Tournament checkpoints

[DeletedUser43]

Checkpoint 5 - in Beta. I have a couple of nearby neighbors, and we all jumped on the same few Tournaments.

I don't believe you understand. Or you played when it was easier or something. But, a couple of neighbors helping you won't get you to checkpoint 5 where you need 20,000 points.

 

[DeletedUser627]

"It's a won-der-ful day in the Neighbor-less, a beau-ti-ful day in the Neighbor - can you find one? Could you spot one?"

 

[DeletedUser61]

Sure lots of entertainment in fighting the tournaments. [I love sarcasm]

But you can have it both ways. Just use the Auto-Fight button, and combat collapses into a logistics puzzle.

Do you understand the combat model WELL ENOUGH to solve the Auto-Fight puzzle? Predict what's going to happen, and then click Auto-Complete and watch to see how well you understand the Initiative Bar. The Sorceress III units are something else. They're deadly.

Auto-Fight is certainly more interesting than deciding whether you want to use the 3-hour option or the 9-hour option in your Gem Factory.

 

[DeletedUser1122]

The Sorceress III units are something else.

I would assume that one of your personas would know I fight human. As such I don't have "something else".

deciding whether you want to use the 3-hour option or the 9-hour option in your Gem Factory.

Don't want to make the "builder's" game to complex for you but its how many to build, how to locate,relocate and of course relocate with each upgrade. To balance the population, culture and space. Then trading and saving for negotiation and for upgrades. Opps, maybe just keep working on your 3/9 hour cycle decisions.

 

[DeletedUser61]

To balance the population, culture and space.

The Priests do a pretty good job as well. They have similar statistics, although they're not quite as tough, so it's helps to have a Paladin around to catch the spears.

It just so happens that I prefer to play the game such my Cost/Benefit ratio is minimized, because that's how Project Managers make their money in meatbag space. I'm actually rather fond of the Kan-Ban model, see http://kanbanblog.com/explained/ for a software oriented version. The concept is pretty simple.

• If you have too many of a particular type of goods (or if one team is finishing tasks faster than they can be picked up)
• then you reallocate your resources to where you are short of goods (or to a team that's struggling to keep up),
• or you can shift some of the borderline tasks to the earlier team, with appropriate accolades.
• (You'll get some very interesting finger-pointing when one team is cranking out a LOT of product that's substandard.)
• (I'm an Electrical Engineer, so of course the Civil, Chemical, and Mechanical Engineers are forever expecting us to make up the time that they frittered away.)

It's a surprisingly effective control mechanism because it's far easier to spot excess capacity than it is to determine what's causing a shortage. As such, I prefer to run my cities with VERY thin margins, so that I can quickly see where the timing is off.

The PRIMARY reason that Fighting is attractive, for me, is that the costs are very low. The Barracks and a few Armories don't really take all that much space, and while you'll need a lot of Workshops to cover your training costs, that's ALL you'll need. You can cut your manufacturing back to the bare minimum that's needed for the Tech Tree, Quests, and the occasional Cater/Negotiate when it's too cheap to resist.

So, if you want to dive into the complexity rathole, I'm pretty sure that I'd be able to keep up with you. I prefer finesse, not brute force.

 

[DeletedUser627]

Do you understand the combat model WELL ENOUGH to solve the Auto-Fight puzzle? Predict what's going to happen, and then click Auto-Complete and watch to see how well you understand the Initiative Bar. The Sorceress III units are something else. They're deadly.

This could actually be fun...if I didn't need to win fights for Relics.

Lay bets against myself as to losses, number of moves, etc.

 

[DeletedUser1016]

I don't believe you understand. Or you played when it was easier or something. But, a couple of neighbors helping you won't get you to checkpoint 5 where you need 20,000 points.

Does anyone know how many neighbors it would take to make checkpoint 5 if everyone participating made it to level 6? Some of my tournament provinces had 4 players [including me] and we only made it to level 2....barely. I made it to level 5, but my neighbors, each only did a couple of levels.

(I'm an Electrical Engineer, so of course the Civil, Chemical, and Mechanical Engineers are forever expecting us to make up the time that they frittered away.)

Ha, ha, ha....ha...ha.....that's hilarious - the epitome of humility ...

 

[DeletedUser627]

The PRIMARY reason that Fighting is attractive, for me, is that the costs are very low. The Barracks and a few Armories don't really take all that much space, and while you'll need a lot of Workshops to cover your training costs, that's ALL you'll need. You can cut your manufacturing back to the bare minimum that's needed for the Tech Tree, Quests, and the occasional Cater/Negotiate when it's too cheap to resist.

For months, you plastered us from the point of view that "Costs" have little or nothing to do with Supplies - Costs, in your reckoning, are determined by the time / energy required to mouseclick.

Fighting, from this point of view, is very expensive - the cost in terms of clicks is high.

I appreciate individual approaches to the game, as we've discussed before. I still think that, when we're offering opinions, we need to either 1) make it clear that we're representing our own individual preferences or 2) be broad-minded and consider other players' approached. There's a discrepancy in your discussion here about Costs - you've used contradictory definitions.

Your recommendations to players center around : reduce manufacturing, goods can be "excessive", it's too costly, etc. It's a significantly variant approach - one that should come with a warning label for less-experienced players. Something like,

"I am skilled and have lots of interesting and useful observations about Elvenar; however, my play objectives and game style are unique, so take a look at my city and be sure this suits your personal goals before you follow my advice".​

 

[DeletedUser61]

I prefer LOW MAINTENANCE cities, cities that function well without constant hand holding.

• Training troops, and using Auto-Fight, is a very efficient approach, where efficiency = effort required / benefits received.
• Wading through dozens of declinable quests, visiting everybody every day, and manual fighting all require an ENORMOUS amount of effort, far more effort than can be justified by the miniscule additional benefits.

What's the point in rushing to the end of the game and then WAITING, with nothing to do, when you can keep up just fine, with a lot less effort, if you're more efficient? My total effort probably matches or exceeds that of most players, because I have a decent city in Beta and all five of the US worlds, plus another half dozen testing cities that are tucked away in various locations.

The developers indicated, in the June Video, that Ancient Wonder contributions will soon™ be included as part of the scoring system. I'm DELIGHTED that we're getting past the paradigm where whoever has the most Tier3 manufacturing facilities has the highest score, and especially so when they don't even have enough coins and supplies to support full production.

 

[DeletedUser627]

DELIGHTED that we're getting past the paradigm where whoever has the most Tier3 manufacturing facilities has the highest score, and especially so when they don't even have enough coins and supplies to support full production.

Some of our recent exchanges should be proving helpful. We cleared up the fact that many of us do indeed visit our neighborhood on a daily basis. Now we can clear up the matter of manufacturing.

The relative scoring isn't going to change very much when the Wonder score is introduced. Larger cities (i.e. more manufacturing) will remain in the lead since their Wonders are further advanced. Large cities have used their goods to buy KP - and upgrade their Wonders. Goods manufacturing and high level Wonders are practically synonymous.

I've been trying to make this point in the Forums for months now - ever since the first mention of Wonder scoring. The point: the faster a player gets to higher levels of manufacturing, the faster he will be able to contribute to Wonders. Until now, the low reward of Wonders has only yielded a slower progression through Research. What do we see if we scroll through the rank lists?

We see several hundreds of players entering Fairy level with scores and goods productions we would have formerly associated with Dwarven level players.​

Virtually all of them succumbed to the lure of the first two Wonders, usually upgrading them to low levels, limiting their production in two ways: available space, and cumulative production. I'm not critical of their choices - but do want to point out that, as we predicted, the introduction of Wonders into pre-Dwarven play wasn't beneficial to the players.

Goods are good. Period. Elvenar equals goods, KP, and fighting units. Everything we do is to generate all three - then we use all three to progress the game.

As to lacking "coins and supplies to support full production", this is a periodic problem rather than a systemic one - and it doesn't affect a majority of players. It was a significant problem back during the period when we were waiting for Dwarven to open - but that was months and months ago. Nearly everyone has adapted strategies to increase their Supplies, re-balance their manufactories, and keep their cities fully functioning. Sometimes, during Fairy, we ran short...but if large cities were facing this difficulty, so was everyone. It was a demanding guest race.

I still can't get it through my head that your posts keep indicating an interest in "rank score". Your well-known opinion was that rank was worse than irrelevant - a useless measure. Now you seem to think that rank matters - simply by the addition of Wonders scoring, it's been redeemed as an indicator. You always said that "chasing score" was near despicable - why is it less despicable now that Wonders are included? Chasing score is still chasing score.

using Auto-Fight, is a very efficient approach, where efficiency = effort required / benefits received.

I'd love to hear some insight as to how to put my Sorc III's into Auto Fight and not have significantly higher losses than manual fighting.

 

[DeletedUser594]

I'd love to hear some insight as to how to put my Sorc III's into Auto Fight and not have significantly higher losses than manual fighting.

Only fight Golem, Canoneer, and Archers.

Seriously though there's not much 5 Granite Golem or 5 BlessedP's won't roll right over. Does anyone have #'s on this yet?

If efficient means an efficient way to lose all your troops!! rofl!!

Let's see....I put the fight on autofight and LOST. Defeated. 105 sorc IIIs DEAD. vs....manual fighting and I lost 3. 105 vs. 3. The AI is an idiot!!

I did that once a while ago. Once. I started a fight with 5 sorcerress then hit the finish automatically button and watched as my sorceresess just kept dinging away at a golem- the same golem- while being attacked by other troops that didn't have a spell on them bcs the ladies were entirely focused on killing this one golem by taking 2 or 3 hp's per turn and meanwhile getting rocked by ignored troops that could be neutralized. It was such a painful and cringeworthy fight that now I handwalk the troops through to the point of complete idiot proofing if I have any doubt.
I think having no strategy at all- just randomly attack anyone near- is probably as good a strategy as the AI employs.

 

[DeletedUser43]

Training troops, and using Auto-Fight, is a very efficient approach, where efficiency = effort required / benefits received.

If efficient means an efficient way to lose all your troops!! rofl!!

Let's see....I put the fight on autofight and LOST. Defeated. 105 sorc IIIs DEAD. vs....manual fighting and I lost 3. 105 vs. 3. The AI is an idiot!!

 

[DeletedUser61]

Your well-known opinion was that rank was worse than irrelevant - a useless measure. Now you seem to think that rank matters

It don't have any problem with "scores" per se, but the

Score = Required Workers + Required Culture + Weighted Relics

algorithm was so primitive that it was almost dangerous. Adding Ancient Wonders early in the game, and including contributed Knowledge Points as part of ones score, is a LARGE step in the right direction. I'm going to ignore the score anyway, because I'm more interested in the multivariable logistics puzzles, but I do strongly believe that the scoring algorithm SHOULD encourage the design of a well-balanced city, not some oddball contraption that merely scores well.

Once the developers have implemented a more sophisticated immigration algorithm, I'm guessing that we'll see a LOT more rewards at the end of each tournament, with significant rewards for the folks who have made an effort to involve all of their neighbors. We can't DO that yet, because the neighborhoods are all chopped up, uneven, and unfair, but there's plenty of unrealized potential, and ESPECIALLY SO if the incentives encourage us to engage the new arrivals in our neighborhoods.

The folks in the achiever class will always delight in jumping through whichever hoops are available, and that's fine, because if you can optimize your city for X it's very like that you'd do equally well when it comes time to chase Y. Top scores don't necessarily indicate that you have a deep knowledge of the game, but a decent score most certainly indicates that you're an excellent player.

But it's a pyramid. The vast majority of the players aren't interested in pushing the limits, rather they prefer to avoid the bleeding edge. There should be puzzles for me figure out and metrics for you to optimize, but the IMPORTANT players are those who are quite happy to just muddle through, and THEIR experience should be smooth and pleasant even if that costs thee and me some extra effort.

Defeated. 105 sorc IIIs DEAD. vs....manual fighting and I lost 3. 105 vs. 3. The AI is an idiot!!

But I LIKE the puzzles, and understanding the AI is a dandy puzzle.

• The Sorceress IIIs are deadly against ranged only opponents, and they still do pretty well even if one of the opposing units is a Golem.
• Priests aren't as attractive, but that's mostly because the <advanced> Cerberus cleans house against ranged only defenders.

 

[DeletedUser43]

Does anyone know how many neighbors it would take to make checkpoint 5 if everyone participating made it to level 6?

Katwijk claimed that he reached checkpoint 6 with a "couple" of neighbors that worked together. That isn't possible. It takes SEVEN neighbors who all reach level 5 in the tournament to hit that checkpoint.

 

[DeletedUser627]

....with significant rewards for the folks who have made an effort to involve all of their neighbors. We can't DO that yet, because the neighborhoods are all chopped up, uneven, and unfair, but there's plenty of unrealized potential, and ESPECIALLY SO if the incentives encourage us to engage the new arrivals in our neighborhoods.

This is an interesting topic. During several months, I personally messaged every existing and new member of my neighborhood. I offered to help, facilitate trades, and welcomed them to the game. I only received a few responses, and none of those continued with the game. If we compare my experience to others, I bet we all have similar results: engaging neighbors didn't result in player retention. If Elvenar thinks that Tournament play is somehow going to change this, I think they're working with bad data / design. Again.

Wouldn't a lot of us agree that the Neighborhood idea is not only broken - but a fundamentally bad choice in the first place? Even if they fix the problems you mention, "chopped up, uneven, unfair" they're still going to be RANDOM - and I'm not interested in having my play results determined by where I happen to end upon the map. There are several instances of this we can consider:

First, when the game started there were no fellowships. Guess which players started working together, grew fastest, and then banded together to have the top fellowships? Players who landed auspiciously near to other active players. Why would we want to return to a system where luck of placement determines game outcome?

I think Elvenar realizes this at some level - they've made a quiet correction. Initially, the different combinations of boosts scored differently - so there was a random ability to score higher or lower, depending on which boosts one was assigned. Beginning with Dwarven, they started evening out the per grid scoring and eliminated the random advantage.

What seems worrisome is their commitment to the neighborhood concept. Surely they realize that players don't want to be forced to team with up random strangers. We like to choose whom we play with! Being coerced into neighborhood cadres will just squeeze more fun out of the game.

 

[DeletedUser61]

Guess which players started working together, grew fastest, and then banded together to have the top fellowships? Players who landed auspiciously near to other active players.

The following quote is from Beta, but read between the lines, very very carefully.

We are working on a solution to distribute new players in another way, so that it's a lot more likely to get new neighbours, even if you're at "the edge of the world". Can we offer this soon? I sincerely hope so, but as of yet I cannot give a date.

The developers have made exactly the same observation that you've made.
Let me repeat it, because it's the truest thing you've ever said.

Players who landed auspiciously near to other active players.
and the other side of the same coin
more likely to get new neighbours, even if you're at "the edge of the world".
​

Let's indulge in a bit of speculation.

• "EVEN ... if you're at the edge of the world." So immigrants will be landing NEAR existing players, rather than occupying the empty spots that are nearest the center of the map. To me that looks a LOT like your "auspicious."
• The Goldmines are not important. If the new immigrants are near existing players, the Goldmines are necessarily further away. Yawn.
• Coaxing your NEIGHBORS to participate in YOUR tournaments that are near THEIR villages, is the only way that you're going to get the neat prizes at the end of each Tournament. I firmly believe that we ain't seen nuthin yet.
• Contributing to YOUR entry level Ancient Wonder, even BEFORE they've discovered your City, based on your promise of reciprocal contributions once they get an AW of their own, will be the BEST way for your new neighbors to accumulate the Rune Shards that they will need for their Scouting and Population Ancient Wonders.
• Discovering YOUR village will allow them to REDUCE their trading cost, and you CAN risk offering sweetheart deals because ONLY your 200 nearest neighbors plus the other 24 members of your Fellowship can access your offered trades.
• The Treasure Chest's are a HUGE incentive for new players to get out into the world and discover nearby cities.
• Spells are an entry level playtoy. But they're actually important when a new player is deciding if they are bored, or not.
• The Advanced Scouting Chests not only set the expectation for exploration, they ENFORCE the thresholds.

I've listed a half-dozen arrows that are ALL targeting the retention of new players who DO NOT YET have a support network.

What other techniques can you think of that would improve our retention rate?

 

[DeletedUser43]

Coaxing your NEIGHBORS to participate in YOUR tournaments that are near THEIR villages, is the only way you're going to get the neat prizes at the end of each Tournament.

1. Let's talk about those neat prizes for most checkpoints.....one to three relics. I can six relics from finishing one level of one province. And yet, the extremely neat prize for reaching two level together is one relic. Know how else I can one relic? From one of those little chest just for doing neighborly help.
Why would I care about one relic or two or even a whopping 3? The only thing a player might care about is a rune. Those you all get if you finish checkpoint 6. But how will that happen? That brings me to point 2.

2. You need 7 players near you to get to the 6th checkpoint. Seven players. Who all are willing to do the same tournament on the same good. So not only do I have to find seven players who all overlap, but I have to find seven who overlap with the same good, and they all need to be willing to hit level 5. AND, this has to be doable. Just because I overlap with a neighbor, doesn't mean that province is anywhere close to my city. If it isn't close, the troop cost of clearing that province is very expensive. Very. I don't believe you could get seven players to all get to level 5 with the new costs of clearing provinces. Not a chance.

And EVEN if you did happen to hit the jackpot and be smack in the middle of 7 obsessive players who are all going to hit level 5 with you....you all get ONE lousy rune. You lose all your troops, spend all your resources for one rune?

That is hardly what I would call "neat prizes". Why not give away 10 supplies? Or 100 coins? Or something equally non important.

 

[DeletedUser627]

Retention rates are higher for referrals than for other methods of acquisition. So, one proven method of player retention would be to turn their players into an asset: if we loved the game, we'd be bringing in new players. And they would have encouragement, companionship and advice from the get-go.

At some level, we're still talking about different aspects of the game. I'm suggesting that the neighborhoods are broken - and they're not desirable even if they weren't broken - so they should have been considered a "lost cause" months ago. What a huge waste of energy to design the tournaments around neighborhood cooperation - the developers already provided us with a better organizational method (Fellowships).

Other - more successful - games don't use this "geographical" limitation. Player retention might be encouraged by less limitation.

 

[DeletedUser1122]

engaging neighbors didn't result in player retention.

I'd say Hi and poof they were gone. I was thinking it was my breath. I now just wait for a thank-you for the ... and go from there

Neighborhood idea is not only broken - but a fundamentally bad choice in the first place?

(I think I hear an echo.) I agree. It was broken long before tournaments rolled out. It always was a strange place to put a game saver ideal. Like a road into a swamp (well not that good of an idea)

The folks in the achiever class will always delight

Is that the opposite of the folks who can't be classed? They never delight

 

[DeletedUser61]

the folks who can't be classed? They never delight

That's because they're not classy!