Which is better for tournaments: +troops/3hr or +strength?

[jlow727]

I was about to unlock the Shrine of the Shrewdy Shrooms on my main (I don't yet have Needles of the Tempest), and I began to ask myself whether it was better to have the +troops/3hr or the +strength in regards to tournaments. On one hand, you would have more troops to regularly throw at your enemy (without the supply and time-to-build cost), but on the other hand the troops you have do a better job of killing the enemy (which means fewer losses on your part and perhaps a better chance to win the higher rounds in tournaments).

The way I think of it (without any in-game experimentation):
If you and the enemy have the exact same amount of the exact same troops, then the battle would be perfectly balanced. For instance, both you and the enemy have 5 light ranged units. If you had a maxed out Needles of the Tempest, then your troops would deal 40% additional damage, meaning that in the time it would have taken the enemy to kill ~3.6 of your units, you would have killed 5 of theirs. This would result in you saving about 28% units (1.4 in this scenario) in a perfectly balanced fight, meaning you save some troops and have better chances of winning in the more challenging, unbalanced fights.
HOWEVER, if you instead had a maxed out Shrine of the Shrewdy Shrooms pumping out 1.5 light ranged units every 3 hours, you would probably end up with a LOT more units to just toss at the enemy. As long as you could come out with a slight victory at the end, it wouldn't matter how many you used up since you freely produce them very quickly.

Between the two of them, I'd imagine that the +troops/3hr would let you battle the enemy more often and thus accumulate more points, but I have no way of knowing that without doing in-game simulations (which I'm not really set up to do).

TL;DR
So really, this question boils down to which is better for tournaments: +troops/3hr or +strength. Does anybody know what math goes on behind the scenes to determine autobattle results?, because that would certainly make answering this question a lot easier.

 

[BTrouble]

Elvengems.com has a great tutorial for each tournament. Each tournament has different enemies so the light ranged units will not always be the best option. If I had to choose between the two I would go with strength.

 

[samidodamage]

I may be of little assistance, because I don't view the benefits of either of those AW's in the same way as you do, so my play style is probably very different.
The city I'll be referencing has a lvl 13 Shrewdy Shrooms, a lvl 16 Needles, 6 lvl 28 Armories and a lvl 29 Barracks. Shrooms is to increase my training size, so I can make more troops in each slot. I figure it doesn't matter how quickly I can make troops if my full training queue only lasts 5 or 6 hours as I have to figure in the 'made zero troops for 3-4 hours' while I was away from the game (sleeping, etc). As I upgrade it and the armories, training time for each slot gets longer and longer. Since I spend quite a bit of time with my Barracks/Training Grounds/Merc Camp upgraded to max lvl, I usually need to research before I can upgrade further. That's where Needles comes in: Speeds up the Barracks, so I can make the same amount of troops in less time. Right now, I train 3.2 squads (5507 archers) per slot that take 2 hrs 45 min to train and a full training queue will take 12.25 hrs before it runs out. My squad size is 1689 and I get 1267 archers from Shrewdy every 3 hours. I have to collect Shrooms archers over 4 times, so over 12 hours to get as many from Shrooms as I get from one training slot in less than 3 hours. And that applies to all barracks troop types, not just the archers.
^^May not be helpful, but gives you another way to look at the benefits of those 2 AW's. I look at the free archers and the buff to the light range attack as a bonus, not a primary effect.

 

[jlow727]

@BTrouble

Elvengems.com has a great tutorial for each tournament. Each tournament has different enemies so the light ranged units will not always be the best option.

That is absolutely correct, light ranged units was just the example I had chosen. If you wish, consider it to be a scenario of light melee vs light melee, or mage vs mage. I'm curious, however, of why you would go with strength and would love to hear your reasoning behind it.

@samidodamage

Right now, I train 3.2 squads (5507 archers) per slot that take 2 hrs 45 min to train and a full training queue will take 12.25 hrs before it runs out. My squad size is 1689 and I get 1267 archers from Shrewdy every 3 hours.

I had not realized that the extra +troops/3hr would be so small compared to how much you produce naturally through the Barracks. Granted, the amount you produce from the Barracks in a given time frame is only because of the combined effects of the Shrine and Needles, so it's a bit harder to judge in the case of these two particular AWs. You are correct that the secondary functions of Shrine and Needles are both very appealing (Needles' is perhaps a bit more appealing than Shrine). Perhaps using these two AWs was a bad example; I should have used Heroes Forge and Pyramid of Purification as examples instead since neither of their secondary functions have an effect on the original question of +damage or +troop output in regards to tournament score.

 

[Kekune]

You are correct that the secondary functions of Shrine and Needles are both very appealing (Needles' is perhaps a bit more appealing than Shrine). Perhaps using these two AWs was a bad example;

I don't think it was a bad example. I think both of those are so popular because they each do have two effects that help tournaments. And together, they have a very nice synergy.

A simple answer to your original question is, to me, dependent on where you are in the game. I take it you're at least through orcs. But the weaker your troops are, the less good it does you to have a lot of them. So if you have to choose, I'd ask what usually stops you in tourneys: do you run out of troops? Or do you hit a wall and your troops just can't win, no matter what? Build the wonder that fixes that problem.

But I agree with sami that the true value of both those wonders is actually their massive effect on training speed or size. The parts you're focused on are nice, too, but I'd call those the secondary effects.