'Thanks, But No Tanks' - A Guide for the Warrior Cheapskate

Day 1,118, 11:05 • Published in Canada Canada • by Plugson

I’m getting’ too old for this sh*t

There’s rumours that Admins have again tweaked the battle formulas, and again we have another battle calculator to help sort it out. This one’s fairly top notch and I would recommend checking it out because it does it does an instant breakdown of cost per 1 Influence based on the cheapest food available.

After a few pointers from Kronos Q (thank you!), I did some number crunching using two battle calculators:
--http://erep.root.se/ (bare-bones sliding scale, very easy for quick comparisons of rank, strength, weapon power, and number of fights)
--http://erepublik-market.cz.cc/damageCalculator.html (great tool that incorporates food cost for 300 wellness, weapon cost, and wellness packs)

The two calculators give very similar results, so I don’t imagine the new formulas for influence are a significant change. For purposes of providing a control/contrast, I decided to throw in a new player to see how he would compare
Plugson – Old Calc: 228/fight with no weapon – New Calc: 227/fight
Dustin5126: Old Calc: 47/fight with no weapon – New Calc: 46/fight

As you can see, not a whole lot has changed with barefisted fights and I’ll spare you the Q5 summary by saying it, too, is only different by 1 Influence point.


Weapons -- Bigger not always better, though a big gun sure looks more impressive on the battlefield

The main purpose of my research into battle calculators was to see what was the most cost-effective way to fight. Kronos Q pointed out to me that using no weapon provides the best bang for you buck and that weapons with higher durability/more fights offer better value for your dollars.

I did some testing last night to see how it all panned out, so the costs for food and weapons will be different than they currently are on the market. Please note, this is for food at 0.75 CAD / 2 Wellness and the calculations could only be done with the old calculator, since the new one does not allow for such comparisons:

First, let’s start with a comparison of other weapon ‘cheap’ weapons:

Elven Bows
(a weapon company that offers the most durable weapon out there at low cost)

--10 power/5 uses for 13.13 CAD = 1250 influence = 95.2 inf./1 CAD
(not including food costs for recovery)

--Canadian Battletech
(this company had the best deal for high durability/high power weapons)

--80 power/4 uses for 30 CAD = 1640 inf. = 55 inf/1 CAD
(not including food for recovery)

Cheapest weapon per Influence point:
(here is the weapon company offering low-power weapons with the best bang for your buck – the GM, George Kirk, is constantly dropping his price to lowest on the market)

Not For Profit Weapons:

--10 power/2 fights for 4.93 CAD = 500 Influence = 101 Influence/1 CAD
--Plus 15 CAD for wellness (20 recovered) = 25.1 Influence/1 CAD

(now let’s compare this to going to battle without a gun)
No weapon/barehanded:

--0 power/2 fights for 0 CAD = 456 Influence
--Plus 15 CAD for wellness (20 recovered) = 30.4 Influence/1 CAD


Using no weapon is 2.5 CAD cheaper per fight (as of last night) if you buy basic wellness at current costs. This affordability may change if food prices raise 30% and weapon prices remain the same.


A low-damage attack may not seem impressive, but slow and steady does the job

I would like to take a moment now to plug the new battle calculator, which was announced last night in “New Tool – damage calculator.” It’s a very eye-catching tool that does just about all the work for you, except that it does not allow you to adjust values to make easy cross-comparisons, which is why I again included stats for Dustin5126.

Plugson:
--Basic Statistics:
Strength: 939.403
Rank: Commander *** ( 85901 / 110000 )
Location: Canada
Currency exchange rate: 1 CAD = 0.03 Gold

Q5 weapon cost in Canada: 39.99 CAD (1.2 Gold)
World's cheapest Q5 weapon cost: 1.17 g Gold

Food cost in Canada: 3.5 CAD (0.11 Gold) per 10 wellness

No Weapons
Influence per hit: 227
Influence done using 300 wellness (30 hits): 6,810
Cost of restoring 300 wellness: 3.15 Gold
Cost per 1.000 influence with Canada foo😛 0.46 Gold
World's cheapest food cost: 0.06 Gold per 10 wellness

Q5 Weapon (100% Bonus)
Influence per hit: 455
Influence done using 300 wellness (30 hits): 13,650
Cost of restoring 300 wellness and 6 * Q5 weapons: 10.35 Gold
Cost per 1.000 influence with Canada food and weapon: 0.76 Gold
Cost per 1.000 influence with world's cheapest food and weapon: 0.64


Dustin5126:
Basic Statistics
Strength: 268.064
Rank: Corporal *** ( 566 / 600 )

No Weapon
Influence per hit: 46
Influence done using 300 wellness (30 hits): 1,380
Cost of restoring 300 wellness: 3.15 Gold
Cost per 1.000 influence with Canada foo😛 2.28 Gold
Cost per 1.000 influence with world's cheapest foo😛 1.2 Gold

Q5 Weapon (100% Bonus)
Influence per hit: 93
Influence done using 300 wellness (30 hits): 2,790
Cost of restoring 300 wellness and 6 * Q5 weapons: 10.35 Gold
Cost per 1.000 influence with Canada food and weapon: 3.71 Gold
Cost per 1.000 influence with world's cheapest food and weapon: 3.12 Gold

To sum up, because I’m not all that crazy about working with numbers and there are way too many stats to work through right now, let’s see what is the best deal for new players. It’s unfortunate that I cannot plug in the costs of the cheapest “Q1” weapon into the new calculator, but I am quite sure the results would be similar to what I found above. Fight with no weapon, spend money on food instead, and save for a deal on housing.

BUT...if you do need a gun, go with Not For Profit Weapons...pushing prices down for the little guy since Day 1,094


Old-timers with low strength should still come to fight, but save that CAD on weapons and spend Gold on getting your strength up...that's you, Kelly 😉

So here are 9 easy steps for new players wishing to save cash and grow their experience at the same time:

1) Fight barehanded and buy food. You will be able to fight more often and earn more influence (and rank up faster) if you use your CAD to buy the cheapest food only (unless it goes over 1 CAD per wellness point)

2) Build up a reserve of CAD and Gold (from medals) for purchasing a home. Occasionally, there are some great deals out there on the housing market, but not for low-level housing (5/20) which costs 0.75 CAD per 1 Wellness. The best deal is the mid-range (20/50) which costs 0.19 CAD per 1 Wellness. However, I did score a deal for 0.14 earlier this week. Remember, current food costs are 0.35 CAD per 1 Wellness.

3) Do not waste gold on Rocket Launchers and Wellness Packs – buy food and (if you have to) weapons

4) Don’t worry about buying a tank versus a chopper or a gun. The different weapons are a vestigial bit of coding from V2, when it did matter what you went to war in. These days the power and durability are all that matters. Tanks look good but cost more, whereas a simple and cheap gun does the same job

5) Go into battle with enough food and money to win the fight. If you can’t ‘kill’ your opponent, you fail to gain Influence. Have a reserve of food or money that you can use to boost your wellness and win the battle. Nothing would suck more than getting your opponent down to 10 wellness but not have enough in you to finish him off.

6) Don’t wear yourself out. Have enough CAD left to get your health above 90 for work the next day. Fighting more but having low wellness will get you fired and hurt the economy. Save yourself for the big fights when it really matters.

7) Don’t waste your time topping up your wellness between each attack. I thought higher wellness meant more damage, but it does not really matter at all (so far as I can tell). Go in – win the fight – heal up when the fights are over. Buy food and eat when do not have enough wellness to win the current fight.

8 ) If you buy a house, USE IT. Houses deteriorate unless stored safely in an organization. If you get a 20 Wellness house but do not battle, you are wasting your money.

9) Buy the +50% training booster for strength if you can afford it. Do not buy the 100% or 200% boosters; they are a waste of Gold. The cost for the 50% booster will be partly paid for by the Super Soldier medal you will earn. Plus, more strength will get your more Influence, so you will rank up faster and do more damage in the long run.


Have ye little faith in my words of wisdom?
Lodge it with the complaints department in the comment section below


Some of this does not apply if you have joined a military group. They will provide you with better instructions and, most likely, some supplies to keep going. My advice here was for the independents and newbies. The current game is all about using your Gold wisely – strength, experience points, and military rank all depend on how you invest your dollars. Gone are the days when clicking each day kept you ahead of everyone else. You need to maximize the value of your CAD.

Hope that helped, despite it’s TL😉R quality. Feel free to give me some criticism and pointers. It’s the first time doing a serious ‘stats article.’ Perhaps this can be condensed into a more helpful guide once the kinks are worked out.