Is the Tome of Secrets worth it?

[MichaelMichael]

Somebody in one of my fellowships said the other day that he was done chasing chapters. Although I didn't have a term for it, I had always hated chasing chapters too. Right now I run three different cities, all moored in Chapter 6. They had been moored in Chapter 5 actually, but I heard they had modified the game so that players under Chapter 6 should not have access to the Spire, so I advanced to Chapter 6 for fear I would lose my Spire rights. I don't regret it because I am going to use a great military AW soon, but I am not planning to advance to any of the next chapters.

I don't get it. I fought through every chapter on the assumption that I'd get a bigger city and better upgrades for buildings. I have completed every chapter at this point and have every building fully upgrade (outside of some armories and manufacturies I am adding now that I deleted my guest quarters). In the tourney, I open 50 provinces every week which I do 4 times at least mostly with goods so I get spells for goods production. I also go to the top of spire every week for a year or two. Never once did I pause to catchup before pushing my city through the next chapter as fast as possible. I don't really get why a city would be parked and what that attraction is. ... but I am a nut job that plays every day for a few hours. I always took it as a challenge - how can I get more space, how can I get better use of the space I have. The only answer I ever had to get there, was to complete each chapter as fast as I could. There are people that outperform me, but I often see the tell tale signs that they bought their way to the top.

To each his own, but I play for the challenge. If the achievement in front of me is challenging, I want to achieve it better and faster than anyone else. Everyone has their own reason for playing, I suppose.

 

[Moho]

I don't get it.

It's okay.

Everyone has their own reason for playing, I suppose.

Well, duh.

I think Bill Watterson clarified it in his Calvin and Hobbes series, when he showed the boy dissatisified that the connect the dots book had forced him to draw a duck when he wanted to create something more interesting.

 

[MichaelMichael]

@seles it is worth it, and I'll explain why.

The comparison for an production based ancient wonder isn't a comparison against other wonders, it is a comparison against other buildings that give you the same, in this case KP production and supplies production, for example workshops.

You should compare production per hour per tile (so divide Tome of Secrets supplies production by 16 tiles by the duration of your scouts), and compare to the production per tile per hour of workshops. And to build workshops you need population, so the tile requirement is not only that of the workshop, but also the residence.

So within a few levels of the Tome, it will have a higher supplies production per tile per hour than workshops per tile per hour.

Although I'm much further into the chapters than you, this is my comparison presently:
Tome of Secrets (lvl 27) gives 4,440,000 supplies for 16 tiles in scout time of 100 hours, so 2,775 per tile per hour.
Workshop (lvl 40) gives 51,300 supplies for 30 tiles in production time of 3 hours, so 570 per tile per hour.
I do have a culture boost which takes it up to 64,125 supplies, increasing this to 712.5 per tile per hour.
But I haven't accounted for the population required for the workshop, dragging the figure down.
Even adding Power of Provision, doubling 712.5 to 1425 per tile per hour is only half of what I get from the Tome.

And the daily KP provision is also a good contributor. Mine is giving 6 KP per day on 16 tiles (so 1 for 2.67 tiles) , better than Ferris Wheels (1 for 6 tiles), but not as good as Carting Library (1 for 2 tiles), if I could manage to get 6 Carting Libraries (unlikely).

I will tell you why it isn't worth having a Tome post chapter 19, I produce 2.4 Million supplies every 3 hours in a 6x5 workshop - that is 27,000 supplies per tile per hour. I typically have a 800 culture bonus and 500% for my Power of provision 24x7. Needless to say, when I want more supplies, I build more workshops. I have 8 (3 magic).

 

[iamthouth]

@MichaelMichael I'm also in Ch19, I have 2 Magic Workshops (and more workshops teleported out to my inventory), Endless Excavation (lvl 22) and Tome of Secrets (lvl 31), taking a total 5x6*2+5x4+4x4=96 tiles. I don't need any more supplies production, I've got 91 Power of Provision which sits unused, and 1475% in instants sitting in my inventory.

But you go deeper into the tournament than me, so different approaches to the game.

 

[MichaelMichael]

But you go deeper into the tournament than me, so different approaches to the game.

Yep, different strokes for different folks. I am a bit of nut job jumping through a lot of hoops to get a few more tourney points on Goods production. I'd like to see a route to getting similar production by fighting, but I haven't found that route as yet (outside of cheating, spending mucho dinaro ($))

 

[SuNaya Dark]

It's not necessarily just teleports (that will become available to you when you get the Spire, the only feature that gives them routinely as prizes). Since you started your city before the recent [Ch1-5 random new city test of new mechanics] changes, I'm going to guess that will be when you open Ch3.
Both my cities are 'parked'; one is at the beginning of Ch18 (first tech of new chapter activated), the other is at the beginning of Ch16. The reason for activating the first tech in the city is for the game to see you as 'in' the higher chapter. That will make all event/crafted bldgs give rewards for the higher chapter level.
I parked them because I despise the long slog through these higher chapters. It's not a challenge, they just made it take a gazillion [whatevers] to do anything and then made the bldgs that produce those things make like 10 of them a day max. They also made sure they're the uncapped resources, so not even Portal Profits help. Yes, there's a lot of stuff in there that won't make sense to you until Ch6 when you first see the guest race chapters, but hopefully you get the general idea of why I personally am disillusioned with chapter progress. Some players love it; I hate it.
I looked ahead and found a pretty blue dragon AW available at the end of Ch17, so I slogged that city through 2 chapters just to get that AW. Didn't know what it did or gave, just wanted it And I love it, just not enough to do it again in the other city, lol! My favorite parts of the game are tourneys, Spire, events, and FA's (in one city; can't handle doing FA's in two, lol!). I do use teleports to move bldgs in and out of my city as needed to produce resources I need for those activities. That 2nd city has been parked in Ch16 for well over a year and I'm still happy playing it. I make my own goals (ex: increase tourney average to xxxx sustainably week after week).

So, I'm guessing that you "park" them so that you can build up resources for a LONG time, and when you finally begin to advance, it will feel faster?

 

[samidodamage]

So, I'm guessing that you "park" them so that you can build up resources for a LONG time, and when you finally begin to advance, it will feel faster?

While I can see that, it's really not my personal reason or experience.
I am literally bored.to.death. in these higher chapters. I finished Ch15 because I wanted all my troops to have those 3-star promotions, but I despised it. If there were no options in the game besides unlocking new chapter techs, I'd have stopped playing and found another game. It's not that it's too difficult or that it's challenging at all. It's just boring.
In one city I started moving forward when I noticed the Dragon Ark AW at the end of Ch17. I started playing the game in the beginning because of all the pretty buildings. That AW is a beautiful blue dragon! I didn't know/care what it did what benefits it gave; didn't matter, lol. I wanted it! And, now I have it. I progressed thru both Ch 16 & 17 after about ~18mos of being parked. I didn't find the chapters any easier due to higher inventory of resources. The slowdown isn't demand for any of the non-decaying resources.
Here's a link to a post I made here last spring that details my feelings about the slowdown in these higher chapters.

 

[maeter75]

The higher chapters take much longer with chapter 19 purposely meant to take months.

 

[StarLoad]

My favorite parts of the game are tourneys, Spire, events, and FA's

I parked them because I despise the long slog through these higher chapters. It's not a challenge

We are on the same page here, parked and happy again.

As for the Tome, I agree late game player here (parked at 16) and I deleted mine in ch 11-12 timeframe, just not worth the space, and the supply bar was and is almost filled 24/7 with 6 Magic Workshops only. Most of the time they are sitting full and complete waiting for me to need them.

Ed

 

[Ihrlaen]

I believe the value for an advancing city is a bit more complicated. One of the big drawbacks mentioned about this wonder is that it takes too many AWKP to advance relative to the KP it produces (setting aside its supply production, which is why I built it early). With the introduction of spending Rune Shards as AWKP, it is now possible to increase its rank without spending an exorbitant amount that could otherwise be used for other things. ToS Rune Shards can only be used for one thing: increasing a ToS. In my small Sinya city (special shoutout to The Mystics of Elvenar fellowship for this) so many fellowship members have used their unused ToS on shards on mine, it is providing significant daily KP with minimal investment. Does that make it valuable enough? Opinions will vary.

Just some food for thought!

 

[Maeryn]

Those who are on the new tech tree might not find the ToS of any value with the unlocking of the first ancient wonders starting in chapter 4 and not chapter 2 with having six wonders to choose from.

 

[maeter75]

Interesting about the shards thought and sounds like your lucky. In my group a few people have the ToS and in our AW email ring, I use my shards and get back AW points in a non ToS which works great.