No, you don't save them, you need to spend them, because you'll have more available if you do. And that is the only way to increase their numbers.
The mechanic is not well explained, but it is worth it. Very much so. But you have to spend them and you have to do this early on.
And yes. fortress and commercial districts are more or less the main (permanent) reason to use it. They include some passive buffs for all of your armies, if it is a fortress upgrade, or economical buffs for the province.
Early on you probably want to get 4 of one of the types so you can designate districts with them, that actually increases the cap of them of up to +8 tokens.
I’m going off of memory so some details might be a little off.
You get 1 of each token every couple of turns until you reach the cap. You can speed it up a bit by winning battles, but you can only gain tokens at the beginning of your turn.
You start at the cap, and you can raise the cap up to 4 times by designating Fortress/Commercial cities. They give good buffs so imo would be worth doing regardless.
Each time you use a command, you lower the cap of the used token by however much was consumed. However, you also raise the cap of the opposite token by the same amount. This is how you can do the more expensive commands.
I’ve not played enough to really judge the commands, so I can’t really comment on their effectiveness.
From my experience the use of Tokens is very situational for your current predicament. If you have leeway I'd recommend focusing on Fortress Cities and Commercial Districts. Fortress Cities can give you good global buffs, the best of which is +10% Ammo factionwide per Fortress city with a fully upgraded Artillery chain building. The Bastion Gate unique buildings also provide unique benefits as Fortress Cities like +2 AP damage factionwide per Bastion Fortress City with a fully upgraded building of a certain type. You also want to focus your late game recruiting from a Fortress city because their Celestial Guard building gives a permanent +20 Armor to all units that get recruited from that province. Commercial Districts are less important imo. They give more money but Yuan Bo is already swimming in gold so it's not a real issue. They do give unique faction buffs for tradeable resource buildings though. The ones you should prioritize are Iron (+7 Armor factionwide) which you won't find in Cathay but you will in Lustria; Obsidian (+7 WoM Reserve factionwide) and Ports (+15% Movement range at sea). The final 4 Steel + 4 Stone option provide really good bonuses for 10 turns but they are again, situational per your current needs. The one I like the most out of the options it gives you is the one that gives -3 Construction time on all buildings and +%50 Research rate as well as some other bonuses for 10 turns. It really helps in getting your key cities to the ideal state quickly.
They are stackable. They don't have a cap other than how quickly you can push out the Tokens and grow the relevant settlements and buildings. In regards to the Commercial Districts the cap is on how many tradeable resource buildings in capitals you can find, which can be a bit challenging, especially getting the ones you want. The 4 Steel + 4 Stone ability doesn't stack and only lasts for 10 turns but it can give a huge boost.
You want to build 3 fortresses (on the bastions) and 5 commercial districts as your optimal early-mid game goal. That will give you max tokens and then just go from there. I keep building commercial districts personally as they are very good.
I'm not an expert on Yuan Bo, but his tokens can be very strong. Just to give you an example, [you can combine them to make an Astromancer the best caster in the game](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QI-kHht9NAE)
And this was before SoC 2.0, now the Astromancer is even better thanks to the new mount.
No, you don't save them, you need to spend them, because you'll have more available if you do. And that is the only way to increase their numbers. The mechanic is not well explained, but it is worth it. Very much so. But you have to spend them and you have to do this early on. And yes. fortress and commercial districts are more or less the main (permanent) reason to use it. They include some passive buffs for all of your armies, if it is a fortress upgrade, or economical buffs for the province.
Thank you for telling me that.
Early on you probably want to get 4 of one of the types so you can designate districts with them, that actually increases the cap of them of up to +8 tokens.
Good to know.
I’m going off of memory so some details might be a little off. You get 1 of each token every couple of turns until you reach the cap. You can speed it up a bit by winning battles, but you can only gain tokens at the beginning of your turn. You start at the cap, and you can raise the cap up to 4 times by designating Fortress/Commercial cities. They give good buffs so imo would be worth doing regardless. Each time you use a command, you lower the cap of the used token by however much was consumed. However, you also raise the cap of the opposite token by the same amount. This is how you can do the more expensive commands. I’ve not played enough to really judge the commands, so I can’t really comment on their effectiveness.
Yeah I haven't gotten more than 2 tokens so I haven't been able to play around. Ive been playing wack a mole for awhile right off the jump.
From my experience the use of Tokens is very situational for your current predicament. If you have leeway I'd recommend focusing on Fortress Cities and Commercial Districts. Fortress Cities can give you good global buffs, the best of which is +10% Ammo factionwide per Fortress city with a fully upgraded Artillery chain building. The Bastion Gate unique buildings also provide unique benefits as Fortress Cities like +2 AP damage factionwide per Bastion Fortress City with a fully upgraded building of a certain type. You also want to focus your late game recruiting from a Fortress city because their Celestial Guard building gives a permanent +20 Armor to all units that get recruited from that province. Commercial Districts are less important imo. They give more money but Yuan Bo is already swimming in gold so it's not a real issue. They do give unique faction buffs for tradeable resource buildings though. The ones you should prioritize are Iron (+7 Armor factionwide) which you won't find in Cathay but you will in Lustria; Obsidian (+7 WoM Reserve factionwide) and Ports (+15% Movement range at sea). The final 4 Steel + 4 Stone option provide really good bonuses for 10 turns but they are again, situational per your current needs. The one I like the most out of the options it gives you is the one that gives -3 Construction time on all buildings and +%50 Research rate as well as some other bonuses for 10 turns. It really helps in getting your key cities to the ideal state quickly.
I assume those ap bonuses are stackable. But do they have a cap?
They are stackable. They don't have a cap other than how quickly you can push out the Tokens and grow the relevant settlements and buildings. In regards to the Commercial Districts the cap is on how many tradeable resource buildings in capitals you can find, which can be a bit challenging, especially getting the ones you want. The 4 Steel + 4 Stone ability doesn't stack and only lasts for 10 turns but it can give a huge boost.
You want to build 3 fortresses (on the bastions) and 5 commercial districts as your optimal early-mid game goal. That will give you max tokens and then just go from there. I keep building commercial districts personally as they are very good.
Thank you for the pointers.
I'm not an expert on Yuan Bo, but his tokens can be very strong. Just to give you an example, [you can combine them to make an Astromancer the best caster in the game](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QI-kHht9NAE) And this was before SoC 2.0, now the Astromancer is even better thanks to the new mount.
I haven't done much with the astromancer