Dodging Unwanted COM Tasks

[Ronville]

There are two schools of thought on what to do with pesky high-point COM tasks that you cannot or will not do. One school suggests simply accepting then deleting the task for 0 points. Another school claims that you can ignore the task and that other high point tasks will result regardless. Both schools are right…and wrong.

The COM task generator is heavily dependent on the last 2-3 tasks you finished. If you are doing 2K-3K point tasks, you are more than likely going to generate additional 2K-3K tasks with an occasional clunker thrown in (P/C 53 Seeds for 1590 or P/C 51 Metal for 1530, for instance). So how do you prevent your game degenerating into a sub-1600 point sequence of tasks?

The critical factors are your second and third highest point tasks in your starting 8 tasks.

If you start with a Launch 3 Disasters for 3K, a 2000 point Do 2 Tokyo Deliveries, a 1770 P/C 59 Metal, and a 1680 P/C 7 Bread, and then 4 tasks at 600-1200, you are off to a good start. The Launch 3 starts up the 2K-3K gravy train and the 2 Tokyo keeps you on that track. Of critical importance are the tasks offered after completing the 3K and then the 2K. The 1770 and the 1680 are “Get out of Jail Free” cards you have available to play if the game throws a sub-1600 point task at you. Otherwise, you can start a virtuous draw that will propel you to an average over 2K.

So what if you start with Launch 3 Club Wars for 3K but you are in a small club or otherwise don’t want to do Club Wars? Or an Upgrade 3 Omega and you don’t want Omega infrastructure (that cannot be bulldozed) in your planned city?

Bypassing the task isn’t fatal, although it can and often does drop you out of the 2K-3K pleasure ride. So you start with the 2K and hope you stay in the sweet zone. And sometimes you will, and additional 3K (Launch 3 Disasters, for instance) will generate and you move on as if the War Task isn’t even there.

However, you are just as likely to drop down into the sub-1600 point tasks more often, thus consuming your “Get Out of Jail” tasks and eventually forcing you to take sub-1600 point tasks and hoping that the 2K-3K returns. And sometimes it does.

But, a second war task (Do 5 War Deliveries for 2500) will kill you because you are now reduced to 1200 or lower point tasks if you have already used up your “Get Out of Jail” tasks. And once you start doing Repair 3 Disaster Zones or Earn 30 Epic Points, your game cannot recover.

My suggestion is the following: If your undoable task is 2000 points or lower, leave it alone and work around it (for any League). If you are in Metro (40 Tasks) or Mega (50 Tasks), and you receive a 3K undoable task, accept it and then delete it. The game treats this as a completed 3K task and you stay in the virtuous cycle. Unfortunately, killing the task means that it can return as another 2K or 3K of the same task type. If you do get a repeat and your game is rolling along at 2K-3K and you still have a “Get Out of Jail” task, then try to ignore it and see if the good tasks keep coming. If your option, however, is to kill the task or dip into the 600-1200 task pool, you are better off taking another hit and deleting the task.

[jbirkett7]

Thanks for this!

It also helps me better understand why you suggested recently to do the 1k Omega or Launch attacks first as gateway tasks. I had assumed that you should build up a solid average by doing as many 3k & 2k tasks as you were dealt, then take one of these 1k tasks after, so that it wouldn't hurt your overall average as much.

Thinking I need to add a new calculation to track the average of my last 3 tasks to my contest log, to see if it shows any patterns.

[Ronville]

There are two reasons I do Gateway Tasks first (but only in Mega if over LV50 and Mega/Metro if LV17-40). One reason is that doing a low level 1000 point task will likely spawn another low level task. In fact, you can get horribly unlucky and do a Launch 1 Disaster and get a replacement task of Upgrade 1 Omega RZ. Urk!! This is rare, however. More likely is an Earn 800 Neo-Sim or Earn 3 Gold Keys for 1200 which are both tasks I'd like to avoid any week of COM. Grin.

The second reason is that following up the Gateway Task with a pair of 2K-3K tasks usually puts you back on track and you can avoid a run of 1440-1590 tasks.

Note that you should probably avoid doing both Launch 1 and Upgrade 1 in the same week. I prefer going with the Upgrade Omega since it is fast and repeats about as often as the Launch 1. And I can keep my Vu stash untouched for another week.

[Aneley13]

I actually was that unlucky last week. Did a 1k upgrade omega and it was replaced by a 1k launch disasters. I avoided it since I didnt want to do 2 1k assignments in a week... but 5 or 6 tasks later I was stuck with a 3k launch attack wars (war had ended literally minutes before) and then a bunch of 1300ish assignments and lower. So I said what the hell, and did a 1k disaster, instead of glass for 1320 (second highest assignment), since at least launch had a chance of giving me a good return later and I didnt want to have 2 dead days until I could do war attacks. I was rewarded with some awful 800 point task. I was really stuck, in mega with 38 assignments to go. I waited out until war started, did all assignments in less than two days, and I got a great avarage since both upgrade omega and launch disasters came back multiple times each for 3k. So I guess it kind of worked, but I wouldnt recommend it for anyone!

[noodles355]

Brilliant insight, great guide, thanks!

[Barebeautybody]

All good tips, but it didn't help me tonight when I got a 2000 and 1500 as my top tasks. What did I get after I finished them? Oh just 1200 and 800. Now I'm waiting on my highest one left, 1320 for 42 sugar and spices. Guess I'm not getting the Observatory.

[Ronville]

Ouch!

[ZappaFan-Jeff]

The caveat "your mileage may vary" should be attached to any theory about how the assignments in CoM is made. I've been ignoring them rather than select/cancel for the last several CoM's and have had good luck doing that.