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

Note: Update in progress.  Some pictures will be out of date (sizes and layouts of buildings still the same, but which buildings is changing to reduce selling and get a bit lazier).  It should be done in under a week.

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 to make a Ropery-shaped hole away from your Bakery

- Move your Ropery where the 2 Multistorey 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 1,365 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 city 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.