Tarantofabio
Worker
Hi there, guys.
(I apologize in advance for any mistakes. I´m not very skilled in english grammar)
I would say i am an experienced player of EOTU. I love the insane mode challanges and have completed all up to 3.1 (currently working on 3.2).
I also like to do some "cience" to better understand the resources at my disposal to better plan my moves. So i ran all the levels innumerable times in order to complete them. I have used multiple setups, strategies and combinations of ants and upgrades. Not to mention watched the top players videos.
In that endevour, i have come to realise that upgrading the ants doesn't seem very appealling at the moment.
Let me explain better why i have come to that conclusion.
Lets take the exemple of the leafcutter major. The cost of a lvl 1 major is 150, lvl 2 is 300, lvl 3 is 450.
If you clash 3 lvl 1 major against 1 lvl 3 major, the result is favorable to the lvl 1 ants.
If you clash say 15 lvl 1 major against 5 lvl 3 majors, the result is even more favorable to the lvl 1 ants.
That tells me that "peer to peer" (strenght / cost) the lvl 1 ants are superior to the lvl 3 ants.
The first apparent advantage of having the upgraded ants would be the respawn cost. The respawn cost of the ant isn't increased when the ant is upgraded. Taking the second exemple (15 lvl 1 x 5 lvl 3), you would spend 375 food to spawn the 15 lvl 1 major army, while you would spend only 125 food to spawn the 5 lvl 3 major army.
But even though having the "numbers army" implies bigger respawn cost, it would not be enought appealing to invest in upgrades to save food with less respawn cost if you could have a bigger army and, therefore, lose less ants in fights (saving respawn cost indirectly). In short, concerning respawn costs, the advatage of upgrading your ants is negated because you lose more antes since your army is less powerfull, thus bringing to waste the apparent respawn appeal of the upgrading strategy.
The other plausible incentive to upgrade the ants is the get the lvl 3 perk. The thing is from my experience, after playing almost all the levels in insane+challenge, its almost never efficient to upgrade your ants when you could just increase your numbers. The only exception i can remember is the 2.2 level where other colonies tries to invades your colony. In that level, you absolutely need the area of effect damage of the mortar ants, so you are forced to upgrade. Appart from that, just laying more lvl 1 tiles is the way to go.
That same dynamic applys to any ant in the game. Basically the game, in its current state, is saying that numbers is the key factor for power.
I understand that quantity is a big factor, and that is coherent to the swarm dynamic.
But i wonder if that isn't just a waste of a game dynamic. I mean, i feel like the game would be more interesting if there were a little more incentive in upgrading the ants.
One way to go about it would be to buff or seek more appealing lvl 3 abilities, so players would upgrade at least some of their ants to get the perk.
Other way to go about it would be to apply some cost reduction to upgrades, so it doesnt hurt so much to do so.
I would love to hear another player's opinion on this matter (and, of couse, our ant overlords, the game designers):
From the efficiency perspective, do you think it is worth to upgrade your ants? In what situations?
Do you think the game could improve somehow in that department?
(I apologize in advance for any mistakes. I´m not very skilled in english grammar)
I would say i am an experienced player of EOTU. I love the insane mode challanges and have completed all up to 3.1 (currently working on 3.2).
I also like to do some "cience" to better understand the resources at my disposal to better plan my moves. So i ran all the levels innumerable times in order to complete them. I have used multiple setups, strategies and combinations of ants and upgrades. Not to mention watched the top players videos.
In that endevour, i have come to realise that upgrading the ants doesn't seem very appealling at the moment.
Let me explain better why i have come to that conclusion.
Lets take the exemple of the leafcutter major. The cost of a lvl 1 major is 150, lvl 2 is 300, lvl 3 is 450.
If you clash 3 lvl 1 major against 1 lvl 3 major, the result is favorable to the lvl 1 ants.
If you clash say 15 lvl 1 major against 5 lvl 3 majors, the result is even more favorable to the lvl 1 ants.
That tells me that "peer to peer" (strenght / cost) the lvl 1 ants are superior to the lvl 3 ants.
The first apparent advantage of having the upgraded ants would be the respawn cost. The respawn cost of the ant isn't increased when the ant is upgraded. Taking the second exemple (15 lvl 1 x 5 lvl 3), you would spend 375 food to spawn the 15 lvl 1 major army, while you would spend only 125 food to spawn the 5 lvl 3 major army.
But even though having the "numbers army" implies bigger respawn cost, it would not be enought appealing to invest in upgrades to save food with less respawn cost if you could have a bigger army and, therefore, lose less ants in fights (saving respawn cost indirectly). In short, concerning respawn costs, the advatage of upgrading your ants is negated because you lose more antes since your army is less powerfull, thus bringing to waste the apparent respawn appeal of the upgrading strategy.
The other plausible incentive to upgrade the ants is the get the lvl 3 perk. The thing is from my experience, after playing almost all the levels in insane+challenge, its almost never efficient to upgrade your ants when you could just increase your numbers. The only exception i can remember is the 2.2 level where other colonies tries to invades your colony. In that level, you absolutely need the area of effect damage of the mortar ants, so you are forced to upgrade. Appart from that, just laying more lvl 1 tiles is the way to go.
That same dynamic applys to any ant in the game. Basically the game, in its current state, is saying that numbers is the key factor for power.
I understand that quantity is a big factor, and that is coherent to the swarm dynamic.
But i wonder if that isn't just a waste of a game dynamic. I mean, i feel like the game would be more interesting if there were a little more incentive in upgrading the ants.
One way to go about it would be to buff or seek more appealing lvl 3 abilities, so players would upgrade at least some of their ants to get the perk.
Other way to go about it would be to apply some cost reduction to upgrades, so it doesnt hurt so much to do so.
I would love to hear another player's opinion on this matter (and, of couse, our ant overlords, the game designers):
From the efficiency perspective, do you think it is worth to upgrade your ants? In what situations?
Do you think the game could improve somehow in that department?
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