Supercamp question: 6/26/2021 21:56:47 |
krinid
Level 62
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Just realized there may be a weakness in my strat which makes some levels long. Maybe that's what happened with Breaking Green. Not sure ... but right now I'm on Fort Harbor, and it's going like this:
Fort Harbor: - Territories taken: 570 - Territories left: 210 (192 visible, so I can see almost everything) - Income: 348K/sec money, 22K/sec armies - Current assets: 7.18B money, 760M armies - The only recipes that are profitable to buy/craft is Tin Can worth 13M, so need to smelt to make Welding Rods & Twine, but don't have enough ore output to keep them constantly. - 4 smelters, 4 crafters - ~32B armies left on map (28B on visible territories, guessing that 4B are on the 18 territories still fogged) - 57M left in 1 merc camp, 4 merc camps left to cap, estimated 8-10B armies across all merc camps - Duration: 3d10h - I started as per usual, throw on ACB, TMB, BMB, auto-conquer, and just upgraded army camps, changed smelting, buy some mercs, etc, for ~2 days ... was trying to see if I could clear the whole level just by doing this. - After 2 days, I expected to see that I had good recipes & a bunch of hospitals, and then I could then start making the real money which would then spawn rapid advancement. But I had copper & barbed wire only, only 2 hospitals (the weakest ones that aren't even worth upgrading), crap income for both armies and money, and the barbed wire wasn't making me much profit. - So I turned off auto-conquer and tried to salvage things, so got the Tin Can and started making those, and didn't really have enough money or armies to do anything else. - 12h later ... I have ~80 some odd tins cans to sell, but nothing material. - Used an IM to make my way to snag the Welding Rod & Twine recipes... and sadly neither is profitable by buying ingredients. - So upgraded my Silicon mines, used an SM artifact to boost the highest one for 30 mins, and started the Twine crafting. - 12h later ... just not profitable enough. Even with 73% merc discount (AP adv, artifact, Tech), the mercs are just too expensive relative to the bonus income despite +100 from AP Adv & crafting income despite +31% buff (AP Adv + artfifact). - So I guess I just have to wait, craft more, upgrade these hospitals as high as they go, and use SACs & FCs to get past the end game.
These levels are annoying, because they of the small money income, and my strat relies on high money to upgrade the hospitals and keep the mercs flowing.
How do these levels after your army camp central strat?
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Supercamp question: 6/27/2021 08:47:55 |
Parsifal
Level 63
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@Krinid
Fort Harbor? Finished in 1d13h
I find that concentrating on army camps divides my levels into 3 phases: 1st phase - conquering ~25% of the territories within a couple of hours 2nd phase - boring phase. Game hardly moves. Upgrading army camps and mines. Conquering ~50% of the territories may take anywhere between 1-3 days 3rd phase - selling all the resources and purchasing all the mercs - conquering the last ~25% of the territories within 1-2 hours
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Supercamp question: 6/27/2021 16:45:36 |
Phoenix
Level 25
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Based on your numbers - that differ a lot - I would conclude that both strategies work equally well with sufficient money income but one beats the other for less money situations. I don't know if there are such levels, but given more than average money income, I could see krinid taking the lead, but that's pure speculation.
But in general, all strategies will rely on money to a larger or lesser extend. After all, it's money that buys you mercs or upgrades. In this particular scenario it probably comes down to krinid's Merc discount vs Parsifal's camp discount. Or one of you has significantly more general money boosts (better sell value, better territory/bonus boosts). OR, krinid's strategy is simply not money-efficient (enough) and only works when there is a plethora of wealth, while Parsifal has a stronger basis that doesn't rely on upgrades that much. (if the latter, I should also be able to finish quite quickly when I am on your AP level.)
For me, the gist of this is, that it is advisable to check my strategy regularly. I can only speculate whether this would have changed anything, but apparently, you can check and re-evaluate your progress too rarely. ;) sorry, krinid. ;)
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Supercamp question: 6/27/2021 17:23:45 |
krinid
Level 62
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@Master Jz I sometimes replay an early level if my dig is in the 1-5 hour range to completion. An obvious as that is, it's a great idea. Just so focused on doing the next level to Ascend again that I forget that that's an option. lol. I redid soooo many levels my 1st playthrough b/c I didn't know about Ascension. #timeWasted @Phoenix What you say is true, Phoenix. Part of problem is not knowing what kind of level you're playing. You don't know: - Total # of armies required to clear the levels. - How many **market-profitable recipes it has. - How many mercs all the camps together will provide. - What the cost of the mercs will be. Some levels have a number of camps that have lots of mercs in the 0.01 cost range. Others have lots of merc camps with low army counts & high costs. - How much benefit the hospitals will give & how long it will take to upgrade them to useful levels. This is more a factor of the recipes - if there are enough market-profitable recipes, this factor isn't material. - What the army camp upgrade costs will be. Some levels start off with tons of really cheap army camp upgrades for a large number of camps beyond the first 2-3. Others get expensive beyond the first 2-3. This applies even more to the Supercamp, which sometimes is upgraded almost as soon as the level starts, other times shortly afterward, but other times it already starts at upgrade cost of >100M. Sometimes the 2nd upgrade is "midrange" in price (can upgrade it again somewhere still in the early game), sometimes it immediately jumps up to the "Expensive" range (mid-game or later). - What caches (armies, money, resources) will give you. All these factors combined (and more) define what the optimal strategies (plural, there's never only just 1) are for a given level. Some levels have lots of resource caches with highly valuable items (I seem to recall USA & Europe Huge giving lots of Lanthanum & Terbium bars - but I think this was my 1st playthrough of each, and I think it was nerfed later so it's just a much lesser amount of ore now), some levels have high money caches, others high army caches. My strategy relies on lots of money, so I maxed out Increased Cache Money, Increase Ore Sell Values, Discounted Mine Upgrades, Merc Discount, Increased Money from Bonuses, use the TMB Epic & BMB Epic artifacts, and swap out Army Cache Bonus Rare, Resource Cache Uncommon, Money Cache Boost Uncommon & Cache Boost Rare artifacts when I suspect the result is significant enough to bother with the artifact fiddling. If there is a market-profitable recipe or good bonuses income or lots of good caches in the first 25% of the map, I'm set up for a good map clearing and things go exactly according to plan. Otherwise, I have to find that in the mid-game. And if it's not there either ... wait longer. It just drags on. Had I known all that from the start of the map however, I could have perhaps made another plan, but I don't actually know that the strategy I chose to clear the map won't work until I don't find what I need to make it work. :( Anyhow, this run through of Europe 1066 AD, I'm going to try putting all money to army camps until 1/2 way or so through the mid-game and see what difference that makes. ** Market-profitable recipe: recipes which profit when buying ingredients from markets, assumption is "significantly profitable", eg: having screws as a market-profitable recipe doesn't help b/c these don't generate enough profit beyond the the first few levels. Typically the only recipes that matter for the later levels are Twine, Glass, Rivets, Bolts, Struct, Ceramics, Boiling Flasks, Explosive Bolts, Magnets, Circuits, Relays. All the other recipes have a wild list of ingredients that typically aren't profitable. Even among all these listed, only a handful end up being market-profitable, so you have to find the right one, or amp up your smelting of the ingredients required. Some levels have had 0 market-profitable recipes, which is a stark contrast from early days where all levels had several market-profitable recipes.
Edited 6/27/2021 17:27:36
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Supercamp question: 6/27/2021 18:44:54 |
Parsifal
Level 63
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@Master Jz
I do use powers - SAC in combination with FC - trying to combine at least 4 of each. I still have some lying around (it's still my first ascension) Of course using SACa to it's full potential. Never replaying maps! Never waiting on artifacts! Getting AP as fast as possible is my first priority.
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Supercamp question: 6/27/2021 19:11:18 |
Phoenix
Level 25
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Speaking of caches (slightly off-topic): Is it only me, or are army caches not much more than a hoax?!? I mean, sure, if you had maxed a significant portion of the advancements then they might be useful, but except for the first say four levels, there are always army caches that require a fortune to claim, but grant me almost nothing. Definitely less then the territory costed. Starting from day two of each map, territories with army caches are most of the time a net loss of armies. And I already make use of a rare Army Cache Boost artifact, a maxed out Joint Strike and a good portion of hospital savings.
I understand that money caches won't give you enough money to buy mercs to compensate the territory costs and that resource caches are even more of a gamble and not meant to make up for the army investment. But when you start idle, you get the impression that caches give you a great boost, but shortly after, army caches are a hindrance and not a boost anymore. And the advancement that improves army caches is only in phase 4, so ...
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Supercamp question: 6/27/2021 21:43:37 |
Parsifal
Level 63
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@Phoenix
a 'hoax' is a little bit too harsh...
Total armies earned: 196B Armies from army camps: 29B Armies from caches: 44B
so every 5th soldier in this level came from a cache.
Do you have the Army Cache Boost artifact? It gives a small boost, but it adds up eventually.
Also, the caches from lesser territories give lesser boosts, The caches from a big bonus can give you a couple of B armies on the spot.
Edited 6/27/2021 21:44:42
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Supercamp question: 6/27/2021 21:51:26 |
Parsifal
Level 63
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@Phoenix
also from the same level:
total money generated: 531B money from caches: 277B
so 50%!
and I'm not even counting the items from resource caches. I estimate that only about 15%-20% of my items are crafted
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Supercamp question: 6/27/2021 23:07:15 |
Phoenix
Level 25
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Okay, sure, hoax was way to harsh, for me in my current level caches and drafts are almost on par and together make up a third of all earned armies, so each one a sixth roughly. I'm grateful for every army I don't have to produce myself. But as I said, after the first day or so, each territory with an army cache is a net loss even with a rare Army Cache Boost artifact. Only bonuses that reward with army caches are really useful because they give significant amounts.
It's just that for territories I'd probably prefer if the territory cost would be reduced by the amount of cache the territory rewards me with and have no cache at all. In the long run, when we have invested in advancements this would be a disadvantage, but hoping for a nice boost nowadays (having more armies then before after I conquered an army cache) but seeing the balance of armies decreasing isn't exactly satisfying. Because this means that they have definitely less than three quarters of the territory cost in them (I have Joint Strike maxed and use it as good as I can, so one quarter (or more with the hospitals) is always saved). So, if I conquer a 1B territory and end up with less than 1B of armies afterwards, then the cache had less than 700M of armies everything considered. Sometimes the caches are closer to 400-500M in such cases. Does that justify the high territory costs???
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Supercamp question: 6/27/2021 23:50:10 |
asdfgh
Level 24
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You also need to remember that caches boost your drafts so it's not just what you get from the cache.
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Supercamp question: 6/27/2021 23:58:46 |
megaol
Level 50
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Is there a way to check in stats how long a level took you the second time around? or did people just note down the times.
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Supercamp question: 6/28/2021 04:39:12 |
Parsifal
Level 63
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@lol Phoenix,
imagine you just paid 5$ for a slice of pizza, after that you walk on the street and find 1$ bill. Are you going to be happy and think "great, my pizza cost me only 4$!", or are you going to be disappointed that you didn't find the whole 5 to cover your costs?
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Supercamp question: 6/28/2021 04:42:57 |
Parsifal
Level 63
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@megaol
there is no way. I'm screenshooting the victory statistics every time I finish a level. I wish I was doing it from the beginning. It would be really interesting to compare my current progress to the pre-ascension run
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Supercamp question: 6/28/2021 05:21:12 |
krinid
Level 62
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@megaol Nope, you have to note it down yourself. Many of us take screenshots of the end message so we can refer back to it to check all the stats at a later time.
@Phoenix I'm confused as to how army caches are so unprofitable for you. Granted that some of them certainly are unprofitable, but I find many of them give a bit more than the territory requires to capture it of varying degrees, notably of course as you say once you have high hospital benefits in effect. I also use the rare Army Cache Boost artifact +8% + a rare Cache Boost +3.2% = total +11.2% boost, so in the ballpark of what you're doing, and I find particularly the ones on territories >1B give somewhere between 300M-2B additional armies. I'm talking in the range of Feldmere through Fort Harbor. The later levels of course have the +50% cache bonus Tech, so you must decide whether to take the caches early or leave them until you get that Tech (which can take a while as it's near the bottom of one of the trees and usually requires a few luxury bars). When I unlock Phase 4, the army cache boost will be the first thing I put AP into, as I think that will have massive value. But I'm still 18248 AP away from that, so a long time yet. Who knows if I'll still even be interested in WZI at that time, lol.
I hope your advice to nerf the army caches and just subtract from the territory army count isn't implemented, b/c eventually when (if) we unlock that phase 4 AP advancement, the army cache needs to be big to get the bonus, so if it were reduced or eliminated in order to lower the territory count, it means there's less benefit it getting this expensive and high-end AP Adv.
Take my recent AD 1045: Roads of Silk and Iron playthrough: - 8.9B from army camps - 61.8B mercs purchased - 24.1B armies from caches - 12.0B armies from drafts - 34.0B armies saved from joint strike - 47.3B armies saved from hospitals
So I got more armies from caches than I did from drafts which was more than army camps. Overall the 4th largest contributor, beaten only by the big 3 (mercs, hospitals, JS).
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Supercamp question: 6/28/2021 06:23:46 |
Parsifal
Level 63
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@Krinid, Phoenix
I want to correct you on one logical phallacy:
nowhere does it say that a cache should/must return you the spent armies, nor that it is in anyway connected to the territory it resides in.
territories are territories and caches give you bonuses that eventially add up to a significant percentage of your income.
some caches will award you with a bigger bonus, sometimes with a lesser one. If you expect to get a "return for your investment" you are making the wrong expectation
Edited 6/28/2021 06:35:06
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Supercamp question: 6/28/2021 12:57:30 |
Vinnie34
Level 54
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aren't draft amounts based on your current army per second production? this means that you should include drafts when calculating the usefulness of army camps as increased army production also increases draft amounts.
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Supercamp question: 6/28/2021 17:01:07 |
krinid
Level 62
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No correction required, I agree with you, just saying that despite that I find that the majority caches do exceed the requirements to capture the territory (JS, hospital, artifact benefits inclusive). So once Phase 4 gets here, it'll be even better.
That said, I understand Phoenix's perspective. It's like you have a bunch of envelopes with money in them, but it costs you $100 to open each one. Inside them in order are $120, $150, $55, $99. You're going to be somewhat happy with the $120, very happy with the $155, nonplussed about the $99, and totally disappointed with the $55. Sure, there was never a promise that you would make money, but if there's not additional money, why not just lower the cost of the $100 fee for 3rd envelope to $45 and forget the envelope and money altogether?
The answer is of course ... b/c that's the way the game works, and you have the ability to change that with JS, hospitals, Tech & artifacts & AP Adv albeit the last one is quite out of reach for most. But there are means available to improve the value received, and that's part of the game.
But even if the army cache is only 50% of the territory amount ... it's still better than 0, right?
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