Empires & Allies Cheats and Tips: Building a farm-less economy

If there's one thing more important in Empires & Allies than combat, it's resource management. But it's even more important to realize one extremely vital fact about resources: They always have a price tag. More times than not, you'll find that players are wiling to pay up in Coins for Oil, Wood and Ore rather than wait to create it themselves.

Since Coins are the most sought-after resource in the game, it's only natural for players to find the most effective way of acquiring them. As it stands, Farms are the only guaranteed source of Coins, but they're terribly inefficient. Thanks to Markets in E&A, it's entirely possible to create a sustainable empire with little to no Farms.

However, you must be a high-level player for this strategy to be effective. This is because the highest level Oil Wells, Lumber Mills and Ore Mines are the most efficient, and therefore will result in the highest profits. Here is what you'll need to create each of the buildings required for a Farm-less economy:

Oil Well III:

    13,500 Coins
    1,350 Wood
    40 Uranium
    1,800 Population


Lumber Mill III:

    15,750 Coins
    50 Wood
    45 Aluminum
    2,250 Population


Ore Mine III:

    26,750 Coins
    2,675 Wood
    65 Copper
    4,000 Population


Once you've reached the third tier of resource-generating buildings, it's time to mass produce them in order to produce both the amount of resources your empire personally needs, and excess resources to sell in your Markets. Generally speaking, you'll likely need 50 or more of each of these buildings to produce the resources needed, so the transition from a Farm-dependent economy to a Farm-less one will be slow. But the results are staggering, take a look:

Empires Allies spreadsheet
Click above for a larger image

According to this spreadsheet provided by an extremely skilled E&A player, chicharoncuneta, Farms provide marginal amounts of Coins at best compared to what you can make with a slew of Oil Wells and Lumber Mills by selling their spoils in the Market. We've omitted Ore Mines, because if you don't have an Ore like Gold or Uranium on your empire's land, profitability will be scarce. Sticking to Oil Wells and Lumber Mills is the best way to achieve complete independence from Farms.

Well, aside from the Goals that call for them--save a few for those. However, this approach to garnering Coins in the game relies on likely the most important resource of all: friends. Without active neighbors, you cannot sustain this economy. But between the Empires & Allies forums and its Facebook fan page, finding active friends shouldn't be an issue.

[Source and Image Credit: chicharoncuneta]

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