Forge of Empires Journal [Entry #4 – February 2020]

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In the fourth installment of our Forge of Empires Journal, we will be taking a look at the following topics:

  • Forge of Empires 2
  • Calculating Damage in Battles
  • Building the Art Exhibition

The last issue was published very recently and we are already onto the next. Currently, there is a lot of news and many questions to be answered.

Forge of Empires 2

It was recently publicized in the German Online publication ‘Games Wirtshaft‘ that that Forge of Empires 2 was in development. This has of course caused a lot of shock in the community.

Translated into English, the article says:

The biggest part (of the revenues) is provided by the mobile and online game ‘Forge of Empires’, which brought revenues of more than 500 Million Euros. For the year 2020 the sequel is expected: ‘Forge of Empires 2’ is based on the proven game mechanics, but will bring more multiplayer focus. Including, Forge of Empires 2, InnoGames is working on 4 games.

Immediately there appeared the first images of game-play on the web.

Many players were not really happy about this news. Would their guild members see FoE1 only as a low priority second city and concentrate on FoE2?

Is it still a good idea to invest a lot of time into FoE1 if the sequel is coming this year?

Besides being interested in experiencing something new, there was a lot of skepticism in these many questions that we received in the past days.

The images could be identified as coming from a completely different game, where simply a guild named Federation of Explorers 2, abbreviated FoE2 exists. So we simply asked InnoGames.

Peter Meyenburg, Head of Public Relations at InnoGames since 2016, provided a very clear answer, not leaving room for assumptions:

This communication was not initiated by us. It is a statement of the CEO of our shareholder MTG, that was misunderstood and addressed the very successful business case of Forge of Empires. Analogously he said something like ‘InnoGames is looking for the new Forge of Empires. The journalist expected a direct sequel of Forge of Empires. We cannot confirm that. Sorry.’

I think he should not feel sorry. From all these questions we received, we saw that the community would rather a long and active continuation of Forge of Empires much more, than the chance of a sequel. That InnoGames is always looking for THE new game idea becoming as great as Forge of Empires is obvious.

There will definitely be no sequel this year and we will be looking forward to seeing a lot of new content in Forge of Empires.

Calculating Damage In Battles

InnoGames provides details of each individual property of military units, calculates what bonuses they will result in, but has never revealed what will then happen with it.

One of the most frequently posted questions is the one about the formula all these battles are based on. Players simply want to understand better what additional bonuses may result in. Today we want to make this a bit better to understand.

Upfront, it is very important to understand that no individual value itself can tell you something. Instead, the quotient of attacking strength and defense value is the relevant number.

Let us take a battle of the Guild expedition Contemporary Era Level 1 as an example. Moving the mouse over the units in the list at the bottom, you can see the unit’s unmodified basic values. Without the bonuses resulting from great buildings, event buildings or flasks.

In the ‘currently selected army,’ the units are then displayed with their bonus and the resulting strength is calculated. Our Anti-Aircraft vehicle as an example has 90 attack strength. With my 283% attack bonus, it then has an attack strength of 345.

As mentioned before, this alone doesn’t allow us assumptions about a fight. We first have to look at the opponent.

Example given. The IVF has an attack strength of 109 and a defense value of 94.

Here are some others (attack/defense)

  • Rocket Artillery: 65/51
  • Commando; 116/80

On top units receive additional bonuses from the ground and against specific opponents.

The complete result of the attacker has to be divided by the complete result of the defender.

This quotient then allows us to determine how much damage an attack might cause, giving a minimum and a maximum.

Example given, the very first move in this guild expedition battle.

The IFV moves forward and stops on a plains tile where it receives an additional defense value of 25.

Its attack strength doesn’t matter in this example as the IFV cannot do more than changing the attacked rogue to an Anti-Aircraft Vehicle, independent of how strong it might be.

As the rogue becomes an Anti Aircraft vehicle it retaliates immediately.

On top of the 283% attack bonus, another 25 attack strength is added resulting from the plains tile the Anti-Aircraft vehicle is placed on.

On top, another 80 attack strength is added for attacking a fast unit, the IFV.

This results in 345 + 25 + 80 = 450 attack strength

The IFV then has 94 + 25 = 119 defense strength

The quotient then is: 450 / 119 = 3.78

A look on our diagram reveals: We can expect to cause a minimum of 8 and a maximum of 9 damage points against that IFV. The exact value is then picked randomly between both borders.

You can make up the same calculation for each other fight to understand the underlying math.

Much more interesting for most players is a completely different point of view: What would an increase of my attack bonus result in?

If you have a bad attack bonus each change brings a huge advantage.

Different in our example. You see that the next increase of damage would happen at a quotient of 10.

To achieve that the attack strength would have to be at 1,190.

This means that you need 1,206 % attack bonus to add a single damage point.

In this example, some more levels of a great building or adding a couple of event buildings with attack bonus would not make any difference at all.

Only rising the attack bonus from currently 283% to 1,206% would make a change.

Then you even have the chance to kill the opponent with only one hit.

Such calculations can help to determine the benefit of an additional event building.

Of course, attacking a different unit or a unit with much better defense bonus changes the calculation completely and then added bonus might make a huge difference.

Those who currently might fail at a certain platform of the guild expedition might calculate if there is a chance to let some more bonus from a flask or a new event building make a difference.

This is how you can use this knowledge to your advantage.

The Art Exhibition

Soon, the antiques dealer occasionally will offer a brand new building, the Art Exhibition.

We bought it for 28,350 trade coins and 63 gemstones. It also can be won in an auction, but as a new building, players are bidding huge numbers of trade coins on it.

We constructed level 1 of that building and it still has very humble properties.

This building can be upgraded up to level 8 and already after the first upgrade it has interesting values.

On the highest level, it provides population, more happiness than population is added, many coins, some supplies, 25 goods and 10 forge points on a 4×4 floor size.

A good reason to save some trade coins and gemstones.

Journal courtesy of FOE Hints.

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