Build or upgrade?

Neither!!!! >

 

It's common knowledge to go with whatever is cheapest

 

Upgrade to a lvl3 forges I do that

 

Hairball's guide to Building or Upgrading
(yes ... I'm hijacking this thread since the topic is bang on)

1. Best Bang for Buck Method

Improve att/def strength as much as possible for the least amount of gold. The sooner the strength increase, the sooner more gold is earned and the faster the kingdom growth.

A summary of building costs and strengths can be found in the Strategy forum in: -_-FANGON-_-'s guide to Military might

2. Cost/Strength Formulas for buildings (lower values are better):

total strength of building = [ (att_str + def_str) x troops ]

New Building = gold / total_strength
New land + building = (new_gold + new_land) / total_strength
Upgrade Building = (new_gold - 0.25 x old_gold) / (new_str - old_str)

3. Examples of Best Bang for Buck Method

Example #1: Kingdom has 4 buildings: Castle, Guild Lvl 1, 2xTier 1 Lvl 1
Next land costs 150,000

(a) Upgrade T1L1 to T1L2 - 4 gold / str - cost 200k str increase 50k
(b) Explore and build T1L1 - 6 gold / str - total cost 175k str +30k
(c) Explore and build T2L1 - 21 gold / str - total cost 1.9m str +90k
(d) Upgrade guild L1 to L2 - 33 gold / str - cost 2.5m spy str +75k

Example #2: Kingdom has 7 buildings: Castle, Guild Lvl 1, 5xTier 1 Lvl 3
Next land costs 1.5m

(a) Upgrade T1L3 to T2L3 - 23 gold / str - net cost 9.4m net str +400k
(b) Upgrade Guild L1 to L2 - 33 gold / str - cost 2.5m spy str +75k
(c) Explore and build T2L1 - 36 gold / str - cost 3.25m str +90k
(d) Explore and build T1L1 - 51 gold / str - cost 1.5m str +30k
(e) Upgrade T1L3 to T2L2 - 109 gold / str - cost 4.4m str +40k

Upgrading T1L3 with a T2L1 is not on the list because the T2L1 is weaker. It's best to wait and save up the gold to afford at least a T2L2.

Although (a) is the best bang for the buck, there are other factors to consider. It's most efficient to upgrade all tier 1s to tier 2s, but this is initially so expensive with a long delay while accumulating 9.4m each time.

Relatively cheap and fast growth can come from option (d). With the stronger battling power, the funds for upgrading to a tier 2 will come faster, and who cares about the 75% loss if the overall growth is faster.

There are similar decisions to make when replacing tier 2s with tier 3s. A new T3L3 costs 1.33b, so this decision will happen somewhere when land values are 900m to 1.5b. Never replace a T2L3 with a T3L1 because it's weaker, but it's okay to place a T3L1 on a new parcel of land because it adds to total strength.

4. Other considerations

Since gaining strength sooner earns more gold sooner, sometimes less efficient choices are needed as in choosing option (b) or (d) in example #2 above.

Lvl 3 upgrades regen 2x faster than lvl 2 and 4x faster than lvl 1, so you could earn gold 2 or 4 times faster (and have less long boring waits while your troops lick their wounds). So if the gold / str is close, go for upgrades before exploring new land.

Troops: L1 = +42/5min, L2 = +83/5min, L3 = +167/5min
Spies: L1 = +42/5min, L2 = +125/5min, L3 = +375/5min

With different build objectives, the choices narrow a bit. Pure spy (that's, say, not starting off mixed) will require a huge amount of time to upgrade Guilds from Level 2 to Level 3 because of the slow income stream at the start. On the other hand, pure military builds will be the victim of spy attacks all the time, and banking in potions will take 25% off the top of all earnings meaning slower growth. See the guides referred to in section 6 below.

5. Towers

The archer Tower is great value, giving almost tier 3 protection at 1/30th the price, but eventually it will become a waste of a precious land parcel for military kingdoms and will need to be replaced with a tier 3 building for more attack strength.

The Scout Tower seems like a waste of money. It costs the same as a Guild and has the same spy defense strength, but it's missing the spy attack strength. Instead buy a Guild at same price and enjoy the attack bonuses.

6. Check out these great guides in the Strategy forum
(they are in no particular order !!! read them all)

-_-FANGON-_-'s guide to Military might

Advanced Guide to Espionage by Blumpy

-Rajang's Guide to Troop Builds-

(wish I knew how to make links to these forum topics)

 

And check out TZ's guides. Right on!

Here's my best guess at the strength calculation:
(att only, 'cause def and spy att/def are the same)

War Banner (att/def = Monarch 1500/1500, Conqueror 2000/1000, Defender 1000/2000)
+ Sum of Attack Strength of all buildings (att x troops*)
+ Sum of Attack "Bonus" from all allies
+ Magic attack bonuses (guess: att str shown in marketplace / 50)
=======================
Sub-total
+ Add % bonus from Permanent magic items (it applies to sub-total)
=======================
Total att strength

* - use current troop counts, not max troop counts unless u r @ max

Divide by 50 to compare to other's profiles (e.g. on Battle display).
To win more often, you want your current att strength to be higher than your opponent's current defense strength.

So if my att str is 36,000 and my opponent's defense str is 30,000, and I want a 10,000 lead to make sure I always win, then I'd buy a Seal of Lightning which gives me a +3,600 att bonus.


This post and my last post have a lot of guess work, so let me know any errors or additions.

Apologies to the math-phobic in KAW.

 

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