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    Your Elvenar Team

Expansions

MsScarlet

New Member
The developers of this game should change their thoughts and deeds on kingdom expansions. As long as someone has empty land space in their kingdom, they should be able to get expansions on the research trail and/or map encounters. They should not be forced to purchase expansions because the map no longer gives them and the research trail no longer has them. Purchasing expansions should be a matter of choice, not necessity.
 

Darielle

Chef, Scroll-Keeper, and Buddy Fan Club Member
Purchased expansions ARE a matter of choice, not necessity. You choose what buildings to have in your city, and which you will forgo. It's the same as walking into a donut shop. You choose which donuts you will eat. You can't eat them all. Totally your choice. Yes, it's nice to have more, and yes, it sucks to have to choose one building over another, but that's the challenge of the game and it kind of makes it nice that we don't all have the same cookie cutter cities with all the same items. We are each unique, thanks to having to make decisions about what to place and what not to place. If expansions were always available, we all might just get everything and be all the same. What fun would that be?
 

crackie

Chef, Scroll-Keeper, Buddy's #1 Fan
It's the same as walking into a donut shop. You choose which donuts you will eat. You can't eat them all. Totally your choice.
Those donuts also increase your cholesterol level. The more donuts you eat, the more you'll pay for it later when you're out of shape and can't do things like climb those Spire steps anymore. We have to speak in metaphors because there are so many literary people around here.
 

ajqtrz

Chef - loquacious Old Dog
I agree that it would be nice if the expansions were free, more in the research tree, and more you can earn via exploration, but I also think the reason they aren't is that Inno has to pay some bills. And since Elvenar is not a "free to program and offer" game, they have to find reasonable ways to get that dough out of the fryer....my wallet. Expansions are probably very lucrative (compared to other things) because if they weren't we'd probably see them "on sale" with a lot more than a 10% discount. If the discount was 20% they might sell more, but they would then have to to bring in the revenues they usually get from expansions at a 10% discount and maybe the added sales would not be enough to do that. In other words, they are offered at 10% off and that's probably the "sweet spot" where profits per volume sold are the best.

But of course, if you want a radical idea, instead of selling anything they could tell us how much they pay for electricity for the game, how much for programming, help, and all the other things, and we could each make a contribution ... with a countdown until the thing is paid for? One would wonder how many would jump in to "rescue" the game when they saw the electric bill was in the red and the game about to go under? On the opposite side of it, though, one also has to wonder how many would stop contributing if they saw the electric bill was not only paid, but had a surplus? Maybe it's better they just try to sell us stuff we want and find ways to make us want it enough to spend the diamonds. ;>)

AJ
 

Enevhar Aldarion

Oh Wise One
Just looking on elvenstats, none of your cities are any further than chapter 14, so if you are out of province completion expansions, then you are way over-scouted. Also, every chapter from where you are to chapter 19, and likely beyond, add two new research expansions each. So you have plenty more to get, as long as you keep advancing your city. But if you are not advancing a city, then that is your choice, and more space will only come by spending diamonds.
 

sambria

Chef
Purchased expansions ARE a matter of choice, not necessity. You choose what buildings to have in your city, and which you will forgo. It's the same as walking into a donut shop. You choose which donuts you will eat. You can't eat them all. Totally your choice. Yes, it's nice to have more, and yes, it sucks to have to choose one building over another, but that's the challenge of the game and it kind of makes it nice that we don't all have the same cookie cutter cities with all the same items. We are each unique, thanks to having to make decisions about what to place and what not to place. If expansions were always available, we all might just get everything and be all the same. What fun would that be?

I agree and though it might seem like it's a bit unfair it's all a matter of choice and personal preference. For example, I could want my city in elves and you could want your city as humans, or simpler, @crackie and I could walk into a doughnut shop and he could want strawberry with sprinkles and I could want chocolate and caramel, though there were too many to chose from we made our own decisions. Making sense @MsScarlet ? I think that @Darielle has made her point and @crackie has made his. That's another example. We all made different decisions on what we wanted. There are many ways we are different and our cities are always going to be different unless you... you know what, I'm not even going to go there. Ahha. Do you get my point @MsScarlet ?
 

sambria

Chef
now i want a donut.
order up:

1653620586620.png
@defiantoneks
 

Zoof

Well-Known Member
Those donuts also increase your cholesterol level. The more donuts you eat, the more you'll pay for it later when you're out of shape and can't do things like climb those Spire steps anymore. We have to speak in metaphors because there are so many literary people around here.
When you're trekking up those Spire steps to get those diamonds and earn yourself those donuts, it can't possibly be that unhealthy, right? Stayin' fit, staying hearty. It can't really be that bad? This chart super convinced me

1653628215045.png


I'd rather land donuts than builder juice.
 

crackie

Chef, Scroll-Keeper, Buddy's #1 Fan
@crackie and I could walk into a doughnut shop and he could want strawberry with sprinkles and I could want chocolate and caramel, though there were too many to chose from we made our own decisions.
I am a dudette. :) Well I just changed my avatar so I can't point to the little girl hanging out with Buddy anymore.
When you're trekking up those Spire steps to get those diamonds and earn yourself those donuts, it can't possibly be that unhealthy, right? Stayin' fit, staying hearty. It can't really be that bad? This chart super convinced me
Yes but adding plots increase costs!
This chart super convinced me
True story. I won a free year's supply of donuts from a reknown donut chain several years back. I got to claim a dozen donuts a week for a whole year. To boot, my friend won as well. It was during the chain's rapid expansion so whenever a new location opened, they held the sweepstakes and gave it to first 6 customers. Once we told our friends about it, it was over. When the dust settled, 7 of us won it. So we assigned each person a specific day each week to claim their free weekly donuts and then we'd have free donuts everyday for a year. Needless to say, I only got through half the year and then I couldn't look at their donuts anymore. We were giving away so many donuts too, including random homeless people on the streets. Today, I will still eat donuts, just not from that chain so I guess that contest backfired. I have zero brand loyalty after what they've showered me with.
 

Zoof

Well-Known Member
Well. Gosh darn it. Now I feel the need to hike my way to the local Dunkin' to sample the selection that you simply can't find at the local wally-world.

Reminds me of that time a few months ago when the weather in Florida was much much more agreeable towards walking a distance for sweet treats and bitter coffee. Or in my case, an espresso. It was delightful; I asked the employee to "surprise me" with the donut selection because I simply couldn't choose. For a hot minute, they couldn't either :)

Anyhoo. Maybe I should actually buy an amount of diamonds equivalent to the amount of donuts I'd pay for at the local DD just so I can say I bought donuts with my donut money and still stay on-topic!
 

Zoof

Well-Known Member
If your fellowship plays the spire for gold..you get 275 diamonds a week…plenty to buy yourself a lot of expansions
Small bit of math. Let's go!

The first 9 expansions sum to 14850 diamonds. If they aren't, the cost just skyrockets from there on out to the tune of 300-500 diamonds more than the previous expansion. The 10th expansion is 3300 diamonds. The 43rd expansion is 18500 diamonds. The interval is 500 diamonds after expansion 18 @ 6000 diamonds.

In about a year (52 weeks) at 275 diamonds apiece, that's 14300 diamonds.
Let's go ahead and presume that because you're in a Gold Spire fellowship, that pushes you to reach the top of the Spire each week. This is stretching it a bit, but I'm doing so to increase the benefit of the doubt.

Let's say that because of that push, you always reach the top and are eligible for the 125 diamonds you might get directly from the end boss. At a drop rate of 45% across 52 weeks, that averages out to (125 * 0.45 * 52) = 2925 diamonds.

Using similar logic, you can get an average of 5.2 Genies from that endboss. Let's round down to 5 because numbers. Those Genies at the top are rather lucrative: Each one across their 100 days of life gives you a 1% chance of 200 diamonds, a 2% chance at 100 diamonds, and a 5% chance at 50 diamonds. These odds are (as of the recent update) shown when you hover over the dice icon in the Genie's production panel. Let's round up to 200 total collections since you can collect once every 12 hours. Given this, you can average out to (200 * (200 * 0.01 + 100 * 0.02 + 50 * 0.05)) = 1300 diamonds. With five such moneymakers, that's 6500 diamonds in a year.

So that's a total of 23725 diamonds a year if you were topping spire AND only doing so if you weren't going to top it yourself if you weren't in a Gold Spire fellowship.

Now...

If you topped Spire anyway without such a fellowship and said fellowship maintained silver, that's just 125 diamonds from weekly with the other benefits still being maintained. You just lose out on (150 * 52) = 7800 diamonds yearly, which reduces your earnings from 23725 to 15925. A fair chunk but isn't exactly devastating (or perhaps it is devastating to someone else? To each their own, I suppose). This isn't even getting into the additional diamonds you could earn from MA or from some other smaller sources, which could possibly add up to quite a bit, but is far outside the scope of this wall of text, but is mentioned here because your overall performance in Spire could impact how much you get out of MA. Most likely. With some extreme edge cases being ignored by that statement. Edge cases which some of us would love to fall into (City made of Moonstone Libraries, and/or having a gazillion Red Panda Masters).

Anyhoo...

After the first 9 expansions (14850 diamonds), the next 5 expansions will cost you 16830 diamonds. Another year of saving? The next 3 expansions will cost you 15900 diamonds. The full premium expansion cost chart can be found here, near the bottom. Do not confuse that with the City Expansions chart, which also lists an optional diamond purchase cost.

In conclusion: Yes, you can buy some. But "a lot"? Press X to doubt
Unless you mean this in the most literal sense. In which a single expansion is, in fact, a lot
 
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