@Silmaril :
@herodite :
@anonglitch : I am still preparing feedback on several other features of the new Tournaments, but since the enabling of three simultaneous training queues is, it seems, regarded as a
significant improvement which will help to counteract the very heavy Troop losses which
many of us are encountering, I would like to put forward separately this explanation of why this change will not, in fact, be of
any help to players at comparable (broadly average) advancement levels and with similar (non-specialist) playstyles and Cities to my own.
For reference: I am a semi-casual daily player with a reasonably well-developed Arendyll Server Elven
* City in mid-Chapter VII, and the ability to generate more Troops via simultaneous building queues will, unfortunately, not benefit me either now or even in the mid-term future (meaning a period of at least six months). My City progress and playstyle probably represents a useful benchmark for an 'average' player in the early Guest Races who takes part in a committed but non-extreme/'hardcore' fashion in all of the game's core features.
* The lack of two of the best standard-production Units, Priests and Paladins, is a significant disadvantage to players with Elven Cities; and while Elven Golems are often preferable to Human Mortars, I find that Orc Strategists, which both Races can access via GotOS buildings, are often superior to both.
As an 'average' Combat-preferring player with only reasonable (never high) achievement levels and steady (even somewhat slow) progression, who previously (and sustainably) maintained a 1,600-2,000-Point Tournament average, I had not expected to be much affected by the new Tournament system, and certainly not to be noticeably
adversely affected - so I was, and still am, very surprised to find that even my formerly modest level of Tournament achievement has now become impossible to sustain.
Furthermore, and because the only relevant way in which my City may differ noticeably from what is 'typical' is in my allocation of an above-average amount of space to Troop-producing buildings (8 x GotOS and 4 x V.Valor), with correspondingly less space devoted to Guest Races, I personally should, if anything, find Combat under the new Tournament system
easier than most at a comparable stage. Therefore, if I am now finding Combat significantly more difficult, a player
without these extra Troop-producing buildings will probably be in an even worse position in this respect.
I am not so sure three training queues are going to solve the problem of most players. Sure, it will increase numbers, but those numbers may not be on the troops you actually want to use. Then, there is also the question of the ability of your troops. It will not make your troops stronger, nor upgrade them a star level. Unless you are already at the research level of having 3 star troops in all categories, I don’t see the win win situation for all. Definitely not in most of my cities.
Very well stated. The new Tournaments' randomised Enemy Unit selections and very large Squadsizes (leading to early loss of entire player Squads - even those comprising the recommended 'counter-Units'), have so dramatically altered the usefulness of the Units available to me that I now have almost no use for most Troop types outside of three specific Barracks Units. If the intention of randomising Enemy Squad types was to bring more variety/challenge to Tournament Combat, in my case the reverse effect has been achieved; my choice in over 95% of Tournament Encounters is now (a) to use one or more of the same three types of Troop Units, or (b) to Cater the Encounter if Combat will result in very high or total Troop loss.
Specifically, across
all four Tournaments so far, I have found
almost no use at all for any type of Troops apart from Light Ranged (~75% overall; up to 100% in many Encounters), Heavy Ranged (~20% overall), and, much more rarely, Mages (~5% overall, although these are often entirely destroyed at the very start of Encounters with more than two standard Light Ranged Enemy Squads and/or more than one (preferably no) MistWalker Squad/s). NB: as an Elven City, I have only 2* Sorcerers at present, which are well known to be weaker than most Mage Units (and many other Troop types).
It is apparent from the above that, at my stage,
only Ranged Troops, and especially Light Ranged (Archer) Units, which have very high Initiative, are now generally useful in Tournaments (and usually also the Spire), meaning that not only are Units formerly useful to me now largely redundant, but also that,
in my case, there is no perceptible Tournament (or Spire) advantage at all in operating three training queues at once. The only non-Barracks Unit I can produce at my level which is - very rarely - of any use against the overly large and - far too often - all-3* Enemy Squads which Tournaments now feature are 2* Cerberus Units from the Training Grounds, although I have used these in perhaps only four or five Encounters during
all four of the new Tournaments yet seen (and
once during the four concurrent Spires) - and even then only as 'side units', not as a full 5-Squad choice.
This effect is so pronounced that I am now very unlikely even to place the Mercenary Camp - as I had planned to do during my current Chapter - until several Chapters later (if at all), when its initially weak 1* Units will at least be strong enough to have some chance of survival against the very large (and 2* and 3*) Enemy Squads; and I am also strongly considering deleting my Training Grounds as well, because it now has virtually no use and removing it will create space - a far more important consideration than previously because placed Expansions now increase Tournament difficulty.
Some have suggested that non- or less-useful Troop types produced using the 'three queues' system can at least be used as 'free cannon fodder', but I certainly do not have any such individually powerful Unit types that I could afford to sacrifice the damage output/survivability of even
one genuinely useful Squad per battle in return for a far less efficient (or even useless) Squad which would either fail to survive and/or fail to contribute meaningful damage to the overall total; without a full five
efficient Squads per battle, I would simply lose many more
useful Troops and/or entire battles overall. It may be the case that one could win with fewer than five
useful Squads if using Units which are sometimes considered 'overpowered', especially at their 3* level (e.g. Frog Princes or Forest Rangers), and one might therefore be able to use, say, one or two Squads of 'sacrificial' Troops which are often prioritised as AI targets (e.g. LR/Mages) to 'kite' the Enemy Squads away from valuable Units and/or into favourable battlefield positions, but at my stage such powerful Troop types lie several Chapters into the future - by which I mean at least a year, or more, at my non-'hardcore' pace.
It occurs to me that the 'three queues' idea (which, I believe, has quite probably long been planned, whether alone or as an intended part of the new Tournament system, since it will certainly have broad repercussions upon many aspects of the wider game beyond the Tournaments) may well be one of the most significant 'concessions' we are likely to be offered. As such, its lack of usefulness (certainly in its present form) in my own case comes not only as a surprise, but also as a disappointment - although perhaps this may change in future, especially considering that I have yet to gain most of the mid-to-late-game Units, as well as lacking
3* [i.e. debuff-capable] versions of
anything at all but Barracks-sourced Light Ranged and Heavy Ranged Troops, which may well be a significant factor now that the Tournaments involve both very large
and primarily all-3* Enemy Squads, with the still overly random composition of each group of 5 Enemy Squads being a further and very significant factor contributing to the weakness of non-Ranged Units. Even 2* Treants (formerly one of my most versatile and long-surviving Units) are often destroyed before they can cause much or any damage, and when I have used - once or twice - a few Heavy Melee Squads in the new Tournament, I have relied instead on the 1* Vallorian Guards which I can, at present, obtain only from space-intensive Vallorian Valor buildings, since their 2+2 move/strike range is now such a great advantage (far more so than before) that they can at least survive long enough to do some damage, even though their HP is much lower than 2* Treants.
While I do believe, unhappily, that the underlying Tournament Formula, involving Expansions, Research, and AW Levels, is probably largely 'working as intended', and thus is not realistically likely
fundamentally to change even in the face of the strong opposition we have seen here and on the Beta Forum (as well as in-game, from players who do not choose to comment on the Forums), I also do not believe that the reduction of useful Troops for players such as myself to
no more than three types of Ranged Units - with
ALL other early-mid game Units relegated to occasional use in World Map Provinces - can
also be equally intentional. In fact, I would surmise that this is an unforeseen result which may well disproportionately affect
most players who do not yet have access to the superior 2*/3* Training Grounds and Mercenary Camp Units; and if this is the case, I very much hope that steps will be taken to restore the full range of player-side Troop Units -
for both Elven and Human Cities - to their formerly useful status.
