I haven't played the game since I beat it on P20 on release, but this video was top recommended just an hour after release. TH-cam understands me too well. Great to see you back.
Glad to see Hidden Rewards gets the recognition it deserves. I still think it's one of the best epic cornerstones and would argue it belongs at the bottom of S tier, but your placement is reasonable enough. I do want to note that Hidden Rewards is especially excellent on Sealed Forest maps as you will need to explore more of the map to complete it, which naturally leads to more glade events being completed, leading to more tablets and more value. It also makes the final task much easier as you just have the tablets you need to just win, so all you need is the forbidden glade solves. Regarding service buildings, I think they are the most species-dependent buildings in the game. Most service buildings are just not really worth getting just for their secondary effect, you really want to be consuming those luxury goods to make them good. You know how you were saying Tavern is good because it gives +3 global resolve? Fulfilling a species luxury good needs gives that species +8, which can be doubled to a +16 if you fulfill both. If you manage to get the perfect match, that's effectively a +8 global resolve bonus with an additional +8 resolve to a specific species. That's a wincon right there. Because of this, luxury buildings that only consume 1 good are naturally weaker than buildings that consume 2 goods, even taking into account the fact that single good buildings tend to have stronger effects than double good service buildings. Service buildings are indeed very expensive to build (as they should be, they are wincons), but once built buying luxury goods from traders is actually really cheap for how much resolve they provide, and traders tend to have pretty large stacks of them. Because they are species dependent, and you can't really afford to build them until fairly late into the game, I can't really justify putting most of them above B tier(though I do think Tavern and Monastery make it into A tier, as they are double service buildings with legitimately good effects), but I do think that roughly 80% of their power budget is in the fact they consume luxury goods, meaning they are pretty close together in power level. I also consider the 2 good service buildings to be nearly universally better than the 1 good service buildings (though the guild house does have the potential to pop off if you have a particularly trade heavy game). I also think Bath House is just the worst service building mostly due to being a 1 service building who's effect simply does not make up for the fact it only consumes 1 luxury good. Lastly, this is very much inexperience speaking, but you talk a lot about how you can't really afford to lose villagers in higher difficulties. Why is that? Obviously you don't want to death spiral and lose a ton of villagers, but oftentimes there are counterbalances to prevent that from happening. For example, if you lose a villager during the storm to resolve, both the villager leaving and the impatience increase will result in a hostility decrease, which in turn reduces the global resolve penalty for the storm. That seems to me like a good thing, because it makes it easier to stabilize your town and keep going. The reason why I ask this is that I suspect you are looking at Hidden from the Queen the wrong way. You are looking at it as a niche combo-enabler where you get it plus the alter of decay, sac 20 villagers and get minus 1000 hostility or whatever and somehow win off of that, and that is obviously deranged. What it allows you to do is play much more aggressively without having to worry about losing the game. Take more villagers then you would normally, cut wood during the storm, and just generally move things along faster so that you have more resources allowing you to reach your wincons faster, whatever those may be. The only things you still need to worry about are death spiraling (doesn't matter how low impatience is if everyone dies/leaves) and stalling (more relevant now post-nerf, but stalling has always been a loss condition in this game). I'm not saying it's necessarily not a D tier perk, but I would argue it's better then the lame corruption perks that barely do anything.
I did a run with clay pit. The only viable way, i already had ranch and a yellow water gyaser. it was like prestige 5. I also had the full exodia on that run press and temple. Forgot to mention, I also had the cornerstones for +1 lizzard every couple eggs and the + ressolve on lizzards for every couple training gear produced(like per 75) and the produce stone on clay pit. It was the full exodia and more.
Woodcutter's song is mostly meh, about a +1 to your resolve on average. However, if you can find exploding machinery, rainpunk foundry, or drainage mole, any event that explodes the trees.... You can explosion your way to victory with this thing by deliberately letting the event trigger (or at least get several reputation points), which is a hilarious accidental combo, because it doesn't count 'chopped trees', it counts 'felled trees', which also includes trees that are killed for other reasons. For that reason it should be above average.
Love these videos! I recently got into AtS so I've been watching your last ones over and over. Thank you for giving us your time! QQ - How come Trade Hub isn't listed?
I agree with the placement of basically everything but I wanted to make a note about the two cornerstones that give you transport carts: The carts are *truly* free - they don't count against the hostility cap and they do not need housing, food, or amenities. They don't take breaks either. As such a cart is better than a regular citizen in a lot of situations. Despite all of this counting in their favour I still think they're still correctly rated at B tier.
Hearing that Year 6 is "end game" and I've been consistently ending on Year 12 most of the time after 100 hours is insane. Definitely needed to watch this sooner!
I knew you'd put Clay Pit there, but I still pick it often as it becomes an infinite node, especially when my map lacks natural clay nodes - assuming I have the Ranch, at any rate.
Hey Pidgeon, kudos on the oustanding tier lists. The quality of your work cannot be overstated ! A few cornestones (like Bread Peels or Dye Extractor) are missing from your tier lists, do they not show up on P20 or am I missing something ? Anyways thanks again, your work helps me a great deal.
I'm curious what you think about the legendary cornerstone Economic Migration. You don't really talk about the rebalanced stuff in this vid, but you did move it to C instead of D. IMO it's been made far, far better than it was before. It went from 15% faster villager arrival per 2 standing, to 15% faster arrival and 10% more good per 1 standing. In my eyes it's become one of the most busted cornerstone in the game. Quickly letting your economy get out of control. Even if your economy can't handle the growth, you'll get villagers back so quickly that it doesn't even matter if they leave or die. The resources they give also become pretty insane. I've had runs where the bonus got to 12 standing, giving me 180% faster arrivals with 120% bonus goods. I had around 100 villagers at year 7 at that point. In my eyes it would be A tier at worst.
I'm surprised to find the Guild House at B-tier, when it's basically SSS before you go into high prestiges. Amber trading has no entry cost, you can stack the Guild House to ridiculous levels and get +10 Global Resolve pretty consistently. In fact, the building had to be nerfed from 60 Amber per stack, to 75 Amber per stack.
Me, clicking on the video: "He's going to rate the best combos ultra low..." The video: Yup. XD It's really about order of operations - IF "From the Shadows" comes up first, it's on. Hidden from the Queen, Converted Altar of Decay, Blood Price, Alarm Bells, Bones Tools, Cannibalism, Seized Inheritance, . GG. Free prestige seals. Unreliable, but if you can get FtS and HftQ on a difficult seal map, it's almost an easy button.
Temple is better than Market or Tea Doctor! I would even argue it should be A tier! A -100 hostility is also a +4 global resolve. It is just op op op op. Very often my win condition by scaling it to -200 ; -300 range
this is probably the most common discussion in the entire AtS sphere. just look at the steam discussion forums - there's always an active thread on how Temple is actually super duper broken. and it's always veteran players arguing against it - it's slow and carries a huge opportunity cost. that makes it highly situational, which is why it usually fits the criteria of a C tier building
Second this, even P20 runs (not QHT), I've gotten this up to -800 before. It's been an absolute win condition for me in more games then I can count. While unlike the combo of 'Hidden from the Queen' + 'From the Shadows', both flour and oil (from flour) are generally things you go for quite consistantly. I wouldn't put it S given it's situational on grain production, but absolutely A tier.
Would love to see another revised version of this list with 1.4 because that brought major chanhes to buildings,food as a whole,needs ... Its a lot
Agree
agree as well
Yes please
Yes, please create an updated list for 1.4 and DLC!!!
Agreed
I haven't played the game since I beat it on P20 on release, but this video was top recommended just an hour after release. TH-cam understands me too well. Great to see you back.
This came out of the left field. Glad to see you back!
Now I just have to get back to the game too...
Love that you are keeping up with the updates!
Amazing breakdown! Excited to come back to this game once I have more free time to attempt Queen's Hand Trial mode.
Was waiting for this the whole time, GigaPidgeon finally did it.
Glad to see Hidden Rewards gets the recognition it deserves. I still think it's one of the best epic cornerstones and would argue it belongs at the bottom of S tier, but your placement is reasonable enough. I do want to note that Hidden Rewards is especially excellent on Sealed Forest maps as you will need to explore more of the map to complete it, which naturally leads to more glade events being completed, leading to more tablets and more value. It also makes the final task much easier as you just have the tablets you need to just win, so all you need is the forbidden glade solves.
Regarding service buildings, I think they are the most species-dependent buildings in the game. Most service buildings are just not really worth getting just for their secondary effect, you really want to be consuming those luxury goods to make them good. You know how you were saying Tavern is good because it gives +3 global resolve? Fulfilling a species luxury good needs gives that species +8, which can be doubled to a +16 if you fulfill both. If you manage to get the perfect match, that's effectively a +8 global resolve bonus with an additional +8 resolve to a specific species. That's a wincon right there. Because of this, luxury buildings that only consume 1 good are naturally weaker than buildings that consume 2 goods, even taking into account the fact that single good buildings tend to have stronger effects than double good service buildings. Service buildings are indeed very expensive to build (as they should be, they are wincons), but once built buying luxury goods from traders is actually really cheap for how much resolve they provide, and traders tend to have pretty large stacks of them. Because they are species dependent, and you can't really afford to build them until fairly late into the game, I can't really justify putting most of them above B tier(though I do think Tavern and Monastery make it into A tier, as they are double service buildings with legitimately good effects), but I do think that roughly 80% of their power budget is in the fact they consume luxury goods, meaning they are pretty close together in power level. I also consider the 2 good service buildings to be nearly universally better than the 1 good service buildings (though the guild house does have the potential to pop off if you have a particularly trade heavy game). I also think Bath House is just the worst service building mostly due to being a 1 service building who's effect simply does not make up for the fact it only consumes 1 luxury good.
Lastly, this is very much inexperience speaking, but you talk a lot about how you can't really afford to lose villagers in higher difficulties. Why is that? Obviously you don't want to death spiral and lose a ton of villagers, but oftentimes there are counterbalances to prevent that from happening. For example, if you lose a villager during the storm to resolve, both the villager leaving and the impatience increase will result in a hostility decrease, which in turn reduces the global resolve penalty for the storm. That seems to me like a good thing, because it makes it easier to stabilize your town and keep going.
The reason why I ask this is that I suspect you are looking at Hidden from the Queen the wrong way. You are looking at it as a niche combo-enabler where you get it plus the alter of decay, sac 20 villagers and get minus 1000 hostility or whatever and somehow win off of that, and that is obviously deranged. What it allows you to do is play much more aggressively without having to worry about losing the game. Take more villagers then you would normally, cut wood during the storm, and just generally move things along faster so that you have more resources allowing you to reach your wincons faster, whatever those may be. The only things you still need to worry about are death spiraling (doesn't matter how low impatience is if everyone dies/leaves) and stalling (more relevant now post-nerf, but stalling has always been a loss condition in this game). I'm not saying it's necessarily not a D tier perk, but I would argue it's better then the lame corruption perks that barely do anything.
Thank you so much for this! I really enjoy your videos and how you break things down.
I did a run with clay pit. The only viable way, i already had ranch and a yellow water gyaser. it was like prestige 5. I also had the full exodia on that run press and temple. Forgot to mention, I also had the cornerstones for +1 lizzard every couple eggs and the + ressolve on lizzards for every couple training gear produced(like per 75) and the produce stone on clay pit. It was the full exodia and more.
Woodcutter's song is mostly meh, about a +1 to your resolve on average. However, if you can find exploding machinery, rainpunk foundry, or drainage mole, any event that explodes the trees.... You can explosion your way to victory with this thing by deliberately letting the event trigger (or at least get several reputation points), which is a hilarious accidental combo, because it doesn't count 'chopped trees', it counts 'felled trees', which also includes trees that are killed for other reasons. For that reason it should be above average.
Wait, that is ridicoulous lmao
Dude you're a legend! Thanks a lot and keep up what you do !
I'm so glad you cover this amazing game again ❤️
Eagerly awaiting the 1.14 update 😂
Love these videos! I recently got into AtS so I've been watching your last ones over and over. Thank you for giving us your time! QQ - How come Trade Hub isn't listed?
I agree with the placement of basically everything but I wanted to make a note about the two cornerstones that give you transport carts: The carts are *truly* free - they don't count against the hostility cap and they do not need housing, food, or amenities. They don't take breaks either. As such a cart is better than a regular citizen in a lot of situations. Despite all of this counting in their favour I still think they're still correctly rated at B tier.
Hearing that Year 6 is "end game" and I've been consistently ending on Year 12 most of the time after 100 hours is insane. Definitely needed to watch this sooner!
I knew you'd put Clay Pit there, but I still pick it often as it becomes an infinite node, especially when my map lacks natural clay nodes - assuming I have the Ranch, at any rate.
Hey Pidgeon, kudos on the oustanding tier lists. The quality of your work cannot be overstated !
A few cornestones (like Bread Peels or Dye Extractor) are missing from your tier lists, do they not show up on P20 or am I missing something ?
Anyways thanks again, your work helps me a great deal.
I'm curious what you think about the legendary cornerstone Economic Migration. You don't really talk about the rebalanced stuff in this vid, but you did move it to C instead of D. IMO it's been made far, far better than it was before. It went from 15% faster villager arrival per 2 standing, to 15% faster arrival and 10% more good per 1 standing.
In my eyes it's become one of the most busted cornerstone in the game. Quickly letting your economy get out of control. Even if your economy can't handle the growth, you'll get villagers back so quickly that it doesn't even matter if they leave or die. The resources they give also become pretty insane. I've had runs where the bonus got to 12 standing, giving me 180% faster arrivals with 120% bonus goods. I had around 100 villagers at year 7 at that point. In my eyes it would be A tier at worst.
I'm surprised to find the Guild House at B-tier, when it's basically SSS before you go into high prestiges. Amber trading has no entry cost, you can stack the Guild House to ridiculous levels and get +10 Global Resolve pretty consistently. In fact, the building had to be nerfed from 60 Amber per stack, to 75 Amber per stack.
The greatest comeback of mr epic pigeon
Me, clicking on the video: "He's going to rate the best combos ultra low..."
The video: Yup.
XD
It's really about order of operations - IF "From the Shadows" comes up first, it's on.
Hidden from the Queen, Converted Altar of Decay, Blood Price, Alarm Bells, Bones Tools, Cannibalism, Seized Inheritance, . GG. Free prestige seals.
Unreliable, but if you can get FtS and HftQ on a difficult seal map, it's almost an easy button.
Temple is better than Market or Tea Doctor! I would even argue it should be A tier! A -100 hostility is also a +4 global resolve. It is just op op op op. Very often my win condition by scaling it to -200 ; -300 range
this is probably the most common discussion in the entire AtS sphere. just look at the steam discussion forums - there's always an active thread on how Temple is actually super duper broken. and it's always veteran players arguing against it - it's slow and carries a huge opportunity cost. that makes it highly situational, which is why it usually fits the criteria of a C tier building
Second this, even P20 runs (not QHT), I've gotten this up to -800 before. It's been an absolute win condition for me in more games then I can count. While unlike the combo of 'Hidden from the Queen' + 'From the Shadows', both flour and oil (from flour) are generally things you go for quite consistantly.
I wouldn't put it S given it's situational on grain production, but absolutely A tier.
Unfortunate timing. Now we need another update thanks to the dlc :))
what is the best wildcard choice in most cases?
when are you updating for new dlc?
i like master blueprint early so i dont get useless blueprint rerolls
1.4 tierlists please. No more jerky and poridge on field kitchen
Where's Trade Hub? I couldn't see it anywhere!
is there a link to this finished product?
Lets goooooo