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Optional squad size upgrades issue! Must read if you are new to the game!

DeletedUser9001

Guest
Hi everyone,

I want to bring to the table a subject old and new: the optional squad upgrades.
I am currently at Sorcerers and Dragons chapter and found out what is the real impact of those optional squad size upgrades. Originally I didn't even know they were optional, I thought that you need them to complete the chapter but eh.

To the point, I believe that not having them is a huge advantage and brings an unfair edge in tournaments with no real downsides. Since they are optional and with the only description being "Allows you to fight with bigger armies, which will make fights easier." this is misleading because it refers solely to the world provinces but those squad upgrades have a huge impact on the tournaments too.

What happens when you do a squad size upgrade:
- makes provinces on the map easier to fight since you will have more army
- makes the tournament squads bigger
- makes catering more expensive on the tournament

The truth is that the more you progress in the game (starting with Chapter 4 in my view) the squad size upgrades become counter productive all together.

The pseudo benefit of having them:
If you do world provinces with army you will realize that the catering cost is more affordable than the loses in troops (plus it's a lot easier to make resources than troops).

The downside:
On the tournaments is where the true problem lies. You can produce a limited amount of army due to training speed limit. So if you have a bigger squad size you will need way more troops and resources for the tournaments.
As you progress in the game this issue escalates and you end up not being able to complete all provinces with 1 star without using support buildings or manual fights.
Why is this? because the training speed is limited so if you have bigger squad size you produce less squads which are the real factor determining how much army you have on the tournament. Not to mention it makes catering more expensive and the tournament is resource intensive, in my case around 90% of my resources go there on a weekly basis.

In my case with 10 extra squad size upgrades - which makes my squad size 25% bigger. This might not sound that much but is huge, it's 25% less army and resources. It hurts everything related to it, if you use time boosts to produce army then you lose 25% there too, if you use boost for goods then 25% loss there too. This ripple effect just gets worse and worse.

Comparing benefits of the above:
- world map exploration : few kp ; few relics ; few runes ; province expansions (consider that scouting takes 1d+ at my lvl it's not even something I care about in regards to catering or troop loses)
- tournaments : a lot of kp (on a weekly basis you can get up to 300 kp from the tournament alone) ; a lot of runes ; a lot of relics ; a lot of enchantments ; prestige points if you compete in the ladder.

This could have been avoided with some common sense fixes like:
- adding a percentage training speed on the optional squad size upgrades which would have resolved the military handicap at least
- adding a tutorial/pop-up explanation on the first tournament explaining the mechanics so new players (my first city on Elvenar) would not end up finding out about the mechanics from other people half way into the game
- add an option to reverse the research of the optional squad size upgrades

I reached out to the Elvenar support since I don't think "Allows you to fight with bigger armies, which will make fights easier." is a proper description for something that has such a huge impact in the game and is not reversible or re-balanced as you progress in the game. They were unable to help in any way, only solution provided was to reset my city losing all premium investments. This more a punishment then a solution in my opinion.

If more people think like me and consider this is something which needs addressing ASAP please join and write Elvenar support about it.

Thanks for reading this and looking forward in hearing your thoughts on the matter.
 

DeletedUser1874

Guest
Agree on all accounts. I really wish they'd implement the ability to reset those techs for people who started playing as casual and then became devoted to the game, only to find out that they were tricked into making life harder for themselves by increasing the squad size, which has a very misleading tooltip.
Or better yet they could make it so that squad size makes tourney fights easier like it does with map encounters, that'd make much more sense.
 

m4rt1n

Adept
Agree on all accounts. I really wish they'd implement the ability to reset those techs for people who started playing as casual and then became devoted to the game, only to find out that they were tricked into making life harder for themselves by increasing the squad size, which has a very misleading tooltip.
Or better yet they could make it so that squad size makes tourney fights easier like it does with map encounters, that'd make much more sense.

I like the last idea, mainly because I have taken all 51 squad size upgrades.
I still average over 3500 each week on the tourney but I have had to learn a lot of aspects of manual fighting for the latter rounds and upgrade all the fighting wonders available.
 

DeletedUser8921

Guest
I think there should be a clear statement on the wiki, at a minimum, of the effect of squad size on 1) your opponents on the world map -- apparently your own squad size does not affect this, but it would be good to see that spelled out and 2) the effect of squad size upgrades on tournament opponents and catering costs. Players should be able to make informed decisions on whether or not to take the upgrades based on their playstyle, and this information should be accessible to everyone, not just people who read the forum or Elvengems. Even in those places, the information presented is general advice rather than any sort of actual data on the effects of changes.

So what I'm saying is, put the information on the wiki so we can make the choices that are best for us, rather than guessing based on impressions and experience with our own "experiments" that can't be reversed.

Edit: Given the ease of editing the wiki, there is no reason not to do this unless they deliberately don't want players to make informed choices. There are perhaps some instances when an air of mystery is desirable, but I'm not convinced this is one of them.
 

LazyTony

Sorcerer
Its a rubbish grossly unfair system, and players have been complaining about it for months and months. Its right up there with trader and trading star system in terms of player complaints, and I speak as someone who was lucky enough to learn of the effect of squad techs pretty early, I stopped doing the optional ones after orc chapter.

The problem is, almost any change to squad techs themselves is going to severely upset some group of players. I don't want to have to build 7 portals and research 1 or 2 techs in each of 7 chapters, but I also don't want those folks who did all the upgrades to be a big disadvantage. Inno have made this problem worse by letting it fester for so long, but I think the best way forward now is to completely de-couple tourneys from squad techs and just base cost on the player chapter. Then, players like me (and there are an awful lot of us at the end of tech tree and have skipped many squad techs) might go back and fill in the squad techs to make the world map a little easier, but it won't be a must do.
 

Pauly7

Magus
catering cost is more affordable than the loses in troops (plus it's a lot easier to make resources than troops).
This comment must be based on your personal experience of the game and how you have developed your city. For me I am geared towards tournament fighting not catering as I have realised that a handful of strong troops goes much further than catering one encounter that may cost more than 30k in goods. I no longer concentrate on upgrading any goods producing AWs.
Why is this? because the training speed is limited
This is technically true, but only if you have gotten your Needles of the Tempest wonder up to maximum level. Once upgraded it has a massive impact on troop production speed. Add to this, of course, all the wonders that give out free troops and that make the troops more powerful. Once these have all reached max level only then have you hit the ceiling.

Despite this I don't wholly disagree with your sentiment, in that I think that it would be a very good idea for the game devs to be a little more transparent as to the effects of optional squad size upgrades. It's possible that they intend everyone to take their own paths and learn their own lessons, but that doesn't really hold water when I also believe that they generally try to shepherd every player onto the exact same upgrade path.

Also, just one more factor to throw out there which I don't think has been mentioned - The bigger the squad size the bigger the training size boost that the Dwarven Bulwark offers. This sometimes gives a reasonable argument towards having the ability to produce more troops at the expense of making each tournament encounters harder to fight.
 

Deleted User - 1759805

Guest
The bigger the squad size the bigger the training size boost that the Dwarven Bulwark offers. This sometimes gives a reasonable argument towards having the ability to produce more troops at the expense of making each tournament encounters harder to fight.
Unless you have some downtime on your military facilities (and you shouldn't), extra training size boost gains you exactly zero extra troops - you may just reset queue less frequently. I can guarantee though that your additional losses from the tournament won't be zero. So not a great trade.
 

Paladestar

Enchanter
The problem is, almost any change to squad techs themselves is going to severely upset some group of players. I don't want to have to build 7 portals and research 1 or 2 techs in each of 7 chapters.

You should have planned ahead then! :p

I made sure that when I deleted my settlement at the end of each chapter, that I first had enough settlement goods saved up to unlock the SS researches that I was skipping. I made this small extra effort in the hope that, one day, Inno will eventually fix this bad design issue and I'll then be able to unlock all of the SS researches that I skipped without having to mess around with rebuilding various settlements. :D
 

DeletedUser8921

Guest
With respect, Paladestar, what you are describing is not planning but speculating. You are imagining that there might be a change to the way squad sizes affect play in the future and that at that time the costs for the optional squad size upgrades will be the same as they are now, then investing in goods that otherwise will not produce any return.
 

Paladestar

Enchanter
With respect, Paladestar, what you are describing is not planning but speculating. You are imagining that there might be a change to the way squad sizes affect play in the future and that at that time the costs for the optional squad size upgrades will be the same as they are now, then investing in goods that otherwise will not produce any return.

Disagree, more like a shot-to-nothing. Nothing to lose really, from just taking the tiny amount of effort required to keep your settlement running for an extra day or two at the end of a chapter. It takes a while to research and unlock the next settlement so you don't need the space right away. Okay, sure the extra space might be nice for a Fellowship Adventure or another event that needs space, but what's an extra couple of days in the grand scheme of things? The coin/supplies/goods costs of settlement goods production is pretty much negligible too, it's not like you're setting yourself back much to spend a little more of these for the peace of mind that "if that day ever comes, I'll be ready."

Think of it more like home and contents insurance, or car insurance etc. I'm not betting, or speculating, that my house is going to get robbed or burn down, or that I'm going to crash my car - I'm planning for the worst, knowing that for a bit of up-front planning and a relatively small cost I can avoid finding myself in a deep hole later, should the worst actually happen.
 

DeletedUser4149

Guest
You should have planned ahead then! :p

I made sure that when I deleted my settlement at the end of each chapter, that I first had enough settlement goods saved up to unlock the SS researches that I was skipping. I made this small extra effort in the hope that, one day, Inno will eventually fix this bad design issue and I'll then be able to unlock all of the SS researches that I skipped without having to mess around with rebuilding various settlements. :D
i agree w/ that
and this
I think there should be a clear statement on the wiki, at a minimum, of the effect of squad size
i always felt responsible for informing my fellows of any potential problems they might run into later.:cool: it would be nice if the game would make that job easier, after all, it's their customers that seem like they need help. it seems like a lot of players here lack good mentors or don't communicate w/ any they have:p
 
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RainbowElvira

Sorcerer
@Paladestar The optional SSUs are just that: optional. They always were. And it's obvious that they are optional. If someone has (or had) no intention of doing them, there's no point in saving resources.

I agree however that "Allows you to fight with bigger armies, which will make fights easier." is the worst possible description of the squad size upgrades. I guess that if they were properly described, nobody would research them. Maybe this explains why Inno is so unwilling to change change the description.
 

Pauly7

Magus
Unless you have some downtime on your military facilities (and you shouldn't), extra training size boost gains you exactly zero extra troops
That's another subjective notion based on your in-game choices. Once my Needles had reached level 20 my total training time in my barracks had dropped to 5 hours. That amounts to significant troop loss each day. I chose to solve the problem in a different way, but if someone decided to get there with squad size upgrades I could appreciate the train of thought.
 
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Heymrdiedier

Enchanter
@Paladestar The optional SSUs are just that: optional. They always were. And it's obvious that they are optional. If someone has (or had) no intention of doing them, there's no point in saving resources.

I agree however that "Allows you to fight with bigger armies, which will make fights easier." is the worst possible description of the squad size upgrades. I guess that if they were properly described, nobody would research them. Maybe this explains why Inno is so unwilling to change change the description.
while its true they were always optional, they were originally exactly what the description said: they made your fights easier, even tournament. the enemy troop size of tournament was calculated by the distance of the province to your city.

they changed that with the combat overhaul (which was needed to allow us to have flying units...) when lots of players were allready end tech (at that time) and had all SS upgrades done, without allowing us to unresearch those.

So this complaints has been there for a long time, and saying they have always been optional is technically true, but needs some extra clarification.
 

Heymrdiedier

Enchanter
Yes it has, and we get very little recognition from Inno about it. There are many threads on the issue also on the Beta forum.
We can only hope that it will be adjusted for, some day.
actually i think we are being heard at the moment.... the way spire works on beta, is not based on squad size but on your overal progress (or so we've been told), so i think they might change tournament at some point in the future aswell to use the same formula.

Problem hoewever is that nobody seems to like the high squadsize requirements that are in spire, so if they change it like its in spire now, i think we're even more screwed. So we're all hoping for some extra tweaks there ....
 

RainbowElvira

Sorcerer
actually i think we are being heard at the moment.... the way spire works on beta, is not based on squad size but on your overal progress (or so we've been told), so i think they might change tournament at some point in the future aswell to use the same formula.

I thought the same but was afraid to say it aloud. In fact, taking over the spire system would not only solve the problem that the tournament size depends on the squad size. It would also reduce the number of encounters and equalize the costs for fighters and caterers.

Inno could tell us that all of this was desired by us. And the tower would be more attractive if the tournaments were barely playable. In addition, it would save them a lot of blueprints.

I hope this nightmare does not come true.
 
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