Great Buildings Review - Tower of Babel

The Tower of Babel is one of  the first Great Buildings we encounter, and the first economy - related GB in Forge of Empires. It appears in the Bronze age and it offers two bonuses: A number of goods per day (collected once every 24 hours) and a passive bonus to population.


Due to the Tower being an early-game building, it is relatively popular among ancient age players in general and very popular among  the ones that focus more on the economy side of the game rather than fighting.

Now the question is: Is it worth it to build it or not?

And the answer is - as usual: "It depends."

Let's take a look at each bonus separately.

Population bonus begins at 90 when reaching level 1, goes up to 360 at level 5 and 1140 at level 10. This amount of population is quite low for a GB, considering that 4 houses of Colonial age can give more population (+gold) than a level 10 Babel at the same amount of space. Thus this bonus on its own is not very efficient, however within the same space we get another bonus.

The amount of goods produced starts at 6/day at level 1 and reaches 15/day at level 10. This amount of goods is quite good in terms of production-to-footprint as well as in terms of production-to-FPs invested. On the other hand, a dedicated goods building in early eras of the game can produce a lot more goods (requiring an investment of gold and supplies to do so) at the same or similar size and without any requirement for an FP investement. Later on, goods buildings become quite large, and thus as we progress, Babel becomes more efficient in terms of space.

The combination of both bonuses makes this GB quite efficient in terms of space even at lower levels, but never really shines.

The big problem here is that another GB (Lighthouse of Alexandria) that comes shortly after and takes up exactly the same space is giving more goods/day and has a FAR better secondary bonus. There is really no comparison between Babel and Lighthouse, the latter wins in every regard.

But does that prevent us from having both? Certainly not - however there is a limiting resource in maintaining both of these GBs and this is FPs. With a given amount of FPs you can either level LoA and Babel in parallel, or have only one of the two at a higher level than the other. The second option - while giving less goods overall, is stronger in terms of second bonus as well as footprint efficiency.

Therefore, while Babel is by no means bad, I would personally recommend not building it early on. The goods provided in the early eras compared to the space it takes is not worth investing FPs that could go on other, stronger GBs. Later on, when the stronger GBs are levelled up high enough and space is a little more flexible, it becomes a solid option for an additional goods income.

Tower of Babel rating:  5/10
Beginner

Great Buildings Review - The Statue of Zeus

One of the first Great Buildings we encounter in the game, from as early as the Bronze Age, is the Statue of Zeus, one of the most powerful great buildings overall. 


Statue only takes up 6 squares (2x3 area) and for each level (until level 10) it increases attack and defense of troops by 3% per level when attacking (thus a total of 30% at level 10). This building does not have a second bonus (like almost every other GB in the game).

Obviously, for people that attack often, this GB is very powerful. Having increased stats allows your troops to win battles vs troops of the same age, and at higher levels even vs troops from a higher age. Furthermore, as ages progress, the PvE troops will have a bonus % themselves, so this GB (and similar ones) is essential for every fighter. But even for those that don't fight very often, the building is still very useful, even just for clearing the PvE map areas and doing a little bit of Guild Expedition for some nice rewards.

It not only will allow you to do harder fights, but it will also reduce the amount of damage your troops take, resulting in fewer losses and faster recovery time until you can fight again.

Another important benefit is that, due to it being a Bronze Age GB, it costs relatively few FPs to advance levels. For example to get this from level 4 to 5, you need to invest 210 FPs. To compare, if you want to do the same for another GB that gives the same benefit, Castel Del Monte, you would need to invest 290 FPs instead. And of course at higher levels the difference becomes even greater!

The only drawback Statue of Zeus has is that it has only one bonus. Usually most GBs have 2 bonuses and this means that with the same FP investment you can increase at the same time 2 different benefits (which makes the FP investment more efficient). However, the truth is that most GBs have a very strong bonus and a very weak one, thus this drawback is only relevant when comparing Statue of Zeus with only the very top GBs in the game.

Overall, this GB is a must-have one for every city - its strong bonus combined with the super small size will make it an asset for every player.

Statue of Zeus rating:  8/10
Beginner

Investing in Great Buildings - Locking a reward

One of the most important features in Forge of Empires is the ability of players to donate forge points to other players' Great Buildings. This is limited to other players of the same world that belong in the same neighborhood, the same guild or in the friends list. Donation rewards include forge points, medals and GB blueprints. All three of these are very important, especially for the newer players of the game:

Forge points is the most important currency in the game. It is the currency that determines your research progress and your GB level at the same time. Investing in improving tech or improving GBs is one of the most important choices affecting your playstyle. Obviously more FPs = better!

Medals are useful for unlocking expansions. Space is probably the most limiting factor early in the game and having some extra expansion medals is going to help a lot.

Last, but not least, getting GB blueprints via donating is the easiest and fastest way to get your own GBs. Sure you can do that by relying on motivating/polishing or quest rewards, but donating to GBs allows you to target specific BPs and makes overall progress a lot faster.

Donating, thus, is very important and most players compete for getting the top rewards in each GB. It is important when donating to only invest forge points in such a way that you are going to get a guaranteed reward. Let me illustrate this with an example:


In the GB above, we can see that the top reward is 55 FP, 886 medals and 2 blueprints. This GB requires 460 - 307 = 153 more FPs to level. In this case, if we want to lock the 1st spot, we need to invest 77 forge points. If we do that, then the building will go from 307/460 to 384/460 and will have 76 forge points remaining to level (i.e. noone will be able to surpass us).

How can we calculate this number? Well there is a simple formula:

Points needed to invest = (Points remaining for next level + Points of highest competitor)/2. [rounded up]

 Now in this particular scenario, if we invest 77 FPs, we will get back 55 fps so we have a total loss of 22 FPs. For these 22 FPs, we get as payment 886 medals and 2 blueprints for Innovation Tower! Of course it depends on our current situation if this tradeoff is worthwhile.

If the 77 FPs are too much to invest now, we can do the following:

Invest only 1 FP in the building. This will allow us to view its current progress in our town hall easily every time we login (along with all other GBs that we are interested in investing and have allocated 1 FP). This way we can search for opportunities to perform investments that are beneficial to us and many times get even an FP profit (in addition to medals and BPs).

At first, this will take some time to get used to doing calculations, but after a few days it will become a natural habit.

Using this strategy, starting a new account on an advanced server, I have managed to earn more than 1500 FPs profit, blueprints for all GBs up to 2-3 ages higher than I am and several thousand of medals in less than 2 months!
Forge Points

Choosing a world

When registering for a game of forge of empires, the game automatically places you in a recommended world. This obviously has the advantage of letting you skip the choosing process which is not very easy if you are a complete beginner.

However, world choice is very important and can greatly affect your playing style and experience. In this post I will try to briefly explain the differences between old worlds (that have been around for several years) and new worlds (that started a few months ago).

The age of the world can be - in general - figured out by the initial letter of its name. For example, in the image below from the US servers, the world Arvahall will be the oldest one (probably 5 years old at this stage) while the world Vingrid will be the newest one. Actually at the moment, there is an even newer world starting with W, the world Walstrand.


In general, older worlds will have more advanced and mature players, as well as more players overall. They will also have a lot of players that have quit the game or playing very little. Newer worlds will tend to have less advanced players (i.e. you won't find any tanks on the Walstrand world right now) but these players can be slightly more active overall, since they have just started.

Newer worlds are a little bit more fair. There are fewer chances that someone will start plundering you with an army that is 4-5 ages higher and impossible to defeat. The playing field is more equal and activities such as GvG (the equivalent of group PvP) are more fun overall. Progress in terms of technology is slower in these worlds, as there are no opportunities to accelerate your pace using advanced players (more on this on a future post!)

In older worlds, some players will always be ahead of you and you will need several years to catch up with them in terms of technology (unless you spend a fortune on money). These players could make life hard for you, but they can also provide opportunities (such as high level Great Buildings which you can contribute to and get beefy rewards).

What would i recommend:
If you want to top the rankings of a world and compete with the most advanced people, go for a new world. The same applies if you want to play a lot of GvG without having alpha clans that control the whole map already. Newer worlds should also be a bit better for people that do not invest a lot of time to the game.

If you want to play in a more dynamic world with more variety, that gives opportunities to cooperate with advanced players, then go for an older world. Be warned though that, should you choose this option, it will probably require spending more time in the game to fully enjoy the variety it offers.
Beginner
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