the game offers many kinds of GBs but I’ve been thinking about the the 2 GBs which indirectly have space saving characteristics through boosting your town's daily supply intake: The Lighthouse of Alexandria and the Royal Albert Hall.
How do they free up space?
Our town needs a steady stream of that boring but important commodity: supplies, which are produced mostly by production buildings. Those buildings won in special events, and premium supply buildings, generally provide more supplies per square than the regular kind.
The supply boost effect of the LoA and RAH increases daily supplies your town provides from your current production buildings. Hopefully this means you can reduce the number of supply buildings in your town without reducing your production of daily supplies. If you play it right, the space saved is greater than the space used by your supply boosting GB. Management of your town space is a critical skill you need to have your town running efficiently, especially if you like GE and need a high daily supply of goods to meet the requirement for level 4 negotiations, as you’ll need your space to build those hefty goods buildings.
To get an idea of whether your daily supplies are adequate, make a note of your current supplies inventory and recheck again after a week. Is it going up or down? Demand for supply will go up with each goods buildings, and when you jump eras, the goods buildings of the next era demand more supplies than those from the era you just left.
So the next question is which supply boosting GB is better: the LoA or RAH?
The most obvious difference at first glance is the difference in footprint. RAH covers 42 squares, compared to the LoA’s 16. That’s 26 extra squares for the RAH. Is the extra size worth it?
Let’s look at the efficiency of goods production for these two GBs at level 10. The LoA needs a total of 2720 fps to get to level 10, at which point it produces 19 goods per collection, making for a return of 7 goods per 1000fps invested.
For the RAH, it’s 3860fps to get to level 10, producing 27 goods, making for an identical 7 goods per 1000fps. So the goods return is the same. Given the huge difference in footprint, you’re better off sticking with the LoA insofar as goods are concerned.
What about the supply production boost? At Level 10, the LoA provides a boost of 145% compared to the same level RAH of 200%. However you have to spent 40% more fps to get to L10 on the RAH, for a supplies boost which is 38% higher than the LoA’s (Ie. 38% of 145). Again, with the cost of a bigger footprint.
Also, the RAH provides the boost 75 times per day compared to 40 for the LoA. However, if you only have 5 supply buildings, running at 8 hourly collections, you won't need this extra.
So the question is whether the extra supply percentage boost at level 10 makes the RAH a better supply boost GB after the footprint difference and additional fp cost is taken into account.
Ultimately, in the end, it’s up to you, the player. However, according to my twice yearly survey of the most popular GBs amongst the highest elite players, the LoA easily outranks the RAH, which suggests that the elites feel that the advantage of the RAH isn’t worth its bloated size.
So give that LoA of yours the TLC it deserves. If you find your supplies inventory dropping and have no space for another production building, consider levelling your LoA up.
