Is Forbidden City useless nowadays?

[KniferX]

Define “most” players. 70% of the world players? 30%? 50% plus one?
And who told you that, some people on this forum? Your group of friends? An article on the Washington Post?
Sorry for the sarcasm, your reply shows you are a smart guy but I’m amazed when somebody makes a statement on the preferences of “most” of 30+ million players as if it was a provable truth.

Excuse me, do I look like a part of the developer team? So you can request the exact percentage from me? Or is it your arrogance seeping out so you have to mockingly and sarcastically request it from me?

Regarding where I did conclude that it's the majority of players, it's by use of rather simple logical conclusion along with experience and contact with the community of the game.

Players want resources, diamonds and NTGs. Avoiding the higher and highest medal ranks is by far the best path to get those, especially NTGs, due to the inadequate rewards given at those ranks, compared to the difficulty. I won't elaborate here, it's not hard to understand this paragraph without drawing everything for you.

The folks who are in Kingdom, Empire and Dinasty ARE out chasing medals.
It is ONE of the goals of this game, together with developing your base and fighting wars for an alliance.

And the majority of players are not in the Kingdom, Empire and Dunasty leagues.

The “majority” of players will be at some arbitrary number of medals between the top and the bottom of the ranking (not necessarily at the lower end) because not everyone 1)can be at the top or 2)cares to be at the top.

Explained why they will be more represented in the lower end in the previous paragraphs.

Dude, these are NOT random players. They are 16 out of those 20 in the WORLD that have the highest medal count...

Please read my message #28 - the other fella didn’t get it, but you may: do you know what the chances are that 16 players out of 20 *randomly* pick the same wonder out of 4 possible choices?

''Dude'', we get it, they did not randomly pick it, we know the benefits of FC in multiplayer.

I already explained in the previous posts and a lot of other people here have as well. You cannot make an assumption of the FC's usefulness in wars by looking at the top players in medals in MP. MP and WW are very different systems with different strategies.
OP was clearly talking in the context of wars, and you keep bringing up multiplayer as an argument.

High medal players go to war after they form coalitions and coalitions require NTG.

Which is why I said ''guess at times'', meaning you cannot make any correlation on war performance looking at medals, how skilled the person is. Chasing medals is mostly about time and crowns, along with having a maxed out account, rather than skill in wars.

Either way, I'm done beating the MP horse, moving on.

A *part* of the FC usefulness is affected - not negated - by having 24 hours to plan your war attack.
Another part was affected by the introduction of the Missile Silo.
Still, a well planned base with a FC compels the attacker to complicate his strategy. It has been well explained by another player in this thread.

​​​​​​Where are you pulling this info from?
I know I'm pulling mine from my 1.5 years of experience in the game, along with being a part of both the casual and competitive community of this game.
​​​​​​And I'm telling you:
- 50% QV is the norm, FC or no FC, for a while now
- because of the time tie breaker, best times are achieved with a spread out attack, and the missile silo, which already requires you to spread your army.

​​​​​

​​​​IN case it’s still not clear: I am NOT saying that FC is necessarily better of Colosseum or Terra-cotta.
I’m saying it’s far from being useless like some have defined it AND apparently the opinion of 16 of the top 20 world players (by medals, ok...) is that it’s pretty damn useful!

Have a good weekend!

What you've done here is, you pointed out the advantages of FC in multiplayer, which we all agree is correct.
But, you try to extend that to war usefulness, putting the choice of top medal players as important, but in the war environment, FC is simply inferior to the other 2 wonders.
Reasons listed on a lot of posts here.

 

[Manifesto]

I guess, sometimes, things just aren't worth the effort.

 

[AlexTheGreat]

I guess, sometimes, things just aren't worth the effort.

Hey, I agree with you this time!

 

[Manifesto]

Are you still active on this post??

 

[KniferX]

He's unstoppable!

 

[AlexTheGreat]

Are you still active on this post??

(I guess you meant on this *thread*?)
I told you, you are funny!

 

[AlexTheGreat]

Or is it your arrogance seeping out so you have to mockingly and sarcastically request it from me?

Sorry if my comment came across as arrogant, it wasn’t meant to be. A bit sarcastic, yes. I find fascinating when someone talks about a “majority”, or “most of the people” without having any way to even estimate what that majority is, in percentage.

Players want resources, diamonds and NTGs.

Some do, and probably only care about that. Some others care more about medals and climbing the ladder.
The folks who are at the top of the medal ranking are there because they won more attacks than others and lost less defenses than others. Do you agree?

Now, if 16 out of the top 20 have chosen the same classical era wonder, it is obvious that that Wonder helps to reduce the % of losses when those guys are attacked.
A similar argument can be made for WW, where your ability to destroy the enemy and get 5 stars doesn’t depend on how much food you have in your mills or oil in the refinery as much as it depends on how good you are as an attacker (including how strong your army is) and how weak the enemy defense is.
The Forbidden City improves the enemy defense complicating the attacker’s strategy, and that is true both in MP and in WW.
Having more time to study the enemy doesn’t make the FC useless. Having to spread your army because of the silo makes the FC less useful, but not useless.

And the majority of players are not in the Kingdom, Empire and Dunasty leagues.

Because they CAN’T be there.
Every tennis player would like to be at the top of the ranking, but it is not for everyone. If you played tennis and 16 out of the top 20 ATP players in the world used the SAME racket, would you say that that racket is useless and that you knew of a better one?

QUOTE=KniferX;n620642]
we get it, they did not randomly pick it, we know the benefits of FC in multiplayer.
[/quote]

Good, because some people in this thread seem to think that those 16 top players don’t know what they are doing.

you cannot make any correlation on war performance looking at medals, how skilled the person is. Chasing medals is mostly about time and crowns, along with having a maxed out account, rather than skill in wars.

A maxed out account helps in wars, too. The objective, getting 5 stars, is the same in war and in MP mode - at least for those players that use MP to go up the ranking and not for just looting.
More stars while attacking, more medals. Less stars for the enemy while defending, more medals.
It’s slightly different than war because being part of an alliance requires extra thinking for the team but all the rules and the preparation and the good practices apply to both MP and WW.

in the war environment, FC is simply inferior to the other 2 wonders.

Your opinion. I respect it, but don’t agree. I prefer to think that those 16 know what they do and that a player’s strength in MP is not completely disjointed from strength in WW.

For the record, and for those who are NOT sure that the aforementioned 16 top players picked the Forbidden City for a reason (glad you are not one of them, Knifer...),
the probability that 16 players out of 20 randomly picked the same wonder is
3.85 x 10^-7 or in other terms, less than 4 every 10millions => less than 1 every 2.5 millions.

Have a good day!

 

[Tsamu]

I'm changing my previous answer. Sort of. Yes the FC still works for me in WW 90% of the time because most of the alliances we meet are weaker than us. But a CWA (or even AA) player who knows what they're doing can get the 50% QV. So I agree that FC is not the best wonder for WW any more when it matters, in a tight match.

 

[KniferX]

AlexTheGreat
Thanks for the measured and respectful response, I will keep it respectful going onwards.

We've gone on some unimportant tangents regarding MP, debating nuances at this point. I'll just talk about the medal rankings. 16 out of 20 players picked FC. They are pursuing medals and that is their goal, correct? Let's talk about why they picked FC for that. We know the FC advantage. Let's see the other choices of wonders at that age:
​​​​​
Colloseum only gives you a benefit for one attack per day (you need much more for medal chasing), and some extra infantry defenders, not worthwhile.
Terra Cotta as well, once per day, and another weak defense advantage.
​​​​​​Notre Dame gives no benefits, offense or defense.

FC is the clear winner here for medal chasing, being able to prevent TC sniping and making 5 stars a bit harder due to requiring a 50% QV without previous planning.

Which turns around to a suprising discovery when you think about it.
4 out of 20 top medal players (20%) didn't pick the clear winner for MP medal chasing, even though they're best in the world at that, you'd consider they'd pick the best option. Maybe they didn't want to bother to specialize their base, they like the other advantages more, or they think that the other wonders give them more benefits in war and that MP medals get a second spot to that. We can't conclude effectively, just showing you that the argument from popularity is not conclusive and that we need to get into the actual benefits and downsides of the wonders in question.


So, for FC usage in war:

We are talking top tier wars, skilled players and all. In lower skilled teams, FC works very well because of not knowing how to do a 50% QV effectively. Bypassing that:

- The advantage of FC is only to prevent the QV star, and only if the opponent wasn't already planning to do a 50% QV and not chase a singular TC for it. It doesn't make your base more resilient to complete destruction or take more time to be destroyed to give you an advantage in time tie breaker. No offense advantages. If your base gets 5 starred, your advantage is lost. It's a binary advantage, all or nothing.

- The majority of top players chase the 50% QV star because it also gives the best destruction time for the tie breaker, along with preventing a lot of defenders from having time to bunch up. Regardless of FC being there or not. I'm not pulling this statement out of nowhere, I'm in contact with a lot of experienced top players and you can see examples on Youtube, of even the top bases being taken out, starting with 50% QV.

- Meanwhile, with Colloseum and Terracotta Army, you are getting a boost to your offense which clearly translates to better odds of 5 starring your target, along with a better destruction time. (defensive benefits can also theoretically extend the battle time by a couple of seconds but let's put it as equal to the FC benefit to complicate attack strategy, and leave it at that).
Along with that, the Colloseum buff is one of the best ways to deal with the strongest SH troop tactics in defense.
You can never lose these advantages, you always benefit in your 2 attacks no matter what, unlike FC.

This is why I think the other 2 wonders are superior to the FC in wars.

 

[KniferX]

I agree. When meeting a weaker alliance, you can pick whatever wonder. When it matters, the other wonders are the better option.

 

[Manifesto]

Glad to be there for the community's emotional well being.

 

[Manifesto]

This is why I think the other 2 wonders are superior to the FC in wars.

Reply from Alex in 3, 2, ...........................

 

[AlexTheGreat]

Reply from Alex in 3, 2, ...........................

Hahaha
You are taking your duty of social worker of the forum quite seriously!

 

[AlexTheGreat]

I'm changing my previous answer. Sort of. Yes the FC still works for me in WW 90% of the time because most of the alliances we meet are weaker than us. But a CWA (or even AA) player who knows what they're doing can get the 50% QV. So I agree that FC is not the best wonder for WW any more when it matters, in a tight match.

Sorry... when does it matter? Only when you deal with stronger enemies in a tight match?
If the FC works 90% of the times for you, by definition it isn’t useless - It’s useful.
Once you move to CWA you will probably still appreciate its benefits - if you keep it

 

[Tsamu]

In an easy war, my base would stop a 5 star attack with any of the wonders. In a tight war, I think the Colosseum might be better.