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
