You should start to predict what you like to reach and base it on that prediction, you should also rank each part of the setbuilding for it's value.
You should not think in a set format, but a loose puzzle. just ignore there is a set, just look at individual pieces and then figure out your set how to maximise what you want to get in the most limited space.
Example:
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The original set looks like this:
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To make all the connections work it looked as horrible as this:
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But nobody forces you to build a set in this awefull format if you can aquire multiple pieces.
When this set was introduced many years ago I looked at what I wanted from this set.
- My harvest set already produced hundreds of thousands of T1 so the market stall had little value, but was not bad.
- Winter fair was a very good building for T2
- Elvenade booth had no use for me whatsoever
- Sled carousel gave a good amount of T3
- Forst Carved Cristmas tree had no use for me as I already had unlimited mana with both an insane amount of spells and a fully upgraded dragon abbey. so I could maka mana on demand as much as I needed.
So market stalls and sled carousell was what I wanted, anything else was only to serve those 2 buildings. preferred was the market stall but if that did not work out so be it.
So thats what we started to work with
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This turned out to be the best layout for that set for
my specific needs
green are the winter fairs, yellow the sled carrousels, and red was the elvenade booth. which was the only building that had the correct dimensions to neatly fit into the set without crazy angles and empty voids.
I ended up with this in my city as you could mirror this design as much as you want
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This is also the reason why sets can be a very bad idea from a design perspective. each set has strong and weak parts, as long as you only have 1 piece of each set. it balances eachother out. the weak parts are needed to make the strong parts work. but when you get multiple pieces of a set you can find ways to build a set that maximised the strong parts and minimises or sometimes fully elinimate the weak parts.
This is why sets as harvest, winter and spire set can be so overpowered
At these times some of the part where daily prizes so I had to predict and react on what I could possibly get in the future to properly target my dailies.
Whith this set there are no dailies but you might still want to predict your target and which pieces it will reward because you can get multiple parts and it might dictate if you spend a few diamonds more or less to aquire it.
This also creates a different result as which buildings you will own and how it will create a unique set of your own.
For example are you targetting 2 sets +1 piece from the grand prizes or 2 sets -1 piece. what do you need for your unique set?