Eco, by Strange Loop Games is a simulation, sand-box and cooperative game were players begin at stone age and rise to a modern society in order to destroy the asteroid. Understanding the path and caveats of technology in Eco is the first step to a better experience.
You probably noticed things like tier material for rooms (hewn, lumber, composite) as well as the name of upgrade modules (basic, advanced, modern). There is also a clear distinction between charred food, stew and food cooked with an iron cast oven or stove. All these items belong to different eras in Eco.
This is when the first players land in the world. It is a bad moment and the only technological era you want to clear as soon as possible. Here are key characteristics.
Skills: No research has been done and the only available skills are the key resource gathering skills as well as campfire cooking. Some players will rush a small research hut to pick masonry, carpentry or basic engineering first.
Material: Most players have no room or maybe just a single room for a store and their first crafting table. They are mostly made of hewn logs. Logging players have a powerful advantage because they both gather wood and turn it into hewn logs with increased efficiency.
Upgrade modules: When you just landed, you don't usually have modules. But logging specialists (again) can easily own a basic upgrade module 1 (BU1) within 30 minutes.
XP: Many players eat charred food or even uncooked food (don't). Campfire specialists here have a good advantage since they can make campfire salads and easily begin with an XP bonus of 45+ while most struggle in the 20 to 30 XP region.
The settling era is very wasteful and uncertain. While every skill is needed in Eco, it is clear that those who specialize in logging and campfire cooking have a clear advantage over the others. Whether they use this for their personal benefit or for the common good is often a good indication of the future of your server.
The basic era typically begins shortly after many players replaced their tent for a room, stockpiles and chests. Unless some players are rushing or trying special strategies, the objective of this era is generally to have a store, a residence with 4 rooms of tier 1 quality and access to decent food and modules. It is the best time to identify good neighbors and create active trade paths.
Competitive players here will always do the minimum and push forward, but expert teams and communities tend to pace themselves and stay longer in the basic era: taking time to teach new players to use contracts, make roads, make a townhall for laws, learn to tackle research together, etc. This is seen as an investment to work the other technological tree. A solid tier 1 base drastically reduces server failures and makes an easier path to the next eras.
Skills: The skills after the first ones available in most profession : carpentry, masonry, farming, basic engineering, butchery, tailoring. Because of it's farmer's table requirement and value, fertilizers can be considered a tier 1 skill. Lastly, it's low price brings the paper milling book in the tier 1 range as well, although you don't need paper yet.
Smelting is a special case. First, the book is more costly than the others of the same era and it also requires a lot more research papers of the advanced category. Second, smelting is not essential for the objectives of the basic era. Third, it's use is linked to tier 2 crafting stations, which require advanced upgrade modules. Smelting is clearly a tier 2 skill in my opinion. However, if you ask players of Eco, many disagree and attempt to produce iron as soon as possible.
Those who produce lumber and iron products in the tier 1 era consume 3 to 5 times more resources and lands than necessary. Experienced communities, on the other hand, are likely to stockpile crushed ore, perhaps make few iron tools, then consolidate the rest of their objective of the basic era.
Many players complain about how difficult and long smelting is. Most probably, these players rushed smelting or have yet to play in a more collaborative fashion.
The total amount of research papers for this era, is 37 basic papers and 11 advanced papers. These are relatively easy to make. This is why so many players choose to make them on their own, passing a good occasion to establish a culture of collaboration.
Material: Hewn and mortared stone are used for the buildings. A mix of type and colors as well as clever roof design will change the look of your server easily. Plant some green for better results. Crafting stone roads is useful to quickly get to the highest modules and it will make transport of resources a lot faster with carts. As for crafting tables, the most useful are masonry, carpentry, farming, butchery, tailoring and wainwright.
Upgrade modules: The basic modules BU3 are easily available if you leapfrog the mason with sand and the carpenter with boards. BU4 from basic engineers typically take more time to get and it is frequent to see players enter the next technological era without them, especially if the community has not achieved a way to work together to make roads.
XP: Campfire cooking, gathering, farming, hunting and butchery are great skills to have on your server in this era if you want everyone living on a diet made of campfire salads and stew (65+ XP bonus). With good upgrade modules and these skills, food should be plenty and cheap (below the price of 1.5 wood logs per 1000 calories). Wood furniture (made with hewn logs and boards) as well as mortared stone furniture will make the bulk of your decoration. Cloth from tailors is likely to be used by basic engineers to make mechanical energy, but you should see rugs, padded chairs and other interesting stuff toward the end of the era.
After years of playing this game in different versions, I am convinced the way the basic era is handled is a strong indication of the survival chances of a server. It is where you will find the less risk to open up to strangers and where new players get their first impression about the culture of cooperation needed for Eco. The basic era frequently overlaps with the next one, mostly due to players smelting early and carpenters attempting to produce lumber. Fast push can decimate forests, quickly deplete large areas of the desert and drive players out quite easily.
This era is a frequent chocking point on servers. Abandon and failure are numerous. Since 9.0, the passage revolves around basic engineering, which is essential to make the research papers for pottery and glassworking. Is the engineer trying to make the research alone and sell the scrolls for his own benefit? Is there a community structure in place to support a collective effort? The increase in costs is steep since recipes now require a lot more resources. Furthermore, advanced modules are not as easily made and shared as before. On many servers, some players accumulated long nights without much sleep and are easily riled. Others can't kept the server pace and there is no structure to keep them in the game fairly.
Skills: The skills of the advanced era are smelting, pottery, glassworking, milling, cooking, and baking. You see the number of skills is less than the previous era, but the books need 140 basic papers and 30 advanced papers. This is only a warning of what is coming next.
Material: Bricks, lumber and glass make nice buildings in the tier 2 era. Plus the blocks have additional shapes. On the crafting side, the sawmill, kiln, bloomery and anvil will quickly need upgrade modules. The cost of iron tools should drop dramatically once modules are plugged in. Food producers enjoy the iron cast stove and if you are lucky, you might have a baker and miller on the server too. Lastly, this is the era you will see the first autonomous vehicles along with likely complains about roads not being large enough of plenty enough. This is why a good tier 1 era is useful too.
With tier 2 material available, this is the chance for communities to finish their main government and economic buildings by making a mint, bank and last offices. Hopefully the rich exchanges between players gave them a good sense of resources flow in Eco and they will be able to survive the transition to a national currency.
Upgrade modules: The advanced modules (AU) are usually harder to come by and some players will still require basic upgrades. You probably want a friendly player with a good XP bonus to pick glassworking, since he will be able to quickly get to the required level for AU2. Smelters are already eager to make AU3 at this point. Again, this is where a good community base, food producers and furniture pays off. The AU4 are linked to the following era.
XP: The cooking recipes change things during the advanced era. Previously, most cooks were able to forage in the wild and even get enough meat without hunting. Cooking was fast too. Now the recipes takes a lot more ingredients and time. The oven needs a fresh set of modules. Hunters and gatherers who were left behind are often sorrowfully missed and the price of calories rise up fast. With some efforts, the budding food industry will rise up the food bonus over 90 XP on medium settings. On the house side, tailoring, hunting and pottery add nice items and carpenters have additional lumber-based furniture. Most of these new addition, however have little impact on the XP bonus unless you upgrade your house with tier 2 material.
In summary, the tier 2 era is challenging. It is also an era of big risks (the currency). Those who have been patient, worked on their collaborative skills and joined strong communities are likely to have a smooth ride. Those who work in an independent or competitive way are likely to invest a rather unhealthy amount of hours in the game or end up sour about driving players out of the server in the first days. Economic inequities and tensions often reach peaks: in fact, this is where most server I visited die or end up with anemic populations of 3-4 players. If your world keeps failing at this step, maybe it's time to do things differently and try efficient structures, like fab labs or even paced research.
The industrial era relates to the coal driven, industrial period of the 19th century. This is where the first factories are put to use and where a lot of machines and CO2 pollution appear. The transition is less difficult than the previous phase, mainly because the focus lies on iron production (which is already going) and the new machines need advanced upgrade modules (that we already have). In fact, mining equipment receives a boost in productivity at this point and things tend to accelerate. The industrial era is where final roads are placed and concrete buildings appear.
The advantage of separating this era from the others is that economic inequity can quickly get out of control with the arrival of assembly line and blast furnace. The tier 3 era is some kind of transitional zone or buffer on technologically paced worlds. There is still much to do on the infrastructure and XP bonus sources to prepare for the very high requirements of the modern era. In fact, the tier 3 era is a lot similar to the tier 1 era in the sense that it's a good moment to work on consolidating the community. Teams and worlds looking for a paced game can relate to this era and make sure the objectives are reached before opening the door to the final stage.
Skills: This era has only 4 skills. Mechanics is the doorway to advanced smelting and steel production. Advanced cooking and advanced bakery will unlock late diets. Advanced cooking will be useful with the kitchen crafting table, but players will have to wait for the modern stove to use the skill to it's full extend. These skills are costly to research and it is likely some won't even be picked if your community had a bad tier 2 experience.
We could include industry and oil drilling here, but many industry-related recipes or items are useless without modern skills and items. Moreover, the use of industry crafting tables is costly without modern upgrade modules. In fact, including industry in the tier 3 era here is a similar debate to including smelting to the tier 1 era.
In total, unlocking the skills of the industrial era requires 110 basic research papers, 95 advanced research papers and 60 modern research papers. All this for only 4 skills : collaboration is key.
Material:
The era begins with key and fun machines: assembly line, cement kiln, blast furnace and steam trucks. This is where new players who picked smelting realize they are too far from water (oh no!). Iron pipes and cheap brick aqueducts can help. Laws to protect these lines too. You might want to invest into a waste filter as well. If you don't care about pollution, just know that the compost it produces is mandatory for any chance of sustained late-game farming.
The steep requirements of the factory should serve as a signal to rethink about how you want to handle future infrastructure costs. This is where curiosity about different company structures (including coop) can lead to interesting discussions and choices in your community.
Masons bring a cheap tier 3 material in this era : reinforced concrete. Asphalt is the last road material: it's time to get rid of the slag and launch global projects for roads. With such infrastructure, the use of steam trucks will make transport of resources easy. Lands that are suited for tractors will make farm operation easier.
What I like here is to replace the early stone roads/mortared sidewalk design for asphalt roads/stone sidewalk. You can hire farmers to remove and place the blocks and allow them to leave with excess mortared stone as payment: they will use it to prepare late game farms designs.
The blast furnace will increase metal production greatly to accommodate the growing needs of steel. This should make steel tools cheap enough to compensate for the price of the new diets and keep a steady flow of basic resources.
Upgrade modules: This era sees the latest advanced modules and the first modern module (MU1). These modules are very useful to make the early push into the modern era. Mechanics should really invest in a module upgrader design, to avoid being stuck with too many AU3.
XP: Food producers is on trial during the previous era. If cooperation among the players is not high enough and if upgrade modules are too hard to get, there will be a distinct feeling that getting a tier 3 diet is too much trouble (and it is). Those who try anyway will probably only be able to feed the richest players and economic inequity will rise along with abandon. In fact, many food producers end up their path at tier 2 because the conditions are not optimal for further development. Hopefully, this is also where industrialist players who were just eating charred tomatoes and grinding since the beginning start thinking about better food. The tier 3 diets brings the food bonus above 100 XP on medium settings, which is a blessing to enter the modern age. The availability of the last advanced upgrade modules should make it easy for all players to improve their home and get access to high value decorations, provided your tailors, carpenters, masons and hunters are decent players.
I like to use the onset of the industrial era to stop and spend time to do a full checkup of my Eco world. This is because many players end up here doing things as usual, but a smooth modern era requires a steep level of collaboration and clever efforts. It may be the last occasion you have to put in place a government, taxes and laws to face the complex problems ahead. This is also when many loyal and active players are riled up by constant economic inequity and loose faith in their ability to contribute to the late game. Basically, it's time to discuss changes.
The end... but the beginning of a new level of fun.
Skills:
The late game unlocks the ability to make lasers and comes with a general feeling that iron business is all. In fact, many players begin with mining and smelting and then pick advanced smelting and three late engineering skills to make sure they will have a shining spot in the late game. When these players keep the machines for themselves, it tends to create a dead zone of abandon around or even kill activity on the server. To avoid this problem, some servers prevent players from picking specific combinations of skills or too many late engineer skills. I prefer communication or this neat taxation law that discourage such skill patterns for personal benefit.
The skill that launch the modern era is clearly industry. It adds the ability to make MU2 and makes oil drilling items useful. The tier 3 factory used by industry-related machines will also make all the latest crafting tables for composite, advanced masonry, advanced cooking and tailoring.
Unlocking all the skills of the modern era requires 180 basic research papers, 170 advanced research papers and 220 modern research papers. Still no wish for a common library?
Material:
Tier 4 building materials are now available and require a lot of resources. Hopefully, the hewn logs, lumber and glass from the previous eras can be recycled to composite and framed glass. Bricks and mortared stones do not, but they have their use for aqueducts, bridges and railing (because these new trucks on asphalt do go fast). Skid steer will compensate largely to help masons make ashlar products and even beat the "almost unbeatable" mining teams.
The modern era is also where you see the most advanced machines, tools and vehicles. Electricity network, lasers and other huge infrastructures are best funded and planned at the level of the government when you play the cooperative path.
I hope making asphalt at the tier 3 era was a good testing ground for your government infrastructure.
Upgrade modules: Modern modules begin with the blast furnace (MU1) and it's less easy to get the 3rd version since it first requires a tier 3 factory. Concrete and a mix of tier 2 material and framed glass is a solution to this problem. The third level of upgrades remains a fair target to reach before engaging in any big project. High XP bonus will help to make this less painful.
XP: Food industry here often downsize and even crash. The first reason is machines and better tools reduce the need for calories. The second is most server failed at collaboration along the road and end up with very small populations. These two reasons can leave the food players without a job. Third, even if players are willing to work, the means of production and the vehicles are in the hands of the engineers who really enjoy themselves with machines of ever-increasing efficiency. Failure to share the fun with players of the fledgling food industry can bring your server to an abrupt stop. On successful servers, the best diets of 120+ XP at low price really help to relieve the feeling of grinding and allow more projects on the server.
On the house front, tailors can now make special house items, carpets, that serves as tier 4 blocks. Eating a 120+ XP diet in a village with many tier 4 houses equipped with composite and ashlar furniture is, in my opinion, the true condition for victory in this game. It means players have been strong and clever enough to allow multiple persons to reach the end.
Finally, this article aims to give a clear view of technological progress in Eco by dividing them into four eras. We could also attempt to keep 3 eras by splitting the skills of the 3rd era : mechanics in the second era and the others with the modern skills. This organization follows the logic of the 3 different kind of upgrade modules, potentially at the expense of more inequity between smelters.
You have seen that each era has distinct properties regarding skills, material, upgrade modules and XP. All these properties can serve as indicator of technological growth. Loosing the equilibrium between them and having a large difference between players on a server can lead to disaster.
Comments
Post a Comment