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AW for caterers

RainbowElvira

Sorcerer
One of the best ideas I came across. Absolutely love it.

I think it would be too late to implement this in chapter 15, as many who hate fighting quit much earlier. I suggest to make this an additional Fairies or Orcs wonder.
 

Timneh

Artisan
Great idea. There are AWs that aid fighters in big ways but caterers seem to have been overlooked. The bellspire/lighthouse give some goods and mountain halls increase goods production but not enough to make a real difference.
 

DeletedUser4517

Guest
Yes i think this is a great idea! I would build this in a minute. And since amounts of goods required seem to scale by chapter (or squad size) there would still need to be some skill involved in how many manufactories to make and such, so it's not just an easy "build AW win tourney" type of building. Perhaps a second function could be that it adds culture as well, as we have few of those AWs (only Thrones of High Men and Watchtower Ruins) :)
 

m4rt1n

Adept
A revamp of Enar's Embassy could be used, hardly anyone currently built it as it provides little rewards, compared to small event buildings. (1 Broken Shard a week).

I do really like the idea though.
 

DeletedUser3571

Guest
You could also change the relic portion of the Endless Excavation (1-6 relics extra per province is a tiny amount, this could make EE more useful)
 

alsael

Enchanter
you can also "combine" AW of similar purposes to earn extra rewards like set buildings?either they must be built adjustened to each other or not(after all,they are AW not set buildings).
This way certain "absolete" AW can be improved.
e.g if you built EE and P. Towers which both give supplies,you win extra supplies....
I also like your ideas guys,some wonders do need an "upgrade":rolleyes:
 
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DeletedUser5976

Guest
erhaps a second function could be that it adds culture as well, as we have few of those AWs (only Thrones of High Men and Watchtower Ruins)
Martial Monastery/Sanctuary also gives culture next to troop health.
 

Deleted User - 1634960

Guest
It should be remarked that there are already Ancient Wonders which directly improve the lot of caterers/negotiators. The Dwarven Mountain Halls provides a direct increase to all Boosted Good Production, The Halfling Elvenar Trade Center increases the duration and effect of the Magical Manufacturing Enchantment, and the Fairy Blooming Trader Guild improves the offers from the Wholesaler. A suggestion of this sort should at least recognise what is already in the game (even if it is not quite enough). It would probably be easier for the developers to improve an existing mechanic than to devise a new one. ;)
 
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Timneh

Artisan
@Rilian While you are correct in saying that there are some AWs that help caterers/negotiators it also needs to be said that there are about 9 AWs (i think) that help fighters. Also you mention the dwarven bulwark, this AW does not help with catering/negotiating, it is another AW that helps with fighting, it trains light melee units inside and acts as an additional armory.

In my opinion the AWs that do help with catering/negotiating are not very powerful even at higher levels. If a player that fights builds all the AWs that help them and a player that negotiates builds all the AWs that help them the player that fights would have a much bigger advantage than the player that negotiates.
It has been said on the forum a number of times in the past that a game that is advertised as a city building game leans far too heavily towards fighting. Like i said this is just my opinion and some people will disagree.
 

Pauly7

Magus
I am with @Rilian in the sense that those AWs do exist. You can't say that Mountain Halls doesn't directly affect catering any more than you could say that the Needles of the Tempest doesn't directly affect fighting.

So perhaps the conversation should really be about whether the goods based AWs are powerful enough. I have to say that I would only cater tournament encounters as a last resort because as the game currently stands it makes no logical sense to upgrade Mountain Halls to aid tournaments when the additional goods are so minimal compared to the amount of goods you save by upgrading Needles, Sanctuary, etc, and fighting a few more encounters.

Perhaps the intention by the devs is that tournament encounters should be completed by fighting. If this is not the intention, however, then I would agree that it should be addressed because catering and fighting isn't in any way balanced.
 

Deleted User - 106219

Guest
The Dwarven Bulwark provides a direct increase to all Boosted Good Production,
As @Timneh pointed out, you are confusing the Dwarven Bulwark and the Mountain Halls. But let's ignore that and focus on what each AW offers:
Golden Abyss and Tome of Secrets – neither one directly benefits fighters or caterers

Endless Excavation – does not help either

Needles of the Tempest – directly benefits fighters, as it increases the damage of Light Ranged units and improves the training speed of Barracks

Martial Monastery – directly benefits fighters by increasing troop health

Crystal Lighthouse – directly benefits caterers by providing extra goods, but due to the limit of 3 chests per day it is of very limited help

Watchtower Ruins and Thrones of the High Men - neither one directly benefits fighters or caterers

Dwarven Bulwark - helps fighters by producing free Light Melee units and increasing training size

Mountain Halls - helps with catering by increasing the boost for standard goods. The problem is the bonus is applied to the BASE production. That's pretty low. At level 11 the bonus is +72% and the cost to get it to level 12 is 720 KP. That's a lot of KP for just +4% increase in BASE production. The goods production bonus simply can't keep up with the demands for goods in later chapters

Prosperity Towers – no direct help for either

Blooming Trader Guild – I'll have to disagree with you here. First of all, not everyone buys goods from the Wholesaler. Second, the amounts of goods are pretty low even with the BTG bonus, so the help for caterers is minimal

Heroes' Forge and Shrine of Shrewdy Shrooms – BOTH benefit fighters

Enar's Embassy – the most useless AW in the game. Any plans to change it and make it even remotely useful?

Flying Academy – free Mage units and faster training in the Mercenary Camp. Three guesses who benefits from both

Maze of Dark Matter - no direct help for either

Dragon Abbey – increases the damage of Mage units

Temple of the Toads – free units and increases the damage of Heavy Ranged units

Elvenar Trade Center – indirectly helps caterers by increasing the effect of the spell that increases the amount of goods you can produce

Sunset Towers - no direct help for either

Victory Springs – directly helps fighters

Pyramid of Purification – free units

Lighthouse of Good Neighborhood - no direct help for either

Timewarp – decreases tournament cooldown

Simia Sapiens – increases troop production



So, for caterers we have:
Crystal Lighthouse/Great Bellspire and Mountain Halls for direct help, and a few others, such as BTG and Elvenar Trade Center, for indirect help


For fighters we have:
Needles of the Tempest, Martial Monastery, Dwarven Bulwark, Heroes' Forge, Shrine of Shrewdy Shrooms, Flying Academy, Dragon Abbey, Temple of the Toads, Victory Springs, Pyramid of Purification, Timewarp and Simia Sapiens


Of course, more AWs means more space needed, but on the other hand fighters don't need as many goods. Caterers need to produce more goods to make up for the rapidly increasing costs in later chapters, and for that they need more space.


In short, yes, we do need something to help with catering, be it another AW added to an early chapter, or a temporary building that boosts the production of all manufactories, similar to the temporary buildings that help with fighting.
 

Timneh

Artisan
Using @shadowblack s information above we have 2 AWs that directly help caterers and some others that indirectly help. Fighters have 12 AWs that help them. Surely the devs can see that there is a MASSIVE imbalance there.
When we first start playing the game we are told we can fight or negotiate our way through the game but clearly the advantage is aimed at the fighters.
 

DeletedUser3571

Guest
just to be fair, the timewarps cooldown would help both caters and fighters not just fighters.
 

Sir Derf

Adept
Just to put my 2 cents in. In the comparison of Cater vs. Fight AWs, recognize that part of the reason there are more Fight AWs than Cater AWs is that some of the Fight AWs focus on subsets.

There are 5 types of Units.

Needles benefits Light Ranged
Forge benefits Heavy Melee
Abbey benefits Mage
Temple benefits Heavy Ranged
Springs benefits Light Melee

Bulwark produces Light Melee
Shrine produces Light Ranged
Academy produces Mage
Temple produces Heavy Ranged
Pyramids produces Heavy Melee

There are three Buildings that train Units

Needles benefits Barracks
Academy benefits Mercenary Camps
Springs benefits Training Grounds


Monastary benefits all with Health
Bulwark benefits all by Training Size
Shrine benefits all by Training Size
Simia benefits all by Unit Production

Rather than having a single AW that benefits all units, there are 5.
Rather than having a single AW that produces all units, there are 5.
Rather than having a single AW that benefits all buildings, there are 3.


In total, of the 12 Fighter benefit buildings, only 1 (Simia) has a pure, across the board improvement on all Units. Of the remaining 11, three have all Unit improvements, while all eleven have effects or production that cover a portion of units, not all units. the game could have had fewer fighter AWs if they weren't as specific. One AW that benefits all fighter types fighting. One AW that produces all unit types. One AW that speeds up production in all buildings. There might be a lot of fighter-benefiting AWs, but I believe this represents a negative, not a positive.
 

LazyTony

Sorcerer
I think the problem here is that some players want to cater 100%. Even "fighters" won't fight 100% of the time. The best strategy, as it was from when you began playing the game is to mix and match fighting and catering, using your judgement. I agree, as your game progresses you end up fighting more and catering less, if you are trying to get the best results for the least cost.

I disagree with some of @shadowblack 's classifications of the wonders. Anyone who intends to mostly cater needs lots of factories - they cost lots of population. A fighter doesn't need population (or very little). Therefore, the Golden Abyss is a caterers wonder. If it was removed from the game, it would be harder to cater. The same goes for supplies wonders. All those factories need a lot of supplies, it would be harder to run them without those wonders. Heroes Forge gives orcs, needed for catering in the second half of the game. Elvenar Trade Centre doesn't indirectly help caterers. Producing more goods is kinda key to catering. Etc etc.

Counting wonders that aid one or the other is a very crude measure in any case.

There are also 3 spells that help caterers, and zero that help fighters. One spell has a direct and large effect (MM) and 2 (PoP and EE) help with supplies and gold, and therefore are indirect and less powerful.

Now before anyone corrects me :D , I know fighters need supplies too, but I am biased towards fighting and I still spend more supplies running my factories than my training queue.

In later chapters caterers will seriously struggle with the orc cost of catering. A pure orc producing building (rather than an armoury) that provided more orcs per square than an armoury (since an armoury has other benefits too) would be necessary for a late game caterer to score well week in week out.

There should always be some kind of reward for the greater game knowledge and time spent that fighting requires. Myself and others often spend an hour or more per tourney round, choosing a mix of catering, auto fighting and manual fighting. Catering requires no judgement or game knowledge, and far less time. Its even significantly faster than auto fighting.

All that said, I agree with the general point. Some re-balancing is required, and unless anyone has a better suggestion, a wonder that decreases catering cost by some % seems a good way to do this to me.
 

DeletedUser4517

Guest
I think this is a great discussion! As someone who has only recently got back (read: forced by game) into fighting to reach high tourney rewards, I've seen a bit of both worlds. For most of the game I was a caterer, so had the required AWs (Mountain Halls, Golden Abyss, Blooming Trader Guild, Crystal Lighthouse, etc.) to try to improve my factories to get an output that could reach the levels I saw others doing in the tournies, but to no avail. Like I mentioned in my first post, when I tried (auto) fighting for the tourney it was so much easier, and I had no military AWs built. I got loads more provinces complete and many more points.

To me, this says it all. To have my city specialized around being a manufacturer with high-level AWs since the low chapters, and still not be able to get as far in the tourney as when I tried auto-fighting with no military AWs for bonuses.

As mentioned by many here, and @Rilian no one is denying that there are some AWs to help with catering, I've built them and had them for most of my time here. But what we (caterers) are asking for is a bit more consideration (as seen by the other thread on this page as well), as the Devs seem to be pushing for more of a fighting-style type game. I think what attracted me to this game, along with many others is that there was a choice we could make in how to play and progress, manufacturing or fighting, which now seems to have been tipped in favor of fighters in these later chapters (more AWs, 3 troop-buildings, and let's not forget the bonus culture buildings).
Yes, the caterers have some spells to use, but the bonus military buildings are also available to fighters, and have good bonuses. Those building effects last way longer than any spell (5 days of +troop health or bonus damage!), although they are definitely not as common as the spells, so it evens out for both styles I think.

I believe it's been shown by many previous comments here that the AWs and game-style are tipped toward the fighting aspect right now, and we're asking for a bit of work to tip the scales back to being balanced in a 'play-your-way' type of game, which I think is attainable via Ancient Wonders. Either by re-doing existing AWs that are not popular, or by making new AWs (although this last option might be a bit too late for some players, as many may quit the game in frustration of being forced to fight before getting to a chapter after Constructs, see the thread "More Equity for Caterers" in this topic)
 
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