Empire Buildings

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Empire Buildings

Palace
The Palace is one of the typical keeps that can be found in the game. It produces the race's builder, Titan and offers a few researches to power up some of their lower tier units. It also costs the usual resources and is larger than the average building. However, there is one difference that makes it somewhat unique - the cost of the upgrades focus mostly on metal. This difference in core cost to the other buildings the Empire have, especially towers, makes tiering relatively easy while building up the rest of the base. As for what the Palace offers in regards to production, with Peasants for mine filling, as well as a few researches, the Palace will have quite a few things to do throughout its life. But with the Empire's Titan also built from the Palace, you'll need to have your mines filled and the researches obtained before the Lion Throne's production, or loose access to them for a considerable time. To ensure that's achieved while tiering quickly, a second Palace should be built for the production of Peasants.

Tower (Empire)
The Empire's towers are one of the better in the game, featuring great stats for their cost, which can even be considered low when compared to the other races with towers of similar stats. Although they possess the typical and common arrow attack, the Empire aren't lacking in units that can garrison and change the attack type. With the Flaming Arrows upgrade in tier 2, and the Mages in tier 4 and 5, the Empire have a broad choice of elemental attackers to stuff their towers with.

Although their cost isn't particularly high, 300 gold isn't something that can be easily thrown around, especially with the Empire's need for gold for most of their units. Fortunately though, The Empire's keep, the Palace, doesn't require gold for upgrading, allowing the Empire to simultaneously build up their defenses while tiering.

Barracks
The Barracks is the common infantry producing building for the Empire. It's a sturdy, fast to assemble building that doesn't take up too much space. All this makes them ideal for mass building and generally being the core buildings that make up the Empire's base. But by being a common building that produces only infantry causes their lack of researching capabilities to force the races's powerups onto other buildings to deal with, which results in slow researching progress without investing in multiple research specific buildings or another Palace for those Pikemen and Halberdiers upgrades.

Blacksmith
A slightly more expensive and slightly weaker than the average building, the Blacksmith can offer the Empire the coveted Armorer and Weaponsmith upgrades that improves the armor and melee damage for nearly all of their units. Come tier 4 and it can even put out siege weapons for tackling formidable fortifications. Although with the power of the Mages combined and fully upgraded Halberdiers, the Empire don't need to rely much on siege weapons. As such, you wont really need to build multiple Blacksmiths.

But the building's interesting choice of cost, as well as the cost of the researches, clashes horribly with the Palace and tiring. This usually forces the Empire player to choose between upgrading their units or their base, for the metal cost involved simply wont allow them to do both together.

Granary
The Granary is a simple building that increases resource income rates and extends army limit / population cap. All this is done via its researches, which means if the building is lost, you'll still have these bonuses. The building is also pretty small and surprisingly sturdy for its size, but with everything it offers tied to researches, there is no need for it be be rebuilt once everything has been had. This therefore makes its small size and durability somewhat meaningless.

Unfortunately for the Empire, no one wants to trade with them, as such, they only have access to the first two Income researches, and they're also slightly more expensive than they are for the other races. But still, these skills are great and should be the first thing you aim for when hitting tier 2.

Quartermaster
One of the most important buildings for the Empire, the Quartermaster offers a lot. Its presence allows for the production of Archers, and through the researching of their three missile upgrades, it makes those Archers actually viable. With Trade, it can allow the Empire to quickly obtain what they want and on demand. And with instant producing Mercenaries, they can "summon" a fast moving, slashing damage dealing unit instantaneously to help counter their enemy's strategies. The Quartermaster can also "summon" some units from other races for additional support and excitement. But one must remember that the choice of unit obtained is random and from a pre-fixed list. (See Empire Researches for the lists of units obtainable).

The building is also small and doesn't require neither gold nor metal to be built, and instead uses the much rarely used crystal as one of its two costs. This makes putting the Quartermaster down in to the Empire's base easy, and considering everything it offers, that's a great asset for it to have. If you plan on using the Foreign Mercenary skills, then you could even build a second or even a third one. But with its main unit instantly produced and researches that'll likely be obtained throughout the course of the game due to their cost, one Quartermaster is usually all you need.

Of course, there are a few issues that come with the Quartermaster, although they're actually more to do with what it holds inside, than the building itself. Firstly, the Mercenaries it can instantly produce are very expensive early game where the Fame skills have yet to be researched. This usually causes the Empire to forego Mercenaries until tier three, or even four. But when against some races (such as Undead), the Empire are pretty much forced to get them early on, which largely hampers their economy. The Foreign Mercenaries aren't much better, it's random what unit you get and the cost doesn't always justify that unit. For example, for 200 gold you MAY get a Leprechaun, but you could very well get a Forestguard instead, still for the same price. Then there's the missile upgrades, while themselves are great, they are mandatory to make Archers useful. Without them, the Empire's archers are only suited to sit in a tower. And finally, the Trade skill is, again, more expensive for the Empire than for the other races, excluding Dark Dwarves, forcing the Empire to fork out a little more for something that some of the other races get for less.

Eyrie level 1
With the Empire's naturally poor Archers, Eagles can be produced from the Eyrie level 1 to help them combat tougher fliers that may appear early on, such as Archons from Temples, Harpies from lairs and most of the Daemon race. Eagles are still limited in effect and should be used along side Archers. Because of this, Eagles wont be mass produced to the same extents of Pikemen, for example, so a single Eyrie at this stage should be fine for most cases.

Barn
The Barn produces Elephants and that's all. Although Elephants are incredibly tough and deal high damage, their attack type isn't anything new for the Empire and the sheer cost of stone and metal to produce them severely hinders tiering. So you may want to leave the Barn till later, once you reach a Palace level 5 and your metal and stone is not as much in demand. Even then, their cost still greatly restricts their production and so building multiple Barns is a bit of a waste unless you have plenty of resources to spare.

Archway
The Archway serves multiple purposes for the Empire and make it a rather important building. Firstly, its very presence allows for the production of Halberdiers. This ensures that the building needs to be on the field at all times. If destroyed, you would want to re-build it. Secondly, the Morale skills it researches offer a permanent boost to your troops attack speed, as well as a slight boost to your army limit / population cap. Although minor improvements, they're improvements nonetheless. And finally, the Fame skills it also researches make producing Mercenaries viable by reducing their cost, and even by up to 50% once you have all three of the researches.

The building is small and even quite durable for its size, allowing it to weather minor enemy assaults and can be placed easily within your base, slotting it in those tight spaces which would otherwise be wasted building room. But its cost is a little higher than usual and the Fame skills take a very long time to research, not to mention they come with a hefty cost. Ideally you would want to focus on the Morale skills first because of this.

Library
Expensive but fast to build, highly durable but relatively small, the Library is a strange and mysterious building that focuses on magic. As the Empire's generals are all spellcasters, it's no surprise that they are all produced here. However, their basic general, the White Mage, is available in tier 4, allowing the Empire to expand on their map control more effectively and faster than all non-Elven races. Come tier 5 and the Empire can produce the rest of their generals, which when combined together make an unstoppable force. But with such slow production times, but yet reasonably manageable costs, you'll find yourself building plenty of Libraries.

Eyrie level 2
The Eyrie level 2 brings Griffons to the Empire, which can be used as a more prominent aerial force than Eagles. Their raw power certainly helps the Empire tackle aerial threats, but when combined with Archers and especially Mages, the Empire finally have a respectable counter to aerial attacks. With healing support from White Mages, the Empire's Griffons will last longer than usual, which reduces the amount you need to produce in the long run. This means you don't need to build many Eyrie level 2s at all, as what ever you have produced is likely to still be around by the time you wish to produce more.

Eyrie level 3
With 3 different types of useful spellcasters that require a mix of gold and crystal, the Empire occasionally overlook their Dragon choices. However, the choices they do have a both great ones, but more specifically the Frost Dragon. With Red Mages and Siege Weapons, the Empire wont want to wait for the production of a Swamp Dragon before assailing an enemy base. But with frost being an attack type only used by the Black Mage and via a spell, the Frost Dragon essentially brings a new attack type to the army. With much gold and crystal being spent in tier 5, the Empire's priority for Dragons becomes quite low, and with the amount of Red Mages that can be produced for the same cost as a Swamp Dragon, that particular choice for a Dragon becomes even lower.

Nonetheless, a Frost Dragon makes for a decent support unit, slowing down important threats and metaphorically punching Daemons in the face, a race that would have been giving the Empire trouble throughout the game. But with such a competing cost, the Empire wont have many opportunities of producing them. Fortunately though, the White Mages shine once more be ensuring that any Dragon the Empire do get will last a long time. Because of all this, a single, lone Eyrie level 3 is more than acceptable.