Ideal Trading Partners

[StarLoad]

A surprising subtlety is that you should always use UNBOOSTED. goods in the fifth Spire slot

So you are saying to use that position in the spire to shed goods and not to directly try to solve the question of What to place, just dump crap and not worry if it does not help to solve the round. Yes, a great way to waste some goods. (bolded is my action)

Extra boosted goods are easy to clear as you can use them to buy knowledge points. UNboosted goods, not so much

Doubling up on the fifth spire slot, when your options are Coins, Axes, and two types of Goods, is one of the few ways to bleed off excess Unboosted Goods when there aren't enough customers in Trade.

First, off its not Axes, that is supplies, and second, see my reply above My goal is to solve the puzzle and complete the spire with the lowest cost possible, it seems yours is to "bleed off goods".

In my opinion, you have made your own case as to why or why not we should take your expert advice, you fail to adequately respond when someone disagrees with your statements; you shift the topic to avoid answering; make unsubstantiated statements about how the game "must be played".

Ed

 

[Katwick]

So you are saying to use that position in the spire to shed goods and not to directly try to solve the question of What to place, just dump crap and not worry if it does not help to solve the round.

When there are 5 slots, and only 4 different items to place, as is usually the case in the first turn in a Spire negotiation. After you place your first four items you'll need to DUPLICATE one item. Unboosted goods have the fewest other uses, so if you have excess unboosted goods, "risk" them twice, rather than risking an item that you can easily use elsewhere.

What do you poke into the leftover slot?

 

[StarLoad]

Since only the First Level has 4 items or less excluding the gates I have always gone in order left-to-right on the first pass and continued the pattern of left-to-right with an offset of -1 or -2 for round two unless I can tell what items will fill a chest. If I know one chest then I will use that as the start of the left-to-right pattern and circle back again. So if less than 5 the repeat is always coins on the first pass.

I use this progression anytime I negotiate on the spire and more often than not it works, I assume the Dev that programmed this just used a linear progression rather than encoding a true RNG for the placements. While not always accurate I find that others have commented the same that it does work.

And to answer your question I value the coins the least than supplies before any goods.
Ed

 

[Zoof]

When there are 5 slots, and only 4 different items to place, as is usually the case in the first turn in a Spire negotiation. After you place your first four items you'll need to DUPLICATE one item. Unboost goods have the fewest other uses, so if you have excess unboosted goods, "risk" them twice, rather than risking an item that you can easily use elsewhere.

What do you poke into the leftover slot?

I just do what I'm told to do (most of the time) and I clear the Spire each week on the power of sucking-up-to-dead-people

I'm thoroughly happy with the results, and pay no attention to what good does what. More important to me is balancing the goods such that things don't run out. Most of my trade activity is in balancing goods amounts within a particular tier.

Here's one from my second city where I let it go for half a day. The amounts shown are slowly dwindling down because I hadn't beefed up my manufactories and yet ask more of my goods from Spire and Tourney. At current consumption rate, I'll have like a month left before needing to make some hard decisions. That is currently being fixed by pushing T1 and T2 up another level.

To be perfectly honest, I've been having more problems keeping supplies filled. All those 50% supply instants from Spire prior to ch 6 has been a godsend. And will continue to be so for the foreseeable future

Aside from that, I pay more attention to the magnitude of the stockpile rather than the actual value. Seems less mentally stressful. Maybe I've been playing too many Exponential Number Simulators Games

 

[SoulsSilhouette]

its harder to replace unboosted goods in the current trading environment. I do negotiate encounters in the spire because I don't fight well. I fight until I am not winning and then I negotiate. I don't have any goods to 'bleed'. I'm not as blessed as some. I have loads of uses for my unboosted goods especially when I cater in the tourney.

 

[StarLoad]

Just tested your idea on a small city and there are 10 opportunities in the first of the level spire where you have 4 goods to place in 5 chests.
The results are 2 times the fifth chest was cleared by an unboosted good 4 with coins 2 with supplies and 2 with boosted goods.
Now this is a small sample but I can see you way would have cost me goods, hence your idea to "dump" unboosted goods there did not work in this case unless winning is not the point? One and maybe two times if I had followed your logic I might have had to spend diamonds for an extra round.

I think my way is better.

Ed

p.s. Thank you Sami

 

[Myne]

@Katwick I think we all understand you disagree with ed1960. The monkey pics are unnecessary and insulting. It paints you with the brush "I am better than you". Please remove them.

 

[Katwick]

I can see you way would have cost me goods

Which is exactly what I'm trying to do. I prefer to double risk unboosted goods, rather than double risking the other items which I can use to buy unboosted goods if need be, but not the other way round.

For my playing style Coins, Supplies, and Boosted Goods all allow me more flexibility than unboosted goods, which can't be used to buy Knowledge Points nor Wholesale Goods.

 

[StarLoad]

Which is exactly what I'm trying to do. I prefer to risk unboosted goods, rather than the other items.

For my playing style Coins, Supplies, and Boosted Goods all allow me more flexibility than unboosted goods, which can't be used to buy Knowledge Point nor Wholesale Goods.

There is exactly the difference, your playing style works for you, but not for me. This is what I have been saying all along you can't tell others how to play their game, your way. What you value and how you value it are unique to you and not to others. It can't be more clear than that.

Ed

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Wow, whoever is arguing against keeping a stockpile of your six unboosted normal goods is obviously not into the higher chapters yet, because a lot of each will be needed for research or for upgrading your boosted factories. Plus the unboosted normal goods are used to make the boosted sentient and ascended goods in chapter 12 and up.

 

[Katwick]

Wow, whoever is arguing against keeping a stockpile of your six unboosted normal goods is obviously not into the higher chapters yet, because a lot of each will be needed for research or for upgrading your boosted factories. Plus the unboosted normal goods are used to make the boosted sentient and ascended goods in chapter 12 and up.

It's me and I'm not.

Rather I'm curious about the effect that Map Placement, and thereby your boosted goods, has on gameplay. There's no inherent advantage, overall, for any of the Boosts, but demand varies enough, depending on where you are in the game, to keep things lively.

We now have healthy neighborhoods, and I'm all about finding and developing Ideal Trading Partners.

Boosted goods are much cheaper to produce than unboosted goods, which encourages trading for the unboosted goods that you need, rather than paying the outrageous 500% Wholesaler markup.

Boosted Goods also provide you with more flexibility, as they can be used to buy Knowledge Points, whereas that's not the case for unboosted goods.

The four items, five slot stages in the Spire are a nifty way to trim excess inventory of any type, by risking your least desirable item in the extra slot.

So, to be quite clear:

• Excess Boosted Goods are easy use up
• Excess UNboosted goods aren't
• "Excess" is in the eyes of the beholder, but goods that you'll never actually use are just dead weight.

 

[SoulsSilhouette]

@Enevhar Aldarion

Yes, currently I'm stuck in Chapter 15 in Khel. At that pesky "vault of wisdom" part of the tree. Those amounts are redonkulous but it taught me a lesson. Have a bank. Stay there and build up. I may see the end of it in 2023 at some point. However, I would rather sit at the end of a chapter rather than the middle. I just feel like the fights are harder in the middle.

<bolded because it is my emotional reaction, probably has no basis in fact.

 

[BrinDarby]

Hey @ed1960 ,

1st slot is usually not coins/tools & last slot is Coins the most.
( just 2 nuggets Ive seen as consistent patterns in Spire )

 

[Katwick]

ARBITRAGE
Buying Knowledge Points and using the Wholesaler, when you want to hurry things along, provides some interesting opportunities for three-cornered trades.

The data in the next post is valid for an Elf in chapter 7. I prefer to auto-fight until I'm starting to take 50% losses, then I mostly negotiate.

I don't carry more inventory than I use per week, so when I'm out of something I'll skip ahead for a few encounters, and then I'm done.

The trade window is my next stop, to see about rebalancing my unboosted goods.

If there's a nice bargain on boosted goods then I'll trade for them as well, but mostly I depend on my manufacturing facilities for my boosted goods, and actually teleported fully two fully developed Silk and Gems manufacturing facilities because I was creating more boosted goods than I could use weekly.

I'm fond of Ancient Wonders, and I needed the space.

 

[StarLoad]

Hey @ed1960 ,

1st slot is usually not coins/tools & last slot is Coins the most.
( just 2 nuggets Ive seen as consistent patterns in Spire )

That is not my experience

 

[Flashfyre]

@Katwick You don't seem to be factoring in the adjustments from AWs and other special buildings, many of which either add non-boosted goods to your inventory at no cost, or reduce said costs to more acceptable levels.

For example, a Lvl 13 Blooming Trader Guild reduces Wholesaler fees by 25% AND increases offers to 300%. At this point, I can buy 17.2K non-boosted T1 or 11.2K non-boosted T2 goods for 2.7M coins, which is 10% of my MH capacity, and about 25% of my daily coin collection from GA, Neighbors, Clocktower Owls and Echoes of the Forgotten (which I keep on coin production unless I really need Orcs). The second purchase climbs to around 4M coins, but I rarely do a second round the same day.

As for adding additional inventory (and as a former retail manager, I really hate the term "excess inventory"), having a Pilgrims set that's 2 chapters behind my current one still produces significant amounts of non-boosted T1 goods, and my Forbidden Ruins set (which is 3 chapters behind, but that will change soon) keeps my non-boosted T3 goods inventory in a sustainable condition.

Now I'll tell you why the term "excess inventory" is mis-applied in this discussion:
By conventional definition in the retail world, excess inventory describes product that you have run out of space to safely store. Your selling shelves are full, your overhead and back-room storage is cluttered, and you have no where else to stack the product without renting additional space somewhere (an added expense to your P&L each month). Having "excess inventory" implies a failure to correctly assess the buying habits of your customer base; you have purchased more than what your facility can turn in a reasonable timeframe.

But that doesn't apply to the game's inventory economics: there is no limit to how much of any goods you can store. Our warehouse is nearly infinite in size and space, and there is never an overflow point, where goods need to be stored off-site. So why do you care whether you have millions of a particular good that you rarely use? It isn't costing you anything to accumulate them (unless you are actually manufacturing those goods, which may be a waste of coins and supplies after all), and it isn't costing you anything to store them.

 

[Katwick]

You have purchased more than what your facility can turn in a reasonable timeframe.

I agree with everything except your conclusion. My experience is on the manufacturing and distribution side, and the number of turns is a VERY reliable strategic bellwether.

• If a business is selling through (turning over) their inventory several times per year, they're well organized
• If a business is manufacturing stuff that they can't move, they have a management problem

KanBan is probably my favorite paradigm for piecewise manufacturing, because it's so obvious and is such an effective method for resource allocation.

• Each manufacturing station will need various parts, which they will "assemble" and then pass on to the next station
• Provide enough bins (picnic coolers) before/after each station to keep the station busy for an hour or so
  • If you run out of input bins, go help the previous station for a while
  • If you run out of output bins, go help the next station for a while
• If it keeps happening, then management/engineering needs to retune the manufacturing line

From a taxable point of view, inventory is regarded as an asset, to prevent businesses from hiding their cash, but from a manufacturing point of view inventory is a liability. In a perfect world you'd manufacture to order, for immediate delivery (take a look at Tesla).

SO, ELVENAR

How many times, per month, are you turning your inventory??

If you're accumulating stuff that you CAN'T USE right away, and probably can't even trade, then surely you can find a better use for your under performing tiles.

I'm obviously biased in favor of the trading aspects of the game, but it's important for everybody. The entire purpose of this thread is to encourage experienced player to rethink their trading habits, and encourage their Ideal Trading Partners.

We now have healthy neighborhoods, hence the title of this thread, and paying a bit of attention to just-in-time techniques, regardless of your playing style, will allow you to achieve your goals more readily.

 

[Flashfyre]

I agree with everything except your conclusion. My experience is on the manufacturing and distribution side, and the number of turns is a VERY reliable strategic bellwether.

• If a business is selling through (turning over) their inventory several times per year, they're well organized
• If a business is manufacturing stuff that they can't move, they have a management problem

Yes, inventory turns are a good indicator, but, as you admit, you're biased on the manufacturing and distribution side; you aren't looking at the retail ordering part:
1. What determines the point at which an order is placed? Calculations are made around turns of inventory, sales trends, storage space, and a host of other factors to set the point at which a new order for the goods is made.
2. Who sets that point? It may be the shop owner/manager, or the inventory manager, or the distributor (if there are minimums necessary to place orders), or, in the case of large companies, a corporate buyer/buying team.

So, if the person(s) deciding when and how much to order are not using the tools they have to predict their sales trends, they are very likely going to over- purchase product, which becomes excess inventory, i.e. product that can't be staged/stored within the retail space because all available space is occupied. This is the point I was making in the part you quoted: retailers who order more goods than they are able to turn quickly (within 3 weeks is the industry standard) will be stuck with an excessive amount of product that they cannot store, and so you have blowout sales to get rid of it.

But there is no such animal in Elvenar as excess inventory, because there is no storage cost for any amount over what you (arbitrarily) decide is your necessary inventory.

Oh, and with regards to Spire negotiations, it is always better to offer Coins or Supplies when in doubt, rather than any other possible item; these either accumulate at no cost (Coins) or can be made at no cost (Supplies). Leaving out the decaying items of Mana and Seeds (because you never waste these if at all possible), even Sentient and Ascended Goods cost resources to make, and they decay as well, so they should only be offered if the chance of winning the negotiation is high.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

But there is no such animal in Elvenar as excess inventory, because there is no storage cost for any amount over what you (arbitrarily) decide is your necessary inventory.

Yeah, I think people pushing this have zero experience with decaying goods, where you need to do the opposite and store even more because you are losing up to 10% of each sentient and ascended good every night. Oh, and let those people have fun negotiating in the Spire from chapter 13 on, when sentient goods start being needed there too.

 

[DeletedUser22644]

But there is no such animal in Elvenar as excess inventory, because there is no storage cost for any amount over what you (arbitrarily) decide is your necessary inventory.

To me this is the key, It costs me noting to keep goods in storage. so why worry. Just in time is great when you need to control costs but what cost is there to control if I am at 100% of coins and supplies.
In-fact it makes more sense to use the coins and supplied to make more goods that I can use or trade and rather than let my 8 W/S sit full with 24 hr production that I cant collect till I make something that uses those supplies.

you need to do the opposite and store even more because you are losing up to 10% of each sentient and ascended good every night.

Exactly, I am lucky on Arendyll as my Sentient boosts are Shrooms and Velvet and both are in very high demand so I can easily trade for what I need. But I learned the hard way that the game extracts a hefty price in Sentient goods and that is before chapter 15. Dont want to even go there.