Saturday, November 28, 2020

Event Tips

When events come up (about six times a year), there are some things to be aware of.

1) Buildings will be at the chapter you claim them.  If you plan to go into the next chapter before the end of the event, wait to claim the evolving building (at the bottom of the quest window) until after you activate Advanced Scouts for the next chapter. This means that when you get it, you will get better rewards. You can wait until the very end of the event to claim those prizes at the bottom of that window if you want; your quest count will continue to be recorded and you can claim them all at once.

2) If you're close to the next chapter, you might want to fill Advanced Scouts and then wait until the day you want to win a specific daily prize to activate it. Once activated, all the quests requiring xx amount of goods/supplies/troops will go up to the new chapter amounts, so they will be harder to complete. The longer you wait, the easier some quests will be.

3) Scouting some provinces and not completing them will make completing quests for 'solve encounters' and 'gain relics' quests easier.  When you start solving them for 'solve encounters', remember to only solve 7 out of the 8, leaving the last one available for the 'gain relics' quests.  If you have the AW Endless Excavation, you'll get bonus relics when you complete a province, too.

4) You can preset many of the early quests and wait to collect them until the event starts. You just need to make sure the quest for those items is up before collecting.


Wednesday, November 25, 2020

Spire Overview

The Spire launches on Sundays and ends on Fridays. Launch time is 10am Eastern, end time is 4pm Eastern. There is a 'thermometer' with purple 'mercury' that fills up with the total FS points. The purple mercury must reach a FS bubble for those rewards to be granted. A green check mark appears when there are sufficient points for those rewards to be granted. Every FS member whose avatar has reached a FS bubble with a green check mark will receive those rewards.

Members who do all 3 Floors at once use a maximum of 79hrs in time boost instants to do that.  Using time boosts just to finish High Halls is max 60hrs. The total guaranteed time boost instants received after the Spire ends for reaching the top of the High Halls is 80hrs. Any time boost instants received in the chests are not counted, so everyone ends with more time boosts than when they started.

The spire offers a "boss" at each level who pays out prizes, some of which can be a magic residence, a magic workshop, or 125 diamonds (the last boss). Additionally, smaller amounts of diamonds may be won throughout the event. Special chests pop up which also offer prizes, such as the Dwarven armorer, the magic library, teleport and portal spells, etc.

Sunday, November 22, 2020

What Is My Boost?

There are several ways to find out what your boosts are.

1) Go to the Main Hall and look under the "Relics" tab. That shows you what percentage your boosts are at. 

2) Look at the drop down list of goods from the top of the screen. Your boosted goods are highlighted in each level. 

3) Go to the World Map from your city (or anyone's city). The boosts are at the 12 o'clock, 5 o'clock and 7 o'clock positions from your city.


Monday, November 16, 2020

Goods and Trading

Trading Is One of the Most Important Parts of Being in a Fellowship

One of the advantages of being in a Fellowship is you have more reliable trading partners for the goods you don't make and don't have to rely on your neighbors. For that to work members have to trade freely and often. You should try and make trades with FS members before all others and you should be producing your fair share of goods for the FS to use to advance in the game. 

What Goods to Make 

Only manufacture your BOOSTED goods and trade those for the others you need. 

If you don't know what your boosted goods are, open your Main Hall and click on the Relics tab to see your boosted goods. You increase the production of these goods by collecting relics for that good to a 700% maximum (The Mountain Halls Ancient Wonder can boost past that). All other goods are stuck at 100% production rate. This should make it clear why building your boosts and trading for the rest is the way to go

Now you may ask, what's the best way to get boosted relics? The tournaments! Each tourney gives relics for a particular good. Until you reach the 700% mark for each of them, you should focus your efforts on the tournaments for your boosted goods.

How many manufactory buildings should I have? 

My experience and observations make me recommend the following numbers for each Tier:
  • Tier 1: 4-5 buildings fully upgraded  
  • Tier 2: 3-4 buildings fully upgraded 
  • Tier 3: 2-3 buildings fully upgraded

As you advance in the game demands for higher Tier goods grow.

This is a good point to mention that the Mountain Halls increases goods production and population. Once you have upgraded it far enough, you are saving more space than it uses because of the boost in production and population. The more you can do in less space the better. 

Cross Tier Trades 

Now some people think, "I can trade T2 and T3 goods for T1 and save space by eliminating the lower tier buildings". That might be good for you, but it's bad for others, especially if the Fellowship has a shortage of the T1 good you've stopped making and offering for trade. Someone (Usually me or CD) has to make up for it. A lot of players won't accept Cross Tier Trades because they consider them unfair to the person with the lower tier good as it takes more space to make the lower tier good, even in what is even consider a 2 star trade. We accept Cross Tier Trades, but prefer that members avoid them.

Manage Your Goods and Trade Often 

It's important to keep manufacturing and trading your boosted goods and try to keep a balanced average reserve of all goods through trade. This is what I do. All the trades I post are just to keep the number of all goods relatively even. This is especially true since the changes to the Tournament. 

How to Trade 

If you are using the Web app, you can check the box to show FS member trades online. (Sorry app users, it's not there yet.) Look to see if a member has a trade that works for you there first and take it. That helps the FS. If they aren't there, then uncheck the box and look for posts demanding your overage. Finally post a trade of your own. Make it a 3 star trade if possible.

This is a good time to mention trades are listed by value. The best 3 star trades are listed first. This is why I always post 3 star trades. By giving up a small amount, my trades are more likely to be picked up. 

Trading Priority Codes 

We have a set of numeric codes for identifying urgency of need for a trade
  • Trades where the offer ends in a "0" are normal priority. I need it, but no hurry
  • Trades where the offer ends in a "5" are Urgent. I need this for the Tourney, Spire, Research, etc.
  • Trades where the offer ends in a "9" are meant to exchange goods with neighbors and balance your inventory. All of my trades are 3 star that end in 9 unless I screwed up. FS members have first dibs on these. If you need it, take it. 

Looking up your goods production in Elvenstats.

You can see every member's production capacity in Elvenstats at Misty Mountain Misfits Elevnstats. Near the top is a bar graph showing our production capacity for all normal goods. From that you'll see that we are hurting for Marble and Gems. If I wasn't overproducing and trading Marble and Gems, the Fellowship would suffer a constant shortage of them. If you click on each good, you'll see how much a good the top 11 members can produce for each boosted good. 

Friday, November 13, 2020

Fighting

Fighting
By FD
You want to have military boosts in place to so your troops don’t get wiped out. These are obtained by Crafting. They last 5 days and are stackable. Because they only last 5 days, I wait for the Tourney to start before placing them and starting both the Spire and Tourney. Before the Spire, all I crafted were military boosts and Pet Food. The Spire is loaded with the materials for crafting, so now I craft more now. If you have Fire Phoenix. Feed it for the run of the Tournament.

It is critical to fight smart. I only fight if I have an overwhelming advantage. That usually means one of my Units gets icons on all the enemies 4 at the minimum. Heavy Ranged units usually hold up better if they don’t have an advantage. If you hover over the enemies and you’ll see their damage for different types. Take that into account when you select yours. These apply to the Tourney as well.

If I don't have an advantage, I use Diplomacy. It doesn't matter what level. There's a good video tutorial that covers it pretty well Diplomacy in the Spire of Eternity. I'll add that keeping track of the "Wrong Person" and what has been played are crucial. Take notes if you have to. Make sure to keep stocked up on what you have to pay to play. 

FD's Fighting Information

What I find key to success in the Spire and the Tourneys is fighting smart. This requires preparation, constantly building up units, crafting military boosts and placing them at the right time. I’m constantly making goods, orcs, supplies and units. Before starting place military boosts from crafting and if you have a Fire Phoenix feed it for 5 days.

It is critical to fight smart. I only fight if I have an overwhelming advantage. That usually means one of my Units gets icons on all the enemies 4 at the minimum. Heavy units usually hold up better if they don’t have an advantage. If you hover over the enemies and you’ll see their damage for different types. Take that into account when you select yours. If the odds aren’t in my favor, I negotiate. If you run short of goods, cry out in chat and higher ranked members will take special trades. I will take 0 star trades for the tourneys and Spire.

One important strategy in the Tourneys is to play every day and limit the number of provinces you complete and take them to the highest round which is six. The cost per point is much lower when you play more rounds per Province as shown in the graph shown in the Tournament change announcement in the forum. You can see this is especially true for the lower ranked players. You get 30 points for the first round and 6 addition points for each subsequent round that's 60 for the 6th.

Tuesday, November 10, 2020

FA Changes

Inno has made major changes to the FA. Here are changes to badges that seem most important, and please add to this thread if others discover things, and correct me if I have misread something.

The bracelet now reads "any good amount of any tier 1 good." From what I've read about this, this has because a major hold-up because apparently the amount is based on player level. The "good amount" will vary.

The Necklace: 3 of any tier 1 good (24 hours). Apparently we no longer need to make 3 of every tier 1, just 3 of any tier 1. So we can all make the smallest tier 1 instead of cities, as I understand it.

The Statue: 2 of any tier 1 good (48 hours)

Witch's Hat - 2 basic magic spells

Ghost - 3 spire encounters or 3 tourney encounters

Druid - gain 1 combining catalyst spell

Arcane Residue - gain 10 vision vapor

Elemental Marbles - gain 8 relics

Enchanted Tiara - use 3 enchantments

Additionally, there are now 6 different badges in the pit, including statues and some of these new ones.

Monday, November 9, 2020

Wondermail

Wondermail is a way to distribute KP. Here is how it works.

Player A who started the mailing for whatever number of KP creates the Wondermail and asks for the KP in a specific Wonder.

Other plays can now respond.

Player D has a Golden Abyss and decides to respond. Player D now opens the mail and sees whose name is at the top of the list and has last donated. Since that was player A, Player D will visit Player A's Wonder and will put the appropriate knowledge points in this wonder.

Since player D is now the last one to have posted players A, B and C, etc., are now able to reply again to this mail.  By having an unordered chain, there is always someone able to respond and therefore this mail is never broken.

When either player A, B or C responds to this mail, player D will gain his 5 knowledge points back. This creates a neutral baseline where is has neither lost nor gained anything.

When someone's wonder has been completed, the players who have donated and are listed with the chests will receive a reward.

Here is an example:

Starting with the bottom post to the top

-Player A started the mail Choosing sanctuary as the wonder to recieve Knowledpoints at.

-Player B choose his Golden Abyss and donates 5 knowledgepoints at Player A's Sanctuary.

-Player A reply's again choosing his Sancuary once more and donates 5 Knowledpoints at Player B's Abyss.

-Player C joins in and chooses his Book of Secrets and donates 5 Knowledpoints at player A's Sanctuary.

-Player A Comes in once again with his Sanctary and donates 5 Knowledpoints at players C's Book of Secrets.

-Player D returns with his Golden Abyss and donates 5 Knowledpoints at player A's Sanctuary.

-Player B joins as well and chooses his Needles of the Tempest donating 5 KP at player D's Abyss.

-ect.

-ect.

-ect.

Wondermail IS NOT MANDATORY. If you do not understand how it works, please do not play it. If you wish to arbitrarily donate KPs to FS members, that is a gift from you and they are not obliged to return it.


Tournament Information

New Tournament type

Marble: Heavy Melee
Steel: Mage
Planks: Light Range
Crystal: Mage & Heavy Ranged
Scroll: Light Ranged & Heavy Ranged
Silk: Light Melee & Heavy Melee
Elixir: Light Range, Light Melee & Heavy Melee
Magic Dust: Light Melee, Mage & Heavy Ranged
Gems: Light Melee, Heavy Ranged & Heavy Melee

Spire Tips

Spire Tutorials
"Min Max Game" has broken down the Spire into its different levels and created YouTube videos for your chapter (CH1-4) & "Advanced" (Ch5 +)  Min Max Game YouTube videos. The Spire tutorials are currently at the bottom of the list. MinMaxGame Spire of Eternity takes you to the strategy video links

There is a wealth of information for playing Elvenar on the Min Max Game blog including the Spire tutorials. 

Here are tips for keeping negotiating costs down in the spire: 

If there are 5 options - Make your first guess... If 2 things are not eliminated (Not Needed or Success), leave. Go back in and try again. It is cheaper to make multiple first guesses than waste resources on a second and third guess on a bad setup. 
 
If there are 6 or more options - Make your first guess... If 3 things are not eliminated, leave! Staying in and trying to guess is like throwing away resources.