New battle strategy of the QI system

 

We were asked what's the big deal about garrisons coming back?  It means everything to players that do not have QI boosts in their city.  Let me explain.

When your team clears the red and blue garrison EVERY member of your guild get's a 50% bonus per garrison.  That means every member gets a total of 100% red and blue attack and attack defense for the rest of that map.

Now for a lot of people with 400-500 % attack bonus that's no big deal because the fighting is easy anyways.  Ok so for the fighters especially on lower level maps it isn't a game changer.  But for the people that donate it means everything.  It means they can fight to map 5,6,7 without building decorations in city.  Sure they will take more loss than the fighters but after the fighters clear the garrison your donators can fight.

So what's the new strategy?

Fighters fight, nothing changes.  You will no longer be slowed down waiting for the red or blue team to clear their nodes and you can completely ignore donation nodes so your QI has become easier.

For donators you wait until garrisons are taken.  Then you fight what you can including the farming nodes after the bosses.

You DO NOT donate anything until after your settlement is built-up on day 7 or however long it takes you to make 400k coin/supply per harvest.

Yes you heard that correctly.  When you donate the resources (or goods or troops you made with resources) are gone forever.  When you donate it slows down the building progress of your settlement.  The new strategy is to let the fighters give you boosts and fight QI with that boost while building the settlement.  Once the settlement is built then you can be a donator again.

What does it mean to have a settlement built?  It means you make enough per harvest to use all of your quantum actions in one shot at a donation node.

QI is changing again and this time for the better?

*Embargo until Dec 17th, 2024 

Starting on December 19th on BETA server which is the beginning of the 5th QI championship.  The changes are big and mostly for the better.

Remember the old days of QI?  The days were your QI leaders chose an incursion path.  Do you want Obsidian Peaks, Tempest Spires or Onxy Crater?  Well really it depends on what rewards you wanted.  Well now all the rewards will be in one selection kit so you can accumulate fragments and make whatever you want.  Why is this happening?  Because all those former incursion paths are gone and replaced with the new one.

The Gauntlet still has 12 maps as before but now there are no more decision nodes.  No waiting for a QI officer to pick a path.  You know what else there is no more of?  Waiting for red fighters, or blue fighters or donators to clear a node so you can do your thing again.  That was considered a pain point or quit point or in simple terms a barrier for people to have fun or play QI.

This new map still has a bunch of nodes leading up to the two bosses then followed by infinite nodes after that but look at the map above for the big change.  

There are three separate paths leading to the first boss.  One all red fighting, one all blue fighting, and one with each type of donation node.  While all 12 maps look slightly different they all have this same pathing system.

The map above is map one; the map below is map 12.

So seven red, seven blue and three donation nodes to get to first boss on all of them.  That seems like a good change.  

Remember the old day when grandpa used to have to wait for the fighters on the last levels to clear the bosses so people can donate?  That was back when radio dramas where popular and movies were silent I think.  Well anyways it seems Inno has figured out that a large portion of the player base is not fighting in QI and maybe it would be a good idea to keep them involved.

The problem for people now who don't fight will be there is no place to hide.  When QI is finished we can see the progress each member has made just like we can in GbG now.  The information used to vanish when QI ended so unless someone recorded who did what it was gone forever well now it's there.  So if someone is in a support role and they don't do say 2000 incursion progress a season then are they really working towards guild goals?  It has never been easier for super casual players or players on diamond worlds to just farm QI.

The other bonus is donation nodes no longer block access to the boss meaning if you had a guild of 80 fighters you could ignore donation nodes completely.

So what else is new?  Well the gauntlet will feature new buildings that we wrote about previously and offer "Quantum Incursions Summer 2024 Epic Selection Kit" fragments for all the previous prizes so onto the new buildings.

Neo Checkmate Square

• lv1
• 3x3 requires road
• 34-47% red and blue attack and attack defense
• 47-66% red and blue attack and attack defense GbG
• It's a production building and thus you can use hurry supply boosts for Rival Quests

• lv 2
• 3x3 no road required
• 45-63% red and blue attack and attack defense
• 61-85% red and blue attack and attack defense GbG
• It's a production building and thus you can use hurry supply boosts for Rival Quests

The garrisons are making a return.  Each map will have two total garrisons one red one blue.  Each will reward all guild members with 50% red and blue attack and attack defense for that map level.

Another major change had to do with the inherent disadvantage to players who were not in a 80 member guild that cleared boss nodes on every level.  The progress points required to clear a node have been adjusted to guild size.

Guild Size	Required Progress Points
	Normal Node	Advanced Node	Boss Node	Farming Node
1 - 20 members	170	220	260	237.500
21 - 40 members	340	440	540	487.500
41 - 60 members	520	660	810	737.500
61 - 80 members	700	900	1.100	1.000.000

The fighting difficulty in early maps have been changed so it's an easier enemy composition.  Translation?  A lot less cav/archer enemy waves.

Quantum Actions:

The movement cost between nodes has been reduced from 500 to 100 which is great.  We'd like to see those costs eliminated entirely.  

The QI cost per action in a node remains the same and we'd like to see that reduced or eliminated but it won't be.  As long as people purchase quantum actions with diamonds they will always create a problem; sell the solution.

Summary:

There are a lot of people still not playing QI despite the awesome rewards.  The best QI rewards are based on guild success just like GbG.  Players that don't play QI will be relegated to farming/casual guilds.

The have/have not disparity in QI players continues to grow.  People who have QI boosts in their city can auto-battle Map 7 with little or no loss without building any decorations.  That allows us to build out the settlement and get 900-1200 attack boosts on the last few days.

Players that don't have QI boosts in their city will need decorations by map 3-4 and quickly discover they are able to perform more quantum actions in a support/donation role.

The previous QI made life difficult for support people/donators.  There weren't a lot of nodes prior to the infinite nodes after the bosses.  The nodes that were there were blocked by fighting nodes so people had to time when they could be on and hope one of the donation nodes would be open.

Now everything is easy so the only reason someone isn't participating is because they don't want to.  That may be fine in casual guilds but if your guild is at all competitive there will be problems.  Either the non-QI players get relegated to farming guilds or the people who are competitive and want the better prizes move-on to guilds that better support their play-style.

Conclusion:

No guild, even the super guilds will have 80 players that excel in all aspects of the game.  Some will rock GbG and casually play QI or the inverse.  

The cost of purchasing QA is not changing so while some guilds will have super spenders there is a limit to their actions.  So even the super guilds will have a hard ceiling for players in terms of how much QI they can do.  What separates guilds is not the ceiling but the floor.  The top players kind of cancel each other out.  What makes the difference is how much the bottom players do.  The guilds that clear the boss nodes and have all their casual players use their QA on the infinite donation nodes will come out ahead.

I suspect that guilds might recognize this new reality when recruiting.  A player that can login right before reset and use all their QA on the infinite donation nodes every day is more valuable to a guild than a middle of the road GbG fighter.

Wildlife Event 2024 on Beta Dec 16-Jan 6, 2025

 

For long-time players this event will be very familiar.  

The "Candy Crush" mechanic is the same as previous years with a bit of a twist.  

Some behind the scenes stuff.  We were asked not to release this information prior to the official forge announcement and have decided to not post anything until just prior to the event coming to live server.  Then we received a number of messages that the event is live on Beta and there was no information posted.

This is the official forge page for the event on Beta.

https://innogam.es/FoE-WILD25-BETA

 

So we decided to make this page live so Beta players can have this information.  Surely the information is out there somewhere and nobody here cares where you get the info.  This site is free, you do not need to register an account, there are no ads and never will be.  

Event Currencies:

Wildlife Coins earned by daily login, quests, incidents and cash shop.  

Tickets to open boards.  You start with 4 tickets and if there are less than 4 tickets in your ticket bar then you will get a new one every 8 or 10 hrs.  The time to accumulate a ticket has fluctuated prior to the beta release so we'll see.  Regardless once the ticket bar is full you stop accumulating tickets so don't let it get full.

Pop blocks to move paws down.  Make chests when you pop 5 or more boxes at once.  9 boxes gets you the largest chest so trying to match more than 9 is a waste.  Frankly making chests is itself a waste if there are paws on the board.  The goal is to get as many paws as possible and making chests is just something that happens along the way.  

While tickets are what you use to open boards; the wildlife coins are what you use to buy boosters.

The boosters have reverted back to what they used to be.

• Hammer-removes 1 block.  Only use to get paws not chests
• Leafy line- removes an entire horizontal line.  This is great when you have a bunch of prizes one step away from the bottom and none of the neighboring blocks match.
• Lightning - removes all blocks of a color.  This is primarily used during the Rival quests to make chests of a certain color.

Only buy the larger packs when buying boosts.

Each level gives 25 moves and you can buy 5 more moves.  Don't do this unless you can get 2 or more paws for sure with 5 more moves.

New this year is "Ticket Multiplier"

Inno recognizes that this event is more time demanding than other events so the Ticket Multiplier is their solution.  How does this work?  Well instead of using one ticket to open a board you can use two or three.  You play the board as per normal but you double or triple the prizes and quest line progression.  Essentially the board you play will be doubled or tripled but so will the amount of boosters used.  

The golden ticket is back which allows you to play as many boards as you want in a 5 min time limit.  Some people do really well with this golden ticket and some only do 2-3 boards.  One strategy is to make sure you start a fresh board before the timer runs out.  You can then finish that board at your leisure.  

There will be two rival challenges for this event.  These rival challenges will require you use a lot of tickets so here is a strategy you may want to use.

Do not rush the rush quests.  Only do the rush quests until it gives a ticket as a reward then stop.  When rival starts you can claim that when all the tickets in your bar are gone.  Then continue to do rush quests until you get another ticket prize and stop meaning it is left unclaimed.

Do not claim the tickets earned on the grand prize progress bar until you need them.

You can also prime the boards so when Rivals start you have one board open with 25 moves remaining and three tickets in your ticket bar with the fourth coming in right after Rival starts.  That gives you five tickets  (4 on the board and one open) plus however many you have on the grand prize bar.

Prizes:

Grand Prize is Shika Shrine lv9, silver is Momiji Shrine, gold is Momiji Dori Shrine

For anyone familiar with Kyoto here is a photo.  The building is also spelled incorrectly in game.  Lastly this should have been an autumn building as the fall colors is what brings the tourists in.

at night with the lights in fall

without lights

9 base levels plus silver and golden upgrades for 11 total levels.  The level 9 makes the silver and the silver makes the gold so we're only going to talk about that.

Momijidori Shrine

lv 11

8x3 requires road

• 56-77% blue attack and attack defense
• 34-55%  blue attack and attack defense GbG
• 54-75% blue attack and attack defense GE
• 720 - 47,650 population
• 2,950 - 71,460 happiness
• 3,780 - 270,130 supplies
• 3 frag of Zen Harmony selection kits

random 1:

• 10% 508 prev age goods
• 40% 128 prev age goods
• 40% 128 next age goods
• 10% 508 next age goods

random 2:

• 90% large FP pack
• 10% 40x large FP pack

Read that as 49 FP/day

Available in Silver Event Pass

Koi Pond production building.  All production times can be sped up with supply boosts

• 2x3 no road required
• 7-18% blue attack and defense
• 10-21% blue attack and defense GbG
• Costs population 290 - 19,220

Ascended Koi Pond (30 days)

• 2x3 no road required
• 12% red attack QI
• 16-37% blue attack and attack defense
• 22-43% blue attack and attack defense GbG
• 4% coin and supply boost
• 20,000 Quantum coins and supplies at incursion start

• Costs population 290 - 19,220

Available in Gold event pass:

Usagi Bonbori Gate

• 3x1 no road required
• 1-12% red attack GbG
• 1-12% red attack and attack defense
• 4-15%  red attack and attack defense GE
• Costs population 100 - 6,410
• 3 frag finish goods production

Random Production:

• 88% 5 goods
• 11% 50 goods
• 1% 500 goods

Gold League prize

Inari Grand Shrine

• 3x5 no road required
• 90% blue attack and attack defense
• 120% blue attack and attack defense GbG
• 25% blue attack and attack defense QI
• gives 9,930 happiness
• 105 FP
• 135 goods
• 900 guild goods
• 20 fragments of Momijidori Shrine Golden selection kit

Mountain Reserve gets an upgrade

The 7th level of the base mountain reserve has three options when going level 6-7

Those three options will now have a golden upgrade

Serene Moose Mountain

• 4x6 requires road
• 15% red and blue attack for QI
• 200 QA per recharge
• 44-104% coin boost
• 44-107% supply boost
• gives 830 - 55,520 population
• gives 3,440 - 83,270 happiness
• 4,020 - 705,470 coins
• 3,860 - 275,430 supplies
• 310-28,690 medals
• 130 FP
• 130 goods of your age
• 130 goods of prev age
• 260 guild goods

Serene Bear Mountain

• 4x6 requires road
• 44-107% blue attack and attack defense
• 44-107% blue attack and attack defense GbG
• 15% blue attack and attack defense QI
• 200 QA per recharge
• gives 420 - 27,760 population
• gives 1,720 - 41,630 happiness
• 30 - 2,870 medals
• 26 FP
• 52 goods

Serene Eagle Mountain

• 44-107% red attack and attack defense
• 44-107% red attack and attack defense GbG
• 15%  red attack and attack defense QI
• 200 QA per recharge
• gives 420 - 27,760 population
• gives 1,720 - 41,630 happiness
• 30 - 2,870 medals
• 26 FP
• 52 goods

Eternal Market - Noble Horizon upgrade

• 6x6 no road required
• 180% red and blue attack
• gives 1,600 - 106,770 population
• 180 FP
• 180 goods
• 360 prev age goods

Rush Quests:

1. gather goods
2. build 5 decorations your age OR 6 the prev age
3. pay coins
4. 1hr productions
5. gather goods OR donate goods, AND pay supplies
6. recruit 1 unit of your age OR 2 the prev age, AND gather supplies
7. defeat units OR solve moderate neg, AND gain happiness
8. 5 min productions 26 times, AND pay coins
9. 3 culture building your age OR 4 prev age, AND gather supplies
10.  gather OR donate goods, make people enthusiastic
11. 2 boosts in tavern OR build 2 production buildings, AND collect 2 incidents
12. 2 items AD OR solve any quest, AND pay goods
13. buy 5 FP OR solve moderate neg, AND gather coins
14. collect 750 tavern silver OR win 7 battles, AND 4hr productions
15. 
    

So what’s new and exciting?

 

This will be a post similar to the previous one where we just group a bunch of upcoming changes to the game.  

https://forgeaddicts.blogspot.com/2024/11/some-notes-about-what-we-will-see-in.html

We’ll try to give new information with every post so if you want the older information you’ll have to click the links above.  We will however tread old ground when some of that information changes which is common during the development process.

QI Buildings

Neo Checkmate Square 3x3

And

Neo Aviary 2x4

The values are known but let's wait until it at least comes out on Beta as both of these buildings are likely to change.

Both have 2 levels and like all other QI buildings are well-worth placing in any city.  If people are still hesitant to play QI you really are missing out on some of the best prizes in the game.

Why do we believe that the current stats will change?  Well the lv 2 Neo Aviary gives the following bonus:

• 23 FP
• 42% red and blue attack and attack defense
• 73% red and blue attack and attack defense for GE
• 10 units of the next era (20% chance of each unit type fast/ranged/melee/artillery or light)

That seems like a lot for a 2x4 building so we'll see.

Wildlife Event starts on Dec 16, 2024 on Beta server.

Some info here

https://forgeaddicts.blogspot.com/2024/11/some-notes-about-what-we-will-see-in.html

Remember every event will give 1000 fragments of Eternal Market so if you want to get one fully levelled you will have to participate in all aspects of an event including Rival quests.

We'll put out a page closer to launch.

St Patrick's day event has a lot of information available but we'll post closer to launch on Beta.

You have a chance to bring the Eternal Market to lv3 with this event and the Celtic Farmstead is getting some love and QI bonus.

More to come closer to launch but don't delete any old event building because what is old is new again.  Just keep in mind that while you can get an upgrade if you progress far enough on the quest line most of the upgrades are behind the event pass paywall.

Updated sortable spreadsheet with some changes

 The link to the sortable spreadsheet is HERE.

There are some changes made by request and it makes sense to make those changes.

Troops given is now added as a sortable column and they will be incorporated into the "value" of each event building in represented by total troops x2/tiles including road.  The x2 may be increased to x4 or more depending on feedback.  Once the troop column is fully implemented it's easy to just change the formula.  With more and more people deleting Traz it just makes sense to not only value troop production but to find a way to value it accurately.  So the x2 is a starting point that will most probably change to a higher amount.

People not in the latest age will also value buildings that give next age troops higher.  People without a traz will value buildings that provide rogues specifically higher.  Same for SASH players with range units or SAT players with fast units.  It would be impossible to factor that type of personal preference into "value" but you are free to do that yourself.

The other change is goods will be devalued.  Previously 1 good = 1 FP = 1 fight boost = 15000 population = 15000 happiness

Now 4 goods = 1 FP = 1 fight boost = 15000 population = 15000 happiness

The reason for both changes should be obvious.  The good news for people who value buildings using their own metrics the first tab in the spreadsheet is just the raw numbers.  You can sort by whatever metric you wish.  If you download the spreadsheet you can also change how "value" is calculated to it can perfectly reflect your play style.

Some notes about what we will see in first quarter 2025 in FoE

Before we go to 2025 though we have to let you know that historical allies are changing again.  Boudica in the Winter Event on Beta has been nerfed.  They changed it from giving QI bonus to attack and attack def bonus.  As you all know QI bonus is far more rare and thus valuable.  It's another bait and switch on Beta players which is unfortunately becoming more common.

We asked if there will be a way to get missed fragments of historical allies at a later date.  You probably have multiple allies that you cannot place because you didn't collect all the fragments.  The answer was non-committal for two reasons.  

1) they want people to play the rival quests, event quests and advance far enough in event progress to attain the historical ally.  It's supposed to be hard and not everyone will get them or all of them.

2) The power creep is such that the older allies will have no value so putting those fragments as rewards won't be very valuable.  There may be a hero type selection kit in say 6 months.  So it would look like the selection kits we get now for say Halloween event where you can pick from all the old items.  From what we're told it would appear as a daily prize in future events and sorted by type so common, uncommon, rare etc.  There would be say 50 fragments and you can apply them to whatever hero you want as long as the type matches.

The way allies are going to work will change as well.  They will have base abilities and then up to three optional abilities that you can select.  If you have multiple heroes housed in your city you can stack those options. 

"Once an ally gains access to special skills, you can choose from 3 random skills. Selecting the same skill multiple times increases its level and strength."

Here are the new heroes.

Teuta has a new portrait to reflect her new abilities

Empress Jungu

Hesiod

2025 event news

Wildlife Event 2025

Wildlife event is back.  Here are the new portraits and the one with the panda is behind the silver event pass.

We'll preview the buildings before they come to Beta server.  As of right now the main event building is 11 levels and there are side buildings.

Main event building lv 11

side building lv 2

second side building lv 2

This side building is a bit of a mystery.  Here it is at lv 1.  We suspect it may be multi-event panda reserve type building.  Still too soon to say.

If you are following the Winter Event on this blog or playing it on Beta you'll know the Eternal Market is an incredibly overpowered building that will span 10 events.

Now before we get to the next item let's look back at this game starting about two years ago.  At that time the eagle mountain event building was by far the best event building to place in your city.  It had everything and it was well sought after.  Then Inno started the pronounced power-creep and introduction of blue fighting stats along with red fighting stats in anticipation of GElv 5.  Anyone that has played this game for years remembers what it was like to get the BIS (best in slot) event building and how crushing it was to use store item on them all 6 months to 1 year later.

Now the Eagle Mountain is going to get the same treatment as the Abandoned Asylum and the Hero's Tavern where you can get a golden level that (as of this time) provides a permanent QI boost.  Red QI for Eagle and blue QI for Bear Mountain.

The two events preceding the wildlife event (Halloween and Winter) were lazy events meaning you can just do all the quests and spend event currency in one day if you want to.  The wildlife event will have a ticket bar that refills every (looks like 10 hrs now) and then stops until you spend tickets.  So at the very least this looks like a daily play event and the candy crush mechanic makes it a time-consuming event

Which leads us to the event after which is the St. Patrick's Day event.  This one is interesting as there will be a huge contrast in play styles.  It has the same event mechanics that we should all now be familiar with but you now have a choice.  You can baby-sit your towns and complete 18-23 of them depending on how you want to use your managers (and how much you want to spend).  Or you can complete 4-5 towns and focus on opening all the boxes after you complete a town.

Blue fighting in GbG is here

 

After talking about blue stat fighting in GbG for almost two years it's finally here but with a new format than originally planned. So let's get into it.

It starts on Beta Nov. 14 and it will not be a blue map it will be a mixed map.  This change will allow players who have not yet adapted their cities for blue stat fighting to participate in GbG while allowing players that have adapted to excel on the new maps.  Yes maps plural because they're all going to be mixed fighting.

There's a lot of news and we'll copy/paste the announcement below but we want to highlight some of the changes that are different than what was previously planned.

Will there be a league above diamond league still?  Yes and no.  Instead of a division above diamond there will be two special championships (3rd and 6th) where the top four guilds will be on one battleground, then guilds 5-9 will be on their own battleground, then 9-12 will be on their battleground.

It's part of a matchmaking overhaul that will be detailed below but what it means is 2/6 championships will either be death matches for top guilds or opportunities to win for guilds not at the top.

The UI is changing, the province buildings are changing, the leagues are changing and the costs are changing and not for the better.  Again the details are below but now where a guild is ranked will affect the cost.  Let me repeat that.  Guild ranking will affect cost of province buildings.  

Lastly because so many of us can hit 250 attrition with same age troops they are increasing attrition levels from 250 to 300.

Here is the official announcement.  We'll update again before it comes to live server.  There's no real way to test the new matchmaking system on Beta because there aren't enough competitive guilds so expect that to be a WIP on live server.

The Guild Battlegrounds update 2024!

Enjoy the updated Guild Battlegrounds starting from the newest GBG season kicking off on BETA on November 14th! 

With this update, we aim to refresh the GBG and address notable community feedback where possible. Continue reading to find out what awaits you in the new season!

Introducing Defensive Army Boost

To allow you and your Guild to use all your army boosts to the fullest, we're introducing defensive army boost to all GBG maps! 

This means that at the start of GBG, and every time a province is captured by a Guild, the system will choose whether an offensive or a defensive army boost will be required to fight on that province. As usual, the defensive boost is indicated by blue symbols, and the regular offensive boost — by red. 

The GBG map will influence the provinces' predisposition towards one bonus or the other:

• The Waterfall Archipelago map will have a higher chance of a defensive army boost.
• And the Volcano Archipelago map — a higher chance of an offensive army boost.

As the required bonus changes from one province and map to another, both players with a more "traditional" offensive and those who employ a newer defensive strategy will be able to apply their skills flexibly depending on the needs of their Guild. In addition, your unused defensive bonuses will finally have a proper application.  

Matchmaking Enhancements

To improve your GBG experience and address popular community feedback where possible, we're introducing matchmaking changes in this update. Please remember that the opponent selection is inevitably heavily influenced by the number of Guilds and their power in any given game world, so repetitive and challenging matches that pose a concern for some of our players will still be possible. We aim to make those situations less common by introducing a so-called "avoidance" mechanic:

1. All possible Guild pairs are gathered into a list.
2. That list is then compared to the historical match data and all Guilds are split into groups defined by their "match count", using 0 for Guilds that haven't matched yet, 1 for 1 match, and so on.
3. Guild groups based on the number of matches get sorted in ascending order, i.e. Guilds that were formerly matched once against one another form a group 1 and so on. Within every group, Guild pairs are also ordered randomly.
4. The fewer previous matches a pair has, the higher the matchmaking priority for that pair.

This procedure results in a prioritized list of contestant pairs, favoring those who have matched less frequently (or not at all).  

In addition to this mechanic, we are also adjusting the League points ranges and introducing a narrower threshold for keeping one's spot in rankings, as well as expanding some of the Leagues: 

Current League ranges:

League	Start	End
Copper	0	100
Silver	101	350
Gold	351	650
Platinum	651	900
Diamond	901	1000

New League ranges:

League	Start	End
Copper	0	200
Silver	201	500
Gold	501	800
Platinum	801	999
Diamond	1000	1000

Diamond League special matchmaking mode

Twice per every GBG Championship, in the 3rd and the 6th seasons, Diamond Guilds will experience a special matchmaking mode, reserved for our most competitive players.

During those seasons, Diamond League Guilds will be put into a separate pool, ignoring the general matchmaking rules, and matched against one another in the order of their ranking in 4-Guild increments: top 4 Guilds first, then 5-9 Guilds, 9-12, and so on depending on the size of the League.

In this mode, no League points will be deducted from Guilds participating in this mode, no matter their final placement. Only Guilds participating in this mode will have no League points deducted. For the rest of the Guilds, the regular matchmaking process applies, as well as regular League rules. 

In cases when the game can't fill a Battleground with only the Diamond Guilds, top Platinum Guilds will be also involved in the matches. On smaller worlds, where the Diamond League is too small, the special mode will not apply.

To recognize that this matchmaking mode is active, look for this icon in the GBG welcome window at the start of every third season:

Usability Improvements

Map and Province visual overhaul

As you may notice from one of the screenshots above, the GBG map now offers an improved detailed view that will be enabled by default after the update. Thanks to this view, you can now more easily see crucial details about every province:

• type of army boost (offensive or defensive);
• coordinates;
• number of province buildings;
• chance to gain attrition.

Should you prefer a cleaner look, you can easily disable the detailed view by clicking on the corresponding button on the GBG HUD:

The province info window has also received an upgrade for a more streamlined and detailed look, featuring both information already visible on the map and the following additions:

• Ignore and Focus guiding markers that can be set for each province by players with corresponding rights;
• when available, the name of the Guild that owns the province;
• the amount of total Victory Points generated by this province (the amount will vary depending on the presence of VP boosts);
• information on up to SIX the Besieging Guilds and lock timer;
• reward chances;
• province buildings menu.

Those UI changes stem from another common player request to improve GBG usability and interface. Aiming to improve your experience and further facilitate faster battles, we have also moved the elements of the Province window around so that they fit better together. 

Reward pop-up removal

Currently, every time you receive a reward for a GBG encounter, you face a familiar pop-up describing what you received.

We often hear from our players that those pop-ups disrupt the battling flow in a high-paced environment like GBG. As a response to this feedback, with this update, we're replacing the pop-up with a reward banner that will temporarily flash at the bottom of the game window. In conjunction with the previously introduced improvements, such as hotkeys, this change will allow you to battle faster and easier than ever before.

Note: should you need to view the reward details, you can do that by clicking on the Chest icon on the reward banner.

Province Buildings Overhaul

Cost and Victory Points scaling

Currently, all province buildings require the same costs and yield the same number of Victory Points regardless of a Guild's position in the ranking. To ensure a more cohesive and fair Goods spend and the corresponding Victory Points reward, after this update we will scale both in accordance with a Guild's place in the rankings. To achieve this, both the base Province building costs, as well as the Victory Points yield will be multiplied using Leagues' specific multiplier:

Leagues	Building cost multiplier	Victory Points multiplier
Copper	0,1	0,1
Silver	0,2	0,2
Gold	0,3	0,3
Platinum	0,5	0,5
Diamond	1	1

Note: the number of Victory Points a Province can generate remains a random value, however, we have decreased this randomness by raising the min and max values in the selection range for each Province. 

New ability

We are expanding the selection of Province building abilities with a brand-new addition that will allow some buildings to generate extra X Victory Points for the Guild that owns them. Naturally, the ability needs buildings to be attached to, so we're adding six new buildings to account for that:

Conquered provinces	Basic Field Outpost	Regular Field Outpost	Advanced Field Outpost
Starting province	Basic Guild Fortress	Regular Guild Fortress	Advanced Guild Fortress

This increase will work by adding a flat value of extra Victory Points to the base number of points a Guild generates. From that value, the game will calculate the final Victory Points reward using available percentage-based abilities that boost VP yield. The final reward is also determined by the Victory Points multiplier described in the previous paragraph.

In addition, we have also decreased the randomness in the number of assigned building slots to ensure you can take more advantage of the new additions. 

New look

Finally, all Province buildings will receive a visual overhaul as well, further supporting our aim to facilitate a clean and modern look for Forge of Empires.

New attrition levels

Last but not least: with this update, 50 new attrition levels will be added, raising the total number of levels to 300.