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This is NOT the best layout for higher levels.Ħ:2 Food/Wood 6:2 Food/Wood 6:2 Food/Stone is probably the best layout for higher levels and future on in the game. If you capture 3 outposts such as 6:2 Food/Wood 6:2 Wood/Stone 6:2 Stone/Food then you have an all around great economy and a standard sized army. They also are places to launch "sneak" attacks on your opponents from or to house extra soldiers. Outposts are very valuable to have the later you get into the game because your main castle will not have enough room to hold all the producers that you will need to support your larger and growing army. But in this case remember that if you build and woodcutters they will have 0% production rate.
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You can add additional farms and stone quarries but they will NOT be at 100% production rate. Then you can build up however you would like. After that you need to start upgrading defenses while recruiting more defense troops to be protected. For this example your first priority would be to make 6 farms and 2 stone quarries. Your first priority in your new outpost will be to make all of your production plants to the 100% production rate maximum right now and you can make more later. This is because higher level players like to pick on lower level players sometimes and you have to be prepared. After your outpost if captured your first priority should be to send over a good amount of defense troops from your main castle. If you are in a peaceful period where no one can attack you, you will need to wait to end that period. I recommend about 20 of each macemen and crossbowman and make sure your Castellan is well-equipped. Put together a small force of mixed units.
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Then perform espionage if you want on that outpost. After you have your Estate finished you need to locate a formidable outpost to capture. The Estate is fairly costly and takes a long time (mine took 5.5 hours) so just set it to build and go to sleep and when you wake up it is finished. In order to capture outposts in the first place you will need to get to level 13 and build an Estate for your Castellan to live in. This is simply because if you can have more farms at 100% production rate then you can have a bigger army. The most popular shiny OP's are 8:2 with food as the 8. Shiny OP's are the most desired because it allows you to have more producers at maximum production rate, giving you a bigger overall production rate. The shiny OP's have an 8:2 ratio meaning you can have 8 producers at 100% production rate and 2 of another producer at 100% production rate. For example, if I capture a 6:2 Food and Stone outpost, that means I can have 6 Farmhouses at 100% production and 2 Stone Quarries at 100% production (This also means that you can have NO woodcutters because there are no forests). Regular OP's have a 6:2 ratio meaning that you can have 6 producers of wood, stone, or food at 100% production rate and 2 producers of wood, stone, or food at 100% production rate. There are many types of OP's but only 2 main types. The first hints and tips blog is aimed towards outposts (or OP for short).