DeletedUser3507
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DeletedUser
Guest
then you should be able to scout the remaining 4. If you can't scout now, maybe when you open the chest or upgrade one of the warriors
Deborah M
Oh Wise One
I've been maxed out on expansions for a long time. Now I have 9 province expansions waiting from scouting and cannot get any more. I also have one city expansion waiting. To make the row complete I think there are 2 premium expansions being added. Pretty sure I read that somewhere but can't find it. Maybe somebody on Beta can chime in on that. If there are, I am sure @jps54 will be ready & waiting for those 2 
DeletedUser3507
Guest
yuppers....
Deborah M
Oh Wise One
yuppers....
I forgot that there is a city expansion in the tech tree so I guess there is only 1 premium added. Darn!
SoggyShorts
Mathematician par Excellence
OK, so if for whatever reason you don't have room for guest races, there are some tricks you can use to complete the chapter and quests using less space.
What about those of us who have loads of space? Still no option other than the cookie cutter 8/4 max build for chapter 13. (or ignoring the questline, which I think can't be considered a good design choice)
I totally understand that some players care more about having a pretty city, or getting a high score, but lowering the quest requirements to give more options hurts no one.
To give you perspective from a player who doesn't care about rank, just progress:
The chapters I enjoyed the most were 6,8,9,11,12
Those you could get an advantage by building as many guest race buildings as you could fit.
Yes, even the dreaded orcs chapter was great imo, because if I shuffled these buildings just so, and moved that over here instead, I can squeeze in one more farm, and that feels like I made a difference by being good at city design.
If there had been an orc quest to have 4 level 4 Rally points, and 20 Level 4 farms combined with a cap of 4 rally points and 20 farms, then I would have felt stifled too.
It's a city building game, there should be an advantage to designing an efficient, well laid out plan using every possible nook and cranny.
The chapters that I found the least interesting were 7,10 and soon 13
These chapters have a cap on how much space you can use for guest races
(The fairy portal didn't hold enough to have more than 5/4 buildings, the campus had obvious limits, and amuni has prestige combined with a quest that restricts creativity)
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DeletedUser5521
Guest
Per Marindor, Beta CM "The current cap isn't raised with this chapter. What the future will bring, we'll have to wait and see"
https://beta.forum.elvenar.com/index.php?threads/the-amuni.11293/page-2
Yes, the overall city space is increasing to 60x60 squares. But the province expansion cap remains at 457. I believe this is what @jps54 was referring to?
SoggyShorts
Mathematician par Excellence
1. There's obviously no stress here since I have plenty of space to place more buildings than are actually possible. Unless you count thinking the devs have made a mistake by stifling creativity and fear of boredom as stressThere is NO reason to stress over it, it is a game made to be BEATEN. think outside the box.
2. I would say that Pherylls method of building and destroying guest race stuff in order to save space might be called "thinking within the box"(which isn't to say it isn't clever--it is)
Almost every chapter can be completed using fewer than the suggested/recommended buildings. Using more should also be an option.
For example: Orcs including all quests can be completed with just 10 farms and 2 rally points. It can also be completed with 50 farms and 10 rally points.
Or dwarves can be completed with 1 copper foundry and 1 granite mine (or 10/25)
I enjoy being able to figure out a space/cost benefit analysis to see if 10 level 2 buildings is better than 7 level 3 buildings or if dropping your culture and going 20 level 1 buildings could work etc. More choices (with pros and cons) makes the game more interesting.
Until the quests were released I had devised a plan where I could run 10 GS and 6 TM with pillars but no other monuments, making only slightly lower production, using more space, but saving hundreds of thousands of guest race goods and over a million mana by not building monuments.
Rather "outside the box" imo.
It was obvious from the prestige cap that 8/4 max was the simple dev design.
Pheryll showed a way to go under with a 6/3 partial as an alternative
My method(or any other) of going over the limit with 10/6 doesn't work due to the quest requirements.*
I have no problem with a min/max on number of buildings or upgrade level, but having the max=min on both doesn't leave enough room for creativity.
*Clearly I could do something similar where once I beat the chapter with my fast guest race efficient(but space consuming design) I then nuke a couple of buildings and upgrade the rest with monuments in order to complete the quest, but that completely defeats the purpose which is to exchange space for saving on upgrades/building costs
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That brings up another issue which probably deserves it's own thread, but is relevant here: quest rewards, and the decline option.
For months(years?) players who didn't follow the questline and got "stuck" asked for the ability to decline storyline quests rather than being forced to go back several chapters and rebuild guest race things.
The devs finally came up with what seemed like a fair way to do so, allowing players to decline quests from previous chapters.
The unintended consequence of this is that some(many?) players are simply ignoring the quests completely and waiting 1 chapter so that they can decline any quests they don't like while getting the rewards for easy ones and even "automatic" ones like "research this tech".
I went through all of the CH13 quests on GoK, and found that by waiting to decline the icky ones next chapter
I will save
13,000 seeds, 60,000 T5, 13,000,000 coins
and miss out on
1 rune, 1 broken shard, 60K T2, 5 KP, and some supplies.
I'd say that the choice to skip is clearly better. I haven't checked the other chapters since I never really considered skipping all of the quests before, but I would be surprised if the gain/loss wasn't the same.
I always justified the "icky" quests with bad rewards as being a stepping stone to the few with good rewards(like diamonds now) but if you give us the option to skip the bad ones and only do the goods ones, what's the point in having them at all?
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DeletedUser
Guest
for now yes it does, but no one knows what WILL happen. Inno cannot force us to buy expansions with diamonds. I think (not sure) that there will be 1 expansion tab to open, inno will have to do something to accommodate the remaining expansions. This is a wait and see, situation. Inno would lose players if they opened the space without giving opportunities to win them or scout them. Since @jps54 has capped out with 6 in reserve, able to open 1 (possibly) in the tree, there has to be some contingency in the plan to gain access to the other 3 without buying them with diamonds. What that is....I do not know.Per Marindor, Beta CM "The current cap isn't raised with this chapter. What the future will bring, we'll have to wait and see"
https://beta.forum.elvenar.com/index.php?threads/the-amuni.11293/page-2
Yes, the overall city space is increasing to 60x60 squares. But the province expansion cap remains at 457. I believe this is what @jps54 was referring to?
DeletedUser
Guest
I've been maxed out on expansions for a long time. Now I have 9 province expansions waiting from scouting and cannot get any more. I also have one city expansion waiting. To make the row complete I think there are 2 premium expansions being added. Pretty sure I read that somewhere but can't find it. Maybe somebody on Beta can chime in on that. If there are, I am sure @jps54 will be ready & waiting for those 2
I have one city expansioI've been maxed out on expansions for a long time. Now I have 9 province expansions waiting from scouting and cannot get any more. I also have one city expansion waiting. To make the row complete I think there are 2 premium expansions being added. Pretty sure I read that somewhere but can't find it. Maybe somebody on Beta can chime in on that. If there are, I am sure @jps54 will be ready & waiting for those 2
currently I have, a city expansion from a previous chapter, 2 scouted in reserve, with my added armory, all the terr
I have 3 in reserve one from a previous chapter tree. When I completed my property line I quit scouting (lol) so I have catching up to do. The good news is there is one in the tree so I only have to hustle (like a slug at the bottom of the ocean--since it takes 56 hrs to scout) 6 more yippee
DeletedUser
Guest
that's what I do, build - destroy -build again --as needed. saves space........suggestion .......in the world you play in; watch your mega players game play, you have the opportunity to learn different strategies by watching different minds at work. They did not get to be in the 6-700k class by luck. There really are brilliant minds in this game.
samidodamage
Buddy Fan Club member
This made me giggle. Apt description of many different areas of this game...
Deborah M
Oh Wise One
OK now I'm going to duck
But I do have to say this. Soggy is one of those with a brilliant mind in this game. His statistical & analytical skills are 2nd to none. It's just all about what each player wants out of the game. To some the challenge is ranking and to some the challenge is utility. I know I've just gotten to the point that I want to play my game and meet my own goals. That doesn't mean the other approaches are wrong. It just means they are different. We just "grew up" in this game with players who have a whole different approach
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DeletedUser
Guest
he asked for tips; Im not saying he isn't brilliant, everyone plays the game with different twists, perhaps, by observing, he will see a new way of accomplishing his goals. He did ask about tips or tricks....just a suggestion. No reason for ducking, I choose to believe he is a mature player who sees wisdom in observation. I will discover if I am right or wrong by his response.
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SoggyShorts
Mathematician par Excellence
I deny this accusation!
Swing and a miss!
You'll never prove it!
Strike 2 and 3!
Seriously though:
While I'm always open to hearing about different strategies, I actually didn't at any point ask for advice or tips.*
I simply pointed out an unfortunate game design choice that I see as being flawed due to its creativity limiting nature.
*The trick that @Pheryll shared on how to use less space for chapter 13 wasn't for me, I want to use more space.
No doubt there are some brilliant minds out there, and some are likely among the top ranked players. Unfortunately the ranking system is, imo, terribly flawed and unless it is fixed(never gonna happen) it just isn't something I can bring myself to use as a measure of skill or success.
To use just one of the many flaws as an example:
Player 1 gets 20,000 of their population from event buildings in a 10x10 space and gains 15,000 culture from it
Player 2 gets 20,000 of their population from residences in a 10x15 space and loses 5,000 culture from it.
Objectively Player 1 has the better city with more free space and higher culture, but since event buildings give no ranking points, Player 2 is higher ranked.
That doesn't even begin to touch on the P2W aspects of ranking, or the impact of push accounts and having 18 level 25 (soon level 30) Wonders on space efficiency/ranking. That all being said, there are cities at the top that are better than others as far as design efficiency goes, and I am impressed with ones like @Deborah M's where she manages to have every single wonder, a full military,a solid factory set, and space for events/guest races. I would be less impressed if those wonders were all level 25
I've actually been working on something for Blake (elvenstats.com) and Konniver(elvenarchitect.com) for a system of "Design Efficiency Rating"
The base concept is to see how well a player is using the space that they have.
One aspect is how few roads they are using. For example if a building is 4x6, then you should only need 2 road tiles for it. (there should be a building "across the street" sharing 4 tiles) Using fewer roads than that (by placing buildings at the end of a road) increases your DER, using more (by placing non-producing culture on roads) decreases your DER. I think this could be a useful way of scoring a player's city design skills.
The other concept I'm working on is a separate ranking for output. A value would be assigned for goods and troops, and how many squares are used to make them. With normal ranking Armories give quite a lot of points, but they actually don't improve your city's ability to do anything. A player with 4 armories who runs her barracks 24/7 should not be considered worse than a player who runs her barracks using 8 armories. The opposite in fact.
Supplies, and the buildings that make them also have no value in this new system as supplies don't do anything until you turn them into something.(not counting the wholesaler) It doesn't matter if you get the supplies to train troops or run factories from PoP spells, instants, wonders or whatever, as long as your barracks is cooking 24/7, it's irrelevant.
Population has no value either, and the fewer squares you use for it, the better.
The last part is free space. Whether used for guest races, the FA, or completing events, free space has value. This is a tough one, but I think the value would be close to that of a square that is being used well, like a max level T3 building square with efficient roadwork.
The base concept is to see how well a player is using the space that they have.
One aspect is how few roads they are using. For example if a building is 4x6, then you should only need 2 road tiles for it. (there should be a building "across the street" sharing 4 tiles) Using fewer roads than that (by placing buildings at the end of a road) increases your DER, using more (by placing non-producing culture on roads) decreases your DER. I think this could be a useful way of scoring a player's city design skills.
The other concept I'm working on is a separate ranking for output. A value would be assigned for goods and troops, and how many squares are used to make them. With normal ranking Armories give quite a lot of points, but they actually don't improve your city's ability to do anything. A player with 4 armories who runs her barracks 24/7 should not be considered worse than a player who runs her barracks using 8 armories. The opposite in fact.
Supplies, and the buildings that make them also have no value in this new system as supplies don't do anything until you turn them into something.(not counting the wholesaler) It doesn't matter if you get the supplies to train troops or run factories from PoP spells, instants, wonders or whatever, as long as your barracks is cooking 24/7, it's irrelevant.
Population has no value either, and the fewer squares you use for it, the better.
The last part is free space. Whether used for guest races, the FA, or completing events, free space has value. This is a tough one, but I think the value would be close to that of a square that is being used well, like a max level T3 building square with efficient roadwork.
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Deborah M
Oh Wise One
Awe shucks! Thanks @SoggyShorts I really appreciate that but I'm still wondering how the heck I'm going to rearrange for the new chapter. At the same time, I could really make it close to impossible if I ran my ranking up by 100K by filling my open space with manufacturing. That would be really easy to do but to what end? I guess I'm just not competitive enough to think it is worth it just to run up ranking.
@Purfie Nothing personal! Actually, when I said I was going to duck I forgot that Lord Draconian has sadly left us. Lord's take on the ranking system, blue kingdoms and "cheating" is well known. I already knew Soggy's take on ranking and that he is mature enough to not contradict people without backing up what he says. I'm surprised that Blake has time for any project right now but I think it would be really very interesting to see what an efficiency score would look like.
I really appreciate that but I'm still wondering how the heck I'm going to rearrange for the new chapter. At the same time, I could really make it close to impossible if I ran my ranking up by 100K by filling my open space with manufacturing. That would be really easy to do but to what end? I guess I'm just not competitive enough to think it is worth it just to run up ranking.@Purfie Nothing personal! Actually, when I said I was going to duck I forgot that Lord Draconian has sadly left us. Lord's take on the ranking system, blue kingdoms and "cheating" is well known. I already knew Soggy's take on ranking and that he is mature enough to not contradict people without backing up what he says. I'm surprised that Blake has time for any project right now but I think it would be really very interesting to see what an efficiency score would look like.
SoggyShorts
Mathematician par Excellence
He's pretty busy, this is my baby that I would hand him once it's done to have implemented into elvenstats
DeletedUser3602
Guest
The Amuni just arrived on the live servers, we're in the middle of a Fellowship Adventure but:
DeletedUser17667
Guest
It's been a quick one so far.
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