Cauldron Recipes

[ajqtrz]

Hit download, opened download folder, selected file, opened in LibreOffice fine. That's Silly Bubbles version

Tried it and it works! Nice!

AJ

 

[Moho]

Here's another simple recipe I've used: Eye Sprouts, Nightshade Blossom, and Flying Iris (2 of each). It increases T2 goods production:

 

[Moho]

I don't spend much time fiddling with the Cauldron. My approach is fast and simple.

First, I decide which type of effect I should go for. Since my cities are moored in Chapter 6 and there is one military research I've skipped in this chapter, there are few effects I can trigger. I usually go for the effect that gives more strength to my Barracks units. When I'm not sure whether or not I'll be doing the Spire in one quick run, I try to boost my goods production. This will week I'll go for the latter effect.

I have 536 Witch Points.
Here are the available ingredients in one of my cities. I will look for a formula where I'm not supposed to spend any diamonds:

Here's the formula I found in a matter of seconds:

Ingredients:

• Bitterhair Leaf 2x
• Cottonclouud Bud 2x
• Nightshade Blossom 2x

Costs: 474 Witch Points
Effect: Trader’s Basic Plea
Chances to trigger the effect: 49%
Maximum possible strength: 98%

I obtained a 50% increase for eight and a half hours:

 

[Moho]

Here are the available ingredients in my second city:

Here's the formula I found:

Ingredients:

• Eye Sprouts 2x
• Nightshade Blossom 2x
• Mana Shell 2x

Costs: 474 Witch Points
Effect: Trader’s Refined Plea
Chances to trigger the effect: 49%
Maximum possible strength: 98%

I obtained a 60% increase for seven and a half hours:

 

[Moho]

Here are the available ingredients in my third city:

I decided to go for the Trader's Refined Plea. I could have used the formula in my previous post, but I wanted to find a different one.
Here's what I found:

Ingredients:

• Eye Sprouts 3x
• Mocking Tongues 2x
• Nightshade Blossom 1x

Costs: 507 Witch Points
Effect: Trader’s Refined Plea
Chances to trigger the effect: 49%
Maximum possible strength: 98%

I obtained a 60% increase for eight and a half hours:

 

[ajqtrz]

Now here's something I found out this week. I usually focus on the Mercenaries Mayhem as my goal. I find the one ingredient that does the best for it's probability, add that, then go through the ingredients finding the next one. This is what Silly Bubbles spreadsheet does. At the end I then write down the ingredients (usually four or five) and how many of each. I then, as Silly Bubbles instructs, enter them from the most used to the least used. And all is well. I don't use the diamond ones either.

Now here's what I learned. Sometimes not using the diamond ingredients gives you dismal results. So bad you best make some other thing your target effect. When I did Mercenary Mayhem this week I got 33% chance of a 5 hour 15% increase. Ouch! So I switched it to something else, Monster Mayhem, I believe, and go to 10 hours and 27% at 55% chance. So what I learned is that what they select as diamonds can really have an effect on your target effect so watch it and try something else.

AJ

 

[Katwick]

Sometimes not using the diamond ingredients gives you dismal results.

It's because you're missing FOUR Ingredients, and each ingredient is "best for" a particular Effect.

 

[Katwick]

It's all about the Light Green 3s

Here's the sort of Recipe that you're looking for, which avoids this week's Diamond Ingredients.

There's a total of 8 Ingredients, so the Total Success Rate is almost 60%, for 553 Witch Points and no Diamonds. And you can lower the costs (and Success Rates) a bit if you must, by reducing the amount of one of the Ingredients.

The spreadsheet caps at 12 Total Ingredients, but 2 or 3 of them will probably get zapped each week, so the above recipes are going to be pretty stable.

. . .

____________________________________________________________________________________

When you only have a few Witch Points (or you want to use most of them for Studying the Effects), the behavior of the Brewery is all about the Light Green 3s in the chart to the upper left. To go at it backwards, only 05_T2, 22 Caterpillar Lime got zapped this week, so we have 5 Effects that didn't get zapped. 01_C_ and 02_WS caught a few points of spill over, but what we asked for did pretty well. We can't do 09_OR, 11_SM, nor 12_GD anyway, so it's a pretty good week for lower level players.

 

[ajqtrz]

I think my problem in looking at your ss is that I don't have the list of effects memorized. I think you use something like 09_OR to designate the effect? Again, since it isn't spelled out I have to stop and look it up somewhere. And, unfortunately, when I get confused I tend to just move on to something easier. LOL! I think in my way of thinking you pick the target first, then run Silly Bubbles ss to see how it stacks up. It would be great to have a list (the actual words) telling us the best targets for the week. And maybe that's in your ss, but again, I'm probably too slow witted to figure it out.

AJ

 

[Katwick]

I don't have the list of effects memorized.

Portions Effects Overview from the Wiki, or it's in the top row of the spreadsheet. Everything's in chapter sequence. The numeric portion is definitive, the Letters are just an abbreviation of the Effect.

 

[Katwick]

In my shorthand, it's:

• Coins
• Workshop
• Strength (Military)
• Health (Military later on)
• Trader (Basic, Refined, Precious are 1 2 3)
• Goods (Mana, Divine Seeds, Settlement, etc)
• Sentient 1 2 3
• Ascendent 1 2 3

 

[Queen of Beltane]

A list not a spreadsheet would be helpful for those of us who took stats decades ago. I'll look through your stuff and try to translate, but all those light greens, in the spreadsheet above are for effects I DON'T want. I want military strength. I did need ascended boosts in Chp 15, but the boosts I managed to get were not much better than MMs.

 

[Ashrem]

the boosts I managed to get were not much better than MMs.

Boosts from an easily available effect should never be large enough to damage the utility of other aspects of the game. The goal of game development in a space-limited-resource-production game is for every choice to have meaningful consequences. if they increase the output later, practically everyone will be happy. If they have to reduce the output later because it was unbalancing, people will shriek in the forums and rage-quit. A lot of us lost FS members when they nerfed the Crystal Library/Bell Spire

 

[ajqtrz]

Boosts from an easily available effect should never be large enough to damage the utility of other aspects of the game. The goal of game development in a space-limited-resource-production game is for every choice to have meaningful consequences. if they increase the output later, practically everyone will be happy. If they have to reduce the output later because it was unbalancing, people will shriek in the forums and rage-quit. A lot of us lost FS members when they nerfed the Crystal Library/Bell Spire

It's an unfortunate thing when people rage quit because something went wrong do to the developers choices. But developers are people too, and they don't have the crystal ball clear enough to see the full and long term effect of some choices made. Sadly, quitting only means they will be more conservative in the changes they make until no change has enough impact to actually make things much better -- or much worse for that matter. In other words, don't expect radical improvements without radical chances being taken.

Rage quitting says the player expected such mistakes to never occur and everything to be so fool proof that they should have to worry about developer mistakes. In other words, all rage quitting tells me is that the person lives in a rather unrealistic world.

But of course, I could be wrong about all this. If so, do tell me why and how as then I'll be closer to the truth of things. ;>)

AJ

 

[Katwick]

A list not a spreadsheet would be helpful for those of us who took stats decades ago.

Tab 2 of the spreadsheet, the Recipe Library, is a simple list of 500 or so feasible recipes, and all of the standard Google sorting and filtering tools are available.

Each week, as soon as the Weekly Diamonds are known, I've been adding 50 or so additional recipes that are responsive to the weekly Diamonds. When the spreadsheet is not as agile as I would prefer I tune it a bit more, which is my actual objective rather than slam-dunk Recipes.

This week, unless the Diamonds say otherwise, I'll be posting a Low Cost, Modest Success series that has 1-25 Ingredient both with and without Diamonds, focused on ANY Military buff plus Orcs. It will be interesting to see how many different buffs show up as we consider 8 or 12 Ingredient types, with a spread of 1-25 Ingredients.

The obvious, and intentional, temptation is for each player to think, "OK, but what if .....?" and try to beat the system either manually or by using the Solver.

The Spreadsheet DOES facilitate convoluted analysis, but even for a simple analysis it's easier than the Brew Pot by a country mile, and provides a convenient way to document your successful recipes.

 

[Ashrem]

But of course, I could be wrong about all this. If so, do tell me why and how as then I'll be closer to the truth of things. ;>)

I think it's too complex for there to be a right or wrong. Feelings, the weather, drama in the fellowship. I suspect when people rage-quit, it's not "becuase" of the issue, rather that is a convenient line in the sand to help them with something they've been struggling over. My wife quit playing when the Crystal Library changed, but she'd been talking about it for weeks.

 

[Queen of Beltane]

Tab 2 of the spreadsheet, the Recipe Library, is a simple list of 500 or so feasible recipes, and all of the standard Google sorting and filtering tools are available.

Each week, as soon as the Weekly Diamonds are known, I've been adding 50 or so additional recipes that are responsive to the weekly Diamonds. When the spreadsheet is not as agile as I would prefer I tune it a bit more, which is my actual objective rather than slam-dunk Recipes.

This week, unless the Diamonds say otherwise, I'll be posting a Low Cost, Modest Success series that has 1-25 Ingredient both with and without Diamonds, focused on ANY Military buff plus Orcs. It will be interesting to see how many different buffs show up as we consider 8 or 12 Ingredient types, with a spread of 1-25 Ingredients.

The obvious, and intentional, temptation is for each player to think, "OK, but what if .....?" and try to beat the system either manually or by using the Solver.

The Spreadsheet DOES facilitate convoluted analysis, but even for a simple analysis it's easier than the Brew Pot by a country mile, and provides a convenient way to document your successful recipes.

Google sorting and filtering etc. were not available in 1993. LMAO I know how to read it as a whole, but I don't have current tech skills to filter properly. I can figure it out. I'm old and like to whine about such new-fangled notions.

 

[Lady Dastardly]

Each week, as soon as the Weekly Diamonds are known, I've been adding 50 or so additional recipes that are responsive to the weekly Diamonds.

You may or may not realize this, but the weekly Diamond ingredients are different depending on which server you are on.

 

[Silly Bubbles]

A list not a spreadsheet would be helpful for those of us who took stats decades ago. I'll look through your stuff and try to translate, but all those light greens, in the spreadsheet above are for effects I DON'T want. I want military strength. I did need ascended boosts in Chp 15, but the boosts I managed to get were not much better than MMs.

You can do your own recipe if you want to without a spreadsheet. Here's basic instructions. Let me know how it goes as it's in a draft stage at this moment.

 

[Katwick]

You may or may not realize this, but the weekly Diamond ingredients are different depending on which server you are on.

I do both 8 and 12 Ingredient Type weekly runs (when the Sorceress shows up) without and with the use of Diamond.

There are 12!/4! possible combinations of the 8 chosen ingredients, and even on the same server each combination only last for a few days.

If you simply throw Diamonds into the Brew Pot, then you can use the same recipe every week on every server. Stated differently, using a few Diamonds allows a mid-level player to get the sorts of % Success Rates that are available to the end-game players.

So yeah, the Recipe Library will get you into the right ballpark, but using the Solver to bracket what you want to accomplish, during a particular week, is the recommended approach.