[Discussion] Behind the Scenes: Battle Redesign

[DeletedUser1095]

No, we base our balancing on the amount of provinces we expect a player to have around a certain time. ... Of course, we expect any player to make progress on the world map on a continuous (but not: superspeed) scale, and therefore we also do expect that everyone will get a certain number of expansions from world map progress.

Please pass this message along to the people responsible for this "rebalancing",
because I want them to know that I consider them badly twisted souls
who are also terrible at their jobs.

When I signed up for this pretty elven-city-building game, you plopped me in a wasteland
and left me stranded there for months as more and more active neighbours quit.
The only choice we had was to expand as far as we could - not to get city expansions at "superspeed"
but simply in hopes of reaching an active neighbour before s/he gave the game up in disgust,
just to have someone to trade with and to maybe get aid from someday.
I stuck that out, and now I'm being punished for it, without anything remotely like an apology.
What is wrong with the designers/developers, that they treat their customers this way??

That would make many of our balancing problems disappear all in one go. But, what would be your response if we would do that now? My personal guess: you would hate us for it and scream bloody murder. Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Honey, people already hate the whole team for what the designers/developers have done.
Maybe especially because:

a] the game design forced us to explore the world map further than the
designers/developers now say they "intended";
b] the designers/developers simultaneously punish customers who didn't care much about the map,
by blocking their progress in other ways if they didn't have some "intended" number of provinces;
c] instead of doing what's clear and simple - showing us how far we can go -
you create the current elaborate mess that everyone hates, and even tried to pretend it's something jolly
that will make fighting easier and more fun [sic, sic sic];
d] and just as a sidelight, at a moment when you've made armories a requirement,
you make them look foul, as if they smell putrid, and "balance" it so I need more of them
in my once pretty ex-elven city.

Again, what is wrong with the designers/developers that twisted them up in this ugly way?
And why in the world would I be upset if the solution were:
"Dear and highly appreciated beta-testers: We messed some things up, and need to redo them.
Part of the solution is that we have to put a visual/physical limit on how far you can go on the map
(much like the continental maps on FoE). To compensate those who have already gotten further,
we will not reduce the expansions you've won, or limit your trading with your current trading neighbours;
and when you "redo" the provinces we will not increase the difficulty and you'll qualify for new expansions as well.
This is to compensate you for the inconvenience, because you're our valued customers/beta-testers,
it was our screw-up, and we're grateful for your patience as well as sorry we messed up your game."

Try that approach for a change, and you'll see that it will get you far.

 

[DeletedUser1513]

Just read the post of muf-muf.
Instead of giving a good explanation, INNO just did what they always do...
They are thinking they are GOD, and they can affort everything and they are the only ones that are right and all players are stupid and just have to pay for diamonds. So they make taking provinces almost impossible so players HAVE to pay for extra provinces if they want to be successful in the game.
This change is obviously nothing than this! It's just again showing the real face of inno, and I have to admit, I'm really getting annoyed of everything INNO does in all its games. So I hardly logged in at any of their other games, and I'm considering more and more to leave also this screwed one!
It's too late to consider a ballancing like this! Like always INNO is always toooooo late to take actions that everyone is seeing, but it seems INNO doesn't play their own games, so they don't understand what is going wrong in an early stage, and moreover they are not able to consider the impact of their changes.

RIP elvenar!

 

[DeletedUser736]

So, if I understand correctly, I am being punished because I went too fast in scouting. Muf muf said it should take about a day to scout a province, while what I am getting is 3 days right now. What is not written in Muf Muf post, but I assume it is, Orcs requirement for negotiation actually ARE the boundary we have been asking for. Past a certain point, you cannot win, nor can you negotiate, untill you at least reach the orc chapter. That does answer one of Muf Muf question. Yes, if they were to implement a barrier to what we can explore at a certain stage, we would scream.

My experience with the new battle system is that it does kind of work, in the tournament, where you are evenly matched in size with the CPU. I've been able to win on a regular basis in the previous silk tournament.

BUT on the world map, it's a disaster. Turns out I am 3 time further away than the dev. think I should be (using the reference that scouting should take about a day, and it takes me 3) I never paid any diamond to accelerate stuff, I just played normally. Where Muf Muf and the dev make a mistake is when they tell us we went THAT far BECAUSE the previous battle system was not properly balance. That is UBBER wrong. There is a whole lot of provinces I could not win (for example, golems one, paying as a human). I actually fought most of what was winnable but I could have just as easily negociate to earn them, wich, incidentally, is exactly what I am doing now.

I do not have the figures right now, since my scout still have over 2 days to go, but as it is, I'd say I gather vastly much more than I need to negotiate that next province in the amount of time my scout reach it's destination. Basically, I am still going to move as fast as I once was on the map, and the fact that the battle system hates me now will change nothing to that. In some regards, the "orcs" barrier is a failure in itself too, since when the orc arrived, I could have easily waited for the week or so it took me to reach the armory upgrade, then I would have negotiated with ease thoses scouted province I would have been unable to win trough battle.

In a nutshell, I understand this redesign is MEANT to actually curb us from reaching too far on the world map, AS is the orc requirement for negotiation. But that won't work, since long time players will simply do like me and negotiate everything easy peasy. I UNDERSTAND what the dev. tried to make, but that is a mistake nontheless, because it fails in it purpose to prevent me from scouting "too fast" so it ends up only by making battles a viable option in tournaments only. I'm not slowing down on the world map, I'm just frustrated I can't fight my way trough them anymore.

This begins to remind me of FOE, wich I abandonned around when they introduced to modern area. I like the aspect of building a city, but I also enjoy doing battles from time to time. And in my eyes, FOE screwed it up big time, pretty much like elvenar just did. Will I keep playing it? Short answer, yes, because I still can fight in the tournaments when I feel inclined to do so. Do I think this rebalancing is fun and meet it's purpose. NOT AT ALL. It fails to deliver fun, it fails to limit me in my progression, it fails on pretty much every level.

 

[DeletedUser1095]

The way they're doing this makes it sadly clear that they don't like or want players. They only want subjects who will put the "intended" pegs in the "intended" holes at the "intended" times, no faster or slower. And no individuality either, since they require everyone to build buildings A, B and C, and the "intended" number of building D, whether we like them, want them or not.

Maybe they can sell Elvenar to one of those laboratories that test monkeys' abilities to learn "intended" procedures.

 

[DeletedUser736]

Pretty much any game you will play will have hurdles to impede your progress. That is part of game design. Level cap in RPG, closed area untill you reach a certain point in the storyline, etc... It has always been part of game design. What I claim, in my previous post is that this redesign actually totally fail at being a limitation. I'm still moving as fast (as long a 3 days a province can be considered fast). I'm simply not using the battle system anymore to achieve it. It is simply changing the way I play Elvenar, in a fashion that I highly dislike, since now it's only about collecting stuff. And I got the feeling I am far from being the only one who got this feeling.

 

[DeletedUser]

Just read the post of muf-muf.
Instead of giving a good explanation, INNO just did what they always do...
They are thinking they are GOD, and they can affort everything and they are the only ones that are right and all players are stupid and just have to pay for diamonds. So they make taking provinces almost impossible so players HAVE to pay for extra provinces if they want to be successful in the game.
This change is obviously nothing than this! It's just again showing the real face of inno, and I have to admit, I'm really getting annoyed of everything INNO does in all its games. So I hardly logged in at any of their other games, and I'm considering more and more to leave also this screwed one!
It's too late to consider a ballancing like this! Like always INNO is always toooooo late to take actions that everyone is seeing, but it seems INNO doesn't play their own games, so they don't understand what is going wrong in an early stage, and moreover they are not able to consider the impact of their changes.

RIP elvenar!

So, if I understand correctly, I am being punished because I went too fast in scouting. Muf muf said it should take about a day to scout a province, while what I am getting is 3 days right now. What is not written in Muf Muf post, but I assume it is, Orcs requirement for negotiation actually ARE the boundary we have been asking for. Past a certain point, you cannot win, nor can you negotiate, untill you at least reach the orc chapter. That does answer one of Muf Muf question. Yes, if they were to implement a barrier to what we can explore at a certain stage, we would scream.

My experience with the new battle system is that it does kind of work, in the tournament, where you are evenly matched in size with the CPU. I've been able to win on a regular basis in the previous silk tournament.

BUT on the world map, it's a disaster. Turns out I am 3 time further away than the dev. think I should be (using the reference that scouting should take about a day, and it takes me 3) I never paid any diamond to accelerate stuff, I just played normally. Where Muf Muf and the dev make a mistake is when they tell us we went THAT far BECAUSE the previous battle system was not properly balance. That is UBBER wrong. There is a whole lot of provinces I could not win (for example, golems one, paying as a human). I actually fought most of what was winnable but I could have just as easily negociate to earn them, wich, incidentally, is exactly what I am doing now.

I do not have the figures right now, since my scout still have over 2 days to go, but as it is, I'd say I gather vastly much more than I need to negotiate that next province in the amount of time my scout reach it's destination. Basically, I am still going to move as fast as I once was on the map, and the fact that the battle system hates me now will change nothing to that. In some regards, the "orcs" barrier is a failure in itself too, since when the orc arrived, I could have easily waited for the week or so it took me to reach the armory upgrade, then I would have negotiated with ease thoses scouted province I would have been unable to win trough battle.

In a nutshell, I understand this redesign is MEANT to actually curb us from reaching too far on the world map, AS is the orc requirement for negotiation. But that won't work, since long time players will simply do like me and negotiate everything easy peasy. I UNDERSTAND what the dev. tried to make, but that is a mistake nontheless, because it fails in it purpose to prevent me from scouting "too fast" so it ends up only by making battles a viable option in tournaments only. I'm not slowing down on the world map, I'm just frustrated I can't fight my way trough them anymore.

This begins to remind me of FOE, wich I abandonned around when they introduced to modern area. I like the aspect of building a city, but I also enjoy doing battles from time to time. And in my eyes, FOE screwed it up big time, pretty much like elvenar just did. Will I keep playing it? Short answer, yes, because I still can fight in the tournaments when I feel inclined to do so. Do I think this rebalancing is fun and meet it's purpose. NOT AT ALL. It fails to deliver fun, it fails to limit me in my progression, it fails on pretty much every level.

The way they're doing this makes it sadly clear that they don't like or want players. They only want subjects who will put the "intended" pegs in the "intended" holes at the "intended" times, no faster or slower. And no individuality either, since they require everyone to build buildings A, B and C, and the "intended" number of building D, whether we like them, want them or not.

Maybe they can sell Elvenar to one of those laboratories that test monkeys' abilities to learn "intended" procedures.

So True!

 

[DeletedUser1463]

incredible knoledge, but where do we find out about this +/- 20% damage?

thak you for the info
i don;t find any info about a range!!

where is this info\/

I ran across the same issue a few months ago; since the knowledge on the forum did not match my data I decided to have a go at it myself and reverse engineer the damage mechanics by recording all my battles and verifying the numbers. The old battle system was pretty consistent:

Light Melee had a range of +/- 10% (Swords, Cerberuses, Barbarians)
Heavy Melee had a range of +/- 10% (Treants) or +/- 20% (Paladins)
Light Ranged had a range of +/- 20% (Archers, Crossbowmen)
Heavy Ranged had a range of +/- 50% (Golems)
Mage had a range of +/- 30% (Sorceresses) or +/- 80% (Priests)

 

[DeletedUser736]

I've been thinking... They would like us to be able to scout a province in 1 day. I.e. if scouting takes me one day, I'm on the right spot where the dev expect me to be. But it takes me 3 days, and I am waaaayyy ahead of what the dev intented. I did this diamond less, siply by playing in a normal fashion. Now... I fail to see the logic. Let's suppose I am scouting 1 province per day. I'd have to litteraly wait days before sending my scout again, else I move too fast on the map. So in the end, the result is the same. I mean, what's the difference beetween scouting for 3 days or scouting for one day, and then waiting out 2 days to send the scout again, so things don't move too fast???

 

[DeletedUser1657]

In a nutshell, I understand this redesign is MEANT to actually curb us from reaching too far on the world map, AS is the orc requirement for negotiation. But that won't work, since long time players will simply do like me and negotiate everything easy peasy. I UNDERSTAND what the dev. tried to make, but that is a mistake nontheless, because it fails in it purpose to prevent me from scouting "too fast" so it ends up only by making battles a viable option in tournaments only. I'm not slowing down on the world map, I'm just frustrated I can't fight my way trough them anymore.

Don't be surprised if you see a future update to add new road blocks to negotiation. Based on recent updates and muf-muf's post I think it is only a matter of time as it is an obvious "hole" for them now that they will surely "plug".

 

[SoggyShorts]

It would make more sense to include in negotiation
Ring X dwarven stuff.
Ring Y fairy stuff.
Ring Z orc's stuff.

Don't be surprised if you see a future update to add new road blocks to negotiation. Based on recent updates and muf-muf's post I think it is only a matter of time as it is an obvious "hole" for them now that they will surely "plug".

These wouldn't surprise me at all. What I don't really understand is why they just wouldn't make scouting cost more coins than your MainHall can hold. It's such a simple way to stop scouting "beyond expectations"

 

[DeletedUser736]

These wouldn't surprise me at all. What I don't really understand is why they just wouldn't make scouting cost more coins than your MainHall can hold. It's such a simple way to stop scouting "beyond expectations"

That already happened to me. Waaay before the dwaves did appear, I reached a a ring I simply could not scout. That would definitely be solving their problem, but there would still be peoples raging about it. Take me for instance. My scout currently need 3 days to reach a new province. Inno said it should be about 1 day, so I'm realllllyyy far beyond what they expected me to be. And that is definitely not because of the battle system, because I could have negotiated everything. I did the battle because it was more fun. Given how much futher I am than they expected, if they were to raise the cost of scouting up to the point I can't afford it with the current main hall, I'd probably be "stuck" on the map for years, litteraly. I tried another province yesterday and a full squad of cerberus did not even kill 1/5 of the mage unit they were after, in spite of their bonus. So you can fairly expect that the next guest race won't raise my squad size by enough to deal with the ring I'm currently at.

Basically, if they strictly enforce a ring limit, I'd probably be stuck for a year, maybe more. considering 2 guest race per year, wich is higly optimistic. So would I be incredibly frustrated and likly to simply stop playing if that happened? Yes.

 

[SoggyShorts]

So what would be the solution? Are new chapters that hard to make that they can only do 2 a year? Other than the artwork each chapter is pretty much the same thing with bigger numbers. Sure dwarf and fairy add portals and some temporary buildings, and then orcs add something slightly different. I'll bet that if they asked for a small idea from the playerbase for each new chapter they'd get hundreds of suggestions that would give each chapter a unique and interesting twist. Some of those ideas would have to be decent, right?

 

[DeletedUser736]

So what would be the solution? Are new chapters that hard to make that they can only do 2 a year? Other than the artwork each chapter is pretty much the same thing with bigger numbers. Sure dwarf and fairy add portals and some temporary buildings, and then orcs add something slightly different. I'll bet that if they asked for a small idea from the playerbase for each new chapter they'd get hundreds of suggestions that would give each chapter a unique and interesting twist. Some of those ideas would have to be decent, right?

There is no solution. Only a choice. The dev. think that I am, and other players, way too far on the world map. This new battle update won't slow me down because I will negociate the provinces.

No solution. They have a choice. Either their remain adamant that we, veterans, went too far on the map and put us to a grinding halt by placing some kind of restriction (raising the cost above the main hall level for scouting, greatly increase the cost of negotiation, whatever suite their fancy). Or the let us continue. For new players, they can put any limitation they can think of. Someone who begins playing Elvenar today will think the battles are ok, and would come to think of other limitation as part of the game. Veterans tough, will inevitably come to a grinding halt untill the game developpement catch up with our scouting advance.

I got a feeling we still have some time to breathe before they put a stop to scouting, since right now their hands are full, preparing the next guest race, bringing the new units and so on. But eventally they will crack down on us. The cat's out of the bag and we see it's true color. This downgrade to our ability to fight is just a start since it won't prevent us from moving fast on the map and it seems they consider that the true problem, since the aim of the new battle system was to make battle unwinnable past a certain ring.

 

[DeletedUser736]

Now that I think of it, and back to the topic of the battles, I just had this idea. And it's just that, an idea. I do not know if that would be technically possible, I know nothing about programming. I'm not sure that would be such a great idea either, but that would provide a solution that would allow us to continue battling on the main map, but would still slow up player who are way too far. What about non regenerating enemies. Damage dealt is permanent. So whatever I killed in a battle stays dead for my next try. To prevent any kind of abuse, the province is reset if the player retreat. But if I finish the battle and come back with fresh troop, what I killed is still gone. Given that most battles enemies instant kill my units, and that in return, I barely scratch them, that would still cost me dearly to gain ground battling. But that would be possible. Just a tought... Tell me what you think about it guys. I know its not perfect, but if the dev think we're too far on the map, nothing is going to change that, so we might as well make suggestion that will still allow us to play since the dev are adamant they need to curb or progress.

 

[DeletedUser]

Whatever they do regarding province cap it will totally unbalance the game.
Instead of messing up another "feature" of the game they should fixed neigboorhood first.

Even if you got "so many" expansions through provinces you are still short on space and you can't proceed without bottlenecks in chapters with guest races.

If you are new player you will never catch up if this is not a big "punishment."
because of this people can't join top ranked/active fellowships. But soon some of the FS will become less active and eventually non active so we shouldn't worry about this, right Muf-Muf?


why some still discuss that we went too far with scouting?
We didn't got to far. Period.

It is pointless we should focus on serious issues:

no diamond rewards in the game, NH, building quest bugs, unreasonable AW stats, failed runes "random" system,

remove orcs in negotiations
because once you finish the chapter guest races moves on and leaves you alone, right Muf-Muf?

Tournament rewards/costs, tournament level waiting time (16h is too long!), golden mines, overlaping buildings, badly designed chat system and so on.

 

[DeletedUser1095]

[Scouting costs higher than the Main Hall could hold] already happened to me. Waaay before the dwaves did appear, I reached a a ring I simply could not scout. That would definitely be solving their problem, but there would still be peoples raging about it.

?? That happened to most of us, and was accepted as a normal, fair barrier.
There were no "peoples raging about it".

The real question is that since that was indeed an effective, clear and easy way
to prevent us from scouting further than the design/dev team "intended",
why did that very same design/dev team set the capacity of the Main Hall
so much higher than we were "supposed to" be able to scout??

They can stop blaming the players for "going too far".
All we did is play the game as they designed it.
They are the ones who made the mess that they're currently making direly worse.

 

[lika1961]

Are you getting the message yet, Inno? You are turning your loyal players into adversaries and spoiling what, until recently, was a very enjoyable game.

If that is what you intended, your plan is working perfectly. If not, you should stop blaming players for your oversights and get on with fixing some things. Quickly.

 

[DeletedUser724]

• You told us that you are losing more troops now than you was before. In some cases it seems (or: is) impossible to win a fight at all.

In the old system, we had several units that would be almost a guaranteed win in any fight, in any encounter, at any distance. We hope that we can all agree that those units were wildly overpowered and that, in order to restore balance, some drastic changes had to be made to those units. We're talking for example about the level 3 versions of the Golems and Sorceresses for the Elven players among us and the Paladins and Priests for the Humans. These units made it possible to win fights against enemies that were over three times their strength, without ever losing a lot. This should never have been possible to begin with, but it was, and it therefore needed changing. The fact that this was possible, gave us many problems: not only when it came to balancing other (new) units against those super-strong units, but also in completely different areas. For example, we have players who struggle with Event Quests, because those quests ask to scout a certain number of provinces, which is simply impossible to do in time if you are that far ahead on the World Map, because scouting times were also way too high in comparison. We always try to keep the scouting times and costs reasonable (that is why we have the Advanced Scouts technologies), and if you are within the range of amount of provinces that we would expect you to be at, e.g. the scouting times should always be less than a day for the chapters that we have currently available in our research tree.

Another reason why it is possible to lose so many troops, is especially apparant for those who use auto-fighting a lot. Our AI is not perfectly adjusted to the new system yet (it's a work in progress and we're continuously finetuning it!), which affects the enemy troops, but also your own if you are using auto-battle. In general, this should not be a huge factor, but depending on e.g. the obstacles within an encounter, it can still be a significant difference. As said, this is still a work in progress and we are eager to make more changes there, but it is currently not yet perfect. On top of finetuning the AI, we have also started investigating how we can make the battlefield itself better: we do not want the obstacles to be a determining factor in battles: you should be focussing on fighting the enemy units, not on fighting the obstacles themselves.

I never know I can have no loss of Paladin and Priests if we are doing "AUTO"
when I do "AUTO", I always get lost
The battle logic is not just "fighting the enemy units"
We have to consider the strong and weak part of our soldier ( each type )
we will not move our defendless soldier up to front to get killed, that is a bad battle
we place priest at back becos it is defendless ( his weakness ) and use his strong part ( hit over long range )
We place Paladin in front to absorb hit from enemy and protect our weakness (priest ) at the back and hit any enemy soldier that is come closer

It is true that "using Paladin/Priest ever losing a lot", but we can only do that with "Manual"
we can fight against enemies that were over three times (?, I never count) their strength becos it is a manual battle logic by player
different player may have different battle logic

If Inno does think we are using "super" that we end up with "nearly no loss"
then Inno should tune down Priest and Paladin's strength step by step

Regarding we should focussing on fighting the enemy units, that is completely incorrect statement
we always focus on fighting enemy units
we are always using our soldier strong strength to hit enemy,
we direct our soldier to move around the battle, sometime stay, sometime hide, sometime retract,
we all know the AI will not move other enemy soldier if passage is blocked , so we direct 1 of enemy soldier to block passage so that we can handle less enemy soldiers...it is battle logic
making use landscape features to reduce amount of closing-up enemy soldier is 1 of the battle logic
...etc
please do not mix-up, it is always there and will always exist even in the current new "battle re-design"

Like the last silk tournment, we are still using it
Like handling Sorceresses, we are using cerberus ( strong strength is to bite sorceresses) to bite it
we still block the passage (landscape), so we use 2 to 3 groups of soldier to handle 1 group of enemy soldier at passage and kill enemy group 1 by 1
we still choose enemy type to do priority kill...
they are still battle logic
If we do not have time, then we can still "AI" or "position our soldier before allow Auto fight" which we get big big lost (compare with "b4 battle redesign") for a battle

It is the problem of Inno's AI. The AI do not written good enough that player using manual to get all benefits in order to reduce our loss in the battle

Tournment is still acceptable to me

But in the contential provinces I have meet,
before "battle redesign", i already stop fighting as enemy size is too big
in current battle redesign
my squadsize is 981, enemy squadsize is 3098
my cerberus is cerberus II
1 type of enemy soldier is cerberus, it is Furious War Dog ( an upgrade of cerberus II )
981 low-type cerberus facing a 3098 higher type cerberus, what do you think ?
I have 5 slot and enemy has 8 slot

It is a battle impossible, a sure-loss battle

So I have to stop all centential provinces, even though I can scout with coins that my Mainhall can hold
I can scout it but i cannot handle it

They will stop there as
I cannot imagine how long I will wait ?
waiting time is my squadsize 981 can increase to some place close to enemy squadsize 3098...may be 1 year or 2 year ??

apart from this, if Inno do not want us to face that siutation 981 vs 3098, Inno should limit my scout range such that we cannot open it to find that "diaster situation"
If Inno allow us to scout a provinces, we should only meet a scenario that we may have a chance with the help of our battle logic that we can able to win any sector with our last breathe ( only 1 soldier to remain ) because we should be focussing on fighting the enemy units not negotation to get a sector

 

[DeletedUser1075]

Wow. I went away for the weekend and this thread exploded again.

Muf-Muf, you said some interesting things in your lengthy response on Friday. I wanted to call a couple to your attention:

1. You said: "Armories, Ancient Wonders and Barracks are not being buffed enough to adjust to the new training speeds"
Actually, I don't think speed is the issue right now. Quantity is. I had built my armories and Bulwark wonder to the point where I could train a full squad in each slot of the barracks. This made it easier for me to manage to the number of squads I wanted to have at any given point in time. What I have found is that I now can train about 2/3rds of a squad with the same number of armories, and for approximately the same cost. So troops seem quite a bit more expensive, and more of a hassle to train. I'm a bit frustrated about this change since prior to roll-out, my expectations were managed by several communications which suggested that the armories would be adjusted to continue to produce troops at a rate that was equivalent, given the new squad sizes. This isn't even close to being true. I feel we were also led to believe that troops would be less expensive, and this is also not the case on a squad basis. Yes, everything seems faster now, but I'm not even sure it really is - if I could train a full squad at one time, wouldn't it take as long as it used to take to train a full squad? (I'd be fine with that, but less than thrilled about the way expectations were managed). Could the devs please help us understand why our training squad sizes decreased so dramatically?

2. You said: "...the scouting times should always be less than a day for the chapters that we have currently available in our research tree" and "In general, we would expect you to be just a few provinces above the number of provinces needed to unlock the next chapter in the research tree"
I would love this! But it seems there is a balancing issue with this. I checked - the orc chapter required 160 provinces to unlock. For comparison, I have 330 - over twice as many. I'm desperate for more since I have no other way (aside from diamonds) of getting the expansions I need to play competitively. I'm 9 expansions behind on the grid. Each advanced chapter is built to make the most use of the total space available. For some chapters, having a smaller city is less of an issue - dwarves and fairies still functioned and you could advance within the limits imposed by those building upgrades. For orcs, the housing requirements are significant enough that it will be difficult at best to upgrade the city without having much of the intended space. So in order to build out a city and not constantly destroy and rebuild the same buildings over again in order to free up space for upgrades as we complete the quest line, we must spend diamonds or scout provinces. If Elvenar provided expansions as part of the contest prizes, then scouting would become less important. If there were other ways to gain the expansions not provided in the tech tree, then scouting would be less important. But for a competitive, active player, we have no other options. Can the devs please think about how to rightsize the expansion issue?


On a related note:
I have happily paid Inno to play other freemium games, because the game was constructed in such a way that the storyline made sense and the value for the additional spend was there. I've found in this game that there is no storyline to the spend, and the prices seem high - reducing the perception of value for money invested. Something to consider, since it seems related to the whole balancing/scouting issue.

 

[DeletedUser240]

I have conquered 279 provinces so far, but now whatever army i try it's impossible to win another fight.
I have a quest win 3 encounters , impossible.
All i do now is spend money and supplies on building armies that are killed in 2 strikes
This rebalancing sucks completly