Spire Specialist City

[Gargon667]

Well written as always

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).

This point and I guess it was you main point lol, I kinda disagree with, here is why:

1. If it actually was a big problem, wouldn´t people simply teleport a T3 factory and put in a T1 instead? Of course the problem would have to be big enough, meaning, they put up cross-tiers and nobody accepts them anymore, because there is too much competition on the cross-tier market.

2. One of the groups causing the problem are small specialized non-growing cities: Well they are small and the numbers the need/produce are completely insignificant.

3. I in contrast to you have never seen a huge number of cross tier trades in my trader, of course there are some and they rarely change, so I suppose there is little interest in them, with one exception:

4. I myself am forced by the game to produce mainly T1, because of the new FAs. The badges accept only T1, so I have changed my production to T1 plus Scrolls (Spire Libraries), which means I am gobbling up every single cross tier trade that offers me anything (but Scrolls) for my T1 Of course most people are not into FAs as much, but the ones that are all have the same problem: too much T1 and not enough of the others.

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.

Indeed this is a strange move by Inno, but if you ask me they did not even think about this happening, or if they did, they thought it would not become a big thing and therefore they don´t care. To be honest, so far it is not a big thing and I assume Inno was correct in their assumption.

I am one of the people that has stopped progress. I am not playing chapter 16 and 17, I am not upgrading my AWs much anymore, and I am not placing expansions anymore (only have the new province expansion from chapter 17 in the inventory).
The only thing that is annoying me out of the above is the AWs, would be fun to have something to do with all my KP...
Anyway what I wanted to say is that it doesn´t bother me much to not progress, but I do have fun playing all the team events, so for me the game has changed completely away from city building (which I don´t do anymore at all except for the changes during the FA) to playing team events, now this indeed is weird for a city building game, but I can´t say it´s bad. I have more fun now than I have when I have to fool around with guest races and the uselessness of the latest chapters has relieved me from having to play them .

 

[Timneh]

Anyway what I wanted to say is that it doesn´t bother me much to not progress, but I do have fun playing all the team events, so for me the game has changed completely away from city building (which I don´t do anymore at all except for the changes during the FA) to playing team events, now this indeed is weird for a city building game, but I can´t say it´s bad. I have more fun now than I have when I have to fool around with guest races and the uselessness of the latest chapters has relieved me from having to play them

I agree 100%. I am doing the same thing.

 

[Pauly7]

I find myself in the same position in my main city - I no longer progress through the game. It's therefore been quite easy to balance my city (even within my own strange parameters) so that I virtually always have the correct amount of T1, T2, T3 and sentient goods to negotiate my way through the Spire. That's all I need the goods for now, aside from the occasional AW upgrade. I also have an accurate calculator for my goods production so I can tell you that I produce in a day: 172k of T1, 153k of T2 and 143k of T3. That's still way more than I need and I've considered dismantling more manus, but I don't really know what I'd do with the extra space, plus there is the FA requirement, as @Gargon667 says, but at least my goods levels increase at the same rate.

If the first of the new FA style is any indicator, though, there is that week out of every 6 where the market becomes suddenly flooded with huge amounts of T1. This makes it much easier for other players to cross-trade from above.

The point I was coming to is that cross-tier trading works if the market supports it and if people are trading at levels that are going to be accepted. I think there are still plenty of people out there who are producing vastly more T1 than anything else, and they will take the trades at the right level. Big cross-trades can cut newer players out of the market, for sure, but then that's the case anyway. In my new city there's not been much point me even looking at the trader because even the same-tier trades are too large for me to accept. Even in my chapter 8 Beta city this is still usually the case - so I post my own trades, and they are accepted. If they stop being accepted then there is a problem. Have you found this to be the case @Laurelin?

If I've needed to cross-trade I've always done it at levels that the market accepts. For me, this means that I want my trades to always disappear within 6 hours. If this isn't the case then I adjust. The Beta market seems much tougher on cross-trading (for understandable reasons). When I need to trade down a tier on Beta now I am usually at the ratio of about 1:1.1 (or sometimes as high as 1:1.15). On Live servers I will trade between 1:1.2 and 1:1.25. In either case there is no sense of there being a profit on those trades, because I know that the higher tiers are more costly to produce than the extra 0.2 T1 goods that I get back.

People will play in different ways and the only question is whether everyone's games work together in harmony. If so then brilliant, because it is more of an interesting game if people have different requirements and produce different things. If everyone produced exactly what they needed of everything then there would be no trading between players.

 

[BlueBlou]

I guess I also fall in the category of playing strategies other than trying to get to the end of last chapter first. For me the game allows that flexibility and there are lots of roses to smell along the road. With the change in requirements for FAs, I also produce now more T1 than I previously did. Funnily enough, the spin-off of that is that I can cater more in tourneys now.

 

[Deleted User - 341074]

@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?

Firstly, I'm well aware of the problems of cross trades, I'm the one who warned the developers of it 5 years ago and lobbied for a change to the 2-star ratios.

Secondly, I made no suggestion. I Just did a mathematical analysis of the Travelling Merchants' efficiency.
The conclusions were pretty clear in that the TM1&2 are terrible and the only possible saving grace for TM3 is if you are in the final chapter you could theoretically cross-trade downstream to gain a minor increase in efficiency over T1 factories.
This is also only true under a very specific set of conditions- the most important of which is that you get all of your population from residences.
If you use anything more efficient than those the Marbles surpass the TM3 again. (I added this to my post)
And of course, you can't use MM spells on TMs

I don't believe that there is any danger in discussing game theory especially in a thread where strategies such as maintaining zero boosted relics are being discussed. This is a bleeding-edge theory-crafting discussion that doesn't apply to 99.9% of the player base.

 

[FieryArien]

Now I'm more curious.
Pick a couple of chapters, I'll crunch the numbers tomorrow

And what about Festival Merchant? This applies only to Dwarves, Fairies and Orcs chapters where the building produces T3 goods (before that supplies and after that mana and finally seeds).

I just saw it in the MA in my Faries city, it said it would give me gems, 111/1hour. It’s twice as large as Traveling Merchant III and that one gives 93/3hours in the Fairies chapter (source: elvengems, because filtering buildings on elvenstats refuses to work on my mobile).

 

[Gargon667]

And what about Festival Merchant? This applies only to Dwarves, Fairies and Orcs chapters where the building produces T3 goods (before that supplies and after that mana and finally seeds).

I just saw it in the MA in my Faries city, it said it would give me gems, 111/1hour. It’s twice as large as Traveling Merchant III and that one gives 93/3hours in the Fairies chapter (source: elvengems, because filtering buildings on elvenstats refuses to work on my mobile).

You got the answer right there: twice as big, produces more than 3 times as much.

 

[FieryArien]

You got the answer right there: twice as big, produces more than 3 times as much.

The point was to compare it to the manufactories, not to Traveling Merchant (which was deemed not efficient enough).

Btw. The Festival Merchant doesn’t need to be “launched”, it produces continuously for 12 hours (early collect at 6 hours), which is an advantage in my eyes.

 

[Deleted User - 341074]

The point was to compare[Festival Merchants] to the manufactories, not to Traveling Merchant

Fairy Marble = 1.36 marble per square per hour unboosted
Fairy Gems = 1.21 gems per square per hour unboosted
Fairy Festival = 8.2 gems per hour per sq

So a fairy player needs 260 relics for a 501% boost to make marble factories better than Festivals assuming downstream cross trading at 1:1 with residences for population.
And 350 relics to make Gems more efficient.

Considering the changes to tournaments I imagine getting to max boost happens sooner than it used to, so the Festival merchant like the TM is going to fall behind quite easily.

 

[Gargon667]

Fairy Marble = 1.36 marble per square per hour unboosted
Fairy Gems = 1.21 gems per square per hour unboosted
Fairy Festival = 8.2 gems per hour per sq

So a fairy player needs 260 relics for a 501% boost to make marble factories better than Festivals assuming downstream cross trading at 1:1 with residences for population.
And 350 relics to make Gems more efficient.

Considering the changes to tournaments I imagine getting to max boost happens sooner than it used to, so the Festival merchant like the TM is going to fall behind quite easily.

Just out of curiosity, which parameters do you include and how?

 

[BlueBlou]

I see the t3 travelling merchant more as a space filler, especially for low chapter cities where you have decided not to build t3 manus. It gives a little t3, 70 if I remember correctly. Not a lot, but if you don’t use t3 much, those 70’s eventually add up. At that level the festival merchant gives tools, which never grabbed my attention as worthwhile placing it. As with regards to cross trading, I would not consider trading the t3 for t1. I would rather build t2 or t1 to satisfy the t1 needs of the city.

Just to clarify, low chapter is below chapter 5 for me.

 

[Gargon667]

Is it chapter 6-8 when all the orc/mana/seed buildings make T3? I think you are right, supplies would not be worth it Saying that don´t the PP buildings produce supply instants before chapter 6? That trading station might be worth looking into for supply production then

 

[BlueBlou]

Saying that don´t the PP buildings produce supply instants before chapter 6? That trading station might be worth looking into for supply production then

I wish it was like that, but sadly the trading station gives coin instants, which little cities don’t need if they have a Main Hall at max level. Were it to give MM, I would be excited to get them.

 

[Deleted User - 341074]

Just out of curiosity, which parameters do you include and how?

Lazy ones.

• 0.5 roads per short side (so a 3x4 building has 3 x 0.5 = 1.5 roads)
• 1-2 squares of supplies consumed. I had quick look and the numbers are crazy small with 1 workshop covering ~8 factories so I just added 1 or squares to the factory size to account for it
• Non-magical residences for pop.
• no mountain halls
• no MM spells
• Lava codex to reach 0 culture
• A fair bit of rounding.

In all comparisons, I try to give the underdog as many advantages as possible (like using very inefficient residences for factory pop) and when rounding I do it in their favor. This way when it still loses there is no doubt. If it happens to win I will revisit the assumptions and provide a second comparison using what I deem as a more realistic scenario rather than a theoretical best/worst case.

 

[Deleted User - 341074]

I see the t3 travelling merchant more as a space filler

That's a good point. The thing is that while a factory is more efficient per square in most cases, it does require as many as 50 squares to add another one to your city compared to just 7 squares, that's a big difference- you can't just add 14% of a factory.

 

[Pauly7]

If you'll indulge me, I wanted to just dig out this old thread of mine one more time. Since the previous conversation I created my Spire specialist city and parked it in chapter 4, going just far enough to unlock the Superior Marble manus. Today I got my last artefacts to complete an Aureate Phoenix, so I placed one last expansion to complete the square, built the phoenix and squeezed two more crystal manus in to balance my T1 and T2 production again, with a spare population of 2. I believe my city is now finished...

Thanks for all previous advice. This now works perfectly. The Spire can be done in one go on a Sunday without ever having to be concerned that my coins and supplies will even get half empty.

Side project number 1 (for a bit of extra fun) is tournaments - In these I'm pushing near 4k now and still accumulating lots of goods, even before today's change, which added 16% to my T1 production and around 30% to my T2 production. I will continue increasing there for as long as is comfortable. The Spire set gives me enough T3 to continue clearing provinces. I might hit the orc wall at some point, but I suspect progress will get too expensive quite a bit before then.

Side project number 2 (for a bit more fun) is Fellowship Adventures. Whilst I can't be useful in all areas, I can clear away all my crystal and workshops and become a bracelet making machine for the week.

 

[BlueBlou]

Have fun, @Pauly7

 

[CrazyWizard]

Your welcome,

I am currently converting my diamond mine into a 0 relic diamond mine
Pandabear will be my source for T1 (gotta do something with my petfoods) and moonstone sets for T2/3, also got witch house.

But it's a pain to bring the relics back to 0 expect to be busy for at least several months. (also takes time to reach orcs to unlock more provinces, orc nest ftw.)
Then my goal is to unlock 50-60 provinces with those spire boosts and annoy everyone in the tournaments

 

[Heymrdiedier]

mine is also ready now. In orcs chapter, and happily scouting as much provinces as we can.

I want some extra space tho, events are hard with this limited space. Also not sure how I'm gonna get past quest 30 in this current event, since it requires T1 only as a production. Which i dont have currently

 

[Pauly7]

I am currently converting my diamond mine into a 0 relic diamond mine
Pandabear will be my source for T1 (gotta do something with my petfoods) and moonstone sets for T2/3, also got witch house.

But it's a pain to bring the relics back to 0 expect to be busy for at least several months. (also takes time to reach orcs to unlock more provinces, orc nest ftw.)
Then my goal is to unlock 50-60 provinces with those spire boosts and annoy everyone in the tournaments

Zero relics is hardcore. I chose to ignore that possibility for mine. My relics boosts are now up to max. I know that increases costs, but also gives me tons more goods so continued progress is assured and also better for the FA where I should be able to knock out 20 bracelets a day without even using any time boosters or feeding the Phoenix more than once a day.

mine is also ready now. In orcs chapter, and happily scouting as much provinces as we can.

I want some extra space tho, events are hard with this limited space. Also not sure how I'm gonna get past quest 30 in this current event, since it requires T1 only as a production. Which i dont have currently

That's an impressively small amount of space to be in the Orcs chapter with! Mine's bigger and back in chapter 4, but that means I can negotiate with only T1 and T2 and I'm swimming in goods. My space is still really restricted though. I don't have room to squeeze one single temp building on and no spare population to do anything with anyway.

As a side-note: I've now collected about 20 Dwarven Armourers. At some point, just for a bit of fun, I will teleport all my manus away for a week and lay a field of DAs for a tournament, fighting with the troops I have collected from events. I think I'll leave that experiment until I've scouted the maximum amount of provinces I can do, though.