Hi Beta,
Here's the next post in the series of explaining a bit more about the changes we're making. Find the one about the Great Building Level Up screen here. By the way - we do read along in the feedback threads, so please don't forget to leave your thoughts!
This is an expansion of the information provided in the original announcement because we noticed it was causing some questions and concern.
Rewards
Changes so far based on your feedback
Thanks for the feedback you've been posting in the discussion thread! We've been reading along and have adjusted some drop pools and rates:
We realize that how we initially announced it could be cause for concern, but don't worry - it's not our intention to nerf the building rewards.
The functionality of the new reward buildings will be generally recognizable from other buildings - we haven't introduced any new skills. (For example, there's the Fountain of Youth which has the same functionality as a the highly desired Wishing Well.) What we were aiming for here was to introduce some rewards specific to Guild Expeditions, in much the same way as you can only get certain rewards from certain ingame events. We think that this can add more variety to the game, and also allows you to show off your Guild Expedition accomplishments better. We additionally wanted it to be a bit more special again to receive certain rewards, instead of just getting your millionth Watchfire.
We've kept in mind that some buildings might not be as desirable as others, and the chances are in most cases higher to get one than their non-GE counterparts.
New buildings stats
Here are the requested stats for the new buildings - simply click on the spoiler tag to see the information.
Face of the Ancient - 2x2 Decoration
Does not require road connection. Can be polished to double the happiness. Renovation or One-Up Kit needed for upgrading it.
Gate of the Sun God - 2x2 Decoration
Does not require road connection. Can be polished to double the happiness. Renovation or One-Up Kit needed for upgrading it.
Fountain of Youth - 3x3 Random-producing building
Road connection required to the Town Hall. Cannot be motivated or plundered. Can produce coin, supplies, goods, medals, Forge Points, or Diamonds, every 24 hours. Output is not affected by Great Building boosts. Building upgrades to your era whenever you enter a new one. It matches the behavior of the Wishing Well.
Ritual Flame - 2x1 Defense Structure
Provides 8% defense for your defending army. Does not require road connection.
Tribal Square - 4x3 Residential Building
Requires road connection. Happiness/Great Building boosts influence coin output. Produces one of each good from the building's era when motivated. Can be plundered when not motivated. Renovation or One-Up Kit needed for upgrading it.
Sacred Sky Watch - 3x2 Residential Building
[/TD]
[/TD]
[/TD]
Requires road connection. Happiness/Great Building boosts influence coin output. Produces 1 Forge Point when motivated. Can be plundered when not motivated. Renovation or One-Up Kit needed for upgrading it.
Terrace Farm - 5x6 Production Building
This building produces different outputs depending on which production length you set it to:
Requires road connection. Happiness/Great Building boosts influence coin and supply outputs. The Goods are from the building's era. Can be plundered. Cannot be motivated. Renovation or One-Up Kit needed for upgrading it.
Changes to encounter difficulty in difficulty 1-3
We mentioned that we made some minor changes to the difficulty of certain encounters. Balancing Expeditions so that they're fun and rewarding is a tricky business. It gets pretty complex when we're dealing with dozens of different units and abilities across all the different ages. We're pretty happy with how the original balancing for Guild Expeditions turned out, but we were able to take a look at data about things like completion rates across the ages and saw that the balancing for a few ages was a bit out of line with others. Most changes were about reducing battle boosts in areas that players were struggling. The unique position of Arctic Future as an Age which was gradually released means the balancing needed a bit of upward adjustment to provide the appropriate challenge, since much has changed there.
These are the changes currently here on Beta, compared to the live servers.
Battle:
Guild Championship progress in 4th difficulty
Because of some internal miscommunication the original announcement contained a mistake about how the Guild Championship progress is calculated.
An entire guild finishing the normal expedition will still result in 100%, and on the guild member progress overview you'll also see 48/48 encounters. The part that was unclear was that if the guild makes the choice to go for the bonus round of making progress in the very challenging 4th difficulty, this will also be reflected in their championship progress. A theoretical new maximum score is 133%, if an entire guild manages to finish the entire 4th difficulty.
One or two numbers
We always like numbers, so we thought some of you might as well.
Closing
That's it again for now! Thanks for the feedback so far - it's helping make the Guild Expeditions even better.
Please let us know what you think in the feedback thread.
Request to you: when discussing this in the feedback thread, please make sure to mention which changes you are referring to specifically (New rewards, changes to encounter difficulty 1-3, or something in difficulty 4), so that we know the context of the feedback.
Here's the next post in the series of explaining a bit more about the changes we're making. Find the one about the Great Building Level Up screen here. By the way - we do read along in the feedback threads, so please don't forget to leave your thoughts!
This is an expansion of the information provided in the original announcement because we noticed it was causing some questions and concern.
Rewards
Changes so far based on your feedback
Thanks for the feedback you've been posting in the discussion thread! We've been reading along and have adjusted some drop pools and rates:
- Removed GE Attempts from relics
- Removed GE Attempts from a couple of encounters, reduced their frequency in others
- Removed Motivation Kit from some encounters, and reduced their frequency in others
We realize that how we initially announced it could be cause for concern, but don't worry - it's not our intention to nerf the building rewards.
The functionality of the new reward buildings will be generally recognizable from other buildings - we haven't introduced any new skills. (For example, there's the Fountain of Youth which has the same functionality as a the highly desired Wishing Well.) What we were aiming for here was to introduce some rewards specific to Guild Expeditions, in much the same way as you can only get certain rewards from certain ingame events. We think that this can add more variety to the game, and also allows you to show off your Guild Expedition accomplishments better. We additionally wanted it to be a bit more special again to receive certain rewards, instead of just getting your millionth Watchfire.
We've kept in mind that some buildings might not be as desirable as others, and the chances are in most cases higher to get one than their non-GE counterparts.
New buildings stats
Here are the requested stats for the new buildings - simply click on the spoiler tag to see the information.
Face of the Ancient - 2x2 Decoration
| Age | Happiness | Points |
| Bronze Age | 225 | 20 |
| Iron Age | 388 | 32 |
| Early Middle Ages | 429 | 80 |
| High Middle Ages | 479 | 160 |
| Late Middle Ages | 534 | 240 |
| Colonial Age | 628 | 400 |
| Industrial Age | 708 | 800 |
| Progressive Era | 778 | 1,200 |
| Modern Era | 832 | 2,000 |
| Postmodern Era | 867 | 3,200 |
| Contemporary Era | 1,007 | 4,800 |
| Tomorrow | 1,223 | 8,000 |
| The Future | 1,465 | 12,800 |
| Arctic Future | 1,706 | 19,200 |
Gate of the Sun God - 2x2 Decoration
| Age | Happiness | Points |
| Bronze Age | 225 | 20 |
| Iron Age | 388 | 32 |
| Early Middle Ages | 429 | 80 |
| High Middle Ages | 479 | 160 |
| Late Middle Ages | 534 | 240 |
| Colonial Age | 628 | 400 |
| Industrial Age | 708 | 800 |
| Progressive Era | 778 | 1,200 |
| Modern Era | 832 | 2,000 |
| Postmodern Era | 867 | 3,200 |
| Contemporary Era | 1,007 | 4,800 |
| Tomorrow | 1,223 | 8,000 |
| The Future | 1,465 | 12,800 |
| Arctic Future | 1,706 | 19,200 |
Fountain of Youth - 3x3 Random-producing building
Road connection required to the Town Hall. Cannot be motivated or plundered. Can produce coin, supplies, goods, medals, Forge Points, or Diamonds, every 24 hours. Output is not affected by Great Building boosts. Building upgrades to your era whenever you enter a new one. It matches the behavior of the Wishing Well.
Ritual Flame - 2x1 Defense Structure
Provides 8% defense for your defending army. Does not require road connection.
Tribal Square - 4x3 Residential Building
| Age | Population | Coins (per day) | Goods* (if motivated) | Points |
| Bronze Age | 28 | 350 | 5 | 60 |
| Iron Age | 61 | 830 | 5 | 96 |
| Early Middle Ages | 93 | 1,380 | 5 | 240 |
| High Middle Ages | 131 | 1,930 | 5 | 480 |
| Late Middle Ages | 172 | 2,550 | 5 | 720 |
| Colonial Age | 217 | 3,890 | 5 | 1,200 |
| Industrial Age | 266 | 4,840 | 5 | 2,400 |
| Progressive Era | 317 | 5,880 | 5 | 3,600 |
| Modern Era | 372 | 7,310 | 5 | 6,000 |
| Postmodern Era | 428 | 9,200 | 5 | 9,600 |
| Contemporary Era | 488 | 12,000 | 5 | 14,400 |
| Tomorrow | 550 | 14,000 | 5 | 24,000 |
| The Future | 615 | 16,000 | 5 | 38,400 |
| Arctic Future | 683 | 18,060 | 5 | 57,600 |
Requires road connection. Happiness/Great Building boosts influence coin output. Produces one of each good from the building's era when motivated. Can be plundered when not motivated. Renovation or One-Up Kit needed for upgrading it.
Sacred Sky Watch - 3x2 Residential Building
| Age | Population | Coins (per day) | Points |
| Bronze Age | 2 | 530 | 30 |
| Iron Age | 4 | 900 | 48 |
| Early Middle Ages | 7 | 1,500 | 120 |
| High Middle Ages | 9 | 2,100 | 240 |
| Late Middle Ages | 12 | 2,780 | 360 |
| Colonial Age | 16 | 4,230 | 600 |
| Industrial Age | 19 | 5,270 | 1,200 |
| Progressive Era | 23 | 6,390 | 1,800 |
| Modern Era | 27 | 7,950 | 3,000 |
| Postmodern Era | 21 | 10,000 | 4,800 |
| Contemporary Era[TD]35 | 13,020 | 7,200 | |
| Tomorrow | 39 | 15,080 | 12,000 |
| The Future[TD]44 | 17,280 | 19,200 | |
| Arctic Future[TD]49 | 19,640 | 28,800 |
Requires road connection. Happiness/Great Building boosts influence coin output. Produces 1 Forge Point when motivated. Can be plundered when not motivated. Renovation or One-Up Kit needed for upgrading it.
Terrace Farm - 5x6 Production Building
This building produces different outputs depending on which production length you set it to:
| Age | Population Required | (5m) Coin | (15m) Supplies | (1h) Supplies* | (4h) Medals | (8h) Goods** | (1d) Forge Points | Points |
| Bronze Age | 140 | 40 | 110 | 260 | 9 | 10 | 5 | 150 |
| Iron Age | 270 | 100 | 260 | 610 | 11 | 10 | 5 | 240 |
| Early Middle Ages | 390 | 170 | 430 | 1,020 | 13 | 10 | 5 | 600 |
| High Middle Ages | 500 | 240 | 600 | 1,430 | 16 | 10 | 5 | 1,200 |
| Late Middle Ages | 620 | 310 | 790 | 1,890 | 18 | 10 | 5 | 1,800 |
| Colonial Age | 730 | 400 | 1,200 | 2,870 | 22 | 10 | 5 | 3,000 |
| Industrial Age | 840 | 480 | 1,490 | 3,850 | 30 | 10 | 5 | 6,000 |
| Progressive Era | 950 | 570 | 1,810 | 4,350 | 43 | 10 | 5 | 9,000 |
| Modern Era | 1,060 | 660 | 2,250 | 5,410 | 61 | 10 | 5 | 15,000 |
| Postmodern Era | 1,160 | 760 | 2,830 | 6,800 | 85 | 10 | 5 | 24,000 |
| Contemporary Era | 1,250 | 850 | 3,690 | 8,850 | 121 | 10 | 5 | 36,000 |
| Tomorrow | 1,350 | 950 | 4,270 | 10,250 | 164 | 10 | 5 | 60,000 |
| The Future | 1,510 | 1,050 | 4,900 | 11,750 | 200 | 10 | 5 | 96,000 |
| Arctic Future | 1,600 | 1,150 | 5,560 | 13,350 | 243 | 10 | 5 | 144,000 |
Requires road connection. Happiness/Great Building boosts influence coin and supply outputs. The Goods are from the building's era. Can be plundered. Cannot be motivated. Renovation or One-Up Kit needed for upgrading it.
Changes to encounter difficulty in difficulty 1-3
We mentioned that we made some minor changes to the difficulty of certain encounters. Balancing Expeditions so that they're fun and rewarding is a tricky business. It gets pretty complex when we're dealing with dozens of different units and abilities across all the different ages. We're pretty happy with how the original balancing for Guild Expeditions turned out, but we were able to take a look at data about things like completion rates across the ages and saw that the balancing for a few ages was a bit out of line with others. Most changes were about reducing battle boosts in areas that players were struggling. The unique position of Arctic Future as an Age which was gradually released means the balancing needed a bit of upward adjustment to provide the appropriate challenge, since much has changed there.
These are the changes currently here on Beta, compared to the live servers.
Battle:
- Iron Age - Removal of boosts in the 3rd difficulty
- Early Middle Ages - Removal of boosts in the 3rd difficulty
- High Middle Ages - Decreases in boosts in the 3rd difficulty
- Late Middle Ages - No changes
- Colonial Age - Decreases in the 1st difficulty
- Industrial Age - Decreases in the 1st difficulty
- Progressive Era - Decreases in the 1st difficulty
- Modern Era - Decreases in the 1st and 2nd difficulties
- Postmodern Era - Decreases in the 1st difficulty
- Contemporary Era - Minor decreases in the 1st difficulty
- Tomorrow - Minor decreases in boosts in 1st, 2nd and 3rd difficulties
- The Future - No changes
- Arctic Future - Increases in boosts in 1st, 2nd and 3rd difficulties
Guild Championship progress in 4th difficulty
Because of some internal miscommunication the original announcement contained a mistake about how the Guild Championship progress is calculated.
An entire guild finishing the normal expedition will still result in 100%, and on the guild member progress overview you'll also see 48/48 encounters. The part that was unclear was that if the guild makes the choice to go for the bonus round of making progress in the very challenging 4th difficulty, this will also be reflected in their championship progress. A theoretical new maximum score is 133%, if an entire guild manages to finish the entire 4th difficulty.
One or two numbers
We always like numbers, so we thought some of you might as well.
- A bit more than 700 of players here on Beta managed to finish the whole 4th difficulty last week. Congratulations, and thanks for the feedback!
- 70% of all guild players here on Beta participated at least once in last week's Expedition. That's up, from a usual 60%.
Closing
That's it again for now! Thanks for the feedback so far - it's helping make the Guild Expeditions even better.
Request to you: when discussing this in the feedback thread, please make sure to mention which changes you are referring to specifically (New rewards, changes to encounter difficulty 1-3, or something in difficulty 4), so that we know the context of the feedback.
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