[Question] Does it worth building Alcatraz for non GvG player?

[Woody*]

I do fine without one. I have over 400 units on Z, without having a Traz, or barracks. It is not necessary, unless your skill level is low, your attack GBs are low, or you auto. In 70 spots, I could put a lot of hideouts if I needed rogues, which I never do, since add more just about every week (don't forget DC).

You're much better off going with an AO, which will severely limit your losses, than suffer more losses with a 70 hex unit, that doesn't give forge points. Unless you do GvG, or otherwise have to fight "auto" a lot.

152 keeps implying that people that need Traz have less skill. There is zero correlation, although there is a correlation to play-style. We agree that the AO is an awesome GB, but simply no match for the benefits of the Traz for most players out there regardless of skill.

 

[DeletedUser31440]

Btw. Read the title again. It clearly says for non gvg players.

Please stick to the FULL question. The only right answer is no, it's not worth it for non gvg players.
If you losing a lot of troops elsewhere (ge or pvp) you are doing it all wrong.

Time is way too important to be dismissed from this convo. I can fight through GE without a Traz, but with a Traz I can auto-battle through letting me complete GE in more worlds and earn more diamonds. If only playing a few worlds your advice might be spot on, but with multiple worlds the Traz saves a lot of time.

 

[Woody*]

INegotiating in GE is the less time consuming way.

I would agree negotiating is faster than manually fighting...by far. But auto attacking is much faster than negotiating.

 

[DeletedUser34285]

Maybe that's the only right answer for you, but not for everyone. I rarely if ever do GvG and I always build the Traz at the first opportunity. Negates the need for cultural buildings, which justifies at least half of the space it takes, and reduces your need for barracks down to one 2x3 Rogue Hideout. Plus it gives you military flexibility to produce whatever troops you want/need. Got a few 2 Spear defenses in the hood? Produce a few lower age units and rake in basically free medals from multiple towers each week. Without the Traz, you would have to either save units from each age as you move up, or build the barracks each week that you want to do this. With the Traz, you can produce any age unit (below your own age) whenever you need to or want to. No worries about losing any of them, because you can get more any time you want. There are just too many upsides to building it, and very little down side when you consider what it replaces.

There is upside if you have the space. Most find the hardest part of the game is space. Most need goods buildings for ge 3/4. It all depends on the player, what they have and what they are attempting to do. I would assume a non gvg player probably more times then not isn't a huge pvp also. Guess that's the real answer needed to give the best advice.
Happiness is a bonus but not the real reason anyone builds it.

 

[Woody*]

Btw. Read the title again. It clearly says for non gvg players.

Please stick to the FULL question. The only right answer is no, it's not worth it for non gvg players.
If you losing a lot of troops elsewhere (ge or pvp) you are doing it all wrong.

I only GvG on two worlds, but GE on about 8 others and I have a Traz for every single world I complete GE in. If I had unlimited time to fight manually, you can make an argument not to build Traz. But if you care about maximizing your time, the answer is Yes.

 

[DeletedUser34285]

I would agree negotiating is faster than manually fighting...by far. But auto attacking is much faster than negotiating.

Forgot the auto battle option haha. My bad!

 

[Ta 152H]

152 keeps implying that people that need Traz have less skill. There is zero correlation, although there is a correlation to play-style. We agree that the AO is an awesome GB, but simply no match for the benefits of the Traz for most players out there regardless of skill.

Wrong. You make a supposition without supporting facts.

I said it was fine for GvG, or if you had to fight auto. If you can't do without a Trash while fighting manually, you probably have low GBs, or low skill. That's what I'm saying, and I'll stand by it.

Most players do not do GvG. I would think that is obvious. For anyone not doing GvG, saying the Trash is even remotely as useful as the AO is absurd. AO completely changes the dynamic of battles, and greatly reduces losses, if you've got it at a decent level. It helps defend your city as well. Plus, it gives out one forge point per level, instead of happiness which is normally quite unimportant due to bad balancing by Inno.

The Trash can't help you win battles. It can help you fight more of them, but if it's a really rough late L4 encounter, you still have to win it. AO reduces losses tremendously, and helps you actually win battles.

The Trash has a much more limited scope than AO. AO is good for anyone that fights, and probably worthwhile for even people that don't by virtue of the defensive bonus, and high forge point production. Trash is THE GvG building. But, GvG is deprecated and basically of low productivity. Even there, AO is very helpful with losses, but it's a lot easier to do without it than the Trash.

But again most people don't do GvG. For GE, and PvC, AO is way better. Unless you have so many worlds that auto is your only option, and even then, I think AO is going to help you more for the relatively easy ones, and then help you overcome them fighting manually in the very difficult fights.

Plus, it's a lot smaller. It's really so much better unless you're doing GvG.

 

[DeletedUser31440]

Traz = Faster GE = multiple worlds GE = more diamonds = more playing flexibility

 

[Woody*]

For anyone not doing GvG, saying the Trash is even remotely as useful as the AO is absurd.

The major part of our disagreement stems primarily from play-style. But again, you mistakenly assert it has to do with lower skill or attack rating. While there is some truth in what you say (because there are some players with either of both of those), you are 100% wrong to assert that Alcatraz is trash for non-GvG players. It benefits the vast majority of players more than the AO, assuming the caveats (limited time, whether they need happiness or not as you mentioned, etc).

Edit: You brought up some excellent points about the AO (FP production, smaller size, help defending your city, etc). One downer about the AO I don't think has been mentioned is that it doesn't help against lower or higher aged troops, but against the same level troops in GE 2-4 it certainly makes the fighting easier. If we were to discuss further, we could compare the costs to complete GE __x___ with the Traz route and the AO route. There is no doubt that auto-attacking (much more quickly made possible by the Traz route) is much cheaper in FP terms (and goods), and that the increased FPs you get from AO would take roughly 2 years to over-come the higher cost of leveling an AO vs. Traz if you go the AO route.

Again, there is a HUGE caveat. Do you want to save time and auto-attack, or manually fight?

My conclusion is that if you play like TA152 and manually attack, follow his advice. If you prefer to auto-attack, build the Traz!

 

[Woody*]

To the OP, as you can see from this discussion there are clearly pros and cons. If desired, you can give us more information about your current GB levels (primarily military boost #s), time constraints and play style to give you more personalized advice.

 

[DeletedUser]

There is upside if you have the space. Most find the hardest part of the game is space. Most need goods buildings for ge 3/4. It all depends on the player, what they have and what they are attempting to do. I would assume a non gvg player probably more times then not isn't a huge pvp also. Guess that's the real answer needed to give the best advice.
Happiness is a bonus but not the real reason anyone builds it.

Your assumption about a connection between doing GvG and PvP is really baseless. Non-GvG players actually have more time for PvP, usually. And don't have to worry about saving their troops for defense armies.

 

[Woody*]

One more thing to discuss is given X amount of time, what is most efficient:

1. manually fight
2. auto attack + whatever other activities you can do with the extra time

Manually fighting effectively will save you a lot of resources (space and/or goods) in terms of less barracks required, potentially no need for a Traz, etc.

However, I get much greater value from the extra time I spend profit hunting, managing my guild, etc than I get from my manually fighting. One of the things I do with the extra time is perhaps the most lucrative activities in the game: profit hunting. I get dozens more FPs per day from locking neighbor GBs for profit than I do my AO even though it is level 70. But there is a huge caveat...this amount of profit is only possible because my Arc is leveled past 80.

 

[Ta 152H]

The major part of our disagreement stems primarily from play-style. But again, you mistakenly assert it has to do with lower skill or attack rating. While there is some truth in what you say (because there are some players with either of both of those), you are 100% wrong to assert that Alcatraz is trash for non-GvG players. It benefits the vast majority of players more than the AO, assuming the caveats (limited time, whether they need happiness or not as you mentioned, etc).

Edit: You brought up some excellent points about the AO (FP production, smaller size, help defending your city, etc). One downer about the AO I don't think has been mentioned is that it doesn't help against lower or higher aged troops, but against the same level troops in GE 2-4 it certainly makes the fighting easier. If we were to discuss further, we could compare the costs to complete GE __x___ with the Traz route and the AO route. There is no doubt that auto-attacking (much more quickly made possible by the Traz route) is much cheaper in FP terms (and goods), and that the increased FPs you get from AO would take roughly 2 years to over-come the higher cost of leveling an AO vs. Traz if you go the AO route.

Again, there is a HUGE caveat. Do you want to save time and auto-attack, or manually fight?

My conclusion is that if you play like TA152 and manually attack, follow his advice. If you prefer to auto-attack, build the Traz!

Again, you are misquoting me. I mentioned if you had to do auto, Traz could be helpful. As helpful as the AO? No way. AO is DEVASTATING.

The issue we were talking about was with this guy claiming I was sheep, and was fabricating what I was saying about my loss of troops. You've completely distorted the context to make your point. He thought I was lying about it, and told him it was relatively easy to perform what I was saying, unless you have low GBs, or have no skill, which he obviously must suffer from to believe it is difficult.

The same age "downer" is very minor. Level 1 is trivial, and therefore it is essentially not a negative at all. If you can force someone to attack you with a lower age troop, AO has done its job anyway. Traz has zero protection. The only really salient negative is if you attack with higher age troops on a map than the defender has, and that does happen when you get units ahead of your age. But, it's not a big deal, and compared to the power AO gives, relatively minor.

Traz does not allow you to win an encounter you wouldn't be able to win without it. It's a false comparison. AO makes combat much faster too, extremely fast in some ages. For example, in CE, that weird artillery is extremely effective against tanks if you have AO. And you knock them out before they even get to attack you. So, another way to look at it is, Traz can not get you over the hump. AO can. More than that, Traz does not speed up manual combat, AO does.

You also leave out that the opportunity to auto-attack is much greater with AO. You can win battles you'd lose with Traz.

I have no idea how auto-attacking is much cheaper in terms of FP. I don't even see any connection between the two. Bizarre statement.

It's also bizarre to make a reference to needing more goods with AO. You'd need less. Because it would allow you to win battles you can't win without it. Traz owner must yield with his weak GB, and nego where the AO would pound through it. And the nice thing about the AO is, if you get poor results on your first attack, surrender, try again. YOU WILL sooner or later get good results, and get through it unless you never had a chance. Traz, just cower and nego. It's not to my taste at all.

And yeah, there's that 21 extra squares you glossed over. 21. That's a decent amount of space.

So, unless you're doing GvG, you're better off with AO. You'll lose a lot less, you'll have more space, and you'll get forge points. Traz? You'll get to fail more often. And when you want to buckle down and manual, AO will take you over the hump. Traz just gets humped.

 

[DeletedUser30900]

That’s why I leave this guy alone since he keep talking and talking without any fact to prove it. I even tried to look him up but obviously he’s not confident enough to use his game name as his forum name. Carry on, bragger.

 

[Woody*]

Again, you are misquoting me.

Sorry if I mis-characterized your post.

Traz could be helpful. As helpful as the AO? No way. AO is DEVASTATING.

No it's not. My AO is level 70 and it's not game changing like Traz. Again, play style is a factor, and with your play style, I have said I agree with you.

You've completely distorted the context to make your point.

Not intentionally.

The same age "downer" is very minor.

I agree this is a minor downer...but I mentioned it for educational purposes because I missed that caveat when it first came out, and others might benefit.

Traz does not allow you to win an encounter you wouldn't be able to win without it.

True

AO makes combat much faster too, extremely fast in some ages.

False, it has almost zero effect on speed. Maybe one or 2 fights per week in GE.

Traz does not speed up manual combat, AO does.

True, but not by much. Hard to quantify this, of course.

ou also leave out that the opportunity to auto-attack is much greater with AO. You can win battles you'd lose with Traz.

Yes, but you can auto many more fights when you have unlimited troops. The effect of the Traz in this regard is unrivaled.

I have no idea how auto-attacking is much cheaper in terms of FP. I don't even see any connection between the two. Bizarre statement.

Let me explain better then. If you invest 1000 FPs in your Traz and 1000 FPs into your AO you will have different capabilities. (I don't think either of us would advocate such a pure investment strategy, but just for the sake of argument). You will get a much higher return on investment on your Traz (it's cheaper to level), and the fact is that the extra cost of the AO levels will take years to pay off (the payoff on a level 10 AO is over 1.5 years, even if you assume that all levels and all prizes on those levels are taken by 1.9 trades (friends with level 80 Arcs helping you by locking spots at no profit). The extra FPs you save on Traz could go to extra levels on your other GBs. There is simply no comparison.

It's also bizarre to make a reference to needing more goods with AO.

I was referring to the fact that Traz goods are much cheaper than AO goods

And yeah, there's that 21 extra squares you glossed over. 21. That's a decent amount of space.

I agree wholeheartedly. However, for most players - even non-GVG players - will save space by not needing cultural buildings (something you unduly minimized for most players), needing less barracks, and therefore less population.

 

[DeletedUser32973]

Is the AO even really worth it unless you're prepared to stratosphere it? I feel like the OP probably isn't stratosphering buildings currently.

 

[DeletedUser26965]

That’s why I leave this guy alone since he keep talking and talking without any fact to prove it. I even tried to look him up but obviously he’s not confident enough to use his game name as his forum name. Carry on, bragger.

And when you see someone call a GB trash and indispensable in the same breath well I think you can safely dismiss them.

...the Trash...it's absolutely indispensable.

and really, I can live with 2.68% of my city dedicated for getting free units everyday.

 

[DeletedUser34891]

Thank you all for your advice.
I really appreciate it!

 

[Ta 152H]

That’s why I leave this guy alone since he keep talking and talking without any fact to prove it. I even tried to look him up but obviously he’s not confident enough to use his game name as his forum name. Carry on, bragger.

Wrong again. I play on Z now, I deleted my other accounts. Too much time, and my gal didn't exactly like it. And yes, it's the same name

Sorry if I mis-characterized your post.

No it's not. My AO is level 70 and it's not game changing like Traz. Again, play style is a factor, and with your play style, I have said I agree with you.

Not intentionally.

I agree this is a minor downer...but I mentioned it for educational purposes because I missed that caveat when it first came out, and others might benefit.

True

False, it has almost zero effect on speed. Maybe one or 2 fights per week in GE.

True, but not by much. Hard to quantify this, of course.

Yes, but you can auto many more fights when you have unlimited troops. The effect of the Traz in this regard is unrivaled.

Let me explain better then. If you invest 1000 FPs in your Traz and 1000 FPs into your AO you will have different capabilities. (I don't think either of us would advocate such a pure investment strategy, but just for the sake of argument). You will get a much higher return on investment on your Traz (it's cheaper to level), and the fact is that the extra cost of the AO levels will take years to pay off (the payoff on a level 10 AO is over 1.5 years, even if you assume that all levels and all prizes on those levels are taken by 1.9 trades (friends with level 80 Arcs helping you by locking spots at no profit). The extra FPs you save on Traz could go to extra levels on your other GBs. There is simply no comparison.

I was referring to the fact that Traz goods are much cheaper than AO goods

I agree wholeheartedly. However, for most players - even non-GVG players - will save space by not needing cultural buildings (something you unduly minimized for most players), needing less barracks, and therefore less population.

OK, let's go back to speed with regards to AO. It most DEFINITELY does improve speed. In CE, it has a very large effect. I go in there with that crazy artillery, and boom, nothing left after turn one. This happens on several fights per GE. Not a few. Other ages, it also eliminates units quickly, and allows one to auto the rest without worrying about effects. It does help. Saying it has 0 effect and then admitted it does on a minor scale is also kind of odd, but it's way more than that. Try it some time. Disconnect, then reconnect, and do manual.

But again, AO allows one to auto in battles where the Traz wouldn't.

Traz is cheaper to level, but it's also weaker per level, in my opinion. Three units a day is nothing compared to what you can save with the AO at lower levels. Plus, AO gives greater rewards, so the difference in FP paid is a bit less when you factor that in. Level by Level, AO is much stronger. So, you seem to be making a broad assumption that you need to have them the same level. It's simply not true. Using that as a basis is also not true. But, let's say you stack those 21 spots with an FP generator (which is getting easier and easier to get), then how does that math work out ? Kind of different, huh?

I know people like looking at oversimplified mathematical models, because once you get too deeply into it, it becomes less clear and answers get less definitive. For example, those 21 spots, what do we put there? Do we have them available? Or at what point are they? So seems get less definitive. Even so, by simply acknowledging the 21 spots, and then not equating them into any of the models that follow, you effectively discount the issue.

With regards to culturals, I never need them, with or without the Traz. So, I don't allow for space for it, because I've never needed it, and I think most serious players will not run into happiness issues without it. Equally, I never advance happiness as an important reason for building the Hagia, except very early in the game. It's just my opinion, but I think Inno has gone a little overboard with happy buildings, and it's very much a non-issue for most active players.

 

[Ta 152H]

And when you see someone call a GB trash and indispensable in the same breath well I think you can safely dismiss them.



and really, I can live with 2.68% of my city dedicated for getting free units everyday.

What I could do with that 2.68% is much greater than the Trash can do. 70 spots is a lot. You can sugar coat that all you want, but we both know there are a lot of really nice things you can fit in that space.

It is Trash, if you don't need the units. I said it's indispensable in one particular scenario, GvG. That's not to say it's useless in every other for all players, but I never need it except for GvG. In every other scenario, I accumulate unit after unit without it. So, something that takes 70 spots and does nothing useful for me, is Trash on the highest scale. I think for most people it does not warrant the space or the FP. But, in the scenario it was designed for, it's very, very important. I just don't think that is the typical situation anymore, so I go overboard by calling it the Trash. That's to offset the inertia of people considering this GB much better than it is, outside of GvG. It's cattle mentality, because everyone says it's must-have, everyone repeats it, and no one questions it. So, by using a disparaging name like Trash, it gets people to at least question the players that slavishly advocate building it, without understanding the situation fo the person who is doing so.