Chapter 20, The Power of Music - Discussion

[Pheryll]

Armory upgrade spells bad news for the shrine of shrewdy shrooms. 6 5x5 level 41 armories upgrading to the same space with 5 5x6 level 42 armories is -15% of the SSS boost. Many people will be losing training size for upgrading these armories.

 

[Lelanya]

Armory upgrade spells bad news for the shrine of shrewdy shrooms. 6 5x5 level 41 armories upgrading to the same space with 5 5x6 level 42 armories is -15% of the SSS boost. Many people will be losing training size for upgrading these armories.

Ugh. Thanks for the info.

 

[Deborah M]

Armory upgrade spells bad news for the shrine of shrewdy shrooms. 6 5x5 level 41 armories upgrading to the same space with 5 5x6 level 42 armories is -15% of the SSS boost. Many people will be losing training size for upgrading these armories.

Well that stinks Adding that it seems to me that if you keep the same # of armories this isn’t a problem? I mean that buildings change sizes all the time so I’m not put off by that and I don‘t really get myself all worried over the per space calculations.

Feedback: I am really liking this chapter! I've gotten everything upgraded except for 2 steel factories and the 2nd upgrade of the Main Hall. I cannot say enough how happy I am to get to upgrade literally everything! I think having an upgrade for everything really enhances this chapter compared to all others. It has been a joy to be able to give my entire city a facelift instead of a few buildings here and a few buildings there. Since I've always focused on the city building aspect of the game it has been wonderful to get a turn at really making my city look new. It is well worth the spend of THANK YOU ELVENAR!!! Very cool!

My one disappointment is that with the theme of this chapter having trees it is disappointing that the magic houses have nothing It has become very boring to have a large section of the city being solid blue for human cities while elven cities have big trees that really helps break it up visually. The human magic houses have looked essentially the same for what seems like years. Adding that blue is my favorite color but still…..

 

[Pheryll]

Well that stinks Adding that it seems to me that if you keep the same # of armories this isn’t a problem? I mean that buildings change sizes all the time so I’m not put off by that and I don‘t really get myself all worried over the per space calculations.

If you add another armory you would do better training size wise than upgrading five of them. The thing is the SSS bonus is cheapened by armories getting bigger, and in order for it to remain competitive with the armory training size itself, as well as the dwarven bulwark, the armories would need to decrease in space as the chapters progress so that you can have more of them. SSS progression is linear (armory level) while dwarven bulwark is quadratic (squad size).

Putting a level 1 shrine of the shrewdy shrooms into elvenarchitect shows 4 less training size with 5 level 42 armories than with 6 level 41 armories. The higher the SSS level the more of a training size reduction can be seen.

 

[Deborah M]

I’m not understanding this. I have 420 Armory levels. That is 10 Armories at level 42. I have level 35 SSS. AW power is 46. The calculation is 420 x .046 = 19.3k training capacity bonus. So I’m not understanding how 10 armory level increase hurt my training capacity bonus.

 

[Pheryll]

I’m not understanding this. I have 420 Armory levels. That is 10 Armories at level 42. I have level 35 SSS. AW power is 46. The calculation is 420 x .046 = 19.3k training capacity bonus. So I’m not understanding how 10 armory level increase hurt my training capacity bonus.

You would have a much greater training size with 12 level 41 armories, taking up the same space. That is, upgrading your armories to level 42 cost you 50 squares which could have fit more armories (or other buildings).

Also you can look at population and culture consumption. 6 level 41 armories cost less culture and population than 5 level 42. I can see the argument for keeping a constant number of armories and suffering the larger armory size upgrades in one chapter, and benefiting from the smaller armory size upgrades in another. So long as you keep the number of armories constant, the SSS bonus (assuming SSS level hasn't changed) will increase linearly through the chapters (slower for the later chapters that only have one armory upgrade). Meanwhile the dwarven bulwark increases quadratically and the armories own training size increases at a pace that is greater than linear.

 

[Deborah M]

I forgot about the above. In essence it turns out it doesn't matter to me. Not a chance I would have not upgraded my Armories. It's all good for my purposes since I cater the Spire and am not really big on the Tournament. 5000 points is fine for me and I can do that easily. I did choose this game largely because I didn't have to battle. I just auto-battle the tournament.

Does anybody know if you have to keep all 6 of each ensemble after the Grove is updated to level 4? Other than boosting bars production, which I'm all good using PP spells, I'm not seeing a reason they can't be sold after the last upgrade. I just want to verify whether or not I can sell them off because I really, really do not want to rebuild them if I need to keep 6 of each.

 

[vermp]

How does one make the blue-colored Melody, Accompaniment, and Rhythms, which are needed to upgrade Harmony Groove?
(I have 2 each of the three Ensembles.)
Thanks.

 

[Deborah M]

When it shows needing 2 of each (the little blue symbols) that means to build 2 new ones of each. Any made prior to finishing whatever your last upgrade was do not count. To upgrade to level 2 you have to build 1 of each. After that upgrade you have to build 2 new ones of each to upgrade to level 3. After that upgrade you have to build 3 new ones of each to upgrade to level 4. You end up with 6 of each ensemble.

edited to be more clear

 

[vermp]

When it shows needing 2 of each (the little blue symbols) that means to build 2 new ones of each. Any made prior to finishing whatever your last upgrade was do not count. To upgrade to level 2 you have to build 1 of each. After that upgrade you have to build 2 new ones of each to upgrade to level 3. After that upgrade you have to build 3 new ones of each to upgrade to level 4. You end up with 6 of each ensemble.

edited to be more clear

Thank you. It's not explained clearly in the game or in the wiki.

 

[Deborah M]

Thank you. It's not explained clearly in the game or in the wiki.

I couldn’t agree more! It was easy to explain for you so I don‘t get why they couldn’t explain easily and clearly in the wiki

 

[Deborah M]

This is a heads up that is just my opinion. I know some folks choose not to do the quests. For the first time I very seriously considered that just to avoid upgrading the Grove to level 4. I couldn’t do it so I went ahead and built all the ensembles and upgraded the Grove to level 4. I am so glad I didn’t procrastinate on that. The Enar’s Blues song is easier & faster than the others so the upgrade is well worth not putting it off. I think eventually it has to be upgraded to research the AWs but in my opinion that would be a mistake that slows down progress on the research leading up to the end.

 

[mikeledo]

My vortex is at level 15 and a level 3 grove will hold 7650 bars which are more than the 7500 needed for the AWs. I might skip level 4 as it eats up goods. Thoughts?

 

[Deborah M]

My vortex is at level 15 and a level 3 grove will hold 7650 bars which are more than the 7500 needed for the AWs. I might skip level 4 as it eats up goods. Thoughts?Hmm

Hmmm. I didn’t think of that I looked and my vortex is level 31 so my bar storage is 15100. I have used PP for all of my bars so didn’t give it much thought. So, yes it is possible. That’s nice for anyone who is dead set against level 4 grove and not finishing the quests. It just bugs me too much not to do the quests. I do still recommend level 4 to be able to make Enar’s Blues songs but if you don‘t want to speed up songs i guess it’s 6 of 1 & half a dozen of the other. I’m down to just AWs left so I’m glad I did it the way I did.

adding: Seems to me that shows how valuable the vortex is to make PP spells more valuable. I never put much thought into that before. I just take the boosts from AWs pretty much for granted.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

My vortex is at level 15 and a level 3 grove will hold 7650 bars which are more than the 7500 needed for the AWs. I might skip level 4 as it eats up goods. Thoughts?

Inno should have done the same thing with this chapter, and all future chapters, like they did in chapter 19, where you have to sell the level 4 portal to get a good to complete the chapter. I know their devs can't be ignorant enough to not know a leveled-up Vortex will do this. But now that people have been pointing it out, maybe they will go back in and raise the amounts needed for the research, to force people to level the portal fully to finish the chapter.

 

[Deborah M]

I am done the chapter I did level my Grove to level 4 and I’m happy that I did. I have never skipped the quests so I would never feel Ike I finished the chapter if I didn’t do it. After years of playing and completely doing all of the quests there really is no reason to stop now.

Since there is a different conversation about the artwork I want to give a shout-out to the art team for the premium culture buildings in this chapter. First, they are finally a nice seeds building and a nice unarium building to go together. Second, I love the way they look in my city.
I have Turtle Fountain, Shrine of Trolls, Dance Festival, Shrine of Trolls, Dance Festival, Shrine of Trolls, Dolphin Fountain, Fountain of Peace going right to left. This is my new favorite row (Sorry my Monkey Palaces have spells. Looks better without that) (Also sorry I cannot figure out how to upload a pic small enough without it being a bit blurry)

 

[Yogi Dave]

I finished ch 20 a few weeks ago. For all the complaints people have made about too many Portal Profits from the spire, I'd like to thank the spire for them. I think you will be happy for them in this chapter. I used well over 100 fills. I know, I could have spent time and saved many PPs, but why would I do that? Get on with the game and use them is my philosophy. I still have around 50 fills and 22 Trader Stations in storage. I will be placing a several of them to restock for ch 21.

Overall, I found this chapter entertaining.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

I finished ch 20 a few weeks ago. For all the complaints people have made about too many Portal Profits from the spire, I'd like to thank the spire for them. I think you will be happy for them in this chapter. I used well over 100 fills. I know, I could have spent time and saved many PPs, but why would I do that? Get on with the game and use them is my philosophy. I still have around 50 fills and 22 Trader Stations in storage. I will be placing a several of them to restock for ch 21.

Overall, I found this chapter entertaining.

That was fast, and must have been expensive, since we have not had the chapter for even six weeks yet.

 

[Yogi Dave]

That was fast, and must have been expensive, since we have not had the chapter for even six weeks yet

I was pretty amazed when I saw how short of time it took. It went live Sept. 1, and I was done Sept. 23. It felt longer than that, though.

I got a very quick jump on the techs since I had over 10K VV saved which was over 100 mystical object collections. The many, many 35kp they gave me handled the kp needs for many techs. I had a large supply of all normal and sentient goods and a decent supply of the ascended goods. Decay rates on seeds, sentient goods and unurium were all 2%. Never worried about mana since I collect 750k a day and have tons of spells for the Dragon Abbey and almost 5 million orcs. Lastly, I had 2 of each of the 18 9 factories at level 33. So, I was well prepared for the chapter to start and was able to keep up all the needed productions. I did use time instants for fast upgrades of important buildings and later kp needs were handled by high tourney scores.

EDIT: There are only 9 factory types, not 18.

 

[iamthouth]

@Yogi Dave how many violin-, flute-, and drum-makers did you have?