Tournament Strategy

[ekarat]

I'm new to the forums, so I'm still trying to understand the group mindset, so please bear with me if I say something that doesn't make sense.

How do people usually approach tournaments?

I generally cater the first one multiple times and maybe the second one too sometimes. I found that catering cost fewer resources than replacing battling losses (in a surprisingly skewed ratio), but I haven't conducted extensive research, and that was a while ago. The rewards don't seem to be impressive enough to me to be worth pursuing too far out, especially when I want to conserve military/goods for the regular aspects of game and given how the rewards seem to go down (but get more difficult) when you go further out.

No doubt, some of what I have been thinking may not jibe with conventional wisdom, but that's what it seemed like to me learning the game on my own.

 

[SoggyShorts]

The relics you get for your boosts are REALLY good, so in those 3 tournaments I would recommend clearing the same number of provinces as your chapter- For example a chapter 3 player should do 3 provinces. (-1 if you are poor, +1 if you saved up a bit beforehand)
The important thing during your boosted tournaments is to go to 5 stars. That 5th star gives 6 relics, which in the early game is about 7-10% boost in production. Deep is better than wide when it's your boost.

How best to clear those provinces is debatable. If you focus on military by having a high level barracks and enough armories to keep it filled you can clear the first few rounds in each province on auto-fight which is pretty fast. In later rounds you might need to manually fight or switch to catering.

Straight up catering everything is the fastest way, but can drain your resources pretty quick...then again, if you aren't using space for armories you could build more factories.

 

[Sir Squirrel]

Hello ekarat, I would agree with the catering the first couple, The idea to go further in the tournament is when it is your boosted goods tournament as the relics you get will boost your factories boost % more so you can produce more goods. You can see this when you go to your main hall and click on the relics tab. Also if you use spells then you need relics to make them so this can also make you want to take on a few more tournament provinces when it is a relic you use a lot for making spells. Last the KP you get from tournaments help you to go through the tech tree quicker, so some will take on more tourneys for that reason as well. But really it depends on what your type of game play is and what is important to you and how many troops and goods you have to throw at them. Should mention also that the higher levels of the tournament offer runes for the wonders and some players play for them as well.

 

[Mykan]

Tournament strategy is very situational and will be interesting to watch its evolution with the switch to fellowship tournaments.

How far and deep I go depends on why I am doing tournaments.

• If I am farming relics I do like Soggy suggested and it helps ones sleep not to try for the 6th round .
• If I am farming runes I only go for the 4th round and it varies based on town era on how many provinces I do that. The 6th round is all runes but often the cost and sleep deprivation are not worth the effort.
• If I am farming KP I might stop at round 3/4 depending on how wide I am planning to go and town era. The 4th round close in provinces have runes but at some stage they switch to KP/relics. Rounds 5 and 6 do not have KP. Once you reach the 2kp returns it is often better to for further out provinces on level 1 for the same reward.

Cater/Fight also varies based on my town.

• Newer towns I tend to cater as the cater costs are often very cheap. If I have a few military units I use them instead of catering when the cater cost is high in supplies, there is always a couple very supply intensive costs.
• Auto-fight up to level 4 depending on troops works well, especially for later era towns as supply costs on catering can be very high compared to troop costs.
• Later era towns can usually easily produce troops for tournaments with minimal armories
• Due to time pressure the fastest options seem to be cater>auto-fight>manual fight. I suspect however the demand on supplies is generally opposite to that, at least for most of the towns I play.

 

[ekarat]

Interesting. I'm still getting used to the groupthink around here.

What I am hearing:
* I am undervaluing the rewards, partially because I've never invested too heavily.
* I should especially value my boosted relics more.
* I should pay more attention to tournaments because there's not a lot of window if you want to get far.

I've been biased because of an odd early experience. The first time I tried auto-fight on the tournaments, I lost all of my troops and didn't get the province. The battles in the first province for the first star were tougher than my outermost ring. On the other hand, good costs were single digits -- trivial to get. This was a while ago, and I'm probably in better shape now, but I just couldn't wrap my head around how catering had costs that were much, much cheaper than my bribing costs in the outer ring and fights that were much, much harder than my outer ring.

Finally, a side point:
I've maxed out my main hall and maxed out how many supplies I can hold. What can I do with them, since I can't hold them all. The best I've found is upgrading my armouries, since that seems to take a lot of supplies, but I'm really struggling to find something to spend them on.

 

[Ashrem]

You can use up coin and supplies to buy your non-boosted goods from the trader in the fourth tab "wholesaler"

 

[ekarat]

You can use up coin and supplies to buy your non-boosted goods from the trader in the fourth tab "wholesaler"

Yes, I'll use that if the alternative is to lose supplies and my builders are busy. I used to do that more, but I'm shifting to looking for building upgrades that require lots of supplies. Upgrading armouries take a large chunk now and should let me use up more supplies training more troops.

 

[DeletedUser3507]

Since I am at the end of Orc chapter and have almost every troop. I can auto fight 8 provinces to 5 stars, I cater the 6th star
But doing 8 can be rather costly, 75k of goods.

This post has been modified too correct it.

 

[SoggyShorts]

I've maxed out my main hall and maxed out how many supplies I can hold. What can I do with them

Replacing any small culture you have with the newest culture you have unlocked(generally the best culture per square) and upgrading your roads to the best available eats up supplies pretty quick.

 

[ekarat]

Since I am at the end of Orc chapter and have almost every troop. I can auto fight 8 provinces to 4 stars, I cater the 5th star
But doing 8 can be rather costly, 75k of goods.

So, does it get harder the more stars you go? I haven't noticed the difference between 1-3 stars.

 

[ekarat]

Replacing any small culture you have with the newest culture you have unlocked(generally the best culture per square) and upgrading your roads to the best available eats up supplies pretty quick.

Ah. I've gotten a sudden infusion of culture from the event, so I haven't been trying to increase my culture. That could be why I'm suddenly flush with supplies.

 

[Mykan]

So, does it get harder the more stars you go? I haven't noticed the difference between 1-3 stars.

https://us.forum.elvenar.com/index.php?threads/mykans-guide-tournaments.4014/

This might help answer some questions. The troop sizes in tournaments are fixed ratios compared to your squad size. You start with an advantage and they get harder from there. Generally it is assumed cater costs increase as you scout more provinces.

 

[DeletedUser3507]

Yes at six stars you can win a few but the others I cater.

And definitely replace old culture many cities I have visited has culture that should have been replaced long ago.

 

[ekarat]

https://us.forum.elvenar.com/index.php?threads/mykans-guide-tournaments.4014/

This might help answer some questions. The troop sizes in tournaments are fixed ratios compared to your squad size. You start with an advantage and they get harder from there. Generally it is assumed cater costs increase as you scout more provinces.

Yes, your guide is what prompted me to start this thread, since I need some context to understand it.

Does upgrading your troops give you an advantage? I'm trying to figure out why auto-combat wiped out my troops. They would have been unupgraded then.

The guide says that military sizes go up with yours. What about catering costs? What about upgraded enemies? What about the difficulty increase with province number (ie provinces further out)?

From what I've seen, it looked like catering costs stayed more or less the same from one star to the next, but grew significantly with province number.

 

[Mykan]

Does upgrading your troops give you an advantage?

Troop upgrades to better versions and wonders that improve troop quality help. Squad size techs do not as squad size ratios are fixed in tournaments.

I'm trying to figure out why auto-combat wiped out my troops. They would have been unupgraded then.

There could be multiple reasons, assuming you had the right troop combination the map layout is often a culprit, and sometimes just the AI itself. Using auto combat from level 4 on gets iffy depending on troops.

What about catering costs?

From what I've seen, it looked like catering costs stayed more or less the same from one star to the next, but grew significantly with province number.

My understanding is these go up as you scout (not complete) new provinces. We have no 100% proof on this but anecdotal evidence supports it and I was sure I read something in a release note once but can't find it

Cater costs do increase as you go wider (more tournaments) and deeper (higher stars)

What about upgraded enemies? What about the difficulty increase with province number (ie provinces further out)?

Enemies do upgrade with later tournament level so you will find in later star levels you might be facing the second or third level troops when you originally only faced basic ones.

Other then above the only increase in difficulty is a change in squad size ratios as mentioned in guide. For provinces further out the squad sizes just get larger but the ratios remain the same.

 

[ekarat]

Troop upgrades to better versions and wonders that improve troop quality help. Squad size techs do not as squad size ratios are fixed in tournaments.



There could be multiple reasons, assuming you had the right troop combination the map layout is often a culprit, and sometimes just the AI itself. Using auto combat from level 4 on gets iffy depending on troops.



My understanding is these go up as you scout (not complete) new provinces. We have no 100% proof on this but anecdotal evidence supports it and I was sure I read something in a release note once but can't find it

Cater costs do increase as you go wider (more tournaments) and deeper (higher stars)



Enemies do upgrade with later tournament level so you will find in later star levels you might be facing the second or third level troops when you originally only faced basic ones.

Other then above the only increase in difficulty is a change in squad size ratios as mentioned in guide. For provinces further out the squad sizes just get larger but the ratios remain the same.

Thank you for the detailed reply! I will keep these things in mind for the coming tournaments, especially since they seem to be turning into a fellowship feature soon. (I want to support my fellowship.)

 

[Thistleknot]

Not sure what tournament fighting is like in the earlier chapters, but here is my take on things. I currently auto-fight in 5 tourneys as far as I can. The 5th and 6th rounds have a lot of negotiating with the occasional fight that I control. At my level, it is much cheaper and faster to replace troops than to replace goods.

When approaching the tourney, decide on your focus. Do you want to get KP, relics, runes, or ranking points? If you just need KP and/or relics, you can do more tourneys, but you only have to go to about the 3rd round. For runes, you should probably focus on 3 to 5 tourneys and take them to the 4th round. Round 5 gets you a big relic boost. Round 6 gets you another rune, but you either have to use diamonds to rush getting here or somewhere along the line you have to do a round early in the morning and a round late in the evening of the same day. Getting to rounds 5 and 6 will get you a lot of tournament points. If you are in the top 100 players for a tournament, you will get some ranking points.

Personally I will battle in all tourneys regardless of the relic that I get. Some people only do the tourneys for relics of their boosted goods.

As far as excess coin and supplies, the wholesaler is your best friend. It may be expensive, but I would rather spend excess money to get goods that I will need and keep generating an income than let the workshops and residencies sit idle. Also keep upgrading everything that you can. Upgrade your buildings, your culture, your roads. This will help you spend that excess supply, but it also makes your city more efficient. Not mention that is kind of the point of a city builder.

Edit Note: Try controlling some fights in the tourney. This is a good way to learn the combat system without losing too many troops.

 

[Mykan]

Not sure what tournament fighting is like in the earlier chapters.

Edit Note: Try controlling some fights in the tourney. This is a good way to learn the combat system without losing too many troops.

For early chapters the catering costs are normally very cheap and are mostly only tier 1 and 2 goods which are cheap to produce. So competing in lots of tournaments in a low era town up to level 3/4 is very achievable and at most only requires 1 extra t1 or t2 factory depending on your original number.

Thistleknot makes an excellent point about the tournaments as training grounds which is an often forgotten tactic for using them. Due to the smaller squad sizes and fixed ratios you can test out your ability and increase the difficulty as you improve. Tournament provinces have identical troop to the same world map province except tournament squad sizes are smaller (much smaller at later eras).

 

[DeletedUser4818]

I was one of those players that was struggling in the battles. I used the tourneys as my training ground. Since I could only negotiate so many trades, I needed to supplement by fighting. I find that trading the first few rounds cheaper than fighting, but my inexperience cost me in the higher rounds. So I went back to the early rounds and fought until my losses where greater than the gains. I managed to turn it around soon enough and negotiate to the 3rd (give or take the providence) and I fight the rest. I have managed to go about twice as far overall in rounds and providences. It feels really good to see your name near the top 100. I think my best was 99, but I think it was a dream


Side note: I made a new city to test some of my fighting concepts. To my surprise I started with 50 dancers, 50 archers, and 50 (yes) Treants. I used this opportunity to complete the first 6 providences without negotiating since I did not have a barracks or trader. I have since been training dancers and archers. I can't train Treants since I have not unlocked them in the tree.


As always I want to thank people for their feedback on combat (especially Mykan). I have been able to expand my reach with a combination of fighting and negotiating, in tournaments as well as providences. I won my first province vs 3x squad size (with 3 star ranks) using this technique. I was able to use the terrains and their weakness against them.

 

[DeletedUser4778]

So, does it get harder the more stars you go? I haven't noticed the difference between 1-3 stars.

Yes, it gets harder and more expensive the more stars there are since the stars indicate the combat difficulty as stated by Mykan. Catering costs alaso increase. You can view a sample by clicking on the Flurry link in my signature (which reminds me, I'd better take that down soon) and then going to the Tourneys tab. The info is dated but should still give a general idea of the catering costs for tourneys.