Scope

This is a strategy guide intended for players already familiar with the basics and even intermediate levels of the game. The focus of this guide is on how to cope with the problem of needing multiple warehouses to expand your colonies while still maintaining and growing the strongest economy possible. It does not prescribe an absolute course of action; players will be able to choose just how far they wish to expand each of their cities and prioritize the buildings that are most important to their play-style.

Simply building multiple warehouses at the expense of other buildings is an elementary and un-inspired strategy. This strategy attempts to go beyond that.

Assumptions

The following assumptions were made in composing this strategy:

• Players wish to pursue end-game research. If not, you may use the academy (spot #4 below) for a second warehouse and modify the guide accordingly.
• Players desire a strong economy -- in the production of goods, efficacy of their use, and number of citizens.
• Generally, this guide is for players who have some interest in securing a competitive highscore.
• Players plan to expand to a maximum of 9 colonies (10 total cities) with Palaces and GRs at level 9.
• This guide is written for v.0.3.4.

Building Allocation

The following buildings should be present in your towns. This is the most rigidly prescribed section of the guide. However, the 11th variable spot allows for some flexibility and personal choice.

Fixed Spots

1 - Town Hall
2 - Town Wall
3 - Trading Port
4 - Shipyard

Variable Spots

1 - Palace
2 - Warehouse
3 - Tavern
4 - Academy (this building is negotiable if you do not wish to pursue research)
5 - Carpenter
6 - Forrester
7 - +Luxury Production
8 - Architect
9 - Museum
10 - Hideout
11 - Choose from the following:

• Barracks - probably can't have too many of these; the ability to build troops quickly can make or break a battle
• Embassy - only need one unless you wish to lead an alliance
• Optician - one is useful for purchasing research
• Trading Post - one or two can be useful create a wide trading range
• Workshop - only one is needed to purchase all your upgrades, may be demolished when finished with upgrades
• Wine Press - should only be built if you really can't use another barracks, and you can always use another barracks
• Fireworks Test Area - see comment for Wine Press above ↑
• Temple - generally not recommended; may be more advantageous depending on island

Follow the stages below to advance your cities. It is very important that you only do this in ONE city at a time; this way you will minimize the amount of time you have multiple warehouses. You may pick and choose which buildings you want to focus on. I have listed buildings in the order of importace (my opinion), and stressed buildings that maximize the strength of your economy.

Before continuing with this portion of the guide you should have:

• Completed all basic researches
• Completed all workshop upgrades
• Purchased all 160 tradeships
• Have all carpenters and architects maxed at level 32

Carpenters, Architects, and Shipyards can be build to a maximum of 32 with one warehouse and will not be further considered in this guide.

Stage One: 1 Warehouse

With 1 warehouse, you may build the following buildings to the specified levels:

• Palace - 7 (recommended)
• Warehouse - 38 (required)
• Forrester - 27 (recommended)
• +Luxury Production - 27 (recommended)
• Museum - 14 (recommended)
• Town Hall - 29 (recommended with reservations)
• Trading port - 34
• Tavern - 37
• Town Wall - 34 (33 is currently highest effective functional improvement, requiring 4 rounds to break through)
• Academy - 24

The following buildings should be kept at a functional level but should not be built too high:

• Barracks/Embassy/Optician/Trading Post/Workshop/Wine Press/Temple
• Hideout (a functional level for this building is often still quite high)

Stage Two: 2 Warehouses

Destroy the building in the 11th variable slot and build the following in it's place:

• Warehouse - 24

You may now build the following buildings to the specified levels:

• Palace - 8 (recommended)
• Warehouse - 40 (required)
• Forrester - 29 (recommended)
• +Luxury Production - 29 (recommended)
• Museum - 16 (recommended)
• Town Hall - 30 (recommended with reservations)
• Trading port - 36
• Tavern - 39
• Town Wall - 37 (33 is currently highest effective functional improvement, requiring 4 rounds to break through)
• Academy - 26

Stage Three: 3 Warehouses

Destroy the Hideout (or another building, see below) and build the following in it's place:

• Warehouse - 24

• Disclaimer: This step is risky, and you may want to consult with your alliance leaders before doing this. I chose the hideout because it is a cheap building and easy to rebuild later. You can minimize the time it is destroyed by only selecting a few of the buildings from below to max out; many people may only wish to do the Palace/GR and then move on. You may also wish to drop tag if you are in an alliance that is at war during this step so as not to put yourself or your alliance at greater risk. It is also a good idea to keep a large number of troops into your city.
• Another option would be to select a different building to destroy. An academy would be a good choice; but, depending on how high it has been built you may loose a lot more resources. Still, the loss of resources may be acceptable in order to preserve the security a hideout offers.
  

You may now build the following buildings to the specified levels:

• Palace - 9 (recommended)
• Forrester - 30 (recommended)
• +Luxury Production - 30 (recommended)
• Town Hall - 32 (recommended with reservations)
• Trading port - 38
• Tavern - 40
• Town Wall - 38 (33 is currently highest effective functional improvement, requiring 4 rounds to break through)
• Academy - 27

Completion

Once you have finished these three stages, demolish your two level 24 warehouses and rebuild your hideout/academy and the 11th variable spot building. After a city is finished with all three stages and hideouts are rebuilt, you can begin to repeat the stages in the next city you wish to upgrade. Once you are finished upgrading all your cities, you may then build up to 9 colonies (10 cities total).

Note: I only took the two auxiliary warehouses to level 24 because I didn't want to have to destroy very expensive warehouses and level 24 seemed to be a reasonable threshold. Theoretically you could build the warehouses to higher levels and upgrade certain buildings even higher than is suggested in this guide.

Now, your Ikariam goals could be:

1. Trade for or pillage as much crystal as you can and finish researching
2. Donate as much as you can to have ridiculously high mills
3. Fire all your worker and scientists, then build a vast army to terrorize the server!


Wait wait wait, you want me to destroy my hideout?!

This is easily the most controversial point of this guide. If you want 10 cities, my recommendation is to destroy your hideout just long enough to upgrade the essential buildings. You DO have other options however. For example, you could destroy an academy, instead. I chose the hideout because I only plan to have it destroyed for a very short time, perhaps a few days, and it is a very cheap building to rebuild.

I've heard that the return of investment (ROI) of the Forrester and Luxury Production buildings isn't worth it to build them very high. Why do you build them up so high?

There is an argument (and in my opinion, a flawed argument) that frequently is cited on the boards that states building these buildings past level 18 is not worth it because it would take over a year to get your resources back. I refute this argument for the following reason: few of the other buildings "give something back" at all in terms of real resources. While there are definitely similarities, Ikariam is not just an investment account. ROI is not necessarily the most important criteria. And the production buildings--more than any other--allow players to increase the rate at which they can grow their cities.

Ok, you convinced me, I want to have the +production buildings. But, I don't think the difference between level 27 with one warehouse and level 30 with 3 warehouses is that important, why don't I just use those spots for my warehouses and build the production buildings when I'm done?

This guide is designed for long term strategy. Do NOT underestimate the amount of time that will be needed to complete this plan; depending on how many buildings you want to max it could take well over a year or more. If you use those spots for warehouses, you will be missing out on extra production all during that time.

What are the reservations you mention when recommending upgrading the Town Hall?

There are two primary reasons to upgrade your Town hall: population, and action points. In the current incarnation of the game, I do not believe that many players would be able to fill a Town hall much past level 28. You also get another action point at 28, and again at 32. If you can either fill your town hall or really want the action points, it may be worth upgrading. Otherwise, level 28 is probably a good stopping point.

Instead of your second warehouse.
You can also go for a Dump.
This way you won't have the need to even think about your 3 rd warehouse.
If you have all the researh work done then I prefer that dump's are a better oprtion.
This saves the big problem of breking and building again.

This was written well before dumps were introduced into the game, that's why she never mentions them.

Even with a dump any serious player is going to find themselves eventually needing a third warehouse and quite possibly even a fourth.

Bugmeat wrote:

Even with a dump any serious player is going to find themselves eventually needing a third warehouse and quite possibly even a fourth.

Any serious player? How serious? I have three level 30 warehouses and a dump (which probably should have been called depot) and I have enough space for level 10 Palace. Does that mean I am not serious enough?

For me, I may switch to the military game from the current peaceful builder approach. Level 11 Palace just seems out of reach.

CWB