BlueBlou
Illusionist
so true
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Spire Specialist City
- Thread starter Pauly7
- Start date
Pauly7
Magus
The gems production boost is activated in chapter 3.
OK, this I didn't realise. If that's the case then forget my complaining about the gems production boost.
Do you have any data on this actually working? In the space of a week my production boost doubled and this increased my catering cost by some proportion of the 30% (let's call it 25%). It seems to me that the increased production of marble may outweigh the increase in costs.In my head its very important to keep those relic boosts down, in order to compensate for having to go to orc chapter and do all that mandatory research. But who knows, maybe once I'm in that orc chapter, I might think i can ignore that relic boost anyway...
There are some who have implied this isn't a challenge at all, and that given the new tournament formula that it is almost a logical thing to do.
CrazyWizard
Shaman
You are right, but in chapter 4 it does not ask for t3 goods, not in the spire nor in the tournaments.
CrazyWizard
Shaman
Not until the next tournament / spire.
Your costs are determined when it starts and then doesn't change till the next start when it's recalculated.
Pauly7
Magus
I'm not sure which of us is confused here. @BlueBlou is saying that the gems production boost never matters, because it is only looking for the highest of the three boosts. This was what was concerning me, whether in the long term I was going to be hit by having a gems production boost which I never utilised.
CrazyWizard
Shaman
Ah I see, yeah he is correct, only the highest bonus counts with a max of 700% so as long as your t1 bonus is already maxed, the t2 and t3 bonus do not matter.
Gargon667
Mentor
It does, but only if it is higher than T1 and T2. If it is lower than one of the others it has no influence at all.
DeletedUser6848
Guest
Interesting experiment. I may try it with my (much neglected) beta city which is in chapter 4.
has anyone crunched the numbers on the craftable travelling merchants? For bigger cities they are a bit useless, but in these early chapters their compact footprint and not needing pop has been handy. I’m covering T3 needed for research just from 3 TMIIIs and a spire set.
has anyone crunched the numbers on the craftable travelling merchants? For bigger cities they are a bit useless, but in these early chapters their compact footprint and not needing pop has been handy. I’m covering T3 needed for research just from 3 TMIIIs and a spire set.
Pauly7
Magus
I think you can probably make these work for you, though I haven't built any in my small city. I can see the Travelling Merchant III being especially useful if, like me, you're planning to get halfway through the 4th chapter, but you don't want to have to build any T3 manufactories.
Deleted User - 341074
Guest
I've crunched the numbers for advanced cities a few times and considering the population requirements of factories the Traveling Merchants are actually surprisingly close in production. That has always been with the assumption of having a 700% boost though, so if you were to go for a low relic boost strategy for the spire these could be very good indeed.
Gargon667
Mentor
Well when I last looked at the numbers (admittedly quite a while back) they were entirely useless, even considering pop and culture etc. If you then take Mountain Halls or MM enchantments it gets even worse.
But in a special case like this with no goods boost they might be better than nothing. However there always were many buildings that beat factories in goods production easily, all of them will be far superior to traveling merchants as well. Best example is of course the spire set. But even most of the building that manke mana/seeds etc in later chapter make goods in earlier chapters and usually at rates superior to factories (if pop/cult is considered). Now I haven´t looked at the numbers but if I had to make a bet I would say the festival merchant you can craft in the MA will make more T3 than any travelling merchant can. Easy enough to look up and compare (I think the size is exactly twice? Neither needs pop and the difference in culture is well not anything I would waste my time on)
Deleted User - 341074
Guest
Now I'm more curious.
Pick a couple of chapters, I'll crunch the numbers tomorrow
Gargon667
Mentor
Since @Pauly7 is thinking about chapter 3 or 4 those would be the most relevant ones? I have never checked in these low chapters I am sure. Never was interested in playing a forever small city. And for active players that keep researching non of this is of importance, since they´ll be past that point in no time.
Heymrdiedier
Enchanter
why don't you pick orc chapter, the chapter you need to break the orc wall on world map
Deleted User - 341074
Guest
@Gargon667
TL;DR: Travelling merchants are absolute crap for the early chapters.
Unless I've made a mistake, as soon as @Pauly7 gains 10 marble relics (a 106% boost) his chapter 4 level 15 Marble factories surpass the TM output.
So yeah, the TM 1 is crap for low chapters unless comparing it to non-boosted.
Crystal factories are even more efficient than marble so the TM2 is crap as well.
In an attempt to double-check my sanity I picked a higher chapter and ran the numbers again:
In chapter 10 with a 700% boost a marble factory makes 13 marble per square per hour
In chapter 10 a Travelling Merchant 1 makes 9.3 psph
So it is much closer there even with max boost.
If you built a TM2 or TM3 and were able to cross-trade at anything over 1.5:1 You'd come out ahead.
Naturally I wanted to check a chapter I've never tested before so I looked at 17
In chapter 17 with a 700% boost a marble factory makes 33 marble per square per hour
In chapter 17 a Travelling Merchant 1 makes 27 psph
If you built a TM2 or TM3 and were able to cross-trade at anything over 1.2:1 You'd come out ahead.
Edit: Note that the above calculations are based on using residences for population. If you use event buildings or magical residnces then the Marble factory efficiency increases to the point where all tiers of TM are crap in all chapters and no amount of cross-trading will make them viable.
TL;DR: Travelling merchants are absolute crap for the early chapters.
Unless I've made a mistake, as soon as @Pauly7 gains 10 marble relics (a 106% boost) his chapter 4 level 15 Marble factories surpass the TM output.
So yeah, the TM 1 is crap for low chapters unless comparing it to non-boosted.
Crystal factories are even more efficient than marble so the TM2 is crap as well.
In an attempt to double-check my sanity I picked a higher chapter and ran the numbers again:
In chapter 10 with a 700% boost a marble factory makes 13 marble per square per hour
In chapter 10 a Travelling Merchant 1 makes 9.3 psph
So it is much closer there even with max boost.
If you built a TM2 or TM3 and were able to cross-trade at anything over 1.5:1 You'd come out ahead.
Naturally I wanted to check a chapter I've never tested before so I looked at 17
In chapter 17 with a 700% boost a marble factory makes 33 marble per square per hour
In chapter 17 a Travelling Merchant 1 makes 27 psph
If you built a TM2 or TM3 and were able to cross-trade at anything over 1.2:1 You'd come out ahead.
Edit: Note that the above calculations are based on using residences for population. If you use event buildings or magical residnces then the Marble factory efficiency increases to the point where all tiers of TM are crap in all chapters and no amount of cross-trading will make them viable.
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Deleted User - 341074
Guest
Where were you 20m ago?
I'll go check
Deleted User - 341074
Guest
Ok, with chapter 8 buildings the Marble is making 10.5 per square per hour while the TM is only making 5.8 so you'd need to cross trade a TM2 or 3 at nearly 2:1 meaning that they suck again.
Laurelin
Sorcerer
ETA : Just remembered that long rambling posts aren't your thing (sorry - I'm just naturally long-winded!), so here's the tl;dr version:
1. Downstream cross-Trading is already a problem in the game, and much more so since the Spire formula was incorporated into Tournaments;
2. Therefore, is it a good idea to encourage experienced players to cross-Trade downstream, and thereby risk alienating even more newcomers?
And here's the long ramble with elaborate justification of the above viewpoint, for those who want to plough through it...
@SoggyShorts : While efficiency is important in the current context, and also while I'd imagine that you're discussing this more out of interest than with the intention of promoting the general idea of downstream cross-Trading, I feel that the last thing this game needs is encouragement of the already problematic habit of [routinely] cross-Trading the higher Tiers of Goods for the lower Tiers... unless I have read your suggestion wrongly?
I have a fortunate Map position with several nearby large and mid-sized Cities which Trade often and fairly, and since the T1-heavy Spire Formula* was also incorporated into Tournaments, I have seen around 90% of those same Cities which formerly posted solely/predominantly same-Tier trades increasingly or even solely resorting to downstream cross-Trading. Most of them are asking for T1 and offering either T2 or T3 in exchange (at fair Star Rates, but still, who is producing all the required T1?), with T3 also very frequently being down-Traded for T2 as well - and these are players who are likely to understand the game, and were not formerly attempting to profit from Trading by routinely offering mainly downstream Trades.
* Explanation: (a) more T1 Goods than T2/T3 typically needed for Diplomacy/Catering, and (b) Tournaments now require more Catering vs Combat.
Few enough players stay with Elvenar for more than a few days (I have the usual percentage of constantly cycling abandoned Ch. I Cities in my Map area), and of those who do, seeing the example of even long-established and later-game players constantly or even mainly down-Trading T3/T2 for T1 (and often in very large amounts; tens or even hundreds of thousands of units) is more likely, in my opinion, to cause those new players to adopt the same practice than it is to encourage them to see the opportunity to specialise in T1 and build nothing but that - which is, it seems to me, starting to become the only way to supply the very high demand for T1 Goods which the Spire/Tournament Formula has caused over the past year or so.
The lack of T1 could be offset by [enough] larger Cities adapting, e.g. by building more T1 production, but if this were going to happen, I would expect to have seen evidence of such a change taking effect by now, considering that it has been well over four months since the new Tournaments began on the EN Servers; instead, though, I see more and more T3 and T2 down-Trading for T1, sometimes even within Fellowships, even including those which were formerly well-balanced in Goods and did not need to post down-Trades, certainly not for FS-mates - as many of them now do.
With all this in mind, then, I feel that if Elvenar is to retain any useful percentage of players from the [very] early game, it is far from advisable (in general game-wide terms) for the existing trend towards downstream cross-Trading to be supported/encouraged by the new, perma-small Cities built by those long-time players who are committed enough to try to compete in the new Tournaments by intentionally stalling their game progress - and especially down-Trading at any ratio which is worse than the still-somewhat unequal Trader-dictated Star Rates (on a production per square basis - although obviously the current Star Ratings are a major improvement upon the extremely unfair former 16:1 Trader-sanctioned T3:T1 ratio).
What example does it show, after all, to genuinely new players (who are unlikely to be stalling their progress in order solely to do well in the Spire/Tournaments - whether or not that would be their best long-term option; that is another question entirely) if those experienced players who are building other new, small Cities (which should be, by the mechanics of the game, best optimised to produce Tier 1 Goods, since they lack space and/or the Relic Boosts to efficiently produce T3 or even T2) are not producing/supplying T1, but rather intentionally down-Trading T3 or T2 instead?
Unless my experience of the current lack of T1 Goods is atypical (and what I read on the Forums and hear in-game suggests that this is not the case), I assume that the majority of experienced players who are now considering setting up small 'Spire/Tournament-only' Cities are aware that T1 Goods are now generally in short supply. And while I also assume that most, if not all, of those players will either already be in, or will set up, Fellowships with larger Cities which know that they will need to provide these small Cities with whatever Goods they lack in return for their high scores, there is also the point that new players - who will, as I say, learn most readily from what they see happening around them in the game - will certainly not be in such Fellowships, nor have any such advanced pre-knowledge (which can only be found, with any degree of ease, on these Forums).
They will have no idea why small Cities, which they consider similar to their own, would be (a) not building Manufactories, and (b) instead building TM3 and/or TM2 (which all new players see offered frequently in Crafting rotation). However, even without knowing why they see this happening, they may well emulate it themselves nonetheless, and I can't see any of this being healthy for the overall Trading situation in the game - which is already in a far from sound condition at the moment, and in many ways (e.g. in terms of Sentient Goods shortages, as just one additional example).
It is actually my opinion that InnoGames, having caused the present T1 Goods shortage via the Spire and then Tournament changes, should also address it via further in-game changes of some kind; but I think most will agree that even if any such 'balancing' is planned, it will not be done any time soon - so in the interim it is up to us players to do what we can to address this increasingly visible (and, to new players, probably off-putting) T1 Goods imbalance. And I would think that one thing which the most committed 'Spire/Tournament-only' small City players (who will, I imagine, want new players to last at least long enough to become interested in competing themselves?) can do in this respect is to produce and Trade the T1 Goods which their early-game Cities will be best able to manufacture - even if this is not, mathematically, the absolutely most efficient solution.
* * * * *
Incidentally, the fact that one of the most active threads on this Forum, post-new Tournaments, is one discussing how to continue to enjoy the game without progressing (and therefore, in effect, without actually playing the 'base game' - only the [allegedly] optional Tournament and Spire elements) gives rise to a couple of observations which cross my mind:
1. It is both admirable and yet also very strange to see that Elvenar has players who are committed enough to keep playing, but only by knowingly hindering their own progression - which is something I have before only ever seen in live-action 'heavy rôle-playing' games, and even then rarely;
2. The fact that this [the move, by some, to new, lean, perma-small Cities] is one of the two predictable outcomes of the Tournament changes as far as competitive, non-'whale' players with highly developed late-game Cities are concerned (with the other outcome being that those players will just leave the game because they can no longer compete) - always assuming, as I do, that Inno's developers and planners know how to make accurate predictions - seems to lend further credence to something I have increasingly observed happening over the past two years or so; i.e. the intentional re-positioning of Elvenar [meaning: the slow-paced 'build-a-City' base game] as less of a standalone self-purposed game and more of a framework intended to enable and support the faster-paced [allegedly] 'optional' competitive elements and now almost constant Events. I've said this before, I know, but the more changes I see made to the game (and equally, the potential changes not made), the more apparent - to me - this becomes.
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