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    Your Elvenar Team

squad size upgrades

  • Thread starter DeletedUser15476
  • Start date

DeletedUser15476

Guest
Hi, I'm in Orcs and Goblins. I bypassed two squad size upgrades that weren't required to get to the next research. I am near the end of Orcs and have just completed the required squad size upgrade. Do I need to go back to the ones I passed up in order to gain greater squad size or did the required research catch me up?

I'm have a feeling I'll be told to go back and do the research but here's hoping I don't! :)
 

samidodamage

Buddy Fan Club member
Higher squad size makes tourneys more costly in terms of troops and/or goods to cater. Tourney squad size is a percentage of your regular squad size, so if you win a given fight with 10% troop loss, you'll have more to replace if your squad size was 100(lost 10 units) than if it was 10(lost 1 unit). Catering costs are also based on squad size, so the higher it is, the more goods will be called for as well. Since map provinces are so hard in the very early chapters, general consensus is after you get to Dwarves you're better off skipping any of the optional SS upgrades. One thing to remember: this game is still in development. They could change those parameters any time and you'd have to go back and do the ones you skipped. Stockpiling any guest race goods needed to activate them is a prudent move so you wouldn't have to rebuild a settlement if that were to happen.
 

Vergazi

Well-Known Member
And as always doesn't hurt to mention that everyone has their own preferred style of play and in my way of thinking ( tears up all the spreadsheets ) they are all valid. Point #1 is to have fun. If you aren't having fun and don't look forward to each new challenge what's the point? So do it your own way...and have fun in Elvenar!

p.s. I personally go big military as much as I can, but don't quote me on that. ( scurries out of the light to safety )
 
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kctanzen

Well-Known Member
Squad size increases are the bane of my existence because it creates higher costs for me in tourneys == and i dearly enjoy tourney play.
Lots more activity for me in the long run with tourneys than on the world map, so keeping my losses / cater costs as low as I can pays off big over time.
 

Gath Of Baal

Well-Known Member
You could always go ahead and produce the resources you need to unlock those squad size upgrades before you sell off the chapter specific buildings, that way if you decide at a later time you want those upgrades, you can do them without having to rebuild buildings from previous chapters to make the resources.

This also can come in handy for those pesky event tasks where you have to unlock technology, if you have a few squad size upgrades that you can finish whenever you want
 

DeletedUser5014

Guest
I just tested this assertion that increasing your squad size will increase negotiating costs - it did not. I have before and after screenshots to prove it. However, I need to test this for tournaments - which there isn't one right now. I really question the logic of increasing catering costs with larger squad sizes. I can see linking catering costs with chapters or other progress, but linking it to squad size just negates the benefit of said upgrade. I'll let you know on Tuesday.
 

Vergazi

Well-Known Member
I just tested this assertion that increasing your squad size will increase negotiating costs - it did not. I have before and after screenshots to prove it. However, I need to test this for tournaments - which there isn't one right now. I really question the logic of increasing catering costs with larger squad sizes. I can see linking catering costs with chapters or other progress, but linking it to squad size just negates the benefit of said upgrade. I'll let you know on Tuesday.
All the posts said it only increases catering costs for tournaments. Pretty much most of what you need to know about battles is in @Mykan 's guide for battles or in the Battle section of the Forums.
 

samidodamage

Buddy Fan Club member
I just tested this assertion that increasing your squad size will increase negotiating costs - it did not. I have before and after screenshots to prove it. However, I need to test this for tournaments - which there isn't one right now. I really question the logic of increasing catering costs with larger squad sizes. I can see linking catering costs with chapters or other progress, but linking it to squad size just negates the benefit of said upgrade. I'll let you know on Tuesday.
Catering costs(tournaments) are based on squad sizes, not negotiating costs(map). The formula used to compute those catering costs was posted (?maybe by @Pheryll but I could be wrong there) and Squad Size was definitely one of the multipliers.
I agree this negates the benefit of Squad Size upgrades.
 

DeletedUser5014

Guest
As I usually fight rather than cater, the catering costs are relatively moot. For sure I have noticed that it is significantly easier to win battles on the world where I have done all the squad size upgrades vs. the ones where I have not. But it could also be the buffs from AWs contributing. So rather than blanket "don't do the optional upgrades" it should be "depends on your playing preferences - upgrade if you usually fight, don't if you usually cater"

I did go through Mykan's guide and did not find anything on optional squad size upgrades - but I wasn't exhaustive in my search through the guide.
 

Sir Squirrel

Artist EXTRAORDINAIRE and Buddy Fan Club member
The squad size upgrades also increase the difficulty of the fights in the tournaments, but make world map encounters easier! SO if you like to do lots of tournament fighting or catering you should skip some squad upgrades! I agree it is a stupid thing to tie the difficulty of tournaments too, but what can you do, that is what they thought would be a good thing to do to mess us up.
 

Vergazi

Well-Known Member
As I usually fight rather than cater, the catering costs are relatively moot. For sure I have noticed that it is significantly easier to win battles on the world where I have done all the squad size upgrades vs. the ones where I have not. But it could also be the buffs from AWs contributing. So rather than blanket "don't do the optional upgrades" it should be "depends on your playing preferences - upgrade if you usually fight, don't if you usually cater"

I did go through Mykan's guide and did not find anything on optional squad size upgrades - but I wasn't exhaustive in my search through the guide.
I should mention that YouTube also has many vids regarding battle strategies of all sorts...some specific to certain types of provinces in the Tourneys. When i started playing I watched one of these and it served as a fairly good basic primer. Have fun!
 

DeletedUser5014

Guest
I am having fun with battles - I try to win without losing any troops. Lately, I've maxed out expansions via provinces so now I mostly fight only in tournaments. At this point on my most advanced world, I have too much coins, supplies and goods. So I've started to cater whenever I'm just too lazy to fight or I'm in a rush to move on.
 

SoggyShorts

Mathematician par Excellence
So rather than blanket "don't do the optional upgrades" it should be "depends on your playing preferences - upgrade if you usually fight, don't if you usually cater"
The reason everyone says "Skip all optional SS techs" is this:
've maxed out expansions via provinces so now I mostly fight only in tournaments.
There are really just 3700 world map fights to be done where SS techs help you.
Players can easily do 300+ tournament encounters every week forever where SS techs hurt you.
 
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Chrizty

Active Member
The squad size upgrades also increase the difficulty of the fights in the tournaments, but make world map encounters easier! SO if you like to do lots of tournament fighting or catering you should skip some squad upgrades! I agree it is a stupid thing to tie the difficulty of tournaments too, but what can you do, that is what they thought would be a good thing to do to mess us up.
I have always waited to do squad size upgrades to scout my provs as it makes them go from med to easy,,
I herd that if you scout a prov on easy the tourney on that prov will be easy,,is that's not true? or does it not matter?
I know when your a smaller chapter you need to scout to open the tourney provs, but there is a point when you don't need to work on scouting for the provs and can now just work on tournaments,,
I'm only in chapt 6 lol I should stop doing the upgrades in tech now. or after chapt 6?
I do ok in the tourneys, but I know the more up the chapts I get things are gonna get harder. just trying to get my ducks in a row,
 

SoggyShorts

Mathematician par Excellence
I have always waited to do squad size upgrades to scout my provs as it makes them go from med to easy,,
This isn't quite right.
Provinces on the map are marked as "easy/med/hard" just to show you the ratio of your squad size to the enemy squad size.
Once you click "scout" on a province the enemies size is locked in and cannot be changed by anything.
If you increase your Squad Size at any time, then the ratio of your size vs the enemy will change, and so will the label.
You can only change the enemy/costs on the world map by researching an "Advanced Scouts" tech before you scout a province.
I herd that if you scout a prov on easy the tourney on that prov will be easy,,is that's not true? or does it not matter?
This is untrue, they are totally unrelated.

I know when your a smaller chapter you need to scout to open the tourney provs, but there is a point when you don't need to work on scouting for the provs and can now just work on tournaments,,
The benefits of scouting vastly outweigh the costs (mostly due to earned expansions) so it is generally recommended to scout 24/7 until you hit around 200 cleared.
The reason you stop at around 200 provinces is the orc barrier. Ring 11 on the world map requires a new resource to negotiate called "orcs" These can only be made in chapter 8, so if you clear all 222 provinces inside the "orc ring" you won't be able to complete event quests like "scout a province" or "solve 3 encounters" until you get to chapter 8. That's why I say 200 as it leaves you 22 more for those quests until you get to chapter 8.
Once you get to chapter 8, start scouting 24/7 again until you clear 457 provinces at which point you stop gaining expansions from the world map.

If you see forum threads talking about "overscouting" being a bad thing, that is old thinking, and the game has changed a lot since that was true.
I'm only in chapt 6 lol I should stop doing the upgrades in tech now. or after chapt 6?
You should take squad size tech #16 since it leads to an expansion, and skip #17.
 

kctanzen

Well-Known Member
A few notes I would like to add / clarify about squad sizes / tourney difficulty :

==== The battles are *exactly* the same for a base squad size of 100 or 1000.

--- Every province in round one starts at a percentage of your base squad size and remains at that level for each round of that specific province for the tourney, unless you take a squad upgrade in the middle of tourney.
--- Each province increases a bit in the percentage, until around 16 or so where is equals one full squad for each slot we use - and continues to increase at that same rate the more provinces you choose to battle.
-- The enemy scales at a fixed rate based on the round of the province.
-- Starting at about 85% and increasing each round by about 15%, until round 6 is roughly the enemy is roughly 160% our beginning size.
-- There are a few oddballs in that mix, province 5 and 7 come to mind for sure, where the starting size is much larger.

=== Loss rates are pretty much static across any squad size, not taking into account various wonders or battle boosters.

=== The difficulty isn't so much the battle .. but replacing the losses to continue gathering goodies in the rest of that week's tourney.
-- Far faster / less costly to replace 10% squad loss when your squad size is only 100 .. versus 1000.

== Squad size also is part of the catering equation in tourneys, but I don't know the specific math for that calculation.

Hope this helps folks make a better informed choice :)
 
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