rewards from Story Quests you'll be doing anyways.

If you *do* like doing at least a few dozen Recurring Quests a day then a Chateau Frontenac should be among your first great buildings.  You should level it to 10 relatively quickly, and it might be your second building to be taken past 10 (after the Arc which is useful to get the blueprints needed to level the Chateau high).

On the extreme end of Chateau Frontenac usage is the "perpetual motion machine" where you get to a point where you can do as many quests a day as you can stomach because the average payout from the quests exceeds the cost.  This essentially comes down to printing money.

So...  once you're taking your Chateau Frontenac past 10, where should you stop?  

It should usually be a multiple of 4 plus 10 - i.e. 10,14,18,22,26,etc.  This is where the 5 current goods random reward goes up by a good, because Chateau's boost rounds.  Levels past 10 gain 5% boost per level so at level 10 (150% boost) you gain 5 * (1+1.5) = 12.5 rounded to 13 goods and then at level 14 you gain 5 * (1+1.7) = 13.5 rounded to 14 goods.  Level 70 would be a good initial stopping point if this is your only consideration.  Your random rewards will be paying out 28 goods at that point and the levels will be getting more expensive quickly.

The reason to go further than that is if you're not just looking for more rewards from the quests you do, but also the ability to do more quests.  i.e. to come closer to the "perpetual motion machine".

In most ages this is done with the "Unbirthday Party" quest where you pay coins and supplies for a random reward.  If your average rewards from that quest is greater than the costs, then you can just keep aborting around to it and doing it again.  You may also be satisfied with being able to sustain an "Unbirthday Party" between each time you run another quest (like "R'lyeh" - spend X FP).  

Notably in low ages where the costs aren't so high in the first place, you can instead opt for "more than I want to do" amount of quests without worrying about perpetual motion.  You can use a Himeji Castle for large amounts of supplies for your age, and Chateau Frontenac for large amounts of coins.  It's pretty easy to be able to do 1000+ quests a day with a level 70 Chateau Frontenac and Level 58 Himeji Castle in ages through LMA.

The first *big* advantage in trying to approach perpetual motion is to use your Recurring Quest rewards to complete "F'nord" (collect coins) and "The Spink" (collect supplies) Recurring Quests.  This gets you extra Random Rewards that can contribute to your discount on your "Unbirthday Party".  For this to work you need to have at least two quest slots on Recurring Quests (not possible until LMA).  Reaching Chateau Frontenac levels that allow you to complete those extra quests in less total reward instances makes a big step forward towards affording more quests.  What levels help with that vary from era to era.  Following is a table of notable levels.  In brackets you'll find the total FP investment needed to reach that level using a 1.9 thread to help you decide whether a level is something you want to try for.  Lg/Sm = large/small.  C/S = coin/supply.  so the 1 Lg C column for instance is the level of Chateau Frontenac required for 1 large coin reward to complete the quest to collect coins.

Era	1 Lg C	1 Lg S	3 Sm C	3 Sm S	2 Sm C	2 Sm S
LMA	30 (11k)	40 (13k)	10 (3k)	14 (6k)	30 (11k)	40 (13k)
CA	103 (83k)	90 (48k)	56 (17k)	52 (16k)	103 (83k)	98 (67k)
InA	138 (345k)	110 (112k)	67 (21k)	51 (15k)	120 (170k)	97 (65k)
PE	147 (481k)	117 (150k)	85 (39k)	65 (20k)	147 (481k)	117 (150k)
ME	147 (481k)	120 (170k)	100 (73k)	87 (43k)	170 (1.1m)	151 (556k)
PME	120 (170k)	89 (46k)	88 (44k)	76 (28k)	152 (576k)	134 (296k)
CE	83 (36k)	85 (39k)	68 (22k)	65 (20k)	122 (185k)	117 (150k)
TE	60 (18k)	88 (44k)	57 (17k)	77 (29k)	105 (91k)	135 (308k)
FE	54 (16k)	94 (57k)	54 (16k)	94 (57k)	101 (76k)	160 (761k)
AF	60 (18k)	60 (18k)	63 (19k)	60 (18k)	114 (133k)	110 (112k)
OF	51 (15k)	110 (112k)	56 (17k)	114 (133k)	103 (83k)	191 (2.1m)
VF	127 (226k)	51 (15k)	138 (345k)	56 (17k)	227 (5.9m)	103 (83k)
SAM	161 (787k)	94 (57k)	171 (1.1m)	101 (76k)	276 (22.3m)	171 (1.1m)

With some rather painful math and some assumptions it's possible to derive what level of CF will

• allow the 50% discount needed to be able to always afford an extra "Unbirthday Party" quest in between doing some other quest.
• allow the 100% discount needed to simply be able to do "Unbirthday Party" quests for as long as you have patience
• note that unlike the earlier table of useful levels to hit if you're *close* to these numbers it's probably fine - you are after all making some coins and supplies from other sources to pay for a small amount of cost.  Exception would be if the levels you're missing would take you past a breakpoint in the previous table for your era.

Era	50% Discount	100% Discount
BA	121 (177k)	282 (26.0m)
IrA	16 (6k)	72 (25k)
EMA	38 (13k)	116 (144k)
HMA	74 (26k)	147 (481k)
LMA	40 (13k)	96 (62k)
CA	76 (28k)	166 (932k)
InA	128 (235k)	258 (13.9m)
PE	88 (44k)	187 (1.8m)
ME	95 (59k)	200 (2.7m)
PME	88 (44k)	187 (1.8m)
CE	73 (26k)	161 (787k)
TE	59 (18k)	135 (308k)
FE	88 (44k)	187 (1.8m)
AF	71 (24k)	171 (1.1m)
OF	130 (254k)	261 (15.0m)
VF	227 (5.9m)	458 (2.2b)
SAM	250 (11.2m)	510 (7.8b)

You might notice that in both of the tables provided SAAB was omitted.  Starting in Arctic Future the recurring quests on offer started getting experimented with.  Through SAM though the "Unbirthday Party" option in combination with "F'nord"/"The Spink" (or something close to them) still existed to some extent.  In SAAB they do not - though with the trends you see above you might realize even if they did exist trying to sustain "Unbirthday Party" wouldn't be a great option.  I will however now discuss other quest options and changes in advanced ages with different recurring quests.

In Arctic Future:

• There's 2 Spend FP quests which allows you extra completions with quests to "Spend 99 FP" and "Spend 200 FP".  on average this gives you 3 quests every 200 FP which is the best rate since Industrial.
• There's also extras with higher values for collecting supplies, and paying coins & supplies.
• There's a quest to build 8 decorations.  Using the Ice Flower at the end of the AF tech tree this is possible to do indefinitely even with a relatively low level Chateau.  It is however a fair bit more nuisance as you have to both build and eventually sell those decorations adding a good 32 more clicks per quest.
• There's two quests to gain happiness.  Using lower era happiness buildings this is possible to be done indefinitely even without a CF - but involves even more clicking.  Using the Friends Tavern's construction boost + building a bunch of Bronze Age Taverns every 10 minutes to complete 2 quests was a strategy I employed for a while on my first world but will not be doing again.

In Oceanic Future:

• There's a quest to "Buy 5 FP" which can allow you to turn your billions of coins into quest completions at the same time you're turning them into FP.  Buying FP is much faster on the mobile client if you're planning to do a lot of this.
• There's 3 quests to "Complete 6 24 hr productions" (of any age).  It's possible to finish OF story and have 3 slots with Recurring Quests.  The story doesn't restart until you advance to Virtual Future.  So you can have all 3 of these up and collect 6 buildings.  On average this allows you to complete a quest per 2 production buildings.  This works particularly well with Sleigh Builders which happen to be the most efficient goods producers in the game when run on 24 hr cycle.  I plan to take advantage of this on Yorkton to have Sleigh Builders making previous age goods as well as supplying me with quests.

In Virtual Future:

• There's quests to "Buy 15 Forge Points" and to "Buy 20 Forge Points and Spend 150 Forge Points" in addition to "Spend 200 Forge Points".  You can try juggling these, but overall I found their overlap less useful than I'd like.
• There's an extra supply gathering quest with higher values
• The first of the "combat" recurring quests shows up - you need to win 20 battles and gather 800 goods.  You can use this to do many quests by having a guildmate post a bunch of circular trades and grabbing one every 20 battles.
• There's a quest to finish 5 1hr productions in the Holographic Research Lab.  If you've got a good amount of space this can add up.  5 Research Labs can easily yield 16 quests a day.  Incidentally if you're finding yourself short on supplies as the needs for those are going up this can also help with that.
• There's still the generic "Complete 6 24 hr productions" quest, but only 1 copy so it's not as efficient as in OF

In Space Age Mars:

• The FP from a Random Reward is now 10 FP to your bar instead of a 5 FP package.
• There's quests to "Buy 15 Forge Points" and to "Buy 20 Forge Points and Spend 150 Forge Points" in addition to "Spend 200 Forge Points".  You can try juggling these, but overall I found their overlap less useful than I'd like.
• There's an extra supply gathering quest with higher values
• The combat quest comes back - now win 20 battles and gather 1000 goods; still about as efficient
• The 1hr production quest is now 6 1hr productions in a Rocket Testing Site.  Rocket Testing sites are 2/3 the size of Holographic Research Labs so this is a bit more efficient.
• There's still the generic "Complete 6 24 hr productions" quest, but only 1 copy so it's not as efficient as in OF

In Space Age Asteroid Belt:

• There is an absurdly large number of quests that are unconditional - meaning that you need to abort more times to get to the one you want to do.
• There's no "Unbirthday Party" and the only collect quest requires you to gather both coins and supplies.
• There's two Spend FP quests (150 FP and 200 FP)
• There's alternatives or requirements to pay goods for many quests - they require too many goods to be useful if you want to use quests to make goods
• There's many tasks that you do daily that can now also give you a quest (spending Tavern silver, aiding people, recruiting units, exchanging items in Antique Dealer, collecting Incidents)
• The combat quests lose the need to trade goods and there's two of them (defeat 40 units, win 20 battles without losing).  There's also one to win a "very hard" battle provided and gather 500 goods but it's usually easier to just find the battles elsewhere and not worry about the goods collection.
• The quest to finish production in the building of the age no longer specifies a duration.  Any 8 productions in a Space Farm is a quest.  This means 8 Space Farms could put out 10+ quests an hour if you happen to enjoy running 5 minute productions.
• There's still the generic "Complete 6 24 hr productions" quest, but only 1 copy so it's not as efficient as in OF

Guild Battlegrounds through the Ages

We've had Guild Battlegrounds for over a year now - and I've played it in many different ages.  Some of my comments will be theory - but most of them will be extrapolated from experience.  I'm going to try and present it all as a table.  Some setups against some defenses you may need to go into the battle and hold back a non-rogue or two for the first round of combat before pressing auto.

Era	Important Armies	Pros & Cons
Iron Age	4-8 Ballistae + 0-4 Rogues - Good against enemy Ballistae and Archers 1-2 Legionnaires + 6-7 Rogues - Good against enemies without Ballistae 1-2 Mounted Warriors or Soldiers + 6-7 Rogues - Good against enemies with a mix of Ballistae + faster troops	+ Untransformed Rogues kick ass - Reliance on melee units means much damage taken at high attrition unless you work on your defense - Artillery have a hard time keeping up against heavies at higher attrition as much of their strength against them comes from the flat bonus which doesn't scale
Early Middle Ages	4-8 Catapults + 0-4 Rogues - Good against enemy Catapults 1-2 Armored Infantry + 6-7 Rogues - Good against enemies without Catapults 1-2 Heavy Cavalry or Mercenaries + 6-7 Rogues - Good against enemies with a mix of Catapults + faster troops	+ Untransformed Rogues kick ass + Weak-statted Mounted Archers aren't much of a threat to your more durable units - High movement Mounted Archers can occasionally pick off your less durable units - Reliance on melee units means much damage taken at high attrition unless you work on your defense - Artillery have a hard time keeping up against heavies at higher attrition as much of their strength against them comes from the flat bonus which doesn't scale
High Middle Ages	4-8 Trebuchets + 0-4 Rogues - Good against enemy Trebuchets and Crossbows 1-2 Heavy Infantry + 6-7 Rogues - Good against enemies without Trebuchets 1-2 Knights or Berserkers + 6-7 Rogues - Good against enemies with a mix of Trebuchets + faster troops	+ Untransformed Rogues kick ass + Strongest low-age artillery with crazy range and slightly higher relative attack compared to the defense of units of the age - Reliance on melee units means much damage taken at high attrition unless you work on your defense - Artillery have a hard time keeping up against heavies at higher attrition as much of their strength against them comes from the flat bonus which doesn't scale
Late Middle Ages	1-2 Heavy Knights or Great Sword Warriors + 6-7 Rogues - Good against enemies with a mix of Cannons + faster troops 1-2 Imperial Guards + 6-7 Rogues - Good against enemies without many Cannons 4-8 Cannons + 0-4 Rogues - Good against enemy Longbows	+ Untransformed Rogues kick ass + Fast units are starting to get more durable - Combination of Dug In on enemy artillery and less range makes this among the weakest low-age artillery relatively.  They also still have a hard time keeping up against heavies at higher attrition as much of their strength against them comes from the flat bonus which doesn't scale - Reliance on melee units means much damage taken at high attrition unless you work on your defense
Colonial Age	1-2 Grenadiers + 6-7 Rogues - Good against enemies without too many Field Guns or Musketeers 1-2 Dragoons, Champions, or Rangers + 6-7 Rogues - Good against enemies with significant numbers of Field Guns or Musketeers	+ Untransformed Rogues kick ass + Grenadiers gained a range and no longer have to take retaliation - Combination of Dug In on enemy artillery and useful amounts of defense on Musketeers make this among the weakest low-age artillery relatively.  They also still have a hard time keeping up against heavies at higher attrition as much of their strength against them comes from the flat bonus which doesn't scale
Industrial Age	1-2 Howitzers + 6-7 Rogues - Good against enemies without too many Riflemen or Breech Loaders 1-2 Jaeger Infantry + 6-7 Rogues - Good against enemies without too many Howitzers 4-6 Breech Loaders + 2-4 Rogues - Good against enemies with many Howitzers.  May consider adding in a couple Riflemen/Howitzers/Jaeger Infantry if there's a couple things you need to kill off when they get close.	+ Every unit other than the Fast has range - lopsided attack bonuses can be taken advantage of + You can also get many ages of troops ahead here; Up to PME are available from getting ahead on the story.  Note that you either need to be careful or be prepared to spend diamonds to revive them if you're going to use them.  Choices you make on PME map will affect how many/what type of troops you can get.  Make sure to do your research if you're planning to try for them. + Well matched unit abilities make Industrial an age where almost any fight is possible if you choose the right counter.  Fun age to manual battle in. - Many of the units do not behave as well as you might hope in auto-battles making it an age of high losses for auto-battlers
Progressive Era	1-6 Conscripts + 2-7 Rogues - Good against enemies without too many Snipers.  Snipers will get to be slightly less of a problem as you get to higher boost though as they're reliant on a *large* flat bonus. 1-6 Armored Cars + 2-7 Rogues - Good against enemies without too many tanks.  Will need to position your cars for the first round of battle usually. 1-6 Tanks + 2-7 Rogues - Particularly if you stack defense; Tanks have defense naturally higher than any unit in-age's attack so if you have defense boost ~twice as high as your attack boost you may be able to take advantage of that	+ 3 good options for general purpose units depending on what you're fighting and how your stats are built.  If you engineer the fights so that after your last Rogues are turned, they're taking the first "real" hits you're in good shape. - An era of high losses (I want to say attrition, but that has other meaning in game now), there pretty much just isn't *clean* wins.  Two wave battles can also be problematic because of this. - High defense on Tanks may make fights at high attrition impossible unless you've kept up on defense boost yourself so that they're not doing much damage to you either.  MG Team from story + Rogues could patch this issue to some extent if you're careful.
Modern Era	1-6 Bazookas + 2-7 Rogues - Good against armies without too many artillery.  Despite their bonus against artillery and Dug In, they are very very slow - they're best against armies that will come to them, turn the rogues, and then they can blow them up before the problems start.  But they're *really* good against those armies.  Paratroopers can also be an annoyance due to their ability to hide in trees combined with your slow movement. 1-8 Mechanized Infantry/Champions/Battle Tanks + 0-7 Rogues - Good against pretty much anything if you go into battle to position them right for the first turn.  The heavy of the age has the same defense as it did in PE, so they've caught up some in their ability to handle them.  May take heavy losses from ignored Bazookas on auto 4-8 Mechanized Artillery + 0-4 Rogues - Good against Bazookas and enemy artillery.  Dreadful against Paratroopers.  Mediocre against Battle Tanks and Mechanized Infantry. 8 Paratroopers (No Rogues.  Period.) - Move first + hit first is a powerful combination that'll get stressed more in later ages.  It can work here to some extent too.  Main issue is their attack isn't that high - so they might not be able to 2-shot things reliably enough at high attrition - particularly Battle Tanks and Mechanized Infantry.  Still something worth playing with some.	+ Every unit has its moments - even if most people hate to use paratroopers ;) - Can get bloody - not quite as much as PE but still lacks abilities at times to get clean wins and two wave battles may be a problem
Postmodern Era	1-2 MG Teams + 6-7 Rogues - Contact! means every Rogue turned (by anything other than an artillery) also gave you a free shot.  Good against anything without too many artillery. 4-6 Rocket Artillery + 2-4 Rogues - Good at handling enemy artillery 1-6 Universal Tanks, IFVs, or Champions + 2-7 Rogues - can help with some of the problem setups that have too many artillery for your MG teams and not enough artillery to use your own artillery.	+ Contact! + Rogues are a powerful combination + Can get very advanced troops potentially - but the method is somewhat obscure (and I've never tried it yet). - Artillery have low attack making your top choice to deal with Artillery + X struggle a bit with some setups.
Contemporary Era	1-2 Anti-Aircraft Vehicles + 6-7 Rogues - Good against everything.  Only caveat - some defenses you have to go in and hold back your AAV on. 1-3 Assault Tanks + 5-7 Rogues - Taking advantage of Reactive Armor this can be used on some very high attrition fights.  They can't do more than 4 to you - so you don't need quite so much attack boost to make it a "fair" fight.  Arctic Orangery crit can also help tilt things in your favor. 1-8 Champions + 0-7 Rogues - If you're a defense stacker Champions have higher stats than Assault Tanks and may take even less damage. 8 Strike Teams or Attack Helicopters - Move first + hit first.  Not usually overly impressive in this age, but can help in places.  Note that Attack Helicopters only move first if the defense has no Strike Teams.	+ Contact! + Rogues are a powerful combination + Can get very advanced troops - not so obscure this time, but you should still do your research if you're planning on it - it's important to have as many unresearched techs as possible if you want to get far, and map decisions matter in some places. + Missile Artillery on defense is pretty safely ignorable to some extent due to "One Shot".  AI also usually does not make good use of MIRV. + Flying is a powerful new ability even if it's not often important yet due to the issues with the in-age artillery.
Tomorrow Era	2-8 Combat Drones + 0-6 Rogues - Rogues absorb unavoidable hits in first round of combat.  Combat drones blow *anything* up in 2 hits while ignoring artillery.  For best results, fight manually - but you can auto a great number of fights with them as well.  Their biggest issue is many Stealth Tanks as they'll take retaliation when hitting them. 1-8 Stealth Tanks + 0-7 Rogues - Good against most things - main problems are enemy Stealth Tanks and Ultra APs as you get up in attrition as they'll both get in some painful retaliation.	+ Combat Drones have *crazy* high attack.  Easily can abuse them against most armies to hit significantly higher attrition than possible in other ages with similar boost. + Stealth Tanks are a generally useful Hiding unit  - Defending armies with many Stealth Tanks are difficult to deal with.  At low-medium attrition you can use Microwave Blasters.  At medium-high attrition I recommend *carefully* using some OF story troops like Sub Cruisers or Hydroelectric Eels in combination with Rogues.
Future Era	1-8 Hover Tanks + 0-7 Rogues - Best you've got against pretty much anything.  Other armies can be used against some things as minor improvements.	+ Hover Tanks do everything - Nothing handles 3+ Hover Tanks on defense acceptably at medium attrition.  You have to start cherry-picking fights to change out tough fights instead looking for the easy ones.  Not good if you're just trying to power through a specific sector! - 2 units are utterly useless (Satellite Spotters + Drone Swarms) and 1 autos poorly (Exoskeleton Soldier)
Arctic Future	1-8 Battle Fortresses + 0-7 Rogues.  Reactive Armor 3 means your units are automatically pretty tanky taking 4 hits to die without any investment in defense.  Can reach relatively high attrition even if it's not ideal for many things.  Arctic Orangery can help with the mirror (We both do 3 damage to each other normally; but I can crit for 5 and save a shot!) 2-8 Plasma Artillery + 0-4 Rail Guns + 0-4 Battle Fortresses + 0-4 Rogues.  So this looks rather like many armies but the concept is rather straight forward: Plasma Artillery deliver the beats and can fire every turn unlike Rail Guns from FE, but they can't do more than 3 damage to a Battle Fortress (so you may want some Rail Guns to help blow through that), and they can't shoot flying things (so you may want some Battle Fortresses for that - Rail Guns can help a little with that too - but only every other turn).  And you may want to fill in some slots with Rogues to absorb some unavoidable hits. 4-8 Combat Drones or Dragon Drones + 0-4 Rogues - Takes advantage of many Plasma Artillery on defense.  Combat Drones are easier to use, and *still* have enough attack to be relevant (and more than Dragon Drones on that note)  But they can't crit and occasionally Dragon Drones' multi-hit ability is useful - especially if you fight manually. 8 Recon Raiders - Move first + hit first.  As long as there's not too many Battle Fortresses on defense, you've got a good shot. 1-8 Hover Tanks + 0-7 Rogues - As long as there's not too many Plasma Artillery on defense; Dragon Drones are squishy, and stealth is reasonably effective against everything else.	+ Good all-round age with many useful army setups - Some strange units that have stats that hardly seem fitting for the age - Battle Fortresses on defense are going to be bloody
Oceanic Future	4-8 Turturrets + 0-4 ? + 0-4 Rogues - Similar to the Plasma Cannon arrangement in AF, this bumps up to be the most important army in OF due to the power of Mortar.  In addition to the things that Plasma Artillery cannot hit, Turturrets cannot hit stealthed units.  So ? may be C.R.A.B. Mechs to take out an eel or it may be Plasma Artillery if range is deemed important or it may be Sub Cruisers as a generally decent all-round unit from the age. 4-8 Gliders + 0-4 Rogues - If there's many artillery on defense and you can't out-artillery them for some reason.  There's finally a proper upgrade to the TE Combat Drone to get the AO crit back - its attack stat is not nearly so impressive compared to OF defenses though, and it loses a bit in attack range that might make it harder to hit the precise thing you want on the first turn. 1-2 Sub Cruisers + 6-7 Rogues - Can retaliate against anything but the artillery and Scimitars reliably - and Medusa can't move and are generally exposed at the start - mostly it only needs to avoid Turturrets 8 Hydroelectric Eels - There's many bushes on the OF battlefield to hide in.  You can generally plan to hide your entire army and pick off the enemy; watch out for the few enemy anti-stealth units.  Mostly a manual-battle strategy. 1-8 Hover Tanks + 0-7 Rogues - Stats are a little low, but Hides on Plains is still a very powerful ability to compensate - most anti-stealth units in age are highly limited.  Defense may also still be relevant in combination with the stealth as its not that far behind the in-age Force Field unit.  No Rogues is sometimes desirable to not catch splash damage from Turturrets transforming your rogues.	+ Solid answers for any army + Good Contact! unit + Powerful artillery with new Mortar ability + Decent Flying unit + Decent Hiding unit - Despite a very diverse slate of 10 units, most of them are just novelties and not all that useful
Virtual Future	4-8 Rocket Troops + 0-4 Rogues - Turturrets taken to the extreme against an age with weaker overall units.  Works well against everything but Ninjas.  Mortar is absolutely devastating.  No flying unit in-age to fear. 8 Ninjas - Move first + hit first 1-8 Ronin Bots + 0-7 Rogues - Force Field can help augment your defense to make them continue to feel durable if you haven't completely ignored it.  No amount of defense will make them feel good against any amount of Rocket Troops though.	+ Rocket Troops rock - Ninjas on defense are a pain - 2 units are pretty much useless
Space Age Mars	8 Sentinels - Move first + hit first + avoid any artillery.  Great against lots of stuff.  Your bread & butter army. 8 Rocket Troops - Mortar is still an awesome ability and Steel Wardens are so slow that VF Rocket Troops can win against a Max-Attrition 12000% boosted 8 Steel Warden Defense - even with no boost of their own to speak of!  Also usable against small amounts of other ground troops.  Tesla Walkers having the same initiative can mix in if you see a use for them in a fight. 2-4 Steel Wardens + 4-6 Rogues -  Force Field can help strengthen any investment you've put into defense.  Not bad all round units. 2-4 Sniperbots or Tesla Walkers + 4-6 Rogues - they're not bad units per se - but not really necessary either.  Occasionally they might be a minor improvement over one of the other armies.	+ Great fighting age with reasonable answers for anything  + Potential for super-high-attrition crazy setups either taking advantage of Flyers + AO Crit vs artillery or Rocket Troops vs slow things.
Space Age Asteroid Belt	4-6 Nail Storms + 2-4 Rogues - Pretty good against most things - can get bloody if there's many Nail Storms on defense - especially if one of them makes it to rubble. 8 Sentinels - Move first + hit first - Yup, still.  Now without AO crit.  For the toughest fights this is what I've had the best luck with. 2-6 B.E.L.T.s + 2-6 Rogues - can handle Nail Storms that make it to rubble better than most things - can't hit Hover Hammers though. 2 Hover Hammers + 6 Rogues - generally not as good as Sentinels - but you'll be winning a bunch of Hover Hammers from GE, GBG, Events, etc and against some of the B.E.L.T. heavy defenses these are usable to save you some Sentinels for when you need them. 8 Rocket Troops - can still handle 8 Shredders akin to SAM but struggles more with other stuff mixed in - mostly due to higher base stats.	- No good answer for 8 Nail Storm defenses at medium-high attrition.  Hoping for good damage rolls from SAM Sentinels and Keen Eye procs is generally your best bet.  Manual battle is recommended so you can bail if you get bad rolls before they get a chance to destroy your Sentinels. - Most units are pretty useless

Damage Calculator

Ok so I haven't posted in a looooong time.  I was posting elsewhere.  Then I was on a break.  Then I came back and was posting elsewhere again.  Well I'm back again - possibly with a flurry of posts coming up over the next couple weeks.  For this one I just wanted to throw up a handy link for a spreadsheet I've worked on for a while:  FoE Damage Calculator

So a rundown:

1) To try numbers for yourself, File->Make a Copy.  You may want to check back now and then to see if I've made corrections or improvements.

2) "Age at a Glance" tab is meant to be a quick & easy start to using it.  There's drop-downs for your unit and the age of units you want to see it against.  This allows you to compare using above age troops against your current age for instance.  It automatically incorporates most flat bonuses; you just have to specify the %s based on your stats and the armies you're trying to optimize for.

The first table shows stats based on the numbers you entered.  i.e. How much damage you do/take *now*

The second table at the bottom shows how much total boost you'd need to hit various breakpoints.  If you're just past a breakpoint that means in another attrition or two you'll be just behind that breakpoint.  If you're nowhere near a breakpoint forward or backward it means you probably need to add much more to make a significant difference.  Remember to check all the units you make use of as they're likely to have dramatically different tables.

3) "Manual Calculation" tab allows you to do a much more detailed calculation specifying all parameters yourself, including the HP of each unit which scales down their attack value (on "Age at a Glance" all units are assumed to be at full HP as most will be).  If there's a specific situation you want precise answers on this is the page to use.

4) There was a *lot* of data entry to support the "Age at a Glance" page - I can't be sure everything's 100% correct right now.  If you notice anything that seems strange, please call it to my attention :)