Forge of Empires Strategy & Tips (A guide for the beginning noob)

Forge Of Empires Strategy and Tips

This is a quick, simple write-up I did for my guild in Forge of Empires for newer players. It is assumed you have a little bit of playing experience and want to really fine tune your playing time on FoE. I am not the end all authority on the game, but I am pretty good and I have never dropped any cash for diamonds to accelerate progress. If you do want to pay for diamonds to upgrade and get big quick WITHOUT using your own money, then check out swagbucks. I use it daily to accumulate points for $25 Paypal gift cards. You can use these Paypal gift cards and spend them on Forge of Empires or whatever you like. Yes it is real and it is free. Basically, watching a few videos to be rewarded points. Hope it helps and I welcome any feedback that may improve everyone's playing time on FoE.

1. Follow the donate strategy early. Some call it the Diamond mining strategy, some call it the donate strategy. I call it smart. The donate strategy is when you start off in bronze age (works for other ages too) and build lots of huts for coins, plus 2 potteries and 2 blacksmiths. Abort all the quests you can UNTIL you get to the gather coins quest from the jester. This will be a random reward quest. The more huts you have, the quicker you can get the coins together. Once the quest is complete (1800 coins), you get a random prize and you can KEEP your gathered coins. Usually it is coins or supplies, sometimes it is diamonds, goods or FP packs. Lately, it has been mostly goods. However, once the quest is complete...IT WILL REPEAT. Cycle through the quests and abort again until you get to the coin quest. If you have built 2 pottery and 2 blacksmiths, you can actually accept those quests for random gifts too. It will asks for two 24hr production gifts from those suppliers. I do those everyday and get MORE random gifts. Also, you can do the quest for using FP (Forge Points). All told you can repeat the quest infinitely until you advance in age (keep reading for my thoughts on this and why not to do it) or until you do the research 2 tech quest(DON'T DO THIS QUEST). So keep aborting and hitting the random gifts. save the FP packages for another tip I will give you later (see tip#6). 

2. Do not advance in age until you are ready. You need to know that there are bullies out there like me who will take your stuff. I prey on the weak and those who refuse to defend the goodies. In my profile you will notice that if you don't want to get plundered (who does?) send me a friend request or beef up your defense. I don't want to be a bully but if you leave your stuff guarded by a couple of stick tossers, I am taking your groceries. Best things to build in bronze are either 2 spear chuckers or 2 slingers bldgs. That give you 8 of either troop you decide to make. I like using 8 slingers in bronze. Small buildings, relatively cheap and quick soldiers who can kill from a distance. You can pick off tons of neighbors small troops with 8 slingers without sustaining any damage. This is also a good way to learn how battle mechanics on the battlefield work. If people complain about how you plundered their 20 lumber they had been saving, tell them to invite you to be a friend so you can't attack or kiss your butt and learn how to defend. This is mostly a war game, stop crying. Why should you not advance too early and just wait and gather stuff in your donate strategy? Because your neighborhood will change on Mondays. Sometimes it takes two weeks, but you will see new neighbors eventually. The hoods are arranged so that players are grouped into like technology advancement. If you are still in bronze or iron or whatever, then you will most likely get matched with players who are still in that age too. however, if you wait and keep building and waiting, you can use your forge points that you were going to use advancing in tech on something a bit more useful...(See tip#6).

3. Gather a lot of friends. I don't recommend using your friend invites on your neighbors. Let your neighbors invite you to keep you from plundering so you don't waste your invites on them. I think you are only allowed 80 invites and another 40 you can accept from others (not exactly sure on those numbers). Besides, your neighbors are either going to provide you with plundering time or they are going to join your guild. Why would they join us? Because you are a war-beast and they want the pain to stop and they are unaffiliated with a guild. Yes send GUILD invites to these neighborhood players. You don't want to friend your guildmates, it just waste your friend spaces. Now that you know what to do with neighbors, you need more friends. Go to Global Chat and tell people you are accepting friend requests or that you would like to add more friends. You will get a ton this way. Fill up your friend list as best you can. The more people you have as friends, the more chances you will get of getting blueprints from them through motivating/polishing. 

4. Use your profile page for a reason - Learn how to write on your profile area. You need to tell people what you would like to have done when they visit. Polish, Coins or Supplies and in what order you need them in. Advanced players usually just state PCS or S-C-P. That will tell you the order they prefer. I like to have POLISH as my first option because I like to stay polished and happy. The reason I do this is because I don't keep too many happiness buildings in my city. Why? If you have a big cultural building like a tavern and it gets polished, the happiness DOUBLES saving you much needed building space. If you have happiness at 120% and you have no polishes on your big items, you are wasting space. This is the reason for guildmates and friends as stated before. They will keep you polished and happy with far less buildings needed to maintain the peace. Don't over do it with the small decorations in your town either. Stick with the big stuff. So with stating you need polishing as your first option, visitors will know that you need a polish before anything else gets done. 

5. Never Polish/Motivate (M/P or polivate) STONE AGE ITEMS - It is a debated area that I have done actual research on. You should know that if you want to find a Blueprint (BP) for a Great Building (GB) in a certain age (example Zues in Bronze Age), then you M/P an item in that age and you may get a random chance to find that BP. However, there is the little known secret that there is a counter that on every 100th M/P in whatever age you are in, the counter will give you a BP of that age. If you are in Bronze and you polish 100 Bronze Age(BA) items, you will get a BP. You will still get the random BP pop up here and there, but you guarantee yourself a BP on #100. How can you possibly screw this up? You reset the counter to ZERO when you polish a STONE AGE(SA) item. The counter is going even if you polish upper age items, like Iron Age(IA). You can polish 15 bronze and then 2 Iron age, it will keep it going on each age. When you reach 100 on any age, it will pop a BP. Just say no to stone age m/p. 

6. Use your Forge Points (FP) at Age end. - You have researched all of the technology and reached the end of the age and are still using the donate strategy and not ready to move up yet...what now? You are still earning FP, but not using them to upgrade your tech anymore. Use those FP on Great Building donations of others. Preferably in your guild, but any GB is fine. Your goal is to rank top 5 on someone's GB or at least make rank to win a BP from that GB. I don't advance in age until I have built the GBs from that age or at least have the BP to build them. My other strategy on GB donations...snipe them. Sure some people get all ticked off about snipers, not me. Sniping is when you find a GB that is near ready to give out the rewards and you can slip in and use your FPs to snag that spot that will get the win. This also means using your FP packages you have hoarded from staying in your current age on donation strategy. You use these to boost yourself into the top spot and take the goodies. That is usually a BP or two and more FP packs...that you can use to snipe other GB. You see it feeds itself and is the reason I am usually pretty quick to get my GBs. Know the system, beat the system. Another tip is to figure out how many FP are needed to be the top person, subtracting how many would be needed to complete the GB level vs. the next rank player passing you up on the chain. Advanced stuff and math...figure it out and be a true sniper player. 

7. M/P and GB the right way - You should know that your guildmates are your life blood in this game. You take care of family first. So when a guild mate states they need a particular thing in their profile, you do it. If they state PCS, you polish first, nothing to polish? move on to Coin suppliers next, no coins left, then motivate supplies. In other words, do what they are asking for. Guild polish is not about what you need, it is about your guild. Your friends get polished on what you want them to have. This is your choice on what to m/p. They may ask for a polish first, but you may need to finish a quest for motivate. Not your problem what they state they need, friends get what you want. Neighbors? You should be attacking them for points and plunder. Neighbors are enemies until they join your guild or friend you. No need to m/p them. If you must m/p or in a fit of rage you want to annoy them...you polish 1x1 decorations just for your 20 gold profit. This does not benefit them much at all but still helps you get your gold. Usually I polish like this in my hood when players are higher than me and have a better army. As you m/p your own guild, you may notice requests for a GB in the sticks. GB in the sticks is slang for a GB that just got put on the ground and still have bare bones showing. It is not complete and does not offer much in terms of winning a prize for being the top donor. These are the hardest things to get funded because not many people want to waste an FP on something that will not give them something in return. However, you are here to help your guild and having a GB out of the sticks is important. You should always heed the call to give up just 1 FP to a new GB that is in the sticks. It only takes 40 to get it from sticks to bricks. Once out of the sticks, donations are easy to come by as people want to donate to try and win the blueprints. Help a guildmate out when they ask, you may be the next one to drop a GB and you would want people helping you, right?

8. Trades and your goods - You are going to need a wide range of goods from different ages. Guilds are essential in having goods. Trade with other players without using FP. This may be just my OCD acting up, but I like keeping my goods evened out in numbers across ages. For instance, BA items, keep trading them until you have 100 of each good. Once you start to get out of whack from having more of one or two goods, trade to get them back even. Serves two purposes, you always have a little of something to spare for guildmates in dire need and you don't flood the market with too much of one thing. Once you move up an age or so, you might consider, removing your previous age goods buildings to make room for other things. Say you are in Iron or EMA. Remove the lumber mill that you had in Bronze age. You can always back trade if you end up needing lumber. Also, only build goods buildings that you have a boost for. I cannot emphasize that enough. On your map you will win territory that has a boost for the goods it makes. If it is lumber, build a lumber mill. You are wasting your time making any goods without a boost. Once you have enough of that boosted good, TRADE for the others. 

9. So you think you are ready to move up in age? - Great. Advancement is fun and the ultimate challenge in this game. If you are following my strategy, then you need to get ready to move up. Wait until the hood changes. It will change and you will get paired up with people still in that age. Most likely, you are going to be close to the top in rank of your hood due to points. That is good. The lower minions will be afraid to attack you and you have a large new supply of people to terrorize that are lower than you. While you wait for the hood to change, accumulate money and supplies. Gather at least 50k of money and supplies before you launch. The next age will require an investment for the new buildings you can create. Be ready to spend to upgrade quickly. Have the next age front tech ready to advance before you jump. In other words, research that first level of the next age's tech tree, but DO NOT COMPLETE THE UPGRADE until you are ready. You can use FP to get them all leveled and ready to pop, just wait until all of them are maxed up before you do. Save some FP packs for the jump. You have the first level of tech ready to go, to jump to the next tech tree leve in your new age will require a bunch of FP. Use those FP packs to get you where you want to be. I like high coin houses first, then military buildings, then goods, then supplies in that order. Get your military up so you can start competing in the PVP tower and get some medals. You can add just one of the new age soldiers to your current lower age attack group to get points in a higher tower until you have your new age army at full speed.