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    Your Elvenar Team

About Chapter 9

Zoof

Well-Known Member
I haven't yet reached the point yet, but as soon as I gain Forest Fabrication to start producing Mana Tears, would I be better off dumping Portal Profits onto the problem to save myself the mana (and time in the sense of researching production facilities, producing the capped items, AND somehow coming up with the mana to do it all) needed to produce Wood Ghosts, Wind Chimes, and Treant Sprouts? Or would I be better served saving those Portal Profits for some later chapter?

EDIT: I'm 207500 mana away and still need to research Dryad Promotion, Main Hall, and Forest Glade, from reaching and completing Forest Fabrication. Let's assume KP and other resources are no object. My daily Mana income is 14560, and further construction is halted during the course of Fellowship Adventures. I have one Festival Merchant (+5400 a day when deployed). I intend to trash my only and terrifyingly outdated Moonstone Gate and wait for it to reappear in MA (+760 a day when I get to it). Will these factor into the decision by some great amount?
 
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I don't know how helpful my experience is to yours, but I really underestimated my mana needs in this chapter, and mana kept holding me back. I used 100% portal profits to get through, and never researched or built the grafting sites, so I didn't need any mana for productions. But, on the other hand, I was racing through, and finished the chapter in 23 days. I figured I would need 60,000 of mana per day, but by the end had 100,000 produced per day. So if you're planning to go much more slowly, you will need less mana per day. But I'm not sure how much more you would need for standard production.

I like the portal profit route, but it's not for everyone. I have to top the spire every week to win/craft enough PPs. I have been using PPs on all the chapters, so I also can't give advice on which are the hardest without PPs.
 

MaidenFair

Chef - Head Philologist
Disclaimer: I'm not sure I have any particular advice, since I'm at almost exactly the same place in the research tree you are.

My main thought is that it sounds like your Mana production will probably be slower than the rate you can fill researches with KP (unless you don't do much tournament) which might mean you won't want to wait extra time for productions if you've already been tech-locked for a while. I have the impression a lot of people PP their way through Woodelves since the guest race buildings come so late in the chapter. Personally, I'm planning on dawdling in this chapter and building them anyway since I'm dreading S&D, which I plan to race through as fast as possible (why am I training people in necromancy again?!? :eek: ). I also suspect this chapter is specifically designed to get us used to the idea of producing and balancing decaying resources, which practical experience and understanding might not be gained by portal profiting through it and might then cause problems later on. At least that's the theory I'm working on. ;)
 
The math of decaying resources is pretty horrendous. With a 10% decay, the most that you can have is 10 times your daily production. But that amount is an asymptotic limit that you will approach, but never be able to reach unless the rounding works in your favor.

It takes 7 days to get to 5 times your daily production, 12 days to get to 7 times your daily production, and 22 days to get to 9 times your daily production.

In your case, with a daily production of 14,560, it will take you 12 days of saving mana and not spending it on anything else just to have enough to open the last research of the chapter (requires 100,000 mana), much less to produce the other resources needed for that research.

Even if you use portal profits, you will still need more mana than you are currently producing.
 

Darielle

Chef, Scroll-Keeper, and Buddy Fan Club Member
Actually, mana needs got much worse in chapter 10. I used lots of portal profits and still put out a ton of mana buildings for the research and quests. One quest at the end of chapter 10 asks for 100K mana. It's worth 200 diamonds, so of course I did that. Chapter 9 wasn't too bad as far as mana needs go, probably because the spire didn't require any mana until chapter 10. (at least I think I remember that)
 

Zoof

Well-Known Member
Thanks for all your replies. Especially the tidbit about how long it takes to multiply current productions over some number of days.

Since Fellowship Adventures is over, I reclaimed quite a bit of space and pushed my mana production up to 47488/day with one more Festival Merchant being crafted in MA at the time of this post. I'm feeling good enough about the situation to stick it out and play the chapter through and through. If only for the story. I really like how the big tree demanded that the orcs get lost. And the bit about mana itself being anti-orc.

I fully intend to keep building as many Festival Merchants as often as they show up in the Magic Academy, so things really are looking up. I also spent a little bit building those Weeping Willows to push production up since I had the space but not so much that I want to give up on the rows of workshops. Quest abuse is still a thing, and I'm getting a little tired of needing to burn supply instants to feed my army.
 

samidodamage

Buddy Fan Club member
This was the trick used by those of us in those mana chapters to jump start mana production in the distant past. It may not be useful to you now, Zoof, but you can use it in future 'between times' for future chapters. This was before Portal Profits or crafting in the MA. There were also few event bldgs (and evolving bldgs had not yet been released) that produced mana.

This was based off the original trick from end of Ch6, 7 and 8:
Hold onto your previous guest race production bldgs until you need the room for the next guest race bldgs and/or the resources provided by selling your current ones. They act as 'extended storage' for coins/supplies beyond the MH storage limit.

When entering Ch9: Unlock Willows, then sell off Orc guest race bldgs using the coins/supplies to build as many Willows as you can fit in the guest race space. As you need the space for Woodelves guest race bldgs, sell the Willows and use the coins/supplies to build the new bldgs. As you move through subsequent chapters, you can do the same thing, but the regular culture/mana building used will change. At the end of S&D, the Arcane Library is a better mana producer. Not sure where Torch Fountains were unlocked, but at the end of that chapter, they'll be better than the Arcane Library.
With crafting now available in the MA, you can also use Festival Merchants for this, but they will not use the coins/supplies from the guest race bldgs. And, you won't get any resources when you sell them. You'd need to have a huge surplus of these bldgs crafted to make this work. My recommendation would be to place Festival Merchants in spots you have reserved for mana production outside the guest race space. Then fill the guest race space with the appropriate regular culture/mana bldg and sell as space/resources needed.
Note: Once you unlock Ch11-Halflings, any FM's crafted will produce seeds instead of mana. Since you'll still need mana in significant quantities, I recommend keeping the ones you have instead of replacing (add a couple seed producing FM's if needed) them until you're comfortable with mana production from other bldgs (event, evolving, etc). Also, getting Dragon Abbey AW at the end of S&D will produce 'mana on demand' whenever a spell is cast. That's a way for you to fill mana needs in a pinch. You will need excess spells available, though.
 

Zoof

Well-Known Member
I'm a little further along now, having researched all the guest race settlements for chapter 9. Of my settlement, I currently have:
  • Lv 4 (max) Forest Glade (portal)
  • 3 Lv 1 Forest Fabrications
  • 3 Lv 2 Forest Fabrications
  • 3 Marble Grafting Sites
  • 2 Planks Grafting Sites
  • 2 3 Steel Grafting Sites
I've already spent the mana to push my Main Hall up to the new maximum level and am currently producing 114320 mana a day. I intend to try to push through the rest of the chapter by the time the current event ends in 14 days. Going by the numbers I got from using Elven Architect's Research Calculator, I should be good to go with respect to mana, though I haven't actually calculated how reliant on Portal Profits I'll be.

Should I continue growing my settlement, and if so, in what ways? Or is the timeframe I'm setting for myself too short and am better off going straight towards making as many Wood Ghosts, Wind Chimes, and Treant Sprouts as I can?

I'd also like to know how the inclusion of mana will impact my ability to negotiate. Or at the very least, in what amounts are you seeing in Spire negotiations as compared to other resources (so as to have a baseline for comparison)

EDIT: Assume I can source the needed KP; this week's worth of tournaments should net me about half the needed KP by itself, though I'm hesitant to actually spend all of it on demand on research that I haven't unlocked yet, though I'm definitely willing to PP it all the way through.
 
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Flashfyre

Well-Known Member
Mana will definitely be part of your negotiations on the Spire; the amount will grow with each new chapter. I'm in Ch13 now, so I'm seeing Sentient Goods appear now as well as mana and seeds. I think it will also show in Tourney, I just can't remember if I've had to use any.
IIRC the mana amounts have been around 2K for each submission; they started around 1K at first, which is where the seeds have been lately.
Mana won't always be needed
 

StarLoad

Well-Known Member
@Flashfyre, FYI Seeds and Sentient goods are NOT included in the Tourney, at least thru ch16, and you will always need Mana.
am currently producing 114320 mana a day.
Zoof just keep adding the bldgs that give Mana like the "Lava Egg" when you can and others and soon you will be like several million of mana in no time.

Ed
 
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Flashfyre

Well-Known Member
@ed1960 Thanks for that clarification. I don't do a lot of catering during Tourney, so I wasn't sure if I ever saw them.

@Zoof One thing to watch out for: most mana-producing event buildings will switch to seeds in Ch11, so if you upgrade older ones you'll lose some mana sources. Same holds for evolving buildings - after certain levels, the production switches from mana to seeds to sentient goods. If you need to maintain mana production, you may have to keep some buildings at lower levels.
 

MaidenFair

Chef - Head Philologist
@Zoof have you seen this wonderful calculation sheet put together by MinMaxGamer a while ago? You can make a copy, put your own numbers in (city expansions, wonder levels, boost percentage, research progress), and it will calculate the expected spire and tournament costs for you. That should be able to give you a pretty good idea how much mana will be required in each encounter (although as Flashfyre noted, it won't actually be needed in every encounter, just like the other goods).

Oh, and the explanation to go with the sheet - here's the page it was linked from: https://minmaxgame.com/tournament-and-spire-requirements-2020/
 

Henroo

Oh Wise One
@Zoof If you are going to go the Portal Profit route, make sure to max out your portal before using too many PP spells. Using PPs when you have a low level portal is just wasteful, since you don't get as much from them. Generally the only time I use PPs with a L2 or L3 portal is when the goods it provide will help me upgrade the portal.
 
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