Do it your own way - the anti-guide
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Category: Strategies, Guides & Help
Forum Name: Strategies, Tips & Tricks
Forum Description: Player created guides and advice.
URL: http://forum.illyriad.co.uk/forum_posts.asp?TID=6275
Printed Date: 17 Apr 2022 at 02:16
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Topic: Do it your own way - the anti-guide
Posted By: Solanar
Subject: Do it your own way - the anti-guide
Date Posted: 10 Apr 2015 at 03:32
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There is common advice that everyone sees in GC. Don’t join
an alliance right away. Drop your taxes to 0. Build up your storehouse. For
some people, following the standard advice the standard way just like hundreds
before them is “FUNN!!!!” Maybe you’re one of those people. If so, this might
not be the best guide for you. There is a reason the standard advice is standard. It works.
I’m not telling anyone that it’s not *A* valid playstyle. What I am fighting
against here is the idea that it is the *only* valid playstyle. Building up your storehouse right away makes sense, but only
if you plan on being active in chat. If you’re going to lurk, read a book while
you play, or just feel like doing it yourself without dozens of people paving the
way for you, maybe what you want to build first is resource fields, including
the Library. It’s hard to keep research going without a library, and it’s hard
to build anything without resources. There is nothing wrong with skipping the
hand outs and doing it yourself. Not joining an alliance right away is, and always has been,
bunk advice. It’s whiner advice. It’s advice from people who might have liked
to recruit you, but didn’t want to seem desperate and invite you too soon. You
know what penalty you pay for joining an alliance too soon? Fewer donations
from the GC crowd, and potentially having to wait 6 hours between dropping that
alliance and joining another. If a 6 hour wait is too much for you, you’ve
picked the wrong game anyway. Telling people to drop their taxes to 0 is, again, not bad
advice, but the benefit is so minor as to be hardly worth mentioning. My own
advice is to wait, don’t drop your taxes until it’s solving a problem. If you
*do* follow the standard advice and build the storage for your town as quickly
as possible, then you may end up with a significant population increase. Which
can lead to a shortage of food. THAT is when I might recommend dropping your
taxes. Then it can offset some of the food shortage and buy you time to build
up food plots. In fact, if you want to raise your taxes and play from day 1 at
100% taxes, it’s going to slow your growth, but it’s not going to stop you from
doing anything you want to. You can always change it later. And if you’re a
better planner than most, and never end up negative food? Then you are well
placed to begin expanding your list of things to do in Illy by using that small
amount of +gold in the corner to start building troops and diplos. Wait, building troops and diplos? Didn’t *everyone* in GC
tell you that you’re too small for troops and diplos? Well, what do they know
anyway? Sure, it’s not the *fastest* way to grow to 10 cities (or 20, or 42, or
whatever your goal is) but it’s a lot more interesting than spending the first
6 months building resources. Let me digress a minute. Anyone with a calculator and some
basic math skills can work out the min/max way to progress in Illy. That method
is BORING. It will cause most people to quit the game and never come back.
Watching your +resource grow faster than your population is like watching paint
dry. You know what you should do in your first city? EVERYTHING! That city has
to keep you entertained while you start the second, and the third, and the
fourth. Decisions that make sense to a vet who already knows they like the game
and are going to keep playing are completely different from decisions that
should be made by a new player who needs stuff to do if they are going to keep coming
back day after day. So build your troops. Kill a pack of rats or a gathering of
wolves and harvest the hides. Or don’t, if you feel like harvesting is as soul
crushingly boring as I do. Then grab some sov. Why? Not because it’s going to give you
a benefit. People who are looking out for your best interest are going to tell
you to wait for sov until your city has 10k or 20k population, to wait until
your food plots are maxed and you need more. Well, so what? Yeah, it’s good
advice, but there is something rewarding about that glow around your city. And
if you choose to stay in the newbie circle, sov is the only thing that keeps
new players from spawning on top of you. Wait, doesn’t everyone want out of the newbie circle as soon
as possible? Well lots of people do, especially people that are fond of
harvesting, because they want their own space. But then, later on, lots of them
will move a city back into the newbie circle. It gives them better access to
sending caravans of free res to newbies, and it’s a pretty decent spot if you
want to participate in Centrum trading. If you decide to keep a city in the
newbie circle from the beginning, that’s a perfectly good reason to gets lots
of sov as early as you feel capable of supporting it. So when you go looking for your second city, whether in the
newb circle or elsewhere, everyone will tell you to grab a 7 food spot. There is
nothing wrong with that advice – it’s what I did. You can too, if you like. But
it’s not the only way. It is completely possible (though very difficult) to
reach 10 cities on 5 food squares. There is another thread elsewhere about the
possible benefits to a 5/5/5/5/5 city when it comes to sov, military, and
balancing resources. It’s controversial, but so what? Do it your own way. Mostly what I’ve been doing is telling you to ignore the
common advice. That’s not entirely what I meant this thread to be. My primary
point isn’t to do the opposite of the crowd in every situation. My point is
that there is more than one right way of doing things. If you don’t want to
follow the common advice, you don’t have to. You won’t be doing it wrong….You’ll
just be doing it. Ignore the haters. The question isn’t “What is the right way?”
The question is how are YOU going to do it? |
Replies:
Posted By: Rill
Date Posted: 10 Apr 2015 at 03:46
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While I generally agree with the points made, and advocate for some of this stuff myself, I am a bit distressed to see people giving well-intentioned advice in global chat characterized as haters. I think it's possible to suggest different ways of playing the game without denigrating other people. One piece of advice I do tend to disagree with is the idea that you should not lower taxes until you start to run low on food production. While the tax/food connection is strongest for established players, players who are just starting a city benefit from not only more food, but more basic resources to build and more research points -- which are very useful early on. One would not generate enough gold from a 25% tax on a very low population to make the trade-off worthwhile. It makes a lot more sense to harvest items with cotters or make cows and sell them to get gold. The point about being able to lower taxes later on in order to avoid catastrophic population loss is well taken, but this is a relatively ineffective solution for a fairly rare problem. The people who experience catastrophic de-leveling rarely notice it until it is already happening -- and even a 25% bump in food production is often not enough to get out of the hole. It would be more effective to for example ask in global chat for an enhanced geomancy spell, or a shipment of food. In summary, maintaining higher taxes sacrifices significant benefits in order to provide an ineffective solution to a problem that is relatively unlikely to occur, especially if one pays attention to net food production. I recognize that you give that advice in all sincerity and with the best interest of new players at heart, but I think it is unwise. |
Posted By: Solanar
Date Posted: 10 Apr 2015 at 03:50
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Haters are people who tell you that you're doing it wrong, not people giving well intentioned advice in general.
edit: You'll note that I didn't say anywhere that the common advice was bad. I never said the standard way of doing things is wrong. Even the 0% taxes. My standing argument is that the same advice gets repeated so often people who don't know any better think its the only way to do things. Going to 0% taxes right after the tutorial gives only a couple of resources. Compared to the deluge coming from GC, it's insignificant.
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Posted By: Alcie
Date Posted: 10 Apr 2015 at 05:26
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As someone who joined an alliance 10 minutes after starting, built library to level 12 almost before anything else, made enough spies to start statue quest as soon as possible, and started sov really early (in, admittedly, a sov obsessed alliance) I really like your (non?) guide! These things all worked well for me... and more to the point they were fun for me (I like libraries!) even if they were not the most efficient possible way to do things. More generally, I agree that there are many ways to start the game. Guides are useful--it is useful to know that library/mage tower/consulate/etc. are standard buildings normally in every town. It is useful to know what changing tax does. It is useful to know about cotters. Specific guidance about exactly what level and what order to make these buildings or what percent to make your taxes? Much less useful. I sometimes tell new players to skim a couple different guides to get a sense of what the important issues are, but then to do things in whatever order they want in practice. They can experiment and ask questions to learn how all these things connect to each other. I have been too lazy to make a guide myself, but I always thought the perfect guide would mention a lot of main issues, mention multiple different ways to do things purely as examples, and emphasize that this is a very forgiving and experimental-able game and you can try things differently. Some people like to follow exact directions--they can follow the examples. For those who don't, they need a guide which tells them the very few things which truly are pretty mandatory (e.g. make a library so you can even start research at all) versus optional (make your own res plots versus make storage for gifts,etc.). As to the particular points being argued about a little in this thread...I feel like the main point is most of these bullet items really can be done in many different ways.. but I will throw my two cents in anyways. As to the whole 'don't join an alliance immediately'. Some members get lost in GC and quit the game. Others who join the first alliance they are recruited by feel unhappy and unable to leave and quit the game. These are both bad situations. And these types of reactions depend on the particular player. I personally feel like we should emphasize the following: 1. don't be afraid to join an alliance as soon as you want. 2. don't feel pressured to join an alliance quickly (especially just because someone in that alliance helped you/etc.). Wait as long as you want to decide. 3. If you are unhappy in your alliance, don't feel bad changing alliances. There are plenty of other suggestions you can make (talk to the leader, read profiles, etc.) which are good advice as well, but I feel like people often get messed up by not knowing the 3 items in my list. Being told only one of the items is fine for some but puts the exact wrong kind of pressure on others. My opinion obviously, but it goes in the general 'different strokes' theme for this thread. taxes... Again, I think it is definitely good to tell new players how taxes work and what they affect. But Telling them to do one particular change seems bad to me. I made lots of spies and scouts when I was super small.. if I had had zero tax I couldn't have. On the other hand, I did lower my tax some. Again, suggestions in a guide are fine (multiple examples...0 percent-- what affects this has, 5 or 10 percent--what affects this has.. 40 percent--what affects this has). Personally I would tend to advise the more flexible non-extreme case (lower some but not to zero). But, again, I think different tax rates will work for different people. A guide should perhaps even encourage experimentation--you can change it every day after-all. Again.. its not bad to have easy concrete suggestions when asked questions—newbies often want concrete suggestions because they are still learning and it is confusing to think of everything at once. But for both guides and for general chat-talk, there should perhaps be more emphasis on the flexibility of how to do things so that the players which might hate one way of doing things know that they have options. |
Posted By: Brandmeister
Date Posted: 10 Apr 2015 at 05:52
| I built troops immediately and started hunting. If I hadn't, I probably would have quit from boredom. It took me months to join an alliance, and for me that was the right choice. If I had an objection to the advice in GC, it is that it is pitched as a one size fits all solution that is often focused on food and city size. |
Posted By: Belegar Ironhammer
Date Posted: 10 Apr 2015 at 06:11
Not even remotely true. The extra res is utterly insignificant. 5 or 6 extra res per hour makes no difference at all as buildings quickly require thousands to upgrade. Additionally, given the tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of res that vets regularly dump on noobs, the tiny amounts of extra res are again rendered into a barley noticeable drivel. Time quickly becomes a limiting factor not res. The main thing here is that literally everyone is told to reduce taxes to 0% when reducing taxes like that does hardly any good at all, and one can get along quite fine without it.
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Rill wrote:Posted By: Shûl-nak
Date Posted: 10 Apr 2015 at 11:35
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Hell yeah to this - I was thinking along the lines of doing something similar, albeit in a slightly more comic and less reasonable fashion. Diversity of progression is important. From the get-go I was making harmless mischief with diplos, sending troops to die for the hell of it, accidentally bumping people off resource nodes and generally having a good time. The 'reinforced' method of playing is fine for folk who can drop in every now and then to set up their build queues and go away, but if you have more time and want to get to grips with the game it's very boring. As Solanar said, there are methods of min/maxing, but as a romantic I find it much more interesting to poke things with sticks and flip off the right way of doing things just for kicks instead of placing constraints on my own fun for the sake of mathemagics. The important thing would be to keep this post right up next to the other guides, so people can compare and contrast differing viewpoints to follow what they find most appealing, instead of following what may seem to be presented as The Unassailable Truth (through no fault of those who present such advice - it is solid and reasonable). Illy does a fantastic job in ensuring that there is no one true way - because what is efficient might also be brain-rottingly dull - and what is wasteful and eccentric might be far more exciting. And it is ultimately a game, is it not? |
Posted By: LoonieOne
Date Posted: 10 Apr 2015 at 13:39
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I prefer the loonie way. Start hitting buttons until something hasppens. Loonie |
Posted By: Bobtron
Date Posted: 10 Apr 2015 at 16:41
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Well the way i played the game was to spam cotters on the minerals nearby, drop taxes to zero, and use the revenue gained from selling minerals at hubs to maintain a huge army, though i was and still am in negative gold ------------- I support the Undying Flame! |
Posted By: Dungshoveleux
Date Posted: 10 Apr 2015 at 17:49
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I always import a package of stuff into any newly settled town. If I had to pick, I'd say books and basic resources and a little food. Then I bring in enough stuff to build diplomatic and military. The books keep the early research going. The basic resources keep the queues full at all times. Cotters and caravans provide herbs and minerals to sell for cash.
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Posted By: Angrim
Date Posted: 10 Apr 2015 at 23:34
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long overdue post. huzzah! the standard advice came about because players arrived in illyriad in a time before guides and tutorials and asked "what do i do now?". i think we're beyond it now. and there is no longer any point to racing to ten cities because ten cities is not the end. in any case, the greatest danger to a new player is not remaining irrelevant for too long, or failing to build an army quickly enough to defend him/herself...it's becoming bored while hewing too close to the "optimal" advice. most players will never see ten cities. i have ten. it's a lot like having nine...only more. if you weren't enjoying the game at nine, ten will not solve that, so best get on with finding something about the game that you like and keep doing it.
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Posted By: King korr
Date Posted: 11 Apr 2015 at 00:19
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Solanar i agree with point's raised in this post i regular tell members that guides we write and advice we give it what we're found useful it isn't by any mean's how it should be done just how i've found it useful. (Or the people giving the advice.) Same as waiting to joining an alliance to me join as soon as possible even if it's means leaving as it could take you a few tries to find an alliance that suit's you be in active AC or even an AC where your happy talking. So why wait 2 weeks to join an alliance then have to move if the alliance doesn't fit you as 80% of alliance won't care if you had 2 days in one alliance in but left as it didn't fit you.
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Posted By: Epidemic
Date Posted: 11 Apr 2015 at 00:21
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I've been told I am an expert in 'Do it your own way' and I would contribute to this thread, but that is not my way of doing it. I would be willing to share my knowledge for a minimal fee. Contact me if interested. Do it your own wayDo it you own way'Do it your own way |
Posted By: Thorgrim
Date Posted: 11 Apr 2015 at 09:43
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Hear Hear! ------------- http://elgea.illyriad.co.uk/a/p/260239" rel="nofollow"> 
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Posted By: Gragnog
Date Posted: 11 Apr 2015 at 12:06
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This post is exactly what I have been saying for years. I never followed the advice so freely handed out in GC, built up troops from day, attacked anything I could find, and had fun. I eventually joined an alliance that did help my growth but always was producing troops and testing things. The GC advice is good for the people who want to socialize and spend their days being bored, but following your own way is the best advice anyone can give. With the changes in number of cities you can have 7 food has become more valuable but it people still want to aim for 20 or more cities it can still be attained with not so optimum food cities. The bottom line is PLAY HOW YOU WANT TO PLAY AND DO NOT TRY FORCE YOUR WAYS ONTO OTHERS. Choose your neighbors wisely, settle your cities in areas that benefit your play style and avoid areas where you might be drawn into issues you do not want to be part of. If you find yourself in a place of conflict and you do not like it move to a more peaceful area and visa versa. Just remember the bigger alliances will say they do not force their will on but in reality they will do just that so it is best to settle away from them if you want to play freely. ------------- Kaggen is my human half |
Posted By: TheBillPN
Date Posted: 11 Apr 2015 at 14:33
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I agree with Loonie, i spent some time pressing buttons until i broke something, and it was fun. Admittedly, i was recruited into an alliance almost immediately, and the i was constantly overwhelmed with vats of res, but i had fun overall. i experimented with what you could do, killed things, annoyed people (always made up in the end though, mostly), chatted, sent out diplos to random points to see what happens, Of course i spew out the usual things in GC, do this do that, but then i always add the extra bit on the end saying that if you don't find this appealing then do something else. i always send more than just basics in care-a-vans so people can build more than just storehouses. i haven't gone down the get loads of pop route since i got my fifth town. i'm constantly demoing and rebuilding other buildings to see what they do and how well they work for me. i haven't gone past 29000 pop in ages... all in all i think that players should have some basis on how to start out, but shouldn't be pressured into doing the standard routine for the entire game. they should have room to grow and get a feel the game for themselves.
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Posted By: abstractdream
Date Posted: 11 Apr 2015 at 14:50
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+1 ------------- |
Posted By: Hora
Date Posted: 11 Apr 2015 at 14:53
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This advice from Solanar works also without accepting Res from GC... I started in a time without res bombardements and never needed any extra building materials except the very first gift caravans from King Sigurd. It took me about a month to get my first ally invitation (without GC again), stayed in there until it disbanded and got another invitation immediately =) Oh, and the optimization... well, I started in first year of Illy and still have "just" 8 cities... OK, also due to exodus and one lost war... but mostly because it's so much effort and so "mainstream" to follow the perfect way, and too expensive to buy vast loads of prestige. About prestige... well, you won't be able to outperform a player pumping in lots of money. But hey! I'm still here, having fun playing Illy, do some leadership stuff in a top five alliance... so I guess it's definitly right to say one can play Illy for free (many thanks to the great devs for that!  ) |
Posted By: Solanar
Date Posted: 11 Apr 2015 at 17:52
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Angrim, My strong opinions on the subject of recruitment and waiting has to do with the frequent hypocrisy I saw as a new player. Over and over, players preaching not to join an alliance right away were the same people sending invites to first and second day newbs. It held a flavor of "Don't join an alliance right away, I need my shot at sending you an invite first." I don't pay as close attention any more, but I have noticed occasions of it in the last few months as well - when it's a training alliance doing the hypocrisy, maybe there is some justification, but often it's very small alliances who cannot properly care of the newbs once they have them. Still and all, joining an alliance too soon can work out well - it did for me, and others who have commented in this thread - and if it doesn't, the price is a small one (unless of course they quit altogether) Sola
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Posted By: Diva
Date Posted: 11 Apr 2015 at 18:34
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It took me a few days, but I didn't join a training alliance. I didn't know about training alliances as they were not in the top 10/20 on the alliance pages. I wrote to leadership of one who said they were not used to "training" anyone, but to come on in. I asked a zillion and one questions, everyday, no guide was offered. I eventually started visiting the forums and got blurbs of info.. but got better info from the vets in the alliance I joined. Guidance from experienced people helped me understand it a lot better. The training alliance I am now in as a #Diva advisory vetted with the Mother alliance writes its own guides in easy speak and the ac is VERY active for the same reason the Mother alliance was to me originally. There are boons to either alliance, and both vetted and training alliance should/will help along the ways of the game. I don't think that the "funn" campaign is PRO anything, just a way of helps. That's the way I see it. (I did benefit by somehow joining the one with Mannanan, but at the time, I didn't know him from any other vet) luck of the draw I guess.
 ------------- "Um diva.... you are sort of acting like a .... diva...." - PhoenixFire |
Posted By: Solanar
Date Posted: 12 Apr 2015 at 03:10
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Here's a trick to add to the anti-guide here. Vets leave sometimes. Lots of us mourn their passing. Many others ravage the cities to get all the resources, population, and research that is available. Once a players last city is taken, they get a new city, at 0 pop, randomly placed in the newbie circle. That city has no buildings and no resources, but it has all the research that was in their last city to fall - and can be quickly taken by a cavalry siege. It doesn't give all the bonuses of sieging an existing city, but its FAR better than sending a settler. And when you take THAT city? Another one with all the same research spawns. Enjoy! (Please note, I haven't done this in more than a year, so if something changed, I apologize for raising your hopes) EDIT: THE ABOVE TRICK HAS SINCE BEEN FIXED AND NO LONGER WORKS
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Posted By: Mr Damage
Date Posted: 16 Apr 2015 at 07:11
| Doing it your own way, thats how we roll in Grey. Nice post Solanar. |
Posted By: Malus
Date Posted: 17 Apr 2015 at 18:13
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This is a great anti-guide. Thanks |
Posted By: jcx
Date Posted: 18 Apr 2015 at 02:12
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Well guided players achieved optimized and efficient cities. :) ------------- Disclaimer: The above is jcx|orcboy's personal opinion and is not the opinion or policy of Harmless? [H?] or of the little green men that have been following him all day. jcx in H? | orcboy in H? |
Posted By: Jane DarkMagic
Date Posted: 20 Nov 2015 at 04:42
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"Once a players last city is taken, they get a new city, at 0 pop, randomly placed in the newbie circle. That city has no buildings and no resources, but it has all the research that was in their last city to fall - and can be quickly taken by a cavalry siege. It doesn't give all the bonuses of sieging an existing city, but its FAR better than sending a settler" Didn't the devs fix this a few months ago? Or am I mistaken?
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Posted By: Solanar
Date Posted: 20 Nov 2015 at 04:48
| I'm afraid they might have fixed it in response to this thread. Thanks for the reminder, I'll edit it out. |
Posted By: Ptolemy
Date Posted: 20 Nov 2015 at 20:56
| Back to siegeing already made cities we go. |