A lot of people have given the most correct answer in my opinion. The devs formula places a Huge emphasis on attacker size vs defender size. A max TL gives way more stats than guild etc. Therefore your plunder on an OSF will drop. Attacking an EB however, will not see this drop in plunder but rather the increase you are expecting. Side not there are also some variation in plunder from attack to attack. So try testing it with a larger attack sample with both builds.
I already wasted 55 bil on two max titans that I put in place of destroyed guilds. I completely understand the idea of making less money when attacking people who are weaker. If they wanted to have diminishing returns on plunder based on strength of the combatants it should be influenced by things such as land amount or coordinated with amount of ally bonus earned to calculate the lessened amount. For example a base plunder value of 919,000 for guilds and 1,800,000 for titans... If you have 15 buildings and attack someone with 50... You get the full value regardless of building type... If you have 15 lands and attack someone who also has 15 lands, you get half the value of your buildings plunder... Regardless of building type. Instead the current system goes entirely against simple and absolutely necessary game mechanics. A common sense aspect of time management games is maintaining the process of growth through both power and income in order to feel sucked in. Simple time management game process: 1-earn income 2-grow stronger 3-earn income faster from being stronger 4-grow stronger at an increased cost Repeat steps 3-4 continuously. This game stifles you from growing "stronger" because in order to earn money as efficiently as possible you have to sacrifice stats. It is completely counter-intuitive. I, as many, want to have good stats AND I want to earn money quickly. I should not have to pick between one or the other... Both should come hand in hand and be in ratio with each other. To the developers: If you need a new project manager or game designer who can implement game aspect that stimulate growth, enjoyment, income, and ratings... Feel free to contact me. TNT
TNT, the plunder formula is relational and u have at the same time moved towards a hybrid build building titans where u had guilds and increased ur strength relative to the OSF. The interesting point is the fact that ur first transition was improving ur ally plunder. I would find that counter intuitive not the drop. The game seems to first 'fill slots' for plunder with your soldiers and then with ur allies so that Hansels have the best ratio in that area. Nonetheless, an interesting problem Corinthian knows quite a bit about games mechanics try to contact him.
---Just got on, and I've read all of the posts, but not too deeply and I worry at almost skim-depth. However, my first impression which I believe was stated earlier is: ---You switched to the titan level 3 from a guild level 4, increases both your max combined and your ally plunder. Then, you switched another guild level 4 for a titan level 3, and increased your max combined but your ally plunder dropped. This is the source of your puzzlement. ---You are fighting the same exact target, which is presumably is beyond your 'max' income ceiling at start, near/slightly above your max ceiling at step one, and below your max ceiling at step two. Your concern here is that the OSF was at max stats, and thus cannot be raised short of (hopefully 0 defense) ally bonuses, and thus your 'max' income is thus unattainable, leading to the complaint listed here. ---Your plunder also likewise dropped at this point in time, and this is because troop plunder was changed to be more like the reworked ally plunder, so instead of providing static bonuses it relies on size of opponet relative to you. The fact that it also dropped is logical. Pardon for my summing up the thread up til now. ---You also dropped a complaint and request to the devs asking for them to fully release all of their formulas, when to be honest I can't think of a single game that has done so unless it's a community-made game. In the history of Kingdoms at War, mechanics have been time and again tested and posted by various players, in some cases completely changing the way Kingdoms at War is played upon the knowledge becoming popularly known. The devs have a track record of not giving away mechanics for free and have even changed how ally plunder worked to a highly difficult to solve equation as opposed to the static ally bonuses. Admittedly, the rework may have been justified as those with large amounts of gold in allies could max plunder(actual set numbers) vs tiny enemies, and thus giving high statted/monied players a strong advantage in any system war. Despite this, there have been public and private projects to uncover the exact method ally plunder is calculated, although to date I believe all published projects have been off of the actual numbers by a few decimals here and there, players can calculate their rough ally plunder vs various targets without touching them, should they care to take the time to plug in all of the numbers. TLDR: Sorry, likely isn't going to happen. ---As far as titans getting 5% more plunder, I just want to clarify that titans get 5% more ally plunder from other buildings of its tier. ie: the cursed factory and the circle of elements. Some of the posts here made me think people possibly didn't understand that. ---To address the part where a level 1 titan generates more plunder that a level 3 titan, spies have often known of this factor in calculation due to the effects of SoS L3 to ally plunder vs guild L4 and SoS L1. That topic has it's own set of mechanics threads and bits of complaints there, if mostly several months old by now. On a side note: If you'd like me to attempt to provide/search up various threads I reference in this post, feel free to do so. ---As far as the gold aspect goes, you must realize one important thing about this complaint of yours, and I do hope you don't take this personally: OSFs, or 0 defense enemies, are in an ideal system rare and not what the game is designed around. What I mean is: the success rate increase on attacks vs the success rate decrease on spy actions is supposed to make the move "worth it" alone. ---Now, allow me make another statement. Earlier I stated that your target had moved below your max possible income level (what I believe you called diminishing returns), and the fact that your OSF was max stats was concerning to you. Do not lose hope in your build, as your max income is still attainable! The entire original idea behind rewarding additional gold for attacking larger targets and less gold for weaker targets was to give an incentive to players to take risks. Where am I going with this? A Level 3 SoS has only 5,648 more combined stats than the weak defensive fortress vs 42,280 LESS combined stats than a cursed factory, 52,432 LESS combined stats than a titan, and 59,568 LESS combined stats than a circle of elements. What does this mean? It means while you are starting to outgrow your OSF, your era of PVP combat is beginning! If that's too scary for you, you could try to find a full Cursed Factory build and hit that, or for much more combined for a little more defense a full CoE build. Yes, if you're a hansel you will have trouble, but it's commonly acknowledged that Hansels are only strong up until the highlands and T4, where troop buildings take over. If you can't break such large players, try expirementing with attack potions and compare income rates. Or, as suggested, just take the much easier epic battle route. ---Now, you might be reading the above and just taking in that there is less income from OSFs, and thus to try other things, which is true. However, from what I've read, I think you read this step as counter-intuitive, so I'll explain: -In the release T2/Guild level 3 era, guilds then and now offered less combined than their tier equivilancy. None-the-less, the OSF was founded in this era as a means to help new players get started since ally inflation was removing that as an option, there was no quest mastery and thus little incentive to quest, the battle list was scary to some, and ally plunder was still being fully discovered. Now, even when ally plunder was fully figured out and everyone started getting that static max plunder, troop buildings quickly outgrew their OSF/spy counterparts and for several reasons: the upgrade cost of a level 2 troop building to level 3 was 5 million as opposed to the 75 million upgrade to level 3 from level 2 for guilds, the fact that OSFs were open 24/7 and thus if taking this role had a diminished income rate, and as stated the less combined compared to tier 2. Because of this, people would hit OSFs up to maybe 10-12 lands or so, and then transition into battle list fighting or hitting inactives or dummy 'bot' accounts placed by the devs to fill the upper brackets until enough players hit there(they did retaliate hits). When T3 came out, despite the fact that you had clan OSFs and a good bit were getting near or at LCBC now, guilds just continued to take that role. Sure, you couldn't hit them out of the tutorial, but now you could hit them up to a higher combined before going into pvp. When guilds level 4 came out separately, they were still less than T3 combined same as SoS is less than T4 combined, but were now getting relatively 'up there' in terms of combined, and OSFs grew ever more popular since they could be used to get up to that T3 rank, but again, there's a spot where you 'had' to switch to pvp. With the advent of the war system and the ensuing exploitation of said system to let kingdoms normally too weak to hit top OSFs, you could then and now just hit the attack button all the way up to that near-BC bit. At T4 and the advent of the SoS, this trait continues, and will continue to occur as long as the combined stats of spies keep below troop buildings. In other words, you've hit that limit. Don't get me wrong, you're probably still making better gold than if you hit enemies at your combined or even those giving a 'large' reward, but now you are incentivized to look at builds more defended than the ever-so-mesmerizing "0". ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---I do believe I possibly may have been carried away, so if I did leave something out, or if you wanted hard math on any particular point, or thread references, feel free to ask.
Excellent, EXCELLENT post cor, so I must apologize for being the "fly in the ointment" here. I also noticed a drop in plunder upon putting my 2nd and 3rd t4 troop buildings up so I stopped putting them up. Instead, I converted all my t3s to lvl1 t4s and never again saw this drop in plunder. Once all lands were lvl1 t4s, I upgraded them all, one at a time to lvl2, then again, one by one, to lvl3. Not once after I changed to this building strategy has my plunder-ally, or total-gone backwards. If relative strength of opponent was the reason for the op's plunder drop (or mine, for that matter) then it would stand to reason that at some point my plunder would have decreased by now. ~my opinion? I think there is an error embedded in the formula. @op keep building, your plunder will begin to rise again
@Nightmare, you are correct in that T4 mechanics are a little bit different compared to the other tiers, as well as this thread and you noticing the fact that the formula uses a parabola/exponent in their equation, one example being that ally plunder does supersede the stat gap at a certain point. On a more general note though: If you want even more income than a HLBC OSF, I'd suggest trying a HLBC CoE build that is traditionally used for stealing from. Now, I know you are thinking you cannot break the CoE's defenses, but here's where you / the CoE player can assassinate the troops to x (near 0 spy def to deal with), or that player can quest/hit in an eb/hit an OSF/ w/e. The issue with this is that this requires activity on both sides, has a hit limit (as in, 2 hit regen players will like this, with the odd 3rd hit due to defender losing less), and cannot be used by multiple players like an OSF can. Still, an option if you have friends in high places and want to check income.
Thank your Cor... You clarified a lot of things for me that has previously been unclear and I personally was unable to find mentioned by other people. I appreciate your willingness to devote the time needed to make this clear for both myself and everyone else who read this post in depth. It still frustrates me that there is a dead spot in the game where I am not able to improve my building type. I still feel that at bare minimum the upgraded buildings should at least provide the same amount of income (as stated I think the cap should be a combination of both land and max plunder; I mean if a guild gives 919k per guild per land, the diminishing returns should show less than the potential of a titans lair, but still something more than the guild). I understand my previous statements on changing the plunder cap system makes sense ONLY because of the pwar system in practice... And that the OSF and pwar system is not how the game was intended to be played. In actuality though this is how it IS being played because it's the fastest way to grow. When I first joined the game and tried to learn what to do everything pointed towards joining pwars. My entire perspective of the game was growing in these pwars and that I would be able to improve and grow through them the entire way. This is how I viewed the game, because this is how it IS in fact played. The game may not be intended to be played that way but if that's how everyone is playing it there needs to be acknowledgement and evolution in practices in order to support that... Otherwise you end up with players like me who are frustrated about things like this. Even if my titan lairs gave only the same amount of income as the guilds... I would have been able to look at the situation and say "well, it took me two weeks to build those, and I could have bought another land with a guild and helped my income... Which sucks... But at least I have better stats and grew in SOME way, and in the long run it's what I will want". Instead I wanted to remove them and put guilds back down... And now I feel entirely like the last 2 weeks of playing was a complete waste... 50 billion down the drain. I do sincerely appreciate your response but I still feel like the game should be accommodated to how people are actually playing it... Not theoretical intentions. TNT
Well ok... Looks like the developers have modified the game pretty significantly so all of my previous posts about the game being played as supporting pwars but having illogically different aspects are null and void. Frustrating as it is for my current build centered around pwars I am glad and appreciate they did something so a least new players aren't constructing builds around a failed scenario. I now have follow up questions for the great Corinthian if you are available still. As I previously said I was frustrated by stronger buildings generating less money since the ally bonus was in play. This included SOS giving less money than guilds. With the new changes I will now start pursuing epic battles. I have a few questions I do not see clearly listed anywhere. I will ask them in list format. What determines the ally bonus you get from attacks in EB's? Is it also lowered by having greater stats and will having an SOS or Titans generate less ally bonus than a guild does? What determines the amount of troops destroyed through assassinations and attacks? Is it based on the amount of troops you have, your total stats, or a combination of the two? Will having full SOS instead of full guilds destroy significantly more troops, thus earning significantly more money, or will both builds destroy roughly the same amount? What is required to successfully land attacks in the haunting? Against the EB with Ursin I can land a full 26 attacks that all succeed (using only 50 troops per attack), Generate 15 mil in ally bonus, and then use all my spies to assassinate. However, In the hardest EB, the haunting, I am able to land all my assassinations just like when against Ursin... but my attacks prove to be unsuccessful and have no effect. Will I need a few titans to be able to have 26 attacks that all land? Its a waste as a hansel to not be able to attack and lose out on potential ally bonus and useless troops. I want to be able to land the full 26 attacks with my ally bonus and then be able to assassinate for additional help and troops killed. Thanks for your help. TNT
There are many factors included in the plunder threshold. New buildings aren't set in stone with their plunder, your new size compared to allies and the enemy is one factor. Another one is your buildings. Different combinations have different plunder. This is why guides recommend only 6SOS.
All I have to say about this topic is: It's just a videogame! Calm the **** down. So you get a few hundred thousand gold less? If you have so much time to play video games to figure this stuff out, then you probably have enough time to just wait for regen and unload more. This is a video game, not a science.
I am very calm. I also don't have a ton of time to play video games, I'm actually I pretty busy person. When I do play games though two of the things I enjoy are learning about the mechanics and attempting to be maximumly efficient. There's no reason to attack me for enjoying something in a different way than you do.
@TNT I don't know enough about the game to contribute to your post, but you're definitely right in saying that this is an unnecessary complication in the game. I'd hate to have spent that much gold (and time) just to see my plunder drop. Pointless really.
I'm guessing that your original results would have been different if you were hitting a much bigger OSF. As you add the TL your getting incrementally closer in size to the OSF so the advantage (in defeating a much bigger opponent) goes down a bit