This is my attempt to make sense of how the new calculation of the Base Tournament Squad Size, BTSS, compares to the old method which used Squad Size Techs, SST. The values in the graph are for the end of each chapter.
In the old method, each SST completed adds 3 times its tech number to the squad size. When you start the game, the squad size is 6. This makes it easy to compute. The BTSS is 20% of that value computed at the end of the chapter. It was 5%, but there were 4 battles then.
For the new calculation I've used MinMax's spreadsheet to compute the values. Since there are several inputs into his eq. I've had to make some assumptions which basically give what I think of as the low end values for each chapter.
- Boost: For simplicity I've used 700% boost for all chapters. The first chapters haven't reached that level, but their BTSS is so small, it doesn't matter.
- Expansions: I've used the sum of all expansions from techs in the chapter plus those gained by only completing the number of provs to move to the next chapter.
- Premium Expansions: This is probably a low number for most people. Chapter 5 is where I add 1 premium, but have only added 6 by the end of chapter 17.
- Ancient Wonder Levels: I start with 2 in chapter 2 and increased the number completed in each chapter in a way that seemed low, but reasonable to me. By the end of chapter 17 it is 300, which is probably low for most people.
- Required techs: This is just what it says. Actually, except for chapter 17 I used the number of techs for the next chapter before any tech is done. For chapter 17, I used 30 as the number of required techs. Recounting, there are actually 29 required techs in ch 17 which would lower the squad size by almost 1/2 a percent for its BTSS.
- Race: Elf. There is only a tiny difference between elf and human. Since most people are elven, I used that.
The graph surprised me in that only at chapter 17's end did the MinMax eq. exceed the No Optional SST value. I think this is because people have more than 6 premium expansions and, more importantly, more than 300 AW levels. I've seen a city with over 1000. As a result, I created a graph which shows the BTSS for a city at the end of chapter 17 with the AW levels growing from 300 to 1000. The lower line is for no premium expansions. The other is for all 39 of these expansions.
Having all the expansions increases the BTSS by 22%. Also, going from 300 to 1000 AW levels, slightly more than doubles your BTSS from 1002 to 2109 with no premiums and 1225 to 2579 with all of them.