[Archived 02/2020] News from Beta

[SoggyShorts]

Ok, I did the math.

I think there are some errors in your calculations.
I believe that your city has a natural culture bonus of 125%, and that you need 46,800 extra culture from buffs to get to 150%, which is 6 active buffs on your highest culture buildings.
This would bring your daily coins from 16m to 19.2m assuming you collect only when you have at least 6 active buffs.
A gain of 3.2m daily

A visit from a FS member to your MH gets you 200K per, not 60K meaning a full FS would give you 4.8m coins

7830 tools per workshop, per 3 hours, with a 4698 bonus with 160% culture = 12,528 x 10 workshops = 125,280 every 3 hours. Without the culture bonus, it would be 78,300 tools every 3 hours.

Here you are giving buffs all the credit which isn't fair since your FS visits are not moving you from 100% to 160%.
More realistic would be if you were at 150% = 117K tools
and then FS buffs brought you up to 160% = 125K tools
A much less impressive gain.

Which has me mystified, why players ask their MH be the first to polish, rather than culture.

It is actually very situational which is the better buff (MH vs culture)
Culture buffs only give you a benefit if they move you into a different culture bracket.
100-124 = zero bonus
125-149 = 25% bonus
150-159 = 50% bonus
160-169 = 60% bonus
170+ = 70% bonus

If a player has 125% culture and having their top 8 culture buildings buffed doesn't quite get them up to 150%, then those buffs are 100% wasted.
Absolutely zero gain from an entire FS worth of visits.

Now if a player has a natural culture of 120% and culture buffs would bring them to 125%, then that is possible this would be better than MH visits.
www.tinyurl.com/culturecalc <--- a little tool to see how much culture you need for various brackets.

So what would be the benefit for visiting the builders hut?

If someone buffs your BH then the next building you make will construct 10% faster. Great for big projects like upgrading your Mainhall, and for small annoying ones like quests to "upgrade 4 buildings to level 7"

 

[DeletedUser3122]

I believe that your city has a natural culture bonus of 125%, and that you need 46,800 extra culture from buffs to get to 150%, which is 6 active buffs on your highest culture buildings.

Thanks for the corrections. I also had forgotten I deleted some culture in order to fit all buildings for the Amuni chapter, and I need to replace them. My culture bonus, when I posted that, was actually 185% from enchantments, but I calculated based on 160%. My base culture is too low, agreed.

 

[SoggyShorts]

My base culture is too low, agreed.

I had the numbers at some point, I'll see if I can find them, but basically, the most efficient choice was to maintain a 150% culture bonus including buffs, but not including spells.
The reason:
Let's say you have 5 spelled buildings and get 5 FS buffs each giving you 8K culture
a) If you sit at a natural 170%, then you only get 5% per spell when buffed
for a total of 170+25=195
b) If you sit at a natural 160%, then buffs can move you into the 170% plus 5%, increasing the value of each buff. for a total of 195%
Same buffs, same results, but player b is using less space for culture.

Personally, I value coins and tools very low due to instants, spells and the option to visit on the map. Therefore I usually ignore culture completely.
EDIT: I just went through and checked. It seems all of my cities have natural 150% culture* and would need ~70K more culture to get to 160% (never gonna happen, I'd need 20 buffs at the same time)
So MH is the clear winner for me, and culture buffs are a terrible choice.

*Note: I don't even have any pure culture buildings, just hybrids like Vallors and Pop/culture combos.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

All this talk of coins and culture boosts and all reminds of when I used to worry about it, back when my city was smaller and before they added the coin and supply instants to the game. Now I do not care about my percentage. If I burn through a lot of coins or supplies, I just pop one of the instants and I am good again.

 

[DeletedUser9601]

All this talk of coins and culture boosts and all reminds of when I used to worry about it, back when my city was smaller and before they added the coin and supply instants to the game. Now I do not care about my percentage. If I burn through a lot of coins or supplies, I just pop one of the instants and I am good again.

It is nice how coins (and to a lesser extent supplies) aren't really a gating item in the later chapters. Now for mana to go that way too.

 

[SoggyShorts]

It is nice how coins (and to a lesser extent supplies) aren't really a gating item in the later chapters. Now for mana to go that way too.

I wonder if chapter 14 will introduce a new resource(elvenade?) if not, and it's only T6 I don't see how they will offer any challenge.
Between the winter set and Dragon Abbey mana is kinda skippable as a gate, and seeds are only an issue if you never went for any bonus buildings. On top of that, the portal profits have loads of potential. Is it possible that KP will be the actual gate?

 

[DeletedUser9601]

Is it possible that KP will be the actual gate?

I'm sitting at 200+ 5% portal profits. And I've been spending the last 2 months trying (unsuccessfully - its a slog) to fill the 20+ expansions I had devoted to guest races. Part of me thinks "optimal" playstyle might be to basically ignore guest races going forward. So long as I devote 1 event a year to "portal profit farming," I might be able to get by guest races just by building the guest race portal (obviously depending on mechanics). But then if I keep open 2-3 expansions for events, and fill up the rest of my city, I'm looking at 2-3 more max armories, and prob 1 each T1, T2 and T3. Pretty nice!

 

[SoggyShorts]

Part of me thinks "optimal" playstyle might be to basically ignore guest races

It is an interesting concept. When I went back over the guest races I think they asked for 3.5-8x portal cap in goods, so since your profits add up to 10x full portal, you may actually be able to do as you suggest.
I think I'm going for a hybrid. I have 100 PP, only 5x max portal, so maybe I fill some of my 20 expansions...? I don't know what for though, more goods? For...more tournament? More armories for fewer log ins?

 

[DeletedUser3122]

So MH is the clear winner for me, and culture buffs are a terrible choice.

It's all about play style.

Personally, I'd rather have land for AWs than culture buildings. You miss out on tools bonuses completely if you only polish the MH, and still produce less coins with MH polish than culture polish, unless you have a very low number of residences and rely on combo culture buildings, which I also tend to think is a bad idea, there are no ranking points with culture buildings. Even though I'm not into ranking points, I'd still rather have them than none.

Culture buildings from events naturally become outgrown when you hit another chapter too, and the sizes vary considerably at times. And yes, even though they've promised some way to upgrade culture, I'm not holding my breath.

It's not a personal opinion, just a mathematical one. I know that Inno has done a bad job at some math calculations, like for factory productions. And various other things. But this is one that holds true, it's better to have others polish your culture than build too much. And if not extra AWs, then extra land to make lvl 1 buildings for events.

Like right now my culture bonus sits at 200%, purely because I enchanted culture and get a lot of polish to my culture, even though my base isn't even 125%. That's free coins and tools, for making and using enchantments (which I usually never do, but yesterday for calculating). The MH polish does nothing for any of those bonuses.

I wouldn't ever rely on instants for tools or coins. One of my cities ran out of supply windfalls, and even crafting them is more rare and not really worth it (to me). If a person is producing more than enough tools and is constantly full, then that's land saving to eliminate a workshop. But I've never been able to have less than 10 workshops.

Now, if I had bought a crud-ton of extra land with diamonds, I might have the land for a natural 160% culture bonus. That ain't ever gonna happen, so I'm using my land more wisely.

 

[SoggyShorts]

Lots to unpack there so I'll just start wherever. With a completely broken ranking system that is P2W on top, I absolutely couldn't care less about my score. This means that pop/culture hybrids are an awesome choice for those who purchase even fewer premium expansions than you(I have 8 fewer expansions)

e.g. The Winter star this event gives 100% more population per square than a level 31 residence. Whether we can upgrade them or not is irrelevant since a normal house won't surpass them for over a year.

As a test on the Architect, I deleted all of my hybrid pop, and replaced it with normal residences. This cost me 100,000 culture, dropping me from a natural 150% to 30,000 under 125%. So my coins would actually stay almost exactly the same, but I lose 33% of my supplies.
Then I ask my FS for all culture buffs, getting me up to 125% for a gain of 2.7m coins per day, but I'm still making 20% fewer tools. And I'm getting no MH buffs so I lose 4m coins per day. End result: replacing hybrid with regular res is a total loss.

From your example:
Going from a base culture of less than 120% up to 200% requires what? 14 active EE spells? Is that sustainable, and at what cost?
It certainly wouldn't be possible for a player who didn't have a level 5 MA.
How many goods could you get if you used 3 MM spells every day instead of 7 EE?

As a player who has never purchased diamonds I could never give up the huge efficiency advantage of hybrid pop/culture buildings and since they provide a natural 150% culture bonus there is no point in wasting all of my visit buffs to try and get up to 160%- that 6.7% increase in supplies is completely overshadowed by the loss of 2.5m coins

 

[DeletedUser3122]

the loss of 2.5m coins

I don't understand "loss" of coins. I always make far more coins with residences and culture boost than a MH polish. I demonstrated 25% more than MH alone. What about the tools loss? That's a statistical fact. And more coins with residences vs. MH is also a statistical fact.

2.5 mil is only less than 2KP per day in both my city, and my husband's. That's nothing. I make more than that with culture boosts.

14 active EE spells? Is that sustainable, and at what cost?

I said, notably, I rarely use spells but did this one time for calculation purposes. No it wouldn't be sustainable, but absolutely more sustainable than using coin rain or supply instants.

 

[SoggyShorts]

more coins with residences vs. MH is also a statistical fact.

No it isn't a "statistical fact". It is extremely situational.

If I'm at exactly 150% culture and I get 1 culture buff I get nothing. zip. zilch. nada.
If I'm at exactly 150% culture and I get 10 culture buffs I get nothing. zip. zilch. nada.
If I'm at exactly 150% culture and I get 1 MH buff I get 200K
If I'm at exactly 150% culture and I get 10 MH buffs I get 2,000K
200K > 0K
2,000K > 0K
That is a fact.

 

[SoggyShorts]

I rarely use spells

Ok, well then here is a real factual example using your city without spells @Deawyne
Current city:
https://www.elvenarchitect.com/city/planner/cb709b2974fd4d6cb9612101f4c6cb58/

• Needs 47,000 in visits to get 150% culture bonus
• Needs 117K to get 160% (would need 23 simultaneous buffs, not gonna happen)
• Has 545 empty squares
• 19.2m coins per day at 150% culture

Here is an alternative city
https://www.elvenarchitect.com/city/planner/c92389df0e5049a29de6160bd5714a3e/

• Has 10 fewer Residences, but added 10 winter stars, and some simple non-event culture in the saved space.
• Has 150% culture naturally, no buffs needed.
• Has 573 empty squares
• 16.5m coins per day
• Gets 200K per visit from FS and neighbors

So, the alternative city has an entire expansion of saved space (28 squares) but is making 2.7m less in coins per day. But wait, they don't need buffs, so they ask for MH instead, getting 200K per visit. Just 14 visits needed to get 2.8m

 

[DeletedUser3122]

If I'm at exactly 150% culture and I get 1 culture buff I get nothing. zip. zilch. nada.
If I'm at exactly 150% culture and I get 10 culture buffs I get nothing. zip. zilch. nada.
If I'm at exactly 150% culture and I get 1 MH buff I get 200K
If I'm at exactly 150% culture and I get 10 MH buffs I get 2,000K
200K > 0K
2,000K > 0K
That is a fact.

And 0, zip, zilch, nada extra tools. But, if the whole FS polishes culture, it boosts culture far beyond 150%. And it's cumulative, multiplying each residence producing. Right now, I'm getting 190%, which is 281k per residence. I have 34 residences! Once your MH is full, it doesn't matter how many polishes you get, you can't get more than the max holding amount. But you can distribute that into KP more easily by collecting from residences. The more residences, the more gold. If no one polishes your MH, you get zip, zilch, nada. No extra gold, no extra tools, and your residences don't produce extra bonuses either.

The premise is to build only enough culture to get buffs that increase it to 160% (not sure if that's 100% culture). This way, a person saves land to build extra things.

My husband prefers to run his city at 100 or 125% before buffs, to always and consistently achieve the next higher buff while saving lots of the space to build AWs or extra land for events.

The AWs enable us to do extra provinces in tournaments, clocking in with extra 5KP per province. If one manages provinces in this way, it gives more KP than extra MH gold could ever buy.

That is a fact.

 

[DeletedUser12171]

I like culture bonus. My default culture is 150%. I bump it up to at least 175% with EE. could I get more coins with MH help? I don't know but I don't really care because I already make enough coins to buy at least 5 KPs a day, sometimes more. I am also almost always maxed out on supplies with just 5 magic workshops. I have 5/5/5 manufactories with minimum 3x 3h + 1x 9h productions most days and always training troops (2.8k training size). I usually only fall below max coin/supplies when it's upgrading or teching time but never too low that I don't have enough.

That's as much as I am going to say less I go too far off topic

EDIT: oh and I like to go for ranking points as well. Yes, I agree, this is the most pointless (pun intended ha ha) thing in the game but then I'm competitive and there's no sense in comparing anything else (like number of manufactories or my MH level vs other people's) other than ranking points and maybe tourney scores

 

[SoggyShorts]

Right now, I'm getting 190%

Impossible without a buttload of spells which you already said you don't normally do, so you are cheating to prove a point.

Once your MH is full, it doesn't matter how many polishes you get, you can't get more than the max holding amount.

The cap is at 20 visits. What are the chances that your neighbors visit you 20 times before you log in? Realistically if you log in twice a day this is never an issue, and if you aren't logging in twice a day, how many of those 9h visit buffs are being wasted.

Did you even bother looking at the proof I showed you using the architect?

 

[DeletedUser3507]

My default is 160% but I average 218% per day ...

 

[SoggyShorts]

My default is 160% but I average 218% per day ...

You have a strange system though, do you not?
iirc you cook EE almost 24/7 to bump up your culture and then buy goods from the wholesaler with excess coins and supplies.

You could simply skip a step and cook MM spells instead.

 

[DeletedUser3507]

Strange is not the word, good is.. lol..
I use 16 per tourney
So I went excessive in culture

 

[DeletedUser3297]

My default is 160% but I average 218% per day ...

Are you sure your default is 160%????

Mine is 170% without buffs and without spells. Sorry the pic has spells cast, but I needed mana lol Anyway, subtract the EE spells and my natural culture is 170%

Spoiler

Only reason why I ask, you have more than 200,000 surplus culture than me.