Discussion The Cauldron - Discussion Thread

[Dew Spinner]

Interesting because when you have 20 diplomas, it's Ear Truffle instead of Cotton Clouds. Even a quick look at game files shows that it should be Cotton Clouds same as you said but when you play with it more (eg enter both ingredients and see what it does), it shows that Ear Truffle is better for MC Strength. I've double checked and it's definitely Ear Truffle (you can see my values here). I think it has something to do with how many other effects are affected by that ingredient. This is the only discrepancy I've found so far.

Could you please add this to the Cauldron Recipe thread?

 

[Silly Bubbles]

or they're doing it because they enjoy actually playing the game and figuring stuff out. if i was to come up with real "recipes" you can bet i'd post on my own subscriber site and let people pay for it. if people wanna be that sort of lazy, i'll make em pay for it. Inno LOVES people who dont want to learn b/c it means diamonds get bought and spent.

It's definitely hard to work to make a guide that is not only correct but also easily understood. I suppose if it was rewarding then someone would already do something.

 

[Smooper]

It's definitely hard to work to make a guide that is not only correct but also easily understood. I suppose if it was rewarding then someone would already do something.

Looks like you did...thank you. And thanks to all the people who post their work and knowledge on here.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

It's definitely hard to work to make a guide that is not only correct but also easily understood. I suppose if it was rewarding then someone would already do something.

I am starting to think you would need a guide for each number of effects you have unlocked. My chapter 18 Beta city has 15 of them, while my main chapter 20 city has all 20 unlocked, and there are definitely differences in cost and percentages between the two.

 

[MaidenFair]

I have a lot of notes I’ve taken on the Cauldron so far and some really useful patterns I’ve noticed but I’m still trying to figure out how to condense and synthesize all the info into a form that’s useable for anyone else…

I am starting to think you would need a guide for each number of effects you have unlocked. My chapter 18 Beta city has 15 of them, while my main chapter 20 city has all 20 unlocked, and there are definitely differences in cost and percentages between the two.

Yes, as far as I can tell, recipes need to be diploma-specific, not universal.

 

[Silly Bubbles]

I am starting to think you would need a guide for each number of effects you have unlocked. My chapter 18 Beta city has 15 of them, while my main chapter 20 city has all 20 unlocked, and there are definitely differences in cost and percentages between the two.

I have a lot of notes I’ve taken on the Cauldron so far and some really useful patterns I’ve noticed but I’m still trying to figure out how to condense and synthesize all the info into a form that’s useable for anyone else…

Yes, there are differences in cost and percentages. There are not huge differences in what ingredients are useful for each effect. I think that a guide will never be perfect, all it needs is just a general guideline to give people a reasonable start. It's the same as using auto fight and manual fight in tournament. Auto fight is good enough for most people but if you really want good result you need to use manual fight.

 

[Katwick]

I am starting to think you would need a guide for each number of effects you have unlocked. My chapter 18 Beta city has 15 of them, while my main chapter 20 city has all 20 unlocked, and there are definitely differences in cost and percentages between the two.

NEGATIVE CONTRIBUTION INGREDIENTS
Effective recipe design is all about the Diplomas that have NOT yet been earned, because a missing Diploma bumps up contribution from the other three possible Effects of the 4 (1-12) for each Ingredient. Anybody who posts a recipe, without indicating their earned Diplomas, simple doesn't understand Recipe Design.

And it's going to get MUCH more interesting. You may be aware that the Ingredient Effects in the Cauldron are:

• Four adjacent columns for Diplomas 1-12
• Four ODD adjacent or four EVEN adjacent columns for Diplomas 13-24

Once somebody gets to level 20 (currently) the recipes get pretty uninteresting because there are n't any GAPs.

BUT - I'm speculating that, for Cauldron Version II, we're going to see NEGATIVE Effect Ingredients, let's call them SNAKE VENOMS!!

• Positive Odd interlaces with Negative Even
• Positive Even interlaces with Negative Odd
• This would pretty much DOUBLE the effectiveness of the Current Ingredients, because you could DESIGN recipes that exploited the GAPS to knock out the Effects that you didn't want.

There's not much point in buffing an effect up to 100% if you only have a low % Success rate, and never get to drink it.

 

[MaidenFair]

.

BUT - I'm speculating that, for Cauldron Version II, we're going to see NEGATIVE Effect Ingredients, let's call them SNAKE VENOMS!!
….

• This would pretty much DOUBLE the effectiveness of the Current Ingredients, because you could DESIGN recipes that exploited the GAPS to knock out the Effects that you didn't want.

There's not much point in buffing an effect up to 100% if you only have a low % Success rate, and never get to drink it.

Um, they already work that way, unless I’m misunderstanding you…at least for the first seven diplomas (all I’ve worked through yet), the four ingredients that trigger an effect are immediately followed by three that cancel it, in various ratios. Example: the very first effect, Magical Tax increase, is triggered by all the ingredients on the top shelf, but we’ll use Fire Spore as an example. This Tax effect, as produced by Fire Spore, is canceled out by the first three ingredients on the second shelf at a ratio of 3 Medusa Eggs to 1 Fire Spore, 3 Caterpillar Limes to 1 Fire Spore, and 1 Nightshade Blossom to .6 Fire Spore. I have the data on all the other ingredient interactions up through 7 diplomas, and this pattern is holding true (I am adding one diploma a week as I work my way through, until I hit my current cap at 11 diplomas, since I’ve just started ch. 12).

 

[Katwick]

Um, they already work that way, unless I’m misunderstanding you…at least for the first seven diploma

Somewhat, but I'm talking about some SERIOUS effects. Actual negative effects.

Right now, for each adjacent group of 4 Effects (one staggered group of 4 for each Ingredient, if we're just looking at Diplomas 4-12,) the total is forced to Seven, multipled by a percentage that's driven by the total number of ingredients.

• 1 1 2 3 is the norm
• 0 1 2 3 becomes 0 7/6 2*7/6 3*7/6
• 0 0 2 3 becomes 0 0 2*7/5 3*7/5
• 0 0 0 3 becomes 0 0 0 3*7/4
• Etc.
• If you just use ONE ingredient, the multiplier is 20, and you can get combinations like 0 10 10 0 or 5 0 0 15 by clever positioning.

I've offered several examples at Combining Ingredients. The results are for 9 Diplomas, and while you'll get different results for other Diploma levels, the concept remains the same for each of the Ingredients at every level.

If you're using MULTIPLE different Ingredients, then the 1123s will overlap with an offset, so you'll get combined results like:

• 1 1 2 3 _ (times 20/7)
• _ 1 1 2 3 (times 20/7)
• 1 2 3 5 3 (times 28.3/14) << I'm still working on the exact scaling factors

And of course it gets even more complicated if one of the columns has been knocked out by an unearned Diploma.

But I'm not talking about JUST the clever positioning of positive contributions. I'm projecting that Cauldron II will offer 12 more ingredients that include actual NEGATIVE contributions, like "Cobra Venom", that will allow you to suppress the contributions for Diplomas that you ALREADY have, and thereby force the % Success Rate contributions much higher than you can ever get with just our current positive only Ingredients. The End Total will still need to be the same (7 14 21 28 etc) even though there are now some NEGATIVE numbers in the mix.

And suddenly the boring recipes that are possible will 20 Diplomas, where there ARE NO cancellations, will become an interesting time sink for our End Level players, who can only improve things, at the moment, by pouring thousands of Goods into Studying Effects. After all, what's the point of having a maxed out Effect buff if you can never fill a goblet because of a low % Success rate.

 

[MaidenFair]

Somewhat, but I'm talking about some SERIOUS effects. Actual negative effects.

Right now, for each adjacent group of 4 Effects (one staggered group of 4 for each Ingredient, if we're just looking at Diplomas 4-12,) the total is forced to Seven, multipled by a percentage that's driven by the total number of ingredients.

• 1 1 2 3 is the norm
• 0 1 2 3 becomes 0 7/6 2*7/6 3*7/6
• 0 0 2 3 becomes 0 0 2*7/5 3*7/5
• 0 0 0 3 becomes 0 0 0 3*7/4
• Etc.
• If you just use ONE ingredient, the multiplier is 20, and you can get combinations like 0 10 10 0 or 5 0 0 15 by clever positioning.

I've offered several examples at Combining Ingredients. The results are for 9 Diplomas, and while you'll get different results for other Diploma levels, the concept remains the same for each of the Ingredients at every level.

If you're using MULTIPLE different Ingredients, then the 1123s will overlap with an offset, so you'll get combined results like:

• 1 1 2 3 _ (times 20/7)
• _ 1 1 2 3 (times 20/7)
• 1 2 3 5 3 (times 28.3/14) << I'm still working on the exact scaling factors

And of course it gets even more complicated if one of the columns has been knocked out by an unearned Diploma.

But I'm not talking about JUST the clever positioning of positive contributions. I'm projecting that Cauldron II will offer 12 more ingredients that include actual NEGATIVE contributions, like "Cobra Venom", that will allow you to suppress the contributions for Diplomas that you ALREADY have, and thereby force the % Success Rate contributions much higher than you can ever get with just our current positive only Ingredients. The End Total will still need to be the same (7 14 21 28 etc) even though there are now some NEGATIVE numbers in the mix.

And suddenly the boring recipes that are possible will 20 Diplomas, where there ARE NO cancellations, will become an interesting time sink for our End Level players, who can only improve things, at the moment, by pouring thousands of Goods into Studying Effects. After all, what's the point of having a maxed out Effect buff if you can never fill a goblet because of a low % Success rate.

I appreciate you taking the time to share your math, but I'm really confused by this post because I'm pretty sure my example above does exactly what you're saying. Each effect already has some ingredients that cancel it out, a negative contribution if you will, allowing the possibility of tailoring recipes to the exact effects you want without random "hangers-on".

If I only have 2 diplomas (Tax and Supply) and I add 1 Medusa Egg (supply increase) and 3 Eye Sprouts (no effect of their own with only two diplomas) the Supply Increase will cancel out and despite having 4 ingredients in the Cauldron, I will have a 0% chance of triggering anything; the effect chance screen will be blank. If I then add 1 Fire Spore (Tax increase) to that, I will suddenly have a 49% chance of triggering a Tax increase, and still a 0% chance of triggering a Supply increase because that has been canceled out by the Eye Sprouts, but I don't have enough Medusa Eggs in the recipe to also cancel the Tax effect from the Fire Spore. (This would be so much easier to show in a video; I gotta figure out how to do screen recordings!)

Of course as more diplomas/effects are added, it becomes more complex to cancel out all the unwanted effects, as you may cancel out one effect with another ingredient but that ingredient adds its own new effect and so on, yet it is still possible to cancel many/most of them as far as I've been able to experiment, especially if you are okay with having, say, a chance at all the troop health boosters, or all the Standard Goods boosters.

(Again, disclaimer, I realise I've only had access to an account with 7 diplomas so far, so I know I can't guarantee it continues to work the same way with higher #s of diplomas.)

 

[Katwick]

Verification Recipes Twelve Once etc
I'm pretty sure my example above does exactly what you're saying. Each effect already has some ingredients that cancel it out, a negative contribution if you will, allowing the possibility of tailoring recipes to the exact effects you want without random "hangers-on".

Take a close look at Verification Recipes - Twelve Once etc, especially at the second row where the associated Diploma is indicated for each Effect. Then look at the bottom of the post where I've tried to explain how it all hangs together.

The sneaky concept is that the Diploma Effects are NOT chapter sequential, they're sprinkled around so MOST lower level recipes are able to take advantage of the gaps that are created by the (missing) higher level Diplomas, which looks a LOT like a negative contribution because the remaining active contributions steal from each other when they're combined.

In general, when you earn a new Diploma, your recipes that CROSSED the related column are going to go sour, because 1120 (0=no Diploma) looks a whole lot worse when they can no longer borrow the missing 3 points from 1123 ( if 3 were the MOST RECENT Diploma and now claims its own points.)

As a consequence, your best Recipes will pretty much only last for ONE Diploma level, and then you'll have to start over again with clever recipes that cross the remaining gaps. For example, Diploma level 4 occupies column 10, while Diploma level occupies column 1. So the ingredients that enter or cross that gap are pretty interesting.

• 20/7 is the scaling factor for a single ingredient recipe, which will always have 7 total Ingredient Vector points
  • In the Brewing Widget, your Single Ingredient Recipe % Success rates will always add up to 20.0%
  • Yeah, I know about the 20.1 that's due to roundoff error in the displayed 2.9s. It's actually
    20/7*(1 1 2 3) = 2.857143 + 2.857143 + 5.714286 + 8.571429 and the displayed values all happen to round up
• The Ingredient vector is always 1 1 2 3, but we're left with only 1 0 0 3 if the other elements _ 1 2 _ are knocked out by missing Diplomas
• Now we'll have to scale the remaining Ingredient vector elements back up to a total of 7, so 7/4*(1 0 0 3).
• Now we'll throw in the recipe scaling factor, and a little bit of Algebra 101 will get us to
  • 20/7*7/4*(1 0 0 3) =
  • 20/4*(1 0 0 3) =
  • 5*(1 0 0 3) =
  • (5 0 0 15)
• 5 0 0 15 for Fire_Spore
  • Because it covers
    • Column 10 (Diploma 3 Barracks Strength) which you'll have when you complete the Cauldron Tech
    • Column 11 (Diploma 11) which comes much later
    • Column 12 (Diploma 12) which comes much later
    • wraps
    • Column 01 (Diploma 1 Coins) which you'll have when you complete the Cauldron Tech
  • 20/7 is the scaling factor for a single ingredient recipe (it gets worse)
  • When you add a LOT of ingredients, the concepts are all the same for the additive recipe vector, but the "number of ingredients" factor is logarithmic, so
    • Going from 03 to 04 of the same Ingredients might raise your % Success rate by a third
    • Going from 09 to 12 of the same ingredients might raise your % Success rate by only a fourth
  • Did I mention that the COSTS go up really fast?
    • The Next Price, for the Ingredient that you just added, goes up by 154% (every time) while
    • The Next Price of all other Ingredients (that you didn't even touch) goes up by 110%
    • So the prices go up FAST, but the benefits go up SLOW
  • There'll undoubtedly be some Instants, Event Buildings, and Ancient Wonders that will ease the pain, but it will still hurt
• 0 0 8 12 for Beetlenut
• 0 3.3 6.7 10 for Manna_Shell
• 2.9 2.9 5.7 8.6 for several boring Ingredients
• 5 5 10 0 for Cotton_Cloud
• 10 10 0 0 for Ear_Truffle

Diploma level 4 is a very clever starting spot (the Cauldron is in the middle of Chapter 5) because it has

• Basic Goods in column 10, null 11, null 12, (wrap), Coins in column 1, null 2, Barracks Strength in column 3, null 4, Supplies in column 5.
• Refined Goods in column 6 is added by Diploma 5 (which will mess up your Supply recipes)
• Precious Goods in column 2 is added by Diploma 6 (which will mess up the rest of your low level recipes)
• Your Cerberus (Training Strength) in column 7 is added by Diploma 7
• Lest you think this stuff was all accidental, note that the Strength buff for Barracks, Training, & Mercenary will NEVER overlap for the same Ingredient, so you can buff them ALL with the same recipe, and freeze out most of the other kinds of buffs.

It's a very elegant design.

 

[Smooper]

I will give the cauldron about a month but I don't understand it at all and there is no such thing as a simple recipe just to get a minimal bonus. They make you use all your goblets so if you have the result you want earlier, you have to keep brewing. I followed Soggy's simple recipe and dumped tons of gold and supplies in and got a terrible recipe which upped my gold production for 5 hours. Not at all what he was intending the potion to do. Level 49 where the gold coin is and I have no idea what that means or how to change it because that is the most useless place to have a high level. Going to try again this week but can see this is not for normal players. The top 1% of Elvenar player will use this. Way less than tournament or spire.

 

[SoggyShorts]

I gotta figure out how to do screen recordings!)

With a Nvidia video card it's as simple as pressing ALT-F9 to start&stop recording.

 

[SoggyShorts]

I followed Soggy's simple recipe and dumped tons of gold and supplies in and got a terrible recipe which upped my gold production for 5 hours. Not at all what he was intending the potion to do. Level 49 where the gold coin is and I have no idea what that means or how to change it because that is the most useless place to have a high level.

You must have misunderstood the instructions.
"2. Spend 1 full storage of coins and supplies in the study phase to buy WP and upgrade the 3 "mayhem" buffs evenly (increase the strength of barracks, merc, and training grounds)"

If you did that, your "Magical Tax Increase" would be level 1(not 49) and your "General's Mayhem, Monster's mayhem, and Mercenaries Mayhem" buffs would be enhanced and ready for next week's brewing.

 

[Smooper]

You must have misunderstood the instructions.
"2. Spend 1 full storage of coins and supplies in the study phase to buy WP and upgrade the 3 "mayhem" buffs evenly (increase the strength of barracks, merc, and training grounds)"

If you did that, your "Magical Tax Increase" would be level 1(not 49) and your "General's Mayhem, Monster's mayhem, and Mercenaries Mayhem" buffs would be enhanced and ready for next week's brewing.

View attachment 14801

Well I didn't get the mayhem by adding those ingredients equally and I just kept following what I thought was right and ended up with garbage. As I said I will try again and if I don't get mayhem on the spell I will just bow out.

 

[SoggyShorts]

Well I didn't get the mayhem by adding those ingredients equally and I just kept following what I thought was right and ended up with garbage. As I said I will try again and if I don't get mayhem on the spell I will just bow out.

It's a % chance, you won't get a mayhem buff every week.
Assuming 2,000 tournament points you will get 5 tries(goblets) though, so you should get a military buff more often than not.
Just be sure to upgrade the 3 mayhem buffs before Saturday so when you do get that buff next week it's decent.

 

[crackie]

I just kept following what I thought was right and ended up with garbage. As I said I will try again and if I don't get mayhem on the spell I will just bow out.

My chap 5 city only has 2 diplomas bc there are optional techs I have skipped and will save for quests. There are also only 2 things I could get boosts for...coin and supplies (need 3 diplomas for General's Mayhem). I have so many ingredients that do nothing at all when you add them. It's both sad and hilarious. I'll still cauldron anyway because it still takes 2 seconds to claim my free garbage. Unless maybe I save all my goblets for when they allow you to pick how many goblets that poor lady drinks at a time versus having to use them all like it currently is.

 

[samidodamage]

@Smooper
I'm taking a very slow approach to learning the cauldron, and what I've figured out so far: it's not going to be something I can depend on until the effects are upgraded anyway. The complicated system means it's going to take awhile for the much better minds than mine to develop a guide I can understand and use regarding recipes and brewing. So, I've developed my own 'cauldron for dummies' system for what to do while I wait:
What I've figured out so far on browser: there are 2 phases to cauldron. In the first one, you fiddle around with ingredients, etc, make a potion, and use it. I'm getting all kinds of useless stuff right now. I'm brewing fairly early in the week, but I'm not basing anything I'm doing (tourney, spire, etc) on any cauldron effects. I'm watching my Witch points and only using a few there anyway. Once the potions are brewed/drank, the cauldron moves to phase 2 'Improve Effects'.
When the cauldron is in the 'Improve Effects' phase and you open it: It defaults to the list of effects and the effect in the top left spot (Magical Tax Increase) is selected by default. Think of it like opening your barracks and the Sword Dancer/Barbarian is selected by default. You're using shortcut keys to train Treants/Knights, so you're pressing the 4 key. The first time you press the 4, it selects the Treants/Knights and the 2nd, 3rd, etc. time you press 4, it puts them in the training slot. For cauldron, you have to select 'General's Mayhem' before adding any witch points. Anytime you leave and come back, you'll have to select anything you want [other than 'Magical Tax Increase'] each time. There's also a scroll bar to use if you're looking for one other than the 9 effects that are showing in the window.
Then, there's a dropdown in the 'Donate' area where you select what goods you want to convert to more witch points to improve the effect you've selected. For the rest of the week, each time I see I'm getting full on coins*, I go there instead of to the kp bar or wholesaler, select the effect (Mayhems for me) I'm working on, then off load some coins. Since you can make partial donations, I just bleed off however many coins I need to, then click on the green witch points bar in the 'Mayhem' box until I can't anymore.
Eventually, I'll have the Mayhems at a decent level and I'll start learning more about recipes and how to improve my chances at those in the brew phase. And, I'll have reached the decent levels by only using the weekly Witch points and bleeding off stuff I'd be bleeding off somewhere anyway, so zero cost. Since the donation resources costs increase with each use and don't reset, it's going to take me awhile to get the military effects up to a decent level anyway. By then, I'm sure someone will be able to explain recipes/brewing to a 5 yr old and I'll finally start to catch on, lol!
*coins: you could do the same with excess supplies. I don't because my excess supplies go into troop training. I have loads of time boosts and will use them to free up training slots to use supplies. But, I'm primarily combat, so it is a waste for me to use the wholesaler anyway.

 

[Yogi Dave]

Well I didn't get the mayhem by adding those ingredients equally and I just kept following what I thought was right and ended up with garbage. As I said I will try again and if I don't get mayhem on the spell I will just bow out.

I'm being overcautious by writing this to be sure there isn't a misunderstanding.

Before you spend your witch points, you need to click the one of the mayhem icons to select it, as is shown in the image @SoggyShorts posted. If you don't select the one you want, it defaults to the tax increase. Since your tax increase is 49, it sounds like you didn't change which potion effect you were improving.

If you already knew this, I apologize for the post.

 

[Rip Outtheir Spleens]

I for one use the Magic Academy.

View attachment 14749

I use the MA also, but I use Pet Food like water. Apparently, you never use it. Different playing styles. I feed my Fire Phoenix, Twilight Phoenix, and Brown Bear every Tournament. I rarely have more than 6 Pet Food in my inventory.