Beta Space Race Project

Like many, I've historically only played Beta for a sneak-peek at features before they affect live.  One glaring shortcoming of this being one of the things I always want to test most, new ages, has been out of reach because I haven't put the time in to get anywhere close.  I'm going to try over the next 9ish months to fix that - which sounds like an interesting challenge.

My starting point isn't exactly from scratch but it's not a monster city either with the trappings of current optimized gameplay.  No Arc, No Traz, CF is only level 10.  Only settlement GP is a level 4 Ygg Tree.  I'm not guaranteeing any of that will stay that way - but if I opt to improve such things, it will be with mind to making the rest of the journey either shorter or easier overall.  I am not trying to make a monster city, just to get to the end era to test next era.

I do have 540/456 Boost from various events that were running at times when I wanted to test something on beta (which may or may not have been the event itself).  Probably ~200 FP a day in collections.

I moved from PE to ME today - I was in industrial not too long ago, and have not built up much for goods from PE, but I do have 5 PE eagle mountains from last wildlife event and renovated 5 stage of ages to ME.  I reno-ed other older event buildings to ME to produce ME goods.  I expect goods to be the biggest challenge to me blitzing the ages.  

Features, and my intended use of them:

• Events - Probably the most important aspect to getting things off the ground is improving my event buildings.  Similar to a new city, pretty much any event has to be considered a good event, even if the prize isn't perfect - because it's competing with either empty space, or prizes so old that any modern prize is an upgrade.
• GE - I should be able to handle diff 4 without issues.  And it's a significant source of goods, so it'll be a priority.
• Settlements - We'll see....  I'm going to be treating beta as "usually-once-a-day" still as opposed to my live worlds - and settlements are pretty slow at that pace.  But I probably should do something in them, even if it's slow.
• GBG - probably a little now and then time permitting.  But it'll be in my 1-man guild with a city that isn't really built for it.  So likely top out at gold.
• Arena - have signed up again to it.  Easy rewards.

So, my hopeful stages/timeline

1. The race to Arctic + Oceanic Future - Hope to be done this in 1-2 months, because getting the harbor and terminal operational as soon as possible is a huge priority if I'm going to make it into the space ages anywhere close to Titan's release.  200 FP/day is way more than enough for this phase, and I'll likely be blocked by goods frequently, so I will have a little ability to work on GBs somewhat still.  I'll be starting with Temple of Relics which I'd not built this far on beta because it's not like I GE-ed much here.  But it offers additional current goods as I move up.
2. The promethium/orichalcum grind.  I expect this will take 4 months at best.  ~1 month for AF and 3 months for OF.  
3. Higher ages - ~4 weeks each.  I hope.  I'll need a lot more FP and goods production by the time I reach this point - so hopefully I've kept up on events!

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.

Fighting GE4 : Getting troops ahead of your age from the continent map

Alright, so in many ages fighting GE4 largely seems like an impossibility (others are not so bad) - one way to tip the scales beyond ridiculously levelled GBs is to fight ahead of your age on the continent map and win units from story quests.

Update (07/01/21): Fleshed out the later age possibilities.  Apart from trying to get FE+ troops in PME you should generally not let map or tech get ahead of story, and save as many optional techs as you can.

1) Iron Age - Obtainable (2) Armored Infantry : If you complete the story up to the point where you unlock the EMA bonus area (barbarians), and finish the bonus questline, the final reward is 2 armored infantry.  How much does this help?  Well it'll make fighting through difficulty 3 a breeze - but 4 might still need significant boost and care not to lose your precious unattached units.

2) Late Middle Ages - Obtainable Grenadiers, Musketeers, Field Guns : If you complete the LMA story it unlocks the LMA bonus area to the south.  At various points along the way this questline rewards Colonial Age troops.  To finish it entirely you will need to research the tech for Cannons - but some of the units are available very early.  How much does this help?  Some...  I'm not sure it's enough to fight 4 without losses so as with iron age some care may be required not to lose your precious unattached units.  I've heard someone say they got Jaeger Infantry (Industrial Age) in LMA and that would make things a breeze - but I can't see how that's possible as Colonial Age story has quests that require construction of Colonial Age buildings.  Only thing I can imagine is unlocking the Industrial Age bonus area but as far as I know those don't reward units.  (Note if trying that, you cannot finish the Industrial Age bonus questline and get that quest slot available for other quests again without Modern Roads (Industrial Age))

3) Colonial Age - Obtainable All Industrial Troops, Conscripts OR 1 Rapid Fire Cannon + 2 Snipers + 1 Armored Car.  The Industrial Age troops are relatively straight forward to do and enough to fight most of GE4 without difficulty combined with rogues.  The progressive era troops you have to enter Colonial age with it in mind that you're going for them.  There are a number of quests that will request things like 'Build a Residential building from the Industrial Age OR Research a tech that unlocks a residential building' so you'll need to save as many techs as you can to make sure you can fulfill that option.  In doing the Industrial Story, you should note there are 4 ways it can progress: Support the South, Support the North, Fight both, Peace.  I recommend supporting the South (fighting only the northern provinces).  The combat might be a little more challenging but you can complete the story without unlocking the bonus questline and maintain your extra sidequest slot til you're ready.  It also gives you a nice mix of all Industrial troops (I can't say for sure what troops exactly you get in the other route).  When it comes to Progressive Era, you again have the same sort of options.  Peace gives you conscripts.  Fighting the germans gives you the RFC+snipers+car.  I believe fighting the brits gives the same troops.  The good news : either progressive era troop option should be plenty to breeze through GE4.

4) Industrial Age - Obtainable PE, ME, PME troops - Most notable is the MG team from PME.  To get these it's important to stay at peace with Che Guerrero, and not to finish his last territory for as long as possible.  This will give you "Business with Che" quests which will reward you with MG teams.

5) Postmodern Era - You can get a few CE troops "normally".  There's also a method to skip the CE blocker quest in PME and get to the advanced troops listed under CE...  I've not done it myself to recommend it but the gist is that *before* finishing PME story quests you skip way ahead on the continent map, working your way through to FE map.  Once on FE map you start catching up on story and it'll bypass the CE blocker hopefully.  There are more details on this elsewhere - look around if you're interested :)

6) Contemporary Era - If you've skipped enough technologies, you can get through to OF quests here.  FE Hover Tanks are perhaps the most notable troop at this point - to get 4 Hover Tanks instead of 1 you should negotiate with Joy Danba at the start of FE story - then when you meet her again later in the map she'll give you 3 Hover Tanks.  An OF quest requiring you to finish productions in an OF production building acts as a final block preventing you from getting any further troops above your era.

7) Tomorrow Era - You can certainly finish whatever you didn't in CE here in getting to that OF blockade.  OF Sub Cruisers I find quite useful in TE.