the new balancing is extremely slow compared to the old one
I am at 176/176 for the first 2 buildings (with both manager at level 3)
in the old version I would have needed half of the time to be at 200/200 already
They switched the cost-progression for factories & banquet/carriage. It's now 10% more expensive for the next level for factories and 15% more expensive for the next level for banquet/carriage.
200/200 may be the "finishing point" for the new balancing. 250/250 maybe possibly. 300/300 is not happening.
The good news:
- you have an extra tier. And the multipliers are the same per tier. So if you do make it to 250/250 banquet/carriage that'd be comparable to 300/300 in St Pats, only 16% less for less levels, but same multiplier.
- The banquet has over twice the base production rate of the festival owing primarily to a 9 second cycle instead of 20 seconds. The carriage does now slightly underproduces the banquet at equal-level where the shipyard greatly overproduced the festival. So "low ship manager" strategy to skimp on manager costs no longer makes sense, but overall the chokepoint at base production being higher should partially make up for less levels.
- Factory managers generally cost less (spice/hat manager is the same but the last manager is only 3 times the cost of spice manager instead of 5*), so your costs for managers for task purposes are lower
- Manager multipliers are rebalanced; low levels are about the same (maybe slightly worse), but high levels are much better - it may make more sense to go to slightly higher managers now (Carriage 4 is now x5.25 production rate instead of x3.15). Probably the right spot to reinvest your savings from the cheaper factory managers.