No more Province Expansion :/

[DeletedUser3507]

Originally when I started squad size was not a factor in tourneys. So I did all the optionals up to chapter 12, the one optional I am skipping this time. Inno should have let us select which optionals we had done, but no they didn't even try that.

 

[SoggyShorts]

Low squad size and a heavy focus on autofighting tournaments is a combo which I believe to be inherently imbalanced. You produce squads faster and for cheaper cost, only because you did not invest in optional squad technology.

That's true, so my SS is about 30% smaller, which would explain the difference between 2500 and 1900 points in the tournament.
I don't think it also explains all of the 350% more goods though....or does it?

If it does, then it's even more imbalanced than I thought.

 

[Pheryll]

If it does, then it's even more imbalanced than I thought.

How about the two of you compare your tournament cater costs next tourney? Only way to answer this statement is with data.

 

[SoggyShorts]

How about the two of you compare your tournament cater costs next tourney? Only way to answer this statement is with data.

Yeah if someone else is willing, that's great, but doing 2K points in the tournament on 3 cities with autofight is about all of the time I'm willing to put into it.
We are already convinced that skipping SS is better, just how much better doesn't really matter other than to satisfy curiosity.

 

[DeletedUser3507]

ok I will keep track of mine

 

[kctanzen]

During the last tourney, I took a required squad upgrade (thanks orcs tech tree) to get closer to the breeding grounds tech.
My cater costs increased roughly 20% in the same tier for the 2 provinces I remember checking.
The goods themselves changed as well (marble : steel) // (scrolls : crystal) // (dust : elixir)

 

[DeletedUser3507]

Spoiler: Final squad size for chapter 12 with 1 optional skipped

And @SoggyShorts you finally made my ignore list.

Spoiler: Final AW Tech

 

[DeletedUser6375]

If you are serious, send me a PM with a list of buildings that you are absolutely not willing to part with, and I'll see what I can come up with.

Elven Architect is the best meta game.

 

[SoggyShorts]

And @SoggyShorts you finally made my ignore list.

Not sure what I did to deserve that, but thank you. I shall wear it as a badge of honor.

 

[dikke ikke]

I do all ss upgrades, i want to keep my provinces in blue. Somewhere between the end of level 12 and the start of level 13 i will reach the 459 barrier and i will have used all 'normal' expansions and 1 primary expansion, leaving 23 unused. If at the beginning of level 13 there are 200 diamonds to earn, i can buy another primary expansion. Wishing well did not give me diamonds so far

 

[DeletedUser1390]

There are always challenges for using space and deciding what buildings to build and keep, whatever the size of your city.
But it is more fun with more space, offering more options, and it is much more gratifying to have your province conquests rewarded with expansions than not.
Also, it's worth bearing in mind that some players (like myself) design their cities partially on aesthetic or thematic grounds, not solely for maximum efficiency.

 

[SoggyShorts]

There are always challenges for using space and deciding what buildings to build and keep, whatever the size of your city.

I would say that there are greater and lesser challenges for using space depending on the size of your city.

and it is much more gratifying to have your province conquests rewarded with expansions than not.

I agree, doing a task and getting a reward is the basis of almost all games, but how much a player values a reward is often linked to how much effort was spent in getting it, as well as how limited the number of rewards are.

Also, it's worth bearing in mind that some players (like myself) design their cities partially on aesthetic or thematic grounds, not solely for maximum efficiency.

Indeed, but aesthetics is very difficult to define. Some find a sprawling city to be visually pleasing, others find neat&orderly to be desirable.

Generally I find Elvenar to have a pretty good balance for space. Players are given enough to progress smoothly if they are careful, and have the option to buy more space so that they don't have to be number crunchers. The other way to do it would be to give everyone enough space so that no one needs to build an efficient city, but that brings a decrease in challenge, and may still never be enough for some players. You can see evidence of this from players that have 30+ more expansions than others in the same chapter, and yet are still asking for even more space.

At this point in the game's progress you "need" about 95 expansions to move swiftly through the final chapter, and can get a dozen more than that from clearing the max world provinces. 12 "extra" expansions should satisfy most players desire to have a pretty city. (not counting diamonds)

Since you can't please everyone, I'm guessing that the devs have chosen to "aim for the middle" thereby maintaining the desired level of challenge for most players.

 

[DeletedUser15456]

LIES! You are dying to know.

Also like @samidodamage said, I've been doing the "Free player challenge" since I started, and I'm not even close to hitting 457 provinces cleared.
I don't even know what I would do with the 8 more free expansions I have coming from the map, let alone 22 more expansions from diamonds.

• Finish major events in 4 days instead of 5? Yay?
• Do the FA 90% all by myself? Hoorah?
• Build even more settlement buildings that I wouldn't run due to seed production? Yippie?

I'm less than a week away from finishing the last chapter with no diamond purchases, and I get 2K+ points in tournaments. I just don't see the need for more space.

The #1 problem advanced players have with space is that they are nuts about factories.
There are some players with 6 T4 buildings at max level. WHY?!!?
I have 2 at level 24, and I only run them about once every 4 days, and I post at a 10-25% discount because I want trades quickly.

The entirety of chapter 12 techs take a total of 330K T2, 330K T3 and zero T1
A single level 23 factory can make that much in 30 days, yet players insist that they need 7 of each factory. If I saw consistent tournament scores in the 4,000s, I'd understand, but no- these same players are getting under 2k, so where does it go?

I have a couple of questions for you as a newbie player of only a couple of months. How many T1 and T2 factories did you build when you were first growing your city? Just curious if you built a bunch and then sold them off as you upgraded and moved into T3, AWs, etc. The same for residences. I have two cities, and in both, I had to build a ton of residences in the beginning. In my first city, I sold a bunch when I finally got to superior residences, and I can't wait to do the same in my second city.

In my smaller city (Arendyll - which is my favorite FS and therefore my favorite city), I have 8 of my T1 boosted right now and 3 T2. I want to be able to grow my city but help my FS with trades as well...not that they really need help from my puny city, but I like to accept trades and feel like I'm benefiting the group. I have 5 armories (mostly bc I needed to build troops as fast as possible during the last FA and someone told me that 5 was a good number to have going forward). I'm able to battle through most of the tournaments at this point, but I do have to negotiate to clear provinces. I've tried to level up my barracks as I'm able.

I'm about to go check out your city layout and see what I should maybe change around and how to plan going forward. I just wanted to see how you may have changed as you grew in case I should take that into consideration since I'm very early stage. Thanks in advance!

 

[SoggyShorts]

I have a couple of questions for you as a newbie player

Up until chapter 6 (dwarves) I had 6:3:1, but I had steel boost which makes twice as much as your marble(and is twice as big)
After that the basic rule for me was that every time I upgraded my Tier 1 buildings to a new size, I deleted one.
Until chapter 8 where I was at 3:3:2, but added a T3 for 3:3:3 and stuck with that for 4 chapters
It wasn't until chapter 12 that I dropped to 2:2:2

For your military, it's your barracks that increases speed of training. The only purpose of armories is to keep your barracks running 24/7 while you are AFK. This means that everyone needs a different number of them based on schedule.
The basic method for this is to max out your barracks, then fill it and see if the total cooking time is longer than you plan to sleep.
You can also use this calculator to figure out what combination of max barracks and armories you need to maintain the queue time that you want.
www.tinyurl.com/trainingcalc

EDIT: I had a look at your Aren city, here:
http://www.elvenarchitect.com/city/planner/095e7e3df09847789d824ba744f52405/
and there's really nothing I would change.
Your 8 marbles are fine, and when you unlock level 15 marbles you can have 6 of those instead, making 100% more than you are now.
(plus any increase in your boost % from relics)
I think your training queue is just over 6 hours, so probably a focus on maxing out the barracks and levelling your armories should do it for now.

 

[DeletedUser15456]

Up until chapter 6 (dwarves) I had 6:3:1, but I had steel boost which makes twice as much as your marble(and is twice as big)
After that the basic rule for me was that every time I upgraded my Tier 1 buildings to a new size, I deleted one.
Until chapter 8 where I was at 3:3:2, but added a T3 for 3:3:3 and stuck with that for 4 chapters
It wasn't until chapter 12 that I dropped to 2:2:2

For your military, it's your barracks that increases speed of training. The only purpose of armories is to keep your barracks running 24/7 while you are AFK. This means that everyone needs a different number of them based on schedule.
The basic method for this is to max out your barracks, then fill it and see if the total cooking time is longer than you plan to sleep.
You can also use this calculator to figure out what combination of max barracks and armories you need to maintain the queue time that you want.
www.tinyurl.com/trainingcalc

EDIT: I had a look at your Aren city, here:
http://www.elvenarchitect.com/city/planner/095e7e3df09847789d824ba744f52405/
and there's really nothing I would change.
Your 8 marbles are fine, and when you unlock level 15 marbles you can have 6 of those instead, making 100% more than you are now.
(plus any increase in your boost % from relics)
I think your training queue is just over 6 hours, so probably a focus on maxing out the barracks and levelling your armories should do it for now.

Thanks for the information and for taking a look at my city. I really appreciate the advice!

 

[hvariidh gwendrot]

ok here i go again ) .... i am just in lvl 2 and like the game (in theory) i have just unlocked city expansion 3 and instead of letting me expand it says i have the opportunity of spending diamonds to get it ?? if i am mistaken in my reading of this please let me know because that is one messed up research award and if the rest of these are going to only let me have the chance to spend money here then they are wasting research spots and should just have a money screen for pay for play stuff .. and if anyone is in the know what exactly is my expansion limit for clearing provinces ? because i spent to get my builders but the rest is going to be free play or quit

 

[Deborah M]

ok here i go again ) .... i am just in lvl 2 and like the game (in theory) i have just unlocked city expansion 3 and instead of letting me expand it says i have the opportunity of spending diamonds to get it ?? if i am mistaken in my reading of this please let me know because that is one messed up research award and if the rest of these are going to only let me have the chance to spend money here then they are wasting research spots and should just have a money screen for pay for play stuff .. and if anyone is in the know what exactly is my expansion limit for clearing provinces ? because i spent to get my builders but the rest is going to be free play or quit

You do not have to spend diamonds. If you look at the rectangle above the diamonds it tells you how many coins you must have to place the tech tree expansions.

 

[Ashrem]

ok here i go again ) .... i am just in lvl 2 and like the game (in theory) i have just unlocked city expansion 3 and instead of letting me expand it says i have the opportunity of spending diamonds to get it ?? if i am mistaken in my reading of this please let me know because that is one messed up research award and if the rest of these are going to only let me have the chance to spend money here then they are wasting research spots and should just have a money screen for pay for play stuff .. and if anyone is in the know what exactly is my expansion limit for clearing provinces ? because i spent to get my builders but the rest is going to be free play or quit

You probably don't have enough coins in your hall to pay for it. Look on the line above the diamonds, and hover, and you'll see what coin you have vs what you need..
If you don't have as many coins as needed to pay the green bar price, it will be greyed out, so diamonds will look like your only option. If you wait and gather more coins you can place it.

 

[hvariidh gwendrot]

thanks

 

[InvincibleRailroad]

Question for SoggyShorts. I was wondering if you would please take a look at my city and evaluate it for any changes/improvements you would make. I know you are very helpful and that is what I am looking for HELP. I am about halfway through Halflings at this time and want to run a very efficient city.
Thank You