Goblins, Day 30

The spies do indeed seem to be everywhere.

TS

OOC: What happens to the city production if you lose control of it mid project? In AoW1 it would just continue the same as pre-capture, but I don't think I've taken any city in SM that had production in progress. I'm not sure if production is cancelled (who gets the gold refund?) or if I just haven't ever taken a city that was building anything.

Yaka, Day 30

Well, I used to have spied. Not anymore. Now I'm blind, blind, blind. Luckily, I'm a cat and have other senses.

TS

ooc: I think mid-stream production just disappears when a city is taken. No refund for anyone.

Humans, Day 30

we continue

Really? That's how it works in AoW1? Wow, I didn't know that.

It also never occurred to me to wonder if anyone got the "cancelled order" refund upon taking a city. It's never a full price refund, just one turn of purchase power, so is sorta bleh anyway.

Is it? I know it is a full gold refund if you cancel on the same turn you ordered it. I haven't tested production refunds after partial builds; I know cancelling an in-progress spell gives you the full mana refund.

Yep. If you spend 320 gold for a four turn production of an expensive unit or building and cancel mid-project, you don't get all your money back. So when you're scrounging for cash, try to avoid cancelling units or buildings partially constructed! I think you just get one turn worth of production/money back.

Don't know why spells and mana use a different system of full rebates. It doesn't bother me that they do, but it is interesting. I'm sure it's a game balance mechanic of some type...

I can see the logic behind partial gold refund, though I'd expect it to be more along the lines of refunding all construction that wasn't actually paid for yet (so gold for each of however many turns were left). 1 turn's production would be easier to refund.

Maybe the full mana refund is because you can pull the energy back out of the spell as you collapse it, resolidifying it into crystals or whatever. Hard to tell workers "I'm cancelling construction, so I'm going to need you to return your wages from the past several days. I'm also returning the lumber for that half built ballista, so I'll need the money back for that too".

As far as balance, it does force something of a strategic decision. You can't just start construction willy nilly if you know a force is approaching your city, then cancel it if you decide you can't hold the city after all; those resources are committed. If your wizard is banished, then the spell will just wait for him/her to get back, since casting location isn't important.

Yeah, it's stupid. You could gain top tier unit for free possibly in 1 turn if you got lucky.

I knew you get some money back in SM for cancelling and I never knew how many, but I never figured out how much was it.


You pay your workers? o_O
That must be expensive.

It also doesn't give you the oveproduction, right? It does give you mana you overproduce on turn of research completion but if you needed even just 5 production points and your town makes 80 per turn the rest goes to waste, correct?

Wait a sec, seriously? I always assumed that the overproduction was converted to gold. It's one of the reasons I always went with Spirit Shrines (besides the useful Quests)... Holy crap, if this is true I gotta rethink things. There are efficiencies I'm losing.

If you know your final goal is making a 300 cost unit, your target is 50, 60, or 100 production. Tough to start long term planning so far out when you don't know when you'll get the Constructor ability.

Southern actually taught me a really good trick on this front with regard to Elves in particular. Their trees don't cost much, so most cities can make them in two turns. And a silver medal tree has strangle rather than just a small boost to abilities. Strangle is freaking awesome against flying units since it keeps the unit from fleeing the battle. So for Elves, the War Shrine is definitely the way to go for a Tree making factory city.

I don't know what other units / races have such a pimped out Silver medal unit to strive towards...

If there is a lot of underground, then Goblins would rock the Spirit of War. Many of their units get Underground Concealment at Silver.

I like that one. A lot. Not that I'm a fan of moving concealed units around or anything. Would be an awesome strategy in the Armageddon map with the huge network of tunnels. Of course, there are lots of choke points in most tunnels though...

Clearly you haven't spent much time in the tunnels. :)

You have more faith in the balance of the game than I - although my gripes are with Concealment and True Seeing units being too strong (possibly only because in PBEM, you can't see them as they walk between cover; you can in normal games, can;t you? Or am I making it up?), and the way most low level units are exceptionally weak, but also not cheap to maintain. I would prefer a 4/8/12/16 maintenance cost to the current 6/9/12/15. Or maybe I just need to stop making these crappy 1st level units.

Whose turn is it?

Yes, once you can make Level 3 units with an upkeep of 12 and way more than double the strength of a Level 1 unit with an upkeep of 6, the math says "STOP MAKING LEVEL 1 UNITS." Of course, there are exceptions to every rule. Scouts and some cannon fodder always serve a purpose.

Level 4 units require a lot of infrastructure to reach.

Should be Bookwyrm's turn. Day 31 for the Goblins. We've had a lot of blah, blah, blah since Day 30 on this thread.