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Gems Tournament

Pauly7

Magus
Did anyone else take way more losses in the tournament today than they should have? I don't have a lot of good statistics, but I just know that my army was decimated today much more than in a normal gems round 1.
 

CrazyWizard

Shaman
Haha, maybe they are preparing us for the comming changes in advance ;)

That said, gems is a funny tournament, your result and losses can vary a lot from gems tournament to gems tournament besed on your enemies.
Any archers are really naste and while there is a limited spread of possible enemies, the first enemy you face decide your other 3 enemies.

It looks like this start point is a bit random creating different result in each gems tournament as with a bit of bad luck you get more nasty enemies one time and a bit easier ones the other time.

Since in the gems tournament you face archers who are much faster than your own units the result of this "random" seems to be more pronounced as each archer kills a lot of your mages.
 

Pauly7

Magus
I expect some variations in losses in the gems tournament and to have good and bad rounds, but this time I lost 200 squads in round 1, which is a bit crazy. Well over double what I would expect. I only auto-fight, so I know I'm not seeing what is going on and I expect that the enemy LRs get the jump on my Mages every time, but I'm only really comparing to what I've always been doing. I'm using a lot of MMMs, so once my Mages strike I'm not expecting many of those LRs to come back for a second bite.
 

DeletedUser7526

Guest
I expect some variations in losses in the gems tournament and to have good and bad rounds, but this time I lost 200 squads in round 1, which is a bit crazy. Well over double what I would expect. I only auto-fight, so I know I'm not seeing what is going on and I expect that the enemy LRs get the jump on my Mages every time, but I'm only really comparing to what I've always been doing. I'm using a lot of MMMs, so once my Mages strike I'm not expecting many of those LRs to come back for a second bite.
I’ve tracked gems for long. These variations are normal.
Lr has higher initiative and attack bonus against mages. And mages have cardboard armor. So irrespective of your mmm, lr can have decent meal from first strike. And how many first strikes depends on the terrain : leading to high variation of losses in gems.
On a gems week, I’ve seen my losses on a higher round lower than previous round. So I wouldn’t be surprised by this.
 

Pauly7

Magus
For round 2 I threw in an extra DA. I hate to do that a) because I might as well have had it from the start and b) because DAs and UUUs suddenly seem almost impossible to win or craft. I kept my losses down to 150 squads in the second, but that still smarts a bit. I think I'm cutting down provinces for round 3 onward.
 

CrazyWizard

Shaman
Since I monitor my supply of DA and UUU for a long while now I somewhat can predict how much I can use each week.
So I have a clear schedule how much perdormance I can squeeze out of those buildings.

I recently upped it to 125% per week (they last 2 tournaments so I can sustain it), only steel tournament doesn't use them.
 

Pauly7

Magus
Since I monitor my supply of DA and UUU for a long while now I somewhat can predict how much I can use each week.
So I have a clear schedule how much perdormance I can squeeze out of those buildings.
Do you consider that you are gaining as many UUUs and DAs as you used to? I don't have exact numbers again, but I know that I have had at least 10-12 of either MMM or ELR since I last saw a UUU. In the Spire I used to be able to rely on a DA once every two weeks, often once a week, but I now haven't had any in at least two months. The latter could be my poor luck, but I am suspecting a reduced chance of seeing any gold and purple chests now.
 

CrazyWizard

Shaman
First of all I need to establish how much spire I do, as it might influence the amount of DA you might get.
I go to the top every week.

This is the result of the past 11 weeks
And I can trace this back for over 2 years, tho some things changed as the DA isn,t in game for that long yet.
By tracking this information for a long time, I can see long term trends, and this allows me to adjust accordingly.
Thats how I could go from 100% to 125% HP bonus recently as I noticed a trend in which I aquired more HP bonus than I expected since the introduction of the spire.


BuildingElixer 1 cycle agoUsedMagic dust past week
UUU13818
LR28632
MA28634
DA11612
total802696
 

Pauly7

Magus
So in summary, you've won 11 DAs and 13 UUUs in 11 weeks. Plus more than double of the other two. For me, from memory as I havent kept the records, I believe that in the last 8 weeks I've won no DAs and possibly 1 x UUU. If that hasn't happened to you then I'll just need to accept that I'm having a run of bad luck... but it's getting awfully tiresome, especially with my record of (not) winning magic buildings. The only other option would be to entertain a conspiracy theory idea that they amend probabilities differently for different people.

I was saying to a friend the other day - DAs used to seem commonplace to me. I didn't even play the Spire thinking "I hope one comes up today" because they dropped all the time (one a week or more)... and now suddenly nothing.

On a side note - I do wish there was somewhere separate to store our combat buildings and not have them thrown in with all the summonable junk!
 

CrazyWizard

Shaman
No I won 7 DA, I used 6 and I went from 11 to 12 in stock.
I think the average is 1-1 and a bit DA per 2 weeks.

UUU I used 8 and went from 13-18 so 13 in 11 weeks
It's also not about 11 weeks but more about 50 weeks averages

but in general I use 18 week avrages as I want at least a supply of items for 2 full cycles, I can can plan ahead, if that supply rises to high I use some more, if the supply durring that 18 weeks does not recover I lower my expectations for the next 18 weeks.
 

Pauly7

Magus
I'm a lot more gung ho with my use of combat buildings, but I know your way is the right thing to do. I tend to just put down a few buildings. If my supplies are running low, I put down less. If I have a tournament that will annoy me, like Scrolls or Dust, then I use a few more. ELRs are for the steel tournament. I'm a bit more fast and loose with MMMs, using them on gems, marble and quite often scrolls or dust.

Right now it feels like Inno is draining down my stock of health bonus buildings before we're hit with the new tournament system, but that just might be my paranoia. I'm just generally grumpy that the Spire has given me nothing lately.
 

Gargon667

Mentor
The MA has changed a lot with that last change in how they hand out recipes. I think one of the outcomes is: fewer buildings in general. But on top of that there may be also changes in the underlying probabilities of course that we don´t know about.
We certainly get much more timeboosts in crafting, possibly alo more KP instants and I think also more Pet Food, so other things have to go down and I think buildings are on that side I think also relics are down and supply instants.
But all of this is just a feeling, the only fact is: I am using more Catalysts now than before the change.

About the Gems I don´t know, I haven´t started yet, but when in doubt: blame the Mist Walkers, they are one heck of a strong enemy unit ;) And they don´t care too much about your MMMs, only about your UUU/DA.
 

Pauly7

Magus
Well I cut it down to 40 provinces in round 3 and leaned a bit more on my HR and took hardly any losses. Hmm, I just never noticed gems being such a head scratcher before.
 

Pauly7

Magus
It does look like they're taking away all our ammunition to fight the new tournament system, but we'll just have to see how it plays out.
 

Killiak

Artisan
Well I cut it down to 40 provinces in round 3 and leaned a bit more on my HR and took hardly any losses. Hmm, I just never noticed gems being such a head scratcher before.

Noticed that the Spire has nastier combinations and harder fights this round as well.

Personally I think little bits and pieces are already implemented, to gather data.
 

CrazyWizard

Shaman
I'm a lot more gung ho with my use of combat buildings, but I know your way is the right thing to do. I tend to just put down a few buildings. If my supplies are running low, I put down less. If I have a tournament that will annoy me, like Scrolls or Dust, then I use a few more. ELRs are for the steel tournament. I'm a bit more fast and loose with MMMs, using them on gems, marble and quite often scrolls or dust.

Right now it feels like Inno is draining down my stock of health bonus buildings before we're hit with the new tournament system, but that just might be my paranoia. I'm just generally grumpy that the Spire has given me nothing lately.

I finally got my very first magic workshop, so hope glooms at the horizon, a better time will come ;)
 

BlueBlou

Illusionist
Lol, you guys are way out of my league, and I guess most other players as well. Not going to say where my troops usually ran out, but this gems is about the same as any other gems for me. One of those provinces you have to think and no one recipe fits all that is thrown at you, as that is how I experience it.

I see some dedicated note keeping by some. Have you ever compared the stats between first 10 provinces and the next 10, and so on and so on?
 

Pauly7

Magus
I see some dedicated note keeping by some. Have you ever compared the stats between first 10 provinces and the next 10, and so on and so on?
It all depends where you are up to in the game, I suppose and what the losses are as a percentage of what you have to begin with. I find that I lose (comparatively) no troops in the first 20 provinces, but by my description that means losing about 15 squads, which to someone else that same loss could be major. Even up to 40 provinces I can lose around 70 squads and then, in the case of this gems tournament, then lose another 130 squads in the next 20 provinces.

I'm not a note taker with losses, so I'm just spouting numbers off the top of my head, but the thing to remember is that it doesn't get more difficult the higher up in provinces you go. It's just the total number of troops and total losses.
 

Laurelin

Sorcerer
It all depends where you are up to in the game, I suppose and what the losses are as a percentage of what you have to begin with.
^ This - both points - very much. Speaking as a lower-stage player who lacks advanced Troops and has very few Combat boosts, this Gems Tournament has, so far, certainly been unusually difficult for me. It seems likely, though, that this change in difficulty level may (?) not be so apparent to more advanced players - especially those who usually auto-fight - who have a much larger number of Squads and/or use various Combat boosts for some/all Tournaments (Fire Phoenixes, Brown Bears, Crafted buildings, Dwarven Armorers...), and who [probably] also lose variable numbers of Troops/Goods in the Spire each week, so that Tournament/Spire losses are less easily differentiated or estimated.

For reference, I am a primarily manual fighter of reasonable [not expert] Combat skill, at the end of the Dwarves Chapter, without any Bear, with only a 30% Level 6 Fire Phoenix boost, and, this time, with 1 x MMM building placed, although I have few Crafted buildings and I have won none in the Spire for many weeks (and only two ever, in fact, since I go no further than the first 16-20 Encounters at the most, due to [for me] the slow-but-real net Diamond loss week-on-week, and I haven't won more than one Blue Mystery Chest in any Spire instance for a long time). I did not use any boosts except the Fire Phoenix in the last Gems Tourney, so I should theoretically be doing noticeably better in this one.

I've noticed two specific differences which seem probable factors in the overall difficulty increase which I, at least, have seen:

1. The Enemy Squads all began at 2* in Province 1, then moved up to 3* (two Troop types of the possible three) by Province 4 (!), then up to all 3* by Province 6 of Round One, which is effectively +1 * rating at all three Provinces mentioned when compared to the same Provinces in Round One of a 'normal' Tournament - and while on this point, I'd mention that even what I now call 'normal' Tournament difficulty is perceptibly harder than it was during the Tournaments I well remember from a year or so ago, when I never met any 3* Enemy Squads until at least halfway through Round Two, in a former City of almost identical construction and at almost the exact same Chapter/development point;

2. The Maps have been very unfavourable in all but Provinces 11 and 14 of a possible 15. Of these bad Maps, around 1/3 have, so far, featured only ONE exit hex for my Troops, and the other 2/3 have featured only two or three exits - notably the top and bottom hexes only, or one at the top and two at the bottom - with the Enemy Squads in most cases having at least 4-5 unobstructed starting hexes (or, conversely and equally unfavourably, the Enemy comprising 5-8 stacks of primarily Heavy Ranged Troops, all at 3* 'debuff-capable' levels, staying put behind the same 'funnel' of obstacles with only one exit/entrance on their side, with this making it difficult to approach them without significant losses - those 30% debuffs really do stack up, especially when the player's 5 Squads are up against more than 5 Enemy Squads, all of them with debuffing abilities).

This has, so far, led not only to the 'Troop funnelling' problem of which most manual players are aware, but also to the also-often-mentioned problem of far too many free-roaming 3* Mistwalkers [appearing most commonly in the Maps where my Troops were 'funnelled' and the Enemy Squads were not] - which have been so very damaging this time that I've resorted to mixing 1 or even 2 Squads of Heavy Ranged (or even Heavy Melee, where there are too many 3* Enemy HR Squads) with my Mages [I have only 1* Banshees and 2* Sorceresses] in every Encounter with even one Mistwalker Squad [not my usual strategy], and I've also needed to Cater at least 50% earlier than usual, even Catering perhaps one-third of Round One [which I can usually fight almost 100% with few losses] and more like half of Round Two [again, which I would normally fight in around 90% or more cases without much loss]. This Map problem may well account for the unusually high and/or unexpected early and repeated losses, even higher than my own, which the [experienced] primarily auto-fighters I know in-game have been reporting in this Tourney in particular.

And [finally! I get there in the end...] to actually respond directly to your point above, @Pauly7 - it is indeed very difficult to find an efficient Troop mix to field against multiple 3* Enemy Squads when one does not yet have access to the Mercenary Camp at all, most of the Training Grounds Troops are still unavailable, and one's only 3* Barracks Troops are Archers [in my particular case]; probably the best Elven Barracks Unit, but still, obviously of little use in Gems Tournaments, especially where 'Troop-funnelling' Maps and/or 3* debuff-capable Mistwalkers and HR Enemy Squads are commonplace. As you also mention, it is indeed difficult to produce significant numbers of Troops of any description at my present stage, with 20-25 Squads of each Tournament's 'top two' Units being about my usual starting maximum, with maybe 50-75% total expected losses each week [and with that final result including replacement Troops newly built during each Tournament] - although, again, this particular Tournament has been nothing short of a disaster in terms of Troop losses (even including the high percentage of Catering I've used), with ~40% of my starting ~40 Mage Squads already lost by the end of Round One and 100% of all Mage Squads lost by the end of Round Two (including ~12 Squads made during/between Rounds), meaning that I have had no option but to use some of my saved-up Troop Instants to generate enough Squads for [advance estimate] perhaps half of Round 3. I have never had such high % losses in any Tournament, even Scrolls/Dust, and certainly not in Gems.

I personally dislike Troop Instants as a concept, although I have both intentionally and by random chance won several of them, since I suspected that these had started appearing in Events for a reason which would become clear soon enough, and the forthcoming changes to Tournaments (still in Beta), together with the increasing difficulty even of the existing Tournaments (and the Spire's ever-growing Squad Sizes), appear to be the rationale behind these Troop Instants being created at all. It's not a system I like in any way, since I consider Events an unreliable source of anything due to the random nature of all Event prizes, and I also find the Events themselves more and more unappealing as the prizes become less and less useful; however, it seems to me that without any Troop Instants, which are presently 'Event-only' items (or, alternatively, a fair few Spire-sourced Time Instants - for those who don't mind spending Diamonds*), it seems to me that it will soon become very difficult for players who tend more towards the 'casual' style of play to create enough Troops, if not aided by a consistent and useful level of boosts of various kinds, to keep pace with present and future levels of demand upon them. I remain unsure as to whether Crafted Combat boosts - my only realistic option - will still be useful (either to the same degree, or at all...?) in the new 'mixed-Enemies' Tournament setups; present indicators on this do not, sadly, seem very promising.

[* Which does not include me - as if that weren't fairly obvious by now? :D ]

In particular - and I do hate to harp on this, since it may appear as if I am in some way over-criticising one specific part of the playerbase, which I really am not [the situation shouldn't have arisen, but it did, and if I could have grabbed some of the inexplicable former largesse, I would have, too!] - it's certainly true that producing Troops at a rate which can match or exceed the last year's-worth of slow-but-appreciable increases which I, at least, have noticed in Combat difficulty in both Tourneys and the Spire, let alone any future ramping-up of Enemy Squad numbers and/or inherent 'difficulty-per-battle', is now a chronic problem for players without at least one Brown Bear, in particular. I have 60 x Pet Foods, and I see Pet Food in my Magic Academy at least five times each week, too, and often even twice or more per day, but this is of little use - and even starts to seem like overkill - when I have only one low-grade Fire Phoenix which uses maybe 2-3 Pet Foods per Tourney/Spire combined... :/
 
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