Feedback Tenth Anniversary Event

[MooingCat]

As for the Orrery, if you want it fully leveled you need 11 grand prizes if you have the surprise box, 13 without it. That is 362 / 426 tiles. On average a dice will give you 3.5, so that means you need 104 / 122 dice rolls, or 10400 / 12200 paper money. As I go over in my previous post, you will have 80 dice rolls from the free event currency, + whatever you gain from incidents/newsletter/minigame rewards. So if you plan on spending all your currency on one day for a daily special, you're probably looking at around 90-100 dice rolls, for around 300-350 tiles.

That will be more if you play daily. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the first time you land in the upper-right corner on a given day you get a gold dice, so if you spread your event currency over 11/13 different days that is 11/13 free rolls (still only worth 3.5 advancements each, as you can't impact how close to the gold dice you get each day). The daily goal will add 40 paper money per day, so 840 over the event if you play daily, or another 8.5 dice rolls. So that's another 70-80 tiles. You'll also have 4-5 more gold dice that you can use for 6-rolls, so that's 24-30 tiles. So around 100 additional tiles, for around 400-450 tiles total.

This will also give you a few daily specials (3 on average) from the daily goal - but you have little control over which daily specials you get, and you also lose daily specials by not always having the +5%. Definitely not worth it over spending all currency on 1-2 days for daily specials you truly want if your focus is daily specials.

So, if you play daily you should be able to get the Orrery fully leveled, but if you want to spend all your currency on one or two days you probably won't be able to, even if you have the surprise box. If you're lucky it's possible, but no way close to guaranteed.

I definitely don't think an event celebrating the 10th anniversary of the game should make players decide between daily specials or the main building - out of any event to be generous on this is it!

 

[xivarmy]

After playing and studying the event a bit, I think it's very underwhelming in terms of daily specials. My rough estimates is that you will only get around 4-6 daily specials on average over the event, which is very low considering it's a special occasion! Sure, you get some other buildings as well, but most of them are very outdated at this point. Let's go over some numbers:

As far as I can tell you can get 7970 paper money for free: 21*120 (daily logins) + 37*50 (rush quests) + 19*100 (daily quests) + 500 (milestone) + 1000 (milestone) + 200 (starting) = 7970. It also looks like you can get a decent amount from incidents, so let's say 9000 paper money.

That's 9000/100 = 90 rolls, let's just say 100 to round it and to account for some gold dice, currency gained from minigame, etc.

From data I've been able to gather it seems like a board has between 12 and 16 boxes on average, so let's use 16 to be generous. That means half the rolls will land on a chest, so around 50 chests across the event. Also from the data I've been able to gather it seems like chests are 66% small, 33% big, which gives an average chance of 13.33% to get the daily special with the +5% boost.

50*0.1333 = 6.66 Daily Specials.

So in the best case scenario you're looking at 6-7 on average, though you'll most likely not get the best case scenario when the daily special you want is the option. That's the 2nd issue:

After you get the reward from the spot you land on, a new one will be generated, but this will always be of the same type. The board only resets each midnight, so that means you are stuck with the same board all day. The number of chest slots on the board is not the same every day, this means that some days you'll have more chests than others. That means that if you're unlucky, you'll have few chests the day the daily special you want is available. If it's 12, for example, the average daily specials drops from 6.66 to 5.

Oh and this also assumes you can spend all your currency in one day, which unless you wait until the final day you can't really do.

I've made a simulation of the event like I've done for a few previous events, and that tells the same story. I tried modifying the simulations a bit as well to account for strategic uses of gold dice, but that had minimum impact. You can find the simulation below if you're interested, though it's not very polished

Spoiler: Python Script

import random
import numpy as np
from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
import math
simnum = 10000
chestsOnBoard = 14
startingMoney = 9000
goldDice = 4
# In practice the boost will cost 1 gold dice, so just set number of gold dice to one less than you have, it's a good enough approximation.
# When starting you should roll dice until you can get to the first gold dice with one of your gold dice. Then from there use the gold dice you
# just gained to get to the +5% spot. So you use 2 gold dice, but gain 1. The gold dice spot is replaced with +125 money from now on that day.
boost = True
# Chances unboosted, weighted for 2/3 small, 1/2 big chests
chances = [0.05,0.06,0.07,0.05,0.06,0.07,0.12,0.13,0.14]
if boost:
    chances = [x + 0.05 for x in chances]
res = []
res2 = []
for _ in range(simnum):
    ds = 0
    m = startingMoney
    # Set up board
    slots = [0]*28
    for i in range(chestsOnBoard):
        slots[i] = random.choice(chances)
    random.shuffle(slots)
    slots.insert(0,0)
    slots.insert(11,2)
    slots.insert(16,0)
    slots.insert(27,0)
    pos = 16 #Starting at +5% spot
    rolls = 0
    while True:
        m -= 100
        if m < 0:
            break
        rolls += 1
        roll = random.randint(1,6)
        pos += roll
        pos = pos % 32
        if slots[pos] == 0:
            continue
        if slots[pos] == 2:
            m += 125
            continue
        ds += 1 if random.random() <= slots[pos] else 0
        slots[pos] = random.choice(chances)
    res.append(ds)
rem = 0
for _ in range(simnum):
    ds = 0
    m = startingMoney
    slots = [0]*28
    for i in range(chestsOnBoard):
        slots[i] = random.choice(chances)
    random.shuffle(slots)
    slots.insert(0,0)
    slots.insert(11,2)
    slots.insert(16,0)
    slots.insert(27,0)
    pos = 16
    rolls = 0
    g = goldDice
    while True:
        if g > 0 and slots[(pos+6) % 32] > (0.1+boost*0.05):
            g -= 1
            roll = 6
        else:
            m -= 100
            if m < 0:
                break
            rolls += 1
            roll = random.randint(1,6)
        pos += roll
        pos = pos % 32
        if slots[pos] == 0:
            continue
        if slots[pos] == 2:
            m += 125
            continue
        ds += 1 if random.random() <= slots[pos] else 0
        slots[pos] = random.choice(chances)
    res2.append(ds)
    rem += g
print(np.average(res)," - Average Daily Specials (just rolls)")
print(np.average(res2)," - Average Daily Specials (rolling gold dice when big chest is 6 slots away)")
showplot = True
if showplot:
    label = "Daily Specials"
    rmin = min(res)
    rmax = max(res)+1
    freq, bins, patches = plt.hist(res, edgecolor='white', label=label, bins=range(rmin, rmax, 1))
    plt.close()
    fig, ax = plt.subplots(2,1,figsize=(10,10))
    fig.suptitle("Tenth Anniversary")
    ax[0].hist(res, edgecolor='white', label=label, bins=range(rmin, rmax, 1))
   
    bin_centers = np.diff(bins)*0.5 + bins[:-1]
    n = 0
    for fr, x, patch in zip(freq, bin_centers, patches):
        height = (freq[n]/len(res))
        ax[0].annotate("{}".format(height),
                        # top left corner of the histogram bar
                        xy=(x, height*len(res)),
                        # offsetting label position above its bar
                        xytext=(0, 0.2),
                        # Offset (in points) from the *xy* value
                        textcoords="offset points",
                        ha='center', va='bottom'
                        )
        n = n+1
    ax[0].set_yticklabels([])
    ax[0].set_title("Daily Specials Only Rolls")
    ax[0].set_ylabel("Probability")
    ax[0].set_xlabel("Number")
    label1 = "Distribution"
    rmin1 = min(res2)
    rmax1 = max(res2)+1
    freq, bins, patches = plt.hist(res2,edgecolor='white', label=label1, bins=range(rmin1,rmax1,1))
    ax[1].hist(res2, edgecolor='white', label=label1, bins=range(rmin1, rmax1, 1))
   
    bin_centers = np.diff(bins)*0.5 + bins[:-1]
    n = 0
    for fr, x, patch in zip(freq, bin_centers, patches):
        height = (freq[n]/len(res2))
        ax[1].annotate("{}".format(height),
                    xy = (x, height*len(res2)),  # top left corner of the histogram bar
                    xytext = (0,0.2),             # offsetting label position above its bar
                    textcoords = "offset points", # Offset (in points) from the *xy* value
                    ha = 'center', va = 'bottom'
                    )
        n = n+1
   
    ax[1].set_yticklabels([])
    ax[1].set_title("Daily Specials w/ Gold Dice (roll when big chest is 6 tiles away)")
    ax[1].set_ylabel("Probability")
    ax[1].set_xlabel("Daily Specials")
    plt.show()

As I haven't had the daily special of interest to try it yet - one thing i'm interested in is the functionality of the "upgraded board" when you "age up". Do you have any info on how that works and if that improves the special rate as you go longer on your chosen daily special day?

 

[MooingCat]

As I haven't had the daily special of interest to try it yet - one thing i'm interested in is the functionality of the "upgraded board" when you "age up". Do you have any info on how that works and if that improves the special rate as you go longer on your chosen daily special day?

As far as I can tell it only increases the amount of coins/supplies etc you get, I didn't see any changes in DS%

 

[xivarmy]

As for the Orrery, if you want it fully leveled you need 11 grand prizes if you have the surprise box, 13 without it. That is 362 / 426 tiles. On average a dice will give you 3.5, so that means you need 104 / 122 dice rolls, or 10400 / 12200 paper money. As I go over in my previous post, you will have 80 dice rolls from the free event currency, + whatever you gain from incidents/newsletter/minigame rewards. So if you plan on spending all your currency on one day for a daily special, you're probably looking at around 90-100 dice rolls, for around 300-350 tiles.

That will be more if you play daily. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the first time you land in the upper-right corner on a given day you get a gold dice, so if you spread your event currency over 11/13 different days that is 11/13 free rolls (still only worth 3.5 advancements each, as you can't impact how close to the gold dice you get each day). The daily goal will add 40 paper money per day, so 840 over the event if you play daily, or another 8.5 dice rolls. So that's another 70-80 tiles. You'll also have 4-5 more gold dice that you can use for 6-rolls, so that's 24-30 tiles. So around 100 additional tiles, for around 400-450 tiles total.

This will also give you a few daily specials (3 on average) from the daily goal - but you have little control over which daily specials you get, and you also lose daily specials by not always having the +5%. Definitely not worth it over spending all currency on 1-2 days for daily specials you truly want if your focus is daily specials.

So, if you play daily you should be able to get the Orrery fully leveled, but if you want to spend all your currency on one or two days you probably won't be able to, even if you have the surprise box. If you're lucky it's possible, but no way close to guaranteed.

I definitely don't think an event celebrating the 10th anniversary of the game should make players decide between daily specials or the main building - out of any event to be generous on this is it!

As for the value of the free golden dice, i get the average value of it as 4.3 because you're less likely to land 1 away from the golden dice square than further since the *only* way you wind up 1 away is if you were 7 away and rolled a 6 - because if you were already 6 or closer you'd have just used the golden dice. Similarly 2 can only come up from 8 away and rolled a 6 or 7 away and rolled a 5. 6 away has the most options as you could land there from any of 7-12 away.

Overall, based on probability based calculations:

Golden Die Value​	​
6​	28.57%​
5​	23.81%​
4​	19.05%​
3​	14.28%​
2​	9.52%​
1​	4.76%​

= 4.3

 

[xivarmy]

As far as I can tell it only increases the amount of coins/supplies etc you get, I didn't see any changes in DS%

Darn - I was hoping that it might upgrade some number of the small chests to big chests or something of that nature.

 

[xivarmy]

Now having tried it quite thoroughly today, I'll join the chorus of disappointment. The golden dice square turning to paper money after winning it once foiled my scheme to use those well. The special chance is as bad as it looked. I was quite fortunate to walk out with 4 specials dumping it all with the % boost active. I did try a batch of diamond-purchased paper money to increase my sample size. I guess I at least got lots of antique dealer crap

I think I'm probably on track to just finish the orrery if I care enough to (probably not on beta). Which puts it in the territory of "need surprise box or diamonds".

Putting aside balance, the minigame's not much fun at its core. I'm not sure how much could be done to adjust that either. There's not much room for strategic decisions in the game - i'd thought perhaps the "upgrade when you age up" might be what was supposed to encourage that (i.e. the more boards you clear the more lucrative it gets) - but it appeared to me as Cat mentioned that the prizes one actually cares about don't upgrade in any way. It feels like the kind of board game you play when you're 6: chutes and ladders or something. Where the golden dice is when you cheat when someone's back is turned And yet they're still not that impactful.

Random thoughts to make key squares more appealing and worthy of "cheating"(using a golden dice) to hit them since that's the only real strategy to the game is choosing when to use your golden dice:
- if the +5% chance stacked some number of times, or it turned into an alternate also interesting bonus when it was active instead of just refreshing the timer - maybe to stay on theme it could be a 100% daily special if you land on it again while the +5% boost is active (wouldn't even be unbalanced considering it still costs at least 6 rolls to get back around to it again - and probably a golden dice if you want to take advantage)
- if the golden dice square alternated dice-money-dice at least instead of dice-money-money-money.
- if the daily objective was at least 3 or 4 times more valuable.
- if the grand king & queen were actually worth building in any sense whatsoever.
- if some of those old historical buildings got new buffs to make them *slightly* relevant as something other than AD fodder.

 

[planetofthehumans2]

you don't need a full round: only 1/3 or so

I'm not sure how you can say so many words and not have any opinion on which is better, all you said is you gotta spend them either way and I want to know what's the most advantageous.

I spent 3k monies and got 2 daily specials and one entire round of the board was 1-2 moves per roll yikes (or not, same opprotunity to get the special).

 

[CrashBoom]

yippie got my 3rd grand king upgrade today
and have also 1 queen ugrade already

so 4 upgrades and no building

really makes fun

 

[one day flower]

This morning, when I picked up two coloured events on the map, no box appeared. I don't know if any paper money was added to stock. Did other players have this too?

I'm using firefox latest version.

 

[beelzebob666]

yeah - that bug still persists... as was mentioned already in the respective bug thread

 

[Fire Witch]

I don't know if any paper money was added to stock

You get the paper money. The incident pop up does not show up.

 

[Lydia73]

After playing and studying the event a bit, I think it's very underwhelming in terms of daily specials. My rough estimates is that you will only get around 4-6 daily specials on average over the event, which is very low considering it's a special occasion! Sure, you get some other buildings as well, but most of them are very outdated at this point. Let's go over some numbers:

As far as I can tell you can get 7970 paper money for free: 21*120 (daily logins) + 37*50 (rush quests) + 19*100 (daily quests) + 500 (milestone) + 1000 (milestone) + 200 (starting) = 7970. It also looks like you can get a decent amount from incidents, so let's say 9000 paper money.

I don't think on average you'll get over 1000 PaperMoney from incidents - I have 199 so far.

And as the events goes for 21 days it should be 20 daily quests? although there are 61 quests (maybe a mistake, otherwise it would be 21 daily because of 40 rush quests)

I have 6 rounds so far and needed 8,7 rolls on average - that would be 95 rolls overall - I don't think that this will work out in the end.

 

[MooingCat]

Has anyone gotten the cherry set yet? Seeing as this event probably replaces spring, it would suck if you can't get that

 

[-Alin-]

Has anyone gotten the cherry set yet? Seeing as this event probably replaces spring, it would suck if you can't get that

Nothing so far.

And I don't think it replaces spring.

 

[MooingCat]

Nothing so far.

And I don't think it replaces spring.

I find it likely it does. Spring event started February 4th on beta last year, so we're now 1 month later and we don't even have any spoilers yet (which usually appear a month before the beta launch date). The live event started 25th of March last year, which is a week before the tenth anniversary event is set to start. So that means spring would at least be shifted to end of April, when Archaeology normally start, which would shift that, etc. So no matter what one event is probably gone from the calendar.

So the fact that we have no spoilers yet, and the fact that we have daily specials from previous spring events, makes me think spring is the one to go.

 

[Harold Nat]

So the fact that we have no spoilers yet, and the fact that we have daily specials from previous spring events, makes me think spring is the one to go.

I agree. I guess that next year the Spring event might be back or hopefully replaced with something more appealing.
Some Spring buildings (Sakura set, Hanami bridge, Pagoda etc.) might not appear in this event as daily specials but they are widely available in the AD, so it's not a big loss, I think.

 

[AGranolaBar]

Dear Inno, since this is a 10th Anniversary how about a - once in a lifetime - 1 expansion reward for finishing the Event? Save some face.

 

[.Chris]

I usually hold back with cries of "this or that sucks, improve it" BUT in the case of a 10th anniversary event I do have to say that the rewards for the players are pretty underwhelming.

My biggest concern though is the RNG influence of the dice-based minigame. In other events you had a chance between 1, 2 or 3 advances, you coul be pretty sure that you would get in the "average range" an thus reaching the goal unless you are really unlucky. The gap Inno has to balance between unlucky players with a lot of 1 rolls (not getting the main reward at all) and lucky players (advancing very far on the board) will imho lead to a lot of frustration.

 

[GorrothBeta]

The fact that this event will likely replace the Spring event is very disappointing. Indeed, given how stingy Inno is for this event, even if the Cherry Garden set were to appear as a daily special (I haven't gotten it to appear yet on the test server), there's no way I'm spending diamonds to get so few kits. Furthermore, now we don't have a reliable way to get more kits for what is still one of the best and fun sets. How shortsigthed on Inno's part.

Moreover, instead of creating a unique and useful building, one of which you could only get a single copy of just to show "I was there", Inno goes the lazy route of creating yet more buildings with ho-hum stats that you could potentially litter your city with if you're only willing to spend the cash.

Finally, the fact that a player has so little control over the game makes for a boring experience. After all, if a computer can play the game for me simply by rolling a die, how is this any fun? And to think that there are so many better games to ape other than Monopoly... Did the Wildlife event just exhaust all of Inno's creative resources?

"Shortsighted, stingy, uninspired and boring" sound like the perfect description for Inno nowadays. Maybe this event is very apt after all.

As it stands, it's just another event to play through and forget about.

 

[Ironrooster]

yippie got my 3rd grand king upgrade today
and have also 1 queen ugrade already

so 4 upgrades and no building

really makes fun

I have 3 grand king level 1 buildings and no upgrades. LOL