Discussion Tournament Changes (post-release)

[PaNonymeB]

I already explained why I don't think the multiplicative nature of the formula is wrong :

About how the formula should be reworked :
We can approximate the total production of a city by B×Q×E where B = 1+production boost, E = number of expansions, and Q = base production per square. Q is depending on chapter progress (unlocking upgrades) and AW levels (allowing cheaper upgrades, better production,...). And the AW power acts mostly as a multiplicator (as most of AW powers are calculated as a % of something which increases as you advance.) So the multiplication of factors is not what's wrong with this formula.
The first issue is that Q doesn't grow exponentially with chapter. Actually it looks closer to linear. (Else the B×Q×E would have grown much faster than the former squad size roughly proprtional to Chapter^2.)
Thus a (1+Boost)×f(Techs)×(1+x×AW levels)×Expansions sounds right to estimate production of a city if AW are well balanced (although the f(Techs) shouldn't be exponential, or productions should be rebalanced). And if AW are not well balanced, the problem doesn't come from the formula. And about "end-chain" AWs that give e.g. KP or ranking points and doesn't help tournaments, they give the rewards you'd lose due to tournament costs increased, so it sounds right to put them into the tournament cost formula considering INNO's goals. (Although the ×Expansions doesn't work well with fighting, as you can't use a lot of your city space to produce troops.)
But, the formula fails to make so that "if you increase your production by 10%, your costs will only increase by e.g. 5%". To achieve this, you'd have to put a square root (or another power x<1) above the whole formula. That's the mathematical function that translates an 1% increase in production to a ~x% increase in cost.

I think there are actually several issues with the current formula :

• The first issue is, as said above, you only have 3 troop producers and you can't use extra expansions to produce more troops, while the formula considers you can and thus failsto accurately estimate ability of a city to fight. Multiplying by expansions only works well with catering.
• Also, all AWs effects increase as your city grows so that it makes sense to make AW levels act as a multiplier, but several of these are scaled on factors quite independent on techs and expansions, which can create weird optimizations like trying to increase AW effects without increasing tournament costs. One fix could be to change how AW effects are scaled (see the suggestion I made yesterday).
• Third, the tech factor shouldn't be exponential given how the first 16 chapters are balanced. But the following chapters can be balanced accordingly to this exponential factor. This would partly fix the issue, although chapter 16 would remain a bad spot if the exponential factor stays.
• The fourth issue is that it fails to make sure that every progress always gives more benefits than costs. But this simply can't be true unless they don't make the tournament costs depend on the city at all, as some players will always be uninterested in some techs and AWs. That's why I think they lied when they said this (see quote below) and thus the balancing of the formula should indeed consider the benefits of a tech/wonder/expansion for a player on average.
• Finally, if all AW levels cost us roughly what an AW level would benefit us on average, it means we should only build and upgrade AWs that would benefit us the most. The problem is, there is only a limited number of such AW levels and the last added levels aren't interesting enough to be worth having, which means they'll probably not add more interesting AWs, and thus if AWs from next chapters aren't interesting enough we'll hit a cap where all the remaining AWs we can build or upgrade would cost more than it would benefit. Some people already hit this cap and are now to delete the extra AWs they built after upgrading all the useful ones.
  

  About the scaling of costs (not about the changes made on catering and fighting) :
  
  
  Rethinking of it, I think it might actually be our assumptions about how Inno wants to balance the game that are not correct, which would be logical since they're possibly lying (one more time) about it.
  

  • Either they want tournaments to be available for everyone no matter of their progress. Then Tournament performances mainly depends of what we choose to put in our city rather than in our progress. This means, a city that doesn't focus in Tournaments exclusively will have a harder time in Tournaments than a city that does, even if the first one is higher advanced.
  • Or they want tournaments to reward progress, and thus make so that an advanced city can do much more tournaments than a beginner/mid-game city.

  We assumed the latter as it's what they said in the announcement : "while the progression in the Tournaments becomes more costly as your city grows over time, the increase is nowhere near the amount of resources the progressed city will be able to produce extra thanks to the progress made.", but let's assume the former. After all, they also said :
  
  When they said it, I pointed out that
  
  In other words, one of the quotes was wrong, and we assumed the wrong one was this sentence quoted above in the middle of a long post :
  
  But I think they really meant Player B should pay 2000, and they actually lied in the announcement. Else, why would they have ever made tournament costs depending on the city ? Even before the changes, they made Tournament costs increasing with chapter progress by linking them with squad size, to ensure that players from all chapters roughly have the same difficulty to get the resources needed for the tournament. But, squad size didn't estimate overall city progress very well, as two cities with the same progress could have very different tournament costs depending on optional squad size upgrades they took, and it didn't take into account important parts of progress which are AWs and expansions from map scouting (which are even the only thing that make yor city progress past end-game). So they improved the formula, and the new formula actually works well, giving numbers close to squad size for most of cities and better estimating power of very powerful cities like @CrazyWizard's. And taking into account wonders that doesn't help with tournament is fine too : you choose which wonders you level, if you focus on ranking points you could level Thrones that will on the other side make your tournaments harder than some who focused on Tournaments and leveled Monastery instead, even if you have more overall AW levels :
  This I already explained :
  
  So, if they lied about their intentions and actually don't want progress to help much in Spire/Tournaments, then the scaling of Spire/Tournament costs is well-balanced. Else they'd better make costs not depending on city at all.

 

[Aeva]

@little bee Let me put it this way: I play a game because I like it and it is interesting. Nothing more and nothing less.

My goals are: a pretty city because I have a background in architecture, a usefull city because why otherwise play a citybuilding game, a decent fighting force since I like fighting. I don't care about rankings nor about progress in a techtree but I do care about kp's since I can better my city with those.

I do not do any math. If you want math ask Crazy Wizzard, he does math. Or some of the other people who are on beta and do math.

The benefit from the sunset towers is some seeds every day plus from the neighbours through the chests. I do not see a need to progress the towers beyond level 11. And I have the same idea about prosperity towers and the blooming trader.
The rest of my AW's have something to do with troops and other military stuff. I made the choice to build a fighting power very early on in the game and thus I never built AW's like the Tomb or the Excavation.

 

[Heymrdiedier]

@little bee I didn't want to respond to your topics, since for me they feel very offtopic here, but you seem to keep going on about this, so ill respond anyway.
I don't think everything in this game is exponential at all. The fact that you get the most efficient production in a lvl 16 factory and it just goes down afterwards, is for me the perfect example it's not exponential at all. (that is required space needed to produce x goods, that means taking into account the amount of space you need for the required culture and population as well).

 

[Lovec Krys]

@little bee With ST 16 I have 3x2664/day extra seeds from NH (less than Trader gives me every 3 hrs) and 5,2% seed decay.
I consider the lower decay as a good extra seed source after I'm done with all the expenses for upgrades after finishing the ch16 (only armories took more than 1M seeds, I had to place 10 extra seed hybrids to cover those expenses).
But strictly from the pros/cons of the new tourney formula, I should delete that wonder since it hurts me more than it helps.

 

[little bee]

@little bee Let me put it this way: I play a game because I like it and it is interesting. Nothing more and nothing less.

Fair enough. Leave the math to the experts.

@PaNonymeB A lot of what you said makes sense, but I still do not belive that the exponential term in the tournament formula rises faster than the base production per square. I have counted the mandatory upgrades in each chapter and calculated how quickly 1,0045^T rises each time. As you can see it rises much slower than the 20% growth per chapter that I calculated for population and culture. It also rises much slower than the values you calculated for the wise golem. And it still rises slower than the troop productions do.

chapter	mandatory upgrades	tournament formula growth
I->II	18	8,4%
II->III	22	10,4%
III->IV	23	10,9%
IV->V	21	9,9%
V->VI	20	9,4%
VI->VII	25	11,9%
VII->VIII	25	11,9%
VIII->IX	28	13,4%
IX->X	27	12,9%
X->XI	27	12,9%
XI->XII	33	16%
XII->XIII	29	13,9%
XIII->XIV	32	15,5%
XIV->XV	31	14,9%
XV->XVI	28	13,4%

 

[Karvest]

I just counted the mandatory upgrades beetween these barack upgrades. It depends somewhat on the order in wich you research it, but I counted around 65 mandatory upgrades from chapter 11 to chapter 13 and 50 mandatory upgrades from chapter 13 to chapter 15. So those 40% and 28% would still fit into an exponential grows with a base of 1,005. This is a lot less than the base 1,01 that I calculated for culture and population, but less than the base 1,0045 used in the tournament formula. So this still seems to work.

not sure how you counted mandatory upgrades, but your numbers are different from what MinMax used in his spreadsheet. And even then it's different from what you post here one page later.
And even then taking only 2 numbers out of sequence to guess about how it grows is nonsense.

As you can see it rises much slower than the 20% growth per chapter that I calculated for population and culture. It also rises much slower than the values you calculated for the wise golem. And it still rises slower than the troop productions do.

If you look at chapter 17 barracks, 11% increase is less than that part of formula grows in chapter 16 only, making progression past chapter 15 worthless even without taking into account multiplication with other parts of the formula.

 

[little bee]

@little bee With ST 16 I have 3x2664/day extra seeds from NH (less than Trader gives me every 3 hrs) and 5,2% seed decay.
I consider the lower decay as a good extra seed source after I'm done with all the expenses for upgrades after finishing the ch16 (only armories took more than 1M seeds, I had to place 10 extra seed hybrids to cover those expenses).
But strictly from the pros/cons of the new tourney formula, I should delete that wonder since it hurts me more than it helps.

O.k. so 10 seed hybrids should be at least 3-4% of your city, right? And each day, you save 4,8% of your seeds from decay. So the towers schould boost your city by around 0,14% to 0,19% which translate into a factor of around 0,0001 per level. That is indeed a lot lower than the 0,003 penalty from the formula. So this constant is indeed completely wrong for the sunset towers.

I don't think everything in this game is exponential at all. The fact that you get the most efficient production in a lvl 16 factory and it just goes down afterwards, is for me the perfect example it's not exponential at all. (that is required space needed to produce x goods, that means taking into account the amount of space you need for the required culture and population as well).

That is not completly true. Manufactory upgrades are often bad in the chapter in which they unlock. But population and culture per square continues to grow exponentially. So a few chapters later those negative manufactory upgrades should still be scaling exponentially. There is just a delay.

not sure how you counted mandatory upgrades, but your numbers are different from what MinMax used in his spreadsheet. And even then it's different from what you post here one page later.
And even then taking only 2 numbers out of sequence to guess about how it grows is nonsense.

If you look at chapter 17 barracks, 11% increase is less than that part of formula grows in chapter 16 only, making progression past chapter 15 worthless even without taking into account multiplication with other parts of the formula.

Feel free to correct me, if I misscounted. On the last page I was counting the upgrades between the barrack upgrades which do not accure at the beginning of the chapters. And I'm not guessing how it grows; I have a formula.

 

[Aeva]

Fair enough. Leave the math to the experts.

The fact that I do not do math does not mean I cannot do math. That I mentioned 'a background in architecture' should have told you that I am not ignorant about math. Otherwise I would not read all these posts and I certainly would not bother to 'translate' some of it for my FS in the live worlds.
'Leave the math to the experts' is at least a condescending remark if not just stupid.

 

[Karvest]

Feel free to correct me, if I misscounted. On the last page I was counting the upgrades between the barrack upgrades which do not accure at the beginning of the chapters. And I'm not guessing how it grows; I have a formula.

And how your formula works for other barracks upgrades, not just these 2?

 

[Heymrdiedier]

Poor you, so many people contradicting you . I wonder you don't regret it yet, I know it can be silicing if so many people don't want to believe you. But I like people who bring unpopular opinions to the table

That is not completly true. Manufactory upgrades are often bad in the chapter in which they unlock. But population and culture per square continues to grow exponentially. So a few chapters later those negative manufactory upgrades should still be scaling exponentially. There is just a delay.

I'm not sure what you mean by this, a few chapters later you get more population and culture per square, yes, but that lvl 16 factory still uses just as much population/culture as before for the same output, only it requires less space as you move on. So its still as optimal as before, so it doesnt matter? If i wasn't a player who likes ranking points, i would never have upgraded any factory above lvl 16 (except maybe those for sentient production), but I do like the competition of ranks, so i upgraded them for the extra ranking points.

 

[maxiqbert]

Poor you, so many people contradicting you . I wonder you don't regret it yet, I know it can be silicing if so many people don't want to believe you. But I like people who bring unpopular opinions to the table


I'm not sure what you mean by this, a few chapters later you get more population and culture per square, yes, but that lvl 16 factory still uses just as much population/culture as before for the same output, only it requires less space as you move on. So its still as optimal as before, so it doesnt matter?

this is not true
you have to do your optimization with the available culture/pop buildings, so you need less and less squares the further you go for providing your needs for the factories. This means that at some point the next levels get better than level 16.
The growth of production still isn't exponential at all.
The most significant production for "new tournament" being orcs, why not try it with the forge for instance?
orcs from the forge grow with the number of provinces you have explored. We all know these get slower and slower. Not exactly exponential, right?
so the benefit from the forge gets logarithmically higher, while the need of orcs growth exponentially. See the pb?

 

[galrond]

Could someone plz repeat the formula, with explanations of what the letters stand for?
I know most of them, but a I´m a bit in doubt about some of them

 

[spennyit]

https://minmaxgame.com/tournament-and-spire-requirements-2020/

https://minmaxgame.com/city-advancement-level-model-2020/

 

[little bee]

The growth of production still isn't exponential at all.
The most significant production for "new tournament" being orcs, why not try it with the forge for instance?
orcs from the forge grow with the number of provinces you have explored. We all know these get slower and slower. Not exactly exponential, right?
so the benefit from the forge gets logarithmically higher, while the need of orcs growth exponentially. See the pb?

I did just check it on eventbuildings like the orcnest or the orc ship and it does indeed scale exponentially with chapter. But only by around 11% to 12% per chapter not 20% like culture and population do. And there is a noticable drop to 10% going from chapter 15 to 16. So you are right, there is a problem here.

Poor you, so many people contradicting you . I wonder you don't regret it yet, I know it can be silicing if so many people don't want to believe you. But I like people who bring unpopular opinions to the table

Don't worry about me. I only startet reading this thread because I was trying to find some reliable facts and figures about the upcoming changes. And I think I have been getting more in the last two days than in the weeks before that. So as far as I'm concerned this is working as intended.

 

[PaNonymeB]

Could someone plz repeat the formula, with explanations of what the letters stand for?
I know most of them, but a I´m a bit in doubt about some of them

In fact, when I rewrote @MinMax Gamer 's formula I used slightly different letters than he used :

base Spire squad size (which is base of difficulty calculation for Spire and Tournament) is well approximated by (B is highest relic boost, T number of mandatory techs researched, A number of AW levels, E number of expansions (includes premium) and P number of premium expansions.)
R = 0.3994 × (1+B) × (1.0045)^T × (1+0.003A) × (E - 0.34P - 4.5)

Perhaps I shouldn't have done so as it then created confusion after the formula has been quoted without the explanation of the renamed parameters.

 

[maxiqbert]

I did just check it on eventbuildings like the orcnest or the orc ship and it does indeed scale exponentially with chapter. But only by around 11% to 12% per chapter not 20% like culture and population do. And there is a noticable drop to 10% going from chapter 15 to 16. So you are right, there is a problem here.

just do the maths for armories and cry

 

[Lovec Krys]

@maxiqbert Nah, orc production in ch16 is fine, many players just doubled their armory numbers only for fun.

 

[ErestorX]

Do you know anyone who actually build the sunset towers and wants to go beyond province 10?

Yes, one of my mages on live who suggested to go for Chest 19 ASAP has it on a very high level. And two of my members who also went beyond province 70/80 in the past on lower level. One built it, because everything more useful is maxed, one because he collects wonders and built all to a minimum of lvl 6.

The part about overcoming the need for the towers, sounds more like an argument for teleporting wonders.

Yes, that would help a lot! When planing my new city I didn't plan to delete any wonder but I would gladly plan to teleport a few!

 

[ErestorX]

just do the maths for armories and cry

I stopped leveling mine at lvl 31. Those still give the maximum number of levels per sqare.

 

[little bee]

I stopped leveling mine at lvl 31. Those still give the maximum number of levels per sqare.

I didn't do any calculations with population, culture and supplies, but if you just look at orcs per square then it looks exponential with one chapter having been "forgotten". It starts by rising around 50% per two chapter which translates to around 22% per chapter. Then from chapter 12 to 14 it suddenly rises by only 21% for two chapters and then continues with 16% for one chapter. Maybe that was a mistake?