I've been waiting years for defense to be relevant in the game, but with bad implementation it is unsatisfying on arrival. I am in SAJM and did not ignore defense like so many players did, I built my Deal and Basil back when attack boost was max at 100-150% and having them was actually relevant, and even though they have not bene relevant I kept them and took them over level 100. That plus watchfires, ritual flames, tactician towers and event buildings like mikoto bridge, athlon abbey and bear mountain - I have them all, so I approach level 5 with a base blue stats of 726/1374.
1) I could fight the first 11 encounters, but the last 5 are ridiculously hard and the defense stats to fight them are not even possible with what's released in the game. I don't consider being forced to negotiate with 1000 goods per encounter "possible" to play, it's actually the game's admission it's not possible and giving you an option to buy your way out instead. negotiation should be an option when you haven't built up your city yet, not the only option even after you have fully leveled defense GBs and a city chock full of defense buildings. I eventually fought all the encounters but I had to use 560% in blue potions and build +230/+230% fortification on each of the last encounters. Fortifications are sustainable to spend goods on, but blue potions are not sustainable and will run out.
2) Ironically, my blue stats would be good enough for all of GE (level 4 only goes up to 569%) except the level 5 that actually uses them. It's a good, long overdue, concept to make defense stats relevant in the game, it's not a good concept to put defense at the top of a "pyramid" of difficulty that outpaces even what's been released in the game for red attack stats. Especially the last 3 encounters that jump wildly in difficulty to 1383%, 1655% and 1967% on level 5, most players could not beat that even with their red attack stats. WTF really is going on there, the difficulty increases at a normal pace on level 5 until suddenly it jumps up 108%, 210%, 238%, 272%, and 312% (!!!) on the last 5 encounters? This feels like a middle finger to make sure even prepared players can't fight the last encounters.
From a playability standpoint, the last 5 encounters are way out of step, if those were brought more in line with the difficulty progression for everything else, it would be possible to complete level 5 by fighting, with reasonable effort on the player's part to build a balanced city - It's NOT as it is now.
And this is all before we address if the rewards you get are worth the effort (not really, no.) Considering GE is no longer a good source of diamonds, and players already have all the attack stats they need to farm the hell out of Battlegrounds, and we win more diamonds and other rewards by farming battlegrounds (this is the elephant in the room that remains unaddressed while GE gets nerfed to death,) why would anyone want to go to the effort to complete GE level 5 for 4 weeks to win enough fragments for some buildings that are really only good to continue winning fragments in GE every week. It's a loop unto itself. Do GE 5 so that you can keep doing GE 5 for fragments, and if you don't, the building expires. This is all "stick" and no "carrot."
