The game is basically simple

I have been playing this game for some time now and its the same thing over and over. Get a hero and spend forever upgrading it and hoping for a rare ascension item(s). You need to upgrade your hero to get the ascension item and you can’t get the ascension item without an upgraded hero. Wait, I had an epiphany, if I spend a bunch of money I can get an ascension item!! The puzzles are the same over and over again, I realize the game is called Empires and Puzzles, but after a while it gets repetitive. These new “updates” just try to inject more into what IMHO is a fairly simple game. I prefer more strategy since the the random boards have a great deal of “luck” involved. For example you can do 15k of damage on a titan and then 8k on the next try with the exact same team. I have seen this before on other games I have played and there is just so much you can do with the basic game engine. The people that love the game will be happy with the upgrades and those who aren’t will be indifferent but in the end its all about money. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was a factor in the design. I don’t mind spending money if I feel I am getting something but the way this is structured now I will be a F2P and whatever happens happens. I will do whatever I have to to remain in my alliance, whack the Titans a bit, do my 6 wars and thats about it.

Yes, and no.

There is another layer or three of strategy.

  • which heroes do I level?
  • what combinations of heroes work effectively as a offense/defense/titan team?
  • how do I best manipulate the board and use my specials given my heroes and the defense?

As an example of how rich this game can be, read the three parts of the Raiding in the Top 1000 threads.

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This ^^^

And not making rookie mistakes.

Like upgrading troops. Mana vs Crit.

If I knew what I know now I would have upgraded only Mana troops as now I have crit troops on lvl 16 odd.

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On the flip side of things… have you ever been surprised by a diamond that appeared on your board?

… you shouldn’t have been. Perhaps you didn’t recognize the pattern well enough to realize it was possible. Some gem patterns are seriously complex and difficult to recognize. If you can see them, you can improve your “luck” by giving the system a chance to give you the right gem… and thus more diamonds.

Yes, you can play the game in a simple fashion of match-3 & pew pew pew specials… but you can also micro-manage and strategize the snot out of it. That’s one of the reasons why I love it. It’s both, depending upon how you wish to play. Not a lot of games can claim to be both!

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In some fairness, once a cascade starts all sorts of unexpected things can happen. Don’t you hate it when you’re trying to drop just one match-3, but replacement tiles trigger a cascade< powering everyone up? “No, no, just let Alberich burn!”

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You can repeat a thousand times the strategy and a thousand times will be false. This game has no strategy because it has a fundamental error, the stacking of colors. Because of the importance of luck, which is a huge component in the game, and stacking the strategy is null. When I reached 2600 cups and at a high level, I saw how the stacking penalizes the quality and kills the strategy. For example, another huge mistake that the game has, the three attacks, every day I have the watchtower full of attacks from mediocre teams, light years away from mine, that bleed it. It’s very simple, you take a mediocre team, 4 * or as much with some 5, 3200 level, you stack 5 of the same color and you hit top teams of 4000. You lose, but since you lose only 8 or 10 cups, you repeat up to 3 and, if you get a good board (luck), you get ahead to the same Zero. Of these I have 4 or 5 a day and no revenge, because I play 50 to recover 8. You want strategy, remove the stack.

That’s interesting, because this sounds like a strategy to me:

I think what you mean to say is that the game doesn’t require skill. But even then, I’d disagree with you. Spending 3+ flags to raid up for a single win is an awful strategy. The better players pick their stacks with care, go after teams they are likely to be able to beat, and have a much higher win percentage.

Match-3 is hardly chess, but the game allows a lot of room for strategy, and skilled players have much more favorable win-loss records, even against stronger teams.

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And:

  • Where do I put my resources to level heroes the quickest?
  • Do I focus on Long Term or Short Term when building my base vs leveling heroes?
  • How do I work with my alliance to optimize my and their success in wars and titans?
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The gameplay is simple, but optimizing your progress requires a lot of thought and strategy.
Alliance wars have brought a whole new aspect to team building. You not only have to plan how to set up your team to defeat the current enemy, but also what heroes to leave for the other 5 teams.

You need to upgrade your hero to get the ascension item

No. You need ascension items to upgrade your heroes :slight_smile:

and you can’t get the ascension item without an upgraded hero.

With slow and steady advancement (so not over spending especially early on), this won’t be true.

As you get your 3* teams done and are working on your first couple of 4* teams that you’re getting from the training camps—there will be some walls in leveling, definitely. But you can get the rare ascension items for epic heroes with max level 3* heroes and 3/60 4* heroes.

Join an alliance with members at a strength appropriate for you and with a little luck, you can get needed ascension items from 5* and 6* titans— you can get good scores on them with limited heroes. Some people even get rare ascension items from 3* titans. Also, play together as a team so you can open your war chests often the loot is so much better than standard war loot if you participate in all the wars. Be on the look out for rare elemental chests, you can open those with any roster and the odds of great loot is better.

For guarenteed rare ascension items: you can finish the Epic teir in challenge events with a team of 3/60 4* heroes and a couple good 3* heores if you pick your battle items carefully and play smart. Also you can get them guarenteed from rare quests. You can definitely finish (atleast) the hard level with 4* heroes at teir 3 with good battle items.

Once you get a couple maxed 4* heroes of each element it will be easier to take down stronger titans and rare titans who drop the rare and epic ascension items 5* heroes need at a better rate— if your alliance is now too weak for you it is okay to leave and join a stronger one.
Also, you’ll be able to complete the legendary teir of the challenge evetns (a lot of people succeed with maxed 4* heroes and/or 3/70 5* heroes) Staying in the higher arenas will be easier so you’ll have better luck at epic ascension materials in that chest. You’ll be able to get the guarenteed epic ascension materials from the rare quests.

If you bit the bullet by spending a lot early and jumped to sitting on a whole bunch of unleveled 4* heroes and some unleveled 5* heroes who all need ascenion materials, hams and feeder heroes at the same time, then I dont have any new advice though. People who do this tend to get burnt out quite a bit easier and the game loses some of its fun. Also making goals to “catch up” to stronger players who were playing much longer and/or spent much more reportedly feels like a chore instead of a game like other in game goals feels. I bet it also changes the feeling of maxing heroes from satisfaction to something more akin to finishing an errand

Wait, I had an epiphany, if I spend a bunch of money I can get an ascension item!!

Yeah you can do that

The puzzles are the same over and over again, I realize the game is called Empires and Puzzles, but after a while it gets repetitive. These new “updates” just try to inject more into what IMHO is a fairly simple game.

Yeah I think this applies to most games. Most games have a fairly simple base. To be honest games like this reminds me of basic card games in away. Card games are fairly simple, you need the luck of draw on your side. You’ll pull the cards you need or you wont, and if you don’t, try to win with what you have anyway. However there’s so many games people have invented with cards. It makes it fun by injecting different kinds of play strategy into the simiplest thing you can ever do — pull cards :laughing:

I prefer more strategy since the the random boards have a great deal of “luck” involved.

Both are definitely present and E&P. How big your payoff is depends on what you have and how you strategized your team but you’re luck is a big element. I really don’t recommend this game for people who dislike games with a large amount of the end result based on luck.

but in the end its all about money

Yeah I wouldn’t go to work if I didn’t think I could make money from it. And my boss wouldn’t of hired me if my resume didnt make me seem like an asset to the company. Dont get me wrong, I actually agree with the opinions that SG doesnt cater to its free to play, long time, players — who have supporrted the game by recommending it to friends and increasing its popularity by number of players alone. But at the end of the day making E&P financially successful is a job for the people at SG, and im sure they have someone to answer to.

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I agree… but I have come across an issue I don’t know where to go with maybe you know where to go with it. There is this game called Myth wars and puzzles… empires and puzzles is a really good game so good in fact these people went ahead and clone the same game with different characters… check it out if you don’t believe me… SG should sue

I am still new and learning (SH only on 14)… What are mana troops and crit?
I haven’t been concentrating on troops at all, i did get barracks to 2, and upgrade 2 troops to level 4, i think… then i have a couple of 3* troops I have not touched.

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Most games are basically simple.

Chess is basically simple in its moves and set-up, each piece has one defined set of moves and one starting position. It is in how the different piece moves interact that chess develops its complexity.

Go is as simple as it gets in its basic game rules. But it is as complex as any game there is in its application.

E&P has two intertwined simple game rules:

  1. Collect and level up heroes.
  2. Use match-3 to create battle hits.

And that’s it.

But there is an underlying complexity in the way that they interact.

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“Easy to learn, difficult to master.”

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SG is aware of it. @H0fm4nN created a thread on it a while back to let the devs know.

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Wowoo, I’m so famous now :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

I’d like to thanks my friends & family who supported me till there, etc etc

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Thank you… It’s really cool that you’re always there when the community need you… thanks

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