Penalizing Noncombatant Players

[Dew Spinner]

Residences are needed to provide population for Workshops, Factories, barracks, training ground, armories... needed to Produc Troops & Orcs and to produce coins to pay for - factory productions, upgrades, research, and to cater encounters.


Workshops are needed to produce supplies for - upgrades, research, factory productions, produce Orcs, train troops, and cater encounters.


Standard Factories are needed to produce Standard Goods to pay for - upgrades, research, Produce Sentient Goods, Produce Ascended Goods, and cater encounters.


Orcs are needed to pay for - upgrades, research, train troops, and to cater encounters.


Mana is needed to pay for - upgrades, research, and to cater encounters.


Divine Seeds are needed to pay for - upgrades, research, Sentient Production, and cater encounters.


Sentient Factories are needed to pay for - upgrades, research, and to cater encounters.


Every City need to produce the various forms of currency - with the exception of Troops - to pay for research, upgrades, and goods production.


A Catering city need to acquire/produce the same amount for research & upgrades, AND the cost to cater encounters.


The city that caters encounters requires more - factories, workshops, residences, mana culture, orc culture, seed culture....


The city that fights encounters - needs to produce supplies in excess of upgrade & research cost - to pay for Orc production & Troop Training


Two cities in the same chapter, with the same number of expansions, and completing the same number of Tournament & Spire Encounters - regardless of catering or fighting will not have a space advantage. The except would result from the either player's success in acquiring high value mana/seed/orc culture in events,


As far as Ancient Wonders

38 Ancient Wonders
7 Troop Ancient Wonders
8 Hybrid Ancient Wonders
23 Material Resource (including Population & Culture) Ancient Wonders






Heroes' Forge

I use both troops and resources for encounters, so I built the Forge for the troop benefit, and felt the same as far as its Orc production.

However, as I have increased the number of completed provinces, leveled my forge, and built the Pyramid of Purification the value of my forge has increased in value -

My Heroes' Forge
Improves my Heavy Melee troops.
Produces Orcs Currency
Contributes to Sentient Goods Supply
Decreasing Sentient Factory Productions - increasing my city's available seed supply
Allows me to acquire the quantity of both Seeds & Sentient required for research or upgrades quicker decreasing the loss to decay.
Decreases the demand for Standard Goods that I would have to produce and use for Sentient Factory productions.
Decreases the demand of Coins & Supplies needed to produce Standard Goods

And the value will increase with each completed province - until the map is exhausted.



The Dragon Abbey -

I use all my enchantments heavily, so I earn a lot of mana from my Enchantments - however because I actually use them, I have had to build the maze, in my current chapter, because otherwise the loss to decay is over the top. Today I have used 47 Enchantments - and gained 696,775 mana, but it will be subject to 5% decay beginning tonight.


With the Dragon Abbey every Enchantment in inventory is mana not subject to decay. Why put a mana/culture building in my city when I can acquire more mana by using 1 or 2 enchantments - when the mana is needed? Need a million mana for an upgrading - apply enchantments...

The Dragon Abbey reduces the number of mana/culture buildings necessary by both providing mana and decreasing the loss of mana to Decay.

And the value will increase with each completed province - until the map is exhausted.


Ancient Wonders are never a disadvantage - if used effectively and with purpose they increase available space - that is the ultimate purpose of Ancient Wonders - they increase city production allowing the acquisition/retention of all form of currency with fewer buildings.


In the last 23-hours I have purchased from the Wholesaler

T1: 1,133,440 units
T2: 751,520 units
T3: 505,120 units


Total Coin Cost: 193,200,000
Total Supply Cost: 107,640,000

How many Factories would I have to have in my city to produce over 2 million standard Goods in 23 hours?

How Many Magic Residences & Magic Workshops would I need to generate the coins and supplies I used to purchase over 2 million goods.

There is no possible way to build the number of buildings necessary for this level of production - not with every single available expansion -


18 Magic Residences
8 Magic Workshops
Blooming Trader Guild
Sanctuary
Watchtower
Golden Abyss
Prosperity Towers
The Great Bell Spire
The Lighthouse of Good Neighborhood
Ensorcelled Endowments & Power of Provision Enchantments


Without the Dragon Abbey, Lighthouse of Good Neighborhood, Great Bell Spire, and Maze of Dark Matter - I would need far more mana culture buildings to acquire the equivalent.

Every Single Ancient Wonder adds to the city's seed supply - I do not have even one seed culture Building - other than evolves or sets - my city is not littered with festivals or Orchids ... I collect 120,000 seeds from my trader - with my level 35 Main Hall.


A city that uses troops for encounters will have far fewer armories with troop Ancient Wonders


lol Rambling

That is why it has always been said that a hybrid city is better, cater only or fight only doesn't really work, players can force it to work but at a great cost and cost of space. Take the easy route of a hybrid city.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

That is why it has always been said that a hybrid city is better, cater only or fight only doesn't really work, players can force it to work but at a great cost and cost of space. Take the easy route of a hybrid city.

That depends on how far you try to go in the tournament. I can auto-fight the entire Spire and auto-fight 30x6, or further, in the tournament each week and not have to cater a single encounter. Of course, this relies on having temp troop boost buildings out, a fed Fire Phoenix, the six AWs that boost troop health and damage leveled up decently, and far enough in the chapters to have all troop types at 3 stars.. Someone trying to vanilla fight all that would not be able to do it.

 

[Dew Spinner]

That depends on how far you try to go in the tournament. I can auto-fight the entire Spire and auto-fight 30x6, or further, in the tournament each week and not have to cater a single encounter. Of course, this relies on having temp troop boost buildings out, a fed Fire Phoenix, the six AWs that boost troop health and damage leveled up decently, and far enough in the chapters to have all troop types at 3 stars.. Someone trying to vanilla fight all that would not be able to do it.

I agree, and caterers would have to use A Lot of land to cater the same amount. It's somewhat non painful to cater a low amount of tournament points but once you are doing 10,000+ points it becomes excruciatingly painful. So, most players that exclusively cater can not go into the higher levels of tournament. I fight/cater probably 70/30, maybe 60/40 some weeks, but I am doing 11,340 tourney pts each week. There is no way a cater only or fight only city can do that on a consistent basis, each and every week. Even with 5 Brown Bears and 5 Fire phoenixes, too much pet food required. Players (not you) that only want to do a couple of thousand points on tourney shouldn't be worried about the discrepancy of cater/ fight buildings. It's only when you get into the higher tourney levels, 10,000 to 15,000, that things get dicey.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

I agree, and caterers would have to use A Lot of land to cater the same amount. It's somewhat non painful to cater a low amount of tournament points but once you are doing 10,000+ points it becomes excruciatingly painful. So, most players that exclusively cater can not go into the higher levels of tournament. I fight/cater probably 70/30, maybe 60/40 some weeks, but I am doing 11,340 tourney pts each week. There is no way a cater only or fight only city can do that on a consistent basis, each and every week. Even with 5 Brown Bears and 5 Fire phoenixes, too much pet food required. Players (not you) that only want to do a couple of thousand points on tourney shouldn't be worried about the discrepancy of cater/ fight buildings. It's only when you get into the higher tourney levels, 10,000 to 15,000, that things get dicey.

30x6 is 8100 points, so not that far from 10k. If I can auto-fight that, then I could manual fight 40x6, which is 10,800 points, but I hate manual fighting, as it is too tedious and time-consuming.

 

[Dew Spinner]

30x6 is 8100 points, so not that far from 10k. If I can auto-fight that, then I could manual fight 40x6, which is 10,800 points, but I hate manual fighting, as it is too tedious and time-consuming.

Yes, and most will not take the time to do that, it would take several hours to manually fight 30 x 6, 180 encounters. Most players complaining about the discrepancy of cater to fight buildings are doing very little in Tourney, not the high scores that you and I are doing.

 

[Pheryll]

I am not referring to already scouted provinces - I am referring to completing research then scouting -> then completing the encounters- green is cheaper than yellow.

If you are saying that you can scout one province in a ring and then research a squad size tech, scout another province in the same ring, and have the second province wind up cheaper than the first (by average), I have not seen this behavior.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

If you are saying that you can scout one province in a ring and then research a squad size tech, scout another province in the same ring, and have the second province wind up cheaper than the first (by average), I have not seen this behavior.

Yes, researching squad techs does the same thing as researching Advanced Scouts, but in a much smaller degree. And it does not make the cost of the scout lower, it just makes the difficulty to complete the encounters within the province lower, at least for fighters, because it increases your squad size, while the enemy squad size does not change. So researching a squad size increase can change the color code of unscouted provinces.

 

[Mykan]

Yes, researching squad techs does the same thing as researching Advanced Scouts

That is misleading but I understand what you are saying. They only make it easier in terms of relativity. People say only scout techs make provinces easier because those techs reduce the cost to scout and it is the cost that determines difficulty. Lets say there will be 100 enemies in that province when (or after it is scouted) then there will always be those 100. The scout tech has zero impact on that.

It is the relativity of when your squad size goes from 100 to 120 that it changes. The coloured difficulty ratings are a visual indicator that players requested years ago when the combat system changed. People were fighting impossible fights, dying and then complaining. It basically compares your squad size to those in the province, it won't change what is in the province, which is what @Pheryll and yogi are saying.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

That is misleading but I understand what you are saying. They only make it easier in terms of relativity. People say only scout techs make provinces easier because those techs reduce the cost to scout and it is the cost that determines difficulty. Lets say there will be 100 enemies in that province when (or after it is scouted) then there will always be those 100. The scout tech has zero impact on that.

It is the relativity of when your squad size goes from 100 to 120 that it changes. The coloured difficulty ratings are a visual indicator that players requested years ago when the combat system changed. People were fighting impossible fights, dying and then complaining. It basically compares your squad size to those in the province, it won't change what is in the province, which is what @Pheryll and yogi are saying.

Yes, that is what the rest of my post said

 

[Pheryll]

The coloured difficulty ratings are a visual indicator that players requested years ago when the combat system changed. People were fighting impossible fights, dying and then complaining.

This point is key. The difficulty bands are not a variable used in the calculation of scout cost or squad size, but a later comparison of the two.

Because catering is unrelated to squad size, the color of these bands has no impact on the amount you need to cater.

 

[Deborah M]

I have not read everything said. I do want to reply anyway. I would prefer to be a completely cater city but, even though I recently tried, it was too time consuming to keep up with the production and trading demands of doing that. For a long time, literally years, I skipped the optional squad size upgrades when I felt in a hurry. For me, that is most of the time because I am goal driven from a lifetime of meeting deadlines. Anyway, when they fixed the penalty hidden in squad size upgrades, I went back and did them all. For all that time that I did not do the optional squad size upgrades I considered it a kind of perk because I could use all those KP toward AWs. I'm still not crazy about battling so I just do it the lazy way. I completely use the color coding when I highlight the troops. That is after being here for some 7 1/2 years but it works for me and I actually feel like an almost noncombatant city.

 

[Genefer]

Ok - I am outraged at the disadvantage of catering costs for province encounters relative to Troop users.

It's cheaper for me to cater than to lose troops for map encounters - because troops have more value in the Tournament.

Still

 

[Deborah M]

Ok - I am outraged at the disadvantage of catering costs for province encounters relative to Troop users.

It's cheaper for me to cater than to lose troops for map encounters - because troops have more value in the Tournament.

Still

Is it really a disadvantage? I have 770 completed provinces. I catered all of them from day 1. It's just easier and faster. To each their own play style

 

[Genefer]

I was just joking lol

Though it does seem there should be a tech for reducing map catering costs too

 

[Genefer]

Though I suppose the building upgrade techs increase the available resources - but there is also upgrades for Armories, Barracks... and of course squad size & Troop Strength

Yes, it's a bit one sided

 

[Iyapo]

I like my catering city. I am okay with 4k in the tournaments.
I would like to see catering buildings similar to the UUU, MMM, ELR, DA, etc etc but I happily greeted the delightful little 30 day 1x1 goods boosters. . . which do far less good in a fighting city or a hybrid than they do in a catering build(more manus).

 

[Genefer]

I love the fields!!!

 

[Pheryll]

I was just joking lol

Though it does seem there should be a tech for reducing map catering costs too

Advanced Scouts is this tech. These techs have an exponential effect, while SS techs have a quadratic effect. If we had one Advanced Scouts every chapter, then the difficulty band for encounters would be very easy as scouting could not keep up.

 

[Genefer]

Advanced Scouts is this tech.

OHHH so advanced scouts applies to Troops & Resources, but Squad Size decreases difficulty by increasing the number of units the player can field?

 

[Pheryll]

OHHH so advanced scouts applies to Troops & Resources, but Squad Size decreases difficulty by increasing the number of units the player can field?

Advanced scouts reduces cost. Squad size increases the number of units you can send in. The difficulty bands are a comparison between cost and the number of units you can send.