News from Beta - May Contain Spoilers!

[SoulsSilhouette]

@mikeledo It seems like most everything that I HAVE done is going to count against me fighting in the tournaments. I am not a great fighter anyway and now with all the penalties applied, I will truly suck at it.

 

[DeletedUser26692]

@mikeledo It seems like most everything that I HAVE done is going to count against me fighting in the tournaments. I am not a great fighter anyway and now with all the penalties applied, I will truly suck at it.

Yeah, I understand what you're saying... To top it off there are a lot of players like myself who's only option is auto fight (AI sucks) due to having mobile accounts.

 

[NightshadeCS]

Thanks to all of you who gave opinions on the buildings for the new event. I should have phrased my question more specifically. What I really wanted to know was if there are any of those buildings that a person should try not to miss out on, like Venar's Rocks III.

I was being pretty lazy when I posted that. Since then, I spent the time to go on ElvenArchitect and look at the building comparisons. My conclusions were that the Copper Dragon is the best for pop, but nothing special, for sure. I might grab one, since I like anything dragony.

The mana buildings seem to be very low on output. I am personally not in need of any, as my cities are either beyond or way before the chapters that require high amounts of mana. But sheesh!

So, nothing spectacular on stats, though the artwork looks nice on quite a few. Especially if you want to match S&D chapter buildings, or have some that work in that theme, at least. I think the Astral Crevice looks very nice, and would love to see what it has for animation.

 

[Risen Malchiah]

I didn't see anything really all that great, which is a shame because I love the artwork for the S&D theme. I just wish some of them were bigger. 2x2 and 2x3 buildings aren't that special to me and when your city is large, they kinda get lost. I like 4x5 or 5x5 event buildings that are worth investing RR into.

 

[mikeledo]

I would not worry too much about Tournament changes. What we know is that once they adjust it they won't be able to keep their fingers off of it. In time the whole thing will come full circle. I will play by the philosophy bigger is better and not spend my time trying to figure out how to game the system and build a city to only chapter 4 or something idiotic like that. They will come back to me when they get hungry.

 

[Deleted User - 1178646]

Thanks to all of you who gave opinions on the buildings for the new event. I should have phrased my question more specifically. What I really wanted to know was if there are any of those buildings that a person should try not to miss out on, like Venar's Rocks III.

I was being pretty lazy when I posted that. Since then, I spent the time to go on ElvenArchitect and look at the building comparisons. My conclusions were that the Copper Dragon is the best for pop, but nothing special, for sure. I might grab one, since I like anything dragony.

The mana buildings seem to be very low on output. I am personally not in need of any, as my cities are either beyond or way before the chapters that require high amounts of mana. But sheesh!

So, nothing spectacular on stats, though the artwork looks nice on quite a few. Especially if you want to match S&D chapter buildings, or have some that work in that theme, at least. I think the Astral Crevice looks very nice, and would love to see what it has for animation.

Since the introduction of the spire and thermal springs I do not even like Venars III that much anymore. there are plenty way to get culture, but pop can be with magic buildings (that you can win or buy with diamonds with RL money or for free from spire) better than venars III, and those pop/culture buildings do not give you any coins you need for the spire (and soon tournaments)

This is when my focus shifted from "top notch" pop culture buildings to residences again.

Harvest set(if used/abused right), kirit and karat, winter set(cristmas tree that they semi nerfed the last chapter for those without abbey power), fire phoenix, brown bear. those are the killer deals from the past. in some cases mermaids paradise was an awesome alternative to the harvest set.
anything else is easily replacable and nothing "special" from a powerplay perspective.

and if you do not powerplay, just grab anything you find pretty and enjoy it.
So look at today, and do not linger in the past, you cannot change the past anyway.

 

[DeepTerminal]

Venar's Rocks III is such a dead meme on this forum.. There should be a drinking game where you take a shot every time someone mentions it...

But srsly, all it takes to figure out this sorts of things is to go to elvenarchitect, find the buildings you want to compare, write the pop/tile for each chapter into a spreadsheet, and graph it. It tells you what you need to know without any bs.

Here's my graph:

 

[SoulsSilhouette]

Or you can just go for the builds you like the look of.

 

[Deleted User - 3932582]

But srsly, all it takes to figure out this sorts of things is to go to elvenarchitect, find the buildings you want to compare, write the pop/tile for each chapter into a spreadsheet, and graph it. It tells you what you need to know without any bs.

Here's my graph:

This is a bit too simplistic as it ignores culture, and VR3s have a lot of it. Unless you get all your culture from buildings that you have for other reasons regardless (e.g. Sanctuary/Monastery) - which is very unlikely - VR3 is about as good as it gets on consolidated basis. I did comparison with residences somewhere, may try to dig it up.

EDIT: Here it is - https://beta.forum.elvenar.com/index.php?threads/gathering-of-the-phoenix-cults.14626/post-84551

 

[Deleted User - 1178646]

This is a bit too simplistic as it ignores culture, and VR3s have a lot of it. Unless you get all your culture from buildings that you have for other reasons regardless (e.g. Sanctuary/Monastery) - which is very unlikely - VR3 is about as good as it gets on consolidated basis. I did comparison with residences somewhere, may try to dig it up.

EDIT: Here it is - https://beta.forum.elvenar.com/index.php?threads/gathering-of-the-phoenix-cults.14626/post-84551

Magic residence chapter 16 with springs = 15.6K pop and cost 5300 culture
Venars gives 11800 pop + culture
Best culture building gives 1700 culture per sq

venars 20 sq
residence 20 sq + culture difference 10sq

pop per sq = 520 per sq for magic residence and 590 for venars

Watchtower and Sanctuary/monestary can lower the difference / make residence better.
And the residences give something that is currenly in a much higher demand which is coins, something no venars can deliver.

Since this venars crap debate makes no sense when you are in chapter 5 (or had gotten in in chapter 5) I assume we are talking here from an endgame perspective. and from that point I find any pop/culture building currently lackluster.

 

[Deleted User - 3932582]

Watchtower and Sanctuary/monestary can lower the difference / make residence better.
And the residences give something that is currenly in a much higher demand which is coins, something no venars can deliver.

In much higher demand by you. This is not universal - e.g. I am swimming in coins, so definitely do not value them as much. Because I can probably get almost as many coins as you from NH, but your coin requirements are much higher than the most (due to a lot of AW levels/expansions).

I have provided the calculations on apples to apples basis for culture and pop - nothing can provide that much residual culture density as VR3. Except for AWs. But VR3 do not need to beat AWs - they need to beat the lowest marginal culture density in your city. As AWs cannot provide all of it, the rest has to be picked up by something else. And this something else is going to be worse than VR3.

What's left is how much you value this extra culture density vs coin production (which I mentioned in the original post), and different people can make different calls on that.

 

[Ashrem]

What will the coin requirements be like if the new tournament mechanic goes through as it exists? Is that going to noticeably affect the coin supply for people who negotiate?

 

[Deleted User - 1178646]

In much higher demand by you. This is not universal - e.g. I am swimming in coins, so definitely do not value them as much. Because I can probably get almost as many coins as you from NH, but your coin requirements are much higher than the most (due to a lot of AW levels/expansions).

I have provided the calculations on apples to apples basis for culture and pop - nothing can provide that much residual culture density as VR3. Except for AWs. But VR3 do not need to beat AWs - they need to beat the lowest marginal culture density in your city. As AWs cannot provide all of it, the rest has to be picked up by something else. And this something else is going to be worse than VR3.

What's left is how much you value this extra culture density vs coin production (which I mentioned in the original post), and different people can make different calls on that.

What will the coin requirements be like if the new tournament mechanic goes through as it exists? Is that going to noticeably affect the coin supply for people who negotiate?

Exactly, even of untill now you are still swimming in coins, the new tournaments might change that.
That said, even if you do not need them now, as you grow eventually you come at a point you do need them. (unless they revamp both the current beta tournaments and spire based on our feedback)

Unless you ignore spire + tournaments and do not advance your city anymore everyone will get to that point at some point in time, it just might take the one player longer than the other player.

 

[DeletedUser21570]

I agree the debate over VR3 is silly - only because everyone approaches it with a different perspective on what is the "best" way to play the game. To me, one of the best aspects of this game is there really isn't a "best" way to play the game. People can choose to play for different reasons and with completely different goals - some can play to obtain ranking points, others can play to have every wonder placed and upgraded, others can play to maximize tournament, others can play to have the prettiest buildings in their city. There isn't a "best" way or a "worst" way to play the game. There isn't a right or a wrong way to play. Every person can get from the game what they like and that is the absolutely best thing about this game.

 

[Deleted User - 3932582]

Is that going to noticeably affect the coin supply for people who negotiate?

Supply? No Demand? Probably. I don't negotiate in the tournaments at all, and right now I don't plan to. I also fight through the top level of the Spire, so bypass most of the coins requirements.

 

[Ashrem]

Supply? No Demand? Probably. I don't negotiate in the tournaments at all, and right now I don't plan to. I also fight through the top level of the Spire, so bypass most of the coins requirements.

The Spire isn't involved. It's not changing. I think your tournament experience is perfectly fine, but not reflective of the server-as-a-whole. Especially if anyone negotiating after chapter 4 is suddenly going to need coin again.

On the plus side, that might put a serious damper on some pushing, since giant cities can't front-load small cities with everything they need to negotiate 5000 points.

 

[samidodamage]

I agree with both @MinMax Gamer and @Ashrem (who seem to disagree with each other, lol!)
I'm pretty much 100% combat for tourneys and spire (manually in spire to the top weekly for months now), so coins have not been an issue for me even in my end of Ch15 city for quite some time. That said, I don't think my play style is the norm. If I change to using catering more in the tourneys, it may increase the demand on coins for me, but that will primarily impact the number of kp I buy daily for excess coins since I will continue to fight the spire.
I think a mix of combat/cater/diplomacy is more the norm (fight tourney/diplomacy spire or mix fight/cater tourney and mix fight/diplomacy spire) and for those (most?) folks, I absolutely think the change to the tournament will increase the demand on coins. Especially those past Ch4 who have zero demand for coins to cater the tourneys in its current structure.

 

[hvariidh gwendrot]

1) i hope they don't release the new tournament format till they refigure a few (to me obvious) flaws ... but i have a city science experiment ready to go from smallest almost out dwarves and minimum wonders to my big city parked in constructs and dumping a ton of kp in to my many wonders there (where i have all premium expansions, some bought some scratched out the diamonds and map expand as fast as the clock allows) i pretty much fight tournaments and spire ... what i find fascinating is my big city will be effected the most with new format, and not in a good way and that seems as backwards as it gets ... i don't have push accts i just push my members with goods and services .. so having done all the right things the right way without pushing to have a groovy city then being told oh we are going to jack the math on you is just dumb inno

 

[DeletedUser9601]

Supply? No Demand? Probably. I don't negotiate in the tournaments at all, and right now I don't plan to. I also fight through the top level of the Spire, so bypass most of the coins requirements.

It would be hilarious if Inno changes tournaments to reduce the tedium of fighting or catering 4x, only to replace it with the tedium of visiting every neighbor to have enough coins to cater

 

[Henroo]

It would be hilarious if Inno changes tournaments to reduce the tedium of fighting or catering 4x, only to replace it with the tedium of visiting every neighbor to have enough coins to cater

I prefer PC to mobile for most things. But doing help visits to neighbors is one of the few areas where I think mobile is faster. If I need to raise some coins by going around the whole neighborhood, I will log out of PC and use mobile for the help visits.