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version 1.105

Deleted User - 1759805

Guest
Can we officially start asking now, why are we punished for buying premium expansions? That's a really strange design decision.
I personally don't have a problem with that. You still get benefit of an extra expansion, so some increase in difficulty is appropriate. And this increase is smaller for premium expansions than it is for non-premium expansions.

Sort of similar to how it works with premium buildings. You don't buy straight up pop and/or culture, they still take space in your city - but make your space more efficient. Premium is not completely pay-to-win.
 

Errandil

Conjurer
I personally don't have a problem with that. You still get benefit of an extra expansion, so some increase in difficulty is appropriate. And this increase is smaller for premium expansions than it is for non-premium expansions.

Sort of similar to how it works with premium buildings. You don't buy straight up pop and/or culture, they still take space in your city - but make your space more efficient. Premium is not completely pay-to-win.
While I can agree with that as an idea, in the current formula the number of expansions is a multiplier of everything else. So I can easily see the scenario where you have high enough number of AWs that the extra expansions would make things worse no matter how you use them. Combined with the fact that the price of premium expansions gets really high after you've placed a bunch and that as we are getting more chapters each expansion would start adding even more SSS I can really see this becoming an issue.
 

Deleted User - 1759805

Guest
While I can agree with that as an idea, in the current formula the number of expansions is a multiplier of everything else. So I can easily see the scenario where you have high enough number of AWs that the extra expansions would make things worse no matter how you use them. Combined with the fact that the price of premium expansions gets really high after you've placed a bunch and that as we are getting more chapters each expansion would start adding even more SSS I can really see this becoming an issue.
You can argue that premium expansion costs at the higher echelon are not a good value. But SSS impact is likely not a big issue in these circumstances. I can provide a real-life example - in a pretty much maxed out city (finished chapter 16, ~800 AW levels, all expansions possible, for base SSS at 9K+) an extra premium expansion will add a bit less than 50 points to the base SSS, or less than 0.5%. All premium expansions would cost the same as long as research and AW levels are fixed, so from that perspective there is no cost inflation for extra expansions - unlike the actual diamond costs.

Most mainstream end-game cities would be at 1/3 to 1/2 of those SSS increments, so not much to write home about. Unlike diamond costs.
 

Errandil

Conjurer
You can argue that premium expansion costs at the higher echelon are not a good value. But SSS impact is likely not a big issue in these circumstances. I can provide a real-life example - in a pretty much maxed out city (finished chapter 16, ~800 AW levels, all expansions possible, for base SSS at 9K+) an extra premium expansion will add a bit less than 50 points to the base SSS, or less than 0.5%. All premium expansions would cost the same as long as research and AW levels are fixed, so from that perspective there is no cost inflation for extra expansions - unlike the actual diamond costs.

Most mainstream end-game cities would be at 1/3 to 1/2 of those SSS increments, so not much to write home about. Unlike diamond costs.
Oh well, can't argue with numbers :) Although I still find it a bit disturbing that for that amount of money my game would be getting harder in some aspects. But probably you are right and I mostly have issues with diamond costs of expansions after some point.
 

Gargon667

Mentor
I was very excited about the new AW levels for about 5 seconds, then I read the second sentence and upon further investigation decided it is a completely pointless 5 upgrades only valuable for 1 purpose: ranking points. Since I couldn´t care less about these there goes the excitement... Well maybe one day when I have a million Orcs without purpose I might waste a quarter of them on a rune circle for my FA/Needles (a nerfed speed increase is still better than no increase at all and all the other good effects have been reduced to 0 while only the junk get upgrades), but since that is not going to happen any time soon... I leave it to those ranking towns. Have fun...
 

Gargon667

Mentor
And now the last part is done, as well:

Model v5.0: https://minmaxgame.com/spire-squad-size-model-v5-0/

And here is a Google Sheets calculator for the Model v5.0. You'll need to copy it in order to be able to edit. You can check out for yourself on how close you are ;)

Looks like you got it all covered :) Great work!

I have another idea regarding the spire: I noticed that the frequency of sentient goods vs standard goods changed considerably (I mean how often, not how many, you have to use sentient goods for convincing). It went rather suddenly from something like 75%-90% standard goods to about 50% Standard goods+50% Sentient goods. 2 things changed around the time when the change happened: It may have been the start of chapter 15 that did it, but I am rather certain that I still had low sentient frequency for the first few weeks in chapter 15. So my guess is it has to do with sentient goods boost (from the Time Warp that I upgraded rather quickly at the beginning of chapter 15) Maybe the relationship between normal boost (with Mountain Hall bonus) vs sentient boost (+TimeWarp/Vortex)?
 

Deleted User - 1759805

Guest
I have another idea regarding the spire: I noticed that the frequency of sentient goods vs standard goods changed considerably (I mean how often, not how many, you have to use sentient goods for convincing). It went rather suddenly from something like 75%-90% standard goods to about 50% Standard goods+50% Sentient goods. 2 things changed around the time when the change happened: It may have been the start of chapter 15 that did it, but I am rather certain that I still had low sentient frequency for the first few weeks in chapter 15. So my guess is it has to do with sentient goods boost (from the Time Warp that I upgraded rather quickly at the beginning of chapter 15) Maybe the relationship between normal boost (with Mountain Hall bonus) vs sentient boost (+TimeWarp/Vortex)?
I don't know about beginning of chapter 15, but I did collect a lot of catering data after finishing chapter 15. At that time, all 6 tiers appeared in catering scenarios pretty much the same amounts of time (each in ~40% of cases):


I think once a particular tier is unlocked, it has the same probability of showing up as any other unlocked good - sentient or regular. I did upgrade Timewarp over that period from L6 to L21, and didn't see any differences in goods required.
 

Gargon667

Mentor
I don't know about beginning of chapter 15, but I did collect a lot of catering data after finishing chapter 15. At that time, all 6 tiers appeared in catering scenarios pretty much the same amounts of time (each in ~40% of cases):


I think once a particular tier is unlocked, it has the same probability of showing up as any other unlocked good - sentient or regular. I did upgrade Timewarp over that period from L6 to L21, and didn't see any differences in goods required.

I agree, now all are what I would guess is randomly distributed. But I am quite certain it was not the case in chapter 14 and before. Sentient were much less frequent than non-sentient. Unfortunately I didn´t really look into it then, I just thought sentient were less frequent by design.
 

Hekata

Artisan
I noticed that the frequency of sentient goods vs standard goods changed considerably (I mean how often, not how many, you have to use sentient goods for convincing).
That's interesting. I'm in chapter 14 (done about 2/3) and I have noticed the same thing. The last 2 or 3 Spires it has been asking me mostly for sentient goods and very few regular goods. I wonder if it's just a coincidence or they have changed something. The only difference from before is that I have unlocked 1 SS upgrade. But I think that would influence the amounts of goods needed rather than the frequency of sentient goods being asked?
 

Gargon667

Mentor
SS has nothing to do with the spire, other than being a tech (techs do count) according to MinMax model and that surely must be the most thorough piece of work on the topic I have seen :)
If you notice it while in chapter 14 it would contradict both my theories (it being the moving into chapter 15 or the TWarp).
I doubt they change stuff without making an announcement about it. So far at least they have every time and they never changed the actual mechanics of the spire AFAIK, only the rewards.

If you were interested you could record what goods are asked for see if it differs from the random distribution...
 

Pauly7

Magus
When I read this I thought to myself I thought it felt like there had been more Sentient goods recently, but then I immediately player another Spire segment and I got 2 x T1 in every encounter.

The thing with chapters 13 and 14 - If all available possibilities have an equal probability of occurring then whilst in those two chapters it will seem like there is a lower chance of sentient being asked for because in chapter 14 you are not asked for T6 and in chapter 13 you are not asked for T5 or T6.
 

Hekata

Artisan
For me the Spire had a certain pattern ever since I have unlocked sentient goods. It used to mostly ask me for ordinary goods on level 1, an equal amount of ordinary and sentient on lv2 and mostly sentient on level 3. Now it asks me mostly for sentient goods on all levels. It might be just a few harder ones in a row. We'll see how it goes, but I'm sure the last 2 or 3 have been different, I have never run out of a sentient goods just for doing level 1 before.
 

Pauly7

Magus
The good thing about chapter 14 though, is you can cross trade your T6 for T5 or T4, if you do not need it elsewhere at the time.
 

Hekata

Artisan
True. I avoid posting cross-tier offers as much as I can, but occasionally, when I have no other choice, I do that. And those trades do get picked up very fast, something that always surprises me.
 
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