Hi guys,

I'm just doing my second shard on the campaign and I was wondering if I am able to keep / roll over any of the things (items/spells/upgrades/special province buildings/heroes etc) when I finish this shard and move on to the next one?

Also, if not....is there any point in 'clearing' the entire shard? Now that I've crippled the enemy on this shard, I have been systematically going around exploring all the provinces and looting everything etc. Is there any real reason to do this? Or should I just not waste time and finish each shard ASAP?

Cheers.

Other than the things that the shard was shown to contain as new structure/advantage/etc types in the astral, which you will obtain regardless of how thoroughly you've explored the shard, you might come across is a plot-related event or item, but that probably won't be a concern so early into the campaign.

More you play on the shard, more Astral fame you get.
Later you can trade with gremlin astral fame for astral energy.
And astral energy you can use for starting bonuses on new shard.
It is very pricey, but having better weapon than starting one + fairy on first turn really helpful.

Penalty have a cap, 4% minimum.
Gremlin will offer,afaik, at 3k fame, and you can sell more after each 500 points.
I have had enough fame/energy to get longbow + fairy on each shard.
Biggest boost was from Shard Awards - Strategist and Tactic.

gremlion is right
if you fight longer on a shard you get more fame

the few shards i finished asap i got very little fame

but on all other shards i get loads - because you get fame for every controlled province, for every battle won and for the trophies - which you aquire if you play longer - like collector or dragon hunter

You mean at a minimum you get 4% of the rewards? aka, it caps at -96%?
Trying to win ASAP I typically win at about -15% aka 85% of the rewards.
85/4 = 21.25
So you need to grind over 21.25x the amount of points on a shard before you get a "gain" from not finishing fast. Capturing all provinces is not practical in larger shards due to corruption.
In smaller shards I have done it though.

Is there a list of awards? I have a few chartographer awards and one collector.
I looked at the manual and I didn't see any listed there.

Theoretically if I had the data I could calculate which achievements are worth pursuing and which aren't

PS. I forgot the third handicap I gave myself, no spending any astral power on levels. I start every level with nothing at all.

on larger shards i tend to explore about half the provinces and then make my way to the enemy - but once i have surrounded his fort i try to capture all provinces just for that and then finish him off - unlocking all provinces gives the explores reward and that late those 10 rounds extra don't seems to decrease the fame penalty to much

well i only take the bonus of increased income because i want to save some energy for an attack on a master

i know that there isa list tomorrow i will try to find it and post it but now i am way to tired

also i build the deputy's house in most provinces

oh yeah one last point - the fame penalty seems to be logarithmic - in my fastest game (less then 100 turns) i had a penalty above 15% IIRC and in my longest game (almost 500 turns) i had something like 80% but the endfame was five times the one from the fast shard because of all the rewards and the massive amount of points i got for all the battles won, provinces owned and heroes hired

Me too, but until I unlock the -100% corruption upgrade to it (4th upgrade IIRC) its going to be a problem. Furthermore it takes a lot of time and money to build all of those with the 1 building a turn limit. That sounds about right.

Thanks for the answers guys. Very helpful.

I never get any fame from conquering a shard, because I go back in time too often...

What, that's a factor? I'm going to get negative fame after I finish this shard :D

that is by far the single biggest factor. you lose massive amount of points per reversion

I keep reversions to a minimum now. You can still win a shard even if you lose a couple of battles, a few rounds later and you resurrect hero in castle and buy a new army for him

I just realized now that I finished a shard (I have another one that was taking ages) - I was _this_ close to be in negative territory. The minus points you get for going "into the past" is just brutal.

You can't get negative. Score will be nullified instead.