Which tier(s) matter and which don't

[Raphael]

Stirring up some actual conversation rather than just spam-adverts,

 

In the current state of the game which tiers do you think have the greatest impact on the game, and which tiers do you think have a minimal impact on the game?

 

I think a lot of people here will answer "whales" without thinking. The whale tier (c40+ ish) certainly offers some advantages - as whales not only have more cities but usually more infra as well. This gives more improvements slots per city, more income per city, and overall exponentially more output than someone in the mid-to-low tier. However the one drawback to the whale tier is that there are less than 50 (46) of them in the whole game out of thousands of players.

I'd be interested if anyone had data on how much income these 46 whales make compared to the income of the rest of the game.

 

My personal thought is that the most important tier is the c30-c40 tier and the peripheral nations around that (c25+ up to c42 ish). This is an economically important tier (pre-whale stage nations but still infra-heavy and able to outproduce lower tiers by a much higher margin) and militarily significant. This tier is the group which harpoons down the whales and downdeclares into the people with 20-30 cities. There are roughly 400 players sitting in this tier and often we see alliances heavily tiered in this range as well meaning even more power behind the punches these people can bring.

Rose, Syndicate, Cata, Carthago and others have a fairly significant c30+ presence tiered up ready to go and I think it gives them a huge advantage even against numerically superior forces.

 

I'm interested to hear what other people think though.

 

[Joe Schmo]

Personally, I think the tier right below Wampus is pretty important, because the higher you go, the wider the city range you have and the more there is on the table. Of course, the higher you go the less combatants, so there's that.

[Changeup]

C30 is the most important tier right now. It's economically feasible (for most alliances) to invest in some sort of growth circle/tiering plan that gives them a tier at c30, and a whole tier at c30 will have better production than a couple of whales would. This excellent revenue stream comes at a relatively reasonable cost, making it great for a decent ROI from a purely economic standpoint. OP mentioned the military benefits - a squad of c30s can reach well into the whale tier and down into the upper mid tier as well, so it's probably the most advantageous city count to have from a military perspective as well.

[Cthulu]

The question seems to be based on the premise that resource production is the final measure of importance. This is a flawed premise, and therefore, the question is moot. Here's a question: When GW comes, who do the big guys come to for help protecting their low tiers? Their low tier allies.

Edited November 25, 2021 by Cthulu

[Thalmor]

During a war between two parties, the tier that matters are the one bigger ones. Whale tier, upper tier, whatever you want to call it. If you have a war between C1-C15 on both sides, for example, then it's that C10+ range that matters. 

Holding the upper tier is important because the bigger nations bring more to the table economically. Being able to keep cash and resources being made/produced to replenish losses is important. A safe upper tier can also punch down below them. If they can do so from relatively safety, then their alliance/side is golden. Doing damage while making bank? Literally no better thing in this game.

Middle tier is good for punching up at your enemy's upper tier, but they're not really the most important.

Lower tier are least important. If they can skirmish, raid, and do damage, then good. I would argue that the lower tier is best for trying to sit on an enemy's own lower tier. If you can make those newer players quit, leave their alliance, or just be less active, then you're doing some real damage that way. 

[Indger]

6 hours ago, Justinian the Great said:

Stirring up some actual conversation rather than just spam-adverts,

 

In the current state of the game which tiers do you think have the greatest impact on the game, and which tiers do you think have a minimal impact on the game?

 

I think a lot of people here will answer "whales" without thinking. The whale tier (c40+ ish) certainly offers some advantages - as whales not only have more cities but usually more infra as well. This gives more improvements slots per city, more income per city, and overall exponentially more output than someone in the mid-to-low tier. However the one drawback to the whale tier is that there are less than 50 (46) of them in the whole game out of thousands of players.

I'd be interested if anyone had data on how much income these 46 whales make compared to the income of the rest of the game.

 

My personal thought is that the most important tier is the c30-c40 tier and the peripheral nations around that (c25+ up to c42 ish). This is an economically important tier (pre-whale stage nations but still infra-heavy and able to outproduce lower tiers by a much higher margin) and militarily significant. This tier is the group which harpoons down the whales and downdeclares into the people with 20-30 cities. There are roughly 400 players sitting in this tier and often we see alliances heavily tiered in this range as well meaning even more power behind the punches these people can bring.

Rose, Syndicate, Cata, Carthago and others have a fairly significant c30+ presence tiered up ready to go and I think it gives them a huge advantage even against numerically superior forces.

 

I'm interested to hear what other people think though.

 

i agree with you

[Raphael]

21 hours ago, Thalmor said:

During a war between two parties, the tier that matters are the one bigger ones. Whale tier, upper tier, whatever you want to call it. If you have a war between C1-C15 on both sides, for example, then it's that C10+ range that matters. 

Holding the upper tier is important because the bigger nations bring more to the table economically. Being able to keep cash and resources being made/produced to replenish losses is important. A safe upper tier can also punch down below them. If they can do so from relatively safety, then their alliance/side is golden. Doing damage while making bank? Literally no better thing in this game.

Middle tier is good for punching up at your enemy's upper tier, but they're not really the most important.

Lower tier are least important. If they can skirmish, raid, and do damage, then good. I would argue that the lower tier is best for trying to sit on an enemy's own lower tier. If you can make those newer players quit, leave their alliance, or just be less active, then you're doing some real damage that way. 

I understand that this is the conventionally held wisdom, but I'm not necessarily speaking purely economics.

We basically saw in NPOLT what a disciplined middle tier could do to untouchable whales - and eventually even those untouchable whales got pulled down through rounds and rounds of kamikaze attacks.

The issue with importance on the upper tier is that they can't strike as low as the mid tier can strike upwards. So no matter where you're at, if you're above someone in city ranges you will most likely have 3 people available to take your defensive slots. Whether or not they do is another story.

 

I still really think the middle-to-upper-middle tier is the most important due to the number of players present in that field AND the strategic utility of those tiers. You can pretty effectively strike down into the low-mid/lower tiers and dominate at-will and with enough numbers that even kamikaze style attacks won't bring you down. The whales suffer from success in this regard, literally, because you can plan out their downfall one at a time.

[Arthur Wellington]

Like said before, it all depend on which parameters you use.

How many % of game time is spend on war? How many % of players have more than 20c? I bet most activity is found below 20c. 

Focus on higher being better is a kapitalistic point of view. I for one would dare to say the extremly active and influenctial whales are actually frustrated and crying the most out of all the players here on Orbis. 🙂

 

And Alex agree, latest thing he added was an RP item, nothing to do with military, alliances, city count, improvements or anything mentioned often as being relevant.

[Hwan]

whales

[Firwof Kromwell]

On 11/26/2021 at 4:06 PM, Justinian the Great said:

I understand that this is the conventionally held wisdom, but I'm not necessarily speaking purely economics.

We basically saw in NPOLT what a disciplined middle tier could do to untouchable whales - and eventually even those untouchable whales got pulled down through rounds and rounds of kamikaze attacks.

The issue with importance on the upper tier is that they can't strike as low as the mid tier can strike upwards. So no matter where you're at, if you're above someone in city ranges you will most likely have 3 people available to take your defensive slots. Whether or not they do is another story.

 

I still really think the middle-to-upper-middle tier is the most important due to the number of players present in that field AND the strategic utility of those tiers. You can pretty effectively strike down into the low-mid/lower tiers and dominate at-will and with enough numbers that even kamikaze style attacks won't bring you down. The whales suffer from success in this regard, literally, because you can plan out their downfall one at a time.

I really agree with ya mate.

It should be obvious that the majority of the player base is within that range. And most alliances also tier those players to usually be as profitable as possible with both money and/or one to two resources in production. As per mentioned as well, due to the amount of people in this tier range, there's going to be a lot of Wars declared that can easily reach down as far as a bit below in the single digits and to as high as the mid 30s city count wise based on how most people are built on average. That is if built up to the common tiering standards that are shared similarly between alliances.

I'm fairly sure as a real life reference that the majority of truly important people are usually the working middle class is what usually defines how well a nation is doing economically. I would presume the same would apply in game as well anything like it. Yea, it's a no brainer that people in real life that are millionaires and even billionaires furthermore in game pre whale to whale tier are going to be as well continue to flourish since most below fundamentally can't reach them militarily and economically in most scenarios. Y'all putting pre whale to whale as most important it's like comparing Oprah Winfrey and Adam Sandler to someone like me and Akuryo.

[Sweeeeet Ronny D]

End of the day, the most important tier is the one with the most numbers and activity, because that is what wins you wars.

you can have 20 c50s but if they dont show up, they dont matter. same as having 1000 c15s.

[Eumirbago]

#alltiersmatter

[katashimon13]

black friday tier is obviously the most important

rawr