Overscouting Good/Bad/neutral

[Dew Spinner]

To the best of my memory only 1 player has ever said that without adding the caveat. And they got snarked at for it.

I'm sorry but Players forget to add the disclaimer all the time, see below your recent comment.



He got that from me. I am over scouting to my maximum ability because the dragon abbey and the improved trader use total scouted provinces as a multiplier to determine mana and bonus seed production. I am big on planning ahead .

Edit: dragon abbey and the improved trader use "total cleared provinces" as a multiplier. You have to scout b4 you clear. I confused terms.

 

[Iyapo1]

@Dew Spinner
No. You do not get to cherry pick comments in the middle of a discussion. On this very thread I posted the caveat. I am not going to append every post with:

If you want to keep clearing provinces as cheap as possible, stay within the chapter guideline. In my opinion staying within the chapter guidelines is only useful in the lowest chapters (1-5ish). Below mid chapter 5, if you exceed the number of provinces needed to open the next chapter the cost of clearing provinces in goods and troops rapidly outpaces production abilities.

Players under chapter 8 need to know that if you clear in perfect rings you will hit the orc wall at province 222 iirc it is ring 11 . It is barely possible to break through if you fight and use troop boosting buildings. It is impossible if you cater. You need orcs, so stay off the orc wall(222 provinces) until you are in orcs or ready to enter orcs.

Other than those exceptions, it is best, imo, if you overscout to your cities maximum ability while still meeting your other demands. The number of provinces cleared is a metric in important future productions(seeds) and in pretty ancient wonders(Dragon Abby).

So keeping it cheap will cost you mana and seeds later.

I overscout like a crazy person. Yes my cost for clearing provinces has increased but it has not increased above my production abilities. It has not harmed my city at all and will greatly benifit me in a few chapters.

Because it is really long winded!

 

[ajqtrz]

I did an experiment with my new beta city. I did only what I was required to do until chapter 6. The first 5 chapters with all the event I could do and everything else, left me with all "hard" or "very hard." My troops, for the first 4 chapters didn't fare well so my production was eaten up with catering. Chapter 5 was better as I got my production up enough, and now in chapter 6 I see the province ratings going down from a lot of "very hard" to just "hard" I expect when I get to the beginning of 7 (about 6 researches away) I'll see them go to "medium" with a few "hard." In my Khelonaar city I remember the same pattern, though I didn't restrict my scouting at all.

AJ

 

[Iyapo1]

I did the following experiment


I read through the "long winded" post and found that while it had a lot to say, it wasn't rambling, unorganized or repetitive. The thing is, "long winded" implies a lot of needless hot air. The difference is like the difference between a legal document and a toss off agreement done on a napkin. Sometimes you have to use words to express yourself and you may need a lot of them. Other times brevity is fine even if being too brief leaves some misunderstanding possible.

So I would suggest you save "long winded" for those times when the writer is rambling, unorganized and/or repetitive. Otherwise it seems a bit like a personal attack.

AJ

This was funny! I am fond of brevity for me that was a novella!


Edit: @ajqtrz wow, that is one hell of a stealth edit!

 

[ajqtrz]

This was funny! I am fond of brevity for me that was a novella!

Yeah, a lot of people in our modern age of devices get used to the 10 second read. Unfortunately, it's not always a good thing as it leaves everybody needing to speak in code, often condensing a complex idea into a pithy saying or fancy meme. Good conversation, I think, takes time.

AJ

 

[Dew Spinner]

@Dew Spinner
No. You do not get to cherry pick comments in the middle of a discussion. On this very thread I posted the caveat. I am not going to append every post with:

Because it is really long winded!

If a new player doesn't see the caveat comment then they will assume it is alright to over scout. *see caveat above, might correct that. That is what I mean about new players getting misdirected on the over scouting issue.

 

[Tehya1]

@ajqtrz have you read Nickolas Carr's "is Google making us Stupid?"?

 

[Iyapo1]

I am not appending every conversation with a disclaimer about what I said earlier on in the thread. The very idea is buggy!
People on the forum can and do read! The horror!

 

[Dew Spinner]

This was funny! I am fond of brevity for me that was a novella!

Every post could start with...*see caveat above and that should be enough to make it not long winded.

 

[Dew Spinner]

I am not appending every conversation with a disclaimer about what I said earlier on in the thread. The very idea is buggy!
People on the forum can and do read! The horror!

Then, unfortunately you are going to mislead a lot of new players.

 

[Iyapo1]

Then, unfortunately you are going to mislead a lot of new players.

Because new players can't/don't read?

That is so rude Dew.

 

[Dew Spinner]

Because new players can't/don't read?

That is so rude Dew.

It is not rude, most players new or old...skim. the * followed by something, even "see above" would help but you have said you wouldn't be willing to do that to help new players.

 

[StarLoad]

Dew, you are off base here and out of touch with the reality of the games users and the forums. IF a new player makes it here and that is a rarity they will learn way more than they need and will be able to ask questions and get great answers.
If we are to assume your way of thinking then we dont need posts or forums, just 1 LONG Q&A FAQ, that after 10 responses is wiped and statrts anew so god forbid someone mis-read something.

 

[Deborah M]

Funny thing is that when I started playing, and a long while after then, the world map didn’t even have colors for the degree of difficulty. I have always scouted continuously if I didn’t briefly forget. I currently have 675 provinces that seeds & Dragon Abbey are based on. Please note that I still have times that seeds slow me down. The only time I ever had a problem was when Orcs started being required. Oh well! In my case it meant there were some times I had to spend diamonds if I had to or chose to cater. I always wanted expansions so I never regretted that being a constant part of my quest through the game. My point is that there will never be 100% agreement on how players choose to play the game. I would never Pooh Pooh any newer player scouting what is now called over scouting to gain expansions to grow their city. Frankly, this game starts so slow that I think whatever it takes to keep it moving is a good thing. I do warn about there being that point where Orcs come into the equation.

 

[crackie]

There are two reasons I overscout in early chapters.
1.) Early Game Coin Crunch - Setting up a tin cup outside your neighbor's city walls with a max upgraded MH is the fastest infusion of gold
2.) The game keeps starting my cities in the desert. I have to tunnel very far in one direction to reach civilization for fair trades. I don't know what concentric circles are. My scouting pattern looks more like Italy.

I've also never found "very hard" to be all that taxing on my resources to be a preventative measure. A drop in the bucket. Since I am already way overscouted, now I don't complete the map provinces anymore unless I need to do an event quest.

 

[SoggyShorts]

I have never over scouted and I have never had a problem

@Dew Spinner your city is much larger than mine, by like 48 expansions. Not criticizing just saying my idea of space optimization is not going to resemble your idea if space optimization.

Correct me if my math is wrong here:

Dew is in chapter 10.
Chapter 11 needs 250 provinces cleared

6 Starting expansions
40 tech expansions (assuming end of chapter 10)
38 map expansions (assuming 250 cleared max)
---
84 expansions earned
112 expansions in Dew's city.
=
28 Premium expansions (a few more @~$80 a pop if not at the very end of chapter 10)

So, @Dew Spinner:
is perhaps the fact that you spent 144,050+ Diamonds on expansions a factor in your success "without over scouting?"
If so, perhaps you could add a caveat to every single one of your posts

I mean... you've purchased more expansions than someone would earn if they scouted an extra 300 provinces more than you.

Spoiler: Some more napkin math

I'm sure some of those diamonds are from the spire, let's say Gold Spire for the whole year since you joined, and the last boss always gave you 125 diamonds every single week. Plus you got some genies and flipped the Mystical object for 500 more diamonds every. single. week.
There's still close to 100,000 diamonds missing. So not quite $1,000 but hundreds and hundreds,no?

 

[Dew Spinner]

Dew, you are off base here and out of touch with the reality of the games users and the forums. IF a new player makes it here and that is a rarity they will learn way more than they need and will be able to ask questions and get great answers.
If we are to assume your way of thinking then we dont need posts or forums, just 1 LONG Q&A FAQ, that after 10 responses is wiped and statrts anew so god forbid someone mis-read something.

Apparently something is wrong when the majority of new player complaints relate to over scouting. Warnings are given in game and ignored, by the time they hit the forum their game is already hung but propagating the over scouting on the forum doesn't help either. We all complain about all the dead cities and I am sure over scouting is a big part of the reason for it. Once a new player's city is hung they just abandon it and start a new one with the new found revelation that over scouting isn't a good thing to do.

 

[Dew Spinner]

Correct me if my math is wrong here:

Dew is in chapter 10.
Chapter 11 needs 250 provinces cleared

6 Starting expansions
40 tech expansions (assuming end of chapter 10)
38 map expansions (assuming 250 cleared max)
---
84 expansions earned
112 expansions in Dew's city.
=
28 Premium expansions (a few more @~$80 a pop if not at the very end of chapter 10)

So, @Dew Spinner:
is perhaps the fact that you spent 144,050+ Diamonds on expansions a factor in your success "without over scouting?"
If so, perhaps you could add a caveat to every single one of your posts

I mean... you've purchased more expansions than someone would earn if they scouted an extra 300 provinces more than you.

Spoiler: Some more napkin math

I'm sure some of those diamonds are from the spire, let's say Gold Spire for the whole year since you joined, and the last boss always gave you 125 diamonds every single week. Plus you got some genies and flipped the Mystical object for 500 more diamonds every. single. week.
There's still close to 100,000 diamonds missing. So not quite $1,000 but hundreds and hundreds,no?

I did not have those in early chapters, I have topped the spire every week since the 1st week I unlocked it, refused to spend any diamonds in the Spire until just recently, focused on opening as many mystical object chests as I could, have had Genies out consistently because of topping the spire every week, was lucky with magic residences, magic workshops and moonstone libraries because of topping the spire every week, was in a silver spire FS from the get go and moved to a gold spire FS by chapter 5 , never spent diamonds on anything other than extra builders, MA upgrades, a few magic residences and premium expansions (and now I have added RRs to that list), my city was always space optimized, I didn't waste space on "pretty" buildings,I never moved to the next chapter unless everything was at max upgrade level, I knew which buildings were highly efficient and which ones to go after in events, took advantage of good diamond sales and 10% off expansion sales. My early game success was not from over scouting or premium expansions, it was from learning the game mechanics, thereby avoiding the pitfalls in the game and focusing on the things that would make my city successful. Seeing I didn't have to dig my self out of a self inflicted hole, that allowed me a lot of time to focus on growth and strategy. Advisable game play at the time that I started was to focus on premium expansions over regular expansions because of the lesser penalty of premium expansions and that is what I focused on. Now I am at a point where I will be holding regular expansions in inventory. As my space dwindles I will teleport my excess buildings to allow for the space I will need for the rest of the chapters that I am doing. This strategy will keep my tournament and spire penalty reasonable and allow me to do well in both tournament and spire. I built my city to kill it in spire consistently which, as a side effect, made my city good at everything else. I feel really bad for new players who get over scouted because it sets their game so far behind players who haven't over scouted. I have seen several players state they had to wait 2 months or longer before they could get their cities back on track, that's a lot of lost time and a lot of missed opportunities. With all that said, a 200% diamond sale combined with a 10% off expansion sale goes a long way.

 

[Rp44]

I had provinces designated hard/very hard from chapter two through chapter six *without* being overscouted because when I started playing it was inadvisable to take optional SSUs. I had no problem catering those provinces and certainly did not see it as a waste of resources. That was also before the spire existed and obviously before the tournament changes. But after the Spire was introduced and before the SS formula changed I still did the same with newer cities for awhile, not trusting where the formula would end up, and had no problems because I just didn't go higher in the Spire than was sustainable for each city.

I would advise new players not to overscout by more than a few provinces over what is needed for the next chapter until at least chapter seven/eight. But I am also against telling people the "right" way to play the game, so I always try to remember to say, "This is what worked for me, and why," when I give advice. To me, the orc wall is the only hard limit (and even that can be overcome with diamonds if one desires and can afford it).

I don't think it can be stressed enough that "success" in this game is defined by each player for themselves (and then sometimes by finding like-minded people in a FS). Your priorities influence your strategy and not everyone has the same priorities.

It may be incredibly naive of me, but I try to spin the lack of in-game information about things in a positive light by saying it is INNO's way of giving us the most room to make our own choices. More information about the possible consequences would be great, but what would it say? You may not be able to solve these encounters for awhile and that could be bad because you might need to do them for an event quest? (Obviously sarcasm but the question is sincere.)

 

[ajqtrz]

@ajqtrz have you read Nickolas Carr's "is Google making us Stupid?"?

I've heard of it, but not got my hands on a copy. I have read studies that show the function of the brain is shifting to more visual and that the attention span of people has shortened by a lot since the invention of television. In the end we are becoming a right brain dominant society and while that's good for survival, it isn't so good for building strong civilizations.

There are two reasons I overscout in early chapters.
1.) Early Game Coin Crunch - Setting up a tin cup outside your neighbor's city walls with a max upgraded MH is the fastest infusion of gold
2.) The game keeps starting my cities in the desert. I have to tunnel very far in one direction to reach civilization for fair trades. I don't know what concentric circles are. My scouting pattern looks more like Italy.

I've also never found "very hard" to be all that taxing on my resources to be a preventative measure. A drop in the bucket. Since I am already way overscouted, now I don't complete the map provinces anymore unless I need to do an event quest.

I did visit all my neighbors for the first 5 chapters and you are right that that helped and even solved, in many cases, my coin shortage. I didn't think to "tunnel" toward "civilzation but waited to be moved. About 40% of my neighbors were coins for the first three chapters until I got moved.

In the end I think there are so many variables in playing and learning styles any advice give will be full of caveats. So many that most players won't read the whole thing anyway. One of the problems with a fast paced, low attention span society is that you can either give short, broad, sweeping generalizations that have a lot places where they are wrong, or you can explain everything and have a lot of "TL-DR"'s who still find reasons to object and say you are giving the wrong advice.

In other words, maybe giving advice is just a waste of time except to specific people in specific situations.

AJ