Elvenar Sorcerers & Dragons – Day 09 [29%]

So, we’re in day 9 of Elvenar Sorcerers & Dragons chapter (see previous day at Elvenar Sorcerers & Dragons – Day 08). Today was a big day. Big on KP, big on research, big on construction and layout changes. Everything is big when it comes to dragons. And, hmm, sorcerers – I guess?.. 😉

City changes

Alright, today we have finally achieved the target footprint for our Elvenar Sorcerers & Dragons settlement. I.e. L4 Campus and 4/4/4 faculties. This is great! That’s one large settlement right there… But the job is far from done. All the faculties are currently only at L2, so we need to get them all to L4 ASAP. And it’s not even so that we can produce faster in the faculties, that’s not even a primary constraint. The main reason to focus on it is that production of apprentices depends on it, and that’s the factor that will be holding us back. The max production of apprentices is 294 a day, and we’re barely half way there…

In the more positive news, we have also unlocked 2 more expansions – one from research, and one from province negotiation. Sweet! I have immediately moved 2 willows in there, and started to construct 2 Arcane Libraries instead. Things are finally moving ahead with the rest of the city.

But these would be the last expansions for a while. I am stopping all map negotiation until the end of the chapter (to slow down KP inflow), and there is only one more research expansion, and it’s a while before I will get there. The good news though is that I am already 2 expansion ahead comparing to what I counted on in my target plan. There is still some more re-shuffling ahead!

Elvenar Sorcerers & Dragons progress

Hurray, we have managed to very successfully pass through the first tight spot in this chapter. Or should I say squeezed by 😉 I have managed to upgrade Campus to L4 right before I ran out of capacity on my KP bar. Now the coast is clear to deploy Portal Profits as necessary. These will be used at max efficiency, so there are no reasons to postpone doing this if that’s unavoidable.

And with that, the floodgates of research were open 😉 I needed about a 100 of double graduates to unlock both “A Library…” and “A Market…” research. Which I did with just 15% PP! Think about that – in order to do the same with L1 Campus I would have had to use 100% worth of PP. That’s a huge difference! It was so worth it to push hard for the max Campus.

So this is how our research looks like now:

As you can see, now we have plenty of open research to sink KPs into. So I am not even planning to postpone KP harvesting in 2* stage tomorrow until the last day. There should be no reason to, we should be able to absorb all these KPs now.

Portal Profits Unleashed

I have also dropped another 15% and another 15% of PPs to progress through non-declinable quests to produce a ton of double graduates. I am not producing any right now as the focus in on the upgrades. But if I wait for the quests, there is another quest after these that is to produce a ton of upgrade goods (20/20/20 productions), and I will be done by that time with upgrade goods.

Regardless, as I mentioned we will need to use a ton of PPs in this chapter, and now we operate at max PP efficiency. So there is no reason not to deploy some of those PPs right now even though we won’t need those graduates for research yet. They’ll just sit in the inventory 😉 So in total, I have used 45% worth of PPs so far, and we managed to do it with the maximum efficiency. Excellent result!

Elixir Tournament – 1* day

Today is the first day of the elixir tournament. First things first – I did not forget to put down Unleashed Unit Upgrade, and I did not forget to feed my brand new Fire Phoenix before the start of the tournament. I think we have achieved success already 😉

So, how did my well-fed L8 Fire Phoenix (+40% damage) perform? It’s official – it is nothing short of amazing. You’ve heard it here first 😉 I haven’t been that impressed since my L21->L25 Barracks upgrade. Results are very clear, and impact is massive and immediate.

I mean, look at those losses. 21 squad loss after 20 provinces?! This should be low enough to be recovered completely before the next round. I know, it is only 1* stage, but in my best recorded tournaments I never lost less than 30 squads in 1*. In my worst ones… I don’t want to think about it (that would be 70+). We will see how we’ll do in 2* round – that’s where I have the highest absolute losses. Can’t wait!

I have also made some changes to the stats reporting. Now I compare the current tournament with the most recent tournament, the last tournament that had the same primary unit, and eventually the last tournament that had the same relic. I have also added some stats on caterings and defeats. We’ll see how long I’ll be bothered to collect these 😉

Event – Evolution of the Phoenix

Today is another day in our current 4 week long event – Evolution of the Phoenix. Again, I won’t be repeating much what is written elsewhere, so check out these resources:

• Thorough description of the event, mechanics, quests and prizes at Elvenar’s Gems of Knowledge: Evolution of the Phoenix
• Handy spreadsheet of quests and prizes by TomatoeHu: www.tinyurl.com/phoevo (expired). All credit goes to her!

Also check out what I am planning to go for in the Woodelves – Day 28 post as well as S&D – Day 5 post. So here are my stats so far:

Didn’t plan to do any updates on the event today. All I needed was a few extra feathers to grab the next Artifact, and Flower Cage as a daily prize might be useful in the future. It is small (2×2), and will be producing divine seeds starting from the next chapter. Not the best seeds producer per square, but there are not that many options to choose from. Regardless, I’ve got one even though that was not the primary objective. More importantly, I have achieved L9 evolution for my Fire Phoenix! This is awesome not because of the extra +5% to units damage (but that’s nice, too), but because from now on, my FP will be producing 5% portal profits every 48 hours. And unlike Trading Outposts that do the same, there is no expiration date attached to it. Super nice!

Can we get to L10?

Now, can I get to the final L10? Not without a good deal of luck. To get the next Artifact I will need 40 feathers. This is slightly more than 800 essence on average. With 11 days left, I will have daily quest rewards of 35 plus essence picked up from the city – optimistically, another 20. So I can hope for another 600 essence before the end of the event. That is all. Basically, if I am going to hit one of these +200 essence options from the Purple chest that might be doable (even though still pretty close on daily collections). If not – no dice. Suffice to say, I will be prioritizing Purple chests above all other chests (but I have done it already for other reasons). Time to swing for the fences 😉