Section IV) Ok, I've done what you said...what do I do now?
Part A) Activity is key
Congratulations! You made it through your first login on Utopia! Now you'll have to keep checking back on your province to continue exploring, training your military, researching more books of science, and coordinating with your kingdom mates. How often you choose to log in is up to you, but it is recommended you log in several times a day. If you do not log in for a period of 48 hours, your province will be shown as inactive to your Monarch and he or she might destroy your province, so make sure to log in at least once a day if not more!
During war time, it is recommended you log in much more often. Due to the nature of wars, the more active you can be logging in and running ops on the enemy or attacking him with your armies, the more you'll help your kingdom and the likelier you are to win the war.
Part B) You can't stay small forever
The title of this part is actually completely false. You could stay at your original size as long as you wanted and no one attacked you, but you probably shouldn't. The more acres you have, the more money you can earn, the larger the army you can field, the more thieves and wizards you can train, and the more you can contribute to your kingdom.
Utopia gives every province 5 acres of land per day, for free. There is no way to NOT get the 5 free acres of land. You might as well use it as part of a greater growth plan. If, figuring the age lasts for 90 days (approximately 3 months) and you explore only 35 acres a day (and get the free 5 acres to bring you to 40 acres/day), you'll end the round with about 3800 acres, which is nothing to scoff at. It is quite possible to explore 35 acres/day and keep a sufficient defense plus be able to focus on whatever strategy you have chosen. Of course, that does not mean you should limit yourself to 35 acres/day if you want to grow more. Conversely, sometimes it is best not to grow that much. When provinces grow larger, it requires a lot more science to retain the same affects, so some people prefer to remain smaller and focus on science and efficiency.
All this must be weighed against several things:
1) The bigger you are, the more resources are at your control. You can finance dragons easier when you're bigger or slay dragons quicker with more soldiers at your command. Having more acres allows you to field a larger army and gives you more money to invest in research, although as mentioned previously, you'll need a lot more books to keep the same rate of return as a smaller province.
2) Military attack gains are dependent on the networth and land size of both the attacker and defender. For best results, you'll want to attack someone close to you in networth, and you want to have less acreage than they do. Thievery and magic operations work similarly; the greater the disparity in networth, the higher the chance of failing the op.
3) The kingdom needs to determine what objective it is trying to accomplish that age. If the kingdom is trying to gain networth, a larger province will be able to achieve a much higher networth than a small province. If the kingdom is playing for honor, it might be more effective to stay smaller and focus on efficiency through science. If the kingdom is playing for war wins, the kingdom will probably need a good mix of province sizes to effectively counter what the opposing kingdom is doing.
4) The higher the networth of the kingdom, the more intimidating other provinces might find it, and thus less are willing to take the risk of attacking into that kingdom. This works to protect all the provinces in the kingdom, but only if that kingdom is bigger than the kingdom from which the attacker is attacking.
5) More often than not, highly active and skilled kingdoms wind up with larger networths and more acres. Thus, a highly skilled and active kingdom might choose to remain smaller to fight less active and less experienced kingdoms to achieve quicker war wins. The downside of this is that the kingdom as a whole would not be able to repel attacks from significantly larger kingdoms.
As mentioned previously, there are three ways to grow: Exploring, Attacking, and Magic. The first two have been covered to some degree. Those adept at the magical arts can choose to cast the Paradise spell while not in war to create several acres of new land without sending out soldiers to explore. This spell is costly and difficult to succeed at, but an accomplished mage should be able to have little difficulty with it. The second option, during war time, is to cast Land Lust, which will steal several acres from the target province and give it to the casting province. Again, this is a very difficult and costly spell to cast.
Part C) It's about balance
At some point you'll notice that you've got a certain percentage of your land dedicated to one type of building, but when you go to your Internal Affairs advisor, you'll see that you're not getting the return you expected from that building. There are two reasons for that: Building Efficiency (BE) and diminishing returns. Let's talk about these and other balance issues you'll likely encounter during your time in Utopia.
Building efficiency is how efficient your buildings are. Each completed building houses 25 people and also provides 25 jobs. Peasants in Utopia work harder than you do in real life, and are thus able to fill 1 and 1/2 jobs each. It's pretty easy to figure out, then, that if you have built up all of your acres and do not have any homes, and have 50% of your population in the military, you will not have enough peasants to fill all jobs.
Don't worry, there are modifiers to this equation. Homes increase your population without adding jobs, which can help alleviate some of these problems. Gaining Titles through honor grants an increase in population limits, and humans have an increase in population limit naturally. Also, researching Books of Housing will increase the overall capacity of your buildings, allowing you to field a larger peasantry. Even with all those modifiers, though, you're not likely to fill every available job.
But don't worry, building efficiency is not determined simply by your total peasants divided by number of jobs. If that were the case, it'd be impossible to field a decent army and maintain building efficiency. Utopian peasants work 1 and 1/2 jobs each, so you only need 67% of total jobs to be filled by peasants in order for every job to be worked. If less than 67% of your total jobs are worked, your building efficiency will drop depending on how many additional unfilled jobs you have. It should also be noted that Dwarves get a bonus to building efficiency, Books of Tools can be researched to improve building efficiency, and there are other more complicated factors such as dragons and stances that can also affect building efficiency.
The last thing you should know about BE is that the rate won't drop instantaneously. If you suddenly drop a large amount of peasants due to kidnappings in your province or fireballs sent do destroy your peasants, instead of your BE dropping immediately to the levels it should be, the level is dropped gradually until it reaches the point it should be mathematically. Likewise, if you recover many peasants quickly or add to your population in a hurry, your building efficiency will not raise as high as it should be instantaneously; rather your BE will improve a little every "Tick" until it reaches its resting point.
Now that you understand BE, there is one final factor in understanding why your province doesn't get as much out of your buildings as it should, and that factor is diminishing returns. Simply, the higher percentage of a certain type of building you have, the less benefit each additional 1% will give to you. Therefore, the first 10% of your land you dedicate to a percentage based building will be more effective than the next 10%, and so on. This does not affect flat rate buildings, which have a fixed production no matter what percentage of your land is dedicated to that type of building.
Creating an effective province is more than just about balancing your peasants and jobs. You also need to worry about having a large military, training thieves and wizards, and having enough soldiers to explore, if that is how you choose to grow. The larger the military you field, the less peasants will be available to work jobs and help your buildings attain maximum efficiency. Only peasants and prisoners of war work jobs and create income through taxation (which you cannot adjust), so the larger the military you have, the less gold you'll receive per tick.
But if you have too small of an army, your peasants will be defenseless and invading armies will steal your lands. Finding the right balance point is complicated and is highly province specific, as some provinces will sacrifice economy for military strength, or vice versa.
From the percentages provided above, we now know that you need to fill about 67% of your jobs to attain maximum BE, assuming no homes or other modifiers. It would make sense, then, to have at least 33% of your total population in the military. However, if you build some homes or have other factors that increase your total population limit, such as science, honor, or racial bonuses, you can safely increase your draft rate without harming building efficiency.
It should also be noted that it is often worth the cost of sacrificing BE to increase your overall military, which consists of military specific units and thieves. Wizards are not part of your military, but also are not peasants and do not work jobs or provide income. The percentage of your total population dedicated to non-peasant roles is entirely up to you, and finding the right balance between working peasants, military, and wizards is one of the keys to the game. During wartime, especially, it is often more important to have a larger military, more thieves, and more wizards, than it is during peacetime. This rate should be adjusted as often as you need it to be, and can sometimes change every day or several times per day, depending on the current needs of your province.
Part D) DPA, OPA, TPA, WPA, pPA... what the heck is all this stuff?
There are many acronyms in Utopia, several of which are key to figuring out the correct balance point for your province. All of the above acronyms are something Per Acre. Thus, DPA is Defense Per Acre, OPA is Offense Per Acre, TPA is Thieves Per Acre, WPA is Wizards Per Acre, and pPA is peasants Per Acre. There are plenty of other acronyms that are useful in the game, but for now we'll discuss these ones.
To calculate any of these acronyms, the math is pretty simple. For example, to calculate DPA, simply take your total number of defensive points and divide that number by your total number of acres. Defensive points can be manually calculated by multiplying soldiers by 1, defensive specialists by 4 (5 for Elves), and Elites by whatever your racial elite has for defensive points. Add those three categories together and you'll come up with your total defense. Now divide that by your acres, and voila, you now know your raw DPA! Your final DPA can include several modifiers, such as Forts, stance, protection spells, and wage rate. When you calculate all those modifiers, you come up with your total DPA. Of course, Utopia has made these calculations part of the game so you need not worry about doing all the math yourself. Instead, simply check in at your military adviser and he'll tell you your total OPA and DPA.
TPA and WPA are very important numbers because these determine how successful you are at thievery ops and spells. When attempting to thieve or cast a spell on another province, the winner will largely be determined by who has a higher TPA or WPA. Of course, different thief ops and spells have differing degrees of difficulty, and the harder the op or spell is, the greater disparity you'll need between your TPA or WPA over your target's TPA or WPA. There are also other modifiers, such as the overall networth of each province. Provinces with significant disparities in networth will have a harder time thieving or casting spells on each other than those of similar networths, assuming TPA and WPA hasn't changed.
Again, though, we now run into the balance issue. While it may be great to have 500 acres and have 5 TPA, that will limit your total number of thieves to 2500. The higher percentage of your thieves you send on any specific op, the greater chance they have of failing (due to oversaturation). Send fewer thieves, though, and your op may be successful but will not destroy or steal as much when you send more thieves. Growing larger allows you to field a larger network of thieves, and if you are 1500 acres with 5 TPA, you now have 7500 thieves at your disposal. Now you can send 2500 thieves but still only be sending 1/3 of your total TPA, increasing your chance at successfully completing the op (due to lower % of your thieves sent) and still destroy or steal a significant amount of your target's resources.
Keep in mind that more acres means more science is required to keep the same efficiency that a smaller province has with less science, and the more acres you have, the higher the chance an attacker will look at your acres and wish to attack and steal some of your acres for themselves. Of course, having more acres also allows you to have a larger economy and draft more soldiers during times of war, which will help combat any dragons sent over during the course of the war. It all comes back to balancing your province at the size and rates you think are most effective for your desired goals.
How much defense is a good defense, and how much offense is a good offense? While DPA and OPA are important numbers to give you a measuring point, there is no "right" answer for these questions. The answer is simply "As much as you can afford". Again, it's about balancing your province. The Official Utopian Guide has a article about some basic numbers to aim for depending on what part of the round you're currently in, and can be found here: It should be noted, however, that in Utopia the best defense (for attackers) is a big offense!
No matter what your goal is for the game, every province must have enough defense to protect itself from its most likely attackers, that being out of war vultures looking to steal some easy acres. There is no way to defend against every player in the game as there are just too many other players and there will always be someone bigger. During a war, nearly everyone will be attacked regardless of how much defense you have. The objective, then, of defense is to have enough to prevent multiples attacks by larger provinces and prevent others from sending small amounts of offense to capture large amounts of land.
For attackers, this balance is harder to achieve because you'll also need a substantial offense in order to capture acres from similarly sized provinces. Just as thieves and wizards are more effective against provinces of similar networth, attackers gain significantly more by attacking provinces close to them in networth. It may be obvious, but the more land a province has, the more a successful attack will capture. Therefore, the optimal target for attackers is one with more acres and slightly less networth. Attacking a province less than 80% of your networth will yield significantly less acres, as will attacking a province greater than 120% of your networth.
In order to launch successful military assaults, attackers will need to field a large offense, which can be measured in OPA. As with defense, you can never have enough offense. OPA is a less important number than DPA in some cases, as the larger a province is, the more potential targets there are, even if they yield less land or resources during an attack. This is never more pronounced than during a war, and is the reason attackers want to have large offense. The larger an attacker is, the larger an offense they can field.
There are also many more bonuses for attackers than there are for defenders. Training grounds provide a bonus to offensive military efficiency (OME), war horses add one point of offense per horse, prisoners of war can be sent back into combat to fight for you and add 3 offensive points per prisoner, and mercenaries can be purchased to fight for you, also adding 3 offensive points per mercenary. Further, there are several spells which can increase offensive attack power, such as Aggression (helping soldiers) and Fanaticism (increasing OME). The last modifier is your wage rate, which increases (or decreases) both offensive and defensive military efficiency. Combined all together, a province can significantly increase their available offense by utilizing all available ways of increasing their offense. Not all races have access to those spells, so if you want to play as an attacker, one factor would be considering which race has access to the spell you would like.
Defensively, the list of potential bonuses is a little smaller. As with offense, your wage rate can increase your efficiency. Forts also increase your defensive efficiency, and there are two spells which can help you defend your lands. Minor and Greater Protection both offer a small bonus to defending your lands, with the percentage bonus being the same for both spells but the length the spell is active for being the only difference. Town Watch is the only other way to increase your defense, and will utilize your peasants to fight in defense of your lands. Keep in mind, though, that if you cast Town Watch and are attacked, your peasants will also die in the conflict, which can hamper your economy.
The last acronym I have mentioned is pPA (peasants Per Acre). This may be the least important of the statistics, but when spying on another province can be an indication of how much science they have. Since housing science is so important, and it is likely most provinces will have spent some time researching books of housing, the higher the peasants per acre a province has, the more likely they are to have science. This can be useful for attackers looking to find target to use a Learn Attack on, which captures some of the science of the target province. For more on finding good provinces for Learn Attacks, see this article in the official Utopian Guide: http://wiki.utopia-game.com/index.ph..._Learn_Targets
Part E) Anything else you want to say?
That just about wraps up the basics of the game, although there are more advanced concepts which the guide will eventually cover. The important things to remember is that Utopia is a game about people, and how you interact with your kingdom will go a long way towards determining your success as a province and the enjoyment you get from the game.
Utopia is not a sprint; rather, it's a marathon. Building a great province is much less about how many times you can log in during a day, but rather about consistently logging in every day to tend to your province and help it grow as you see fit. Logging in multiple times one day then waiting several days before your next log in will lead to a dysfunctional province; it is better to log in fewer times but more consistently and grow your province over time.
Remember that Utopia is at its core, a game of kingdoms against each other, more so than individual provinces against each other. Don't be afraid to sacrifice personal ambitions and achievements for the good of the kingdom and be willing to change play styles if the kingdom needs you to and you feel you have the ability to play different styles. You might end up enjoying a style you did not think you'd enjoy!
Part F) Player Made Videos
I did not make these and all credit goes to their creator, who did a fantastic job!
Creating a province: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzsFh58X-io
Basics of Utopia: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBk90x5z4GY
Utopia Angel/Pimp Explained: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdisqutzbWE
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