QI - Iron Settlement

QI - SETTLEMENT AND BOOSTS

Iron Age QI Released March 21, 2024

QUANTUM INCURSIONS - Quantum Settlement

The first several days of an incursion are spent getting the settlement up to speed; until then you subsist on the starting goods and troops you were given, so try to keep them alive! See the iron age fighting tips thread in the guild messages for tips on making your troops last longer, or head to the page with troop advice on the website.

STARTING GOODS

You get 20 of each (x5 kinds) at the start of each incursion. If you have Ascended buildings in your main city which give +10 quantum goods, this 10 goods means 2 of each (x5 kinds.) So, if you have 5 Ascended buildings giving +10 QI goods each, don't expect to see 50 QI goods at the start, it gives 10 more of each good (x5 kinds) so the default of 20 goods + 10 each from the boost, you will start with 30 of each good.

STARTING TROOPS

You get 8 of each troop (light, heavy, fast, ranged and artillery) at the start of each incursion. If you have Ascended buildings that give +5 QI troops, that's 1 of each kind of troops. If you have 2 Ascended buildings giving +5 QI troops each, again don't expect that this is adding 10 of each troop, its adding 2 of each troop (x5 kinds.) So the 8 default troops plus 2 more of each from the boost, you will start with 10 of each QI troops.

QUANTUM INCURSIONS - Suggested Settlement Strategy - PDF

2025 updates: I still follow the basic progression laid out in the PDF and ultimately end up with 2-3 goat farms, 5 tailors, 5-6 villas, 4-5 cottages, and a city full of my 3 troops (heavy, ranged, artillery) and iron goods; getting the basic setup usually takes until day 5 or 6. Then I keep buying land (with goods) as much as I can afford, so that there is room to build as many triumphal arches and decos (statues for blue, victory pillars for red, pick one but not both, and if you can, do blue that one is always short) as possible to handle higher levels on day 8-12.

However, there are a couple of tweaks to strategy.

1 HOUR builds don't complete: This was a change unannounced in early 2025, the 1 hour buildings now don't complete and start producing until you load up your settlement again, if you can pop back into the settlement 1 hour later it will make sure they're ready to collect in 10 hours.

Always collect at 150% happiness if you can, or at least 120%: In the first 2 days when we can't build enough happiness, collect from the smallest houses first and sell them 1 by 1 (they can be rebuilt instantly later and are cheap) in order to lower population and increase happiness, and make space to build an amphitheater to get the happiness up to 120% or 150% boost before collecting the rest of the settlement.

Spending 1000 coins to get the happiness boost up temporarily to 150% is a bargain because you collect 2000-5000 more on every building at higher happiness. Any of the instant-build houses/butcher can be swapped out for instant-build happiness just while you collect, and then you can build small houses and butchers again if you can't afford to fill your space with better buildings yet. All this only costs coins, which you have in abundance at the start, while you wait to get enough to place better buildings.

QI STRATEGY.pdf

Settlement after "Step 9" in the PDF guide.

This was my completed settlement following the PDF guide, it took the first 4 days just to build up the settlement to where it can produce. I only bought 1 more land expansion for 30 goods, and I didn't see any need to expand more. Now all that is needed is keep collecting coins and supplies, and produce troops or goods based on what the current node demands.

Important tips:

Troops and Goods produce in 1 second, there's no need to produce them ahead of time.
Troops and Goods buildings don't have to be connected to a road except for when you want to produce something, they can be stored in leftover spaces on edges.
Always produce the largest amount of goods or units possible, 10 units or 20 goods is a significant savings in cost over any lesser amounts.

Settlement Houses for More Action Points

Stopping building the settlement after the basics are in place is not good enough for later maps. The solution to more Action points is more houses, at the end of "step 9" I had enough houses for +950 Action per hour, even though the display still says I'm only getting the 5000 default per hour. When it pays out at the hour it shows only +5000 added as well, until you refresh the game then you get the other +950. Bugs. Nice. But you do actually earn the extra actions for houses.

After my settlement was built to the basics on Monday, I was going to leave it there, but 2 days of doing that I'm flush with coins and supplies and waiting around for Actions. And the only way to get more Actions is more houses, and the way to get more houses is more land and supplies to build them.

Settlement Optimized for more Action Points

Make goods to open land, in the Optimized for Action Points settlement pictured, I've opened 4 more plots with goods and built more houses (+200 villa is the best but I had to settle for some roof tile and build another tailor for more supplies) to up the +Action per hour, and you'll have to build another Triumphal arch if you do that to keep happy 120% boost.

It's been a long time since I played settlements and I forgot some tricks!

None of the goods or barracks buildings has to be connected to roads except for 1 second when you actually produce. Move them to empty plots or edges with no roads when not in use. This could make more room for houses and supplies without needing more roads.
Look for plots next to town hall with no impediments, 4x4 goods buildings can sit there unconnected until needed or 3x4 productions can be attached with a single road.

End result of continuing to build out the settlement, I could have done this a day sooner maybe but I would have waited on supplies regardless:

5 villas = 1000 AP per hour

5 cottage = 500 AP per hour

2 roof tile = 100 AP per hour

I think +1600 Actions per hour is about the max that can be done reasonably. This is in addition to the base of 5000 Actions per hour everyone gets.

4 Triumphal arch with that, hits a perfect 150% productivity boost with 0 leftover.

10 tailors and 1 goat farm to support that with supplies. (have also done it with 7 tailors and 2 goat farms, see Example 2 below)

2 barracks and 1 goods building

Settlement Optimization

It seems clear to me after 3 months that this is the best pattern:

Land expansions:

3 at the beginning with shards
3 more (maybe 4 depending on impediments) bought with goods on days 4-6 when you can afford the supplies

Look for expansions near town hall with few impediments so they can be easily connected to town hall with fewer roads, as in this example where town hall moved a little inward for efficient roads.

The rest is the same as listed above for houses, 5 villa, 5 cottage, 2 roof tile is optimum, 4 triumphal arch, 2 goat farm, 7 tailor, and 2 barracks and 1 goods that you can interchange as needed.

In the last 2 days on higher level maps when the fighting gets harder I was able to add up to 5 victory pillars or monuments and only dropped from 150% to 120% productivity. By the end you can afford to take the hit on coins/supplies and build decorations for more boosts. Until the last 2 days, I avoid decorations and rely on buildings in the main city for boost (more on those below!)

Settlement Optimized - Example 2

QUANTUM INCURSIONS - Boosts and how to get them.

These are the primary sources of QI boost, except for decorations in your Quantum Settlement. Every new Event released since QI was added also includes a limited-time ascended building that provides some boosts for QI, or the Gold League reward in each event typically provides 25% of red or blue boost for QI.

Excluding event buildings, the total possible QI boost is 175% for both red and blue.

Red Boosts (175% of both attack and defense)

Forgotten temple (from GE level 5) - 50% both
Tourney ground (from Battlegrounds) - 25% both

Settlement rewards, they split red defense/attack, adds to 100/100% of both.

Egypt Royal Bathhouse - 20% both
Viking Yggdrasil - 0%/50%
Aztec Sun Temple - 50%/0%
Polynesia Hut of the Sacred Instruments - 30% both

Blue Boosts (175% of both attack and defense)

Forgotten temple (from GE level 5) - 50% both
Tourney ground (from Battlegrounds) - 25% both

Settlement rewards, they split blue defense/attack, adds to 100/100% of both.

Egypt Royal Bathhouse - 20%/60%
Japan Shinto temple - 20%/40%
Mughal's temple - 60%/0%

If you're going to pick a settlement to complete for QI boost, do Egypt first, because the Royal Bathhouse gives far more QI boosts than any other settlement reward. Japan was an enjoyable settlement to do, I would do that 2nd. Polynesia was not too bad to play, do that one 3rd. Aztec was slightly more interesting because of the mini-game that is like minesweeper, but it was still quite painful to complete, do that 4th. God help you on the Vikings and the Mughals, best of luck, I never wanted to see them again after I survived those settlements.

Each settlement takes approximately 6 months to play through 10-13 times for the final upgraded reward building. So if you're starting these for QI boosts and didn't play then in the original release order, I would recommend this order:

Egypt
Japan
Polynesia
Aztec
Viking
Mughal

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