Spire catering - Plea to MinMax

[Chimaera1234]

Was wondering what thoughts are on whether all resources have eqaul chance of being needed when catering in Spire. I think the answer is no, I find that orcs are not needed as much as coins or T1, but that's just a feeling.

So if there are 6 options, say coins, supplies, planks, steel, scrolls, orcs, maybe the % split for each cater slot is 25/25/15/15/10/10, and not 16.67% for each material?

Thoughts?

 

[Deleted User - 4646370]

There are in fact two questions :

• What's the probability for a goodtype to be in the choices ? Coins and supplies are always in, but what about the others ?
• Once the choices are fixed, do all choices have the same probability to be in the answer to guess ? (What you asked - and if the answer is no, this would change Spire catering strategy)

And there is one way to estimate these probabilities : statistic study and law of large numbers
So next week I will start to note :

• Spire catering costs (type of goods) for all encounters
• Final answer each time I cater and I can deduce it from final guess.

 

[NightshadeCS]

This may be difficult to determine based on how many people cater, and cater often enough to have a good sample. I personally only cater when the troop mix is VERY bad. Most of my caters require sentient goods and/or seeds, both of which I can ill afford to spare.

We need all those folks who said they cater the whole thing to do some tracking!

 

[Deleted User - 3932582]

Well, there is an easy answer to the original question - no, they're not all equal The most obvious reason for that is if you pay attention, then coins and supplies are always in the mix, 100% of time. Others are certainly not

But looking at almost 1000 catering scenarios, other goods differ as well. So:

- Coins/supplies: 100% encounters each
- Regular and sentient goods (T1/T2/T3/T4/T5/T6): ~40% of encounters each
- Orcs/Mana/Seeds: ~15% of encounters each

So your hunch was correct, orcs do indeed appear less frequently in the catering mix comparing to T1, and certainly to coins. Keep in mind though that these numbers are for a city with all goods unlocked and going all the way top the top. Lower level cities will have different percentages (as will going for less than full Spire), but I am pretty sure that the relationship between these classes will hold.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Was wondering what thoughts are on whether all resources have eqaul chance of being needed when catering in Spire. I think the answer is no, I find that orcs are not needed as much as coins or T1, but that's just a feeling.

So if there are 6 options, say coins, supplies, planks, steel, scrolls, orcs, maybe the % split for each cater slot is 25/25/15/15/10/10, and not 16.67% for each material?

Thoughts?

Do you mean, as the others interpreted, if you have six total goods possible to show up for negotiating in general? Or do you mean if you have six goods showing on the negotiation screen, what are the percentage chance each good has for being wanted by one of the five spirits?

 

[Deleted User - 4646370]

- Coins/supplies: 100% encounters each
- Regular and sentient goods (T1/T2/T3/T4/T5/T6): ~40% of encounters each
- Orcs/Mana/Seeds: ~15% of encounters each

2×100% + 18 goods×40% + 3×15% = 965% but since the average number of choices in the whole Spire is 5.2, the total should be 520% (or less if you don't do the whole Spire)... Or do you mean 40% per tier, which would mean a single good has about the same probability to appear than orcs/mana/seeds ?

 

[Deleted User - 3932582]

Or do you mean 40% per tier, which would mean a single good has about the same probability to appear than orcs/mana/seeds ?

Yes, I meant per tier - I did not track individual goods until much later. It's possible that orcs/mana/seeds appear with the same frequency as, say, marble, but totals were a bit off for that (i.e. more like 39% per tier vs 15% per orcs/mana/seeds). But it is certainly close.

 

[Chimaera1234]

Glad this is being discussed!

I meant that I'm curious regarding the probability of one of the more scarce resources (e.g. orcs, Mana, seeds) being required by the spirits. It's obvious that they are less frequently one of the possible required choices.

So the data that would need to be collected is, generally, in 1000 instances where orcs are an option, how frequently are orcs actually required? Are orcs (Mana, seeds, etc.) needed 15% of the time, 50%, 5%? This would significantly inform catering strategy, perhaps.

(It's possible that it won't inform catering strategy because of course players hang on to these resources more closely anyways, but there are different relationships re: how players use diamonds in spire, among other factors, and etc.)

 

[Deleted User - 3932582]

This would significantly inform catering strategy, perhaps.

(It's possible that it won't inform catering strategy because of course players hang on to these resources more closely anyways, but there are different relationships re: how players use diamonds in spire, among other factors, and etc.)

Yeah, I don't see how this would change catering strategy in a material way. As someone conserving orcs for a very long time, I can tell you that you're much better off going off scarcity of resources available to you. I doubt that there is any disbalance in required vs proposed goods, and if there is it won't really change much. So for orcs - or sentient goods when I was playing chapter 15 - you just use them as a last resort, when no other good would work. If you have a choice to make, you always choose abundant resources. Because in all likelihood the value of incremental abundant resources to you is zero (unlike for the scarce ones).