As we get ready to turn the page on a new year, I wanted to take look back at my year that was in Empires and Puzzles.
If you think this looks familiar, that’s because @ChoppedLiver posted his account of the game after a year of playing back in August. I loved the idea of it and couldn’t wait to share my own when the time came. Cheers for the excellent idea.
Here’s proof that it’s been a year to the day:
And here’s a quick overview of my progress:
(I’d probably have more finishing titan strikes if a certain member of my alliance wasn’t obsessed with dealing the final blow - looking at you @adzdanads haha)
Throughout the year, I’ve remained a pretty active player since day one. Yes, I’ve had moments where I wanted to rage quit or thought about giving it up for a while, but most spats didn’t last more than a day or two. I’m a fairly patient person, so playing the waiting game is fine by me. Honestly, I think it’s why I’ve stuck around for so long. I’ve come a long way, but there’s still so much more to accomplish in this game. So now lets break it down a little further following ChoppedLiver’s model:
MONEY SPENT
This was a bit eye-opening actually. I’ve always been a C2P player, but I didn’t realize how much these micro purchases have added up over the year. Congrats Small Giant, your business model has gotten me to invest to the tune of $277.23. I’ve used Google Rewards to cover $28.91 of that (something I highly recommend for F2P/C2P players), but that still means $248.32 has come out of my pocket. I’m a little disappointed in myself and want to aim to cutting that down in 2019. At the same time, I really do enjoy this game and can’t be too mad at myself for spending money on something I enjoy.
I feel as though I’ve always gotten good value for my money though. For the most part, I’ve paid for offers that gave me better than a 1:100 ratio of dollar to gems. The event specials, and lately the Atlantis offers, have been where most of money has gone. I also purchased VIP for about 6 months while I worked to get my village maxed out. Speaking of…
BUILDINGS
My village is completely maxed out and has been for a few months. A big reason for that is the second builder that came from VIP. The gems that came from that were nice, but the extra builder to get everything maxed was invaluable. That being said, the past few months have been a little boring with nothing to work on. These new buildings can’t come soon enough, and hopefully more in the future.
More importantly, I hope they bring new ways to spend our resources. My iron storage has been full for a while now and I don’t really have much to spend it on. The only battle item that I use regularly that requires iron is arrows, which are a dime a dozen. I use some higher level items for rare titans and events and what not, but not enough to diminish the supply I already have. My food isn’t completely full, but it stays near the upper limit and I have millions stashed away in TC20 training (12.7 million on 43 recruits to be exact).
I’ve finally hammered down a routine that works pretty well for me as far as training camps go. I keep one running TC20 continuously because there’s always a need for more 5* heroes and there’s still quite a few basic ones that I want, but don’t yet have (more to come on that). I keep another running TC5-9, depending on which color hero I’m most interested in leveling at the moment. I always have one hero of each color that I’m working on upgrading and only use same color heroes as feeders so I get the 20% XP bonus. The other two I use to run TC11 to keep feeders coming in on a regular basis. At the end of each day, I’ll finish one and switch it to TC19 to burn through any Rugged Clothes I’ve gathered during the day, but then switch back to TC11 and let it run overnight.
HEROES
Let’s start with the good stuff, the 5 stars. Like I said earlier, I’ve had some points where I wanted to rage quit this game, and many times that has spawned from not pulling the hero I wanted during an event. But I know the odds, and fortunately I’ve had some luck along the way to balance it out a little. With that being said, here is my list of 5 stars I’ve acquired over the year:
Heroes of the Month (4):
Gregorion (4/80) - Greg was the first HOTM I ever pulled and was so stoked to get him. At the time, I didn’t have any other green 5 stars, so he got the tonics. Boy how that’s changed since.
Zimkitha x2 (2/33 and 1/1) - Currently working on upgrading Zim and thankfully have the mats waiting for her.
Evelyn (1/1) - I know most of you will cry foul that I haven’t started leveling her yet, especially once I tell you that I got her at the beginning of the month after only one pull (sorry @Merritt), but I was already working on Caedmon after his final ascension and I felt like I needed to finish that first.
Event 5 stars (2):
Red Hood (4/80) - She was the first 5 star hero I ever maxed out. I had Elena at 3/70 with enough mats to ascend her when I pulled Red Hood. I was slightly upset when I made the decision to postpone taking Elena to her final ascension, but it has definitely been worth it. She is an incredible hero in my experience.
Victor (3/70) - I made the same decision when I pulled Victor. I had Sartana at 3/70, but took the advise of my alliance to put her on pause and work on Victor instead. But by the time I got him to 3/70, I realized I didn’t quite understand the best way to use him and also didn’t have a 4 star purple mana troop at the time to fully maximize his very fast speed. Sartana, however, is pretty simple, so I went with her and never looked back. I’m glad I did.
Others (12):
Santana (4/80)
Marjana (4/80)
Richard (4/47) - Richard was the very first 5 star I ever pulled, but I’ve only recently decided to take him to final ascension as sadly no other blue heroes have come my way.
Elena (3/70)
Sartana (3/31)
Richard (2/1)
Quintus, Kadilen, Khagan, Obakan x2, Lianna, Elena (all unleveled)
I’m not going to get as in-depth with 4 stars, just a list of ones I have fully maxed and ones that are either partially-leveled or completely unleveled:
Max 4 stars (22):
Dark: Rigard, Tiburtus x2
Holy: Chao x2, Li Xiu x2, Wu Kong x2
Ice: Triton, Kiril, Sonya, Grimm
Nature: Caedmon x2, Kashhrek, Melendor x2
Fire: Wilbur, Boldtusk, Kelile, Gormek
Others (35):
Dark: Sabina x3, Rigard x2, Cyprian, Tiburtus x4
Holy: Chao x2, Li Xiu x4
Ice: Kiril x2, Grimm x3, Triton, Agwe, Boril
Nature: Jack O’Hare, Gaderius, Caedmon, Kashhrek x2, Melendor
Fire: Wilbur, Boldtusk x2, Gormek, Scarlett
Overall, I’m sitting on 26 max heroes. I decided to ditch all my max 3 stars a few months ago once I built up a deep enough bench to not need to use them in wars. Not too shabby though if you ask me, although I’m desperately in need of a holy 5 star hero. Somehow they’ve all managed to evade me for an entire year!!
TROOPS
I really hope 2019 brings a way to level troops faster and maybe even a way to earn higher level ones too. There’s seems to be so many avenues for heroes, but we’re limited to rare tokens for 4 star troops. I feel like I’m behind the power curve on this one, but this is where I stand with my troops.
4 star troops:
Dark: 3 (level 11, 3, and 1)
Holy: 3 (level 15, 3, and 1)
Ice: 0 (I don’t wanna talk about it)
Nature: 2 (level 7 and 1)
Fire: 4 (level 15, 1, 1, and 1)
I have enough 3 star troops for me to field a single color team and still have a 3 star troop available, but due to the slow leveling process, I only have one ice and one nature fully maxed.
Right now, my goal is to either get one of each 4 star to level 15 or one of each 3 star to level 20. Again, it’s crazy how long this takes even for the most patient of players.
ASCENSION MATERIALS
I used to do a better job of tracking these materials, but I eventually got tired of doing so. The good thing is, I can easily look at my inventory and the heroes that have received them so far to determine the amount of each I have received. Let’s again start with the big stuff.
4 star materials:
Damascus Blade: 5 in inventory, 5 used, total of 10.
Tome of Tactics: 4 in inventory, 5 used, total of 9.
Farsight Telescope: 5 in inventory, 6 used, total of 11.
Mysterious Tonic: 1 in inventory, 6 used, total of 7.
Mystic Rings: 6 in inventory, 12 used, total of 18.
Poison Darts: 11 in inventory, 0 used, total of 11.
Royal Tabard: 4 in inventory, 6 used, total of 10.
How I’ve gotten 18 rings but only 7 tonics is mind-boggling to me. As much as I love my fire heroes, my nature heroes need love too!
3 star materials:
Compass: 21 in inventory, 30 used, total of 51.
Fine Gloves: 8 in inventory, 30 used, total of 38.
Hidden Blade: 9 in inventory, 28 used, total of 37.
Orb of Magic: 25 in inventory, 24 used, total of 49.
Sturdy Shield: 10 in inventory, 24 used, total of 34.
Trap Tools: 31 in inventory, 24 used, total of 55.
Warm Cape: 10 in inventory, 20 used, total of 30.
The range of 30-55 is kind of crazy to see, but I think what’s crazier is how impossible it seemed to have enough of these items for the first 6-8 months and now to have a surplus of everything.
ALLIANCE
The last thing I want to touch on is my alliance. I think alliances are an incredible part of this game and if you can find a good one, there’s so much you can learn. I was lucky and found a great home soon after I started. I’ve been a member of the Olympians for 322 days now and haven’t regretted a moment of it. I remember when I joined, we were only taking down 6 star titans regularly, with the occasional 7 star mixed in. Now we’ve grown to taking down 9s with the occasional 10 and 11. Growing with these guys and watching them grow as well is awesome to watch. We’ve amassed a respectable 47-17 record in alliance wars and at our peak cracked into the top 250 alliances. Unfortunately we’ve lost a few members recently due to people losing interest in the game, but the good news is, that just gives us an opportunity to grow even more. Shameless plug time: If you’re looking for a proven alliance and ready to take on a bigger challenge, the Olympians have a few spots available!
For anyone who made it this far, thank you for taking the time to read this post. Please share with me your thoughts and own experiences you’ve had in playing Empires and Puzzles. Cheers!
