Updated as of Wolf Patch/Primal Fury! kzfaq.info/get/bejne/npySZJV50rmvg5s.html User Manual: I'd personally be thrilled if you have the time and patience to watch all of this, but let's be realistic. Watch the Intro and Grading Scale and Adept Settlers to start getting a feel for it, and then skip around to the traits you are thinking about (or the ones you can see from the thumbnail you disagree with!). Or just 1.5x speed it and play it in the background while you do laundry. You do you fam.

Great video!

thanks so much for the guides! can you do cultures in the future? I don't have the experience yet but I feel like not picking high or industrious is kind of throwing

The 2 worst trait are the 2 i like the most ahahaha i already know its not efficient but i like having one city so i combined the 2 since they both retain from building other cities 😅 so i find way to help myself keep up ahah

That's great analysis, want to get your opinion on reavers

The only way to not be penalise too much as perfectionnist artisans is to be feodal & have you leader rush lord of production.

are there any big changes with the wolf update?

I really wish they made it so that Mystic could take Fabled Hunters and got an extra starting mage for it (or have their T1 pike replaced with a skirmisher altogether), even if they do not include mages in the medal bonus for it. Mystic is perhaps my most favourite culture (unless I end up liking the new culture in the upcoming Empires n Ashes DLC more) and I wish they were buffed to be more viable outside of certain rush strats. It is kind of sad that High currently out-mages them.

I've used Wonder Architects extensively, and while I rarely play underground, I've never had an issue with getting it almost immediately, every game. I wish you would have spent a little more time discussing it's strengths as the game progresses rather than the entire entry only talking about what for many is probably a rare issue. Regardless, it would be nice to hear more about it when it is functioning as intended. Regarding Perfectionist Artisans, it's worth noting that building just 2 upgrades on an outpost makes it pay it's own upkeep. You can then earn a profit on annexed gold mines, and really recklessly grab up resources, and before long you'll have the option of a lot of teleporter locations.

Mana adepts is S ++ ! It makes your army brokenly OP with vampiric. It's the strongest trait in the game.

I'm wondering how Hermit Kingdom works in MP, that extra imperium looks nice.

Since I dont think you'll update this so soon for a minimal amount of new traits, where would you put the new ones here? I would guess the hermit one would be S tier since it boosts research?

I'd love to see where reclaimers fit in here.

I love that you take auto resolve as as a major consideration, as how the ai uses some spells and abilities can be absolutely horrific, for example in a more obvious example, I hate starting tome of souls in single player as the AI will just spam souls spells eating at my econ, and while I could turn spells off, it most likely will lead to a worse outcomes for your units, potentially even one dying. And like mana addicts is great, especially in the early game, if you have the casting points and cheap spells to rush people down and cast every turn, but that's very specific and player orientated, the ai has no idea how to use it well. I also agree with the gifted casters, it should 30% decrease or give a % casting point increase ,or decrease so it scales, cause at the moment its basically just a soother ._. Also don't know why they nerfed wizard kings, unless they nerfed them for early summoning? but there early game is just so weak as before that was the main strength to snowball, I think giving them something that makes spells cheaper, like X spell is 20% casting points cheaper or something instead of the cap increase might actually make more sense or some kinds of specialisation ins a specific affinity so those spells are cheaper or better, or allowing them to start with an extra spell, cause RN, champions are so much better for your econ and snowball which ultimately leads to a better mid and late game if you play it right, and if you want a strong leader early you can always take the dragon lord which will leader to faster empire development as well, as society traits that give tier two units and dragon lord is just busted for early game atm imo. Also just to mention, you get quite a bit more gold at the game start with perfectionist artisans, and I think IF you can survive with perfectionist artisans, it really pays off, the amount of gold you get is insane once established, you will never have to worry about stability past the early game, you can fund significantly more stacks than everyone else with half there cities, but I think if you are going to use it you need to get an early city up asap and start with the tomes that give production, Zeal and Enchantment, and use that tier 3 unit as much as possible, so that you can keep up in knowledge and not fall behind, but if you can get to tier 2 or 3 units then you can are pretty set as you will basically just have infinite stacks, but also more importantly you will eventually, just have that much gold you can literally just buy your production every turn, that just leads to more gold to then buy more buildings, the snowball affect is delayed but it is absolutely insane once you reach it. The biggest issue for sure, is the knowledge delay but there are ways around it for sure, the biggest pro of this, is that you really don't have to care about the map as so much more gold comes from your cities themselves, so unless its boosting stuff, your pop really doesn't matter, unless its research posts or ancient wonders, as you get so much more, as every building is basically a better mine. Also, dragon lord, tier 2 supp unit and tier 3 unit is just absolutely busted in the early game, legit start with 800+ power on normal and 600+ on brutal, so paired with fables hunters it dramatically increase your snowball.

Talented collectors seems to be missing? Where would you put it?

Wonder, if ritual cannibals ranks higher now, with the nerf to Dark Ritual as a solution to clear corpses early. Also it gives more mana than it looks like like 1000 mana per 10 turns extra. Someone claimed this recently on steam, but i have to look into it. Ruthless raiders should get more love by the devs maybe give it a % chance like 1% to get a random item of tier 1-3 per combat and put draft to like 6, doubling the amount so early culture unit rush is possible. The game got more content, but i would have prefered a better balance, like buffing a ton of underwhelming things - hi, T5 shadow Tome!!! - and nerfing some outliers.

.. why did you fail to talk about Hermit Kingdom?

Ah poor devious watchers, I do have a soft spot for it, but I cant deny how little it provides compared to almost everything else. Which makes me wonder, how would you change it in order to make it multiplayer viable?

By the way, I should have probably asked this last week but what makes Mythic units actually really good? I thought T3s and non-Mythic T4s were better because they benefited from enchantments and supposedly have a higher power ceiling than Mythics because of that.

As a note, perfectionist artisans and chosen destroyer on the giant cities planar trait ( the one that doesn't allow building a second city) seems interesting, but the AI CANNOT deal with it. VERY boring game

I'm confused why perfectionist artisans is rated so badly. You get soooo much gold and stability that do you really need the extra two cities? Yes, you have less cities but one of yours is worth like 3 of theirs. That's imperium savings!

Does anyone actually use autoresolve?

bro keep the music lower please

its depends on the build which u choose... soo thats tier list is useless....