Proposal - Change Hades miracle

    Hello everyone,


    Whilst there are many miracles that may need some adjustments as some as useless, there is one that is being overpowered and is being heavily abused - and that's Hades.


    Currently, each level provides the following bonuses:

    1 20% of the resource costs for all units that die during fights in their own cities are credited back as marble units.

    2 30% of the resource costs for all units that die during fights in their own cities are credited back as marble units.

    3 40% of the resource costs for all units that die during fights in their own cities are credited back as marble units.

    4 50% of the resource costs for all units that die during fights in their own cities are credited back as marble units.

    5 80% of the resource costs for all units that die during fights in their own cities are credited back as marble units.


    Everyone knows how it works, what are the numbers and so on but still, to make sure everyone is on the same page and to articulate my proposal, i'll run the numbers below.

    Given that that previous updates allowed reducers to be upgraded to level 50 that provide a 50% reduction of recourses needed to train troops/ships, even thought Hades was unbalanced before, it just got even more balanced.

    Calculus is simple: each 1k Generals killed in a battle = 40.000 marble.

    50 rss = 1 gp --> 50.000 rss = 1000 gp -> Lvl 5 hades gives back 80% of units --> 50.000 x 0.8 = 40.000


    Now, let's take into account the reducers. instead of spending 50 rss for 1 gp, you actually spend 25 resources for 1 gp for which, if killed in a battle in your own cities, you gain 40 marble.

    25 rss spent -> 40 marble gained.

    secondly, let's say you're being attacked and in this battle the loses are even, you lose 50%, enemy loses 50%. this means that for each 1gp you lose, enemy loses 1 gp, so each round, you spend 25 rss per 1 gp but since 2 gp are being killed in the battle, you actually gain 80 resources.

    25 rss spent -> 80 marble gained.


    It just makes no sense to gain more than 3 times the resources you spend to train troops/ships, it is understandable to gain something back, maybe 80-100% of your spent rss, but in my opinion, 300% is way too much.


    Imagine this - you take a city of yours, get 500k gp, move to the enemy area and then - if you get attacked, you can actually gain from hades around 40m marble. If you don't get attacked, exactly for this reason, you get to freely pillage around the enemies as they avoid attacking you because of the huge gains you get from hades.


    This all sums up why I'm saying this is overpowered.


    Moving to why i'm saying this is heavily abused - there are many players that abuse this using their multi accounts or friends.

    The most abundant resource is wood - just imagine you could build a lot of ram ships and attack yourself. multi accounts spend 25 resources and the abuser gets 40 marble and it is very easy to detect the players that abuse it - either they have huge offensive points or defensive points.

    The effort to create rams is very small, likewise the time needed to attack someone - few clicks to train, few clicks to attack and bam - millions of marble on main accounts.


    My proposal:

    Reduce the % Hades gives - I believe this is very easy to do.

    Currently, each level provides the following bonuses:

    1 4% of the resource costs for all units that die during fights in their own cities are credited back as marble units.

    2 8% of the resource costs for all units that die during fights in their own cities are credited back as marble units.

    3 12% of the resource costs for all units that die during fights in their own cities are credited back as marble units.

    4 16% of the resource costs for all units that die during fights in their own cities are credited back as marble units.

    5 20% of the resource costs for all units that die during fights in their own cities are credited back as marble units.


    With my proposed level, in case you are being attacked - you still gain some resourses which would cover almost the whole your costs.

    you spend 25 rss for 1 gp - 2 gp are being killed in a battle (1 each side) -> you gain 20 marble -> still sounds like a good trade off, spend wood/sulphur - gain 80% of it as marble which is actually the most desirable resource.

    spend 25 rss -> 20 marble gained

    Whilst this would encourage fighting as the gains from Hades are not that huge anymore, it would also discourage abuses by making them less profitable.


    On this topic - as a feature to Hades - proposal from my colleague was to be allowed to select resource to be gained, not just marble but to select before activating - crystal for example or wine.

    Whilst this may be difficult to be implemented, changing the % numbers I believe could be fairly simple.


    Let me know what you think.

    Thanks for reading, enjoy the game!

    They've already removed the banking issue, I think that solves a lot of the problem. It would still be good to reduce it to 50%, and if it's reduced less, they should give moves to those who have cities in Hades so they aren't penalized, since there are players, like me, who spent Ambrose to build their cities with Hades.

    You're getting extra marble to offset the citizen cost, though. In your example, you're gaining nothing from the citizen cost of the troops.


    Plus, your optimal scenario involves someone sloppily attacking you so they're losing at least as many units as you are.


    Also, the game has something called the premium trader, and for the low cost of 7 to 12 ambro, you can convert wood into any resource you want.

    I use Hades to convert sulphur to marble with other player helping me and me helping him.


    I train batches of 1x Steam Giant + 30x Mortar to convert the most resource that I have excess - sulphur.

    Mortar is the best unit to use because it has the most ratio of resource per citeizen of all units/ships.


    If you think it's easy to do this you are wrong. You need more than a few clicks to use it well and spend constant 4 hours on screen each time i use it.

    That's why I was laughing when this was considered "abuse".


    You have to train a bunch of units, coordinate with someone else attacking you, let them kill all your units, and reimburse the player who attacked you.


    Mortars alone are 1550 total res and 5 citizens so you sacrifice 5 citizens, 150 wood, 625 sulfur for 1,240 marble. You're also limited on how many mortars you can build because you don't likely want them hanging around and draining 25.8g/h. We can generously put this at 2.58 marble / hour assuming marble is 10g each.


    That means any unit that's created is break even after 181h just from gold drain alone and this ignores the opportunity cost of 5 citizens.


    You'd likely have to combine this with Demeter's Garden for it to be profitable.


    Can you explain how many mortars you train, what your citizen turnaround is, and about how much marble you make?

    Edited 2 times, last by User12996 ().

    I use 13 barracks 44 to train mortars.

    In the world I'm in, a mortar only costs 3 citizens.


    Since there's a bug where the barracks doesn't recognize this lower cost, I can only train 5 912 (city citizen capacity) / 5 (cost of citizens in the normal world).

    Therefore, in each city I can make:

    - 39x (1x steam giant + 30x mortar) = 39 steam giant + 1,170 mortar

    -> total of:

    -- 507 Steam Giant

    -- 15,210 Mortar

    This production takes me about 5/6 days.


    As soon as these units are trained, I start the refund phase.


    - I activate Hades

    - I send 13 (cities) x 13 slots (action points) = 169 waves of 1x Steam Giant + 30x Mortar to "Free" my 14th city which is permanently occupied by a neighbor/friend from the island.


    Since he has 30 balloons in the occupation, I always lose all the mortars and the Steam Giant dies against (my) wall. This way the battle doesn't generate a 2nd round and ends there.

    The 169 waves accumulate at the "entrance" of the city waiting for the previous wave to generate its battle. Each battle only happens 15 seconds after the previous one, so melting these 507 waves takes at least 2 hours and 20 minutes.


    In each wave I recover 28,000 marble.

    Which gives a total of about 14 million marble for the price of 1,700,000 wood + 7,150,000 sulfur and 1.5 million gold not earned in those days with the reduction of citizens and another 1 million in gold in maintenance in those 2/3 hours melting the units.


    My sulfur production allows me to do this twice a month.


    This game mode already existed before they increased the levels of the reducers. It was less profitable, but it was already worthwhile (we spent 68% training the units and recovered 80%). Now it has become much more profitable if we train the units with reducers at 50 (50% -> 80%).

    14,160,000 total marble for a 1.6x return with an opportunity cost of 2.5m gold (250k to 500k marble).


    Do you use Demeter's Garden to recover your population? Do you lose all citizen production in your cities? If so, how long does it take you to recover?

    I don't have any islands in this miracle, nor do I intend to use it.

    I don't see much advantage in using it.

    In about 9 days I fully recover the population.


    I don't lose my entire population because there's a bug in the game that doesn't account for the reduction in citizen costs when training units.

    In normal worlds, 1 mortar costs 5 citizens. In this world, it only costs 3. But when I try to train it, it always tells me I don't have enough citizens. Only by considering 5 citizens per mortar does it allow me to put that many mortars into production.

    In short, I always end up with 40% of the total citizens that the cities can support.


    By my calculations, in those 9 days I lose 500,000 gold per city -> 6,500,000 gold just in population loss.

    If I lose another 2/3 million in maintenance during the recovery day, I receive 14 million for 9 million resources + 10 million gold.

    If I go to the market, the lowest price to buy marble (and very little quantity) is 10 gold/piece -> 140 million gold.

    The highest price to sell wood and sulfur is 8 gold/piece -> 72 million.


    That is, I am doubling my investment if I consider the in-game currency.


    I use this because I don't invest ambrosia in the game. Even if the yield were worse, I would continue doing it because my world has a +50% sulfur production bonus. I have 6 sulfur cities (and only 5 marble cities without the world production bonus) that produce a total of 600,000 sulfur per day. It's my only way, without spending money in the game, to "convert" a resource I have in excess into a more useful resource that I need.

    Edited once, last by DIAS ().

    Gotcha. So you don't lose any resource production during that time?


    So you're basically making a profit of roughly 4m marble.


    Thanks for the numbers.

    Only on islands that have the most developed mines.

    Only in the city that has the Hades miracle do I have to remove the citizens from the sawmill to get this quantity of mortars to produce. But in 24 hours I already have enough citizens to return to full production.

    So my question to you all: why don't you use premium trader to transform sulphur into marble? It's the built in function to transform rss.

    Why go through the trouble when you can exchange 1:1, without losing any gold, citizens, rss?

    Quote from Diury

    So my question to you all: why don't you use premium trader to transform sulphur into marble? It's the built in function to transform rss.

    Why go through the trouble when you can exchange 1:1, without losing any gold, citizens, rss?

    You get more marble and you don't have to burn a premium trader.

    Quote from User12996
    Quote from Diury

    So my question to you all: why don't you use premium trader to transform sulphur into marble? It's the built in function to transform rss.

    Why go through the trouble when you can exchange 1:1, without losing any gold, citizens, rss?

    You get more marble and you don't have to burn a premium trader.

    As you can see from the calculations I made, based on the resource prices in my market, I have a conversion rate of 1:2 in "gold" or 1:1.6 in resources (wood + sulfur -> marble), much better than the 1:1 you get using the merchant.

    And I don't need to spend any money on the game. All the ambrosia I have was earned at Christmas events more than 8 years ago.

    Quote from DIAS
    Quote from User12996
    Quote from Diury

    So my question to you all: why don't you use premium trader to transform sulphur into marble? It's the built in function to transform rss.

    Why go through the trouble when you can exchange 1:1, without losing any gold, citizens, rss?

    You get more marble and you don't have to burn a premium trader.

    As you can see from the calculations I made, based on the resource prices in my market, I have a conversion rate of 1:2 in "gold" or 1:1.6 in resources (wood + sulfur -> marble), much better than the 1:1 you get using the merchant.

    And I don't need to spend any money on the game. All the ambrosia I have was earned at Christmas events more than 8 years ago.

    Yeah, you end up trading at about 14m marble compared to 9m marble and 10m gold (10m gold ~= 1m marble).