Planning, building and managing your city is a vital part of the Wolcen endgame. This guide details the ins and outs of city building management.
Wolcen Projects FAQS and Basics
What are projects? For example, constructing the West Primordial Institute will unlock a 5th active skill slot, while the Energy Instillator and Siphon Chamber allows you to turn gold into primordial affinity and vice versa. They basically unlock new subsystems or give you bonuses of one kind or another.
How do I start a project? Talk to Thunderblade Zalahir or press N (default) to open the city planner. Projects require gold and primordial affinity, as well as productivity, which is how long it will take for your project to complete.
What is a turn? Each time you complete an expedition from the Mandates Board or Expeditions Map, a turn elapses. When a turn completes, your base productivity as well as modifiers from the expedition is added to all your active projects.
What is productivity and how do I increase it? Productivity determines how much all of your active projects progress after a turn. Productivity upgrades are accessible in the Stormfall Palace.
How many projects can I have? You start off with a two project limit. You can upgrade the Planning Committee in Stormfall Palace thrice, increasing the limit up to a maximum of five projects.
Which projects directly improve my character? Quite a few… Although don’t tunnel on these as ramping up your capacity to improve your city shouldn’t be ignored.
- West Primordial Institute – unlocks the 5th active skill slot
- Main Primordial Institute – increases your primordial essence meter
- East Primordial Institute – gives one passive skill point
- Enneract Laboratory – gives access to active skill duplication
- Refuge for the Blind – gives a permanent gold find bonus
- Salt Baths of Stormfall – gives a permanent magic find bonus
Can I cancel a project? You can, but the cost isn’t refunded.
Project Notes and Priorities
“What projects and building should I go for first!?”
Since the number of active projects you have is just two, starting the Planning Committee projects to increase this limit is a good starting point. Also, since the time it takes you to complete projects is tied to your base productivity value, it’s also a good idea to have productivity upgrade projects active as much as possible.
With these out of the way, the next priority should be completing the West Primordial Institute, so you can get that 5th active skill slot. This costs 200,000 gold, 6,000 primordial affinity, and 5,000 productivity. In case the resources are taking too long to accumulate, it might be worth completing the Energy Instillator and the Siphon Chamber projects, in order to convert resources.
Since a lot of the other projects cost a ton of resources, completing the Refuge for the Blind and the Cartographical Archives projects provides a permanent gold find bonus, while the Cartographical Archives gives a bonus to both buying and selling prices at merchants.
Finally, the Seekers Garrison,and the Stormfall Trade Assembly projects may prove useful for getting additional loot. These give you access to repeatable projects that provide gold, primordial affinity, items, and temporary productivity boosts. Do note that these repeatable projects don’t always provide the listed rewards. Sometimes it gives partial rewards and other times it fails completely.
That’s about it for now regarding Projects, City Building and Management in Wolcen. We will be adding more to this soon, as well as a potential generic build order in the near future!
