• Dear forum visitor,

    It looks as though you have not registered for a forum account, or are not signed in. In order to participate in current discussions or create new threads, you will need to register for a forum account by clicking on the link below.

    Click here to register for a forum account!

    If you already have a forum account, you can simply click on the 'Log in' button at the top right of your forum screen.

    Your Elvenar Team

Creating more troops than you will ever need...

crackie

Chef, Scroll-Keeper, Buddy's #1 Fan
I am skeptical, thinking that minmaxgame's regression formula-fit, or back-engineering is not inclusive for all factors; my experience does not fit the numbers.
This is easy to check. Use his spreadsheet. Punch in the values and it will spit out your expected squad size and then there's a cell to enter what you actually see for the encounter. It then calculates the % error. From my experience, this % error is low enough to consider it a very accurate picture of what's going on mathematically. The fact that he got the error down to that low is a wonder in itself. Admittedly, I haven't done this in awhile, but last time we played with it a few months ago was to compare the two mini cities in our FS that are designed for climbing Gold Spire. Both are chap 3 cities at the same point in tech tree. One used regular plots and the other used premium plots. One was afraid of Relics and the other tourneyed away. We were then able to determine that his costs would still be within reason of his tiny city if he maxed out relics by doing tourney too. In one case, for T1, It said 55 for her squad size and she saw 57 in the encounter. For fun, we were playing with my city too. All the numbers were super close. That is accurate enough for me!

And as far as difficulty goes in contrast to the cost: it may well be the the minmaxgame regression describes only cost but I put forward the possibility that there is another algorithm working that increases the difficulty which - as you know - can be increased by tweaking the opposing forces slightly and by terrain even while keeping the battle ratio the same as it might have been at less costly levels.
It describes both cost and difficulty! Well, more specifically, there are 2 different formulas at play (3 if you count Spire Progression), CAL and Tourney progression. CAL is like the index number, for lack of better term, of how the game determines how far your city has advanced and is influenced by all those variables we know. The Tourney Progression formula is what hashes out "difficulty" in terms of the ratio of your troops to enemy troops at each province.

Since your original squad size is based on CAL with a multiplier and every subsequent province is pegged to this squad number, then the whole Progression table also has a direct relationship to CAL. Hence, most of the time, people only talk about CAL, as that is the basis for everything else, but there are separate calculations for Spire and Tourney progression that determines what happens at each encounter. What the Progression table does NOT account for are the type of enemy combos, like how many dreaded Mist Walkers show up in the encounter or if you have to fight one of each class type in the same encounter, all of which affects "difficulty".

The reason I say this is because I monitor the degree of a battle success by by losses according to slot and not by numbers of troops killed. For a given round for a given province level in the Tourney if I usually lose 1/2 slot of Archers and 1/2 slot of Golems, then that is going to happen, approximately, every time that type of Tourney comes around. So it does not matter if 1/2 slot is 320 Archers or 3000 Archers; I am using the 'slot metric' as a measure of success (=difficulty) and not cost.
I'm not sure this can provide an accurate metric of difficulty either. Even within the same tournament, the enemy combos can differ from one encounter to the next. I don't think there is a consistent average mauling index by troop type by tournament. Sometimes I get mauled in like province 17, but will skip to the finish line unscathed in province 35 and obviously 35 is supposed to be way harder. There's too much RNG on combo, terrain, etc.
 

Smooper

Well-Known Member
After using crackies' Brown Bear tricks I increased a couple hundred squads on Sunday. Now as I go up the spire I am using my troop retention skills. Mostly this is manual fighting and use of my expiring military buildings and fire phoenix. I still find Heavy Melee to be quite useful. Getting the initiative in a real battle often means retreating and making them come to you and heavies can really plug gaps and inflict massive damage when the troops come to them and usually they get to attack in the first round if placed directly across from anything but other heavies.
 

Gkyr

Chef
Getting the initiative in a real battle often means retreating and making them come to you and heavies can really plug gaps and inflict massive damage when the troops come to them and usually they get to attack in the first round if placed directly across from anything but other heavies.
EXACTLY! You've got it.
@crackie : thank you.
 

SuNaya Dark

Active Member
No, passively collecting after feeding a Brown Bear is not how to get the most out of your Pet Food. You pair a Brown Bear feed with supply windfalls and a ton of timers. You'd also want to make the training stack as big as possible before the feed because at lvl 10, it's +50% bonus of the stack. So the bigger the stack, the more free troops. I like to build a bunch of temp lvl 4 armories (powered by Shrewdy multiplier) all over the place to hyperinflate my stack size before a Brownie feed and then sell them all after the feed is done. Since you are using time instants, it doesn't matter that it'll take 10hrs to create one stack or whatever. I'm not passively waiting it out. It's get blown through with a bunch of 5hr time instants and paid with supply windfalls (both easily to acquired from Spire). Then you'd only need to feed the Brown Bear once every few weeks instead of every week. (check out Brown Bear section of my fighting tutorial)
I just checked out Crackie's Fight document. "Mastering the Art of Pew Pew" almost had me snorting my tea! Hilarious !! ;)
:p
 

SuNaya Dark

Active Member
Question:
What does the Solar Training Grounds building (the new one from this most recent Event) produce?
I know it's some kind of troops, but what kind? I can't make out the mini icon.

Thanks.
- SuNaya Dark
 

Zoof

Well-Known Member
Question:
What does the Solar Training Grounds building (the new one from this most recent Event) produce?
I know it's some kind of troops, but what kind? I can't make out the mini icon.

Thanks.
- SuNaya Dark
Build it and see. It tells you straight up.
1661398350444.png
 

MichaelMichael

Day and Night Trader
Is it really worth building any event buildings to gain troops?

I am late game - all chapters completed and all standard building maxed out with 10 finished armories and a lot of event building for orcs, CCs, mana and seeds in that order or priority. Overall, I am pursuing a goods strategy that gets me 50 provinces at least 4 times each in the Tourney although I do also use a lot of troops but also craft a lot more than most. I also complete more than half of all of all crafting opportunities. Troops IMO seem to lose effectiveness (even with 6 support buildings and a fire phoenix) after about province 30 or so. My AW for troop production (all 4) are level 30 or so. I have found that troops should NOT be used in easier contests in the Spire.

BTW, thank you crackie - yours is the very first treatise on fighting with troops that I ever found useful - REALLY good stuff!!!
 
Last edited:

Khalani

Member
One tip often overlooked is when you should be sending troops off to battle, I tell members of my FS and all the prior ones the same advice.
Cater to your heart's content up to CH 8 after that you need to start fighting. This is because until around chapter 8 your troops are just fodder for the enemy troops, Yes you can boost your weak troops to do better, but I say save all your troops, make them 24/7, and your boosts until you are capable of fighting effectively. If you want to fight use the first 8 Tourney provinces, unboosted, and up to the second or third gate on the Spire as a practice to learn the ways of fighting. I personally cater the low easy provinces and fight the rest of the way to a normal 30 provinces.

Others may disagree but we all have our own path in life.

Ed
Is it still true that you get extra rewards for completing 10 provinces in full?
 

crackie

Chef, Scroll-Keeper, Buddy's #1 Fan
I am late game - all chapters completed and all standard building maxed out with 10 finished armories and a lot of event building for orcs, CCs, mana and seeds in that order or priority. Overall, I am pursuing a goods strategy that gets me 50 provinces at least 4 times each in the Tourney although I do also use a lot of troops but also craft a lot more than most. I also complete more than half of all of all crafting opportunities. Troops IMO seem to lose effectiveness (even with 6 support buildings and a fire phoenix) after about province 30 or so. My AW for troop production (all 4) are level 30 or so.
If you are late chapter, you do have access to Timewarp, which should make getting as many more rounds in a lot easier. Your schedule would obviously be an obstacle and deterrent, but it would be far more cost efficient in troops, goods, and buff buildings to do 34 provinces to 6* than 58 provinces to 4* for the same ~9000 score. Around Province 34 is when enemies are about double your stack so it only gets worse from there. The amount of troops you need to even fight Province 50 will probably be how many troops you lost in Province 1-15 combined (not numerically accurate, but just making a point). You're facing at least 15 provinces where the troops are double your stacks, which means more buffing to win them. Therefore, the troops required to do Province 1-15 for a 5th round would be fairly negligible in comparison and you'd get 15 more various rewards than it is to do just one more province in the 50s for one more reward for the same amount of dead troops. If you drop to 34 provinces to 6*s, who knows...maybe you'll suddenly find yourself so flush in troops from not needing as many! Check out the Reverse Calculator on elvengems.
I have found that troops should NOT be used in easier contests in the Spire.
Agree. I fight half of Gateway and then cater to Lab. Then I fight the Lab. If I can fight the Lab, then obviously I can win High Halls and rest of Gateway too, but the logic to cater is still easy and therefore, relatively cheap to cater and those troops can go die in tourney instead.
You are not the target market for the event bldgs, sorry to say. And no they are not as useful at your level in your opinion and that's fine but the majority of users they will find value in them. As they say, YMMV

Ed
If you do a lot of tourney, most free troop buildings are not going to make much relative to how much you need to spend (kill?). But certain troop types like Buddies and Treants, I still use them, but disproportional to other troop types. So I'm hoping Citadel pieces and Pyramids is enough to let me not have to train anymore Treants, which makes room for training more Golems and Archers.
Is it still true that you get extra rewards for completing 10 provinces in full?
You get individual rewards for each province you finish. Completing 10 provinces in full means you get 60 individual rewards for each encounter, so no extra rewards. Perhaps you are thinking group rewards and group chests? If your FS did enough tournament points to unlock the 10th chest, there is a blueprint in there.
 

Talaedraiia

Well-Known Member
@crackie, @MichaelMichael mentioned some where that the rewards for the 5th and 6th stars wasn’t worth anything to him so that is why he does more provinces to just 4 stars. I agree with him about the the 6* rounds. I do 30 to 6* to get the points for my FS but I hate getting all those darn broken shards and relics as they are such a waste. Wouldn’t mind so much if they were AW points
 

MichaelMichael

Day and Night Trader
If you are late chapter, you do have access to Timewarp, which should make getting as many more rounds in a lot easier. Your schedule would obviously be an obstacle and deterrent, but it would be far more cost efficient in troops, goods, and buff buildings to do 34 provinces to 6* than 58 provinces to 4* for the same ~9000 score. Around Province 34 is when enemies are about double your stack so it only gets worse from there. The amount of troops you need to even fight Province 50 will probably be how many troops you lost in Province 1-15 combined (not numerically accurate, but just making a point). You're facing at least 15 provinces where the troops are double your stacks, which means more buffing to win them. Therefore, the troops required to do Province 1-15 for a 5th round would be fairly negligible in comparison and you'd get 15 more various rewards than it is to do just one more province in the 50s for one more reward for the same amount of dead troops. If you drop to 34 provinces to 6*s, who knows...maybe you'll suddenly find yourself so flush in troops from not needing as many! Check out the Reverse Calculator on elvengems.

I can easily complete 6 rounds, for 40 or so provinces. I do 10-15 6 times and complete the rest (up to 50) 4 times because it is a better fit to my goods strategy.

There is a material difference is your options with a goods strategy vs a troop strategy at high chapter level. If the goal is to maximize tourney points with troops - you take as many provinces as you can - with all going six times. With goods, the optimal strategy is to give away goods to lower chapter players. If I give 1 million goods each of four players in chapter 8, they can generate a whole lot more tourney points with goods than I can.

Okay, then why would I do 50 provinces at least 4 times?

I need the spells, for my goods strategy. The strategy is to get my culture bonus (actually factor) to 800% to 900% (8x to 9x normal). With power of provision, one magic workshop produces about 45% of my supply capacity in 9 hrs and 27% in three hours. These supplies are converted to goods via wholesaling. The first round of wholesaling takes 80% of my supply capacity and generates 550k goods (total for all six varieties). I typically collect (via wholesaling) all six goods about 9 times every day or about 5 million goods a day. About 25% of these are then traded for my boosted goods for balancing as regular production cannot keep up with wholesaling. To keep this level of goods production going, I need a lot of spells.

I have 8 workshops. They need Power of Provision (which lasts 21 hours) for 7 days each week. that works out to 64 spells a week - 50 come from the tourney. I also keep at least 60 culture buildings with Ensorcelled Endowment (each lasting 4 days) that works out to 105 spells a week - 50 come from the tourney. My magic Academy makes 42. Neighborly visits produce another 24 each week but only 16 are the ones I need. So I use 169 spells and produce 158. The last 11 or so come from a few 20 hour time instants used for spell production.

The bonuses in the tourney are TEAM based, so I try to think like a team. My goods are far more valuable in my teammates hands. The higher (>35 provinces) are catered. The lower ones 1-20 are usually fought. The ones in the middle depend on what is needed to win and inventory. Also a few in the low end or upper end get alternate treatment if the goods request (in the lower end) or optimal troop need (in the upper end) match up well with goods inventory and buffs.

I suppose I should have started my own thread - Generating more standard goods than you will ever need
 
Last edited:

Khalani

Member
If you are late chapter, you do have access to Timewarp, which should make getting as many more rounds in a lot easier. Your schedule would obviously be an obstacle and deterrent, but it would be far more cost efficient in troops, goods, and buff buildings to do 34 provinces to 6* than 58 provinces to 4* for the same ~9000 score. Around Province 34 is when enemies are about double your stack so it only gets worse from there. The amount of troops you need to even fight Province 50 will probably be how many troops you lost in Province 1-15 combined (not numerically accurate, but just making a point). You're facing at least 15 provinces where the troops are double your stacks, which means more buffing to win them. Therefore, the troops required to do Province 1-15 for a 5th round would be fairly negligible in comparison and you'd get 15 more various rewards than it is to do just one more province in the 50s for one more reward for the same amount of dead troops. If you drop to 34 provinces to 6*s, who knows...maybe you'll suddenly find yourself so flush in troops from not needing as many! Check out the Reverse Calculator on elvengems.

Agree. I fight half of Gateway and then cater to Lab. Then I fight the Lab. If I can fight the Lab, then obviously I can win High Halls and rest of Gateway too, but the logic to cater is still easy and therefore, relatively cheap to cater and those troops can go die in tourney instead.

If you do a lot of tourney, most free troop buildings are not going to make much relative to how much you need to spend (kill?). But certain troop types like Buddies and Treants, I still use them, but disproportional to other troop types. So I'm hoping Citadel pieces and Pyramids is enough to let me not have to train anymore Treants, which makes room for training more Golems and Archers.

You get individual rewards for each province you finish. Completing 10 provinces in full means you get 60 individual rewards for each encounter, so no extra rewards. Perhaps you are thinking group rewards and group chests? If your FS did enough tournament points to unlock the 10th chest, there is a blueprint in there.
At one time, I think it was that you got "extra" for doing 10 in full but that would have been a long time ago lol. thank you for the update. havent really thought about it recently until I saw this post.
 

SuNaya Dark

Active Member
Hi.
I'm parked at the end of Chapter 3 (both cities) because time is not available (due to work) to take on Ch 4 and 5 (though I'm almost ready).
Is it a good idea for me - at this early level - to build Solar Training Grounds, or should I wait until end of Ch 4 to do it? (one city has 5 of them, and I intend to keep hold of them in Inventory until I can benefit from their use).

Thanks.
- SuNaya Dark
 

defiantoneks

Well-Known Member
Hi.
I'm parked at the end of Chapter 3 (both cities) because time is not available (due to work) to take on Ch 4 and 5 (though I'm almost ready).
Is it a good idea for me - at this early level - to build Solar Training Grounds, or should I wait until end of Ch 4 to do it? (one city has 5 of them, and I intend to keep hold of them in Inventory until I can benefit from their use).

Thanks.
- SuNaya Dark
if you have space, why not put them out? that's free passive troops to collect & stockpile. no?
 

BlueBlade

Member
I only feed my Brown Bear during an FA because I need my troops to fight up the Spire and clear every province in the tourney. I can do that by fighting almost all the way up the Spire and sometimes I run low on troops but not often. Plus, pet food isn't always easy to find in the MA. I set out dwarves armorers & troop boosting building (2x2 tree like buildings) during the FA as well. The tourneys, if they don't have supplies, mana, a large amount of green orcs, then I will cate that province. I have 3 fully upgraded armories but collect and produce as often as possible.

I feed my level 10 Fire Phoenix starting with round 2 or 3 depending on which relic tourney it is. Another good building to have to help save your troops is the level 10 Twilight Phoenix, it will restore 5% of your lost troops in each battle when fed.

I don't have the Mercenary Camp. Mainly because it's just a huge supplies cost factor to produce those troops. Those troops are good on certain enemies though.

The other thing I do, especially now the Secret of Dreams has started and I am offered a choice of prizes, I usually go with the unit of troops.

My question about Feeding the Brown Bear is: Since we are making more troops because of the bonus effect, does it cost more in supplies to create those troops? Maybe my eyes are tricking me but it seems like it's requiring more supplies.
 

Moho

Chef
does it cost more in supplies to create those troops? Maybe my eyes are tricking me but it seems like it's requiring more supplies.
Of course it will require more supplies. You can read for yourself here: Training your Units will cost you Supplies and time. The more Units are trained in a training slot at one time, the more resources are needed to start training and the longer that training will take to complete. Of course, you can always finish the training instantly by paying Premium.
 

Lady Dastardly

Well-Known Member
My question about Feeding the Brown Bear is: Since we are making more troops because of the bonus effect, does it cost more in supplies to create those troops? Maybe my eyes are tricking me but it seems like it's requiring more supplies.
No, it is a bonus applied to the collection of the troops. It does not change the amount of supplies needed to make the troops, or the time required to produce them.
 
Top