@asdfgh
It doesn't work that way. You'll still draw down from the pool at the same rate, so it'll take the same # of drafts to deplete it, just the # of armies you're receiving will be higher with the boost.

As Master Jz said ... drafts aren't really profitable for the fixed portion, it's the sliding portion that I target after collecting army caches or buying mercs. In my case for example, Drafts were 15% of my total armies earned. I invested in Additional Mercs & Discounted Mercs, so I buy more mercs and thus benefit more from Drafts.

Edited 6/16/2021 20:18:55

Larger drafts deplete the sliding pool faster. If you max increased draft sizes, your drafts will be 4x as big and it will take 1/4 as many drafts to stop hitting the cap after purchasing a large number of mercenaries. If it didn't deplete your pool more quickly, then you could get a LOT more than 15% from drafts. I get dismal numbers for drafts because I splurge on huge numbers of mercs in the last couple of hours and can't catch up on drafts.

Edited 6/16/2021 22:11:40

Fizzer confirmed in the other thread we had on this that Draft Boost doesn't deplete the sliding pool quicker. The base draft is calculated normally from the fixed and sliding portions, but when the armies are awarded, the boost multiplier is applied. If you're buying all your mercs in the last couple hours of a level, you're wasting the free units you would have gotten from the drafts b/c you're leaving behind an undepleted sliding portion.

On Europe Huge for example, after drawing down on the 350B merc camp (might be smaller for others, I have +45% additional mercs), I had a large number of 6B drafts after it. Total drafts were 669.7B for the map. If you're missing out on that, it's a wasted opportunity. Why wait until the end?

I can buy more of my mercenaries (+85%) if I wait until the mercenary discount techs are unlocked. That makes up for the lost drafts. It's also less effort.

I don't want to argue in circles. Fizzer's posts are here.
https://www.warzone.com/Forum/549257-increased-draft-size?Offset=0

Congrats on reaching phase 4 and thank you for sharing. As you didn't mention anything about a potential phase 5 to unlock I guess this is the endgame?

As for the auto-draft discussion: I would weigh the convenience factor pretty highly. Imagine never having to find that icon again. When we buy a lot of mercenaries it currently becomes quite important to babysit the game every 6 minutes.

There's no Phase 5, at least not yet. There are still a lot more advancements that could be added in the future.

The downside is that Auto-Draft has to be maxed to truly be useful on levels, which will undoubtedly be expensive. I'm excited for this advancement, but it'll be a while.

I'm thinking of this:

but over the course of an entire map, it doesn't actually get you more armies

That is incorrect. The draft modifiers affect both portions, the fixed and the sliding.

I interpret this to mean that the idea that it just depletes the sliding pool faster is incorrect, the boosts actually get more drafts.

But then he wrote this:

If you draft only a couple times per day, then the fixed portion won't amount to much. But the draft modifiers are still useful for helping you reach the sliding percentage faster.

So I don't know anymore. If the boost doesn't actually increase the amount awarded from the sliding pool and all it does is boost (a) fixed portion, and (b) drain the sliding pool faster, then it's a total waste of AP imho and I'm very sad for having invested in the AP adv.

So I don't know anymore. If the boost doesn't actually increase the amount awarded from the sliding pool and all it does is boost (a) fixed portion, and (b) drain the sliding pool faster, then it's a total waste of AP imho and I'm very sad for having invested in the AP adv.

Yeah this is unfortunately how drafts work :( they're not a great use of AP as a result.

on the other hand, not using the sliding pool to the max is a waste of free armies.
It all depends on how fast you are finishing your maps. If you are really fast, then Increased Drafting can actually help.
I remember when I first played Reconquest a while ago it took me about a week. Now I finished it within 2 days. I don't think I depleted my sliding pool at all

So sad ... I've wasted 2605 AP on this AP Adv. In a game where longer levels take 30 days, draining a pool 2.5x faster is not a material advantage (but 2605 AP is a material cost for it). I wouldn't have bought it had I known it wasn't actually increasing the sliding pool. The benefit from the fixed pool is nominal (I've calculated it, it's minimal, doesn't really factor into the level clear time).

It is a sad day. (But really it's always been sad, just I didn't know it ... I think I just got sadder b/c I wasn't only disadvantaged, I was disillusioned as well, lol).

Edited 6/18/2021 16:39:34

@Krinid

I don't think you have wasted your AP.
But if you think so - just reset it. 150 coins is not a big deal

@Parsifal
I'm considering it. Part of my hesitation is the principle of having to pay for an AP allotment reset. It just feels like this should be like WZ name changes, where we get opportunities for a bunch of free ones. Or maybe 1 per 10 maps completed, or 1 per Ascension, something like that. I'll do the calculation of what I could spend that AP on, and if I have a good plan to make better use of it, I'll likely reset it. I can afford it, just don't want out of principle. lol (Preliminary analysis ... I could get 15% Increased Item Sell Values ... hmmm, that could be worth it).

The feeling of wasting AP on this AP Adv (Increased draft sizes) is in the disappointment of what I thought I was getting vs what I actually got AND NOT EVEN KNOWING IT because there's no way to compare the With vs Without benefits, you just see the result, and if WZI tells me it's +282%, I believe it (turns out it's +282% of a small part of it [fixed portion] that isn't material across an entire level + the same amount but received +282% quicker of the bulk of it [sliding portion]).

Unfortunately the opaque WZI mechanics veil the true benefits in cases like this. The math isn't evident (like additive bonuses for buffs, multiplicative bonuses for discounts - essentially whichever math benefits players the least - but at least Modifiers makes this obvious) and tbh many of the descriptions aren't clear enough to understand what it's actually doing (the descriptions don't lying, they're wrong, they're just insufficient for everyone to aptly understand), and thus we've done a lot of reverse engineering to figure out the true benefits. There are several aspects of the game of course that let the players shoot themselves in the foot if they really want to... just the nature of the game, I suppose. And it isn't so bad if it's least obvious that you're shooting yourself in the foot, like using a bunch of powers in the last 5 mins of a map (bunch of SACs, SMs, IMs, a Skip Level & an ML - all useless if you're finishing the map in 5 mins), using an ML on the Tutorial, using an IM on a camp with only 100 armies left, using a Fog Buster when there's only 1 territory left fogged [could be a Power or an Artifact, either is wasted, just a matter of wasting 50 coins vs 16 hrs cooldown] using "Rest Spent AP" 10 times in a row, aborting a map in the middle of it and restarting it (I just did this by accident by fat fingering on my mobile when having the WZI up and running - after using a bunch of powers and being in good position to steamroll the rest of the level, ultra nasty! But 100% my fault), etc - these are obvious bad uses of resources and players should at least realize their error quickly if they do it and never repeat it. But non-obvious ones like Increased Draft Sizes exist too, where you think you're getting good value out of it ... but not really, but you don't actually know it, so keep shooting yourself in the foot.

1 per ascension sounds like a nice deal, that way if you ascended a few times you can try various combos and see what works and what doesnt

The feeling of wasting AP on this AP Adv (Increased draft sizes) is in the disappointment of what I thought I was getting vs what I actually got AND NOT EVEN KNOWING IT because there's no way to compare the With vs Without benefits, you just see the result, and if WZI tells me it's +282%, I believe it (turns out it's +282% of a small part of it [fixed portion] that isn't material across an entire level + the same amount but received +282% quicker of the bulk of it [sliding portion]).

That is also more or less why I think that the individual ore production boosts aren't useful in practice. Sure, if I had three times as much copper production, I'd need at least four (probably more) stages of mine upgrades less, but besides the fact that this only affects one out of twenty-something ores, at the time in a level where I realize which ore I would like to have boosted, I don't have APs left (because I spend them as soon as I get them, to max out my payoff) and by the time I have new APs to spend, I don't know yet what I will need the most in the next level.

You don't get the chance to play around with different setups of advancements (not because of the 150 coin penalty, but because you cannot really compare one run of a level with another and the levels take ages (at least) on their first time) and compared to the advancement costs, the AP rewards are very little.

I made such a mistake twice: unlocking the useless Auto-upgrade AC and maxing out Increased AP.
Had to reset my points twice within 3 days.
So maybe I lost 300 coins but I gained a calm mind, which is more important

Edited 6/20/2021 23:44:46

Interesting, didn't realize you reset your AP twice. What was it that you didn't like about your first two attempts? If I read correctly, on one attempt you maxed IACP & unlocked auto-upgrade AC? What about this didn't work for you? Putting the AUAC aside, I thought this is kind of where you ended up now.

Anyhow, imho, I think WZI should empower this kind of experimentation (by providing a few free AP resets) and not inhibit it (by charging for each one). Finding the right mix is part of the game, part of the fun. And the choices must match playstyle, and partly due to game tweaks (it is beta after all) and changing playstyle due to learning as you go, it can change over time.

Totally agree, maxing out an AP Adv entirely before moving on isn't good. If I recall correctly, my order was some IACP to ~+100%, max JS, draft sizes to +250%, additional mercs to 45%, increased AP max, idle time to +300, cache money to max, ore sell values to max, additional mercs to 75%, discount mercs to max, IACP to +210%, money from bonuses to +85%.

Now I'm consider resetting ... but I think the only thing I regret is the Draft Size ... but will think it over before committing.

I never maxed IACP. I'm currently at 400% and I'm happy for now.
the Auto upgrade army camps interfered with my battle strategy. back then, SACA wasn't a thing, and with my strategy, I hit first two places most of the time.
Since April SACA is the only strategy.
As for maxing Increased AP that was just stupid! Investing half of all my AP into something that is going to pay off in only 2 ascensions was badly thought on my part.
Imo one should avoid it until at least 3rd/4th acension

Edited 6/21/2021 11:56:32

The issue with not doing Increased AP advancement is that Phase 2 is tricky to dump points into, particularly if you aren’t interested in battles. If you max Merc Discount and AC Discount you’ve only spent a fraction of what’s needed for Phase 3. What comes next?

Edited 6/21/2021 18:17:49

The challenge is that Increased Cache Resources is arguably the worst of the three (money, armies, resources) and Increased Alloy Sales is arguably the worst of the three (ore, alloys, items) - at least in my mind.

@graemes

The resources that you find in caches are free items that you can sell for a lot of money at the ed of the level when you purchase your mercenaries. In my case is often roughly a quarter of all money earned, so don't neglect it!
same for increased Crafters Speed. Every item you craft equals money for mercs.
So reaching to the needed 8000 points shouldn't be a big deal