Twilight phoenix - the first poison pill in Elvenar...

[crackie]

I have reached Timewarp club in this time. It’s not maxed yet but I can get several rounds of tourney in per pet food so less feeds to Fire Phoenix and can now toss some to Twilight. I don’t think he is worth it for one round per feed, but much better deal with multiple rounds. I generally toss a pet food to Twilight on the end of Scroll and Dust tourney.

 

[Killy-]

I am still waiting for the artifacts to come in the spire - I want to build my second one.

 

[Dhurrin]

...that I am aware of.

The Twilight Phoenix (hereafter referred to as 'the bird') can be acquired by anyone in any chapter since the base is given early. Newbies will have the base and perhaps a handful of artifacts and perhaps they will try to buy more.

The downside of the bird rests on its measly 12-hour duration. Any player of modest means habitually trying it for 6 or even fewer rounds of Tourney or even through just the High Halls of the Spire will find their supply of Pet Food RAPIDLY depleted.

It is a Food disposer for the unprepared. Fortunately, the bitter nature of the pill will discourage smaller cities from continuing to feed it and, unless they appreciate its drops, it might well get inventoried. Equally as bitter, the effect of the bird when only partially evolved and also when used with small armies is a barely-audible "meh.".

The usefulness of the bird becomes amazing when fully evolved and used in conjunction with a Polar Bear and at least a level 12 Timewarp. [This statement is made for the benefit of players who do not know about such things; I realize that there is a large contingent of experienced players who are already doing this - and more). The ability to do 2 rounds of the Tourney within 12 hours seems to be the minimum condition for the bird to demonstrate its usefulness, which only increases as the level of the Timewarp AW increases and allows a player to do 3, 4, 5 or all 6 rounds of the Tourney within 12 hours.

Therefore, this building is a liability or just plain useless for a newby to employ. It is the first and only building that I am aware of that should be acquired but remain in inventory until the completion of chapter 14.

The Twilight Phoenix is (in my opinion) only really useful for end-game players. Players like me with large cities, a lot of high-level AWs and a lot of expansions. For those players, having 5% less losses in the Spire makes a huge difference as Spire squads get to be ridiculously large.
Those players tend to have a mid- to high level Timewarp and/or a Polar bear. Even if one does the first 3 rounds of the tourney without the Twilight bird fed, doing the last 3 rounds (or of course all 6 if you can, but the later rounds are larger squads again) and the Spire in a short time with 5% less losses can be very interesting.
Also, if one is actively using the MA getting enough petfood should not be too much of a problem

 

[Gkyr]

@Dhurrin : agree.

 

[muffy.]

I like my bird . I dunno that statistics of the whole thing but it helps in the tourney and spire .
As far as limited pet food … I think they are doing it on purpose so our pets will all turn to bones for the Halloween decor

 

[Gkyr]

I like my bird . I dunno that statistics of the whole thing but it helps in the tourney and spire .
As far as limited pet food … I think they are doing it on purpose so our pets will all turn to bones for the Halloween decor

 

[SoulsSilhouette]

Pet food is hit or miss in my MA. I store Twilight because I need the space. I also stored my Storm Pheonix. I always keep my Aureate and Fire Chicken out. I am hoping that we get more bear artifacts out there because I need them for Brownie and Icee. I used to mostly cater before I became friends with Buddy, so I evolved my black and white first. It's pretty. It was far more useful to me at the time, ah but my Elvenar past is full of regrets that way.

 

[Dhurrin]

Pet food is hit or miss in my MA.

There is a pattern to what is generated, cycling regularly helps seeing petfood faster.
And though there of course are limits, by keeping as many evolving buildings as possible in my inventory (or city of course) it at least seems as if I'm getting more petfood offers in my MA than some of the others in my FS.
But between the events and the MA I seem to have no trouble using an average of over 5 pet food a week (1 firephoenix, 1 twilightphoenix, 1 polar bear/2 weeks, 2.33 on my red panda/week (I keep that one fed constantly) 1 brown bear / 4 weeks and an accasional other one) and still keep my stock of petfood between 80-100.

 

[Gkyr]

Disclaimer: I manual fight. YMMV.
The desire that surrounds the supply of pet food is one of the manufactured anxieties in Elvenar. After awhile, it seems, it does not make a difference, really.
Case in point: very late in the last few Tournies, on a Saturday night, I was afflicted with a bout of boredom and decided to fight a few more encounters at the end of the time. Because of the limited time left it was not worth it to feed the firebird or the twilight bird. If the encounters became unwinnable I would just quit. I was in the high 30s provinces. Buff buildings had not expired, yet.

It was actually surprisingly easy to move into the 40s provinces and to progress quite a way. There were a few fights that I quit early on and regrouped with a different selection of troops - this cannot be done with auto-fight - and won my way through them. No negotiating.

At the end of all this I had a noticeable decrease in my troop level but by the next Tourney I was back in the normal range after using a few time boosts for training (I have hundreds of them). The tradeoff is a slight increase in training between Tournies. Occasionally, one 12 hour use of Pet Food with the Brown Bear is worth 2 24 hour feeds of the firebird, with or without the twilight bird.

Now, there are developing cities that do not have an abundance of Supplies, workshops, Prosperity Tower, boosts and there are gamers who seek to be in the top ten score board for their server and there are rivalries (inter-FS, intra-FS, overt and unexpressed) that can consume gamers. These are the situations that give rise to pet food lust. But for one who just 'goes with the flow' of Elvenar bits and bytes there is no issue.

Pet Food is used for other things, operating in situations regarding MA and FA, but I am not addressing these because they also are not important to me.

Game lust=Pet Food anxiety.

Earlier in this thread I said that Twilight was good because it gave back without using boosts. But boosts become a glut in inventory so easily if used efficiently and not willy-nilly for every upgrade interval. Therefore the 50% benefit given by Brown Bear outscores the 5% benefit given by Twilight for the same time interval because the boosts are so abundant and cheap (don't tell the Devs this!).

 

[crackie]

Agree @Gkyr. Most players are casual and don’t really need any of these toys. I know people with lvl 10 Fire Phoenix that never get fed. Some of them only do 1000pts or less and you can get there with no wonders, buffs, or Fire Phoenix. Others probably don’t even know how to use it and got one because everyone told them they should get one or it’s the most powerful building in the game. So it’s purely ornamental in their cities and they don’t even know you have to throw it a pet food to make it the most powerful building in the game. They happily collect their coins from it and that’s about it. And if it’s true for Fire Phoenix, then it’s likely true for Brown Bear, Twilight, and many other useful animal friends that would love to eat on occasion.

 

[Killy-]

Earlier in this thread I said that Twilight was good because it gave back without using boosts. But boosts become a glut in inventory so easily if used efficiently and not willy-nilly for every upgrade interval. Therefore the 50% benefit given by Brown Bear outscores the 5% benefit given by Twilight for the same time interval because the boosts are so abundant and cheap (don't tell the Devs this!).

But if you can feed both, then it doesn't matter which one might be better and while there are a lot of time boosters, they are still limited.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

For a random example, my 2nd Beta city is now at the end of chapter 8, so finally has all Barracks troops at 3-star. No troop-boosting AWs at all, no pets that help with troops, and I only put out one UUU or DA each week. I consistently do 15x5, or 3150 points, each tournament with a combo of auto-fighting and catering. That is easy without all the extras boosting things. The Spire is the tougher one to do well in, with such a vanilla setup.

 

[Gkyr]

But if you can feed both, then it doesn't matter which one might be better and while there are a lot of time boosters, they are still limited.

I think I understand your point and if you can feed both then there is no problem. However, with each week that goes by the time boosts are growing in my inventory; I will soon have 1000 1-hour boosts so they are not limited for my game. Pet Food I tend to use more of between fire and twilight birdies when I have a lot and I conserve when the amount goes down, so I would say that I have had the same number of Pet Food for the past 6 months. Again, does not seem to be a limit for me but more of a limit than boosts, since it is not growing like all of my time boosts are. My town stays in the top 20 on the T scoreboard, always top the Spire and I am the third-smallest town in my FS but always finish on the first or second tourney page. I think I benefit from the H server not being as competitive as the other servers.

 

[Gkyr]

For a random example, my 2nd Beta city is now at the end of chapter 8, so finally has all Barracks troops at 3-star. No troop-boosting AWs at all, no pets that help with troops, and I only put out one UUU or DA each week. I consistently do 15x5, or 3150 points, each tournament with a combo of auto-fighting and catering. That is easy without all the extras boosting things. The Spire is the tougher one to do well in, with such a vanilla setup.

As a very experienced gamer, you obviously have resource management at your fingertips and are benefitting from the momentum of adequate Supplies and Goods. That's the way to do it, IMO.

 

[Yavimaya]

For those of you with TONS of petfood in your inventory:
How did you get to the point of having that much as I would like to be in your situation one day. Was there a point in time where you just kept saving and did not use any until you had enough extra and felt safe too use 1 here and there? Just curious. I look up to you all lol.

 

[Zoof]

For those of you with TONS of petfood in your inventory:
How did you get to the point of having that much as I would like to be in your situation one day. Was there a point in time where you just kept saving and did not use any until you had enough extra and felt safe too use 1 here and there? Just curious. I look up to you all lol.

Is 185 pet food in my main city "a ton"? Either way and in my case, it helps to not have pets that eats enough to get banned from every "All you can eat" buffet places in the town. And all the neighboring towns.

I don't know about those who own a menagerie, but when I get around to hatching a detonating featherduster, I'll also only do it when I'm the proud owner of a high level Timewarp built on the foundation of glue-laminated unrolled time boost scrolls. Or exercise such control and heartlessness as to constantly tell all my future soon-to-be-starving pets the world's scariest 6-word sequence: "You are going on a diet"

EDIT: My main city only has a Red Panda Master; those guys are really low-maintenance!

 

[Gkyr]

Everytime pet food appears in the MA I buy it right away with a 1- and 2-hour boost then go on to craft something else. I really only feed the firephoenix. When I was smaller, I always used 1 less Pfood than I got for the week. That is why my stock grew. If it restricted my Tourney, well, manual fighting allowed me to go through many provinces without a fed bird. Autofighters rely more on a fed ph'ix.

 

[crackie]

I don't know about those who own a menagerie, but when I get around to hatching a detonating featherduster, I'll also only do it when I'm the proud owner of a high level Timewarp built on the foundation of glue-laminated unrolled time boost scrolls. Or exercise such control and heartlessness as to constantly tell all my future soon-to-be-starving pets the world's scariest 6-word sequence: "You are going on a diet"

The other part of this equation often not talked about is needing a high enough Simia or other military production to be able to make use of doing that many rounds of tourney in one go. I have currently halted progress on Timewarp as it cannot benefit me anymore unless I am able to close the gap. But I suppose that depends on how much tourney one aspires to do.

 

[Yavimaya]

Is 185 pet food in my main city "a ton"? Either way and in my case, it helps to not have pets that eats enough to get banned from every "All you can eat" buffet places in the town. And all the neighboring towns.

I don't know about those who own a menagerie, but when I get around to hatching a detonating featherduster, I'll also only do it when I'm the proud owner of a high level Timewarp built on the foundation of glue-laminated unrolled time boost scrolls. Or exercise such control and heartlessness as to constantly tell all my future soon-to-be-starving pets the world's scariest 6-word sequence: "You are going on a diet"

EDIT: My main city only has a Red Panda Master; those guys are really low-maintenance!

Yes it is a ton to me at least. I have never had more than 5 in inventory at a time and only feed my brown bear when truely needed and on occasion my fire phoenix, and craft every single building in MA to try to get it to show up more often. I've been playing over a year and a half now I think. Chapter 13. Only other I use it on is 1 for events on Ashen and 1 for Red Panda during FA.

 

[Killy-]

I think I understand your point and if you can feed both then there is no problem. However, with each week that goes by the time boosts are growing in my inventory; I will soon have 1000 1-hour boosts so they are not limited for my game.

Then you just don't do as much tournament as you could do? Or you don't have more provinces? If your time boosters are unlimited, then you don't need the bear or the phoenix - you could just use more boosters instead? 3k 1h time boosters are in my inventory, but I still wouldn't say I have unlimited access, just to lazy to do more tournament.^^

@Yavimaya Don't missing many recept changes and having the slot free for it helps a lot. In some events you could get a decent amount of pet food, that's all that is coming to my mind.