This is my first guide i hope this will help new players to the game.sorry for my bad english.

Recently i have seen many players joining illyriad due to the closing of lord of ultima.i hope this guide will be very useful for them and also for other new people.

A general welcome to all of the players from lou.

pls note:

1) That this guide is mainly for prestige players while it can also help other players.

2) This guide doesn't contain many basic topics cause already there are very good guides about it.

so lets get started.

short terms used in this guide are:

res - resource.

pop- population.

CHAPTER 1:INTRODUCTION.

IMPORTANT THINGS FOR FAST GROWTH.

1)prestige.

2)resource.

3)building correct buildings at right time.

PRESTIGE:

most of the player know about prestige if you are not sure what is that here is the link.

http://elgea.illyriad.co.uk/#/Prestige/About" rel="nofollow - http://elgea.illyriad.co.uk/#/Prestige/About

and the link to buy more is:

http://elgea.illyriad.co.uk/#/Prestige/Buy" rel="nofollow - http://elgea.illyriad.co.uk/#/Prestige/Buy

RESOURCE:

The more resource you have or buy from market the more faster you grow.most of the vets recommend joining an training alliance for this purpose as they not only help you with resource but also advice etc..

BUILDINGS:

 This is the very important you need to understand  clearly to use your prestige effectively.

what is population?

population is the amount of food consumed by the buildings you build.upgrading the levels of building increases the consumption of food and therefore it is increases the population.

The list of building which i consider important are:

common ground.(produces cows)

paddock.(produces horse)

these 2 buildings are default for every town.

the other buildings are:

mage tower

consulate

these 2 buildings are needed for each town for casting spell and diplo activity.

other population giving buildings are:

these buildings are also essential cause they are used to produce advanced  res which are used in making army and trading also.

spear maker.(spears)

saddle maker.(saddles)

blacksmith.(swords and chain mail armor)

leather armor.(leather armor)

fletcher.(bows)

forge.(plate mail)

All the buildings are needed for self sufficient game play.

for elves forge alone is optional cause they don't use plate mail for any army units.

while all other races use all the adv res for army units.

pls note:

1) brewery is also kinda important cause all races uses beer for troops,but since this guide is about population growth.i have ignored it cause brewery does not give much population.

2) i have not included barracks,warehouse,storehouse because they don't give much pop when compared with the buildings above,but every one needs to build all the 3 buildings.

All the above said buildings give 1497 pop at lvl 20.

The important thing is they consume less res when compared to other pop giving buildings.common ground and paddock consumes more clay.

mage tower and consulate consumes more res than the other adv res production buildings.(spear maker,saddle maker etc….).

THE TYPE OF GAMEPLAY YOU CHOOSE:

There are few other buildings which gives pop. Building those ones depends on your game style.

for ex: if u are adopting military style:

cavalry  parade ground.(mounted units)

infantry head quarters.(sword units)

archers field.(ranged units)

spearmen billets.(spear units)

these are the buildings which not only gives pop but also reduces the upkeep of troops.for a military player i recommend 2 or 3 buildings depending on the type of units you produce in the town.

each of the above said buildings give 1796 pop at lvl 20.They also consume other basic res(wood,clay,iron,stone).

Each buildings consume different combination of res.which increases each lvl.

Trader:

 if u are a trader then herbalist guild,mineralist's guild,skinner's guild are needed and if you like to craft weapons,amours,then you must build the necessary buildings depending on your choice,i recommend specializing each town.(i will write another guide for specializing towns later).

so i hope you are now having a general idea of how population and buildings work.so now lets move to next step.

CHAPTER 2:IMPORTANCE OF 7 FOOD PLOT.

In general when you start the game the res plots distribution depends on race like humans get 5 plots on all res.only the basic res distribution changes depending on race but the food plots are only 5 for all race.

To become a big player with good population we strongly recommend to move the town to 7 food plot.

The process and step to move the towns will be discussed later in this guide.

The first question you will ask when we say about 7 food plot town is,

why is a 7 food plot town essential?

lets do some quick math so that you will understand clearly the need of 7 food plot town.

A 5 food plot  town will produce     14,903         amount of food with taxes at 25% without sov and prestige bonus.

2014*5=10,070

flour mill bonus 40% and nature's bounty spell gives 8% so totally 48%

10,070*48\100=14,903  

and with sov you can make anther 50% so u can produce only 20k food with taxes at 25% and no prestige bonus.

which means you can only have 20k pop town with food positive.

so the maximum pop without prestige bonus is around 20k-22k

A 7 food plot town will produce  14,098  amount of food with taxes at 25% without sov and prestige bonus.

flour mill bonus 40% and spell bonus 8% so totally 48% like above

14,098 * 48\100 =6767

so total food production is 14,098+6767=20865

with sov you can make another 50% so the food production will be around 26k-28k with taxes at 25%

which mean you can have upto 28k pop but you need only 27k pop per town to get to 10 towns. so it is easy.

so the maximum pop without prestige bonus is around 26k-28k.

The idle pop for town is around 25k -27k which i recommend.

The population requirement for the 10th town is 233,550.

so in order to get it you need 9 towns with 25k-27k pop.

25k*9=225k you are still 8k behind so 26k or 27k is idle one.

so in order to have 26k pop you need 7 food plot town.

now lets go to next chapter.

CHAPTER 3: BUILDING THE FIRST TOWN.

In this chapter we are going to discuss the following topics.

1) Buildings needed and researches which are needed.

Buildings which are needed are said in introduction itself.

There are many researches in the game but you need to research right one in right time. i have seen in gc people saying that they queued up 2days or 4 days research and they are waiting and have nothing to do.

your main aim in 1st town must be researching the researches which unlocks the buildings.

so that you can keep on building when 5 days research like exodus is going on.

primary researches are the one which unlocks consulate,mage tower,marketplace,barracks.

secondary ones are the ones in city research tree try to complete it as fast as possible so that you unlock all the buildings.

in-between these 2 do some defensive spells to keep yourselves protected.

every researches are to be done,but doing in right order is very important,otherwise you will be wasting time.

CHAPTER 4: SELECTING THE PATH.

once the first town is setup 

there are two options to get 2nd town and move further.

1) Settling.

2) capturing.

SETTLING:

settling is simple once u get the required pop make the settler and send the to good spot and you get a new town.

settling need settler which can be unlocked by doing pioneering research.

CAPTURING:

When i say capture most of the people think that they are going to attack players and get into trouble but its not how it works.

you can ask how it works?

This is how it works.

first of all to be clear let me say something important

1) don't attack any active players active players are the ones who play illy and haven't left the game.so if u attack them they will respond so don't do it.

2) abandoned players and inactive:

abandoned players are the ones who left the game and abandoned the game.these players towns are free to capture unless they are in some alliance.if you see those account in alliance then send a request to the alliance leader asking for the towns and proceed if he says ok.

inactive players are those who left the game but didn't abandon the account but inactive for long period of time.

In this guide everything idea is based on capturing the towns to proceed forward and i will not be discussing about settling.

ADVANTAGE OF CAPTURING:

1) you will get some good population towns and u don't need to start from zero pop.

2) researches will be done so no need to do them from first.

3) you will get all the res and gold which was stored in the town when you capture.

DISADVANTAGE:

1) your tech rank will not rise if u capture the towns.

2) some times good towns are in 5 food plot so u need to capture and exodus.

CHAPTER 4: WORKING FOR CAPTURING THE TOWN.

The basic thing one would ask is what are the research,buildings and armies needed to capture a town?

To capture a town you need warehouse at lvl 17 or 18 and barracks at lvl 20 thats all you need.

you need siege encampment research which is 4 days research.

first research do to is haggling which is in trade tree and it is in tutorial also.

once u complete it,do militia research to unlock barracks.

After militia research work on unlocking warehouse.

once warehouse research is done.

get warehouse to lvl 17.

with warehouse at lvl 17 and store house at lvl 15 your capacity will be 328,966. which is enough to hit barracks to lvl 20.

while building warehouse up do some lvls on barracks when you are waiting for res and do the 

stratagem,occupy territory,blockade and siege encampment.

Now you have all the research needed to capture a town.

Next thing to do is getting cavalry unit.(i say cavalry because they are fastest).

now you would  need catapults to siege a town on your own but i strongly recommend to seek help of someone with cats or hire bane.

once you capture the 2nd town u must start building as much as fast possible,and make some army to move on to next town capturing.

raze your first town cause it is in 5 food plot,capture all the towns even all the 10.

CHAPTER 5: SELECTING A TOWN

selecting a town is important,

select a town which is in 7 food plot and from long time established town cause the towns will have most of the researched done.

select a town with high pop cause when u capture u will get more pop for example if u siege a town with 20k pop you can capture the town at 5k pop so u gain 5k pop also.

CHAPTER 6:IMPORTANT TACTICS

capture the town with high pop lets me explain with above example when u get a town with 5k pop.u will have 2 towns,first one with less pop (which i recommend to raze).once u race the town u will have only one town with 5k pop so now u can capture 2 more towns.

one for 450 pop

one for 2k pop

once u capture 2 more towns you will cross 10k pop

this means you can capture 2 more towns

one for 5k pop

and another for 10k pop.

when u capture these 2 u will come closer to 20k pop prestige build the buildings in mention in first 2 chapter to boost the pop and capture the next town .

Now u got 6 towns totally.

and within one week u can hit 75k pop and make 2 more towns and from that 2 week to make 9th town.

so in a month u will have 7-9 towns.

CHAPTER 7: IMPORTANT POINTS

just make sure u make the build the buildings which i mentioned and also do the researches in the order i said.

if u do it correctly u will be able to hit the siege research in 3 days and from there 4 days to complete the siege encampment research.so in one week you can be ready to capture the towns and making the research within one week is not use cause u can't attack another player  when you are under player protection so when you are getting out of new player protection you will be ready to capture the towns.

research timing

haggling 4 min

time keeping 5 min

beaucracy  40 min

pioneering 12hrs

inventory management 12hrs

militia 10 min

stratagem 40 min 

occupy territory 2hr 30min

blockade 1d6hr

total hours till now: 2days 10hrs and few mins.

siege encampment 4 days

so this means you will complete siege tech in 6days 10hrs.

after this for cavalry

conscription 2hrs

call to arms 6hrs

cavalry 12hrs

so totally  20hrs.

so u will complete all the needed research to siege  in 7days 6hrs.

pls note: when u complete this u will have 240 pop from warehouse lvl 17,18 from storehouse at lvl 15 and 37 from barracks at lvl 20

so totally you will have 295 pop and maybe 10-20 more depending on your library and farms.

so  you can hit 450 pop by 2 ways.

building common ground and paddock or by unlocking spear maker but this will take extra 3hrs 30 min to research.

All the 3 buildings give same pop but the main difference is common ground and paddock consume more res than spear maker.

Once you have done the steps above you are ready for fast growth.

Important thing to note:

This guide is more effective for people who use prestige to build up and have some heavy support with basic res.

It took me 1 day to get storehouse,barracks,warehouse,spearmaker the the position i said above and from that i had to wait for researches to complete.

you need

store house lvl 15: so 15/2= 7.5 , 7*3=21 prestige

warehouse  lvl 17:  so 17/2 8.5 , 8*3= 24 prestige

barracks lvl 20 : so 20/2=10, 10*3= 30 prestige

total prestige you need to use  is 75 prestige.

i used extra 30 prestige for speeding up vans so u need 100 prestige for sure.

 extra:

To build spear maker or common ground or paddock u would need some 30 prestige or less.

so with 100-150 prestige you can be ready to capture your 2nd town and get a fast growth if you correctly follow what i have said above.

Things which are not mentioned in this guide:

i have not said about any t2 res boosting buildings like carpentry,foundry,kiln,stonemason and also t3 crafting buildings.

The reason to avoid this is,they take lot of basic res to lvl up when considered with the buildings above and also they differ according to player's choice and type of town he is building but the buildings i mentioned above in this guide which i asked to build are important.

THIS GUIDE IS COMPLETED HAVE FUN! 

Any suggestion and questions are welcome and also if u want help with res and building army capturing town you can contact me through mail:

player name: madmano .

YOU MAY SEE I AM A SMALL PLAYER NOW ,I HAVE RESTARTED THE GAME TO SETTLE IN BROKEN LANDS MAP AND ALSO TO GIVE COMPLETE EXPERIENCE TO NEW PLAYERS USING MY GUIDE( I MEAN THE TIMINGS AND FEW OTHER THINGS WHICH IM EXPERIMENTING).

MORE GUIDES TO COME SOON.