Okay I completed the Spire for the first time and here are some feedback:
Background:
I started level one of the Spire on Monday morning and ended it on Thursday evening, with 12 h to spare. In that same time, I have also completed my weekly tournament involvement (I did 180 rounds spread over 45 provinces this week).
1. Gameplay
Overall: Gameplay is straightforward but not easy. I've had to somewhat scale back my tournament involvement this week so as not to decimate my resources, from 198 rounds to 180 rounds - a roughly 10% decrease - which I find to be a reasonable compromise. The most difficult part was having enough troops for the "Fight" option. Detailed feedback on each option:
1a) Convince option
- I used this option the most because the Fight option had too large squad sizes and I rarely had enough troops for it
- I like the puzzle aspect of the Convince option. It's a game of logic to me. It felt good when I guessed it correctly
- There is some risk involved. If I knew for certain I can't solve it after the 2nd attempt, I quit and restart.
- A slight reduction, say 10%, in goods required for the convince option would make it more comfortable. Particularly, the number of Orcs required should be substantially lowered, as Orcs are produced very slowly even at endgame.
1b) Fight option
- I like the idea of waves. It throws a challenge into how you pick your units - many times, you have to think it through, you can't get away with just choosing a single unit type and auto-fight it off.
- Manual fighting can be the key between a win/lose here, and lack of it is a big disadvantage to mobile players using the Fight option
- My biggest complaint is the Squad Size calculation. I don't mind the fights being more challenging and would have liked to choose this more, but as I rarely had enough units to fight with even though I trained units 24/7, I seldom was able to.
- Squad size should be reduced by at least 25% for this option to be more viable
1c) Use of Diamonds
- I used diamonds occasionally, when I was very or almost certain I could guess the right combination in the Convince option if I bought another turn. I also earned some diamonds. I didn't keep track of how many diamonds I spent in total, minus those earned, but it wasn't a big amount. My estimate is somewhere around 150 diamonds, and I will try to keep a record next time
2. Prizes
Overall, the prizes were decent for me. I got a lot of Time Instants, Crafting Materials and fortunately, 4/5 of the Moonstone Library Set. I did not like that the mystery chest could appear in a place you could not reach until you cleared more of the gauntlet. This should be changed.
2a) Time Instants
- These were handy and essential. I use a majority of them to speed up my troop training. Most of the troops went to the Tournament though, so you could say this prized helped me more in the tournament than anything else. I was tempted to use some of them to open the doors early, but troop training was more essential.
2b) Crafting Materials
- I like these quite a lot. I craft a lot and have been running low on spells to disenchant, even though I get at least 70 a week via tournaments. Also, CC takes very long to produce even with a L5 Magic Academy. When I ended the Spire I had 11.5k fragments and 23 CC (I produced and used some during the period, so I think it's more or less balanced out), so I won't have to worry about crafting materials for a while
2c) Moonstone Library Set
- combined with 1 building I won by playing Level 1 last week, I now have the full set. I don't know how good it is yet, we shall see.
Verdict:
Overall, a good addition to the game, as it adds a whole new arena of play without detracting from the main progress of the game. The prizes are decent, since they can't be gotten regularly in other parts of the game (e.g. one goes to tournaments for KP, relics,runes and spells). The puzzles are a good challenge but can be improved in the area of resources needed.