Finding desired ruin shards

[Ferby]

I have had severe problems getting my Ancient Wonders (AW) up past level 5. My problem is getting the Ruin Shards I need. I have 10 AW of which I am building 6. 4 I do not want to build. As I take over provinces, do tournaments etc, we are supposed to get random ruin shards. I have found they are anything but random as random would imply I would get 6 desired shards for every 4 I did not want, on average. Right now where the ration should be 6:4 (desired to undesired) the ratio is closer to 5:45. I flogged as may of the useless shards I could on fellowship friends AW they were building.

This still leaves me with the problem that the only way I can progress is to build 10 broken shards and hope I can get 1 Ruin I really want. Even at that it seems to fill in the AW I do not want. To that end I have tried to fill in the AW ruins so broken shards will not fill out their rings. My real question is how the heck can I get ruin shards for the AW I want? Without these I am just locked at level 5 or 10 forever. I finally got one past the 5/10/15// level but the others just sit there idle and it has gotten quite frustrating that the ratio's are so out of balance.

Comments?

 

[Katwick]

This still leaves me with the problem that the only way I can progress is to build 10 broken shards and hope I can get 1 Ruin I really want.

There may be a misconception here. Broken Shard Bars are portable. You can use them in ANY of your AWs to fill an open Rune Wheel slot.

My preferred technique is to keep several Trash AWs, which I can use to generate Broken Shards, at will, for use elsewhere.

On average there's 50% shrinkage, so you can convert 20 unwanted Runes into a filled slot on a desired Rune Wheel (every 5th level). Your unwanted Rune Wheel will fill in, of course, whereupon you simply build the trash AW then immediately tear it down to get back to an empty Rune Wheel.

Note that a few of the AWs are often abandoned as cities progress, so "unwanted" is a moving target.

There's also a more efficient wrinkle, using the Award Chests:

• To INCREASE unwanted Runes, use AW Tokens, your daily Perk, and/or raw KPs to claim a chest that awards the desired Rune(s)
• To DECREASE unwanted (or excess) Runes, use as many Runes (15 points) as you can to claim a chest that awards FEWER Runes, with the balance returned as portable AW Tokens.
• A Net0 group is particularly good at this, as a bit of timing will allow you to select your preferred chest, and your loan is typically recovered within several hours. So you can rinse and repeat several times, while you're accumulating the AW Tokens that you'll need to cover your 2/3rd of your next AW level.

 

[samidodamage]

When you click the 'forge rune' button, the rune is guaranteed to fit in the rune wheel of the AW that is open at that time. Here's an example of what @Katwick's talking about:
Insert whatever AW you want for either of these:
Want rune for Martial Monastery (MM). Never going to build/keep Endless Excavation (EE).
Open EE. Insert runes in wheel; some break into broken shards. If broken shards storage reaches 10 shards before the EE rune wheel is filled, close window. Open MM. Same broken shards storage bar with the 10 broken shards. Forge rune. It will fill a missing rune spot guaranteed.
If broken shards storage is less than 10 when the EE rune wheel fills: You have to build the EE. Wait (or time boost if you like) until construction completes. Canceling construction does not work (yes, I tried, lol!). Sell EE. Yes, you lose the resources required for the initial lvl 1 build. But, when you open EE, it's back to level 1 with an empty rune wheel. Insert runes, some break...
Rinse and repeat as needed.
If you have more than one AW you're not building, I'd get as many broken shards as I could from each of them before making space/wasting time/resources building one that was full. Let's say you run out of EE runes and have only collected 6 broken shards. You also don't plan to build the Crystal Lighthouse(CL). Close EE window, open CL, 6 broken shards will be there. Insert runes, more broken shards, etc.
Note:
I'm totally prepared to get negative feedback on this. This method was developed before runes became worth 15kp in other players' AWs. In the example above, you could partner with a player who has excess MM runes but wants kp in his EE. You can insert EE runes in his EE for 15kp each; he inserts the same into your MM in an even swap. But, this only works for the kp stages of upgrades. It can leave smaller cities without sufficient runes for the rune stage upgrades. I'd still keep a trash AW/runes around; there's plenty of other places I can get kp, but for newly activated AW's and insufficient runes, I'm farming broken shards!
ymmv

 

[Lelanya]

Also. If you are giving away rune shards for Wonders that you do not plan to keep, you will get those rune shards back, when the Wonder is filled up.
Did your fellowship finish map 3? If you did, there is the Ferris Wheel, that you can place to farm broken rune shards.

 

[defiantoneks]

aside from forging and building/breaking runes, you can focus on donating to other people's similar AW. if you need Golden Abyss runes, donate KP to your FS members' GA. as long as you donate enough to win a rune chest once their research is complete you will win that rune (or runes)