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    Your Elvenar Team

Ancient Wonders - are they worth it?

DeletedUser6857

Guest
@ShneekeyTheLost
You missed the first available AW, the ToS. I didn't check for all of the lower chapters, but I think it out performs a workshop now.

Also, regarding the Endless Excavation, while it does take up 20 squares compared to a 12 square workshop, that workshop needs pop and culture, which adds another ~20 squares I think.

But you need to balance that against the KP needed to build an AW. That is something hard to give up in the first 5 chapters as you are trying to move though the tech tree. As Shneeky pointed out, you really don't get tech locked in the first 5 chapters unless you have made some grave miscalculations on how many WP and factories to build.

The ToS sounds great until you realize that the award is per scout. If you aren't over scouting that's 20 scouts per chapter. Looking at chapter 3 that's probably an average of a scout every other day. Let's be generous and say your main hall is maxed at level 9 for all of chapter 3 that is 120K * 6% = 7200 per scout every other day as measured against a level 8 WS at 249 / h = 5976 per day. Assuming you don't do hourly production If I look at my level 7 WS it yields 431/3hr before culture bonus = 3448/ day. I don't think the culture bonus applies to the AW so I think the WS will still be a better deal than the ToS.
 

SoggyShorts

Mathematician par Excellence
But you need to balance that against the KP needed to build an AW.
It costs zero KP to build a level 1 wonder.
so I think the WS will still be a better deal than the ToS
A level 8 WS is kicking out 1200 supplies/24. We can triple that with shorter productions and some culture. That makes them fairly close to even. Then we compare size, and the ToS takes up 16 squares, while the WS+RES+culture is probably 16ish as well, so another tie. Then every time you want to improve you WS you have pay coins and supplies to level it up (during which time it produces zero supplies), and costs you more pop/culture. For the ToS to improve you just have to upgrade your MH (which you'll do anyways) but let's ignore that, and give them an all around tie...... Except the ToS also gives you 365 KP a year;)

Finally, unless you are an experienced player/nerd/forum junkie you will get techlocked, so you should pick at least one wonder. My personal suggestion to everyone at low levels is the EE, but ToS can be great as well.
 

DeletedUser6372

Guest
@ShneekeyTheLost
You missed the first available AW, the ToS. I didn't check for all of the lower chapters, but I think it out performs a workshop now.
ToS only gives supply upon scouting. That's complete and utter garbage, and so is this AW. Under no circumstances is it even remotely viable.

Also, regarding the Endless Excavation, while it does take up 20 squares compared to a 12 square workshop, that workshop needs pop and culture, which adds another ~20 squares I think.
Fair point, I guess.

The Lighthouse/bellspire's main ability is the 30% longer lasting buffs, so if you are asking your fellows for culture buffs, you are effectively getting 31 visits instead of 24. Whether that is worth the space really depends on your situation- if those boosts take you from 100% to 125%, the extra supplies and coins is nothing to sniff at. Personally I like this one as a temp building for 1-1.5 chapters since as you said you should be saving space for dwarf buildings. Also, when you hit chapter 9 and have to build a buttload of willows you might not be asking for any culture buffs.
The problem is the 30% longer buffs doesn't actually translate into more culture in many cases. I have a culture setup with a few very big culture buildings. They're always clicked on by my FS. I think I had like 3x Gardens of Harmony plus the buildings from the Easter event. So the only thing the 30% boost did for me was get me more coins that I was already overflowing on because of my population.
 

mucksterme

Oh Wise One
The best thing about the AWs is, they are optional.
The game does not require you to build any of them.
So if you think they are useless, don't build them.

Personally, I'm going to see if I can build them all, just for the ***** of it.
And I don't really give any ****** how other people feel about how I play.

That's right Soggy, I don't give any asterix' :p


point of interest: I just now started my Lighthouse upgrading to level 10
it will be done in 30 1/2 hours lol
 
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SoggyShorts

Mathematician par Excellence
ToS only gives supply upon scouting. That's complete and utter garbage, and so is this AW. Under no circumstances is it even remotely viable.
I'm sorry, I just can't agree with that. It seems like a very narrow view. "under no circumstances"?
Unless you are way overscouted and have 2-3 day scout times, you can send your scout out for 30 scouts in a row each chapter without even going over the minimum provinces. I'm not sure how slowly you move through each tech, but for me chapters 6 and 7 take less than a month, so I have to scout all the time.
which makes the ToS far better than a workshop. Even chapters 8 and 9 were under 50 days my first try, so I could hardly go a day without scouting or else I'd be province locked at the chest.
Also worth noting is that since you unlock the ToS first, you get more runes for it than anything other than the GA, so even if you are a slow rolling minimalist, and only scout the min provinces, you can still build it at the beginning of a chapter, scout your provinces and tear it down if you want.

If you look at it objectively there are a lot of circumstances where having a ToS is better than not having one.
 

DeletedUser6372

Guest
I'm sorry, I just can't agree with that. It seems like a very narrow view. "under no circumstances"?
Unless you are way overscouted and have 2-3 day scout times, you can send your scout out for 30 scouts in a row each chapter without even going over the minimum provinces. I'm not sure how slowly you move through each tech, but for me chapters 6 and 7 take less than a month, so I have to scout all the time.
which makes the ToS far better than a workshop. Even chapters 8 and 9 were under 50 days my first try, so I could hardly go a day without scouting or else I'd be province locked at the chest.
Also worth noting is that since you unlock the ToS first, you get more runes for it than anything other than the GA, so even if you are a slow rolling minimalist, and only scout the min provinces, you can still build it at the beginning of a chapter, scout your provinces and tear it down if you want.

If you look at it objectively there are a lot of circumstances where having a ToS is better than not having one.
Stop and read what you just wrote. 20-30 scouting opportunities per chapter. That's pretty anemic. Workshops, particularly if you have 150% or more, which is pathetically easy in the earlier chapters, are going to WAY out-produce this just in sheer volume. And really, the ToS is caught in a catch 22. If you spam the scouts, you quickly jump way outside the GZ and not only pay a ton more but your ability to spam them out ceases as well, ending up in a net sum loss.

One scout a day is not going to keep up with a workshop at any given level, particularly not if you have basic culture and a FS with regular visits.
 

DeletedUser7370

Guest
Let us take a practical look at some comparisons that I personally experienced. As with any example of the sort, YMMV due to your personal playstyle preferences.

* Golden Abyss. This is a 3x3 building that provides a percentage of your active population. However, my level 15 buildings provided around 440 pop at a 3x3 whereas at around 11k population used the level 2 GA only provided around 300.
I run a 160% culture bonus at all times. My L15 houses generate 7200 coins per 3 hours. A level 2 GA with a L15 main hall generates 45000 coins every 3 hours. So for the coins it would take 5 houses at 3x3 each to produce the same. The GA is a good deal if you are a constantly spending coins for knowledge points. In fact when I built mine I tore down 2 houses to make space for it.

It is also quite easy to be tech locked in chapter 2 because you need to have about 1000 of the tier 2 goods right after you built the factories for them. I think I had to put about 20 KP into neighbor's wonders before I got enough goods together.
 
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mucksterme

Oh Wise One
Something else I like about the GA

You are doing an upgrade of a factory that says it requires 140 population
but when you upgrade it only deducts 136.
 

DeletedUser7370

Guest
You missed the first available AW, the ToS. I didn't check for all of the lower chapters, but I think it out performs a workshop now.
ToS only gives supply upon scouting. That's complete and utter garbage, and so is this AW. Under no circumstances is it even remotely viable.
You both completely missed the point of the Tome and that is the knowledge point yield. I have been purchasing KP with coins since sometime in the first week of play. By the time I could build the ToS each KP already cost around 100K. My L15 (3x3) houses produce 2400 coins per hour with a 60% culture bonus. That means it would take 1 of my current houses 41 hours and 40 minutes to generate enough coins to buy a knowledge point at the price when I was in the beginning of chapter 3 and did not have access to such luxurious accommodations. Currently 1 KP costs over 450K coins and my L17 houses only produce 2830 per hour...you can do the math.

The supplies on scouting are a bonus. Use them with quest cycling (Gain 16000 supplies) to reduce your scouting cost by 100K.
 

SoggyShorts

Mathematician par Excellence
One scout a day is not going to keep up with a workshop at any given level, particularly not if you have basic culture and a FS with regular visits.
Ok, lets use my city as an example:
Level 23 MH/WS, and level 1 ToS
Workshop running 9h +3hx5
4,170*5 = 20,850
7,230*1 = 7,230
-----
28K*170%= 48,000

ToS gives 81,000 per scout.
If I'm sending out a scout every day, I'm crushing the output from a workshop unless you have 290% culture bonus?
And let's not forget, that 20 square workshop comes with 15 squares of residence to cover the population cost.
16 squares vs 35 squares.

So now I only need to send out my scout every 48 hours to beat the workshop on a per square basis even if you have 290% bonus!
If we assume a more realistic 170% culture bonus I can send a scout out every ~90 hours and still make more supplies than a workshop per square.
 

DeletedUser6372

Guest
You both completely missed the point of the Tome and that is the knowledge point yield. I have been purchasing KP with coins since sometime in the first week of play. By the time I could build the ToS each KP already cost around 100K. My L15 (3x3) houses produce 2400 coins per hour with a 60% culture bonus. That means it would take 1 of my current houses 41 hours and 40 minutes to generate enough coins to buy a knowledge point at the price when I was in the beginning of chapter 3 and did not have access to such luxurious accommodations. Currently 1 KP costs over 450K coins and my L17 houses only produce 2830 per hour...you can do the math.
Your problem is you are buying KP in the first place. That's a bad idea unless required by a quest.
Ok, lets use my city as an example:
Level 23 MH/WS, and level 1 ToS
Workshop running 9h +3hx5
4,170*5 = 20,850
7,230*1 = 7,230
-----
28K*170%= 48,000

ToS gives 81,000 per scout.
If I'm sending out a scout every day, I'm crushing the output from a workshop unless you have 290% culture bonus?
And let's not forget, that 20 square workshop comes with 15 squares of residence to cover the population cost.
16 squares vs 35 squares.

So now I only need to send out my scout every 48 hours to beat the workshop on a per square basis even if you have 290% bonus!
If we assume a more realistic 170% culture bonus I can send a scout out every ~90 hours and still make more supplies than a workshop per square.
You're also talking Halflings, I'm talking Dwarven era. Let's try this with Dwarven entry numbers.

With a level 15 MH, ToS is producing 26,400 per scouting opportunity.

With a level 15 Workshop, the listed production on the wiki is 828/h. Which translates to 19,872/d. Assuming you've got 150% production (pathetically easy, at the start of Dwarves, I was frequently over-cultured due to Garden of Harmony being such a massive culture generator), you're blowing ToS away. And that's assuming you can do one scout a day, which is by no means assured.

Can you even GET any scouting done at that level anymore? It's not like you have any more expansions left to unlock, after all, so there's no reason or incentive to do so. Meaning you get supply for doing something completely irrelevant.

In short: Either you are getting less supplies than you get from workshops, or you get supplies for doing things you shouldn't be doing. In all, a complete and utter waste of space.
 

SoggyShorts

Mathematician par Excellence
Your problem is you are buying KP in the first place. That's a bad idea unless required by a quest.
Care to elaborate? Why would advancing faster in the tech tree be bad? What else should you do with excess coins?
Is it better to spend 2,500,000 coins on 385 Dust in the wholesaler instead of 8 KP?
You're also talking Halflings
Wood elves actually.
With a level 15 Workshop, the listed production on the wiki is 828/h. Which translates to 19,872/d
Really? You run 1h workshop productions 24 times a day? impressive....:rolleyes:
Let's try real numbers, shall we?
Running 9h + 3hx5 a level 15 workshop makes
1,600*5 = 8,000
2,770*1 = 2,770
=10.7K total
10.7K*170% = 18.3K
So with a 170% culture bonus the workshop still fails, and by quite a lot, around 30%.

and again, don't forget that your workshop which takes up 12 squares also needs a residence for another 12 squares.
That's a 50% increase in size over a ToS!

ToS>WS again for dwarves. Wanna try another chapter?
Can you even GET any scouting done at that level anymore? It's not like you have any more expansions left to unlock, after all, so there's no reason or incentive to do so. Meaning you get supply for doing something completely irrelevant.
I have no idea what you mean by this. I still need 30 more provinces per chapter to continue, and my scout times are (and always have been) under 24h.
There are 49 more expansions on my city map to get, and you only get 2 per chapter after orcs, so no, scouting isn't useless. (note: I only get the minimum provinces cleared to open each chapter, the very beginning of the GZ, and all the numbers still put ToS ahead)

And finally
1 KP per day > 0 KP per day.
 
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DeletedUser7370

Guest
Your problem is you are buying KP in the first place. That's a bad idea unless required by a quest.
Uhm why is that a bad idea? If the goal is to hastily reach the last research in the game then that can only be achieved by getting more KP than the normal hourly return. Each purchase step involved has its own cost and mark up. So obtaining additional KP by solving encounters is done through fighting (supplies -> troops -> win) or negotiating (supplies + gold -> goods + supplies -> win). Tourneys are mostly the same path. The only direct path is to buy the KP for coins. The only way for it to be a bad idea to purchase KP is if the goal is to take as long as possible to get to the final research.
 
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