@ Capitalism One
As I understand it.. the type and number of units received depends on the type and amount of resources "banked" (i.e. units sacrificed)..
e.g. IF you have banked more lumber than gold then payout will be primarily offense units.. vice versa - if more gold banked than lumber then payout primarily is defense units.
In practice this means if you do 3 off prizes then as you send off units you will have banked more lumber than gold.. so if you then do a def prize - chances of a payout is low as you will not have banked enough gold to trigger a decent payout.
I've always been a bit fuzzy on the exact mechanics.. it's complicated.. but the general principle is as I've outlined.
The exact mechanics is fuzzy because Plarium keeps it a secret. What we think we know are mostly guesses and comparisons of those guesses with the results.
I cannot be sure that the real explanation is exactly as Tids gave it, but he's likely on the right track. Also, Plarium won't tell us how wrong or right any of us is on the subject.
If you get a very small reward on a prize, you didn't get a payout. Every prize on which you lose units will give you back a small part of what you lost (this was introduced several years ago). The real payouts are much bigger.
I am not one of them, so I am not speaking from experience.
I am sure that some rely heavily on rubies (see a bit below), but - knowing the Prizes mechanics - it is not necessary.
You attack Prizes and you lose units. The game maintains a sort of a "Prizes bank", which is a fancy way of saying that it keeps track of the resources value of the lost units. When you win big, you get units of the same res value that you lost.
So, basically, if you have enough units to spend on Prizes, you should get the equivalent back* and then send those to Prizes, get back again, etc. "Equivalent" here means "possibly other type of units, but having the same value in resources as the units you've lost". In a way, Prizes are a way to trade junk units like Pirates, Mercs, Brigs, etc. for a different - hopefully more useful - types (ideally, Juggs, Frigs,...).
Further, if you combine it smartly with Brawls and Exp tournaments, you can end up with net positive. Not huge profit, but profit nonetheless. And if you do plan to use rubies, combine with bi-weekly global revival discounts.
* Be careful, though: a Prize can give back res instead of units, which is - IMO - a punishment, not a reward (because units = res + time, and in this case you trade units for just res). However, these resources never overfill your Warehouses and Cellars, so big Prize players always make sure to be full to the brim before attacking Prizes (to avoid getting res instead of units).
Thanks for the info !
When Prize ransack is on how are some players managing to distance themselves from the rest with millions of points, how to keep going on with the prizes until you reach millions in points, are those players relying havily on rubies ?
I'm far more familiar with the Stormfall version of things .. but from what I can tell so far .. the Prize Ransack in Pirates works in the same way.. so here goes..
Points in the tournament are awarded per level.. the higher the level the more tournament points it is worth..
E.g. A level 1 prize is worth 1 tourney point.. a level 60 is worth ~1k tourney points (note: Prize ranking points have nothing to do with tournament points)..
I don't know (yet) how high the levels go in Pirates but in Stormfall battlegound levels go well in excess of 200+ and the tourney points for the highest levels are 10's of k+ each
Millions of points requires huge fleets .. or the ability to resurrect units for $$$ .. and of course going for Prizes to the very highest levels - rinse and repeat if your fleet is big enough (or your pockets deep enough).
🤓
When finishing a def prize I'm not receiving the same reward as per off, nothing or less. Let's say I attack 3 off prizes(not finishing them) and I finish with the 4th with deff= not many deff units reward, if I were to finish the 4th prize of off the prize would be off consistent .
Exchanging offense to defense and defense to offense is a bit tricky but not impossible and I do it every now and then whenever it seems necessary based on situations.
To find out how to do that you'll have to be very patient with the lighthouse. (sometimes I spend 3 hours a day, only at the lighthouse lol)
To be honest, If we tell you word by word how to do that ... Plarium just gonna change the lighthouse mechanism again and it's nothing unfair of them either to make the game more challenging (but lazy ones of us worries about that you know lol)
Be patient, do some thesis, and eventually, you'll become the best 👍