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Your Elvenar Team
Armories: How Many is Too Many?
- Thread starter Darielle
- Start date
helya
Beloved Ex-Team Member
I have enough spare population that I am prepared for anything. I also have a lot of other unnecessary buildings in my city, just in case. I'm a bad person to ask for city planning advice.
Huor
Guest
My forbidden ruins makes me a lot of pretty blossoms! @samidodamage is correct, I send my priests to the field. I don't want my blossoms to get hurt. It's a jungle out there!
defiantoneks
Well-Known Member
i forgot to add, i do have the flying academy, bulwark, etc wonders. no input from side buildings unless it comes from evolving event structures (so some, but not concentrated amounts)
defiantoneks
Well-Known Member
those girls arent playing around. Rage of the Flowerbutts!
they love beating the bageezus out of Heavies.
got some light melee mixed in? add frogs. your troops can go untouched in victory.
Henroo
Oh Wise One
Flying Academy is much better than Hero's Forge. Some of your best troops come from the Mercenary Camp, so speeding it up is important. In my human cities I use Rangers and Frogs a lot. In my elven city I use Rangers and Blossoms a lot. In addition, FA is a great source of free basic mage units. Humans get the better deal here, since they are getting free Priests. But for an elven player free Sorceresses are better than nothing.
Linnea Shadowwalker
Chef
I have heard this before, but when I looked it up, it didn't work out. But I have heard it so often that I feel like I must be missing something.
Per the wiki, a level 15 armory is 4x4 and has a training size of 40.
A level 4 armory is 2x2, and has a training size of 6.
So 4 level 4 armories would get you 6x4=24. And because of needing road access, you need more like 5x4 to fit them in, not 4x4.
samidodamage
Buddy Fan Club member
I may be the most active one on the forums now, but that was certainly not the case when I came here 5+ years ago. I had never played a multi-player online game before, never mind a combat game! I learned everything I know from primarily these forums.
Mykan's Fighting Guide (pinned in the 'Battle Help' sub-forum) is an excellent resource that is often overlooked. Starting at post#6, there are tables showing the best player unit options in the various map provinces by relic type based on the enemy types that appear in that province type. When I started trying to learn combat, I'd have my game open in one tab, Mykan's Guide in another, and Gems in a third one, lol! Back then, tourney provinces and map provinces were just alike in terms of which enemies you faced. I started out with a simple formula I got from an old 'Combat 101' thread in here (take in 5 squads of the key unit, hit autofight, cater the ones you lose). Turns out, even doing it that simply, way more fights were won than lost saving a pile of resources. From there, I learned to watch the auto fights by going to the battlefield first, then hitting auto-fight. As I learned how initiative and terrain issues worked for/against my units, I began to manual fight. Since it felt more like learning a complicated version of chess than my preconceived notion of what a combat game did, I continued on from there.
I'm a reader, learning better by reading, then doing, then reading some more. Some folks learn better watching videos, then doing, then watching again (my husband and daughter!). I *think* ElvenGems' YouTube videos are still available. Again, they're not applicable directly to today's tourney structure specifically, but the units behave the same way as they always have and those basic resources from 'back in the day' still contain a wealth of knowledge about the combat system here. There's also a battle simulator on ElvenArchitect that is an underused resource as well.
Edit to add: I forgot to add crazywizardinfo.com! That site is still available, though he stopped updating it awhile back. Again, the basics of combat haven't changed so that info remains relevant as well.
crackie
Chef, Scroll-Keeper, Buddy's #1 Fan
Should we be concerned because don't you know ahead of time what's coming down the pipeline? Should the rest of us be saving up and building post-apocalypse bunkers too? I guess I should build one "just in case" too, especially if Buddy comes over angry after work because she got cheated out of a debuff again and then decides to make popcorn while in a bad mood...
crackie
Chef, Scroll-Keeper, Buddy's #1 Fan
True, but the gist of it is you can still pump these out really quickly if you have multiple builders available and it'll lengthen your queue very quickly when paired with a Shrewdy. For example, if I've got 5 available builders, it'll take 1 minute to build 5 lvl 1 armories. At my current level of Shrewdy, it's multiplying effect is already at 31x. I don't even need to upgrade them from level 1 to get a pretty big training size increase from 5 armories. If you're going to build a lvl 15 armory, it'll prob take multiple days. Plus, the point is you'll to trash them all afterwards. Why upgrade to lvl 15? If you're going to keep them permanently, then yes, I would be bothering to consider how much road it takes, but it's only for the duration of a Brown Bear feed so fuzzy math works with fuzzy Brown Bear
BTW @helya, there's a typo on the Armory wiki. It says a level 2 upgrade is 26mins but it should only be 6 mins.
Deleted User - 1178646
Guest
As always it depends.
There are 2 main points
How long do you want your unit production queue to be, and whats are the level of your shrewdy shrooms and or bulwark.
secondary points are how much orcs do you need, are ranking points a consideration.
Due to watchtower and sactuary/monestary you can get up to 80% of your spend culture back. do for rankingpoints armory is the best building in the game atm. oftem much beter dat many wonders in with the same chain footprint.
And most people need at least some orks.
As for the queue time it depends on how many times you login and if you want max power out of brow bear(s). having a 4 day queue might make it possible to have all unit productions be affected by brown bear.
Just rake up days of production, wai untill it's (mostly)) done activae your bear and harves. you then have another 12 hours for bonus production.
helya
Beloved Ex-Team Member
The longer I look at that table the more I see wrong with it. I'll have to take some time to get all of the correct values, but the level 2 time is fixed.True, but the gist of it is you can still pump these out really quickly if you have multiple builders available and it'll lengthen your queue very quickly when paired with a Shrewdy. For example, if I've got 5 available builders, it'll take 1 minute to build 5 lvl 1 armories. At my current level of Shrewdy, it's multiplying effect is already at 31x. I don't even need to upgrade them from level 1 to get a pretty big training size increase from 5 armories. If you're going to build a lvl 15 armory, it'll prob take multiple days. Plus, the point is you'll to trash them all afterwards. Why upgrade to lvl 15? If you're going to keep them permanently, then yes, I would be bothering to consider how much road it takes, but it's only for the duration of a Brown Bear feed so fuzzy math works with fuzzy Brown Bear
BTW @helya, there's a typo on the Armory wiki. It says a level 2 upgrade is 26mins but it should only be 6 mins.
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Darielle
Chef, Scroll-Keeper, and Buddy Fan Club Member
Good points, and since I practically live here, lol, I think that's a very important consideration.
I just built the shrewdy, but it will be raised asap.
Gkyr
Chef
All Great Advice Here. Special thanks to @crackie and @samidodamage for Expert advice and to @Darielle for thoughtfully starting this thread.
Given that play styles are unique I am going to go out on a limb here...
Disclaimers: I have never tried to optimize AW resource boosting buildings and I am a cohort of one.
I take it that you have carefully figured out your resource management with respect to AW contributions.
So far this thread has focused on building up the way to a more effective 50-50 attack on the Spire/Tourney.
No one has mentioned tear down. A radical concept, admittedly.
50/50 has never worked for me but perhaps it would in a large, developed and matured city - I don't know. Therefore I focused on battle AWs and, most importantly, limited my exposure to costs by staying lean. I am in Ch. 15 with only 100 expansions and only 10 carefully selected AWs. I can find no other city with this slim profile. Not saying this is the only way to go, of course.
Your AW tile footprint is the same as mine (8%) but your city has 30% more expansions than mine. Please realize that, as you add battle AWs to your city you are increasing your battle costs while increasing your battle strength - probably a neutral strategy; one keeps pace with the other. But you are adding AW levels that will further increase your catering costs without amplifying your resources. It is quite possible that the course upon which you are now embarking will require you to move from 50-50 to 40-60 or more. You might be pushing yourself to be more battle intensive by making catering still more expensive. So why not sell most of your nonmilitary AW and move to battle without the added costs?
Alternatively...
I have never experienced the style of resource management that you have pursued, so my understanding is limited. But, as an alternative to developing battle strength, tune up the resource AWs. If I were to try it for myself I might sell the PoP and acquire ETC, BTG, possibly CL(GBS).
There is a strategy that makes harvesting resources from the wholesaler really cheap and cost effective but it requires keeping a 700% culture bonus which requires an LGN and 200-300 neighborly visits per day.
If you are able to maintain a 50-50 strategy that works for you, please let us know.
Given that play styles are unique I am going to go out on a limb here...
Disclaimers: I have never tried to optimize AW resource boosting buildings and I am a cohort of one.
I take it that you have carefully figured out your resource management with respect to AW contributions.
So far this thread has focused on building up the way to a more effective 50-50 attack on the Spire/Tourney.
No one has mentioned tear down. A radical concept, admittedly.
50/50 has never worked for me but perhaps it would in a large, developed and matured city - I don't know. Therefore I focused on battle AWs and, most importantly, limited my exposure to costs by staying lean. I am in Ch. 15 with only 100 expansions and only 10 carefully selected AWs. I can find no other city with this slim profile. Not saying this is the only way to go, of course.
Your AW tile footprint is the same as mine (8%) but your city has 30% more expansions than mine. Please realize that, as you add battle AWs to your city you are increasing your battle costs while increasing your battle strength - probably a neutral strategy; one keeps pace with the other. But you are adding AW levels that will further increase your catering costs without amplifying your resources. It is quite possible that the course upon which you are now embarking will require you to move from 50-50 to 40-60 or more. You might be pushing yourself to be more battle intensive by making catering still more expensive. So why not sell most of your nonmilitary AW and move to battle without the added costs?
Alternatively...
I have never experienced the style of resource management that you have pursued, so my understanding is limited. But, as an alternative to developing battle strength, tune up the resource AWs. If I were to try it for myself I might sell the PoP and acquire ETC, BTG, possibly CL(GBS).
There is a strategy that makes harvesting resources from the wholesaler really cheap and cost effective but it requires keeping a 700% culture bonus which requires an LGN and 200-300 neighborly visits per day.
If you are able to maintain a 50-50 strategy that works for you, please let us know.
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Henroo
Oh Wise One
That would depend on 1. how fast your Training Grounds is and 2. what level are your armories. My cities are at the very start of chapter 18 and here are my numbers:
Training Grounds is level 30, which is my current max level. My Victory Springs is currently level 16. This gives me a total training speed of 800 in the Training Grounds. My current training size is 9595. However the Orc Strat has a unit size of 2. This means I can train 4797 of them at a time. Doing this will burn 4797 orcs. It will take me 2 hours and 23 minutes to train 1 group of troops. Therefore if I trained Orc Strats non-stop I would use roughly 48,305 orcs in a 24 hour period.
My current max level armory is level 39. It can make 1880 orcs in 12 hours. So 3760 orcs per day per armory. If you divide 48,305 by 3760 you get 12.85. So I would need 13 level 39 armories if I wanted to make Orc Strats non-stop in my city. This does assume armories are the only source of orcs. The Witch Hut and Echos of Forgotten evolving buildings are excellent sources of orcs. A fully evolved stage 10Witch Hut is going to give orc production roughly equal to a max level armory and a stage 10 Echoes will actually give more than a max armory.
Zoof
Well-Known Member
If you're still on chapter 8, you're much better off crafting Orc Nests from the Magic Academy and using those to get orcs. You get a fair bit more orcs for a smaller footprint with no drain on the population and even a culture boost instead of a drain.
If you feel like your training time is too short, that's what the armories are for. Orcs are a bonus.
---
To actually answer your question. that depends on a bunch of factors. Let's attack this from the production end of things, since we'll assume you'll always be able to pick up those strategists before the queue empties:
Assuming infinite orcs and supplies, your training grounds can only push out so many troops for each time period. That time period is about equal to 720/{training_time} seconds per troop. Each orc strategist weighs in as two troops per unit, so on the production side of things, that
formula looks like this:
720 / {training time} * 2 = seconds per orc strategist
= X sec/OrcS
= (1/X) OrcS/sec
60sec/1min * (1/X) OrcS/sec = (60/X) OrcS/min
60min/1hour * (60/X) OrcS/min = (3600/X) OrcS/hour
24hour/1day * (60/X) OrcS/hour = (86400/X) OrcS/day
Your orc production has to be able to beat that. Let's say, for example, you have a training speed of 129 in the training grounds. Plugging in those numbers, we get a requirement of 7525 orcs in a day. Assuming we're still in orcs, you'd need (if no other sources of orcs exist) 14.47 armories at lv 23 to do the job. 10.45 if you can collect on the 12 hour production twice everyday.
---
Those requirements skew the more you have alternate productions for orcs and a way to keep training size up. A more extreme example: The answer for me for much of the orcs chapter was precisely zero armories. That is to say, I didn't have a single armory deployed; I relied on Dwarven Bulwark to provide all the training size and a row of Orc Nests to provide the orcs. Then again, I trained Orc Warriors instead because I also had a bunch of Grounds of the Orc Strategist deployed so there was no need for me to actually train those Orc Strategists.
EDIT:
I made the assumption that it was (720 / training_time * unit_weight) seconds per unit. I didn't actually have a lv 1 barracks to see if that's exactly what happens, but I had a few data points and it seemed to converge to 720 when I did some mathy stuff on them:
Code:
troop, cnt, spd, time
archer 2923 328 1h46m (2.1758s/trp)
cerb 2923 129 4h31m (5.5627s/trp)
drone 1461 98 5h57m (7.331s/trp)
cerb 6 3 24m (240s/trp)
cerb 6 5 14m24s (144s/trp)
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crackie
Chef, Scroll-Keeper, Buddy's #1 Fan
Agree with @Zoof. You might want to look into Orc Nests instead of purely armories for this enterprise. Armories will affect your Barracks and Merc Camp as well. Armories do as armories will and adding just armories will increase training size. Your Training size might get so unwieldy that they take forever to churn out just one stack. Victory Springs is also a late middle chapter wonder. For most people, their Training Grounds speed already lags behind Barracks and Merc Camp since we have access to Needles and Flying Academy much sooner.