Perhaps I am missing something...

[pedal2000]

So while scanning through a list of maps the other day I picked out Heroes and Empires as a map to try and I personally feel it has great potential.

The issue is that perhaps I don't understand exactly how to play. I prefer the Empire side of it, while my friends (whom I play with) prefer heroes so it works out well; unfortunately while they're off romping around I am usually immensely confused as to how to do anything with the Empire.

Questions:
#1. Income. For any massive organization you need income; and you need to be expanding it; the issue I've had so far is regardless of how many "Citizens" I delegate to Commercial work, how many Town Centers I build or how much I raise taxes too I still maintain a measly 5 or 6 gold income every tick. How do you go about raising this? Can you raise it?

#2. Research. Perhaps I am missing something again but unfortunately I can't seem to find it. I assign Citizens to work in Science, and then recieve a message regarding having people assigned to research but no research project. Build a lab, click on a project; and then wait. and wait. And wait. and wait. Eventually I realize that it isn't making any progress, as the number "0" continually ticks upwards and the progress bar doesn't move.

I also have tried continously expanding my number of Citizens, maybe a lack of workers was the issue, no dice there either. 30+ Citizens, no increased income, no research.

Another issue I've been having is the items the Heroes get - "Wood, Iron, etc" - It claims they are used to build objects or buildings, yet nothing I have ever built has required that. In fact, I can't even pick the items up; I have no one who has item slots period. None of my soldiers, none of my peons, no one. Not even my buildings.

Finally, buildings. How does one get new buildings to build? Foundation creates many, as well as others but despite however far I progress I never seem to 'unlock' new buildings - Upgrades on old ones, yes. (Improved Campfire, New towers, Barracks, etc) But it still feels like a fairly limited build order considering most of the Foundations buildings are designed to increase population. Is there a way to get new stuff?

Thanks for the help in advance.
-Pedal

[FinalLegacy]

i see you're new with the game but its never too late to learn i suppose...
1. dont raise your taxes too much; your people will leave and less people paying more doesnt quite raise your income. just build more houses and keep taxes low. you can raise taxes after giving your people things like a church and a pool... id pay more for luxery...
2. i dont remember that area, too long ago i did a decent game of empire playing but other people on the forum will know
3. the items the heroes get are for heroes only. completely useless for empires, but dont destroy them for being in your base, on a spot you want to build; your allied heroes can sell them for tradepoints or when they're builder they can make buildings and items of them.
and last but not least: age up in your main building, just like the age of empires system.

[Dragon451]

I may have some of these things wrong, but they work fairly well for me: If you don't have recreation buildings like campfires, churches, etc.., you can go down to 75% people relaxing. If you manage to get them all, I think you can go down to 50% people relaxing, without having people leave from that. All this assumes that your people love you. The tax and rations rates that I have found to work are 1/6, 3/9, 5/12, 7/15, 8/17, and 9/19. If you go above that, you probably need more houses. My building plan uses 36 houses, and they all have access to every recreation structure. If you hire heroes, your income goes down by the percentage that you have the hero hired for.

2- The more citizens you get, the more money research costs, and the faster it gets completed. It is hard to get any research done with huts and cottages. Tech up at the main building to research faster.

3- What Final said, and no, there aren't really that many different types of buildings, although there are lots of upgrades for buildings.

[Royce13]

Dragon yes your food/tax is good but 2/7 works too.

There are alot of ways to build an empire 1 is to make a shit load of houses make the church which is +750 range and the shopping mall. There is on more thing but i don't know it is like +1000 range 500 gold 2500 wood i think...

Then you do the big houses just get farms like maybe 30 and then just upgrade them at the lab so you don't have to build more farms over the time.

When you do the little empire with few houses you can get the house upgrade and that makes it easyer when you try to use little room like in gods play where it is hard to get 3 empires in to one spot if one empire is an ass and takes all the room.. *looks around*

[Dragon451]

Royce, if you would just expand a little bit faster, perhaps certain people, not to name any names *cough cough* that strange, greedy Dragon person *cough cough* wouldn't be able to build farms in your residential districts ;D...Back on topic, the +1000 range, 500 gold, 2500 lumber building is a theater. Pedal, you need to find the combination of recreation structures that works best for you. Some people (like me) like to have everything, and others are fine with none.

[Royce13]

Na i just made it more detailed... Plus i said about bigger and smaller empires and what to tech in each one so

[Setokaiva]

heh pedal, if you're new to this game, find me online on b.net sometime and ill help you learn how to play.

But I can offer a few tips here...

1: Start building in a relatively spacious, yet defensible area. You won't want to have to split your forces among 3-4 fronts at once. When you think you've found a good spot, click Unpack. Have the 5 workers that pop out build a Wooden Town Hall close to the trees. When the town hall is done, your workers will go to get wood -- let them. Train more workers from the Town Hall to use in constructing your town.

2: During the Grace Period, you will have 10 minutes of peace without K man's goons (Reference to Kalendens men) breathing down your neck. Dont waste it. If a rebellion camp or Power Obelisk (in particular) appears, send your men to take it out ASAP. the last thing you need is Kalenden getting backup from rebel scum and massive power-ups.

3: After you have trained 4-5 workers for construction, train some more and task them on wood. Build some roads with your construction team -- you will need to build them adjacent to your Town Hall or another road. Place lines of roads and build Huts alongside them. Upgrade to Neolithic age at your Town Hall to encourage bigger housing. Once you have enough resources for it, build a Farm to get food. Up your Ration level as high as it will go without your food decreasing, then increase Tax a bit. A good ratio for tax/ration would be 1:3. Continue to modulate your Tax and Ration level to squeeze maximum profits out of your populace without them being unhappy.

3: You're going to need military very soon, once Kalenden discovers some daring souls have settled into his land. Find a good place to build a few Wooden Barracks. Training troops is a bit harsh on early game resources, so make sure you watch your spending. You obviously want the best possible troops that your current age level will allow. A good strategy is to keep a small force at home while your main force is out hunting monsters to gain veterancy, and hauling some workers along to build Campfires for the heroes to teleport to. When in combat, always have your Spear Throwers/Archers or anything with Arrow-based attacks target the heroes first -- they deal *massively* enhanced damage to heroes.

4: As for Science. You will need to have advanced to at least the Stone Age to build a Science Laboratory (but you probably already know that from what i read in this post). Go to your Town Hall, and check its inventory. Move your cursor over the icons until you find Science, then click it a few times to get people working. With sufficient funds and labor, your Science Laboratory will be able to research upgrades for you.

--Setokaiva

[Royce13]

A good ratio for tax/ration would be 1:3.

Good ratio for tax/ration would be 1/6 2/7 3/9 4/11 5/13 6/15 7/17 9/19 10/21

[Setokaiva]

that sounds good to me... forget what i said about ratios if you read that, pedal.

[TLI-Inferno]

Here is what I nromally do.
There will be two sections in this, one for heroes, and one for empires.

Empires
Always keep tax at 1/2 of the rations or slightly lower
EX: 5:10, 7:15
Always build farms, and contintue to upgrade them using the thing that you upgrade from foundation (thats what research in main building is for)
as your food gets higher, you can raise rations, but raising rations will also give more citizens, who may eat more food, which will lower your food, so keep rations stable
try to keep your tax:ration ratios between 5:10 and 25:50, 5:10 for when you are struggling.
If your food gets low that you have to have below 5:10, you definately need more farms
If your food gets so high that it still shoots up with 25:50, then you need to build more houses and upgrade to higher ages to get more citizens, which will consume more food, but also result in a higher income.

heroes:
level up and kill creeps. builders should use items to build things
if you are not a builder, give the items to a builder, rather than selling them
if you dont want to waste possible money, you can always just give items to the builder for him to build things for you, rather than keeping all items in the game for himself.
if this is too boring to even read, sorry, but it is the basic strat, and as long as you learn to play and follow this, you will no longer enter times of economic crisis.

[ScytaleIRAx]

i've said it before and ill repeat it again... to maintain 'love' happiness you must have 2tax+2=rations for your ratio, but its not quite linear like that, so that only applies for tax 4-10... first 20 examples:
1:4
2:6
3:9
4:10
5:12
6:14
7:16
8:18
9:20
10:21
11:23
12:25
13:27
14:29
15:31
16:32
17:34
18:36
19:38
20:40

hope the list helps...

[Setokaiva]

are taxes based on a gold-per-citizen ratio? like tax 5, 5 people means 25 gold?

[TLI-Inferno]

i dunno, but its diff than that, like 5 tax and 20000 citizens is like 50 income or something?

[Setokaiva]

well i do know that the work settings at the town hall go by 5% increments. clicking on Commercial will increase your tax income by 5%, for example. This comes at a cost of lowering the housing growth rate.

[simon]

how do u tech stuff up? got the advanced lab but cant use cause i need to to tech stuff up.