Step 1: Don't Thronefall into perk addiction

It's very easy to spam one perk every map and steamroll the linear missions. It feels good, and you'll be a gigachad to your peasants, but it will make the game very repetitive and you run the risk of your favorite perk being too strong and getting nerfed. Think of perks as a small, insignificant bonus. You should not center your strategy around a specific economy perk because it will close off the possibilities of other, potentially safer, economic strategies.

If pepe only has the Big Harbour perk, then pepe will never consider building a mine or a mill. Pepe is a perk simp, ew.


Step 2: Expand on the opposite side to the enemy wave

The best way to build your economy is always build the opposite direction of the wave every day. As tempting as it is to always get a harbour, or always rush a mill; most of the time having one or two extra economy upgrades each day is safer and ultimately more cost efficient if there is no way the enemy can get to it.

Always having one extra source of income at the end of each night is always better than mass spamming economy in risky positions.



Step 3: Build your gains

With any remaining gold build towers, walls, units, or upgrades to defeat in the incoming waves. This will slowly add to your kingdom's defenses over time but more importantly: ALLOWS YOUR NEW ECONOMY BUILDINGS TO ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING! No point in only building Mills every game, for it immediately die to a dude riding a demon horse.

As a great Starcraft 2 player once said:

"Make expand and defence it" - WhiteRa

Consider the following example scenario



One wave of Flying Mages attacking from the South side of the map.


Build a mill or a harbour (regardless if you have the Pumpkin Field or Big Harbour perk), on the North side of the map. Do not spend all your money, because:


Add more defenses, units, walls or upgrades on the side you will get attacked from. Never skip this step, always add something.

No really it is that simple, here's your crown: 👑

Be warned, I tend to yap.

In this section I will go over some additional things to keep in mind when building eco buildings. Note that these should not affect the main strategy of building on the other side map, but useful to know when considering how to expand.

Build harbours early, but not day 1



Harbours need to ramp up over time, so getting them our early will start to snowball your economy, but do not build them on day one since 3 coins for 1 return is not good and could make night 2 very hard. I would build houses on day 1, and then the harbour (if safe) on day 2, and go from there. Additionally do not upgrade the harbour unless you have 5 boats completed.

Safe mills = Improved Plow



Mills should most of the time be using the Improved Plow upgrade because the +1 gold per level ramps up quickly. Additionally always try to get a tier 2 mill as fast as possible; ideally the moment your build one. Tier 1 mills are less efficient than houses, but exponentially better from tier 2 upward.

Difficult start? Rush Builder's Guild



Builder's Guild is a reliable way to safely expand your economy if the map and mutators are difficult early on because the free house upgrade each turn means you only need to spend 2 gold on economy and the rest can go into building defenses. This is not a "must pick" every map because houses are not as good the other eco buildings, so only use this when there is safe alternative. On exceptionally hard modes, try opening builder's guild + 1 house. This has the bonus benefit of the physical castle itself being able to tank more hits and do more damage to the first few attack waves.

Make shrines easier by making them harder



If you want to open with a shrine (since they give +2 gold when energized). Try playing the map with the "Challenge of the Wasp God" mutator enabled. This causes more early enemies to spawn, which in turn energizes your shrine faster, even as early as end of night 1. This is a really good mutator to pick when you use the Ancient Shrines perk as well.

Finally, even-though I go on about how perks should not impact your gameplay at all, it worth talking about them since some can snowball your economy faster. I normally pick attacking perks on my playthroughs and seldomly need economy perks at all, but sometimes they can be handy based on the enemy line ups. Anyway, here is my tier list for economy perks:

SITUATIONAL

The eco building perks can be good depending on the map. Always feasible with no perk outshining the other. Of course, don't pick Big Harbor on a waterless map. Duh!

S - AMAZING TIER

Houses immune to dying allows you to expand like crazy every map, add in the free tier 2 houses from Builder's Guild and you can have completely safe economy all game. Loan is great to setup a fast tier 2 castle into improved plow mill rush. Faster research actually makes researching worthwhile, otherwise i never do any research in any of my runs in favor of more units/towers.

A - OKAY TIER

Can be good if you intend to rush Tier 2 early, but otherwise +1 gold isnt so good, better to just build one extra house; the +3 gold at tier 3 in almost negligible. Treasure Chest is very good on early Eternal runs, but terrible in the linear game; getting it early in your eternal run (stage 1 or stage 2) will give you +2 tier 3 towers every map which can help secure the win.

F - CRAP TIER, AVOID

Anything that allows you to skip going tier 2 or tier 3 is just terrible; you want to get those castle upgrades anyway so there is no reason being able to build in tier 2 positions at tier 1 or upgrade a tower to tier 2 on a tier 1 economy. Additionally, not spending gold is bad, and relying on monster loot is equally terrible, your primary source of income should always be well spent, well defended economy buildings; not RNG. Terrible perks, rather pick nothing to avoid temptation.

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