@Juber For the announcement coming out next week (possibly), please tell me it is not going to be a promise to ensure next year's age is not going to be another copy and paste. While it would be good to have a "promise" it will probably go over like a lead balloon.
We need something this year, in the next few weeks or couple of months, even if it is just a GB that means something to folks in SAJM. Bonuses to help people "catch up faster" should also provide an avenue for existing players to grow faster as well. Technically I don't see the bonus of the new GB as more than a marginal advantage for players who haven't entered AF yet. I honestly don't see any excitement over trimming a couple days off the time to get through those ages. I tracked how long I spent in those ages and in VF-SAV I also tracked how long it took me to complete the research, and frankly it is nothing to have angst over:
| Age | Started Date (2021) | Finished Research Date (2021) | Time Researching |
|---|
| AF | 4/27 | | Built up supplies and goods for a while |
| OF | 6/4 | | |
| VF | 9/3 | 9/22 | 19 days |
| SAM | 9/24 | 10/8 | 2 weeks |
| SAAB | 11/5 | 11/19 | 2 weeks |
| SAV | 4/15/2022 | 5/10/2022 | Just under a month |
It is NOT the time to get through these ages that is holding back the folks I've talked to. The answer I get is they see no benefit for moving into these ages other than increased city space.
- They know about the punishment in the RQ cycle (too many to click through, and loss of UBQ).
- They see no good reward or fun to moving up, and frankly I agree with them, except for city space, more battle points, or making goods outside of the city.
- The RNG factor in fighting is a definite negative in SAV and it's only going to be worse in SAJM.
- There is no reason to use buildings provided by an age, except to complete an event quest and, well, that can be done in whatever age you're in.
First off, I have to agree with the first part of the post "we'll do better in the future" is going to be a very hard sell - recent track record hasn't been great to have much good will of the "wait for next year" variety.
Regarding the building having *no* niche - that I'll disagree on - it's a small niche but there are players who are both new to the game and trying to plow through those ages as fast as they can. And there are guilds that legitimately want/need those extra treasury goods - not ones I want to be in, but they exist
I'll also point out that some of the fear of higher ages is caused by players overselling the downsides. If it was someone's first world, I absolutely would recommend them to keep advancing ages at a reasonable pace. Just because the vocal majority feels unappreciative of a specific age doesn't mean a particular individual will. When I wasn't sitting at the end on one world myself and thus able to make decisions based on my own previous impressions I used to find the advice from others on the "Should I move up?" question very hit or miss. Hence my recommendation to players on their first world unless they have a specific goal stated is to keep planning to move up - not necessarily as fast as possible, but not to stay back out of fear either.
Many of those higher ages also have upsides:
OF
+ one of the best RQ ages: 3 RQ slots once you finish OF story (VF story doesn't start without research), not so many aborts (only 8 quests you can't DQ yourself from), smallest buy FP quest, and a good variety of quest targets
+ diverse units to keep combat interesting if monotony is your enemy
- no "one army to rule them all" if that's what you're looking for; close enough facsimiles at low attrition though
- if you don't like it, it's the longest age in the game to just get through
VF
+ birth of the combat-oriented RQ (though you do need to have a guildmate post a bunch of circle trades so that you can clear it while you go)
+ 1 hr production RQ can be a good way to catch up on supplies which are becoming in higher demand if you weren't hanging out in lower ages with a huge HC forever
+ one of the dumbest slates of defending units enabling crazy-high-attrition battles if you dodge DAs you don't get along with
- but ninjas are heavily annoying defending units meaning you either need to stick to low-medium attrition or dodge defending armies that have too many
- extra aborts per RQ cycle (12 you can't DQ yourself from), 15 instead of 5 for buy FP quest (what's worse, buying 15 FP requires two trips to the window as you can't buy past 10)
SAM
+ RQs start giving 10 FP instead of 5 (bar FP instead of pack but generally people have ways to convert that these days that I consider this an upside)
+ Introduction of the Colony for lazier goods than RQs
+ very well-rounded combat age with both an army that works pretty well vs everything (8 sentinels) and other useful units that can play into improved strategies for people who want more than a simple 1 army vs everything.
SAAB
+ for zero-attrition farmers, Nailstorms were apparently an upgrade over Sentinels as the 1 army vs everything
+ for point farmers, RQs that offer fights in the quest so you don't have to go find fights somewhere else all the time
+ Colony while less interesting becomes more productive (in SAM your colony's goods production was typically space-bound allowing decisions/optimizations on life support; in SAAB your colony is typically map resource bound but it makes more than the best optimized SAM colony anyways)
- Nailstorms lack a good counter at medium-high attrition
- Abort count goes up, ugh (15 you can't DQ yourself from now!). And one of the quests requires you to pay hundreds of goods questioning the reason for its existence other than to support point farmers who don't even finish the quest, just do the fight and abort
SAV
+ if you didn't like SAAB units (I didn't), this has a slate closer to that of SAM but with a less powerful flyer because the defending artillery can hit it
- only GB isn't particularly innovative or useful
- almost the same as SAAB RQs except now there's *two* of the RQs noone should complete.
SAJM
+ your flyers will be untarget-able by defending artillery again, and a
good "contact!" unit will exist for the first time since OF (and possibly closer to CE's AAV in experience)
- if you were more of a power dragon fan than energy cannon then the previous might be a mixed bag as the artillery will have a more pronounced weakness
- but other than those ability changes it seems to be pretty much the exact same age as SAV
