Investment Advisor (for Chapter 4)

Arachne

Early chapter 4 investments are a nightmare for people who, like me, ask themselves too many questions. Once you've bought the obvious ones (Givini Orc Merchant, Givini and Stineford Banks etc.), you're still left with a bunch of money and a long list of investments. And, while you want to buy most of them eventually, deciding which one to prioritize can quickly devolve in analysis paralysis, with numerous possibilities roughly equivalent at first glance but slightly better or worst in practice.

So I've coded a small tool that brings in the big mathematical guns to compute the "best" (biggest returns, lowest cost) investments for a given strategy:

https://rachnera.github.io/tls-investment-advisor/

It's very much an advanced tool, intended to be used as a complement to the Calculator, and basically useless without it. As of now, only the first two rounds are coded, and I'm definitely taking a (long) break before giving a try at the third one (the one with the Council of Gawnfall in the middle of it). Still quite helpful in its current form I would say (it did find an investment route I had missed for my save/strategy, so that's at least one person it helped).

Important note: As of now, the algorithm, while not really doing 2^N computations (see https://github.com/Rachnera/tls-investment-advisor#algorithm if you're curious) still does a lot. No brilliant idea on how to improve upon that in the generic case yet, open to suggestions. If this takes too much time on your computer, explicitly forcing a few investments (the Givini Orc Merchant and the Bank of Givini for example) should improve things tremendously.

Fulminato

This project puts mine to shame in every aspect.

Arachne

Fulminato
Uh? I'm not sure why you say that when it's very much based on your own hard work, and cover but a minuscule portion of what the Calculator does.

Videospirit

I'd assume it's because fulminato's calculator just copies the logic from the game's source code and doesn't need any algorithms of his own, but the calculator is definitely more practical than this tool so you're both right.

I'd often just use fulminato's calculator to brute force test the combinations to find the best ones too, and since there weren't all that many options that had any chance of being better it wasn't hard to optimize that way without the need for any algorithms.

This kind of tool also only really applies to situations where you need to know something like if it's better to spend 300k on an investment with 33% RoI or 200k on something with 37.5% RoI and maybe use the remaining 100k for something with 10% RoI or save the ProN for the next round for a 20% RoI investment. Because sometimes it's better to buy more expensive investments with lower percentage returns in order to have less ProN sitting around doing nothing at the end of an iteration, and sometimes it's better to leave the money sitting around instead of buying the only profitable investment you can afford with what you have left so that you can afford an extra investment next iteration that has higher returns than the one you skipped.

WaxerRed

A nifty idea! I hope you the best in expanding it. Though of course take whatever time you need.

Though admit I can't use it personally as of yet 🙁 because of assumptions 2 and 5.
I refuse not to save Carina's men!

Arachne

Sorry for the delay, have been busy last week.

Because sometimes it's better to buy more expensive investments with lower percentage returns in order to have less ProN sitting around doing nothing at the end of an iteration, and sometimes it's better to leave the money sitting around instead of buying the only profitable investment you can afford with what you have left so that you can afford an extra investment next iteration that has higher returns than the one you skipped.

Ah, good old local optimum versus global optimum issue.

Not a perfect solution, but I've added a field to tell the algorithm to ignore one or more investments, so the user can explicitly force out investments that might be bad in the middle run even if technically okay in the short run (the Succubus Armorer comes to mind for example).

Though admit I can't use it personally as of yet 🙁 because of assumptions 2 and 5.

My plan for this tool is to first manage to cover all of Chapter 4, then to slowly remove as much assumptions as possible. Some however will certainly have to remain to keep the complexity in check. Not really sure which one exactly yet sadly.

(Carina's men can definitely be saved while satisfying both assumptions though, but it's more of a subject for this thread: https://thelastsovereign.flarum.cloud/d/31-optimization-discussion)

Seriathus

Arachne Carina's men can be saved while still optimizing investments?
Well, now I feel like a total idiot. I was so certain that they couldn't be saved while still allowing me to get enough money to have the best results in all the chapter 4 events AND open the ruins before the Great Thenoursan War.

Arachne

New release of the Advisor, with round 3 of chapter 4: Gawnfall and war preparations.

Also some fix on earlier rounds, like an alternative headquarters' strategy in round 2.

Since the next round is not very interesting (you either go for the ruins and have no money to spare, or don't and have enough money to buy about everything), the next big update (that'll come when it'll come) will focus on knocking down some of these far too numerous assumptions.

Arachne

Seriathus

See discussion between Iijil (that gave me some damn nice pointers on how to navigate Gawnfall better) and myself here: https://thelastsovereign.flarum.cloud/d/31-optimization-discussion/71

There are trade-offs of course, but nothing that matters that much in the end (no unique thingie is sacrificed).

I'm working on a variant route at the moment that even manages to buy Airships at round 2 of Chapter 4... And at this point my main economical issue does not come from the fact I save Carina's men but that I go for the Purity Magic research first in Chapter 4 (Orc Diversification first is so much better for one's economy... but +5 Ginasta).

Seriathus

Arachne I would never have considered not taking the Special Supplier. But that's... interesting.

Seriathus

There's a small issue I want to bring up: in the second round, pre-Erosian War, the advisor doesn't consider HQ hospitality. That causes a small but annoying issue that makes it so that you end up missing one Kyangan investment.

Arachne

Seriathus

I'm not sure what's the link between Hospitality and Kyangan, but the Advisor should now support the possibility of specifying an arbitrary amount of extra spending on investments not handled at the moment, like Hospitality-related headquarters upgrades for example.

I have also removed a few assumptions and added Chalice States score tracking since my last post here.

Seriathus

Arachne My bad, I meant Erosian Prelude.

Cilmawyn

Just a note: I don't seem to be able to specify buying the Aram-Eustrin Embassy in the utility. EDIT: In retrospect, I suppose it might be tricky because of the variable cost? Just checking that I didn't miss something obvious. It's easy enough to manually calculate with the 'extra spending' option

Arachne

Cilmawyn

Yes, I was running away from this varying price problem. But I've found a way to get around it relatively simply, so the embassy has now been added to the list.

Raiker

About Kyangan investments during Erosian War and later. Restoring Kyangan's fields mentioned as prerequisite for Kyangan Agriculture, but does Erosian Trade Preparation really required for Erosian Trade investment? Also, is there any indication that Kyangan Smithing will play any role aside from being pretty poor investment?

Fulminato

Raiker not a requisite, but heavy influence the return

var erosiaTrade = 0;
    var erosiaMoney = 0;
    if(game.ledgerList.ledgerErosia.tradeRestoration !== InvestmentRound.NONE){
        erosiaTrade += 2;
    }

    if(game.ledgerList.ledgerErosia.irisOrganization !== InvestmentRound.NONE){
        erosiaTrade += 1;
    }

    if(game.thenoursWars.tanurakErosia){
        erosiaTrade -= 1;
    }

    if(game.country.erosia.value >= 40){
        erosiaTrade += 1;
    } else if(game.country.erosia.value >= 25){
        erosiaTrade += 0;
    } else {
        erosiaTrade -= 1;
    }

    if(erosiaTrade >= 4){
        erosiaMoney = 250000;
    } else if(erosiaTrade >= 3){
        erosiaMoney = 150000;
    } else if(erosiaTrade >= 2){
        erosiaMoney = 75000;
    } else if(erosiaTrade >= 1){
        erosiaMoney = 25000;
    } else {
        erosiaMoney = 10000;
    }

Raiker

Fulminato I see. Thank you.

Battlewarrior

On the subject of new investments, I noticed that Kyangan Agriculture gives you a profit of 250,000-350,000 according to the wiki. What factors influence this? Thanks.

TheShadyOne

Battlewarrior According to Fulminato's calculator, this depends on your Erosia country score. You receive only 250,000 ProN if it's less then 25, and 350,000 otherwise.