Amuni

[SoggyShorts]

needs to be upgraded once to the correct size/shape

Indeed, the sooner everything is the right shape, the sooner my "plan" for all buildings will fit.

I just plan to do them as I can without stopping chapter progress in it's tracks.

Exactly.
1. Get everything the right shape(optional, but easier on the brain)
2. Spend a day making the guest race stuff
3. Produce and upgrade whatever makes sense as you go.

No need to park for weeks, do it all at the same time!

 

[DeletedUser]

Gems of Knowledge is very thorough

 

[Deborah M]

As far as ranking, I have already dropped by 2, no worries on my part, once I start upgrading residences and w/s I will regain my ground with the blueprints (I refuse to spend money for diamonds) I have accumulated. I will continue to gain each week with blueprints.

How is this possible? Not exact but estimating this. Approximately 40+ blue houses and 10 blue workshops. That is a whole lot of diamonds even if you don't count the upgrades along the way for each chapter. So you are going to wait until you have 50+ blueprints total to upgrade? We can only get 1 per week per tournament so nobody has that many since they would have spent whatever they had for the last chapter upgrades. Say you have a dozen or so. That would still mean waiting almost a year to get them all upgraded. I venture to say that is not going to happen. There is nothing wrong with spending diamonds. I also venture to say most, if not all, top ranking players do

 

[DeletedUser1016]

So there is no Advanced Scout, only Archeology, so no reduction in difficulty in the world map provinces? [i.e. going from "Hard" to "Medium"] Hence the difficulty in battles/negotiations stay the same for this chapter?

 

[Deborah M]

So there is no Advanced Scout, only Archeology, so no reduction in difficulty in the world map provinces? [i.e. going from "Hard" to "Medium"] Hence the difficulty in battles/negotiations stay the same for this chapter?

Nope. It is actually going to get harder for tournaments because of squad size upgrades Theoretically, the squad size upgrades are supposed to make map provinces easier but I have never actually believed that.

 

[Mykan]

Nope. It is actually going to get harder for tournaments because of squad size upgrades

Tournaments only get more costly, not harder. They start hard, get easier and more costly, then only costly.

Theoretically, the squad size upgrades are supposed to make map provinces easier but I have never actually believed that.

So there is no Advanced Scout, only Archeology, so no reduction in difficulty in the world map provinces? [i.e. going from "Hard" to "Medium"] Hence the difficulty in battles/negotiations stay the same for this chapter?

One can only assume it is because the advanced scout isn't really needed, at least for fights. The world map fights get easier and easier as the game goes on if you within a certain distance of the minimum province count. There are people in the late chapters with only blue (very easy) fights and the next ring out would be mostly green (easy) fights. People who have chosen to go further than that (which includes me) have made a choice to do so which has risks and rewards.

Squad size ratio is the biggest impact on a fights difficulty, so the increasing squad sizes will help that. The games difficulty rating also changes in relation to this. The difficulty not reducing with scouts isn't a bother to me, I am more interested that the scout time is not reducing.

edit: tournament squad size ratios are fixed for each round.

 

[edeba]

I was disappointed to see that as well.

So there is no Advanced Scout, only Archeology, so no reduction in difficulty in the world map provinces? [i.e. going from "Hard" to "Medium"] Hence the difficulty in battles/negotiations stay the same for this chapter?

How is "interested" to be interpreted? I do not like that they changed how the first tech in each chapter has always worked and I didn't scout and just open provinces because I was waiting for this so I am disappointed. I wanted to see the same reductions we've always seen and the time not going down is a real pain.

Tournaments only get more costly, not harder. They start hard, get easier and more costly, then only costly.

Squad size ratio is the biggest impact on a fights difficulty, so the increasing squad sizes will help that. The games difficulty rating also changes in relation to this. The difficulty not reducing with scouts isn't a bother to me, I am more interested that the scout time is not reducing.

 

[Deborah M]

There was a long conversation a while back about the effect of squad size upgrades. I've never been a big fan of battling so I asked and was told that they make tournaments harder and provinces easier. I'm guessing that the reason I could never really tell a difference is because I am scouted quite a bit further than the required rings of provinces. It would have been nice if the scout time would have been shortened like previous chapters but apparently they decided that isn't necessary anymore.

Maybe somebody could remind me why many see it as preferable to skip the squad size upgrades that are not required?

 

[Pheryll]

Therefore the only logical choice is to unlock T5 first. Like putting on socks before boots instead of after.

With diamond boots you can fit the sock on under even after the boot is buckled.

 

[SoggyShorts]

Maybe somebody could remind me why many see it as preferable to skip the squad size upgrades that are not required?

Your squad size in tournaments is a % of your full squad size. The enemy's size is a % of yours.
For example if your SS is 2,000, then in the first province your SS would be 100 in the tourney. (it's 5% per province)
The enemy in round 2 would also have an SS of 100 (round 2 the enemy is 100% your size)
That's 100 vs 100
If your SS was 4,000, then all of the above numbers would double, including the losses.
That's 200 vs 200
Clearly it is better to fight 100 vs 100 than it is to fight 200 vs 200, since your losses are easier to replace.

If you are catering, the formula doesn't seem to be completely linear, but the costs go up close to the same (double your squad size, double your catering costs)

Changing a few provinces on the world map from "medium" to "easy" doesn't even come close to having lower costs every single week in the tournament.

 

[SoggyShorts]

How is this [not using diamonds to upgrade] possible?

It isn't. or at least it isn't sustainable. You can only get 52 blueprints per year, so if you need 51 for upgrades and there is more than 1 new chapter in a year......
Presumably @Purfie meant
"I refuse to spend diamonds to upgrade buildings [unless/until I have to]"

this made me lookup how much players are spending each year, and I guess it's $300 minus $3 per blueprint? Plus any other spending of course.
Pretty impressive that such a basic game can inspire that level of spending. There are some pretty amazing AAA games out there for way less than $300

 

[Deborah M]

It isn't. or at least it isn't sustainable. You can only get 52 blueprints per year, so if you need 51 for upgrades and there is more than 1 new chapter in a year......
Presumably @Purfie meant
"I refuse to spend diamonds to upgrade buildings [unless/until I have to]"

this made me lookup how much players are spending each year, and I guess it's $300 minus $3 per blueprint? Plus any other spending of course.
Pretty impressive that such a basic game can inspire that level of spending. There are some pretty amazing AAA games out there for way less than $300

Yes, that is correct. I know it is for my city and I'm pretty sure in prior conversation @jps54 also indicated it runs around $150 per chapter to upgrade blue buildings. This time it wasn't as high for me because of blueprints so I estimate between diamonds I already had and new spend it was around $100 worth of diamonds.

My real point was that I DO NOT want newer players misled about the ongoing cost of premium residences and workshops. We have seen it before where some players get the unpleasant surprise that they need to spend 320 diamonds to upgrade each blue building when they get to each new chapter. Chances are that newer players are also probably not in a FS that regularly wins blueprints. If they cannot afford or are unwilling to spend that ongoing cost then I'm guessing it is game over.Obviously, there are a whole lot of players who do have blue cities so the benefits are obviously worth it to those players including me. I think if I had realized the ongoing cost I probably would not have relied so much on the premium buildings. When I originally bought my first bunch it did not cost diamonds to upgrade them. I remember being pretty angry when that changed. First was the frustration that they suddenly could not be upgraded and then when they "fixed" it they came out with blueprints or diamonds You can tell I got over it

Anyway, I know from Timon comments that the developers do play the new chapters and calculate that they are doable. Time has shown that each chapter can be done by players who do not spend so there is no reason to doubt him. Heck, @SoggyShorts has proven over & over that it can be done. When it comes time to upgrade I can't help but question my decision long ago to go all blue. At least blue is my favorite color

All I really know is that I am very happy that I have been able to figure out how to fit all the Amuni buildings into my city and I can't imagine how I would do that without premium buildings. A whole lot of my other buildings would definitely have to go!

 

[bkbajb]

The new race looks interesting. And a whole new row of expansions - ohh wait, only if you are willing to pay $$$$$$$. Remove the cap - your events require us to open provinces - so remove the cap. Even if it would take 12 or 15 provinces to garner an expansion - that is more fair than making the expansions only about $$$$$$$$$$$.

I agree even if the negotiation costs were a lot higher

 

[WolfSinger]

Since the FS ended has anyone got the "talking heads" with the quest line. I've finished a couple of of the tech's in the tech tree and still don't have the questline for the new chapter (just the two that offer the repeating quests).

Nevermind - just declined a couple of the repeating quests and found the new ones.

 

[DeletedUser]

I am now the very proud owner of 1/2 inch of land....

 

[DeletedUser9601]

Pretty impressive that such a basic game can inspire that level of spending. There are some pretty amazing AAA games out there for way less than $300

None that I can play at work though

 

[DeletedUser]

"I refuse to spend diamonds to upgrade buildings [unless/until I have to]"

very true. And yes I had to, but not as bad as it could have been. I still have 3 houses (I won't waste diamonds on those) as my population is ok right now. And I can wait a little over 2 weeks. Will I spend for the next upgrade on residents, unfortunately yes, but only as needed for population. This is going to be a very pricey upgrade as far as population goes. My biggest chunk of diamonds went towards the mana makers which I stated early on were needed. I do like the new configuration of the buildings. Happy gaming everyone♥

 

[SoggyShorts]

My biggest chunk of diamonds went towards the mana makers which I stated early on were needed.

The starting mana costs for this chapter are pretty intense. I came in with about 1,700,000 and I'll be down to zero mana this evening after I have built 4 traps and 6 goldsmiths

 

[Deborah M]

The starting mana costs for this chapter are pretty intense. I came in with about 1,700,000 and I'll be down to zero mana this evening after I have built 4 traps and 6 goldsmiths

I'm at the same place as you with 6 goldsmiths & 4 traps I started with 2+M mana and I'm down to 400K already Time to start using PoP spells even though I don't need to otherwise. Oh Well! Right now I'm more concerned with getting enough trap arrows so I can add the 4 pillars. Can't build the other 2 goldsmiths without them

 

[DeletedUser]

costs for this chapter are pretty intense

Everything in this chapter is ridiculously expensive.