Markus Stormrider
Regent
i wouldn't be surprised if the infiltration bonus is merely a reduction in coins cost for infiltrating a sector on the province map, but hopefully instead will be one that reduces enemy army further than one block 
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Spoiler New Guild Expedition Buildings! (GE Update?)
- Thread starter MooingCat
- Start date
While this is all speculative, imho ranked on what I personally think would be the best implementation, assuming it’s 6 different temples and we got 1 to raid weekly at GE5:
1.) Weekly rotation
2.) Random ordered rotation
3.) Individual’s choice
4.) Leader’s choice
5.) Fully randomised
The reasons are generally based off the assumption that after completing GE5 guaranteed 1x a unique item is rewarded to the player, of the respective temple.
Whatever will come, I’m also way more excited about this than Space Age: Copy paste. Such a missed opportunity from the devs to not making space colonies like cultural settlements, with each their own unique tweaks.
1.) Weekly rotation
2.) Random ordered rotation
3.) Individual’s choice
4.) Leader’s choice
5.) Fully randomised
The reasons are generally based off the assumption that after completing GE5 guaranteed 1x a unique item is rewarded to the player, of the respective temple.
Reasons:
1.) A weekly rotation gives certainty, is to balance and relative easy to implement. Every 7 weeks the same temple returns,* which means you’ll be able to get:
52w / 7 = 7,42 ~ 7-8x the desired item annually
Why is this good? Once we’ve obtained the amount of a desirable building that we can place in our city, our interest tend to drop by a lot. As it’s unlikely most will be satisfied with just 7 of their desired item, it’ll be closer to 2-3yrs before they reaching it. Besides it’s very predictable. Allowing smaller guilds, dedicated to obtain 1 specific GE5 item together to saving their resources in the other 5 weeks.
2.) Random ordered rotations, cycling through all 6 temples every 6w (after 7th week a new random rotation begins). This means that it’s unpredictable when the desired temple might be available. It also offers the same benefit for the long term playability of GE5’s temples.
3.) Individual’s choice is much harder to balance. As this allows for an annual maximum of 52x the desired temple. However if the special reward of any temple is 50% chance, like GE4, then this would be the very best. As it’ll boils down to an average expected maximum of: 26x the desired reward. Though we know all too well how odds sometimes don’t play out like probability calculations suggest. Either way the potential to gain 52x maximum of your choice is imho more appealing and thus I lean towards this. However keep in mind that this is bias as it’s imho lacking fair balance and long term playability.
4.) Leader’s choice suffer from the same as the individual’s choice. Besides other said concerning facts that leaders can indirectly enforcing their play style upon their members. Assuming their members choose to stay. It also can create unnecessary friction within guilds through this design. Overall a very flawed approach imho and easily abused. As such once again, my bias favouring towards a choice to get the temple we players wants, leans towards this more than randomness. As hypothetically like minded players can setup a temporary GE5 guild dedicated to grinding in the temple they desire. Which also maxed out to 52x annually. Imho something that easily under 2yrs will not appeal very much anymore as players easily reaching their goals. Which could be delayed also with 50% chances but who isn’t sick of the randomness mania in the game?
5.) Fully randomised is my least favourite. As it’s highly unpredictable. This can easily lead to situations in which unpopular temples are appearing some weeks in a row. Resulting in decreased player enjoyment. Overall I think this is the least solution of the 5 potential approaches, assuming GE5 is 1 temple with various fortifications.
1.) A weekly rotation gives certainty, is to balance and relative easy to implement. Every 7 weeks the same temple returns,* which means you’ll be able to get:
52w / 7 = 7,42 ~ 7-8x the desired item annually
Why is this good? Once we’ve obtained the amount of a desirable building that we can place in our city, our interest tend to drop by a lot. As it’s unlikely most will be satisfied with just 7 of their desired item, it’ll be closer to 2-3yrs before they reaching it. Besides it’s very predictable. Allowing smaller guilds, dedicated to obtain 1 specific GE5 item together to saving their resources in the other 5 weeks.
*assuming it’s temple A:
W1.) temple A
W2.) temple B
W3.) temple C
W4.) temple D
W5.) temple E
W6.) temple F
W7.) temple A
Etc. As you see, if temple A is in the first week of the year, you might get 8x the temple you prefer, other years it might be just 7x annually.
W1.) temple A
W2.) temple B
W3.) temple C
W4.) temple D
W5.) temple E
W6.) temple F
W7.) temple A
Etc. As you see, if temple A is in the first week of the year, you might get 8x the temple you prefer, other years it might be just 7x annually.
2.) Random ordered rotations, cycling through all 6 temples every 6w (after 7th week a new random rotation begins). This means that it’s unpredictable when the desired temple might be available. It also offers the same benefit for the long term playability of GE5’s temples.
3.) Individual’s choice is much harder to balance. As this allows for an annual maximum of 52x the desired temple. However if the special reward of any temple is 50% chance, like GE4, then this would be the very best. As it’ll boils down to an average expected maximum of: 26x the desired reward. Though we know all too well how odds sometimes don’t play out like probability calculations suggest. Either way the potential to gain 52x maximum of your choice is imho more appealing and thus I lean towards this. However keep in mind that this is bias as it’s imho lacking fair balance and long term playability.
4.) Leader’s choice suffer from the same as the individual’s choice. Besides other said concerning facts that leaders can indirectly enforcing their play style upon their members. Assuming their members choose to stay. It also can create unnecessary friction within guilds through this design. Overall a very flawed approach imho and easily abused. As such once again, my bias favouring towards a choice to get the temple we players wants, leans towards this more than randomness. As hypothetically like minded players can setup a temporary GE5 guild dedicated to grinding in the temple they desire. Which also maxed out to 52x annually. Imho something that easily under 2yrs will not appeal very much anymore as players easily reaching their goals. Which could be delayed also with 50% chances but who isn’t sick of the randomness mania in the game?
5.) Fully randomised is my least favourite. As it’s highly unpredictable. This can easily lead to situations in which unpopular temples are appearing some weeks in a row. Resulting in decreased player enjoyment. Overall I think this is the least solution of the 5 potential approaches, assuming GE5 is 1 temple with various fortifications.
Whatever will come, I’m also way more excited about this than Space Age: Copy paste. Such a missed opportunity from the devs to not making space colonies like cultural settlements, with each their own unique tweaks.
I wrote it in in the other thread, but thought I'd mention it here as well. Thinking more about it, I believe the three new "bonuses" are related to this GE update. The scale symbol is the same as the "Negotiate" symbol, and the sword symbol the same as the "Attack" symbol, so I think something like this makes sense:
icon_bonus_trade_special_goods: Require less special goods when negotiating
icon_bonus_trade_options: Some of the negotiation goods options are swapped with previous age goods, or possibly lower the number of options?
icon_bonus_infiltration: Infiltrate button for GE fights.
That would be awfully awkward feeling.
Decent chance though that relics gets a rebalance to go with GE5 though seeing as Jade Relics are all old buildings. They could easily take that 25% back away in the process by increasing the weight of gag prizes. Or decide to leave it 25% better because it's not like it's overpowered as-is.
bazle
Farmer
Could it be that the relics contain the same items but just different values? So the guild that unlocks lvl5 first gets the choice of relic ‘best relic’ which contains say 50 fragments of a serpent kit, rather than 5.. similar to how the fragments work in GBG.. too guild gets more etc? Could be scalable across FPs, Goods, etc
I don't see the reason to A/B test this, as far as I know that has only been used for individual features so far. I would compare this to the GBG update, that was not A/B tested. If they did want to "A/B" test it I imagine they would enable it on a full server and test against other servers, but don't really see a reason for it. Unlike for example the GvG updates a few years ago this doesn't (I think) change the existing feature, it only adds more to it.
The Lady Ann
Baronet
you tube video can anyone translate this
CrashBoom
Legend
nothing what is not in this thread already
Youtube can auto-translate (auto-generated) subtitles on youtube
He's just going through the assets we have so far, speculating like all of us 
-Alin-
Emperor
You should watch THIS VIDEO of Mooingcat instead, it is far better explained and ofcourse, it is in English.
The interested party says that the first 3 levels are under the sign of a Maya temple, that the 4th is under the sign of the volcano and that he estimates that the 5th will be under the sign of the fortresses.
Otherwise, it only makes assumptions about the images given here as spoilers.
I think the 6 colored fortresses will be replaced later by fragments of the 3 new dragon buildings and their extension.
Owl II
Emperor
I'm also looking forward to it. GE has long been overgrown with dust and needs something new, at least in terms of rewards. But I do not hope for high statistics of new buildings. I think it will be comparable to the current special buildings, something at the level of elephants and iridiscent gardens. So it's still food for the AD (my God, won't it crack?).I would like to changes in mechanics, especially in terms of the championship. But this is also unlikely. Just will add encounters and increase the difficulty. And I said above: this is a great reason to cut diamonds and diamond buildings
During my livestream today I had a look at the three named Aztec statues, I wanted to see if they were actual real names or just something random made to sound Aztec. They do indeed seem to be real, and all seem to be related to trade / traveling on roads, which seems to support the speculation in my video that the three temples are related to fighting, and the three statues to negotiating. I wonder if at various points in the level you can choose between fighting for the temple or negotiating for the statue, and based on your choice you get a boost.
Tlacotzontly: "(...) Aztec god of roads. He was also the protector of roads to the native Mexicans"
Cochimetl: "(...) Aztec god of commerce and merchants"
Zacatzontly: "[Aztec] god of day road (...) He can be a protector of merchants (...)".
Tlacotzontly: "(...) Aztec god of roads. He was also the protector of roads to the native Mexicans"
Cochimetl: "(...) Aztec god of commerce and merchants"
Zacatzontly: "[Aztec] god of day road (...) He can be a protector of merchants (...)".
Emberguard
Emperor
Building onto this….
Maybe we’re looking at what will be Silver, Gold, Jade Relics, but split into Attacking and Negotiating
ShadowPhoenixx95
Squire
Mhh, i'd say its either both or its actually Split.
Like, it's either 3 of each being the Silver/Gold/Platinum, because first 3 have to do with Army, last 3 have to do with economics and Trading an Aztec culture, so eagle being Silver Fighter, Jaguar being Gold Fighter,.. while Tlacot being Silver Trader, Zacat being Gold Trader..
Or, it actually being split, like Eagle Temple being Attack, Jaguar Temple being Defense, Infiltration being City Defense,...
I just dont have any clue how to split the Trader's ones. Maybe like FP, Goods, Coin/Supply rush?
As a player who likes the battle system and liking the chain buildings, I'm excited. Though I'm more excited for the potential future buffs for negotiating players. As for battles we have a lot to choose from.
GuigeekX
Farmer
I believe the guess hasn't been said, but I think it could be a Great Monument like the Temple of Relics with the Infiltration bonus .... maybe?
ShadowRullz
Farmer
I hope they will change the entire Guild Expedition, with new graphic design , different for each level