Help Cauldrons 103 - Diplomas 1-24 - Production V2.4

[Katwick]

Showtime!

A current Google Sheet for Brewery Recipe Creation has been, and will be, posted every Saturday Evening in Katwick Cauldrons > Production. The Recipe Library, in Tab 2, will typically include:

• A current 25 Total Ingredient NON-Diamonds ( 8 Ingredient Types} Recipe for each of the 20 Effects
• A current 25 Total Ingredient WITH-Diamonds ( 12 Ingredient Types) Recipe for each of the 20 Effects
• Anything else that happens to be interesting
• The Recipe Library Filter is set for May 6th in the posted spreadsheet but, once you download your own copy, you can sort and filter to a Fare Thee Well

Each week we'll discuss a few interesting comparisons. See the bottom of this post.

Initial Setup

1. Google Sheets works on mobile platforms, so you can look at the Recipe Library and create manual Recipes, but you'll need a desktop computer with either Chrome or Edge to use the Solver.
2. Download a copy of the Katwick Cauldrons Google Sheet for your own use. There will always be a current copy in Katwick Cauldrons > Production
3. Add the Solver extension and enter the linkage data, once.
   • AW20 in Set Objective:
   • Max in To:
   • AX5:AX16 in By Changing:
   • AX5:AX16 = integer in Subject To:
   • AX5:AX16 >= 0 also in Subject To:
   • AX5:AX16 <= 12 also in Subject To:
   • BG29 = AX18 also in Subject To:
4. There's no subsequent fiddling with the Solver. You just poke Extensions > Solver > Start > Solve.
5. Indicate your Diploma Level, once per chapter
6. As you advance through the Tech Tree, indicate how many Total Ingredients you can probably afford. The posted examples are all for 25 Total Ingredients, but Sqrt(9/25) = 3/5 = 60%, so just 9 Total Ingredients will get you well more than half of the benefits, as you'll probably have fewer Effects competing for the same shared Brew Pot.

Once per week

1. In-game, check which Ingredients require Diamonds, this week, and transfer that information into your copy of the spreadsheet. Plugging in the current date will serve you well, but any non-blank will do.
2. Or simply download the current Recipe Library from Katwick Cauldrons > Production.

Once per Recipe

1. Check the (one or more) Effects that you want the most.
2. Press Solve.
3. Check the Use Diamonds boxes if the 8 Ingredient recipe requires an outrageous number of Witch Points.
4. Rinse and Repeat

13_S1 (Sentient Basic) doesn't have any boxes checked, so we know that this is a NON-Diamond recipe. If you look at the blue bottom row, you'll see that the recipe uses 7797 Witch Points, which is less than average for 25 Total Ingredients when you're only allowing the 8 non-diamond ingredients to be used. If you look at the following table, you'll see that spending 275 Diamonds, to get access to the other 4 Ingredients, drops the Witch Points down by more than 5000 WPs, for only 275 Diamonds. Even MORE important, it jumps the % Success Rate from 21% to 72%, and a 50% gain is a very satisfactory bargain.

We'll go the other way round for 09_OR (Orcs). 500 Diamonds is a pretty painful bite, BUT the Recipe will only cost you 399 Witch Points, which is pretty astonishing for a 25 Total Ingredient Recipe, even though the % Success Rate isn't quite 50%. That's because 3 of the 5 Ingredients require Diamonds this week. If you look at the NON-Diamonds pair for 09_OR, the Orcs are an also ran, anything that would pump up the Orcs, pumps up 04_T1 (Trader's Basic Goods) even faster. That's what the Green Conditional Formatting is all about, in the Recipe Library. 23% is bad, but the Orcs are even worse.

If you dig into the following table, one of the first things to notice that that 01_C_ is the same Recipe both ways, because it doesn't use the Weekly Diamond Ingredients anyway.

Target	Actual	Rate	WPs	$$	Dpl	#	11	12	13	14	21	22	23	24	31	32	33	34	____Date____	Title_with_an_optional_screenshot_Link,_or_perhaps_a_HoneyDew_List.	This	Dup
01_C_	01_C_	44.95%	16613	0	20	25	6	2	0	0	0	0	0	11	3	3	0	0	2023-05-06	Diplomas 1-24 14_22_33_34 - Katwick 2023E06 #25 With 01	TRUE
01_C_	01_C_	44.95%	16613	0	20	25	6	2	0	0	0	0	0	11	3	3	0	0	2023-05-06	Diplomas 1-24 14_22_33_34 - Katwick 2023E06 #25 Without 01	TRUE	same
09_OR	04_T1	22.61%	26010	0	20	25	11	0	0	0	9	0	5	0	0	0	0	0	2023-05-06	Diplomas 1-24 14_22_33_34 - Katwick 2023E06 #25 Without 09	TRUE
09_OR	09_OR	47.65%	399	500	20	25	3	0	0	6	2	0	0	0	0	0	11	3	2023-05-06	Diplomas 1-24 14_22_33_34 - Katwick 2023E06 #25 With 09	TRUE
13_S1	13_S1	21.02%	7797	0	20	25	6	0	4	0	2	0	2	5	0	6	0	0	2023-05-06	Diplomas 1-24 14_22_33_34 - Katwick 2023E06 #25 Without 13	TRUE
13_S1	13_S1	72.38%	2316	275	20	25	6	0	2	0	0	0	0	3	0	3	0	11	2023-05-06	Diplomas 1-24 14_22_33_34 - Katwick 2023E06 #25 With 13	TRUE
14_S2	14_S2	25.54%	6883	0	20	21	0	7	0	0	6	0	5	0	3	0	0	0	2023-05-06	Diplomas 1-24 14_22_33_34 - Katwick 2023E06 #25 Without 14	TRUE
14_S2	14_S2	73.15%	1785	350	20	25	0	3	0	11	6	0	2	0	0	0	0	3	2023-05-06	Diplomas 1-24 14_22_33_34 - Katwick 2023E06 #25 With 14	TRUE

 

[Katwick]

Finding the Ballpark

It will take some practice to develop your intuition, but a very effective way to determine what the Brewery wants to give you, this week, is to select Zero and All Effects, for both 8 (Without Diamonds) and 12 (With Diamonds) Ingredient Types.

The hard part is that EVERY Ingredient influences EVERY Effect, which is pretty much why we're using a Solver in the first place.

• With Zero Effects, the Solver simply distributes the Ingredients evenly, and you can see if Without Diamonds causes the consequent 8 Types of Ingredients to gang up on any particular effects.
• With All Effects, the Solver will try to Optimize for whichever of the Ingredients yields the MAXIMUM % Success Rate for the "best" Effect, because the Average is just Everything / How Many. Until the "best" can't get any higher, the remaining Effects will just get whatever spills over.

There's nothing very interesting, this week, for Zero Effects with 8 Ingredient types (Without Diamonds.) The maximum "unrestrained" % Success Rate is less than 13%, which is just noise.

Likewise for Zero Effects with 12 Ingredient types (With Diamonds.) Note that the % Success Rates are all lower, which is what one would expect when more Effects are competing for space in the Brewing Pot.

This is more interesting. Look at the huge amount of 24 Mocking Tongues. This time we're maximizing the Effects, and 01_C_ Coins and 15_S3 Precious Sentient are winning the battle. If either 10_GM Goods Mana or 17_HM Health Mercenaries were by themselves they would do fine, but even with 13 24 Mocking Tongues, they're both down in the weeds. Did I mention that using a Solver is a REALLY good idea??

Adding some Diamonds doesn't help much either, but now 08_GS Goods Settlement and 14_S2 Sentient Refined are winning the battle. And look at the damage that we've done to the Orcs, as compared to their solo numbers in the previous post. Did I mention that using a Solver is REALLY good idea?? _________________________

Target	Actual	Rate	WPs	$$	Dpl	#	11	12	13	14	21	22	23	24	31	32	33	34	____Date____	Title_with_an_optional_screenshot_Link,_or_perhaps_a_HoneyDew_List.
Zero	07_ST	12.41%	1452	0	20	16	2	2	2	0	2	0	2	2	2	2	0	0	2023-05-07	Diplomas 1-24 14_22_33_34 - #25 Zero Effects Without
Zero	12_GD	7.47%	1452	225	20	25	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	3	2023-05-07	Diplomas 1-24 14_22_33_34 - #25 Zero Effects With
Multiple	01_C_	36.73%	26856	0	20	25	8	0	0	0	0	0	0	13	4	0	0	0	2023-05-07	Diplomas 1-24 14_22_33_34 - #25 All Effects Without
Multiple	08_GS	32.46%	1832	375	20	25	0	0	0	11	4	0	0	0	6	0	4	0	2023-05-07	Diplomas 1-24 14_22_33_34 - #25 All Effects With

 

[Katwick]

Static Weekly Webpage

If you're on a Mobile, or if it's inconvenient to download the actual spreadsheet so that you'll be able to use the dynamic Sorting and Filtering tools, Google Sheets makes it pretty easy to present a tab as a static webpage.

Punch Above your Weight Class
44 Weekly Recipes for 14_22_33_34

If you can't afford 25 Total Ingredients, you'll come pretty close if you just reduce the portion sizes.

 

[Katwick]

Our Sorceress took a hike this week, so I posted in the Beta Forum.

 

[Katwick]

So Simple - Maybe Too Simple

This post outlines a reliable procedure for using your Weekly Allotment of Witch Points and JUST the Brewery Widget. There are no spreadsheets nor fancy calculations. It works the same regardless of the Weekly Diamond Ingredients and how many Diplomas you might have.

1. Fewer than 573 Witch Points (or if everything sucks)
   1. Add a single non-diamond ingredient. You'll have a 20% chance of getting something that's pretty useless
      • Press Brew and use the rest of your Witch Points for Studying (permanent buffs for) the various Effects
   2. OR Note which Effect is the best
   3. Backout that Ingredient and then look at each of the other 7 non-diamond Ingredients, in turn
   4. Pick the "best but not very good" Ingredient/Effect and Brew it
2. At Least 573 Witch Points
   1. Add one unit of EACH of the non-diamond ingredients, You'll have a 57% chance of getting something that's pretty useless
      • Press Brew and use the rest of your Witch Points for Studying
   2. OR Add and immediately Backout each of the 4 Weekly Diamond Ingredients, in turn, and note which one yields the most desirable Success Rates
   3. Add 8 of that Ingredient (200 Diamonds) then Brew the mixture for an 80% chance of getting a buff.
      • The best of the buffs should have a 20% or higher chance of being selected, and part of the time you'll get two 20% chances
3. At Least 2175 Witch Points
   1. Add two units of EACH of the non-diamond ingredients, You'll have a 80% chance of getting something that's pretty useless
      • Press Brew and use the rest of your Witch Points for Studying
   2. OR Add and immediately Backout each of the 4 Weekly Diamond Ingredients, in turn, and note which one yields the most desirable Success Rates
   3. Add 9 of that Ingredient (225 Diamonds) then Brew the mixture for a 100% chance of getting a buff.
      • The best of the buffs should have a 25% or higher chance of being selected, and part of the time you'll get two 25% chances

You'll hear about all sorts of "great" recipes, but very few of them are useful regardless of the Weekly Diamonds, and most of them will fall apart when you add more Diplomas.

If you want to thread the needle, you can always use the current Google Sheets Solver from Katwick Cauldrons > Production
or the incremental spreadsheet that Silly Bubbles has developed.

This is NOT a good week for the Brewery. The best we can do, using the So Simple procedure, is a paltry: * 20% for 11_SM * 16% for 19_A1 * 12% for 05_T2 * 10% for 09_GS

The Solver doesn't do much better, and it's twice as expensive. The best that the Solver can do, for a Low Cost Modest Success recipe with the same four Effects flagged, is: * 20% for 11_SM * 18% for 19_A1 * 11% for 15_S3 * 11% for 09_OR

But, just to keep the experts humble, the mediocre performance of the Manual and Low Cost, Modest Success recipes is turned on it's head this week. The Expensive, High Performance Solver recipe is actually CHEAPER than the Low Cost approaches this week. For 200 fewer Witch Points but 100 more Diamonds, the High Cost Solver option came up with: * 30% for 11_SM * 30% for 19_A1 * 13% for 05_T2 We'll see how it goes next week.

_____________________________________________________________________

 

[Katwick]

So Simple Witch Points Allotment is a Google Sheets static webpage that drives a chart of how many Witch Points folks will have each week, depending on how many Diplomas they have earned.

Once folks complete the Cauldron Tech, in the middle of Chapter 5, they will be allocated some Witch Points every week, use them or lose them, for Brewing and Studying. The Weekly Allotment = Techs in each COMPLETED Chapter * the Chapter level + Completed Techs in the current Chapter Depending on which Ingredient you chose, the Effect associate with each Diploma will gain a Factored Value. The SUM of all Factored Values is then scaled to fit into the Brew Pot, whose size is limited by the total number of Ingredients, Sqrt(n/25). So 25 Total Ingredient allows a full sized Brew Pot, while 16 Total ingredients only holds 80% of that amount. As a consequence, more Diplomas will get you more Witch Points and thereby more total ingredients and a bigger Brew Pot, BUT more Effects will be trying to SHARE that limited capacity.

Once you're in the middle of Chapter 7, you'll have a weekly Witch Points allotment of at least 573 Witch Points, and the consequent Total Cables only have to deal with SIX Effects. * 60% for 01_C_ * 20% for 04_T1 * 0.6% for 06_T3 * 20% for the Troll, because our Brew Pot isn't full sized. Nobody is going to be impressed by a Coins buff, but that's the luck of the draw. Next week one of the other Effects will behave pretty much the same way.

Once you're in the middle of Chapter 12, you'll have a weekly Witch Points allotment of at least 2175 Witch Points, and the consequent Total Ingredients can now support a full sized Brew Pot, BUT twice as many Effects will be trying to share that same limited capacity, so the individual % Success Rates will probably be lower. * 50% for 01_C_ * 23% for 11_SM * 14% for 04_T1 * 08% for 09_OR

 

[Katwick]

So Simple 13_21_22_31 Nails Strength Barracks this week.

Target	Actual	Rate	WPs	$$	Dpl	##	11	12	13	14	21	22	23	24	31	32	33	34	____Date____	Title_with_an_optional_screenshot_Link,_or_perhaps_a_HoneyDew_List.
03_SB	03_SB	40.27%	572	200	6	16	1	1	8	1			1	1		1	1	1	2023-05-28	So Simple 13_21_22_31 D06 Manual
03_SB	03_SB	29.51%	652	200	6	16	1	1	3	1	2	3	0	1	0	3	1	0	2023-05-28	So Simple 13_21_22_31 D06 Solver
03_SB	03_SB	51.59%	2174	225	6	25	2	2	9	2			2	2		2	2	2	2023-05-28	So Simple 13_21_22_31 D11 Manual
03_SB	03_SB	40.61%	5835	200	11	25	0	0	4	5	3	0	0	0	1	8	4	0	2023-05-28	So Simple 13_21_22_31 D11 Solver
03_SB	16_HT	15.17%	2174	225	20	25	2	2	9	2			2	2		2	2	2	2023-05-28	So Simple 13_21_22_31 D20 Manual
03_SB	03_SB	37.45%	8897	200	20	25	0	0	6	3	2	0	0	0	0	10	4	0	2023-05-28	So Simple 13_21_22_31 D20 Solver

13 Mana Shell is the Value 3 aspect for Strength Barracks, so when it is a Diamond Ingredient, the So Simple approach works very well indeed. The following trials were all conducted using the Low Cost, Modest Success option, because the High Success prices would be outrageous, as would a non-Diamonds recipe.

This is actually pretty spectacular. Just pushing buttons, gets us to 40% for 03_SB Strength Barracks.	The Solver spreads things around a bit, and uses the same number of Diamonds, but Uses 3 each 32 Bitterhair Leaf, so this recipe costs a few more Witch Points and isn't as focused.
The 25 Ingredient version hangs in there quite nicely, with a better than 50% chance of triggering 03_SB when you sip from the Goblet.	The Solver didn't do all that well when It had to juggle 11 different Effects. 8 each of 32 Bitterhair Leaf hammers the Witch Points, but it still got more than 40% Success.
This looks pretty bad, until you notice that * 16_HT Health Training is in 1st place * 03_SB Strength Barracks is in 2nd place * 17_HM Health Mercs is in 4th place So we're still at 40% Military, with a pretty decent chance to get MULTIPLE Military buffs if we have several goblets from the Tournament.	The Solver hit 32 Bitterhair Leaf pretty hard, again, which runs up the costs, but Military Effects still got more than 50% of the space, even with 20 Effects jockeying for space in the Brew Kettle.

So a third of the time, whenever 13 Mana Leaf is a Diamond Ingredient, the So Simple approach does very well indeed.