@Silmaril
@Muf-Muf
Re your point about the
randomness of enemy units, in my round 3:
- Mistwalkers (MW) appeared nearly 60% of the time.
- Heavy ranged units (HR) appeared 25% of the time.
- Mage units (M) appeared just over 45% of the time.
- Reminder: MW, HR and M were not previously part of the Planks Tournament.
- Note: Mistwalkers are not comparable to Dryads and are the single most deadly enemy unit.
- A combo of MW, HR and/or M occurred just under 45% of the time.
- 4/5 different enemy unit types showed up in the same line-up just under 20% of the time. Fighting these without losing or, at the very least, incurring HEAVY casualties was impossible.
- ONLY the usual suspects appeared just over 20% of the time. There were some caveats. Dryads didn't appear once. "Usual suspects" are any Light Ranged, Light Melee and Heavy Melee units but EXCLUDING Mistwalkers.
So, yes, the randomness is completely out of control. There may be a focus on Light Ranged but if that includes Mistwalkers along with Heavy Melee and/or Heavy Ranged and/or Mage and/or Ancient Orc units the difficulty of that battle just increases exponentially. Also, facing Mistwalkers (the single most deadly enemy unit) and Ancient Orcs (the deadliest Light Melee enemy unit) in the same battle is completely ridiculous from a difficulty point of view.
Re your point about
catering costs being too expensive, in my round 3 the catering costs through to province 20 were:
- 5,220,000 coins
- 750,000 supplies
- 281,400 T1
- 277,100 T2
- 169,900 T3
- 5,600 orcs
My resource limits/productions are:
- Coin limit: 22m
- Supplies limit: 2.2m
- T1 production/day: c. 240k
- T2 production/day: c. 180k
- T3 production/day: c. 220k
- Orc production/day: c. 5800
So, in just ONE round I needed:
- Nearly 25% of my max coin supply
- Nearly 35% of my max supplies supply
- Nearly 120% of my daily T1 production
- Nearly 155% of my daily T2 production
- Nearly 80% of my daily T3 production
- Nearly 100% of my daily orc production
However, I have 12 each of T1, T2 and T3 manufactories. I understand that the average is 6 of each; so adjusting for that, the percentages for someone with only 6 of each manufactory would be:
- Nearly 240% of their daily T1 production
- Nearly 310% of their daily T2 production
- Nearly 160% of their daily T3 production
However, that also assumes that they're running a level 23 Mountain Halls like I do. How many people are running around with a level 23 Mountain Halls in chapter 12? So, if those are the percentages for just ONE round up to province 20 consider the cost of SIX rounds up to province 20. Even running Magical Manufacturing 24/7 players wouldn't make enough just to cover the cost of tournaments; never mind upgrade costs, research costs, spire costs, etc.
Re your point about
AWs making tournaments more difficult, you're saying that the benefits they provide outweigh their contribution to the cost calculation. So, how do you account for the anecdotal information provided in this thread and amongst FSs? I have 372 AW levels and in just round 1 I lost over 300 squads getting to province 45. The rounds seem to be of equal difficulty now, so over 6 rounds I'd lose 1,800 squads. My AWs do not allow me to replace 1,800 squads in just one week and I'm running all available military AWs. What about someone that's not running any military AWs? They would not be getting any tournament benefit but would be similarly punished. Far Reach and a high-ranking player in my FS have reported similar stories re catering costs on their different cities. Their cities with fewer AW levels are getting significantly smaller catering costs than their main cities with many AW levels. My guy is reporting a 60% reduction on their smaller (re AW levels) city. No collection of AWs is going to make up for that kind of increase in catering costs.
So, what's the point in doing well in a tournament today to earn rewards that, when used, will make my tournament tomorrow harder, which will eventually lead to my earning less rewards? I upgrade all my AWs to max and all of a sudden my max potential in tournaments EACH week is vastly reduced. I'm no longer regularly in the top 10. I can't make up for any shortfall in my FS due to holidays or leavers. Why does making my city better, re AWs AND research, make my tournaments worse?