Set Theory - min/maxxing

[DeletedUser9601]

As I try to find a good setup for my winter buildings, I’m realizing a few things:
-I should have better planned which set building I wanted
-These Christmas Trees are massive
-The Winter Market Set doesn’t interlock very easily. Admittedly I didn’t focus much on old sets, but old sets seemed to mesh a little better into something close to a block or rectangle.

But this isn’t a thread to share Winter Set layouts (yet - maybe once the 5th building comes out next week).

What I wanted to hear about is how people value the “dead space” when figuring out how efficient certain layouts are. One of the best parts of crafting is that now its pretty easy to fill in gaps with Unicorns, signposts or codices. On the other hand, those filler buildings are not the best use of space.

Obviously it’s very circumstance specific. And sometimes it’s a hard comparison (eg getting an extra KP a day but creating 3 extra dead squares) that doesn’t boil down to an apples to apples comparison.

So just curious.

 

[SoggyShorts]

If I had to add a new filler building to make the space work without empty squares I would count that against the set as a pure loss when calculating efficiency. This is almost never the case for me though as I do have a half dozen rainbow unicorns/flower cages.

I think I;ll change my method though and ignore dead space if the RR feature and crafting combine to make new rainbow unicorns and flower cages viable as I think will happen.

 

[kctanzen]

I am quite pleased with my approach / luck with the market set of buildings.

I won 2 each of winter fair and market stalls, one sled carousel, and 2 frost covered trees.
I staggered the winter fair and market stalls down one side, put a tree underneath, carousel in next to the tree, and a tree anchoring the other end.
This would have been very disappointing had I not gotten two trees, letting me maximize mana on both of them.

By doing this, I only had a 1 x 2 slot left over than needed to fill in -- just perfect for a unicorn / other honorific type of building.
I cant see how a 1 x 2 slot would have much of a negative impact compared to the massive increase in goodies I can collect city every day.

 

[DeletedUser9601]

I think I like this layout the most:

https://www.elvenarchitect.com/city/planner/a9edbcb1d61b4246ab74124675bac14a/
(set at the bottom middle of the city)
136 squares producing per day:
238,400 mana (mana production was my main focus for this event, so I could replace Burning Pools from Spring 2017 - this is 73 mana per hour per square, which dwarfs anything previously offered).
6KP (my current KP cost is 2M per KP, so quantify that as you will)
150K supplies
600K gold
27.2K steel
32.8K crystal
16.3K elixir

Later on I'll do the math on what this production would cost on with regular buildings. But one thing that helped me settle on this layout is that certain Winter Set buildings only get benefits for 2 connections (the Stalls and the Winter Fair). And my layout foregoes some dead space but gives up further gold from a third Elvenade connection (which is easy to give up) and a broken shard from the Carousel. Two bonuses easy to justify giving up in exchange for less dead space.
The fourth Elvenade connection is really nice (30K supplies), but it was hard to get that bonus consistently. I could have done it, but again, a lot more dead space, and supplies aren't THAT hard to come by. And 30K is 5 runs of Bread in one workshop.

 

[ajqtrz]

Overall I find the sets to be more trouble than they are worth. The reason: my style of play. I move things around constantly. That's what interests me in the game and I'll spend several hours doing so in the Elven Architect and in the game too. So set buildings get moved and lose their production when they are moved, thus lowering their value to me. In addition they usually produce non-boosted goods, coins and supplies all of which I don't really need. Coins and supplies are always full in my city and the space used for the sets I find, for myself, better used for another boosted good building.

As for the use of small filler buildings, I use them sparingly as I seldom have that many spots for them. Since I completely rework my city at the end of each chapter I generally use up the space by arranging things well.

Finally, while I'm thinking of it, I did a survey of empty space and find that most players have too much of it scattered around. If you are one of the players who has the empty spaces here and there in 1, 2, 3 and for squares at a time you might as well have a lot of filler buildings...they are cheap and can, collectively, add up.

Just my thoughts on the matter.

AJ

 

[kctanzen]

The market set was a bit different mechanic than most other sets I have seen before in the game.

2 of the buildings only needed 2 connections for max value, 2 needed 3 connections and only one of the set needed all of the others.
The real key for me -- the max mana value from tree only needed 2 connections.
One extra KP would certainly be a good thing, though not at the expense of creating a large chunk of less than desirable small space.

My decision was based on the mana alone -- how much mana do I gain from the comparable footprint in my city, based on current chapter buildings.
The extra goodies are a bonus especially since smashing them along a border kept things in a 5 x 15 alignment and the biggest culture is easy to find.