Hi POM,

1) 32 positions is a very low number.

2) with some hundreds of positions I had registered also with Excel and ressources calculations i'm roughly at 0 in balance. so transfer from low lvl units to higher level unit had worked. (levels of PP registered from 1 to 68)

3) taking in account number of units won by daily mission and coa mission so units who didn't cost me any ressources to built i'm in positive ....

4) order you're doing your persian may impact the result. it's my opinion.

5) have a friend in positive with 400 PP on his Excel sheet.

Have a good game & better luck

Manu

thanx manu you gave me some hope that my army isnt lost forever..

1 what order do you do with positions?

2. did you send cartaginians, golden shield and sidonians or regular units only?

Hi Pom,

using carthaginians, GS and sidonians  : yes for sure ;-) never use denarii units (no ressources cost or unknown)  and macedonians /agemas because it's units i wanna win as all of us....

After a payback, i just do low level pp to increase bank again

I always check units in the persian position to adapt units i have to send depending on units on the position. I always try to minimize my lost. it's my way of playing.

I track and when my bank reach 60 % of the previous one's i'm doing higher levels so for me 55 to 70. (i know it's low level but don't want to go higher when looking at the cost in units). I choose if i want to try to take my payback in off or def. If bank isn't coming and i have a important return, not a banck but a big return.... my ratio move back from 65% to 35% for example. i'm going back to low lvl to increase my reimbursment ... loop again until i have the payback. 

I'm not a coiner, just using unit's i'm building so I don't do 50 positions / days lol, but i'm tracking them all for a long time. For me to win on persian you have to stay below 50 so you could just do those positions with lights and heavies.  you win less, it takes times your army don't grow to 50 millions in few weeks or days.... but you can do it. My friend in positive is under 40 but doing all his persian with lights / heavies and paid back with phal and horses. He follows my recommandations. If i could restart the game, i will never move over 50 on persian.

I never used previously the one bar approach which was changed few weeks ago so my excel files is perfect. the change didn't impact anything.

Have a good game pom

Manu

Great tips, Manu!  Thank you for helping others to understand the PP mechanics. I've awarded you with 200 Drachmas for doing that. 

Hello Archon,

There are plenty of guides that explains what's best to do on Persians on game tutorials and on our Blog.

Please read them :)

 @ alyona thks for drachmas.

to write something, you need to know real mechanism... I, as all players, don't know the real mechanism. We used what older players teached us in terms of informations, we look for informations and try to built our own experience...

If you give me  the real mechanism i will be happy to write something more real than my poor assumptions  ;-). 

But in this case give it directly to the community ;-)

Sorry stupid french humour...

@ prometheus, 

agreed with you. first think is to move to wikiplarium.... and some topics are interesting

In the web a lot of things are present. you mix them all to built your own approach. The result  will depend on how you play the game.... me its as we say in french : if you move slowly you move surely.

Good game to All

Manu

PP are designed to be a trade market were low level troops become higher and this comes with a cost.

The "one bar strategy" was a players' "crack" to minimize those loses and this was because with that strategy players avoided partial rewards which seems to be the big problem here.

1) Why they were designed to be a loss

Because even if we take as granted that they return back your resources they do it with troops that worth less power/res

for example:

1mil res in hops is 115k of power

but 1mil res in promachos is 89k

and 1mil res in agema is 69k

(all these values are the initial)

so you trade them but this means you actually pay a tax in power. Of course you earn speed and power/grain consumption.

2) Why the change of 1-bar has driven everyone mad?

With 1-bar we actually had to pay back only the last bank and some very very small partials.

They were small because most players after taking the big payout cleared them and because there were only few Persians there the rewards were very small.

Apparently, some players found a way to get more as Plarium claims.

So if you had an 1mil payout, you had to pay back that 1mil+some tax(10-15% or whatever)+the small partials, and you were rewarded with the same amount, more or less.

Now, since you have to finish the intermediate positions, partials are bigger making you to pay back them too before big payout.

This has as result to lose more units with good power/res ratio making a huge difference in the end.

Especially in higher levels were rewards are bigger, the problem becomes more obvious.

Of course, all these are debatable and based on my experience of them.

Use sidonian/golden shields/carthaginian and try to not upgrade them.

The fewer positions you will have to kill to get the new payout the less partials you will have to pay back.

manu said:

 If i could restart the game, i will never move over 50 on persian.

Hi Manu. I think if you want to set a limit on persian positions, your level 70 would be perfect because you can only get class 4 item's for your general by hitting level 61 and above. Just my opinion by the way.

I never used previously the one bar approach which was changed few weeks ago so my excel files is perfect.

Did you develop it yourself? Would you mind sharing it?

Hello Archons,

I have some remarks :

- No, 32 position is not a low number for these low levels. The payout should usually drop in a matter of 10-12 positions of mixed levels, less if you're hitting higher level ones because your losses are higher there, and much more if you're hitting lower levels ones, of course.

- I think the problem may come the scattered efforts. My investigations tend to show the multiple banks do exist.

As a result, you should focus on either the 40-60 area, or the 61-80 area (the border may as well be 40-50, and either 50-80 or 51-75 and 75-80, by the way : record your losses and gains, and check your figures). Scattering your losses over such a wide range will give you 2 or even 3 separate payouts in the end, but it will take much longer to pay back those 3 banks at the same time.

- Do NOT waste your cathaginians, etc. there. You really don't need to waste your valuable troops to such low level positions. Up to level 80, I'm going on using only cheap infantry. I may sometimes use some excess phalanx to go faster or becasue I'm running out of fodder, but only if I can't avoid this.

As a matter of fact, what you want to get are cavalry and phalanx. If you waste them as you go, you army will never grow up.

I think I've heard rumors about sending cavalry etc. to Persians. Let's make things clear : this is utter nonsense. Don't listen to the idiots asking you to do this. It's only a matter of investing resources : the kind of units is completely irrelevant.

By the way, just trying to waste as much resources as you can is not necessarily the best move.Remember you get down payments for each position you finish. It's not as huge as a payout of course, but it's still worth grabbing, especially if you're wise enough not to waste the good cavalry and phalanx you get from them and keep them safe to grow up your army on the go.

So playing to win more often with less troops and get as many down payment as possible is another good way to play. That's the one I've been using.

- Remember the payout value will only depend on the level that will give it. That's the reason why we count our losses : to know when we have invested enough so the payout is close.

When you get there, NEVER hit low levels, as the imminent payout may then drop from a ridiculously low level and you'll never be beneficial.

So always keep the highest levels positions in the range you're playing for the end of the cycle.

Hundigo said:

I also take 150 + members of my own coalition to another game

NOOOOO!!!!

Hundigo, you're back!  

Did you have a vacation? 

Now, going back to the topic. You said ThatBloke is giving different answers on Forum regarding PPs. Actually, I think it's a normal thing. You know that PPs were changed 3,5 months ago. So players need time to try different strategies and adapt to the changes. Once a player discoveres something new about PPs, he can share his experience with others. 

No one knows for sure how the PPs work. Neither do I actually. 

So there's nothing wrong in sharing your own vision, your own experience and guesses. Some players may be even much more experienced in doing PPs than some of our Moderators. 

But we also have Moderators who are really cool in that. They have a chat where they can share their tactics with each other, and this information also helps them to help you here, on Forums. 

If you know something about PPs that we all are missing, please share. Everyone will be grateful: me, Mods, and other players.

Hundigo said:

If you bend your own forumrules and ban a forumuser for several months, just because that forumuser wrote the truth on the forum, then I find it verry hypocrite from your side now to ask if I had vacation. 

Now going back to the topic 

It's not about having a change of opinion, it's about informing other players on the forum. It was totally wrong what these 2 moderators did. They both passed the wrong information with the purpose of misleading other players in the game. 

But that's also your responsibility community manager. You also are informed and check the forum on a verry regular base. It was your responsibility also to see if players get the correct answers from the moderators. 

First of all, I'm sure that our moderators didn't have an intention to misinform players, so please avoid such wordings.

To all new players...

Please note that doing persians will and usually does end with losses...    Unless you have time to rebuild lower end units..(1-3months)...    or

have access to drachmas for reloading and reviving...   my experience tells me to avoid positions at all cost.  They can offer good payouts, but

plarium tweaks will make you wishing you never played them...  Good advice on positions like,     >>> different banks...  >>>  for diiferent groups

of levels is a good one.   Another one, like trading units >>> low end for high end units,  works good for low level positions. 

The only real advantage players had, was the one bar system. Plarium removed it and updated....  Now,   one bar equals>>> tiny payout.

Plariums' excuse for the change / update to the one bar method is hog wash... I can' t remember all the updates and I believe they come monthly.

Updates happend secretly also... >>> USER BEWARE. 

Lastly,  and most importantly when Plarium magically offers advice on strategy or best time to conquer positions...  Ignore it  !

Alyona Kolomiitseva said:

Mercenary, it's not that bad :)

oh but it is..every time you change it and make it less profitable, you put another barrier in the way of newer players.

oh but it is..every time you change it and make it less profitable, you put another barrier in the way of newer players.

older players at least had a chance to gather a big army, newer players are stuck having to pay...of course thats what you want, isnt it?

By saying they have to check their analytics it means to me they have no idea what will happen when they implement a change. Only afterwards when they gather data, and only because we complain, do they even get a clue. So stop experimenting, and better yet, devs should submit changes for player approval before they do it :)....come on, we can help