Board Thread:Game Discussion/@comment-98.154.5.158-20131108053247/@comment-24108837-20131108222416

A basic armour costs 300 for 6 EP and an uncommon armour costs 500 for 10 EP. That is both 50 gold/EP. To get to 10 EP with basic armours requires 1 2/3 armours and hence 2/3 more slots than using uncommon. But 10 EP in basic armours will craft in about 8.5 minutes whereas uncommon armours take 30 minutes to craft.

If you would place a fountain or a dragons nest in your castle instead of an armoursmith that would yield more than 75 gold per 5 minutes. The armoursmith takes 2 spots so it prevents you from getting 150 gold per 5 minutes. If we would add that to the costs of the armour a basic armour would cost about 450 gold to craft and an uncommon armour would cost 500 + 6x150 =1400 gold

the equation would then be:

enhancing 10 EP with matching basic armour costs 10/6 x (450 + 1 slot) = 750 gold + 1 2/3 slot.

enhancing 10 EP with uncommon armour costs 1400 + 1 slot.

In this case the difference is 650 gold - 2/3 slots. So using basic armours will be cheaper if the cost of an enhancement slot does not exceed 650 x 3/2 = 1025 gold. That must be up to somewhere around level 13-14.

When you take the decision to actually use basic or uncommon armour for an upgrade you cannot vary the armoursmiths costs anymore. So at that moment you face a situation where using uncommon armour will be cheaper.

But at a moment when you decide to place an extra armoursmith or not you should consider that maybe not building the extra armoursmith but some gold yielding building instead may be a wiser decision and will allow you to upgrade your armours faster using basic armours and a bit more gold. Even when you are constantly short of cash (like me).

I like this subject. I may write a blog page about it.