What's New in the Update?
Well, nerfs. Lots and lots of nerfs. Mostly though it doesn't change too much.
- Goods buildings cost 200 Alloy. This is the only change that needs to affect your economy progression. And it only is a big impact near the start. For the Bakery rush plan, the worst case scenario is you spend 95 more Quantum Shards on 1 more Bakery rush to cover. For my lazy plan, I have an update coming.
- Pillory AP/hr has been taken out back and murdered so that it's no better than the alternatives. Doctors are now the recommended AP/hr building. While Pillory and Cartographer are *slightly* higher per square, Doctors are *much* cheaper per square and will likely allow you to convert at least a full collection earlier. As such it's best to fill most space with Doctors, and reserve Pillories or Cartographers to fill in geometry better in places or use up excess resources.
- Cultural buildings also now provide AP capacity, but since we gained 100k capacity for free recently, this is rather unimportant to worry about for most players. Cartographers have slightly better capacity/tile than Doctors. Pillories have none.
- Lunar Coins from encounters have been reduced.
New Low QS plan
This is not entirely a reaction to the nerfs so much as something I'd been thinking over through the first championship.
- I do not want to start every championship with a 1k Diamond infusion so I can do a high QS plan in the first round.
- With the most important reward being the Gold & Silver Bazaar fragments, the motivation to go as hard as possible at earning Lunar Coins is not so high in the long term. As long as enough Lunar Coins are earned to buyout the bazaar fragments and a little more each round.
- Buying the round end chests for 1500 QS offers some extra Gold & Silver Bazaar fragments. How many depends on your guild's overall progression.
- Finally, because of the nerf, city AP is more valuable as settlement AP has been lowered. It then follows that the more city AP you have the less impact it has to max the settlement as fast as possible.
So in moving away from spending QS on Bakery rushes, the first plan I examined closely was mass Alchemists. Tier 2 buildings are after all the fastest way to ramp Alloy production.
While 30+ Alchemists are perfectly capable of providing the kind of Supply production I'm used to without ever touching a Bakery, the journey to get there is very starved on non-Alloy resources. Compare 1k Alloy of either:
- 5 Alchemists cost 300 Population, 250k Coins, and 300k Supplies.
- 1 Bakery costs 120 Population, 84k Coins, and 100k Supplies.
So this changes attention to stopping with the T2s at some point and building T3s. This wasn't entirely satisfying at first either - the Alchemist start still left Supply lagging ; and waiting 10 hours for a Bakery to even come online wasn't exactly helping with that. It's not like the rush situation where you immediately get 8+ productions out of it and then Supplies are suddenly good.
The solution I settled on was using Shoemakers instead of Alchemists. The best way to view Shoemakers is that 5 of them have the same production as 2 Bakeries. This means in building 5 of them you 'waste' 21 squares (5 * 9 - 2 * 12), but save 1k Alloy. They get along with support Breweries (often temporary ones early on) much better than Alchemists do as Breweries are mainly gaining value from the base production of other Supply buildings.
On City Support Buildings
At first when I was considering this I was looking at the possibility of loading way up on ascended buildings with the idea of using them to power past the first round without spending Diamonds; and then in the second round flipping back to a high shard consumption strategy.
I was prepping my run throughs with higher than normal Supply % and 200 starting Goods to try and overcome the supply shortage compared to Bakery rushes. But once I'd settled on a plan I was happy with with Shoemakers, I wanted to answer the question: "how much do I really need all that?" and adapted my simulation of the run to only have my normal amount of support (220k starting Coins, 65% Supply boost, 50 starting Goods). The result was the extra was gaining me about 32 encounters from earlier upgrades. To put this in comparison, 1x 200 AP/hr building (i.e. Yukitomo Empire/Imperial) is worth about 15 encounters a round and doesn't require constant upkeep.
As such I'm pulling back from the extra event work that "loading up" on temporary buildings would entail. I do still like having "some" but my 15 core ascensions of 10 Koi Ponds + 5 Nomad Nooks will suffice (+1 permanent Clover Keep Ruin and a few ascended troop providers for the start which are whatever I have handy at the time). To the extent I want more out of QI from my main city I'll work on additional AP generators.
The Play
Initial build
- 3 QS Expansions
- 1 Goods Expansion
- all houses : 27 Multistorey + 25 Estate Houses on my starting Coin budget (670k Coin)
- Balance: 0 Coin, 295k Supply, 0 Alloy
First Collection:
- Collect and Sell 9 Multistorey Houses. Build 4 Churches.
- Collect and Sell 9 Multistorey Houses. Build 4 Churches.
- Collect and Sell 2 Multistorey Houses. Build 1 Church.
- Collect and Sell 5 Multistorey Houses. Build 2 Churches.
- Collect and Sell 2 Multistorey Houses. Build 1 Church.
- Collect and Sell 3 Estate Houses. Build 2 Churches.
- Collect the rest. Sell Churches.
- Build to 2 Shoemakers (new), 24 Multistorey Houses (new), 25 Estate Houses (3 new).
- Return 1 hour later to confirm Shoemaker completion.
- Balance: 2.3M Coin, 245k Supply, 141 Alloy
Second Collection:
- Collect and Sell 9 Multistorey Houses. Build 4 Churches.
- Collect and Sell 8 Multistorey Houses. Build 3 Churches.
- Collect and Sell 3 Multistorey Houses. Build 1 Church.
- Collect and Sell 4 Multistorey Houses. Build 2 Churches.
- Collect and Sell 2 Estate Houses. Build 1 Church.
- Collect and Sell 4 Estate Houses. Build 1 Church.
- Collect the rest of the houses. Sell 6 Churches.
- Sell the rest of the Estate Houses, replacing with 6 Multistorey Houses and 1 Mansion.
- Build 12 Breweries.
- Collect Shoemakers.
- Sell Churches, Breweries, and Mansion.
- Build to 6 Shoemakers (4 new), 18 Multistorey Houses (12 new), 22 Estate Houses (new)
- Return 1 hour later to confirm Shoemaker completion.
- Balance: 3.9M Coin, 313k Supply, 67 Alloy
Third Collection:
- Collect and Sell 8 Multistorey Houses. Build 3 Churches.
- Collect and Sell 7 Multistorey Houses. Build 3 Churches.
- Collect and Sell 2 Multistorey Houses. Build 1 Church.
- Collect and Sell 1 Multistorey House and 1 Estate House. Build 1 Church.
- Collect and Sell 3 Estate Houses. Build 1 Church.
- Collect and Sell 2 Estate Houses. Build 1 Church.
- Collect the rest of the houses. Sell 3 Churches.
- Sell all but 4 Estate Houses, and add 5 Multistorey Houses.
- Build 6 Breweries
- Collect Shoemakers.
- Sell Churches and Breweries
- Build to 10 Shoemakers (4 new), 1 Ropery (new), 14 Multistorey Houses (8 new), 15 Estate Houses (11 new)
- Return 1 hour later to confirm Shoemaker completion.
- Build 2 Expansions with Rope. Build 8 Estate Houses
- Balance: 4.5M Coin, 287k Supply, 151 Alloy
Fourth Collection:
- Collect and Sell 8 Multistorey Houses. Build 3 Churches
- Collect and Sell 4 Multistorey Houses. Build 2 Churches.
- Collect and Sell 2 Multistorey Houses. Build 1 Church.
- Collect and Sell 4 Estate Houses. Build 2 Churches.
- Collect and Sell 1 Estate House.
- Collect and Sell 4 Estate Houses. Build 1 Church.
- Collect the rest
- Sell Churches
- Build 1 Expansion with Rope
- Build to 4 Multistorey Houses (new), 8 Breweries (new), 2 Doctors (new), 14 Estate Houses, 10 Shoemakers, 1 Ropery
- Balance: 5.0M Coin, 201k Supply, 661 Alloy
Fifth Collection:
- Collect all
- Build 1 Expansion with Rope
- Sell Multistorey Houses and build to 2 Clapboard Houses (new, instant finish), 16 Estate Houses (2 new), 10 Breweries (2 new), 10 Shoemakers, 2 Doctors, 1 Ropery.
- Balance: 4.4M Coin, 391k Supply, 196 Alloy
Sixth Collection:
- Collect all
- Build 1 Expansion with Rope
- Sell 5 Estate Houses and build to 3 Clapboard Houses (1 new, instant finish), 3 Doctors (1 new), 1 Mansion (new), 12 Breweries (2 new), 11 Estate Houses, 10 Shoemakers, 1 Ropery.
- Balance: 4.9M Coin, 621k Supply, 981 Alloy
Seventh Collection:
- Collect all
- Build 1 Expansion with Rope. Sell Ropery
- Sell 5 Estate Houses and 1 Brewery and build to 4 Clapboard Houses (1 new), 2 Bakeries (new), 3 Doctors, 6 Multistoreys (new), 6 Estate Houses, 11 Breweries, 10 Shoemakers.
- Balance: 5.4M Coin, 762k Supply, 661 Alloy
Eighth Collection:
- Collect All.
- Sell 3 Estate Houses and build 3 more Clapboard Houses.
- Balance: 6.5M Coin, 1.5M Supply, 276 Alloy
Ninth Collection:
- Collect All.
- Sell 5 Shoemakers, all Estate Houses, 2 Multistorey Houses and build to 1 Mansion (new), 8 Clapboard Houses (1 new), 13 Breweries (2 new), 5 Bakeries (3 new), 1 Beekeeper (new), 4 Multistorey Houses, 5 Shoemakers, 3 Doctors.
- Balance: 7.7M Coin, 2.9M Supply, 21 Alloy
Tenth Collection:
- Collect All
- Build 3 Expansions with Honey
- Sell Beekeeper, last 5 Shoemakers, Mansion, Multistoreys
- Build to 9 Estate Houses (new), 17 Breweries (4 new), 8 Bakeries (3 new), 1 Cannon Camp (new), 8 Clapboard Houses, 3 Doctors
Eleventh Collection:
- Collect All.
- Train 300 Cannons.
- Sell Cannon Camp and 1 Estate House.
- Build to Gunpowder Manufactory (new), 18 Breweries (1 new), 8 Bakeries, 8 Estate Houses, 8 Clapboard Houses
- Balance: 7.2M Coin, 936k Supply, 5876 Alloy
Twelfth Collection:
- Collect All.
- Build last Goods Expansion with Gunpowder.
- Sell Gunpowder Manufactory.
- Build to 9 Estate Houses (1 new), 2 Cartographers (new), 19 Breweries (1 new), 8 Clapboard Houses, 8 Bakeries, 3 Doctors
Thirteenth Collection:
- Collect All.
- Balance: 12.7M Coin, 5.4M Supply, 17766 Alloy
Fourteenth Collection:
- Collect All.
- Sell all Houses and Supply Buildings.
- Build to 30 Doctors, 9 Cartographers, 48 Gargoyles, 2 Nautical Statues
The mix listed of Doctors/Cartographers/Gargoyles/Nautical Statues is based on what I expect to have for Supplies and Alloy and how much single-color boost I need. The precise mix I settle on may be slightly different in the end ; and evolve over time as I get new support from my main city.
If I needed no boost I could convert on collection 13 instead of 14 to 2 Pillories, 38 Doctors, and 4 Cartographers, geometry permitting (that's a very high % of 3x3s - would need to be quite careful about picking expansions; probably need additional impediment removals as such. The amount of 1x1s I currently plan to use makes it easier to deal with any geometry while needing boost). Would probably need additional supply boost from main city to be able to handle additional Pillories or Cartographers in order to be more geometry tolerant.
Was this strategy better or worst that the previous rush?
ReplyDeleteDifferent. Obviously it's slower than a bakery rush plan. But it also costs less shards allowing a free first round, and purchase of additional chests.
DeleteI never buy bazaar frags with my lunar coins. I only buy w QI medals. With the amount I get from the prize line I always earn 7 base upgrades, 75% of a silver upgrade and 50% of a gold. At the end of the QI season when I buy the pass I get the rest of the gold and silver frags I need. I only did 3 of the 6 rounds last season efficiently so I ended w 3 gold bazaars without spending any lunar coins on them. This first round of the new QI I got the upgrades I needed for a silver and half a gold kit. So my point is DONT spend lunar coins on the bazaar. I like the shrines of knowledge for GBG and menageries for GE. The new buildings I am eyeing but might wait till they get a discount next season.
ReplyDeleteThanks for this. Been using the 'Alchemist' strategy but am going for this on current round as it's a very different approach, interested to see the results. My inital start is less so I settled for 18 MSH/24EH so will probably be behind the whole way
ReplyDeleteI’m confused about the 2nd and 3rd collection. In both right after collecting all houses, you have “build X breweries”. Then two steps later, in the same collection, you have “sell breweries”. Not sure what is going on there?
ReplyDeleteUnless it is a typo I'm sure it is for the "20% Supply Production", So you only collect the shoemakers after the breweries are done.
DeleteI assume the same, I didn't clock the sequence properly (next time will read more carefully!) but I think it's as you say, plant the breweries to gain the boost, the net cost is positive. Same for the sale of houses piecemeal adding churches which I also forgot! Paying attention now...
DeleteWow. I totally missed that the breweries provided a supply boost. Makes sense now. I already started out an expansion behind, so I’m playing catchup, regardless.
DeleteThanks for putting this together, same question - build then sell breweries with no collection doesn’t make sense to me on the 2nd collection. Can you please review and revise? I wasted a bunch of resources on breweries, guess I’ll kind of wing it on this collection and try to catch up in a few.
ReplyDeleteIt's done to add supplies to the collection of other buildings at a cost of only coins (which are in excess).
Delete"20% Supply Production" for sure
ReplyDelete