I am not doing the math but these numbers intuitively seem wrong. I max out on food and iron in under 2 days if I dont use the resources. none of the building upgrades (other than stronghold) take the max or close to the max of either resource for me. how could it require 15 months to get an ROI on upgrading a farm or mine?
to be fair, I am often running out of food because of leveling heroes but I never run into resource issues from buildings. I do like the little chunks of gems they give you from maxing them out though.
The only thing I see using iron for is to produce items, upgrading buildings, and emblems. If I stop all usage of iron, I can fill my storage within a day or so. And I haven’t fully upgraded all the mines because I have better use for food.
So I see emblems mentioned a lot here. How many emblems is everyone collecting on a regular basis? I mean I get some through the trials and odd chests, but not often enough to make a significant dent in iron, that can’t be replenished within a day. I guess if you are continually reseting and maxing emblems, I could see that being a concern.
So basically that spreadsheet is a bit of a misleading post. Iron holds very little value for me because I always have a lot of it, so the payback time is irrelevant. Plus, the sooner you upgrade the production, the more benefit you get from the increased production level. Delaying upgrades only means delaying getting increased production which is what is needed to keep up with resource demands later in the game.
The analysis is on upgrading advanced farm/mine 1 to advanced 10. The effort is much higher than the first 20 levels, it takes much longer - and the gain is smaller.
I meant stop upgrading buildings, and crafting ~10 titan harpoons a day is quite a drain. The moment I finished upgrading my town to the list above - I started to focus on getting rare ascension material —> regular A scores on Titans —> harpoons really help.
I did reset emblems a few times, I mostly postpone this expense so now I have about 800 unused emblems that will cost several Millions to apply.
I’ve maxed out my 1 advanced farm and working on the second. without doing the math, I dont get the sense that there is a 15 month roi, takes like 1 day to recoup the iron costs. plus I would add that I always need more food.
The ROI should actually be calculated by taking the total amount of production lost while upgrading and then dividing that by the amount of hourly increase you get in production for that upgrade. Then take that answer divided by 24 to see how many days it will take for the increased hourly production to make up for the production you lost while upgrading
So for example - taking advanced farm from level 1 to level 2 takes 36 hours to upgrade. During that 36 hours, the AF1 would have produced 201,528 ham (5598/hr). The hourly increase in production once leveled is 264. So once you divide 201,528 by 264, you get 763 hours (rounding down). Divide 763 by 24 and it’s about 32 days to make back the ham you lost from upgrading for just one farm and that one level.
My sense is the larger number thrown out earlier is for going all the way from lvl 20 to advanced lvl 10 on one farm.
So, I’ve maxed my farms to 20, or +10 (2 of them), and iron storage to 20 or +10 and +8 (which is required for future upgrades. I imagine to upgrade the stronghold I’ll need max iron storage, so I’ll finish off the second one). I always have a surplus of iron, so I craft titan harpoons just to make use of the iron. My only limiting factor when it comes to upgrading is the length of time and having one builder. Plus we usually only hit tier 1 or 2 on a 7/8/9* titan, so we don’t expend a lot.
Keep in mind that means after a month, you’ll be ahead. Grant it, things may change, but if you plan on playing the game for a long time, these payback numbers aren’t really relevant. Think of it another way, after you do the upgrades, you’ll have a higher flow of ham that will aid in leveling your troops or heroes. If you don’t ever upgrade your farms, your limiting factor will be the ham production.
Anecdotally… I have managed to max out everything as of now, except for two things: Alchemy Lab (which is 7 and rising); and Advanced House, which I left at 9 because I don’t see a point to Lvl 10 on it.
I prioritized Advanced Mines first, as most of the upgrades use Iron; I upgraded storages as needed to continue everything else; beyond those two general guidelines, I honestly don’t remember what order I did them in, but now it’s done and I’m ready with maximum Iron & Food production capability for whatever comes next… higher Stronghold level, another Advanced House, and so on.
I also did this while continuing to increase talent grids on all my heroes, and I really don’t see what all the fuss is about. (And no, I’m not one of those people who pays gems to skip building times, either.)
I just looked at it this way: Sure, taking the time to upgrade my Advanced Mines (for example) meant they were shut down and not producing for a while. But whether I decided to upgrade as soon as I could, or waited 6 months, it would still take the exact same amount of time and resources to increase them. So my logic was, why not increase them ASAP, and gain the long-term benefit of the increased production for that much longer? It’s working for me.
I also had not maxed the house… do not need recruits with 1000s stored… but there is a mission of 20 gems so I am doing it now everything else is finished
@PM229, good point. I also have a ton of recruits stored; with recent leveling (Telluria), I have pulled a LOT of food out of TC20 and so I had to dump the recruits into TC11. But I suspect once I’m done with Alchemy Lab (the food-hungry research), I will eventually have more food than I know what to do with, so I’ll be able to start transferring it back into TC20 again.
But one thing to consider before clicking that button to upgrade Adv House from 9 to 10: It will take 8 days, 19 hours to complete. That’s 8x24+19=211 hours, x5 recruits per hour… a total of 1055 recruits lost during that upgrade time. Is that worth the 20 gems to you? Or maybe it’s just a completionist thing, which is also understandable. It’s possible you have so many recruits that you can ignore the downtime while it’s upgrading from 9 to 10, and that’s obviously fine too. Either way, just figured I’d point it out.
If you wanna maxed base, gotta do these upgrades sooner rather than later if you hope to realize a return. When the next SH level is released, it will be farm and iron storage. Then mine and food storage. Resources are key.
Helios (my alliance) mainly fights 14* titans and we generally have to pass on every 10th or so to regroup (soon we will stop passing all together). Besides harpoons to reach T1 and the few members that leverage the titanium shield Alfie trick on rare titans, I don’t know of anyone that regularly uses hunters lodge items. They really are not necessary and are far far too expensive to justify their cost.
Personally, I exclusively use small antidotes, small and medium mana pots, occasional tornadoes, and time stops on the rare tiger. Thats it. nothing else is needed to put up respectable titan scores on 14s.
One of our teammates did the titanium shield trick, though, I figured it was kind of expensive given the materials. Not something you want to do on a regular basis.
More than likely, it’ll be something on the backburner. I was thinking the time freeze would be somewhat useful.
Did you check how much of your iron is coming from mines?
4 * level 20 iron mines yield about 350K iron in 24h
each level 10 advanced mine adds another 35K iron a day. just 35K!
I open 2 raid chest a day, and avoid fights with less than 10K iron —> at least 160K iron
raid chest and titan get each about 150K iron (avg) —> 450K daily
two monster chest a day really vary, but average is around 75K each —> another 150K daily.
tower is an extra 100-150K a day (next goal to max it)
i.e my daily (24H) yield is around 1.2-1.5M iron, which Im always short of. prob. due to battle item and mostly harpoons. extra 70K daily due to advanced mines seems just too insignificant for all that food required.
I am completely finished with buildings on my base. Including AL, HL. Everything is done and my builder is now unemployed. And I have never rushed a building with gems.
So you decide if it is worthwhile or not:
because my storages are all maxed, I frequently get over 200k food AND over 200k iron when I collect a heroes chest. I now get to do that every single time until the end of days on this game. How much food and iron do you collect every hero chest? Food and iron rewards are higher for all other rewards that give food and iron, compared to what they are with non-maxed storages. I am enjoying this advantage continually because I have reached this end stage.
all my farms and mines are kicking out maximum production. Until the end of game days. Yes, there was an opportunity cost while getting here, as one facility was always off-line while upgrading, but now that I am here, I am finished. Forever. And reaping the harvests.
as I have nothing to build, I am able to crank out items in the forge and in the Hunters Lodge that cost lots of iron. Also able to add emblems with ease. I have iron to burn…
as I am finished building (until they release more SH levels), I have quit my VIP. No need for second builder. If I want gems, I will buy when there is a good deal. The single emblem and the 3 loot tickets and silver token each day, I can live without. So I am now saving money on no more monthly VIP costs.
I love being in this state. If it’s not for you, it’s not for you, but I am glad I put in the effort and i have no regrets.
I earn 200k iron from my heroes chest, so x 2 that’s 100k more iron than you.
If level 10 advanced mines are +70k per day, that’s another extra 70k for me.
I likely get at least 30k more from each missions chest (so 60k daily) and 50k more from Titan chest.
So 100+70+60+50. I earn 280k more daily.
In the next year, I will earn 102,200,000 more iron than someone who hasn’t done this upgrading.
You decide, was it worth earning less along the journey, for me to be in this state now? Maybe not, but maybe yes. Depends on how you like to play the game.
Plus this game is for players that are in it for the long haul. If someone is going to be playing for a long time (years, not a few months) it is worth it.
(And no, I’m not one of those people who pays gems to skip building times, either.)