Season's End Strategies: Point System

[Chazar]

The current point system seems strange. For example, suppose there are 9 turns left to play, you're in the mid-game and have 5000 gold to spend. It appears to me that the best strategy is to stop right there and keep the gold in order to maximize the points:

• Buying a red dragon costs 2468 gold, plus 17 upkeep for 4 turns. Thus you loose 24 and gain only 5 points for one Level5 unit. The second dragon, being 4/5 produced, does not bring anything (am I right here?!).
• Buying spiders plus their upkeep costs 920 gold, i.e. 9 points, while you gain 8 points for the four 2 level units produced, so a net gain of -1.
• Buying a heavy infantery plus upkeep for the remaining 9 turns costs 380 (= 200 + 4 * sum [0,1,1,2,2,3,3,4,4]), so you loose 3-4 points in gold and get 9 points for level 1 units, i.e. a net gain of 6 points

From this I deduce that if the season's end is nigh, one better sticks to producing cheap one turners. This is boring and destroys the proper gameplay.

The real question is: can one red dragon bring you 28 points in just 5 turns?

The dragon options looses 19 points, plus the 9 points that you would gain by choosing the heavy infantry option. That would mean that the dragon must help you take at least one city away from the enemy, that you would not be able to obtain otherwise, to just break even.

I think the linear 1 point per unit level is a bit off, and there should be more points for higher-level units, representing their actual strategic value. Similarly, the points for gold should reduce slowly as the gold amount increases, i.e. 20 points for 2000 gold is fine, but then maybe 36 only for 4000 gold, etc. Another thing is unproduced units: it might be worthwhile to delay so that you get to have the last turn, so that the enemy loose one full round of production - especially if the enemy then has lots of unfinished units in production. I think this can be huge.

What does anyone else think? Are you altering your game strategies during for season's end?

[Moonknight]

I wasn't until you posted this...

[smursh]

I'm still playing normally. I figure if any game is that close a bad strategy such as buying lt inf instead of hv inf could cost battles/cities and cause me to lose more.

[Argammon]

Imo mid-high level heroes are undervalued.

[Igor]

May be to count units in production, that has good potential. Red dragons as production, in 10 turns will mean twice more than such one as an ally.

[tabanli]

The only time I have more than 2500 gold is when I have 5 heroes and I definitely need another one. Otherwise I buy units. Hero chance decreases rapidly after 5 heros.

I think discussing red dragon alone is not good, it should be based on the land and opponents strategy. Some people use Valkyrie-Elephant so they may not need a red. If you occupy a neutral and get Pegasi, again you may skip the red. But there is an overall principle you have to follow.

You must produce morale units at least at one city: Elephants on land, Mammoth on Snow and/or Red Dragon-Pegasi. In my opinion Crusader just doesn't cut it after the mid game.

You must produce fear units at least at one city: Yeti, Medusa, Devil or Kraken on Sea. Although Yeti is also weak after the midgame just like crusader, he has warding which will protect your stack to loose a unit to ambush.

You must produce siege units at least at one city: Battering Ram, Catapult, Sandworm

You must produce specialty attackers-defenders-meat units at well protected or deep cities: Heavy Cavalary- Giants-Minatours, Scorpions-Demons, Gryphons-Elements-Green Dragon etc.

Contrary to common believe, you must start producing Great Archon or Archon around the midgame.

You must produce good one turn-two turn defenders at many of your cities: Heavy Infantary, Dwarfs, Pikeman, Spiders etc.

So based on your map, occupied neutrals and your opponents strategy buy what is not available and needed. Produce expensive units at well protected cities.