MA QI for the Lazy Revision

With the second championship of Middle Ages Quantum Incursion, Inno has served us with some nerfs (unfortunate, but not unexpected).  In terms of economy progression, the only major one is your goods building now costs 200 Alloy.  The other nerfs are primarily to how many rewards you can get.  For further details, check out my last post.

Unfortunately that 200 Alloy is enough to throw a wrench in my earlier lazy progression plan, so I'm presenting a revision.  This still assumes you will play enough to make back at least 500 Alloy a round for 3 expansions (actually a little more now because there might be additional impediment removals)

I am addition a recommendation for a bit of combat for the first day.  May as well use up those initial troops and save some resources.

The Play

We're starting with the same initial layout:

- 3 QS expansions, along one of the short sides, with impediments cleared

- 7x Estate House, 1x Mansion, 1x Multistorey House (480 Population)

- 6x Church (960 Euphoria)

- 6x Tannery, 6x Brewery (360 Population Demand)

- Fight using initial troops (it's 8 v 4 or 5, you should win without any boost but might lose some troops)

- Donate non-Rope Goods or Supplies if needed

Production:

- 330 Alloy Production

- 188,750 Coins ((3,750 * 7 + 7,500 + 12,500) * (1.5 + 0.2 * 7 + 0.1) + 50,000)

- 322,160 Supplies ((12,000 * 6 + 4,800 * 6) * (1.5 + 0.2 * 6))

On the 1st collection you'll have 330 Alloy.

- Sell 2 Churches

- Build 1 Printer + 1 Tannery

- Fight using initial troops

- Donate non-Rope Goods and Supplies.

Production:

- 345 Alloy Production

- 188,750 Coins ((3,750 * 7 + 7,500 + 12,500) * (1.5 + 0.2 * 7 + 0.1) + 50,000)

- 304,560 Supplies ((12,000 * 7 + 4,800 * 6) * (1.5 + 0.2 * 6))

By the 2nd collection you'll have 575 Alloy.

- Sell 4 Churches

- Build 1 Doctor

- Build 1 Tannery

- Build 3 Multistorey Houses

- Fight using initial troops

- Donate non-Rope Goods and Supplies

Production:

- 405 Alloy Production

- 301,250 Coins ((3,750 * 7 + 7,500 + 4 * 12,500) * (1.5 + 0.2 * 7 + 0.1) + 50,000)

- 386,960 Supplies ((12,000 * 8 + 4,800 * 6) * (1.5 + 0.2 * 6)) + 50,000)

On the 3rd collection you'll have 480 Alloy.

- Sell 2 Tanneries

- Rearrange buildings if needed to consolidate open space as a 4x6 Area.

- Build 1 Ropery

- Build 4 Multistorey Houses

- Fight using initial troops

- Donate non-Rope Goods and Supplies.  Make sure to save enough to make Rope for 2 expansions before 4th collection (257k Coin and 205.6k Supply if they're the 30 + 60 Goods Expansions and you have just the standard 20 starting Rope).

Before the 4th collection (can be while it's ready and waiting if you're careful not to collect): 

- Build 2 Expansions for 30 + 60 Rope along the other short side.  (requires making 70 Rope by default).  May require additional impediment removal but you should be able to afford it by now.  You can swap the side your Town Hall is on if it gives you additional impediment free expansion(s).

- Open most of a 6x6 area by moving Houses/Ropery to the new expansions (one house will remain behind)

- Build 3 Churches in opened area to get to full Euphoria before collection.  If you need Coins for them you can collect the Town Hall for 50k Coins - it is unaffected by your productivity.

Production:

- 435 Alloy Production

- 451,250 Coins ((3,750 * 7 + 7,500 + 8 * 12,500) * (1.5 + 0.2 * 7 + 0.1) + 50,000)

- 322,160 Supplies ((12,000 * 6 + 4,800 * 6) * (1.5 + 0.2 * 6)) + 50,000)

On the 4th collection, you'll now have 715 Alloy.

- Sell 3 Churches and 1 Multistorey House

- Build 1 Printer

- Build 1 Tannery and 2 Breweries

- Donate Goods (produce as needed) and Coins or Supplies

Production:

- 465 Alloy Production

- 451,250 Coins ((3,750 * 7 + 7,500 + 7 * 12,500) * (1.5 + 0.2 * 7 + 0.1) + 50,000)

- 429,440 Supplies ((12,000 * 7 + 4,800 * 8) * (1.5 + 0.2 * 8)) + 50,000)

On the 5th collection, you'll now have 1080 Alloy.

- Build a 3rd expansion for 90 Rope.

- Move 4 houses there.

- Sell 1 Multistorey House + 1 Mansion

- Rearrange your open space so that the Ropery and a house are the only things in a 6x6 area

- Build 1 Clapboard House and 2 Tanneries

- Donate Goods (produce as needed) and Coins or Supplies

Production:

- 465 Alloy Production

- 343,625 Coins ((3,750 * 7 + 6 * 12,500) * (1.5 + 0.2 * 7) + 50,000)

- 503,840 Supplies ((12,000 * 9 + 4,800 * 8) * (1.5 + 0.2 * 8)) + 50,000)

On the 6th collection, you'll now have 545 Alloy.

- Replace 6 Multistorey Houses with 6 Estate Houses

- Build a 4th expansion for 130 Rope.

- Move 2 Houses there.

- Build 2 Estate Houses

- Build 1 Brewery

- Donate Goods (produce as needed) and Coins or Supplies

Production:

- 885 Alloy Production

- 888,125 Coins ((3,750 * 15 + 1 * 130,000) * (1.5 + 0.2 * 15) + 50,000)

- 548,960 Supplies ((12,000 * 9 + 4,800 * 9) * (1.5 + 0.2 * 9)) + 50,000)

On the 7th collection, you'll now have 1430 Alloy.

- Sell 1 Tannery and 1 Estate House

- Build 1 Bakery

- Donate Goods (produce as needed) and Coins

Production (Bakery not yet active):

- 855 Alloy Production

- 834,750 Coins ((3,750 * 14 + 1 * 130,000) * (1.5 + 0.2 * 14) + 50,000)

- 509,360 Supplies ((12,000 * 8 + 4,800 * 9) * (1.5 + 0.2 * 9)) + 50,000)

On the 8th collection, you'll now have 1285 Alloy.

- Sell 2 Tanneries

- Build 1 Bakery and 1 Estate House

- Donate Goods (produce as needed) and Coins

Production (2nd Bakery not yet active):

- 1,215 Alloy Production

- 888,125 Coins ((3,750 * 15 + 1 * 130,000) * (1.5 + 0.2 * 15) + 50,000)

- 628,160 Supplies ((12,000 * 6 + 4,800 * 9 + 60,000 * 1) * (1.5 + 0.2 * 9)) + 50,000)

On the 9th collection, you'll now have 1,500 Alloy.

- Sell 2 Printers

- Build 2 Doctors

- Sell 6 Tanners

- Build 10 Estate Houses and 2 Breweries

- Donate Goods (produce as needed) and Coins

Production:

- 1,680 Alloy Production

- 1,504,375 Coins ((3,750 * 25 + 1 * 130,000) * (1.5 + 0.2 * 25) + 50,000)

- 689,360 Supplies ((4,800 * 11 + 60,000 * 2) * (1.5 + 0.2 * 11)) + 50,000)

This should be enough production twice a day to make it to day 12 with this level of AP generation (5780/hr).  If you scale your AP up further, you may need additional Coins and Supplies as well.  

QI Update and New Low QS QI plan

What's New in the Update?

Well, nerfs.  Lots and lots of nerfs.  Mostly though it doesn't change too much.

• Goods buildings cost 200 Alloy.  This is the only change that needs to affect your economy progression.  And it only is a big impact near the start.  For the Bakery rush plan, the worst case scenario is you spend 95 more Quantum Shards on 1 more Bakery rush to cover.  For my lazy plan, I have an update coming.
• Pillory AP/hr has been taken out back and murdered so that it's no better than the alternatives.  Doctors are now the recommended AP/hr building.  While Pillory and Cartographer are *slightly* higher per square, Doctors are *much* cheaper per square and will likely allow you to convert at least a full collection earlier.  As such it's best to fill most space with Doctors, and reserve Pillories or Cartographers to fill in geometry better in places or use up excess resources.
• Cultural buildings also now provide AP capacity, but since we gained 100k capacity for free recently, this is rather unimportant to worry about for most players.  Cartographers have slightly better capacity/tile than Doctors.  Pillories have none.
• Lunar Coins from encounters have been reduced.

New Low QS plan

This is not entirely a reaction to the nerfs so much as something I'd been thinking over through the first championship.  

• I do not want to start every championship with a 1k Diamond infusion so I can do a high QS plan in the first round.
• With the most important reward being the Gold & Silver Bazaar fragments, the motivation to go as hard as possible at earning Lunar Coins is not so high in the long term.  As long as enough Lunar Coins are earned to buyout the bazaar fragments and a little more each round.
• Buying the round end chests for 1500 QS offers some extra Gold & Silver Bazaar fragments.  How many depends on your guild's overall progression.  
• Finally, because of the nerf, city AP is more valuable as settlement AP has been lowered.  It then follows that the more city AP you have the less impact it has to max the settlement as fast as possible.

So in moving away from spending QS on Bakery rushes, the first plan I examined closely was mass Alchemists.  Tier 2 buildings are after all the fastest way to ramp Alloy production.  

While 30+ Alchemists are perfectly capable of providing the kind of Supply production I'm used to without ever touching a Bakery, the journey to get there is very starved on non-Alloy resources.  Compare 1k Alloy of either:

• 5 Alchemists cost 300 Population, 250k Coins, and 300k Supplies.  
• 1 Bakery costs 120 Population, 84k Coins, and 100k Supplies.  

The extra Supplies deprive you of expansions.  The extra Population also slows down how many you can fit because you need more Clapboards first.

So this changes attention to stopping with the T2s at some point and building T3s.  This wasn't entirely satisfying at first either - the Alchemist start still left Supply lagging ; and waiting 10 hours for a Bakery to even come online wasn't exactly helping with that.  It's not like the rush situation where you immediately get 8+ productions out of it and then Supplies are suddenly good.

The solution I settled on was using Shoemakers instead of Alchemists.  The best way to view Shoemakers is that 5 of them have the same production as 2 Bakeries.  This means in building 5 of them you 'waste' 21 squares (5 * 9 - 2 * 12), but save 1k Alloy.  They get along with support Breweries (often temporary ones early on) much better than Alchemists do as Breweries are mainly gaining value from the base production of other Supply buildings.

On City Support Buildings

At first when I was considering this I was looking at the possibility of loading way up on ascended buildings with the idea of using them to power past the first round without spending Diamonds; and then in the second round flipping back to a high shard consumption strategy.  

I was prepping my run throughs with higher than normal Supply % and 200 starting Goods to try and overcome the supply shortage compared to Bakery rushes.  But once I'd settled on a plan I was happy with with Shoemakers, I wanted to answer the question: "how much do I really need all that?" and adapted my simulation of the run to only have my normal amount of support (220k starting Coins, 65% Supply boost, 50 starting Goods).  The result was the extra was gaining me about 32 encounters from earlier upgrades.  To put this in comparison, 1x 200 AP/hr building (i.e. Yukitomo Empire/Imperial) is worth about 15 encounters a round and doesn't require constant upkeep.

As such I'm pulling back from the extra event work that "loading up" on temporary buildings would entail.  I do still like having "some" but my 15 core ascensions of 10 Koi Ponds + 5 Nomad Nooks will suffice (+1 permanent Clover Keep Ruin and a few ascended troop providers for the start which are whatever I have handy at the time).  To the extent I want more out of QI from my main city I'll work on additional AP generators.

The Play

Initial build

- 3 QS Expansions

- 1 Goods Expansion

- all houses : 27 Multistorey + 25 Estate Houses on my starting Coin budget (670k Coin)

- Balance: 0 Coin, 295k Supply, 0 Alloy

First Collection: 

- Collect and Sell 9 Multistorey Houses.  Build 4 Churches.

- Collect and Sell 9 Multistorey Houses.  Build 4 Churches.

- Collect and Sell 2 Multistorey Houses.  Build 1 Church.

- Collect and Sell 5 Multistorey Houses.  Build 2 Churches.

- Collect and Sell 2 Multistorey Houses.  Build 1 Church.

- Collect and Sell 3 Estate Houses.  Build 2 Churches.

- Collect the rest.  Sell Churches.  

- Build to 2 Shoemakers (new), 24 Multistorey Houses (new), 25 Estate Houses (3 new).  

- Return 1 hour later to confirm Shoemaker completion.

- Balance: 2.3M Coin, 245k Supply, 141 Alloy

Second Collection: 

- Collect and Sell 9 Multistorey Houses.  Build 4 Churches.

- Collect and Sell 8 Multistorey Houses.  Build 3 Churches.

- Collect and Sell 3 Multistorey Houses.  Build 1 Church.

- Collect and Sell 4 Multistorey Houses.  Build 2 Churches.

- Collect and Sell 2 Estate Houses.  Build 1 Church.

- Collect and Sell 4 Estate Houses. Build 1 Church.

- Collect the rest of the houses.  Sell 6 Churches.

- Sell the rest of the Estate Houses, replacing with 6 Multistorey Houses and 1 Mansion.

- Build 12 Breweries.

- Collect Shoemakers.

- Sell Churches, Breweries, and Mansion.

- Build to 6 Shoemakers (4 new), 18 Multistorey Houses (12 new), 22 Estate Houses (new)

- Return 1 hour later to confirm Shoemaker completion.

- Balance: 3.9M Coin, 313k Supply, 67 Alloy

Third Collection:

- Collect and Sell 8 Multistorey Houses.  Build 3 Churches.

- Collect and Sell 7 Multistorey Houses.  Build 3 Churches.

- Collect and Sell 2 Multistorey Houses.  Build 1 Church.

- Collect and Sell 1 Multistorey House and 1 Estate House.  Build 1 Church.

- Collect and Sell 3 Estate Houses.  Build 1 Church.

- Collect and Sell 2 Estate Houses.  Build 1 Church.

- Collect the rest of the houses.  Sell 3 Churches.

- Sell all but 4 Estate Houses, and add 5 Multistorey Houses.

- Build 6 Breweries

- Collect Shoemakers.

- Sell Churches and Breweries

- Build to 10 Shoemakers (4 new), 1 Ropery (new), 14 Multistorey Houses (8 new), 15 Estate Houses (11 new)

- Return 1 hour later to confirm Shoemaker completion.

- Build 2 Expansions with Rope.  Build 8 Estate Houses

- Balance: 4.5M Coin, 287k Supply, 151 Alloy

Fourth Collection: 

- Collect and Sell 8 Multistorey Houses.  Build 3 Churches

- Collect and Sell 4 Multistorey Houses.  Build 2 Churches.

- Collect and Sell 2 Multistorey Houses.  Build 1 Church.

- Collect and Sell 4 Estate Houses.  Build 2 Churches.

- Collect and Sell 1 Estate House.

- Collect and Sell 4 Estate Houses.  Build 1 Church.

- Collect the rest

- Sell Churches

- Build 1 Expansion with Rope

- Build to 4 Multistorey Houses (new), 8 Breweries (new), 2 Doctors (new), 14 Estate Houses, 10 Shoemakers, 1 Ropery

- Balance: 5.0M Coin, 201k Supply, 661 Alloy

Fifth Collection: 

- Collect all

- Build 1 Expansion with Rope

- Sell Multistorey Houses and build to 2 Clapboard Houses (new, instant finish), 16 Estate Houses (2 new), 10 Breweries (2 new), 10 Shoemakers, 2 Doctors, 1 Ropery.

- Balance: 4.4M Coin, 391k Supply, 196 Alloy

Sixth Collection: 

- Collect all

- Build 1 Expansion with Rope

- Sell 5 Estate Houses and build to 3 Clapboard Houses (1 new, instant finish), 3 Doctors (1 new), 1 Mansion (new), 12 Breweries (2 new), 11 Estate Houses, 10 Shoemakers, 1 Ropery.

- Balance: 4.9M Coin, 621k Supply, 981 Alloy

Seventh Collection: 

- Collect all

- Build 1 Expansion with Rope.  Sell Ropery

- Sell 5 Estate Houses and 1 Brewery and build to 4 Clapboard Houses (1 new), 2 Bakeries (new), 3 Doctors, 6 Multistoreys (new), 6 Estate Houses, 11 Breweries, 10 Shoemakers.

- Balance: 5.4M Coin, 762k Supply, 661 Alloy

Eighth Collection: 

- Collect All.  

- Sell 3 Estate Houses and build 3 more Clapboard Houses.

- Balance: 6.5M Coin, 1.5M Supply, 276 Alloy

Ninth Collection: 

- Collect All.  

- Sell 5 Shoemakers, all Estate Houses, 2 Multistorey Houses and build to 1 Mansion (new), 8 Clapboard Houses (1 new), 13 Breweries (2 new), 5 Bakeries (3 new), 1 Beekeeper (new), 4 Multistorey Houses, 5 Shoemakers, 3 Doctors.

- Balance: 7.7M Coin, 2.9M Supply, 21 Alloy

Tenth Collection: 

- Collect All

- Build 3 Expansions with Honey

- Sell Beekeeper, last 5 Shoemakers, Mansion, Multistoreys

- Build to 9 Estate Houses (new), 17 Breweries (4 new), 8 Bakeries (3 new), 1 Cannon Camp (new), 8 Clapboard Houses, 3 Doctors

Eleventh Collection: 

- Collect All.  

- Train 300 Cannons.

- Sell Cannon Camp and 1 Estate House.

- Build to Gunpowder Manufactory (new), 18 Breweries (1 new), 8 Bakeries, 8 Estate Houses, 8 Clapboard Houses

- Balance: 7.2M Coin, 936k Supply, 5876 Alloy

Twelfth Collection: 

- Collect All.  

- Build last Goods Expansion with Gunpowder.  

- Sell Gunpowder Manufactory.  

- Build to 9 Estate Houses (1 new), 2 Cartographers (new), 19 Breweries (1 new), 8 Clapboard Houses, 8 Bakeries, 3 Doctors

Thirteenth Collection: 

- Collect All.

- Balance: 12.7M Coin, 5.4M Supply, 17766 Alloy

Fourteenth Collection: 

- Collect All.  

- Sell all Houses and Supply Buildings.  

- Build to 30 Doctors, 9 Cartographers, 48 Gargoyles, 2 Nautical Statues

The mix listed of Doctors/Cartographers/Gargoyles/Nautical Statues is based on what I expect to have for Supplies and Alloy and how much single-color boost I need.  The precise mix I settle on may be slightly different in the end ; and evolve over time as I get new support from my main city.

If I needed no boost I could convert on collection 13 instead of 14 to 2 Pillories, 38 Doctors, and 4 Cartographers, geometry permitting (that's a very high % of 3x3s - would need to be quite careful about picking expansions; probably need additional impediment removals as such.  The amount of 1x1s I currently plan to use makes it easier to deal with any geometry while needing boost).  Would probably need additional supply boost from main city to be able to handle additional Pillories or Cartographers in order to be more geometry tolerant.

Middle Ages QI Combat

One of the most frequent questions I've gotten is what to fight with after my last two posts have focused on how you can grow your economy.  At the end of last round I did some more exhaustive testing of different auto-battle options at different boosts to establish what works and what doesn't.

Why are these recommended boost numbers so high?

The boost I'm recommending for most units is often more than 3 times higher than the opponent target's boost.  There's a few contributing factors to this:

- Two wave battles require fairly clean wins of the first wave.  Being badly outnumbered in the second wave is a recipe for disaster.

- Artillery are weaker by Late Middle Ages (comparatively) than they were in Iron Age - especially defensively - which makes it more critical that you kill as many units as possible as fast as possible.

- Generally speaking you want to lose as few units as possible so you can also train less units and place less strain on your supplies (which can instead go to buying goods expansions or fancy space-efficient decorations for additional boost).

Day 1-5 (EMA opponents)

If you have some boost from your main city you can often fight through these without training anything with just 10-20 "Quantum Units at Incursion Start" from your main city.  Or you can dump ~46k Coins and ~34k Supplies to build an EMA barracks (5 seconds), train 10 units, and sell it which should give you a good amount of substitutes as your troops get injured.

Which units should you use?

Catapults are the primary choice if you have a decent amount of boost.  You ideally want ~150-330 sword and ~260-490 shield to feel confident that you can dispatch the enemy armies quickly and take the odd hits from angry Mounted Archers.  You may want to swap to a different army against opponents with many Mounted Archers.  Also note that Trebuchets do not have significantly improved defenses and fear Mounted Archers just as much as Catapults - so if you've upgraded to Trebuchets early you still may want to sub them out against Mounted Archers.

If you find Catapults are too squishy for you (i.e. you actually lose some units), any of the other units should be just fine too against the small one wave armies in the early days.  

Armored Infantry require the least boost to cap out, but may occasionally struggle to run down a Catapult and lose a unit.  10-90 sword and 130-220 shield should be comfortable.

Mounted Archers are probably the most powerful option if you're trying to fight with little boost of your own.  They'll usually do "ok" on auto, but with your control you can keep them out of danger on the first turn and then charge in wiping out most of the enemy army, minimizing the retaliation you take.

By day 6, when HMA opponents appear, you should be able to have any troop you want to have and your starting EMA units may be starting to struggle to keep up.  Interesting options include:

Trebuchets or Cannons

Artillery have the highest chance for clean fights, but if you don't have enough boost or poor luck can fall apart quickly to massive casualties.

Trebuchets have longer range than Cannons and as such, with enough boost, will outperform them by taking less hits occasionally.  This is probably the best option through day 8 at least before your opponent's boost starts jumping but if you stick with them all the way through, you will need much more boost for the day 11 boss.  I'd recommend at least 1600 Sword & Shield to usually 2-shot Imperial Guards and usually take 3 shots to die from enemy Cannons on day 11 boss encounters.  It would take ~2700-3200 shield to start taking 3 shots to die from other enemy units.  

Cannons are perfectly serviceable and need a little less boost than Trebuchets do.  They may take a few more casualties on days when you have more than enough boost.  If you want to fight day 11 boss I'd recommend at least 1250 sword and shield to usually 2-shot Imperial Guards and usually take 3 shots to die from enemy Cannons on day 11 boss encounters.  It would take ~2300-3200 shield to start taking 3 shots to die from other enemy units.

The most dangerous day 11 boss encounter to relying on either Trebuchets or Cannons is 3 Fast, 3 Artillery, 2 Ranged // 4 Heavy, 3 Light.  It's quite possible to lose 4 artillery in the first wave with bad ordering making the 2nd wave a struggle to finish.  You may be able to get around this by manual battling this single arrangement.  2 Fast, 2 Heavy, 4 Artillery // 1 Heavy, 6 Light can also inflict significant losses to artillery, but I never saw auto-battle fail it outright (at equivalent to ~1400 sword, 1300 shield).

Imperial Guards

The easiest unit to max stats on, they will be reliable wins on day 11 boss encounters with about 700 sword, 1200 shield.  Of course they'll still have 1-2 casualties every fight even on easier encounters so you will need to train many more units if solely relying on them.  Rather I'd recommend having a small number of Trebuchets for easy fights they can win cleanly and only breaking out the Imperial Guards on the final day or two if going this route.

Longbow Archers

An in-between option, Longbow Archers are strong and reliable if you have enough shield.  They will still win many fights cleanly, but a few less than artillery do overall.  They are less prone to collapsing to massive casualties though if you have sufficient shield for them.  I would recommend at least 630 sword, 1400 shield to always 2-shot Imperial Guards and have some durability (Taking ~7 artillery hits or 3 other hits) on day 11 boss encounters.  The higher your shield, the better an option this will become (it would take ~1900 shield to minimise damage taken from cannons and ~3500 shield to minimise damage taken from almost everything).

Heavy Knights

Another in-between option between Artillery and Imperial Guards, Heavy Knights are of medium difficulty to cap out.  I'd recommend about 600 sword, 1600 shield to maximise performance against most opponent units on day 11 boss encounters.  They will not have as many clean wins as Trebuchets, Cannons or Longbow Archers, but they will have equal reliability and less casualties compared to Imperial Guards.

My choice

For now I'm planning to rest on Catapults into Cannons ; my base QI boosts are 300+ and I'll plan to build 900+ boost in the settlement.  We'll see if I wish I had Imperial Guards for backup on day 11 next round.  I expect to kill off ~300 Cannons and will be training ~500 to be safe until I'm more confident in my estimates.

If at some point I have much higher shield than sword from main city boost I would choose Longbow Archers.

Middle Ages QI for the Intense

Part of what I like about this round of changes to Quantum Incursions is that it's no longer such a nuisance to repeatedly evolve a city thanks to the lack of roads needed.  This leads to me being willing to at least consider a more intensely optimized startup than I've played in the last year.

My first runs on beta were hallmarked by using Alchemists as cheap initial Alloy production upgrades to ramp into the endgame buildings, and this is still what I'd consider the ideal start if you need to conserve Quantum Shards (QS).  But while their one hour construction is not problematic from a theoretical perspective, it can be from a practical perspective if you don't check in an hour later for their construction to complete and start the production.   It could mess with attempts to gain extra collections by significantly more than the intended hour ; potentially to the extent that you miss one of their collections and mess up your ramp plans.  So this post considers an alternative with a straight shot to T3 buildings which while more costly seems more reliable.

The problem with this is that most "natural" initial builds struggle to hit much more 400 Alloy per collection (the lazy approach in my previous post started at 330, but with a bit of extra collection effort could reach 400).  Which means three collections until your first upgrade and is a big loss over building some temporary Alchemists on the first two collections which can still build a T3 building on the third collection thanks to their additional production.  So for skipping Alchemists to be a plausible win you need to be building a T3 building on the second collection.  And that means 500 Alloy per collection.  

To meet this goal requires your focus to be almost entirely on low-population houses (or a whole lot of expansions), which will require additional starting coins.  You also need to take advantage of quick-build euphoria to have many more Alloy producing buildings than you otherwise would.

Update Note

This plan is still largely functional after the Dec 25th nerfs.  For details on them see this post.  

The changes needed to make this work as before are potentially one additional Bakery rush (depending on how many you did and whether you had extra Alloy left over) to cover the 200 Alloy cost of the goods building.

You may also wish to use Doctors instead of Pillories as Pillory AP/hr was nerfed to be closer to the others and Doctors save significant amounts of Supplies and Alloy per space you want to occupy with them.  Cartographers are slightly stronger if cost is no issue.  Pillories may still have a small place for helping with layout geometry (avoiding wasted space).

Prerequisites

Starting Goods: 50 (for 1 free expansions with goods at the start).

Minimum initial build cost: 630,000 Coins (180,000 extra starting Coin from your main city).

Total QS: 1,395

- 250 QS on initial expansions (assuming 2 are from QS)

- ~35 QS on impediment removal

- 350 QS on rushing construction on your first 7 T3 Alloy producers.

- 760 QS on rushing production on your first Bakery 8 times for 3000 extra Alloy.

You will need to buy ~1,000 additional QS if you use this plan immediately at the start of a new championship, but should be able to make enough QS per round to sustain it for future rounds (~6,500 personal progress per round should cover it; I'm hoping to pass 10,000).

If you need extra troops at some point early on, it costs 11,250 Coin and 5,625 Supply to buy and sell an EMA barracks and 35,000 Coin and 28,000 Supply to train 10.  If you need to do this before first collection it will require additional starting Coins.  By second collection it shouldn't be an issue to pop out enough to last you until they wain in power.

The 500 Alloy Plan

You start with 3 expansions.  You can work in more supply buildings if you have more expansions, or take the house flipping strategy to the extreme.  You would need at least 2 additional expansions to move 8 of the 9 houses to convert a block to 4 additional Tanneries and not lose out too badly (4 Tanneries should payout somewhat more Alloy than a single house).  You would also need additional starting Coins for larger layouts (which is at least in part why you're using just 3 starting expansions).

Initial build:

- 15x Multistorey House, 30x Estate House

- 2x Tannery or 3x Additional Multistorey House (or empty space to save cost)

Total Cost: 654,000 Coins ; you will need 204,000 additional starting Coins (from for example 11 Koi Ponds).  

If you are short a *little* on coins, the 2 Tanneries are not crucial on the first collection (but are on the 2nd then) - this reduces the cost to 630,000 coins.  You can build the Churches that replace them with your first coins from Town Hall collection.

Multistorey Houses are used to the extent they are to increase your coin gain, lower your build cost, and at no loss in terms of number of collections at a given productivity.  i.e. It would still take 3 Churches before you move to 60% productivity even with all 45 houses as Estate Houses, but would add 90k coins to the construction cost and lose coin production.  If you're going for additional expansions and different numbers of houses the math may change in terms of exactly how many of the houses you can get away with being Multistorey Houses instead of Estate Houses.

Collection procedure:

Collect and Sell 2 Tannery and 4 Multistorey Houses at 20% Productivity.  Build 3 Churches.

Collect and Sell 9 additional Multistorey Houses at 60% Productivity.  Build 4 Churches.

Collect and Sell 2 additional Multistorey Houses at 80% Productivity.  Build 1 Church.

Collect and Sell 4 Estate Houses at 100% Productivity.  Build 2 Churches.

Collect and Sell 3 Estate Houses at 110% Productivity.  Build 1 Church.

Collect and Sell 4 Estate Houses at 120% Productivity.  Build 1 Church.

Collect 19 Estate Houses at 150% Productivity.

This will net you 503 Alloy (15 + 10 * (6 * 20% + 9 * 60% + 2 * 80% + 4 * 100% + 3 * 110% + 4 * 120% + 19 * 150%)).

You will also collect at least 1,863,000 Coins (could be boosted slightly further by city buildings but the 600% boost from Estate Houses is pretty dominant), which should eliminate any worries about Coin costs of buying and selling stuff.

Sell the Churches and rebuild everything sold after the first collection and after the second collection you'll have enough Alloy to build your first Bakery to start addressing supplies.  You should probably spend at least 50 Quantum Shards to complete its construction.

Now that you have a building producing 375 Alloy per collection at 150% Productivity you should use Quantum Shards to finish production repeatedly on your Bakery and immediately blitz more T3 buildings.  Without this step you're just falling behind plans that would build Alchemists on the first 2 collections.

The Blitz

Start by converting as much of your city as you can to Breweries while maintaining 150% Euphoria.  This allows you to convert some of your excess coins from the start into additional supplies as you finish the Bakery's production repeatedly.

Each additional 1,000 Alloy building requires 3 finished productions from your Bakery.  Which will also produce at least 3x 222,000 supplies in the above configuration.  A second T3 building will cutoff ~1.5 collections worth of ore.  A third T3 building will cutoff ~1 collection worth of ore.  A fourth T3 building will only cost 2 additional rushes because of the leftover.  Launching directly into 4 Bakeries (construction rushed) is a good spot to stop.  Include a Ropery to start making additional goods expansions next collection.  The next two images below have "too many" Estate Houses due to a revision ; will update next week.  9 Multistorey Houses is the new recommendation.

Before Collecting, make goods and place 4 expansions, these expansions can be any ones without impediments.  Sell the Ropery and move 16 houses to the new expansions.  Build 8 Churches.

Collection procedure:

Collect and Sell 2 Tannery at 80% Productivity.  Build 2 Churches.

Collect and Sell 4 Multistorey Houses at 100% Productivity.  Build 1 Church.

Collect and Sell 2 Multistorey Houses at 110% Productivity.  Build 1 Church.

Collect and Sell 3 Multistorey Houses at 120% Productivity.  Build 2 Churches.

Collect 22 Estate Houses at 150% Productivity.  Sell 4 Churches and 8 Estate Houses.  Build 6-7 Breweries.

Collect 4 Bakeries at 150% Productivity.

This yields 1,959 new Alloy.  Build 1 Clapboard House (construction rushed) and 1 Pillory.  Rebuild with a mostly-normal layout focused on boosting your T3 buildings coin and supply production, including the Ropery once more.  You will still be reliant on some temporary buildings converted to Euphoria.

Collection procedure:

Collect and Sell 1 Tannery and 4 Multistorey Houses at 60% Productivity.  Build 2 Churches.

Collect and Sell 2 Multistorey Houses at 80% Productivity.  Build 1 Church.

Collect and Sell 3 Multistorey Houses at 100% Productivity.  Build 2 Churches.

Collect and Sell 1 Multistorey House at 110% Productivity.

Collect and Sell 3 Multistorey Houses at 120% Productivity.  Build 1 Church (or Palace; not needed here but may be a relevant option if you have more expansions since Churches don't fill the space of a standalone 4-House expansion).

Collect 14 Estate Houses, 9 Breweries, 4 Bakeries, 1 Clapboard House at 150% Productivity.

This yields 2,358 new Alloy.  Combined with the leftover from prior, you're past 2500 Alloy.  Build 2 Clapboard House (rushed) and 1 Pillory.  If you can afford additional goods expansions, build them (2 additional planned here).

Collection Procedure:

Collect and Sell 6 Multistorey Houses @ 100% Productivity.  Build 1 Palace.

Collect and Sell 2 Multistorey Houses @ 110% Productivity.  Build 1 Church.

Collect and Sell 4 Multistorey Houses @ 120% Productivity.  Build 1 Church.

Collect 11 Estate Houses, 14 Breweries, 3 Clapboard Houses, 4 Bakeries.

This yields 3,145 new Alloy.  Build 2 new Bakeries, and 2 new Pillories.  It is now more optional as to whether to rush new buildings as existing buildings now represent over 80% of your Alloy production compared to new construction.

Further Progression

From here, try to keep your Supply and Coin production balanced (more Bakeries than Clapboards; Breweries preferred to Estate Houses when it comes to filling extra space.  Quantum Supply Boost from your main city is particularly useful because of how much space Breweries take up to provide it).  Build additional Pillories as needed to stay at 150% productivity (you want them at the end anyways).

Drop the Ropery once the cost of further goods expansions seems hardly worth the work.  You could also drop it temporarily as a micro-optimisation if you're going to wait more than 1 collection to buy another expansion.

Build a Trebuchet or LMA barracks when your EMA troops are starting to feel insufficient.  (In preparation for Day 6 when the opposition becomes HMA troops may be a good moment).  Sell it when you have enough trained to make it to the end (possibly as soon as the next cycle if you've built up enough Coin and Supply before you place it)

Trebuchets or Cannons only care about sword boost for practical purposes but desire it quite high for day 11 (it takes an even larger amount of shield boost to let them survive even 2 hits, so that's not practical).

Longbow Archers or melee LMA troops only need modest sword boost but desire high shield boost for the later days.  Melee troops are easier to come close to capping shield boost for reliable wins, but will usually still cost you 1 troop per encounter while capped.  Longbow Archers will often have cleaner wins and with enough shield will also become reliable.

Final Goal

Whatever your initial build plan involves leads to a similar spot: Get to a point with high Alloy, Coin, and Supply production to setup for the final goal - a settlement with enough boost and saved up troops to win through the final day, and convert the rest of the space to AP generation (Pillories), ideally with most goods expansions purchased.  Optimising the start is all about getting to that point earlier so you can have your max AP generation for longer.  With that in mind, there's also motivation to try and get "extra" collections by being on precisely 10 hours later.  5 days in could be 12 collections instead of 10 and buy you an extra day of high AP.

An expansion's worth of Pillory costs 2,000 Alloy, 480k Coins, 480k Supplies for 800 AP/hr.  3 Expansions (less 6 tiles) are wasted on the Town Hall.  This means that say 19 usable Expansions will cost ~38k Alloy, 9.1M Coins, 9.1M Supplies for 15,200 AP/hr.  Given that it takes an unrushed Clapboard House or Bakery 40 hours to be profitable (10 hours to build + 3 productions to get ahead), once you're around 8-10k Alloy production it's time to stop thinking about increasing it and just focus on Coins and Supplies for the switch (selling your producers will recover an additional ~5k).  That's somewhere around 20+ combined Bakeries + Clapboard Houses.

If you need military boost, your options:

- Tower Ruin/Group of Trees at 800 Alloy, 400k Coins, 300k Supplies for 180% Boost/Expansion.  

- Gargoyle/Signpost at 3,200 Alloy, 1.2M Coins, 1M Supplies for 240% Boost/Expansion.

- Nautical Statue at 12,000 Alloy, 6.4M Coins, 4.8M Supplies for 480% Boost/Expansion of *both* colours.

Keeping Clapboard Houses a little longer can allow an earlier conversion to Pillories, Alloy-wise, if you don't need all your boost yet.  2 Clapboards make an extra 750 Alloy every collection.  That could be 1 Nautical Statue or Almost 4 Gargoyles/Signposts per collection.  If you can delay their sale by 2 collections that's all the Alloy needed to replace themself with Gargoyles/Signposts.  If you can delay their sale by 7 collections that's almost all the Alloy needed for Nautical Statues.  Of course that doesn't help with the Supply cost (and keeping Bakeries without Breweries would struggle to do much either while taking a lot more space), so you need to budget that into your pre-sale agenda still :)

Middle Ages Quantum Incursions for the Lazy

It's almost upon us!  And contrary to what some people would have you believe, it's great news for the lazy player.  No more roads (and thus less limitation on how to lazily evolve your settlement) and more ability to focus on the rewards you want (instead of a little bit of everything).  

Prerequisites and General Strategy

So the starting point is going to be an assumption that you're in a solo guild with no QI support at all provided by your city.  The concept also can be adapted if you're in a guild that clears the bosses and gets you to the farming nodes (actually even easier then as you don't need to make goods; just donate coins and supplies); but the in-between situation where you're in a guild that finishes the early donation nodes but doesn't open the farming nodes will be a struggle.

Because of the nature of QI, you're going to want to be online twice a day between 10 and 14 hours apart.  This allows you 2 collections a day and, barring a whole lot of bonus AP production, an ability to always spend before you get capped.

  
Skip the middle tier of production buildings because the (current) need to be online and visit your settlement an hour after you start construction to get full benefit is positively unlazy.  Rather save up enough Alloy to jump from T1 to T3.  Their 10 hour constructions fit with the collection schedule.

You'll need 450 Quantum Shards per round for 3 expansions.  And hopefully no more than 35 Quantum Shards on impediment removal (at least 1 of the 3 expansions needs to be naturally impediment free). This only gives you 1 round per championship guaranteed (we start with 500 free QS), but should be sustainable if you actually play to the extent discussed here (on average you need to exceed ~2,300 personal progress to make back 500 shards over the round and should be making a bit over 4,000).  You can use extra shards to open chests after the last round of the championship you decide to play.

Select Rope as one goods type as it's the smallest building.  Troop donations are no longer a thing and will be ignored (Fighting is better, but needs some support from the main city to be smooth - and still takes more clicking).

When donating coins or supplies, try to keep them roughly balanced.  Initially this will mean donating supplies.  Later on it will mean donating coins and only using supplies to make goods.

Settlement Layout

3 initial expansions should all go on one of the two short edges of your settlement to make a slightly larger rectangle.  Much of the settlement can be viewed as 6x6 sections:

The large green 6x6 sections can be either 4 3x3s or 9 2x2s.  As the most common sizes of building, this gives you good flexibility to evolve the settlement as it progresses.  When it comes to adding 4x3 Bakeries, they'll either go side by side in pairs to make 4x6 sections or one atop the other in triples to make 12x3 sections with 4 3x3s beside them for a 12x6 section (i.e. 2 6x6 sections).

Extra expansions can go anywhere in moderate amounts as dedicated 2x2 space (you'll always have some 2x2s).

The Play

Initially build the following:

- 7x Estate House, 1x Mansion, 1x Multistorey House (480 Population)

- 6x Church (960 Euphoria)

- 6x Tannery, 6x Brewery (360 Population Demand)

- Donate Goods and Supplies

Production:

- 330 Alloy Production

- 188,750 Coins ((3,750 * 7 + 7,500 + 12,500) * (1.5 + 0.2 * 7 + 0.1) + 50,000)

- 322,160 Supplies ((12,000 * 6 + 4,800 * 6) * (1.5 + 0.2 * 6))

On the 1st collection you'll have 330 Alloy (to be saved for next collection)

- Donate Goods and Supplies

By the 2nd collection you'll have 660 Alloy.

- Sell 6 Churches

- Build 1 Doctor

- Sell 1 Estate House and 1 Mansion

- Build 2 Multistorey Houses

- Build 3 Tanneries and 2 Breweries

- Donate Goods and Supplies

Production:

- 405 Alloy Production

- 212,000 Coins ((3,750 * 6 + 12,500 * 3) * (1.5 + 0.2 * 6) + 50,000)

- 503,840 Supplies ((12,000 * 9 + 4,800 * 8) * (1.5 + 0.2 * 8)) + 50,000)

On the 3rd collection you'll have 565 Alloy.

- Sell 5 Tanneries

- If needed, arrange open space such that you have a 6x6 area + 3x3 area for the incoming construction 

- Build 1 Doctor in the 3x3 area

- Build 5 Multistorey Houses

- Build 2 Estate Houses

- Build 1 Ropery

- Donate Goods (produce as needed) and Supplies

Production:

- 435 Alloy Production

- 453,000 Coins ((3,750 * 8 + 12,500 * 8) * (1.5 + 0.2 * 8) + 50,000)

- 317,840 Supplies ((12,000 * 4 + 4,800 * 8) * (1.5 + 0.2 * 5) + 50,000)

On the 4th collection, you'll have 500 Alloy (to be saved for next collection):

- Make 90 Rope.  Place 2 Goods Expansions (30 Rope + 60 Rope).  Any expansion without impediments will do.

- Move 5 houses which are near your Ropery to your new expansions

- Build 3 Estate Houses in your new expansions

- Confirm orientation of houses beside your Ropery such that you have 2 3x3 spaces open beside it

- Build 2 Breweries beside your Ropery-House-House row

- Donate Goods (produce as needed) and Supplies

Production:

- 510 Alloy Production

- 572,625 Coins ((3,750 * 11 + 12,500 * 8) * (1.5 + 0.2 * 11) + 50,000)

- 386,000 Supplies ((12,000 * 4 + 4,800 * 10) * (1.5 + 0.2 * 10) + 50,000)

On the 5th collection you'll have 1,010 Alloy:

- Sell 5 Multistorey Houses

- Move your Ropery and adjacent houses if needed away from Breweries (into sold house space)

- Build 2 Breweries where your Ropery + 2 houses were

- Build 1 Clapboard House

- Donate Goods (produce as needed) and Supplies

Production (Clapboard House not yet active):

- 465 Alloy Production 

- 341,375 Coins ((3,750 * 11 + 12,500 * 3) * (1.5 + 0.2 * 11) + 50,000)

- 461,840 Supplies ((12,000 * 4 + 4,800 * 12) * (1.5 + 0.2 * 12) + 50,000)

On the 6th collection, you'll now have 475 Alloy (to be saved for next collection):

- Donate Goods (produce as needed) and Coins or Supplies (whichever is higher)

Production:

- 840 Alloy Production 

- 822,375 Coins ((130,000 + 3,750 * 11 + 12,500 * 3) * (1.5 + 0.2 * 11) + 50,000)

- 461,840 Supplies ((12,000 * 4 + 4,800 * 12) * (1.5 + 0.2 * 12) + 50,000)

On the 7th collection you'll now have 1,315 Alloy:

- Sell off 3 Tanneries

- Place a Bakery alongside the remaining Tannery

- Move your Ropery behind/ahead of the remaining Tannery

- Build 4 Estate Houses (2 beside the Ropery ; 2 where the Ropery used to be).

- Donate Goods (produce as needed) and Coins

Production (Bakery not yet active):

- 855 Alloy Production

- 1,056,875 Coins ((130,000 + 12,500 * 3 + 3,750 * 15) * (1.5 + 0.2 * 15) + 50,000)

- 321,440 Supplies ((12,000 * 1 + 4,800 * 12) * (1.5 + 0.2 * 12) + 50,000)

On the 8th collection you'll now have 1,170 Alloy:

- Sell your last Tannery

- Sell 2 Multistorey Houses elsewhere and move Estate Houses if needed to make a Ropery-shaped hole away from your Bakery

- Move your Ropery where the 2 houses were

- Build Bakery where your Tannery + Ropery was

- Build Estate House where your Ropery was

- Donate Goods (produce as needed) and Coins

Production (2nd Bakery not yet active):

- 1,200 Alloy Production

- 1,001,750 Coins ((130,000 + 12,500 + 3,750 * 16) * (1.5 + 0.2 * 16) + 50,000)

- 508,640 Supplies ((60,000 + 4,800 * 12) * (1.5 + 0.2 * 12) + 50,000)

On the 9th Collection you'll now have 1,370 Alloy:

- Sell your last Multistorey House

- Build a Clapboard House

- Donate Goods (produce as needed) and Coins

Production (2nd Clapboard not yet active):

- 1,560 Alloy Production

- 943,000 Coins ((130,000 + 3,750 * 16) * (1.5 + 0.2 * 16) + 50,000)

- 742,640 Supplies ((60,000 * 2 + 4,800 * 12) * (1.5 + 0.2 * 12) + 50,000)

All further productions with no more modifications will be:

- 1,935 Alloy Production

- 1,554,000 Coins ((130,000 * 2 + 3,750 * 16) * (1.5 + 0.2 * 16) + 50,000)

- 742,640 Supplies ((60,000 * 2 + 4,800 * 12) * (1.5 + 0.2 * 12) + 50,000)

This is already more than sufficient to keep up on day 11/12 Goods and Coin donation costs at 5,600 AP/hr (where this settlement is currently at with no effect from main city).  You can build additional goods expansions.  You can continue to build into higher AP/hr by constructing additional euphoria buildings (Pillory recommended from here on).  This may require additional coin/supply upgrades as well if taken far enough.

Further Optimisation

This build order was chosen for specifically lazy play and pure donation to be accessible to even the least developed city without complicated collection procedures.  You can relieve strain on coins/supplies by fighting early, especially with support from your main city.  This in turn makes optimizing for alloy production more important as it's the core limiter to build up your settlement further, no matter how much help from your main city you have.

Euphoria, which was upgraded first in this example, is the slowest return on Alloy - often requiring 5 or more collections to repay the Alloy you put into it.  Furthermore you can temporarily build T1 houses or supply buildings that you collect at less than full euphoria and then sell and build Churches in their place for additional Alloy while building up to full euphoria for your main collection.  As such, if you want to put more effort into it, euphoria should be postponed.  Pillory is also the more space-efficient euphoria (both in terms of AP/hr/tile and Culture/tile) and if you've gotten your Alloy production sorted first, you may as well jump straight to that instead of Doctors (which are more Alloy-efficient, but less space-efficient).

I will write-up a plan for my main city before the feature goes live on Thursday, involving more extreme optimisations.