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Question Hold off entering new chapter

rock stream

Scholar
The expansions are irrelevant since they only count if you place them. Even if you do, they'll only make a few percent difference per chapter.
Expansions placed through research have a double penalty both through the research progress penalty and the placement of expansions penalty. You indicated just a few % increase in difficulty. Would 3% make sense?
Expansions placed through scouting/provinces would have the single expansion penalty.
Expansions placed with diamond purchases have only 75% of the expansion penalty.
Just after the rule change while sneezing into the flour I placed 6 expansions. I didn't see it coming. The only way I can fight now is to place 4 or 5 fighting boosters at a time. That is when I paused my city progression to advance my AW's.
 
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Silly Bubbles

Necromancer
Expansions placed through research have a double penalty both through the research progress penalty and the placement of expansions penalty. You indicated just a few % increase in difficulty. Would 3% make sense?
Expansions placed through scouting/provinces would have the single expansion penalty.
Expansions placed with diamond purchases have only 60% of the expansion penalty.
Just after the rule change while sneezing into the flour I placed 6 expansions. I didn't see it coming. The only way I can fight now is to place 4 or 5 fighting boosters at a time. That is when I paused my city progression to advance my AW's.

Also, you can make up for the expansions penalty by placing buildings that help your fighting in the new space.
 

Silly Bubbles

Necromancer
I have deleted my pretty high-level GA and MH for better fighting performance. I like the result :) Some other Aw too.

I think it's the number of AW upgrades that are the easiest to control to minimise the progress penalty. It's better to have low number of high level AWs than large number of low level AWs. It seems that they want to reduce the benefit of AW upgrades and make us focus on progressing rather than building up the AWs that takes long time so it's only end game players that get huge benefit from them.
 

rock stream

Scholar
Also, you can make up for the expansions penalty by placing buildings that help your fighting in the new space
My objective is to advance my population, culture and supply AW's with the hope of have less space taken up with residences, culture buildings and workshops. Then I'll proceed. I don't dare place anymore expansions. I have to use my existing space better.
 

Far Reach

Conjurer
Expansions placed through research have a double penalty both through the research progress penalty and the placement of expansions penalty. You indicated just a few % increase in difficulty. Would 3% make sense?

For a player who has reached the maximum production boost on at least one of their goods the squad size formula is:

Tournament/Spire Squad Size = 3.574 * 1.0042^M * (0.003A+1) * (V+0.75P-4)

M = unlocked mandatory researches
A = # of AW levels
V = placed non premium expansions
P = placed premium expansions

So each mandatory research multiplies the squad size by 1.0042 (i.e. an increase of 0.42%)
Each expansion increases the cost by approximately 1% for a mid game player.

Researching an optional tech doesn't change the squad size
Unplaced expansions don't have an effect either

[The above formula was derived by Minmaxgamer and is described in detail on his website. His results are compelling, but I (and doubtless many others) independently verified it at the time. I'm not aware of any changes subsequent to the above, but haven't checked it recently.]

There have been various forum discussions about how to game the formula, which basically come down to minimising expansions and being careful to only research techs and develop AWs to the extent that the resulting fighting benefits offset their squad size cost. (I'm disregarding production boost since there doesn't appear to be a practical way to exploit that.) Such optimisations do of course place restrictions in other areas of the game though (e.g. chapter advancement, space for Fellowship Adventurers, Ranking Points, Flexibility etc.).

Personally I've completely disregarded the formula in how I've built my city. In my view, unless you are gunning for a competitive tournament average of significantly above 10k it is best to ignore it.
 

Silly Bubbles

Necromancer
There have been various forum discussions about how to game the formula, which basically come down to minimising expansions and being careful to only research techs and develop AWs to the extent that the resulting fighting benefits offset their squad size cost. (I'm disregarding production boost since there doesn't appear to be a practical way to exploit that.) Such optimisations do of course place restrictions in other areas of the game though (e.g. chapter advancement, space for Fellowship Adventurers, Ranking Points, Flexibility etc.).

I understand that the conclusions that you listed might be made by other players but I still think that there's a need for more explanation by someone. Personally, I'd like to fully understand the strategy before I make drastic decisions that can set me back years.

I'm not really sure whether minimising expansion placement would automatically lead to gaming the penalty when the new space is efficiently used for fighting benefits. Aren't there event or other buildings that give more troops or in some other way help the fighting that should make up for the penalty? I haven't made the calculations yet for specific buildings but it is possible that an efficient use of the new space could actually be beneficial rather than detrimental.

Also, my tournament score has improved even though I keep progressing through the chapters, keep upgrading my AWs (not much though), keep placing all my expansions and spend all diamonds on premium expansions so there's still something that is not fully explained. Unless there's a certain level that when you hit it the fighting benefit goes down and up to that level it goes up but based on the calculation you listed it seems to be linear. So again, the whole when you stop progressing you automatically avoid the penalty needs more explanation by these people.

Personally I've completely disregarded the formula in how I've built my city. In my view, unless you are gunning for a competitive tournament average of significantly above 10k it is best to ignore it.

I agree and I even think that with the right strategy it doesn't have to influence the tournament score that much based on my experience. Also the formula only calculates the penalty and does not cover the benefits of progressing.
 

kurgkurg

Conjurer
'm not really sure whether minimising expansion placement would automatically lead to gaming the penalty when the new space is efficiently used for fighting benefits. Aren't there event or other buildings that give more troops or in some other way help the fighting that should make up for the penalty? I haven't made the calculations yet for specific buildings but it is possible that an efficient use of the new space could actually be beneficial rather than detrimental.
you don't have to worry about making up to 10 k scores in a tournament, but if you want more, you have to think about it. I don't need extra expansions. I have a lot of unused free expansions anyway, and I don't know what useful to build on new ones.
 

Gargon667

Mentor
I'm not really sure whether minimising expansion placement would automatically lead to gaming the penalty when the new space is efficiently used for fighting benefits. Aren't there event or other buildings that give more troops or in some other way help the fighting that should make up for the penalty? I haven't made the calculations yet for specific buildings but it is possible that an efficient use of the new space could actually be beneficial rather than detrimental.

Taking the extremist fighting view here:
Space is not an issue for fighting, you have far more than you need already. Placing additional expansion can therefore not be helpful, because all the buildings that help should already be there with lots of empty space to spare.

Also, my tournament score has improved even though I keep progressing through the chapters, keep upgrading my AWs (not much though), keep placing all my expansions and spend all diamonds on premium expansions so there's still something that is not fully explained. Unless there's a certain level that when you hit it the fighting benefit goes down and up to that level it goes up but based on the calculation you listed it seems to be linear. So again, the whole when you stop progressing you automatically avoid the penalty needs more explanation by these people.

2 answers:

1. You learn and become a better player as you progress. You are not increasing your scores because you progress, but you increase your scores by becoming a better player in spite of your progress. If you had stopped progress and still learned as much about the game, your score would be even better than it is now.
2. Yes there is a point in the game where progress turns from good to bad. It is generally agreed on (I would say, although of course generally does not mean 100%) that this point is the 3 star Frog tech in chapter 15 (somewhere half-way in the chapter). Many people finish the chapter though or even do tech 1 in chapter 16 (to be able to upgrade event buildings / magic buildings 1 more level).

So the answer for you would depend where in the research tree you are :)


I agree and I even think that with the right strategy it doesn't have to influence the tournament score that much based on my experience.

Many other factors influence tourney scores, the point is all of those other factors you can have on your plus side, even if you keep these fixed formula numbers.
Or to put it in other words: Yes you can progress and keep increasing your scores at the same time, but what you cannot do is to reach the absolute maximum performance possible beyond a certain point of progress.

Again this is fighting extremism. If you are happy with less than maximum performance, do as you like :) If progress makes you happier than fighting scores, you would be a fool to stop progress!


Also the formula only calculates the penalty and does not cover the benefits of progressing.

The formula calculates the squad size nothing else! There is nothing in progressing through chapters that will benefit the SS (as there is no good AW level or expansion).
You always have to weight the benefits of an action against this SS increase. No matter if we are talking about which AWs to level how far or how far to progress in the chapters or how many expansions one should place. But since few people want to do this there is a rule of thumb in the fighting extremist handbook for each factor:
1. Stop research at chapter 15 frogs.
2. Only upgrade the very best military AWs. Delete all the non-military and the lower powered military ones.
3. Place as few expansions as you possibly can (which means for most people reading this: stop right away and don´t place any more, you probably already have more than necessary).

Also I want to add, I am breaking all 3 of those rules :p (but by a lot less than most others)
 

Silly Bubbles

Necromancer
Taking the extremist fighting view here:
Space is not an issue for fighting, you have far more than you need already. Placing additional expansion can therefore not be helpful, because all the buildings that help should already be there with lots of empty space to spare.

Aren't there a lot of troop generating buildings that can improve your fighting and make up for the penalty?

1. You learn and become a better player as you progress. You are not increasing your scores because you progress, but you increase your scores by becoming a better player in spite of your progress. If you had stopped progress and still learned as much about the game, your score would be even better than it is now.

It's really hard to improve my score after 4.5 years using only auto fight and not really trying that hard at this moment, it would also be only marginal not 25% improvement. The only thing that improves it is better stats.

2. Yes there is a point in the game where progress turns from good to bad. It is generally agreed on (I would say, although of course generally does not mean 100%) that this point is the 3 star Frog tech in chapter 15 (somewhere half-way in the chapter). Many people finish the chapter though or even do tech 1 in chapter 16 (to be able to upgrade event buildings / magic buildings 1 more level).

Why is that? Based on my stats, the tournament scores hasn't gone worse after this point.

Or to put it in other words: Yes you can progress and keep increasing your scores at the same time, but what you cannot do is to reach the absolute maximum performance possible beyond a certain point of progress.

Why not? Is there any logic behind it or do you just go by your feel?

The formula calculates the squad size nothing else! There is nothing in progressing through chapters that will benefit the SS (as there is no good AW level or expansion).

If squad size increase is only deprimental to you (I personally think there's a benefit in having bigger army against the same enemy army but that's another discussion) and make you lose more troops, this loss can be easily made up by faster barracks, training grounds and mercenary camp.

Again, sorry that I want to fully understand this strategy of not progressing as it's a very drastic strategy that can set you years back in progress for no good reason. Why to stop just to keep your tournament score when there's a possibility to have both progress and tournament score.
 
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Gargon667

Mentor
Aren't there a lot of troop generating buildings that can improve your fighting and make up for the penalty?

Tourney squad size increases exponentially, your troop buildings only increase troops in linear fashion, so for a little while you can keep up, in the end you have not the slightest chance.


It's really hard to improve my score after 4.5 years using only auto fight and not really trying that hard at this moment, it would also be only marginal not 25% improvement. The only thing that improves it is better stats.

Exactly, you get better stats by manipulating the input data for the formula in your favour as far as that is possible. Also obviously not trying hard is bad for your scores lol.


Why is that? Based on my stats, the tournament scores hasn't gone worse after this point.
The first answer to this was already in the last post. Another would be:
Not yet, how far have you advanced since then? One tech is not going to end your tourney career, neither is 1 AW level, the problem is the accumulation of multiples of the tree factors which are multiplied by each other. You will never see a spike or a drop while playing, it´s a slow and creeping increase in difficulty that over time costs you more and more to overcome. if you try hard enough you can keep up for a while or even a long time, but if you had stayed put and instead used the same amount of resources your score would be bigger.


Why not? Is there any logic behind it or do you just go by your feel?

The logics is exponential growth, it´s simply not possible to outrun exponential growth forever.

The fact is look at the biggest towns on your server and look at tourney scores. Take into account that the biggest towns are often also the biggest spenders, because you can buy tourney scores and some people do just that.
So if progress would not be bad, the tourney scores table should look more or less the same as the ranking table. However you will find an overrepresentation of lean towns in addition to big spenders on top, while big towns that doen´t spend money won´t show up there as much. Exceptions of course always exist, but they don´t change the facts.

If squad size increase is only deprimental to you (I personally think there's a benefit in having bigger army against the same enemy army but that's another discussion) and make you lose more troops, this loss can be easily made up by faster barracks, training grounds and mercenary camp.

Again, sorry that I want to fully understand this strategy of not progressing as it's a very drastic strategy that can set you years back in progress for no good reason. Why to stop just to keep your tournament score when there's a possibility to have both progress and tournament score.

Unfortunately the loss can never be made up, because barracks etc have a max speed, obviously everybody has them maxed as well as the speed boost AW at lvl 35. There is not more speed than that (to be honest I don´t even have the VicSprings, because the AW levels would cause me more loss than the speed increase would produce I believe, although that is seen differently by most people). The increase of speed you get from chapters is the only way how higher chapters in theory could keep up, the problem is, that speed increase is far too small. If it was much bigger the problem would be solved (well it would cause other problems of course, but in principle progress could be worth it), however that is not the case.
Also the squad size increase does not change the outcome of your fights at all, the only thing it changes is the number of fights you can afford to fight with your amount of resources.

If there was a way to progress and maximize tourney scores at the same time, this discussion would not exist and it is one of the biggest discussions in the game since the beginning of this tourney format. It is either/or and 99% of people choose progress with less than max score potential over no progress and max score potential, although most people don´t even know they are making that choice :D
 

Turing

Bard
Tourney squad size increases exponentially, your troop buildings only increase troops in linear fashion, so for a little while you can keep up, in the end you have not the slightest chance.

But it's not exponential, the formula is linear with the number of expansions.
Whether you can get as good a benefit from event troop buildings as you can from the 3 fixed barracks is the question.
 

Gargon667

Mentor
But it's not exponential, the formula is linear with the number of expansions.
Whether you can get as good a benefit from event troop buildings as you can from the 3 fixed barracks is the question.
linear for 1 of 3 factors which all multiply each other, not exactly exponential in a mathematical sense, but in a practical one.
The problem is very complex and even in a simplified version it is nearly impossible to grasp for anyone but math enthusiasts.
 
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