Errandil
Conjurer
Can we officially start asking now, why are we punished for buying premium expansions? That's a really strange design decision.
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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.Can we officially start asking now, why are we punished for buying premium expansions? That's a really strange design decision.
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.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.
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.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.
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.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.
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
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 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.
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?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).