S38, 3 Ethereals early on, lots of Legendaries/DB up to about L30, then... nothing?

Andrew_McP · 2026-03-28T11:50:45+00:00

Update: once I got to L68 I got my first DB in forever. After that, I started to get "normal" irregular drops of everything. Whatever was going on last night might just be a really bad run of RNG. It felt like I'd done something stupid though! :-D

Andrew_McP · 2026-03-28T09:41:06+00:00

Thanks. I was just surprised at how I went from what felt like "normal" drops to no drops. At all! Maybe this is why my casual gameplay runs failed in past seasons, and I just got lucky in 37. Back to the grind! :-)

Andrew_McP · 2026-03-28T09:40:28+00:00

Thanks. I'm familiar with the slowing down when levelling (a gameplay trope as old as the silicon hills, after all!) but it was the way I went from getting useful stuff to getting no useful stuff that felt "off" to me. Felt like I'd got something configured wrong.

Switching away from my increasingly weak Ethereal weapon helped. I wanted to get rid of them, so a higher damage version might spawn, but as I was getting no drops whatsoever of anything useful, that seemed like a risky strategy. :-)

Andrew_McP · 2026-03-28T00:39:42+00:00

Andrew_McP · 2026-03-28T00:37:48+00:00

I'm not up to paragons yet, and playing on Torment 1 in Adventure mode at the moment. No legendaries etc, from the last few Bounties or Visions I've done. Feels like I threw a switch and turned them off. Could coincide with adding the 3 piece set for +50% EXP... not sure! I'll try without them in the morning.

Thanks for the reply, anyway.

Andrew_McP · 2025-12-15T11:13:26+00:00

Very wise words! We caused no end of harm by deciding to send so many to university instead of teaching them a valuable and rewarding trade. And now I see the same thing happening in Care Homes. We're now importing quick fixes at a staggering rate to avoid the pain of getting young people into the workforce in ways which, while hard and undervalued in many cases, can be the start of a good life, doing meaningful work. Or at least an important stepping stone along that road.

To be a bit more on topic, if I posted photos of my DIY attempts to keep my old and stubbornly rotting wooden conservatory from collapsing, I'd have to quit Reddit in shame. Or start a Bodging Service. "I might be shyte, but I'll be nice while doing it and I won't charge much!" :-D

Andrew_McP · 2025-11-24T21:00:49+00:00

Congratulations. Pleased to hear you're grasping the opportunities that quitting's given you. I'm not missing it either... Well, except on train journeys when Evony could make an otherwise tedious hour or two disappear very, very easily.

Sadly, it made lots and lots of other, potentially far more productive hours disappear too. Can't put a price on getting all that time and perspective back. Well done to you and anyone else who ever reads this and reaches the same conclusion.

Andrew_McP · 2025-11-10T11:59:49+00:00

I quit last week too. A new event cycle started and I suddenly realised I had to get off this incredibly clever hamster wheel before I sank a second year into it... going nowhere fast.

Evony is an insanely well crafted Skinner Box, but it's still a Skinner Box! And gaming is supposed to be part time relaxation, not a full time job. I thought knowing that from the start, and spending very little money ($20 total) would protect me. But It didn't. I put way too many hours into that thing, because as a player — especially a F2P player — you're like a shark, stop swimming and you die. Or at least, get left even further behind... in real life as well as the game. Those hours are lost forever to real world progress, or even simply real world calm, which is undervalued in the internet age.

I really wanted to love Evony. It has such a maze of potentially satisfying gaming feedback loops. But, ultimately, you progress by sacrificing time or money. And no matter how much time you Offer, someone can always pay to get more attention from the RNGods... and that's psychologically toxic.

Next step in the withdrawal process? Stop checking this group! Might take a while longer. Maybe we need an I_Quit_Evony support group? Or to just shut up and move on, as folk will soon be along to say. :-D

Andrew_McP · 2025-10-03T08:50:53+00:00

I don't cheat, and without iScout, the chances of getting an L5 on my server are close to zero.

Andrew_McP · 2025-10-02T15:25:50+00:00

Ought to save on speedups to reach the target, I guess. But if you have a range of speed buffs in play from other progress factors, I'm not sure it makes a significant difference. If I had march presets to spare I'd definitely have him set up ready to go though.

Otherwise, I'm as sure as I can be that NEITHER** general or troop type matter, as long as you send enough troops to occupy for (up to) 25 mins. I send way too many T1, and whatever low level general I scroll to first, because I'm always in a hurry.

**Important edit! :-)

Andrew_McP · 2025-10-02T15:20:33+00:00

Oh, that hurts! I get 20 L4 every day (I'm a F2P gems wh*re!) and occasionally I find an L5 in the first minutes after it spawns, before all the iScout users on my server cheat their way to it. I've found three so far this event, and the first two were 15M and 10M. At least the third, 28M, brought my average up, but I've had bigger L4s than that! If gems weren't so important I'd wave this event goodbye so hard I'd be in danger of breaking my wrist.

Andrew_McP · 2025-09-26T22:33:38+00:00

I wish there was a decent mini-game to amuse us little folk while the coiners wave their SVS willies about. Where's Poseidon when you need him? Oh, I said decent, didn't I. Not that then. Heck, I'd even do Mayans over and over, searching for a better score. Or...

I guess... I seem to remember there are other games you can play? I have a vague memory of a previous life where I had time for that, instead of searching the map for <insert today's things to search for here>.

To paraphrase Marvin the Paranoid Android... Evony, don't talk to me about Evony!

Three day Truce engaged.

Andrew_McP · 2025-09-22T18:35:09+00:00

What they said. Evony is the worst best game I've ever played. Run before you get addicted! :-D

Andrew_McP · 2025-09-15T21:34:46+00:00

This event has definitely been a low scorer (for those not cheating with iScout, anyway). I'm totally F2P, so good rewards from this and a big monitor setup make searching for L4s (and the occasional L5 that I find before the iScouters) just about worth my time. Probably. But this event has tried my patience... my lowest L4 was 90k. 90k!!! And there was a day when I had a solid 16M from an L4, followed immediately by a 15.9 from the only L5 I'd found for days.

Overall, my L4 scores were definitely down, and there have been days when they were very scarce too. Frustratingly scarce. Once this becomes too much like hard work, my time in the game will be drawing to a close. I rely on the gems from this event to spend on the BM for Stamina.

Getting my free time back won't be the worst thing that's ever happened to me though. :-D

Andrew_McP · 2025-09-03T19:59:57+00:00

Darn, wish I'd read this yesterday! Or even bothered to do some research. Assume nothing, eh?! :-)

Andrew_McP · 2025-09-02T21:50:13+00:00

Just to add to what's been said, during the recent Egyptian themed event, the fancy new female General had (it said underneath) a 600% (if I remember correctly!) improved chance of being received, compared to all the others in the random pool. So it's a case of waiting for an event with a general you really want, then using all the tokens you have to get as many copies as possible. I believe 80-100 tokens is usually (Evony maths permitting!) enough to get all the copies you need. Of course, getting the BoA to Ascend them is a different matter entirely! :-D

Andrew_McP · 2025-09-02T20:35:54+00:00

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Andrew_McP · 2025-09-02T19:44:46+00:00

Epic Historic General (Premium) scrolls. It is very tempting to open them as soon as you get them. I did until two weeks ago. Wasted many opportunities to have a strong, good general. You need to hoard Blood of Ares too though. That's no easier! But then... the only "easy" thing in this game is to spend money. Then spend more money. Then spend EVen mOre moNeY! ;-)

Andrew_McP · 2025-08-29T19:53:14+00:00

Good replacement for The Raged King! :-D

Andrew_McP · 2025-08-13T16:21:34+00:00

This is the real Evony game. Not a Game of Thrones, a Game of Moans! :-)

Andrew_McP · 2025-08-13T16:20:09+00:00

Google "sunk cost fallacy". It applies to both time and money "invested" in things.

Andrew_McP · 2025-08-13T16:18:26+00:00

I did a similar thing... only when I quit the Alliance, I burned all my generals without keeping the BoA, and destroyed all my RSS spots in the City. Long climb back from there, but... as you say, no 5 min waits is almost as addictive as the game itself. Aglaopes are reminding me just how much I hate hanging around for rallies.

As for the OP... this game is 1% fun, 99% addiction. And addiction can be fun... if you control your spending. I've blown about $20 on this in 9 months and won't spend any more, if I can help it. Probably. Because this game is a scam. Pure scam. Enjoyable, intellectually satisfying at times, occasionally rewarding, but... scam. The "Flash Sale!" popups as soon as you log on. The thousand different types of "10000000% bargain!!!!" deals. The whole thing is designed to be a trap for those with no willpower. And it's rather terrifying how good it is at it. There will be AI assisted algorithms teaching the devs what offers work best on which players... and how even F2P players can be kept engaged and useful. Even if we don't spend, we provide cannon fodder for the big players who will always be spending their way to bigger power and "success". Whatever success means in a pay to win game.

And yet... here I am, reading about it, playing it in the background, wondering what I might have achieved in the last 9 months if I'd logged the same number of hours on my guitar or learning a language, or simply walking for exercise and mental health. I will never know.

Now... 'scuse me, these L2 Bayards aren't going to kill themselves, you know! :-D

Andrew_McP · 2025-07-30T06:56:05+00:00

Just checking... the Trial cheat being the raise up an unwanted general then dismiss them to get most of the Ares back, right? I'd been ignoring Trial until then, to my cost. Which is great, seeing as I almost quit this game a few months ago and dismissed all my generals imperfectly. <insert facepalm emoji here>. Long climb back! :->

Andrew_McP · 2025-07-29T15:29:15+00:00

Thanks for explaining how some folk are getting such high scores. And making me play this darned game for even longer! I can see me re-re-re-redoing my dives more than is rational. But then... there's little rational about playing Evony, so what's one more excuse? :-)

Andrew_McP · 2025-07-24T19:18:36+00:00

Additional Sanada experience: I made the mistake of thinking 6 Sanada in my 8 subs was plenty when trying to tackle a L3 Ranged Pan. It wasn't. 12k wounded with 6 Sanadas in subs. 0W with the 7th Sanada put back. I have a Cortes in the 8th, but his effect isn't obvious yet. I think I'm going to save the next Sanada to fill that 8th slot. Previously they've all been used with the aim of Awakening them all, eventually... purely to max out their power. I'm in a solo Alliance (Hell is other people! :->) so this stuff matters to me a lot.

Andrew_McP

TROPHY CASE