This is not THE DEFINITIVE guide to playing QI. This is just A guide so do what works best for you.
This guide will show 8 expansions purchased at incursion start. We do this because it's more efficient to get extra space and generate QA than it is to just buy QA's since they changed how that works. When QA started you could just buy QA and it was the same price throughout the season. Now it has escalating costs so you really do need to focus more on settlement. If you do not purchase expansions or purchase less than what you see here that's ok. What's important in this guide is the concept and strategy. Adapt what you see into whatever size settlement you use.
You will also see us rushing the construction of some supply or houses from time to time. You don't have to do that it's just what we do to speed up the settlement process. The goal is to build the settlement quickly and make 400 ish cannons so we can then convert the entire settlement to doctors and just generate QA for the remainder of the season.
Lastly this example will not show purchase of any decorations as the city I'm using has about 1,500 attack and attack defense when incursion starts. If you need to build decorations that's ok just know you will generate less actions because you're trading actions for fight boost. Also, if you have high fight boosts like me you won't need 400 troops. I overbuild because I'll have plenty of coin and supply and really don't want to build a cannon camp after I've already deleted it.
Between the four of us I was in the least competitive guild as we dominate QI so I anticipate lower numbers this season. The reason for that is I normally open 12 expansions at incursion start and speed build 4 bakeries and 2 clapboard houses. For this guide we setup the framework where I'd only open 8 expansions, clear the obstacles and be limited to 5 rush builds. To reiterate the total cost of these shard expansions and rush builds is the cost of two purchases of extra turns. That's it. We're not talking about whales getting a credit increase on their Visa Card.
We should also make clear that if you are going to buy extra turns then there's a strategy for that. Maximize return on investment. You get better rewards in higher maps than lower maps. So what's the highest map you can fight? If you can fight map 12 then spend your extra turns there. If not can you donate on map 12? We're not going to tell you to spend or not spend but if you do spend then get the best return on that spending.
We'll put out more of an intermediate guide later on but for now here is the guide for advanced players.
Advanced Guide
Incursion start. Buying expansions and clearing obstacles. We like to work with grids of 6 x 6 or 12 x 6 if placing bakeries in a vertical column. For that reason buying random expansions off to the side is problematic. It's ok if you just want one 4x4 to put houses in or if you need decorations then a stand-alone 4x4 is just fine. People averse to spending diamonds in QI will surely avoid the obstacles and have weird looking settlements. That's ok it will just be less efficient.
You can buy expansions with goods or shards. We start QI with 50 additional goods from buildings in the main city so that means we have 30 of each good and can buy one goods expansion immediately. We'll get more as we advance later. Figure out how many expansions you will buy for the duration of the season with shards and buy them immediately when QI starts. Waiting only hurts you. Let's start using that extra space to generate chrono alloy or quantum actions.
For the open of QI our focus is on generating chrono alloy not generating QA. So the settlement will look very different than it will for the remainder of the season.
We will not be buying any troops at the start. Instead we will fight until our troops need time to heal and repeat that process until we can harvest the settlement for the first time and then we will build troops. If you have good fight stats 50 catapults will last you to map 10. The goal at the start is to just make sure your QA bar never gets completely full and stops producing more actions.
We're opening 8 expansions. One with goods and seven with shards. This costs the equivalent of buying extra turns twice.
We got a bad random settlement in terms of obstacles but it has to be done so remove them using shards.
Build in clusters of 6x6
Build
4 or 6 tannery
9 estate houses
9 multistorey houses
then fill in the rest of the space with more multistorey houses
Select the goods buildings you want access to. We pick the smallest footprint so rope, honey and gunpowder.
When selecting military building all we use is artillery so pick whatever you want for the next two.Your settlement will be very unhappy and that's ok.
For the first 10 hours they will be miserable and for the rest of the season they will be euphoric.
Now go to the map and use as many QA as you can WITHOUT GOING TO THE F-ING DONATION NODES! *There is one exception to this rule. We start with five different resources. Three will be used when we make buildings for them. One will be used immediately to get a goods expansion. That leaves one resource type (for us brick) that is not being used. If you want to donate that at any time that's fine. Do not donate coin or supplies until you cannot fight anymore.
If you're in a good QI guild you will see your fighters go to the Garrisons first. Once down that gives every player in the guild 50% red and blue attack and defense for each garrison for 100% total. Considering we are only fighting against an enemy with 20% boost for now EVERYONE should be able to fight and not donate. Once players get that buff it makes it easer to not only win but to not lose troops. Replacing troops has a cost.
Then the strongholds. Strongholds buff the boss by 100% red and blue attack and defense each for a total of 200%Then the bosses. So the players get a buff and we're removed the buff the bosses had so it's fight time. Bosses are a little harder and if you are a player that does not have a lot of fight boosts it's ok to wait until they are taken down.The bonus nodes along the side after the garrisons are there for people who are waiting for the infinite nodes to be opened.
Once the bosses are down these infinite nodes are a great way to burn quantum actions.
They give the same progress and the fights are very easy. If you see anyone donating coin/supply here before map 8 that's a problem. They're donating their ability to have a strong settlement. You cannot hide while playing QI. We see everything.
Now go to your QA bar.
You can see how long it will take before that bar is full. If you know when you'll be on after server reset try to time it so you'll have a nearly full bar then. The reason is we want strong fighters to help get us to infinite nodes as soon as possible so people with less fight boosts can use the infinite node.
Fighting bosses, garrison and strongholds (and mini-boss on the side nodes) give better rewards but the same progress. So you may as well get slightly better rewards while also helping your guild get more progress.
In 10 hours we'll see what we get at first harvest using the 20% exploit. Full disclosure I personally open more expansions but for the purpose of this guide we all agreed that the cost of two sets of turns should be the self-limit.
Two purchases were enough to open 7 expansions and clear obstacles and have 500 shards remain so we could have purchased another shard expansion but will reserve that for some building rushes and clearing obstacles when we get goods expansions.
The first harvest will be done in sections. We'll delete multistorey houses until there is room to place a church. Place church and then keep deleting houses until we can place a second church. Repeat until we have 4 churches in a 6x6 section. Then start on the next section. As we delete houses we're getting some coin and getting a refund of some of the coin spent to build it. That's insignificant. What is significant is the tiny amount of chrono alloy with each house. That amount increases as our settlement gets happy. Once we hit 150% happiness then we collect all houses. Then we start deleting more houses and some of the churches and place bakeries.
We'll show screen shots as we go.
First collection
We are going to methodically start deleting houses and placing churches.
You could remove all nine houses then place four churches but best practice is to do it slowly. Remove the top six houses then place two churches then check happiness.
Then remove the last three in that cluster and replace with two more churches. Check happiness.
Repeat for the second cluster.





