This guide offers a general walkthrough for the campaign missions in Factory Town.
Good to know game mechanisms
Town Specialty: Chances of double production
Trading Post: Reduce complexities in production
Underground Pipes: Fluid Pipe, Mana Pipe, OmniPipe
Steam Booster: Good for increasing speed of certain buildings
Preferred Methods of Transportation at Different Tech Level
Worker/Wagon are the most primitive form of transportation. Use foot path/stone road to speed up movement. Requires population count. Wagon is fairly miserable since it can only carry 4 items.Tech Level 2 – 4
Chute is useful for Loose Bulk transport. The speed of transportation is faster than metal conveyor belt, but it does not work from lower ground to higher ground (although barns/silos can be used to lift items uphill). Wooden/Cloth Conveyor is good for items other than Loose Bulk for short distance. Caravan on stone road is good for long distance transport. Packager can be used to increase the amount Caravan can carry by 4 times, making it possible to transport 32 * 4 = 128 items.
Tech Level 5 – 6
Chute is still useful for Loose Bulk transport. Metal Conveyor offers faster transport over Wooden/Cloth Conveyor. Steam Locomotive can be used for long distance transport, replacing Caravan on stone roads. Hopper Car is good for Loose Bulk and Box Car with Packaged Crates is good for other items.
Tech Level 7
Chute is still useful for Loose Bulk transport. For long distance transport, fluid pipe can be used for fluids (e.g. Fish Oil, Potions, Ethers) and mana pipe can be used for crystals.
Tech Level 8
Magic Rail and Conveyor are upgrades to Metal Rail and Metal Conveyor respectively. Trains on Magic Rail do not need fuel.
Tech Level >9
OmniPipe offers faster transport than chute and belts. OmniPipe can be used for underground transportation for any items and allow items to be lifted vertically. It is highly useful for providing items for OmniTemple offering.
Development Stages
1. Scan for resources and trading post
2. Gather building materials
3. Gather coins/increase experience/happiness
4. Remodel the town if necessary
5. Research (Normal)
6. Research (Industrial)
7. Research (Natural)
8. Research (Magical)
9. Research (Elemental)
10. Omnistone productionStage 1: Scan for resources and trading post
It is good to identify where the resources are on the map as well as good trading recipes, especially ones that make hard to produce start up items such as cake, metal conveyor belt, pickaxe…
Stage 2: Gather building materials
There is usually not a lot of starting building materials to make buildings. Hence it is usually necessary to collect these starting materials by building offsite production away from the main town center. Feel free to speed up production using more workers if possible, especially for Planks and Cloth Conveyor.
These includes the following:
1. Wood, Planks, Fluid Pipe, Wood Wheel
2. Stone, Stone Brick
3. Cloth Conveyor
4. Fertilizer (For Farm Tiles/Tree Planter)
5. Iron Plate, Reinforced Planks, Pickaxe
6. Steam Pipe, Iron Wheel, Metal Conveyor, Metal Rail
7. Mana Crystal, Mana Brick, Mana Pipe
Stage 3: Gather coins/increase happiness
It is important to gather yellow coins in the start of the game so that it is possible to plant resources. It is quite easy to replace existing setup to produce flour/bread using grains and replace fruits with juices. Use Processing for Town Specialty to gain chances for double production.
Later on, it is better to optimize for experience and happiness while balancing simplicity of setup. The below is my preference for early to mid game setup.
Food Market: Butter, Cooked Chicken, Cooked Beef, Cooked Fish
Tavern: Apple Jam, Pear Jam, Berry Jam
General Store (Hardware): Plank, Stone Brick, Wood Wheel
General Store (Clothing): Cotton, Cloth, Shirt
Apothecary: Fish Oil, Bandage, Poultice, Remedy
This provides a sufficient foundation for coins for research/town upgrade as well as increasing in worker population.
There might be opportunities to trade for more advanced items. Long distance delivery of these items should be done by either Caravan on stone roads or underground fluid pipes for fluids.
Stage 4: Remodel the town if necessary
The start up town in the campaign can sometimes be pretty obstructive to a compact setup where all the houses are in one place.
Stage 5: Research (Normal)
This stage involves providing books to school for research. If possible, it can be interleaved with stage 3/4 opportunistically. The resultant book production setup should also serve the foundation for subsequent industrial, natural and magical research.
Stage 6: Research (Industrial)
This stage involves building a setup with Forge, Machine Shop and Laboratory. It is possible to switch town specialty to Industry to gain chances for double production. Note it is advisable to interleave this with Stage 7.
1. Iron Plate (+1)
2. Iron Wheel, Steam Pipe (+10)
3. Metal Rail, Metal Conveyor Belt (+50)
The goal of these research is really to unlock the following
1. Mine
2. Steam Locomotive/Rail Freight Cars
Prior to these research, the best way to mine is using workers and the best way to transport items over long distance is via Caravan on stone brick road. After these research, it is now possible to replace existing worker mining and Caravan transport.
Stage 7: Research (Natural)
This stage involves building a setup with Medicine Hut, Laboratory, Kitchen. Feel free to interleave this stage with stage 6 after Machinery has been unlocked.
1. Herb (+1)
2. Fish Oil, Remedy (+10)
3. Health Potion, Antidote (+50)
The goal of these research is to unlock
1. Intermediate Medicine (for Knowledge Specialty)
2. Mana Purification/Mage Tower
Intermediate Medicine is pre-requisite for Knowledge Specialty. Switch the town specialty to Knowledge once it is available. This will allow for random chances of double production of all kinds of books and medicine, which is a gigantic boost to research speed.
Mana Purification is important to lead up to magical research. After Mana Purification is complete, stock up on Mana Bricks.
Stage 8: Research (Magical)
This stage is much more involved in terms of production. A full setup requires Pasture, Workshop, Tailor, Forge, Magic Forge, Mage Tower, Stone Mason. It is better to still keep to Knowledge Specialty for the potential chance of double output.
1. Mana Crystal, Cloak (+1)
2. Mana Brick, Mana Pipe (+10)
3. Magic Robe, Ward (+50)
The goal of these research is to unlock
1. Mana Transmission
2. Elemental Extraction
Mana Transmission is important to unlock Mana Pipe. Stock up on Mana Pipes. Mana Pipes are highly useful to transport crystals over long distance in the mana pipe layer without the need to build rails, scaffording, trains and stations.
Elemental Extraction is important to unlock research for elemental magic research.
Stage 9: Research (Elemental)
This stage requires the use of Elementary Refinery, Magic Forge, 4 Type of Temples, Mage Tower, Enchanter, Recharger. It is better to still keep to Knowledge Specialty for the potential chance of double output while doing research.
1. Ether (+1)
2. Crystal (+10)
3. Spellbook (+50)
It is a lot easier to build Elementary Refinery close to resources. It is quite convenient to transport ether via underground fluid pipes and crystals via underground mana pipes instead of using trains. It is possible to transport ether and crystals near the town center and store them in barns in order to feed them to the Mage Tower.
Once the various Temple research has been completed, it is also possible to move the temples next to the elemental refinery or close to a town center with Magic Specialty for double outputs.
Stage 10: Omnistone production
This stage requires the use of Mana Reactor to produce Omnistone. It is better to use Magic Specialty to double the output for omnistone.
