QI advanced settlement guide WIP

 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.

Note:  I normally start with more expansions so this will be a learning experience for me using this template as well.  The template is less important than learning the concepts behind why we build a settlement this way.  Knowing the concepts will allow people who don't use square or rectangle settlements because they're avoiding obstacles.

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.

Once we delete the next house we will improve our 20% production which was only getting 2 chrono per house.  It will be 6 chrono for this next plateau.

Now we move onto the 3rd cluster of 6x6 tiles.  Productivity is still at 60%.  That will change after we delete 6 more houses to get us to 80% and 8 chrono alloy per house.

And with the next 2 house deletions we improve to 100% productivity which gives 10 chrono alloy per house.  

To make this a little easier we went to flat mode to rearrange some of the estate houses with the multistory houses without collecting.

Now this is why we do this slowly.  After deleting four of the multistory houses we have increased productivity to 110%.  That gives us 11 chrono alloy per house.

Deleting 2 more houses gets us to 120% production and 12 chrono alloy per house.

And as we complete our 4rth cluster of 6x6 we have achieved 150% production and 15 chrono alloy per house.

Maybe it's better to use flat mode?

Now collect ALL the remaining houses.

Once houses are collected (you can collect town hall anytime) we can maximize supply production.  For this part we will be deleting the estate houses first.  Then move the multistory houses out of the way and start planting breweries.

Now this is the part you're going to need to get used to.  Start removing one church at a time and place breweries.  Remember to always keep happiness at 150%.  If you miscalculate you may need to delete a brewery and build a church again.  It's not that big of a deal.  You can also delete the houses you don't need to place more breweries but remember you need population so just play with it a bit.  As long as you don't collect supplies yet you're fine.

Removing any more churches would drop us below 150%.  So now when we collect our supplies we will have the 20% bonus of 12 breweries increasing our production from 12k supplies per tannery to 48,360.  Or to put is simply we just increased our supply production by 4x simply by placing the breweries in the settlement before collecting.

Now on this settlement I have 633 chrono alloy so I can build three alchemists.  If your settlement was smaller you'll have less.  The first part of QI is racing to get chrono alloy.

Delete all the breweries and two tanneries and place three alchemists there.

So what are we doing with all that beautiful empty space?  Building churches.  From this moment all we will be using the build times to increase our QA.

If you need troops and almost everyone will now is the time to build a catapult camp, make some troops and then delete it.

Remember to come back in an hour so the game registers the alchemists are built and the 10hr timer can start.

So when you look at the settlement are you getting used to seeing it as clusters of 6x6?

I wasn't going to mention this but for the people who aren't scared yet and really want to increase efficiency you can do the following.

When collecting from your first tannery delete it and place a brewery.  Then again and again until you're collecting on your last tannery.  By placing the breweries you'll have increased the return of each tannery culminating in 5 extra breweries or an additional 120% return.

In my view if guides are too complicated then they're not effective in helping the people you're intending to help but I hope the concept is easy to understand yeah?

So if you at this point to just come back in an hour to register the completion of the alchemists then wait-out the next 10 hours you can.  Your settlement is generating QA in the space most players will just have breweries and houses.

Second Collection

Second collection for me is ready to harvest at 2am but I'll be damned if I'm going to set an alarm for this game so you'll see it a few hours later.  This is a twice a day thing not an every 10 hrs thing.  Don't let the game interfere with your job, your sleep, your school.  Just remember to never let your QA bar get completely full and you're not missing anything if you don't harvest your settlement in exactly 10 hrs.

But for those who will be harvesting before this can be posted here's what you do.

Remember this when you were taking out houses and putting in churches?

well now we're starting with this

and taking out churches and adding in estate houses.  Estate houses are going to give us that 20% exploit that we all love now right?

That bottom row is the first to go so delete 4 churches, place 12 estate houses.  Now you start looking at 6x6 clusters again.  As you remove churches place more estate houses.  4 churches = 9 estate houses.

Keep going until you cannot either remove a church or place another house without dropping happiness below 150%.  Just do it slow and if you have to delete a house or rebuild a church it's fine.  You'll get used to it.

Once you can't place anymore then collect houses.

You want to be a fancy pants?  As you collect a multistory house delete it and build another estate house.  Keep going until you've collected your last house and reap the rewards of all those extra 20% builds.

Once all your houses are collected replace the multistory houses you just deleted by deleting the estate houses you just built so it looks like the picture again.

Then delete all the estate houses you built.  All of them.  Now we're putting in bakeries like we did with the first collection.  Put the bakeries in the empty space until there is no more then start deleting churches and putting more bakeries in.  Make sure happiness is 150%.  Once you cannot put any more bakeries in without dropping below the happiness threshold then collect a tannery.

Then delete it and put a bakery there.  Then again, and again and again until all you have is the three alchemists and a whole lot of bakeries.  Then collect the alchemists.  Double check one last time before you collect that you do in fact have 150% happiness as this will affect your chrono alloy collection if you don't.

Then delete all the bakeries, all of them.  Place two more alchemists underneath the ones you already have.  If you have enough chrono alloy to make three then do it but most people won't.

You then make your settlement look like this again

Only the middle two tanneries are replaced with alchemists.  Make sure to come back after an hour to start the clock on the alchemists and in 11 total hours you're ready for collection three.  It's exciting as we add more alchemists and a good building!   Gather the kids, call the neighbors you don't want to miss it!

Here we go.

Now collect and delete one multistorey house at a time and replace with estate house.  Estate house provides less population so after a couple multistorey houses are removed and replaced with estate houses you can build another estate house in the empty space.

And before collecting the last house we can remove one more church and place one more estate house.

Remove all estate houses and replace the row of multistorey houses we had previously.

Now add 2 more multistorey houses and start adding breweries  Remove some churches and add more breweries until your happiness and population cannot sustain more.

Now collect a tannery and replace it with a brewery to give our next tannery an even higher boost.  Then repeat one at a time until all the tanneries are replaced with breweries.

Now we can collect the alchemists.  Delete all the breweries.  We have over 500 chrono alloy so we can build two more alchemists.  Move one of the multistory houses into the space beside the alchemists.  Put two more tanneries back.

Delete the last extra multistorey house and put churches back.

Remember to login one hour later so the game registers the new alchemists then get ready for collection three in 10 hours.  (11 hours total)

So to address some issues from the feedback so far.

-"I thought we were supposed to keep coin and supply balanced?  Your system produces a lot more coin."

Yes.  This system requires people to rotate their crops so to speak.  All the crop rotations (churches, estate houses and breweries) only require coin to build.

-"Wouldn't it be better to keep the tanneries and put in a doctor?"

Doing that would increase available coin and supply but would hurt the chrono alloy which is more important at this stage.  We add our first doctor next collection so just hold on.

3rd collection

This is where we are before the third collection.

Now we're just going to rotate the crops from actions to coin to supply then back to actions.

Remove the bottom row of churches and fill space with estate houses.

Now just like we did before we're going to collect from one multistory house at a time, delete it, replace it with estate house.  Once the demand for happiness drops (because we're decreasing population) we can also delete a church.

So using this method instead of a multistory house giving 12,500 coins the last one gives 72,375 coin.  I hope everyone can see why this works.

So coin is fully collected it's time again to replace all the estate houses on the side with multistory houses and delete the estate houses we just built on the bottom.

Our settlements will not all look the same or be the same size so add all the breweries you can and see how much population you have remaining and your happiness status.  Can you delete some churches and place breweries in there?  Do you have enough happiness that will allow you to delete more churches but your ran out of population?  Then move things around until you can't add more breweries without dropping below 150% happiness.

Now collect tannery and replace it with brewery.  Then do it again.

Now you can collect the rest of your settlement.

Build one alchemist, 2 tannery.

Build one doctor and one goods building.  I always start with honey then do gunpowder and rope is last as it stays for a while and it has the smallest footprint.

I tuck my doctor in the top left (circled) because I have accidentally deleted one before and vow to not make the same mistake.  (I've made the same mistake).

Remember to come back in an hour to register the alchemist and to build some goods for that 60 goods expansion.  We try not to go crazy on building goods for expansions until we have bakeries and clapboard houses in settlement.

By putting the doctor in now instead of next collection we can delete more churches and put in more 20% boost buildings when collecting coin and supply.  Remember we have less coin and supply because we are using all this farm space for churches (quantum actions).  Essentially we're trading coin/supply for the far more valuable actions.

If you feel you need more coin and/or supply right now then you can remove the three churches at the bottom and put in housing and/or supply as needed for you.

Just remember one doctor gives the happiness of seven churches.

One doctor gives the quantum actions of 5.25 churches.

That's why we're using the chrono we have now on a doctor instead of building more alchemists.  We need to build up some resources to buy expansions so we're forgoing some chrono alloy production to do it.  QI is all about resource management.

When goods building is done make enough goods to buy one or two expansions depending on your stock of coins and supplies.  Don't make more goods than you need.  Buy the expansion (s) then delete goods building.  Place churches.

If the next collection is 10hrs in real time for you.  (As in you're sleeping or at work and can't collect your settlement when it's ready)  Then it's ok to build two houses in the empty space. 

If you want to build houses or keep some of the built houses to use along the bottom or the side that's probably wise.  I'm going to squeeze a few more churches to prioritize actions instead. 

Howdy internet people.  I'm going to have to travel for a funeral and settle my dad's estate so I won't be playing or online for about a week.  Sorry to just abandon you all like this but you get the concept of rotating the crops or exploiting the 20% strategy.  Just keep at it.

Next season I'll replicate what we did here and start with collection 4 or see if any of the other three can take this over if their settlements are the same.