Przewodnik przetłumaczony przez Razjela oryginalnie został napisany przez ciw3... osobiście uważam za lekturę obowiązkową dla każdego gracza który rozpoczyna przygode z IO...
I m happy to see, that more and more players join this really good game, but new players have every time same questions, so i think its time, that someone should write a small guide for beginners.
This guide shall help all new players, but its not like a complete manual, so everyone who joins this game, should read also the
complete manual. It is long, but very informativ. You can find the manual ingame under info/complete manual or you use following link:
http://www4.imperiaonline.org/imperia/game/info/manual_en.htmIndex1. General Strategies
2. Phases
3. Economic hints
4. General hints
1. General Stratgies[/u]Everyone who is playing this game should choose a basic strategy. This game is a wargame, so you cant play peacefull only, but you can choose how aggressive you wanna play and when you wanna be offensive. There are 3 primary strategies.
1.1. The military wayYour economy is weak, you have only what you need to build up your forces and there is no reason, why you should produce more, because there are many really nice players, who produce for you! This way means, you steal other players their resources, which will be converted into gold automatically.
The military way means not, that you can totally forget your econimics!!!
You need a lot of wood, iron and workers to build soldiers, attacks cost 3x upkeep and you need also some fortresses to store your troops during your offlinetime, so your upkeep is lower.
If you wanna go this way, foccus on wood and iron military research and spying. A bit medicine and military medicine is also a good idea. Trade is absolutly neccessary, because you will conquer only gold, so you will trade often at the market.
It is possible to start your 1st attacks after ~ 2days, if you attack with at least 400 spearman (each army must have at least 1000 soldiers, so build a bit more or fill up to 1000 with Archers) and you find a player with 50+ points. This is not recommended, if you arent 100% sure, that your target has no Archers in his fortress. 100 Archers are enough to kill your whole army. Its better if you wait a bit and build swordman. They are more expensive and need a bit more research, but they make more damage against walls and arent so easy to kill with archers.
Advantage of this strategy:You have a lot of action, you get many military points (and hopefully also Honor), you get easily gold (with eco alone diffictult at start)
Disadvantage of this strategy:You have many enemies, you must be often online and there is a time, where you must switch to economy a bit or you wont be able to support big armies in later game. If you miss this time, you have a problem, because more peacefull players will remember you!
Its possible to lose current round quickly, if you lose your whole army in a bad calculated attack and your economy isnt strong enough to rebuild an attackarmy quickly.
1.2. The econimic (peacefull) wayFirst i must say is, that this way isnt really peacefull, but you will be later aggressive with very big armies. Your economy will allow you to support such armies -
if you survive until this time (about 2-2,5 month).
At start you foccus on your economy. Primary targets are to get quickly a high population, big fortresses for defense and more income (each fortresslevel increases production of this province 10%) and securtity against more aggressive player, who wanna steal your resources! Border Outposts are very important for you, so enemies cant spy out your fortresslevels and garnisons and you should also invest in Fortification, so its more difficult to destroy your fortress walls. Iron is less important for you, because you have only a small army, but you need many stone for fortresses and fortification.
This way is much more difficult to play well, than the military way, but on the other side, you will be able to build big armies quicker than enemies. Earning gold isnt easy, you get no or only few gold from other players, so you must sell resources, so Trade is also a very important technology for you. To reduce your costs you must also foccus on University and architecture and you cant ignore military research, because you need good troops to defend your empire.
Biggest problem is, that you need nearly all, what aggressive players need (except Spying and Cartography), but you need all other technologies more urgently than them.
If you wanna play this way, you must make really good decisions, how you wanna invest your resources or you wont be able to
get a big advantage against aggressive players in later game.
Advantage of this strategy:You cant lose this game by single bad calculated actions, you dont need so much time, because you have no armies out and there is no reason for you, why you should watch all other player so carefully.
You will be ablte to build big armies quickly and be a very bad surprise for other enemies.
You can note all players, who (tried to) stole your resources and take terrible revenge later
Disadvantage of this strategy:Less action. If you make to many wrong decisions about using your resources, you will totally lose this round. You must accept a lot of incoming attacks from more aggressive players and you have no or only very few possibilities for counterattacks. You must know, when its time for better fortresses or you will have a bad surpirse, when you login next time.
1.3. The mixed wayWell, this way is a bit difficult to explain. Its a mix of both other ways. You try to manage a strong economy and have additional good possibilities for attacks - mostly against easy targets. You need all types of research, but your attackarmy should be mostly swordman. A big amount of siegeweapons will not payoff, because they need everytime upkeep, so you must destroy enemies walls primary with your groundtroops.
Advantages and Disadvantages depending on your aggressivity - look to the other strategies.
2. Phases[/u]Each round has a duration of 4 month. The game is all the time the same, but circumstances will be different. Each phase of game is about 1 month, but there are no clear borders between phases.
2.1. Phase 1The beginning is very important. All empires are equal and all start with nearly nothing. Each decision can have a big effect and activity is an advantage.
Market prices are at minimum prices. Best way to make gold with resources is wood.
Fortresses with garnison are a good defense.
2.2. Phase 2Game is going to be more aggressive. After 1st month you can imagine, who is strong and who is weak - dont forget, that some players can be a surprise in later game.
Fortresses are still a good defense, if you have good ones. A lot of players will reach 15.000 points, so depots will unload automatically, so you need 1 very well defended province (best would be walled mountains (with forrests)).
Market prices are still low, iron should be a bit expensiver, so you can make gold with selling wood and iron (if you can spare it).
2.3 Phase 3Now you can really see, who played well in past and who not. Fortresses arent that good defense like in past and you must hope, that you can protect a single province, where you need a lvl 7 fortress and a fieldarmy. Its a time, where alliance wars will be normal. If you arent prepared now, there is a good chance, that you will be a victim.
Wood price is going up, ironprice will explode and if you can spare iron, its best way to get gold. A good alliance and good contacts to other alliances are very worthfull.
This phase is really dangerous, because if you have too many wars here, you cant raise your eco for phase 4.
2.4. Phase 4The big final! Forget all what happend in past, it will not count. Game will be very aggressive now, biggest armies will meet at the battlefield and most military points and honor can be earned now. All players, who played primary economic and are still alive, will be very dangerous now.
Fortresses are definetivly no more defense, because attacking armies are too big. If you have no big fieldarmy, you are dead.
Forget economics, build troops, troops and again troops and use them!
3. Economic hints[/u]These hints are primary for start. Later in game it can be usefull to do change some things, depending on your personal situation.
Never let workers produce gold after your trade lvl is 1 or higher. You will get more gold, if you sell resources.
Build up Trade if you can afford it. Every lvl will reduce market fee 5% and you will buy and sell a lot of resources during a whole round.
Your population should grow everytime. You need pop for income but also for troops. If you arent in military troubles, farms should have priority, if your pop would be at maximum Some granaries arent expensive and will raise your popgrow. Medicine isnt so cheap, but it affects all provinces.
Get more provinces quickly! Centralisation is expensive, but more provinces means more production and more possibilities to hire troops. Dont forget to raise also Bureaucracy, so your new provinces will be more effectiv.
Plan your colonization! When you get your 5th province, your provinces should be Plus. A central province and each 1 province in top, bottom, left and right. Advantage is, that enemies will lose 20 morale, if they wanna attack your central province.
Your 2nd and 3rd province should be plains or plains with forest, because you ll get population quicker and so also quicker income.
In 1st month of this game, you should overbuild your provinces with production buildings. Buying and selling resources is expensive, because your trade lvl will be low, but you ll need sometimes primary stone (for fortresses) or iron (for army and military research). Production buildings are relativly cheap at start, so better you let your workers produce what you need than buying it at the market.
Provinces with mountain terrain have a terrible low popgrow. There is an incomebonus, but you havent many workers there, so you cant use it really. At start its too expensive, but after phase 1 (latest after phase 2), you can afford building normal spearman, send them to lowpop provinces and disband them there. This is also a good way to let your pop growing everywhere, when new farms in old provinces would be to expensive.
At the end of phase 2 and later, new buildings will need very long. If you have some resources in phase 1 and 2 left, build up your production buildings, so you have work for your workers!
If you wanna build a lvl 7 fortress, be sure, that you have enough farms and production buildings there. This fortress has a building time of ~7 days (exact time dependig on architecture and military architecture level) and you cant build during this time.
Except big fortresses its no good idea to save 3 or more days to afford a single building or technology. If you need so much time, its too expensive for you now - better invest it in other things and delay the other building/technology (or look for a rich target, which isnt well defended). Dont forget, if you save a long time, you have many resources in your provinces. Other players will notice this - earlier or later.
4. General hints[/u]Protect your provinces with fortresses and put archers in them. They are a great defense at start. Later in game, you ll need also a field army and other troops in your fortresses. Your garnison needs no upkeep, so you can store your troops very cheap. Siege weapons are every time in field army, so you must pay upkeep.
Dont garnison all your fortresses in wars, if you arent 100% sure, that this garnison can protect this province. If you lose battles, enemy will get much more points and after war a warincome.
You need one walled mountain province later in game. This will be your only province, you have a real chance to protect it.
If its secure, this province should have also a good income, because you will not lose it overnight. Dont colonize this province too late or you will have only few workers there and effectivity will be too low.
Watch all other players! They are possible targets or aggressors against you. Make some rumours to look at there economic and financial possibilities. Rumours cost only 2 gold - a good investment.
If you are an aggressive player, dont make all others really angry. They are maybe weaker than you, but dont forget "we arent strong - but we are many!" If there is no good reason, dont crush single players totally. Maybe you think, they are no danger, but if they are really angry, they maybe decide to make some kamikazeattacks and this will slow your eco down. There is a chance, that you will not be strong enough in phase 4.
Search an alliance, where players are playing a compareable strategy like you. Aggressive players need wars and attacks to be good later and pay their troops, economic players hate wars, because they slow down their eco.
Below 15.000 points, your depots will store resources and not unload them automatically. Use this! Everytime you go offline, you should hide your resources in your depots, so build them everytime, so you can store really all. If you cant, store expensive resources first and let wood in province. Make province pairs. This means, that 2 provices have same depotlevel, so you can send amount X from A to B and at same time from B to A and when you come back, you send it in other direction.
Plan your investments. At start time seems to be no problem in this game, but later buildingdurations will go up extremly and dont forget, that you can research only a single technology at one time. If possible, technologies/buildings should be finished at a time, where you think you will be online. At start this is mostly unimportant, but later it isnt.
Dont be rich, if you dont save for something! You will be a target and your resources are useless --> use them!
Update (thx to meringo)Stone has fewer usage in phase-3 and above so i think its safe to stop investing on stone mines after lvl-35 around and start making more iron and wood lvls. But it depends on player's style but once you get 1 or 2 lvl-7 forts, there aint much use except repairing but who cares abt repairing pop-capped provinces anyway
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So, this guide is finished for now and i hope, its a help for newer players.
If its good, it would be nice, if someone can make it sticky.
Hopefully my english wasnt too bad, but i m no english native speaker.
