Friday, July 15, 2011

Funds and Ministers

Although it's possible to play without using real money, the game is a lot more enjoyable if you do.  Some top alliances require that you play with ministers to be considered for membership.  Ministers are the most valuable purchases in the game.  They will help automate many repetitive actions and efficiently build, trade, raid and recruit while you are not playing.  You will progress much faster when you have ministers.  

The best purchase is the minister bundle.  You get all 4 ministers for about $6/month.  

Ministers can also be obtained as rewards when completing two city related quests.  

  • 2 Cities – Building Minister for 48 hour
  • 4 Cities – All Ministers for 120 hours


Occasionally, EA will also give give our free minister code on Facebook or Twitter


BUILDING MINISTER

Minister7 days30 days
Build Minister890 Funds2390 Funds

FEATURES

  • The Minister extends your building queue from 6 slots to 16 in total.
  • The Minister can take construction orders even if you lack the resources to build and can carry them out while you are absent.
    • The Minister’s order will be placed in the queue as usual and can also be sorted.
    • As soon as the Minister’s order reaches the top of the queue, he will spend the necessary resources, if they are available.
    • If there are insufficient resources available , the next order will be verified and executed unless you chose the option to keep a fixed order.
    • At any point, you can convert a Minister’s order into a normal one.
  • With the minister you will get a resource overview window.

DEFENSE MINISTER

Minister7 days30 days
Defense Minister890 Funds2390 Funds

FEATURES

  • The Minister will automatically alert members of your alliance of any impending attack.
    • Anyone online and in your alliance will be alerted if a fellow member faces attack.
    • Everyone in your alliance will be able to see which of your cities is under attack, at what time, and by whom.
  • The Minister extends your recruitment queue by 12 slots to 16 in total.
  • The Minister can take orders for units even if you lack the necessary resources to recruit and can carry them out while you are absent.
    • The Minister’s order will be placed in the queue as usual.
    • As soon as the Minister’s order reaches the top of the queue, he will carry it out, if the necessary resources are available.
    • If there are insufficient resources to place the full order, but enough for 20 heads, the order will be automatically converted, split and executed.
    • If there are insufficient resources available , the next order will be verified and executed, unless you chose the option to keep a fixed order.
    • At any point, you can convert a Minister’s order into a normal one.
  • With the minister you will get a defense overview window.

DEFENSE OVERVIEW

Oversee the defensive preparedness of your entire empire, ensuring you are fully ready for your enemy’s next offensive action.
  • Track the total number of units holding station in each of your cities, including all friendly support.
  • Monitor the total number of units stationed in your city after all incoming friendly troops have arrived.
  • Have access to a complete chronological overview of all incoming attacks, as well as incoming supporting troops.
  • Take full advantage of our customizable and resizable Defense Overview Window, which also provides direct access to each of your cities.

WAR MINISTER

Minister7 days30 days
War Minister890 Funds2390 Funds

FEATURES

  • The Minister can order any army you sent to raid a dungeon to repeat its mission.
    • You can activate or deactivate this repeated raid mode for any army currently raiding or returning from a raid.
    • To do so, select a raid force in a city’s command overview and choose any option other than \“Once\”.
    • Units killed in the previous raid will be automatically replaced by fresh ones, if they’re available.
    • You can set deadlines for raiding armies to be back in their cities. They will automatically stop raiding to ensure they return in time.
    • You can set a minimum troop raiding strength. If an army falls below this, it will return home.
  • The Minister can carry out any attack or support command while you are absent.
    • Whenever you order an army to assault, siege, plunder, spy or support, the order can be carried out while you are absent.
    • You can either define when you want commands executed, or when you want units to arrive at their destinations.
  • With the minister you will get a command overview window.

COMMAND OVERVIEW

Mobilize and manage your forces with ease using the ultimate army overview!
  • Know precisely where every single one of your troops is stationed or headed, complete with troop type details and arrival times.
  • Track your supporting forces and call them home with just the single click of a button.
  • Start, stop, and set up repeated raids with ease.
  • Take full advantage of our customizable and resizable Command Overview Window, which also provides direct access to each of your cities.

TRADE MINISTER

Minister7 days30 days
Trade Minister890 Funds2390 Funds

FEATURES

The Trade Minister will assist you with resource management. You can define an individual trade setup for each of your cities, and he will assist you by automatically ordering trade transports accordingly. To avoid spoilage, he will purify resources if capacity is reached by production or incoming resources.
The minister can order trade transports according to the parameters you have set, at anytime.
  • For each city, you can define target resource levels which indicate the amount of each resource the Trade Minister should endeavor to maintain in your city at any given time.
  • If the city has fewer resources, the Trade Minister will request them from a city of your choice.
  • If the city has surplus resources, you can define what the Trade Minister should do with them.
  • Surplus can be delivered to another city of your choice, or the Trade Minister can purify it.
  • Surplus can also be stored to be available for other cities requesting resources.
  • The Trade Minister will always choose the faster route if both land and sea connections are available.
The Trade Minister will avoid spoilage of resources while you are absent. – If a city reaches capacity by production, he will purify resources to avoid any loss. – If an incoming trade transport or looted resources would exceed capacity, he will purify resources to avoid any loss. – If refunds for downgraded or demolished buildings exceed capacity, he will purify resources to avoid any loss.
The resource overview will move to the Trade Minister. For at least one month after the update, the resource overview will also be available if you own the Building Minister.
Players with 3 ministers active as the Trade Minister was released obtained the Trade Minister for free until the expiration of the minister with the shortest duration left at the time of release (up to 30 days).

MINISTER BUNDLE

Bundle7 days30 days
Minister Bundle2390 Funds5990 Funds





Palace Hubs

Continental or Palace Hub - Ideal for shipping resources to palaces.  
  • Layout: http://bit.ly/nun8Tk
  • Storage: 40 million wood, 40 million stone, 7 million iron, 7 million food
  • Carts: 6200
  • If use as a palace hub, this should be built close to a shrine.
  • Should be on water to receive intercontinental shipments
  • All cities in the region should ship surplus resources here

Other Hub Layouts - You can build fewer of storage and more carts/ships as you need.  I also like to add a barrack and a trinsic temple to send barons to new continents.





As the game progresses, you'll need more and more and more storage and shipment to palaces.  I will show you how to create a system of hubs, consisting of 2, 6, or 8 hubs in a later entry.

Gold City/Hub

Gold City/Hub

As mentioned in the previous post about gold income, pure gold city is less efficient than putting some gold in every city.  The exception to that is a gold city/hub.  When you have 5 cities, you need a hub.  The goal of the hub is to store resources as well as transport resources to other cities as needed.  So it needs a lot of warehouses, marketplaces and harbors.  Marketplaces and harbors also increases gold production, so a gold/hub hybrid is a good mix!

Small Hub - Ideal for regional hub. Empire has 5-50 cities, mostly resource cities.
  • Layout: http://bit.ly/qTRLVP
  • Storage: 3.5 million wood, 3.5 million stone, 1.1 million iron, 1.1 million food
  • Gold/hr: 40,800
  • Carts: 2800
  • Ships: 180



Medium Hub - Regional hub. Ideal for when you have about 50-100 cities, resource and military cities.
  • Layout: http://bit.ly/qAyhIG
  • Storage: 8.9 million wood, 8.9 million stone, 4.1 million iron, 4.1 million food
  • Gold/hr: 36,000
  • Carts: 2400
  • Ships: 180

Gold City

Pure Gold City

Gold becomes increasingly important as you progress in the game.  From when you have 5 to 50 cities, gold is very scarce.  You need gold for title research and to recruit certain troops (mage, guardian, templar, scout, knight, warlock, crossbowman, paladin, frigate, war galleon and baron).  It also gives you the flexibility to buy resources you are short on.  You can store an unlimited amount of gold.  [Once you stop building resource cities and only build military cities, raiding will bring in so much gold and you'll have to start worrying about food.  But for now, Gold City!]

At max, a pure gold city can produce a little over 45k/hr.  See Gold City Layout here.


The city has 3000 carts and 180 ships but these carts and ships will be rarely used if ever.  In the next post, I'll show you how to turn gold city into a gold city/hub which is a much more efficient use for this city.

How to build a Gold City
  1. Overlay the layout above on your selected city.  Your city should be next to a river
  2. Upgrade your town hall to level 4
  3. Build 40 cottages where a permanent building will not be placed (i.e. the Northwestern quadrant of your city)
  4. Upgrade the cottages to level 6 or 7, CS should be around 2000%
  5. Upgrade your town hall to lvl 10
  6. Place all buildings on available empty space as shown on the overlayout
  7. Upgrade all buildings to lvl 10
  8. Destroy resource nodes in the center section and the Lower Right section of your city
  9. Delete cottages and replace them with permanent buildings.  

Gold Production in River Cities
  • The pure goldcity produces 45,180g/hr, so each building makes 451g/hr.
  • The center section of the city has 58 buildings and makes 25,600g/hr.  Thus each building makes 441g/hr.
  • The first 15 river buildings make 506g/building.  The next 6 river buildings make 466g/building.
  • Building on water makes the most income/building.  So every city on water should have at least 15 buildings for gold.  You also need marketplaces and/or harbor in almost every city, so putting gold in every city makes more sense than building pure gold city.
15 river buildings 

21 river buildings 

27 river buildings

33 river buildings

Thursday, July 14, 2011

First 7 Days Tutorial

Do this anytime you get a chance:

  • Join an alliance - there are plenty of alliances looking for members, just type "looking for an alliance" in general chat and someone will probably respond to you.  If that fails, email the recruiter of an alliance you find on ranking.  You may want to join the training alliance of an established alliance on your continent.  They will probably provide you with better protection, guides, and leadership.
  • Read everything on LoU wiki.  Knowledge is power.  Read up!


Day 1
  • Finish the tutorial
  • Plan the layout for your first city (see previous post First City Layout
  • Upgrade your town hall to lvl 4
  • Build a warehouse
  • Build 39 buildings woodcutter huts/quarries in the best locations (locations that would produce the most resources.)  You can see the production of that building by hovering over it on the autoplanner 2)
  • Upgrade all buildings to as high as you can.  Upgrade all the level 2 before you upgrade any to level 3. If you have LoU tweak installed, just type the letter "l" and your lowest building will be added to the building queue.  [Don't hit it too fast or LoU will lock you out.  If you get locked out, try loging out, disable LoU tweaks, restart browser, log back in and enable LoU tweaks.]
    • Optional: you may ask for resources from alliance members and upgrade your town hall to lvl 5
Day 2
  • Upgrade your town hall to level 5
  • Build 10 more buildings of woodcutter huts/quarries in the best locations
  • Upgrade all buildings to as high as you can, but save enough resource to build town hall to lvl 6
  • Upgrade your town hall to level 6
  • Build 10 more buildings of woodcutter huts/quarries and keep on upgrading
  • Try to get 3k/hr wood and 2k/hr stone production by end of day


Day 3
  • Upgrade all buildings to has high as you can, save for TH lvl 7
  • Upgrade your town hall to level 7
  • Build 10 more resource buildings/cottages in the best locations.  Notice that you will start building other types of resources food/iron and cottages now.
  • Upgrade all buildings
  • Try to get 6k/hr wood 4k/hr stone and 200% construction speed


Day 4
  • Upgrade all buildings to has high as you can, save for TH lvl 8
  • Upgrade your town hall to level 8
  • Build 2 marketplaces
  • Build 8 more resource buildings/cottages in the best locations.  This will include some sawmills and stonemasons and townhouses
  • Upgrade all buildings
  • Try to get 12k/hr wood, 8k/hr stone, 2k/hr iron, 2k/hr food, 1k/hr gold and over 500% construction speed by end of day.
  • If you have extra resources, you can sell them on the marketplace to get extra gold


Day 5
  • Upgrade all buildings, save enough for lvl 9
  • Upgrade your town hall to level 9
  • Build 10 more resource buildings/cottages in the best locations.
  • Try to get 15k/hr wood, 12k/hr stone, 4k/hr iron, 3k/hr food, 4k/hr gold and over 1000% construction speed
  • If you have extra resources, you can sell them on the marketplace to get extra gold


Day 6
  • Upgrade your town hall to level 10
  • Build a trinsic temple, a moonglow tower and a barrack
  • focus on upgrading trinsic temple and moonglow tower to lvl10.  Upgrade your marketplaces so you have at least 250 carts.
  • Save up to have at least 100k wood, 100k stone, 75k iron, 25k food, and 100k gold
  • Recruit a baron (50k iron 100k gold)


Day 7
  • Look for a space close to your current city on the regional map.  Optimize for spaces with lots of surrounding forests or hills.  You get more wood if the city is next to forest, more stone if it's next to hills.  It should be less than 1 hr away from your current city by cart.  The closer it is to your current city, the better.
  • Send out your baron to found the new city.
Congratulations!  You've found a new city.  Now you can use the autoplanner to build another city.  This city won't have the trinsic temple or a barrack, but still has the moonglow tower and 1 or 2 marketplaces.  Aim for over 80k/hr resource production.

What you DON'T need to build:

If you're in an alliance that doesn't make an enemy out of themselves, you don't need to build hideouts, cityguards, any traps, towers, walls, or any military buildings.  Don't build a castle until you have at least 10 cities.  If someone plunders you, just purify all your resources so they don't get anything.  



Your First City in LoU

The goal of the first city is to make a second city. This city has following buildings:
  • about 74 resource buildings (wood/stone/iron/food/gold)
  • 20 cottages (next to wood/stone or iron)
  • a moonglow tower (to purify resources)
  • a barrack (to house your baron)
  • a trinsic temple (to produce a baron)
  • at least 2 marketplaces (to send resources with your baron to found a new city)
  • 1 warehouse (if you don't play often, you may want to add another warehouse)
This is my first city layout: http://bit.ly/pj0Io6
Note: when you go through the tutorial, you have to build a hideout, a cityguard house and a training ground.  I destroyed these buildings afterwards to make room for more resource buildings.





After the tutorial, you should download LoU Tweaks (see previous post.) Click on the "L" button and use either the autoplanner 1 or the autoplanner 2 to plan your city with wood/stone/iron/food resource buildings.  Manually add 1 or 2 warehouses next to either a sawmill or a stonemason.  Add at least 2 marketplaces (you may want to add a 3rd marketplace or a harbor.)  Add townhouses next to marketplaces or harbor.  Add a trinsic temple and a barrack next to it.  Add a moonglow tower.  After you're done with the layout, COPY URL in the autoplanner and paste in the Overlay layout box of the city layout.  Apply layout and build your city exactly as planned.

You can optionally build the entire city manually without the help of the autoplanner.  I personally recommend this so that you enjoy the whole experience of LoU, then compare your build to the one generated by the autoplanner.

LoU Third Party Tools


Add-Ons/Tools/Scripts

Don't get too overwelmed by all the scripts.  They're supposed to make game play easier, not confusing. There are tens of different types of scripts out there, some of them are illegal because they replicate ministers.  I'm only posting the ones that are pre-approved by EA.  If you're a beginner, start wit LoU Tweak and learn how to use the auto city planner.  When you have time, try out the other ones.

Firefox users need to download Greesemonkey : https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/greasemonkey/

LoU Tweak: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/80532. This gives you keyboard shortcuts so you can do things faster, adds a "L" button so you can get the layout of your city, and lets you put overlay of the planned city over your current city. A must!!!

One Defiant Extension (TDK): http://www.senocular.com/chrome/extensions/lou/LoUDefiant_about.html.  One click shortcuts to send palace resources, attack, siege, plunder, one click to build a type of buildings, etc...

MERC Tools: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/150349. Provide additional info on incoming attacks.  Use palace items below your current title on alliance members enlightened cities. Generate mailing list for each continent.  Provide title advancement info and purified resource.  If you have ministers, it can also assist with raid scheduling.  Assist with combat scheduling.  Fill building queue with unpaid orders.  Convert unpaid orders to paid orders.

LoU Dungeons Riding:  Provide additional info to dungeon reports. http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/132554
  
Die Fanfare, Die!!!  Remove the fanfare button under command summary. http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/151805

BoS tools: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/84343. Gives you a summary of your production/hr, and other stats of your empire.

LoU Suiteshttp://userscripts.org/scripts/show/127647.  I use it mainly for the boss raider

SkraggleScript (SKS)http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/142304.  Assist with dungeon raids, boss raids, PvP.  Provide incoming attack info, etc.

LoU City Sort.  Sorts your cities by their reference. http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/142855

Nessus River Guardian Tools.  Another script that assist with raids and PvP. http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/129990


Auto City planners

Auto City planner 1: http://2.latest.loof78.appspot.com/lou_city. This is use in conjunction with the Flash City Planner: http://www.lou-fcp.co.uk/

Auto City planner 2: http://city.louopt.com

I personally use auto city planner 1, but auto city planner 2 is easier to use. The autoplanners are not accurate for food cities. I will show you how to make food cities in a later post. After you downloaded LoU Tweaks, (you may have to restart your browser) click on the L button underneath the building queue to get a layout of your city.

The autoplanners help you build efficient resource cities. I will show you how to build military cities in a later post. Pure resource cities should yield from 75k to 90k/hr (food counts as .5, gold counts as 1.7), depending on the location of the city. I've seen so many cities with 60k/hr that makes me cringe! The more efficient your city, the faster you'll grow. Don't build mix resource/military cities. It's much more efficient to build pure resource or pure military. The only exception is if you don't use ministers, then you'll need food in military cities.

It takes me about 5 minutes to plan a new city with the autoplanner. I usually use these modifiers
  • use_slots=97
  • num_cottages=20
Now that I have maxed out construction speed research and construction speed bonus from shrine, I use num_cottages=0

It may take a little bit of time to learn how to use the auto planner, but it's the best secret in LoU. If you use this, you'll automatically be better than anyone who don't use it. The Autoplanner is a must!!!

Intro

About me...

I've been playing Lord of Ultima (LoU) for about 7 months. My main empire is in World 20. I also have a secondary empire in World 25 to feed my addiction when World 20 is down for maintenance. If you want to play with me, this is my referral link.

Why should you listen to what I have to say?

As of today, I am Emperor Sleepmonster in World 20 with 338 cities. Below are
some of my stats
  • score: 3,101,994
  • 224 non-castled cities, 102 castles, 12 palaces
  • passive income: Wood/Stone/Iron/Food/Gold 4.2/3.6/3/-1/1.1 million/hr
  • raid income: 36million/hr
  • military: 20 million offensive TS (troop strength), 9 million defensive TS, 1.6 million UD (units defeated), 22 billion resource plundered
What I write on this blog is drawn from my own or my alliance member's experiences. If you have any questions, just ask.