ROI / Off Topic Musings

[Emberguard]

I can not understand why in FoEvents still exist players who think about RoI when they talk about GBs. Stop thinking about RoI and about starting to earn benefits!!

If you can’t reach the ROI on something that’s giving back the same resource you put in, then you never get to see a benefit

It would be no different from buying a Wishing Well for 1,500 diamonds knowing it’ll only break even in 8-10 years. Any returns until I break even are not benefits, it’s just giving back what I already would have had in inventory 8 years from now if I never spent it in the first place. If I play 15 years then I would see a benefit. But who’s that confident on how long they’ll stick around? If I’m only playing another 2 years then I would have been better spending it on something that gives a immediate return.

That’s why Events still have a interest. There’s no wasted investment. You’re using resources you either would have used even if you never did the event, or that you had no use for.

Hmmm.... then why do businesses ever start? It takes money to make money.

Businesses tend to be a life investment with one of two goals

1. I’m going to make a profit in X years and then use this business to support me for the rest of my life in one way or another.
   • If I stop this busniess I’ll reinvest into something else, thus continuing this same investment I started
2. I’m going to be the first to do X thing just so I can say I acheived that

If you’re going for a loan you first have to convince the person lending you the money that they’re going to get it back within a reasonable time. If you can’t do that then you have to do it from your own pocket.

Games on the other hand are not meant to be a longterm investment of the same duration. You pick it up. You have fun. You put it back down again. That’s what a game is.

Now if you’re really into the game you might still be play it for years, but there’s only so much you’ll play the same game before you put it down and maybe return to it on the odd occasion

If you’re putting absolutely everything into a Lvl 180 Arc chances are it isn’t to see a investment return on that. You’re far more likely to stop playing before you ever reach the point of actually gaining a profit on everything you put in. It’s more likely you’re doing it for the sake of achieving that goal (aka fun). So you do whatever you can just so you can say you beat that game before you stopped playing. That’s the goal. It’s a different goal from getting to that point and then continuing far past that point to make a profit on a business

If one never spends the money to start a business and takes out that 30 year loan to get going...then the business will never start and cannot possibly become a successful business. There is actually risk in real business and yet people try every day to start new business even knowing it's at least an 80% chance they will fail.

As was mentioned ealier it's not just about the FP spent, time is the variable that is being ignored when ROI is all that is viewed.

Time is the whole point of ROI. You don’t necessarily start your very first business on something that takes forever to get a return, you start with something that has an near immediate return and then scale up with that initial profit

I know the longest I’ve stuck with any one game is 10 years. That’s it. Loved the games I grew up with to bits, still have fond memories of it. But whenever I try to get back into that game I can’t stand it because I’ve already played it so much. I would have to shake it up quite a lot if I wanted to seriously get back into those old games I grew up with to make them interesting again

I’ve been on FoE since the end of 2017. So while possible to go on playing this for longer I’m not expecting it to hold my interest for much more than another 4-5 years unless there’s additions that continue to make it interesting beyond that

So if I were to go for a Arc 180 it would be primarily for the fun factor and getting that achievement in. I would not expect the Arc 180 to be in my city long enough to be of any use at the finished level of 180 for any significant time.

Realistically that’s not any different from working to get the ultimate item in any other game and then almost immediately afterwards stop playing because you beat the game. Done that before. It’s fun

The investment of FP to produce more FP is not a cut and dry "you spent 60K FP" to make 80FP/day, so it will take you 750 days to make that back. NOPE! Sorry. That's simple math and has nothing to do with reality. That's a 60K ONE TIME investment to get a recurring 80FP per day. That's 80FP/day for the years I will play the game.

Exactly. For the years you will play the game. How many years would be realistic to keep playing? Are we assuming infinity? Or a shorter timeframe?

The opposing argument is you are wasting potential by not investing in doing the FP growth sooner. The longer you put off the investment the more it hurts over the long term. It is not possibly better to sink the 60K FP into owner share on non-FP producing GBs than it is to do so on other FP GBs first. The FP GB farm is what makes leveling the attack and other GBs easier and faster without having to hope for good GbG seasons or great investment opportunities in other parts of the game.

It's not about what I spent yesterday, it's about what I'm making today. The attack enthusiasts are like farmers in the real world - they rely on good seasons to pull in what they are after. I prefer that to just be a bonus along with my drop thread investments while my city brings in a stable income to keep things going at a minimum for goods, guild goods, FP, and troops.

Here’s the thing. Where did you (primarily) get those FPs from?

If it came from the Arc then fair enough. If it came from doing Guild Battlegrounds then it’s a bit of a moot point. Those same FPs could have gone into anything and you still would have grown the city.

I’m not currently a heavy sniper and never have been. So for me the Arc isn’t the main FP generator beyond what it allows me to lift my other Great Buildings. I’m raising it to say I did it, but I know I’m not leveraging its full potential as a FP generator. It’s more passive for my city.

If I were to change strategies then it might make more sense to hyper level up the Arc to support that strategy

I'll put it one last way - if I had a money tree to sell you for $30K that had a guaranteed production of $1K/month for the rest of your life starting 3 months down the road would you tell me to get lost or would you go take out a loan? If your answer was yes for the RL scenario then why even pause to think about it in a game?

Bold of you to assume I have $30k to give away like that.

But here’s the thing. $1k per month means I would get that back in 2.5 years. That is a very reasonable offer on ROI and you said it’d last the rest of my life. I’m confident I would have more than 2.5 years of life remaining to make that worthwhile.

Whether or not I would believe you if you said you had a money tree is an entirely different matter. Arc 180 is a observable and consistently provable concept within the confines of the game. Money growing on trees on the other hand would need to be proven to exist for it to be a wise investment

 

[mcbluefire]

But there are things in game that if you're enjoying yourself *do* have a reasonable RoI. Like say Arc up to level 100 or so can easily pay itself off within a year - and possibly as far as ~130 depending on just how active you are at gobbling up spots - no it doesn't make as much as an arc-180. But it also costs a fraction as much to build.

I'd argue that Arc180 is paid largely by the Arc as it is leveled up. How can folks argue that ROI is literally just "how much did it cost" versus how long to make it back from the one thing that was paid into? Diversification isn't a thing in the game? Come on now!

Unlike RL we are using free and clear FP to invest in generating more free and clear FP.

Time is the whole point of ROI.You don’t necessarily start your very first business on something that takes forever to get a return, you start with something that has an near immediate return and then scale up with that initial profit

I like your point here and can see what you mean, but nope time is not actually in ROI:
ROI= Net Return on Investment/Cost of Investment×100%
In actuality you are hoping your business will be profitable, but that doesn't necessary mean it will have a large ROI. Heck, I've had 880% ROI deals that weren't hardly worth the time invested.

Here’s the thing. Where did you (primarily) get those FPs from?

50%+/- from the Arc, 30%+/- from city and 20%+/- from GbG. I am a top performer in GbG - always in top 10, typically top 3. My city pulls in more FP/day than I get on a great day in GbG and GbG can't be collected from all 14 days of a season - just 10. On very rare occassion I've had better days in GbG than my city collection, but then there are also bad seasons with less hits available and RL that prevents following a timer every 4 hours to get more hits.

City collection is the simplest way to make FP as it only takes increasing GBs, getting FP oriented event buildings, and then just collecting once a day.
Arc is #1 best daily collector L100 and over. But, Arc takes focus and time. Focusing on time sniping is NOT the best method (talk about slow ROI) - joining lot's of 1.9 threads is the best use of an Arc. If you are like me and also are interested in medals then joining any drop rate thread is perfect use for you Arc. 1.93, 1.94, 1.97, and 2.0 drop threads all matter.

Now let's look at that 30% from the city. My FP GB's were producing 298FP/day out of the 1500+/-FP/day. Without those early investments, however, my collections would be 1220/day and I would not have leveled up my other GBs as quickly. My growth curve would have been completely different.
I don't view it as ROI as that doesn't fit in a structure where the gains continue forever. I view it, instead, as FP I would have never have gotten because I threw my FP into something else and never grew more from them. Thus a CC, Kraken, or similar GB aren't about whether they should be done for the time lost with the FP in investment but when should they be done. The sooner the better so that the daily FP can be a part of your portfolio "free and clear" sooner rather than later.

Why would I turn down a 4FP/sqr GB because I'm going to have to invest in it for a bit? Where do you look at the cost versus benefit - before or after the new profit? Why avoid a money tree if it is guaranteed? If you don't have a Cape today and you have a 100K+ FP pool is there any actual loss to drop it and move it to L80 tomorrow?

I'll say it again, "It's not about what I spent yesterday, it's about what I'm making today." "It's not about what I invested yesterday, it's about what I'm making today."

 

[Pericles the Lion]

I like your point here and can see what you mean, but nope time is not actually in ROI:
ROI= Cost of Investment/Net Return on Investment×100%
In actuality you are hoping your business will be profitable, but that doesn't necessary mean it will have a large ROI. Heck, I've had 880% ROI deals that weren't hardly worth the time invested.

Sorry, but you are not correct with the bolded statement. Here's an illustration. Which is the better investment (1) invest $1000 to get a return of $1500 or (2) invest $1000 to get a return of $2000? It's a rhetorical question. The answer is "it depends on the length of time between the investment and the payoff". Time matters in every ROI calculation.

 

[mcbluefire]

This is what I actually advise other players to do for GBs.
#1 Get Arc & start working on BPs.
#2 Place Zeus, CoA, and CdM - move them to L10 asap.
#3 Work on FP GB's in parallel to bringing up Arc80.

• 1) Cape75: 23,967 FP for 75FP/day efficiency of 320FP/new Daily FP.
  2) AO70: 31,784FP for 71FP/day efficiency of 448FP/new Daily FP.
  3) IT84: 24,907FP for 50FP/day efficiency of 498FP/new daily FP Keep in mind
  4) HS88: 27,174 for 51FP/day efficiency of 533FP/new Daily FP.
  5) CdM75: 21,600 for 45FP/day efficiency of 556FP/new Daily FP.
  6) Kraken71: 33,640FP for 56FP/day efficiency of 601FP/new Daily FP.
• For a total of 298FP/day from the 6 FP GBs

#4 Add Traz and move to L25. Add CF move to at least L15 if you will be interested in RQs for goods.
#5 Keep moving Arc to 100, bring up attack GBs, add a BG when you have enough event buildings to make it worthwhile.
....and on it goes.

 

[mcbluefire]

Sorry, but you are not correct with the bolded statement. Here's an illustration. Which is the better investment (1) invest $1000 to get a return of $1500 or (2) invest $1000 to get a return of $2000? It's a rhetorical question. The answer is "it depends on the length of time between the investment and the payoff". Time matters in every ROI calculation.

While time is inherently in how we work with it, the formula takes no time into consideration. We can pull the figure we want to compare from a timeline. ROI depends on time when one does things like annualized ROI. To be clear the units are $/$*100%. You answer is in %, not in time and at no point does ROI include a time portion. That's just us trying to make things seem unreasonable or okay depending on what lense we are using.

ROI of my Cape at this point in playing the game is huge: 536.7% (128,625 FP). This does not count the double dips I got while leveling it nor the collections from it during the time I spent leveling it - just the collections of 75FP/day for the days since I got it to L75. Now, of course, it's higher than L75, but I still get those 75FP from my initial investment, now don't I? Why would I only focus on break-even *time*? That's not even a real obstacle in playing the game. When I hear someone complain they only make 100FP/day in the game and I look at their city and see no FP producing GBs should they be advised to avoid those?

If you don't have a Cape and you've been playing for years you now know how many FP you've missed out on.

 

[mcbluefire]

Speaking of which, think I'll go "waste" another 1,530 FP to prime and flip my L88 Cape and move from 88 to 89FP/day. Based on simple math it will take me 1,530 days to make that back from the Cape, but tomorrow I'll collect 1 more FP than yesterday and that's what matters - over the next 1,530 days I'll be collecting an additional FP not trying to repay my investment. Keep in mind that's just a bit over a one day city collection so I'll break free and clear on my GbG hits and my Arc investments.

 

[Pericles the Lion]

While time is inherently in how we work with it, the formula takes no time into consideration. We can pull the figure we want to compare from a timeline. ROI depends on time when one does things like annualized ROI. To be clear the units are $/$*100%. You answer is in %, not in time and at no point does ROI include a time portion. That's just us trying to make things seem unreasonable or okay depending on what lense we are using.

ROI of my Cape at this point in playing the game is huge: 536.7% (128,625 FP). This does not count the double dips I got while leveling it nor the collections from it during the time I spent leveling it - just the collections of 75FP/day for the days since I got it to L75. Now, of course, it's higher than L75, but I still get those 75FP from my initial investment, now don't I? Why would I only focus on break-even *time*? That's not even a real obstacle in playing the game. When I hear someone complain they only make 100FP/day in the game and I look at their city and see no FP producing GBs should they be advised to avoid those?

If you don't have a Cape and you've been playing for years you now know how many FP you've missed out on.

I never built a Cape. Never will. Congratulations on your 536.7% return on your initial investment of 24K FPs. At 88 FPs per collection, you've been collecting your L88 Cape for over 1400 days to earn this return. The reason that I'll never build the CC is because I average a 15% profit on the contributions that I make to other players' GBs (and my investments typically pay off in a few days). I can leverage the 24K investment needed to lift a Cape to L88 into many millions in 1400 days simply taking advantage of my ARC. For me, the Cape is sub-optimal use of resources.

 

[xivarmy]

I'd argue that Arc180 is paid largely by the Arc as it is leveled up. How can folks argue that ROI is literally just "how much did it cost" versus how long to make it back from the one thing that was paid into? Diversification isn't a thing in the game? Come on now!

Diversification would be extending beyond FP. i.e. someone who's invested in goods, FP, and military boost would have a "diversified" city. If suddenly one becomes more needed than before they're more prepared than someone who went all-in on a different stat.

FP for more FP isn't diversification. It's investing further and further into the almighty FP And it also is irrelevant until such time as you recover the FP invested.

- FP banked is (arguably) ready to invest in the next craze. Assumes FP is too big to fail, but it probably is
- FP invested into more FP is only of value once doing so has increased your bank and non-FP investments by more than not-investing it.

So coming back to the Arc paying for itself: given that there's a period of time over which you made the journey (i.e. who snaps their fingers and is at arc 180), to some degree that will count. i.e. let's say at t(0) we're at arc 130 and that exclusively FP to invest comes from 1.9 thread profits (not collection, and not GBG), because that's the most optimistic scenario as it will allow the greatest scaling of your income as you invest further (any non-arc profits will dilute the % gain you get from more arc levels).

Let's say you're at 5k FP a day profits from your Arc-130 to start and do a month-by-month progression of that scaling (i.e. 5k FP will become 6k FP once you hit arc 140):

Days​	Arc Level​	Profit / Day​	Cumulative FP Invested​	Banked FP Alternative​
0​	130​	5000​	​	0​
30​	141​	6100​	150000​	150000​
60​	151​	7100​	333000​	300000​
90​	159​	7900​	546000​	450000​
120​	166​	8600​	783000​	600000​
150​	173​	9300​	1041000​	750000​
180​	179​	9900​	1320000​	900000​

Not quite there in 180 days, but we'll say that my 30 days of rounding you did a little better and made it in 180 days. Yay you! The player who banked instead has a 900k lead on you for "other projects", but your 5000/day edge will catch that up in 180 days. So your "RoI time" (i.e. the time in which you've recovered your sunk costs and now are experiencing profit for other purposes) is 360 days in this case and far better than my earlier stated "3.8 years". My bad on that, and I'll have to figure out what numbers I divided wrong to come up with that (1.4M/5000 = 280 days for the "10k a day @ 180" case if you managed to go from 130->180 instantly) (found it: I did the division by 10k instead but really only did 1k, off by a factor of 10).

Regardless you have made back about 400-500k of the cost in the process of levelling and have only 900k to make up over time.

But I will now take the time to point out for this "10k/day" profit at arc-180 and "5k/day" at arc-130, you are cycling an *immense* amount of FP through threads (roughly 5000 / (0.05/1.9) = 190k a day. so say 100-200 1sts a day. That's a lot of stalking for a year Plugging my actual numbers in it's more like 10-20 years til break-even. So regardless I'm no convert on arc-180 being a worthwhile investment for myself I am not going to do the work to make it worthwhile - just no interest.

---

While time is inherently in how we work with it, the formula takes no time into consideration. We pull the figure we want to compare from a timeline. ROI depends on time when one does things like annualized ROI.

ROI of my Cape at this point in playing the game is huge: 536.7% (128,625 FP). Why would I only focus on break-even *time*? That's not even a real obstacle in playing the game. When I hear someone complain they only make 100FP/day in the game and I look at their city and see no FP producing GBs should they be advised to avoid those?

The break even point is relevant because that's the point at which your FP for more FP makes sense. The earlier it makes sense, the better the investment - because everything past then is gravy - at that point you *can* say you had more to invest in everything else because of it. And whichever one gets there fastest has the best RoI (i.e. it either gets there faster because it adds more production or because it costs less - and either is a good reason to do it first).

Let's visit your poor 100FP /day player:

1) The most important advice to give them involves *nothing to do with GBs* - but rather to play events in a way that they complete some event buildings! Possibly also do some settlements. They don't have that much FP to invest yet - the problem isn't their GBs that will cost FP to make FP - it's that they lack the backbone to get those GBs up in a reasonable time to begin with.

2) When they do have the FP to invest, yes it goes Arc for blueprints, then Cape, Himeji, and Blue Galaxy (order dependent on condition of city when you get to them and whether FP is really all you need at the time - blue galaxy is the strongest of the 3 now if you have good collections - himeji should be taken to 16 very early because it's strong at low levels/low investment and then gotten back to at some point after the other two probably - cape should be taken to 60-70 first if you're primarily worried about FP (I honestly don't bother to build it in some cities now because FP are plentiful without it and it's a nuisance to gather the prints for because a lot of others skip it now too - but it's still quite worthwhile if you *are* worried about maxing out your FP).

3) Assuming they're not playing for a situation where the crit is irrelevant, time for AO built and taken to 60 (for now). And level CdM that you want for the boost as well.

4) By the time they've made it through that hopefully they're no longer feeling the need for the less efficient FP great buildings (Hagia/Inno/Kraken) either for cost reasons (Kraken) or Opportunity Cost reasons (Hagia/Inno and their footprint if you have good event buildings to use the space on instead).

Somewhere along the line they'll also start working in the non-FP buildings. Whether that be CF for goods, Zeus & CoA for boost, etc. If they find themself taking a significant amount of 1.9 spots, another 10-20 levels on Arc are easy to justify.

*none of this involves a timeline to take arc to 180* which is a decision they'll have to make way way way down the road

 

[Emberguard]

When I hear someone complain they only make 100FP/day in the game and I look at their city and see no FP producing GBs should they be advised to avoid those?

No. You still need a Forge Point income regardless of the method. The Arc cannot work without a income. If you want to increase your Forge Point production then there are some good options in the Great Building Forge Point producers that achieve this

However, there is a big difference between the investment required in getting a Arc to Lvl 180 and spreading out that same investment across multiple avenues. It depends on how you intend to play and for what length of time that would determine what makes sense for investing that amount of Forge Points


A Lvl 80 Arc makes sense for everyone to aim for even if a brand new player does it in stages to make it more interesting. It's a 24k FP investment, but if you're levelling up anything that isn't the Arc using 1.9 you're almost guaranteed to get a profit on your Lvl 80 Arc investment.

Even if all you did was level up the Statue of Zeus to Lvl 50 you've got more than you invested into the Arc back as you've now gained 28,443 worth of Forge Point growth using 1.9. Chances are you'll be doing a lot more Great Buildings than just the Zeus though. So Lvl 80 is a fantastic investment for everyone to do as a base line.


If you took that Arc to Lvl 180 and did nothing else at all in your Great Buildings then it'd cost you 1,608,753 Forge Points using 1.9. Or 1,566,069 if you manage to get players to put 2.0 on it (difference of 42,684 FPs).

If you then start levelling your Zeus to Lvl 80 with 1.9 it'll cost you 20,052 Forge Points, but with your 180 Arc if you can get 2.0 it'll cost 15,980 Forge Points. Congrats. You spent 1.6 Million FPs to save 5 thousand FPs. If you take Zeus all the way to Lvl 180 then you've shaved off 24,459 FPs total.

Going for something more expensive let's use Arctic Orangery to Lvl 180. You'll shave off 53,496 FPs doing Arc to Lvl 180 first and then raising up the Arctic Orangery to 180.


If it looks like you're going to keep playing for any decent amount of time then yeah, for a lot of players it would make sense to raise the Arc to Lvl 120 even if you're only getting 1.9 back on your own buildings. But if you're not into a combination of heavy sniping and heavy seeking out of 1.9 threads then taking it all the way to Lvl 180 isn't going to do much for increasing your overall daily income, and you'll never make it back on your own Great Buildings being raised.


If we were to get the Arc to Lvl 120, and then take the remaining 1,457,917 Forge Points that you suggest we invest in a Lvl 180 Arc here's what we could also achieve:

1. Lvl 120 Zeus
2. Lvl 120 Cathedral of Aachen
3. Lvl 120 Castel Del Monte
4. Lvl 120 Chateau Frontenac
5. Lvl 120 Alcatraz
6. Lvl 120 Cape Canaveral
7. Lvl 120 Arctic Orangery
8. Lvl 120 Himeji Castle
9. Lvl 102 AI Core or Lvl 95 Space Carrier

That's all of those buildings combined

Congrats to anyone that gets the Arc to Lvl 180, it's an amazing achievement in itself. But I'm not currently leveraging the Arcs ability in a way that would actually make sense to keep raising it until I reach Lvl 180. I would rather put more effort in Guild Battlegrounds and Guild Expedition than I would to increase my activity in sniping / 1.9 threads to match what would be needed for a Lvl 180 Arc to make sense. So it would also make more sense to make that my focus for deciding on which Great Buildings to raise up higher before considering later down the track whether to raise the Arc up more. Once I have everything else up nice and high, then yes. At that point the Arc going up high can make sense. But if I focus on the Arc and nothing else I don't see how that would be more enjoyable to me than spreading it out to multiple buildings would be

 

[Emberguard]

2) When they do have the FP to invest, yes it goes Arc for blueprints, then Cape, Himeji, and Blue Galaxy (order dependent on condition of city when you get to them and whether FP is really all you need at the time - blue galaxy is the strongest of the 3 now if you have good collections - himeji should be taken to 16 very early because it's strong at low levels/low investment and then gotten back to at some point after the other two probably - cape should be taken to 60-70 first if you're primarily worried about FP (I honestly don't bother to build it in some cities now because FP are plentiful without it and it's a nuisance to gather the prints for because a lot of others skip it now too - but it's still quite worthwhile if you *are* worried about maxing out your FP).

Getting Himeji down early also means you're less likely to struggle on Supplies when you age up to the Future / Space Eras part of the game. Virtual Future and higher is very Supply intense if you haven't got a lot of Supplies built up already

Edit;

*none of this involves a timeline to take arc to 180* which is a decision they'll have to make way way way down the road

But I will now take the time to point out for this "10k/day" profit at arc-180 and "5k/day" at arc-130, you are cycling an *immense* amount of FP through threads (roughly 5000 / (0.05/1.9) = 190k a day. so say 100-200 1sts a day. That's a lot of stalking for a year Plugging my actual numbers in it's more like 10-20 years til break-even. So regardless I'm no convert on arc-180 being a worthwhile investment for myself I am not going to do the work to make it worthwhile - just no interest.

Continuing on that note.... How many players can you realistically get to Lvl 180, and then keep maintaining the same pace on the merits of the Arc itself?

If you want absolutely everybody to do Lvl 180 Arc then you likely would need absolutely everybody to be leveling up their own Great Buildings a minimum of 5 levels per day if you want to sustain that 100-200 1sts a day. How many players are capable of leveling up 5 levels a day on their own Great Buildings?

The reason I say 5 levels a day is because there's 5 contribution spots. So if it's evenly split between players then you get one 1st for every 5 levels.

If a 5th of the playerbase went for a Lvl 180 Arc then you could sustain it assuming zero competition outside the Lvl 180 Arc players, and also assuming everyone is completing 1 level a day without fail to provide that stream of 1st's. In reality there's not enough room for a 5th of the playerbase to accomplish this because you're competing with everyone below the Lvl 180 Arcs and there will come a point where everyone has all their Great Buildings too high in level to keep providing 1 level a day.

If everyone were to go for lvl 180 then either something else would have to be sustaining the Arcs investment outside of the actual Arc, or you'd need a considerably longer time period for it to pay off than the estimate of 100-200 1sts a day.

 

[mcbluefire]

Diversification would be extending beyond FP. i.e. someone who's invested in goods, FP, and military boost would have a "diversified" city. If suddenly one becomes more needed than before they're more prepared than someone who went all-in on a different stat.

Ah, so when one diversifies their portfolio they aren't still working with money to hopefully make money across different trade and service sectors? Instead they are converting their money to something that will .... oh wait.... be sold eventually to bring them back money.
Seems a bit pedantic to me to tell me I'm using the word incorrectly when I'm talking about using all FP production avenues possible and not just focusing on one: GbG. Again, why would I want to focus on the #3 source of FP when #1 and #2 are so much easier? I certainly wouldn't want to ignore #3 as it's still valid!

You all go on thinking that spending free and clear FP into something that generates more FP is a terrible solution and I'll continue to do so to produce more FP today using FP I want to spend on making more FP tomorrow. Keep recommending to new players that attack is greater than FP production, I'll keep recommending a more balanced approach where FP & Attack should both be coming from the city with stress on both at specific times.

The "money tree" I suggested earlier is literally the CC where you spend <30K to get back >$1K/month. CC: 23K FP for 2,250 FP/month (@75FP/mo) but you can't see it because you are focused on break-even as if it was a real thing. What incredible other building is in your city that generates more for your city than that?

Yep, you can get a bunch of other GB's to L120 instead of going after an Arc180, but with my FP GBs and my Arc180 I'll be able to invest and take those GBs much further and more quickly than players who choose to ignore revenue streams and that's the part that I suspect is missed by the break-even crowd. I'm not guaranteed that with my Arc180...I have to be active daily to keep that in use. I'm not guaranteed that with GbG as good and bad seasons come and go. I am guaranteed that with my city and it continues to produce every day long past "break-even".

While it's true my CC, HS, and Inno aren't truly providing any other benefit (other than FP) they provide me an solid flow of FP daily and over time and incredible sum that break-even concerns would have prevented me from getting.

1) The most important advice to give them involves *nothing to do with GBs* - but rather to play events in a way that they complete some event buildings! Possibly also do some settlements. They don't have that much FP to invest yet - the problem isn't their GBs that will cost FP to make FP - it's that they lack the backbone to get those GBs up in a reasonable time to begin with.

Hmm, I must have been a weird exception to the rule when I put down my CC and leveled it up while trying to get BPs for my Arc. Telling someone to wait years through events to collect enough to get going on FP production is one solution, but then so is pointing them to making FP production GBs, especially the ones that also help with attack. The order I propose (and followed) above is exactly how I did it and event buildings were a nice bonus along the way.
Let's face it, in the long run event buildings make up the majority of attack and FP production in any city. You wouldn't destroy a Zeus though, right? A CoA maybe? How about your CdM? TA? For the same reason I won't pick up my FP Gbs. Atk/sqr matters and so does FP/sqr. Min/Max is very helpful in making a highly productive and balanced city.

I never built a Cape. Never will.

Thanks for the congrats. It definitely makes more sense to build a cape early on and that's why I recommend it to folks, but then since 23K FP is probably nothing but water to you these days why would it hurt to have another 75 daily FP?

 

[xivarmy]

Hmm, I must have been a weird exception to the rule when I put down my CC and leveled it up while trying to get BPs for my Arc. Telling someone to wait years through events to collect enough to get going on FP production is one solution, but then so is pointing them to making FP production GBs, especially the ones that also help with attack. The order I propose (and followed) above is exactly how I did it and event buildings were a nice bonus along the way.
Let's face it, in the long run event buildings make up the majority of attack and FP production in any city. You wouldn't destroy a Zeus though, right? A CoA maybe? How about your CdM? TA? For the same reason I won't pick up my FP Gbs. Atk/sqr matters and so does FP/sqr. Min/Max is very helpful in making a highly productive and balanced city.

Perhaps it was years ago when event buildings hadn't moved so far forward? These days you can add 50-100FP production per day per event if that's your priority. For free.

i.e. my first world when I built my cape it was a big deal as you suggest. I was relying on SoKs for event production at the time, and 100 FP a day was actually pretty good for the time. I absolutely built hagia & inno too. They're probably due to be destroyed "soon" but not yet. Many of my friends have already demolished theirs.

when i started the newest world ~6 months ago I was making 100 FP/day from the start pretty much. Now it's probably about 300 FP/day. And it hasn't been my priority (goods have been actually as the biggest limiter on moving through the tech tree). No Arc yet (because of a restriction I placed on myself to only build GBs with my own goods - as part of the motive to keep moving through the tree and not get stuck camping somewhere bored ). Won't consider Cape until after Arc (can't get the prints efficiently to bring it where it needs to to be worth it without it).

As for would I destroy attack buildings, never say never I'm not close now. But 5 years from now if I'm still playing? Who knows what the state of things will be! I try not to form emotional attachments to particular buildings.

 

[Pericles the Lion]

Thanks for the congrats. It definitely makes more sense to build a cape early on and that's why I recommend it to folks, but then since 23K FP is probably nothing but water to you these days why would it hurt to have another 75 daily FP?

Because, for me, it would be a waste of space. I don't need another 75 FPs.

 

[mcbluefire]

Perhaps it was years ago when event buildings hadn't moved so far forward? These days you can add 50-100FP production per day per event if that's your priority. For free.

Interesting. I must be unable to do events correctly since I'm not at 2000FP/day in my city yet and I should be able to add 100 daily FP per event! Would you care to expand on that broad brush stroke?

I almost tossed my CoA a month ago, but then moved from % of attack it provides (and the worthless coins) and realized it would be silly to remove such a high attack/sqr from my city.

 

[xivarmy]

Interesting. I must be unable to do events correctly since I'm not at 2000FP/day in my city yet and I should be able to add 100 daily FP per event! Would you care to expand on that broad brush stroke?

I almost tossed my CoA a month ago, but then moved from % of attack it provides (and the worthless coins) and realized it would be silly to remove such a high attack/sqr from my city.

50-100 per event is when space is not the limiter i.e. in this wildlife event a panda reserve + 20x6 in FP chains is over 100 FP from the event. Now I wouldn't actually want the FP chains in most of my cities - but if you want FP fast and are starting from 100/day, adding 100 in wildlife is no big problem.

Not every event has a chain building to target - so some of them would be closer to the 50 range. But it's *far* from a year to move your FP production up to say 500 per day if that were your goal from 100/day.

And yes, CoA is the one that would be first to go. There have been times where I've avoided building it immediately at world start, though currently I'm back to including it because the FP to get it to 10 is plentiful - and at that benchmark it's worth having on a new world

(putting aside desired focus as a reason to keep it, I have CoA Lvl 89 at "2.63" efficiency in SAJM, TA lvl 75 at "2.84", and Panda Shrine at 3.58 (only non-premium building convincingly past it so far). So around the time I had to make room for more panda-shrine-grade buildings is when an already-levelled CoA would start to come into question. But that's probably at least a couple years.

Incidentally, I have Hagia L60 at "0.98" and Inno L70 at "1.32" (ignoring their cost to level). Now all their points come from FP, so if that's ultimately the only metric you care about, yea, they're still *barely* keepers. But I definitely feel they're not worth levelling anymore.

 

[mcbluefire]

Okay, so I suppose you are saying if I went after the correct FP daily and got the main event building then converted empty space to 50FP/day production.

 

[xivarmy]

Okay, so I suppose you are saying if I went after the correct FP daily and got the main event building then converted empty space to 50FP/day production.

Yes. Which for the 100 FP/day player is a fair comparison. For the well developed player they're likely not converting empty space so gains will be more incremental.

 

[Emberguard]

Perhaps it was years ago when event buildings hadn't moved so far forward? These days you can add 50-100FP production per day per event if that's your priority. For free.

Because, for me, it would be a waste of space. I don't need another 75 FPs.

Okay, so I suppose you are saying if I went after the correct FP daily and got the main event building then converted empty space to 50FP/day production.

Yeah early on you could easily use one event to exclusively go for Chain Link / standalone buildings that provide Forge Points and the next do the same but for Fighting boosts (or vice versa)

Though if the Stage of Ages keeps popping up you could just go for that and it'd serve both functions. However when I got 100 FP per event on a brand new city, that was using the Diamond Coach back when it was 150(?) diamonds or something, now it's 475 diamonds.

So if a player wanted that kind of instant growth on a new world it'd require deliberate and conscious effort to get those diamonds for a brand new player. That might mean Guild Expedition (hoping they keep the diamonds with the reward rebalance later today) or doing Guild Battlegrounds.

Though the latest Events are also seeing quite the power creep so maybe that'll make up for what they won't be getting with the diamond coach

 

[mcbluefire]

While I completely agree with the events being a clear option for the early player, I would not ignore the long term benefits of FP GBs. FP/sqr & FP total over game play.

For me the game is about being an FP engine that aids the newer players through generous stix to brix, 2.0 drops in power levels, reward drops for guild activities, and just help from a mentor.

I suppose, in the end there are only arguably two or three GBs that would be considered FP "only" so I don't see the downside of including them in the portfolio, especially when the long term benefits outweigh the short-term sudo break-even simple math. I found the FP GBs to be a major boost in the beginning and over the long term they have contributed significantly to Arc180 and other GBs for myself, friends, and guildmates.

For some FP becomes worthless after a while, perhaps that is due to being 'done' with your own GBs or wanting to focus on attacking only. More power to you! Not every player is just here to get attacks in and pick up rewards and the math doesn't support an actual downside to growing FP trees.

Happy forging!

 

[Kronan]

Going to get everyone to hopefully, chortle, laugh - or at least smile...


A new CEO was hired to take over a struggling company.

The CEO who was stepping down met with him privately and presented him with three numbered envelopes.

“Open these if you run into serious trouble,” he said. "They're numbered, so follow the progression when you do."

Well, three months later sales and profits were still way down and the new CEO was catching a lot of heat.

He began to panic but then he remembered the envelopes. He went to his drawer and took out the first envelope.

The message read, “Blame your predecessor.”

Brilliant! The new CEO called a press conference and explained that the previous CEO had left him with a much bigger mess than was realized at the time, and it was fixable, but would take a bit longer to clean it up. He assured his attendees confidently that everything would be put back on the right track.

Satisfied with his comments, the press – and Wall Street – responded positively.

He said to himself - that letter really helped, but I hope to not use anymore of them.

So...another quarter went by and the company hadn't made the turn back up yet.

Still struggling with a few pesky problems, but...having learned from his previous experience, the CEO sat down one nite at his desk, weary from a long day. With a glass of neat scotch, he remembered he had some help, and quickly opened his second envelope.

The message read, “Get tough! Blame the innocent, and Reorganize.”

So he fired the wrong key essential people, consolidated divisions and cut costs everywhere he could. He also raised prices and even neglected his installed base of customers.

Wall Street, and the press, applauded his efforts.

But again, it was a harsh reality. 3 months passed and the company was still substantialy short on sales and profits.

The CEO wasn't sure what to do. He would have to figure out how to get through another tough earnings call.

Then he had an ephipany! I have 1 more letter!!

The CEO rushed to his office, closed the door and opened the third envelope.

The message said, “Prepare three envelopes.”