DeletedUser
This thread is an evaluation of the Wishing Well (from the special Easter event in March 2013), relative to alternative buildings. Wishing Wells were also available in the August 2013 Summer Casino special event (and several subsequent special events).
.
This topic has been somewhat covered in the us forum for FoE here, but that forum requires separate registration and is not easy to find from here (without this link). I also think the article could be better written, and would like to make my own value judgements.
.
Most of the data is drawn from Martynius' posting (using Anwar's data) on the output of the Well in different ages, as well as this very useful guide to the various buildings etc. in Forge of Empires.
.
Summary: Good. The Wishing Well is VERY GOOD (50% better than non-diamond buildings of the Age), as long as you don't have a Lighthouse, St Mark's, or Royal Albert Hall Great Building. (With those GBs, you can do better with regular houses and supply buildings - so think of the Well as decorative only, or perhaps as a useful source of medals, and get only one or two at most). If you don't yet have any of those Great Buildings, the Wishing Well is a great bargain, and worth building more than one (if you can). The Well can also be nice to have for forge points, medals and sometimes diamonds, if you have the space available in your City. For the Easter event though, I'd recommend buying a Rogue Hideout first as slightly higher value, if you don't already have one.
.
List of the daily output items from a Wishing Well
Notes: values provided are not all from the original posting; some corrections have been noted and included. Percentages are an unofficial estimate only, updated as per Byeordie's data after 1000 collections (see page 3 of this thread), with a notable margin of error. YMMV. (Please advise if you can find some official numbers!) Well output is NOT affected by happiness, nor by boosts from GBs. Output cannot be plundered nor motivated. Goods provided are a random type of goods of your age, except that in the Modern Era and later, you instead get twice as many Goods (double output), but of three ages earlier, ie the "input components" for producing current Goods. (This change was introduced when the Modern Era was brought out). (The net gold/supplies equivalent value of these Goods remains the same.)
.
So, how do we try to evaluate whether this special event building is worth having? And if you can afford it, is a second one worthwhile? What are the issues that make this building different?
Comparison of Well output vs Coin buildings
The Well is very similar to the Cathedral of Aachen output. If you are still in the Bronze Age, keep it in your inventory a bit. Otherwise, the Well compares favourably to using the same space for houses. The exception to this rule is if you have a St Mark's Great Building. In this case, the Well benefit is dubious, and it would probably NOT be a good idea to have a second Well.
Comparison of Well output vs Supply buildings
The Well is similar to the supply output of the Notre Dame GB (albeit at lower levels in earlier Ages). It is a good supply building, slightly better on average than other (non-diamond) supply buildings in each age, but with the advantage of never needing to be replaced/upgraded. However, A Lighthouse or Royal Albert Hall Great Building makes the Well uneconomical. If you have one of these GBs, then you can get better supply output from normal buildings.
Analysis of Goods output from the Wishing Well
Initially poor value, but gets much better in later Ages.
Conclusions
So, the Well is good for supply production (always better than other supply buildings EXCEPT during the Late Middle Ages). It is VERY good for coin production (except during the Bronze Age). It is weak on value of Goods produced, until the High Middle Ages and onwards, when it is Excellent. And these three factors understate the value of the Well output, because there will normally be a significant period at the start of each Age when the Well is already updated, before you can normally bring any coin/supply or goods buildings online from the new Age (never mind the free upgrade). (The Well goes from being about par value at the end of an age, to nearly 100% better than other buildings at a start of an Age, then slowly declines in relative value for its space, as you progress through the Age). About 10-15% of the time, you will get forge points, medals or (rarely) diamonds instead, but even if you discount the average production output of the Well by this amount, it's still a good production building - and free too! The forge points, medals and diamonds are just gravy, although the medals become very nice in their own right (for buying city expansions) as you progress.
.
As stated in the Summary, the Well is very good to have, EXCEPT if you already have the St Marks and/or Lighthouse/RAH great buildings (and especially if you have two or more). I personally already have a Lighthouse and St Marks though, and still plan to keep my Wishing Wells. They might be relatively less productive than houses and supply buildings for me, but I am already swimming in so many extra coins/supplies from those GBs, that I can afford a bit of decorative inefficiency. And I like the idea of occasionally getting free diamonds and medals. I just won't buy a second Well with Easter eggs (or diamonds).
.
Note that based on a maybe 1% chance of getting 50 diamonds when you collect, you could hope for about 175 diamonds per year from each Well (on average, if you are very active). So, if there is another event like the Summer Casino where you could spend diamonds to have a chance at a 2nd Well, I would recommend this as worth 100 diamonds or less, unless you intend to keep your city going for more than another year!
.
This topic has been somewhat covered in the us forum for FoE here, but that forum requires separate registration and is not easy to find from here (without this link). I also think the article could be better written, and would like to make my own value judgements.
.
Most of the data is drawn from Martynius' posting (using Anwar's data) on the output of the Well in different ages, as well as this very useful guide to the various buildings etc. in Forge of Empires.
.
Summary: Good. The Wishing Well is VERY GOOD (50% better than non-diamond buildings of the Age), as long as you don't have a Lighthouse, St Mark's, or Royal Albert Hall Great Building. (With those GBs, you can do better with regular houses and supply buildings - so think of the Well as decorative only, or perhaps as a useful source of medals, and get only one or two at most). If you don't yet have any of those Great Buildings, the Wishing Well is a great bargain, and worth building more than one (if you can). The Well can also be nice to have for forge points, medals and sometimes diamonds, if you have the space available in your City. For the Easter event though, I'd recommend buying a Rogue Hideout first as slightly higher value, if you don't already have one.
.
List of the daily output items from a Wishing Well
| Age | Coins | Supplies | Goods | Medals | FP | Diamonds |
| Bronze | 450 | 450 | 10 (BA) | 2 | 2 | 50 |
| Iron | 1080 | 1080 | 10 (IA) | 3 | 2 | 50 |
| EMA | 1800 | 1800 | 10 (EMA) | 5 | 2 | 50 |
| HMA | 2520 | 2520 | 10 (HMA) | 10 | 2 | 50 |
| LMA | 3330 | 3330 | 10 (LMA) | 19 | 2 | 50 |
| CA | 5060 | 5130 | 10 (CA) | 31 | 2 | 50 |
| Indust. | 6320 | 6220 | 10 (I.A) | 49 | 2 | 50 |
| Progres. | 7670 | 7760 | 10 (P.A) | 65 | 2 | 50 |
| ME | 9540 | 9560 | 20 (CA) | 90 | 2 | 50 |
| PME | 11000 | 11000 | 20 (I.A) | 120 | 2 | 50 |
| Percent chance | 25% | 24% | 31% | 10% | 9% | 1% |
.
So, how do we try to evaluate whether this special event building is worth having? And if you can afford it, is a second one worthwhile? What are the issues that make this building different?
- As mentioned in the other evaluation, what you receive is random (with some outputs more likely than others). Over time, it will all average out (and I consider this issue to be a very small negative), but if you are very short of coins (or supplies), you might want to first focus on something else that will address your current specific bottlenecks.
- The Well is effectively FREE to build (if you have been given enough eggs), and requires zero population. The only cost is the space (3x3) needed for the Well. This makes it attractive to build as long as it is at ABOUT as good as another non-diamond building of the age (and size).
- Unlike other special event buildings, the Well improves as you advance to the next Age. So it never becomes obsolete - no need to worry about that then. Furthermore, it means that you don't just save on the cost of building equivalent coin/supply buildings once, but again and again in each Age that you advance. This is a big benefit if you are still early on in the game. For example, I have estimated in the past that each upgrade of one house to the next generation, requires at least three weeks to simply pay back the COINS part of the upgrade cost, never mind the Supplies. So the Well is MUCH better over time for Bronze Age players than for Industrial Age players.
- Like other special event buildings, the Well is decorative and also has "collectors item" value - they are rare and unobtainable outside special events. Hard to put a specific value on this though.
- My experience with the Well is that the most likely outputs are either Coins or Supplies, with Goods slightly less common, and the other outputs being rare. For the purposes of this evaluation then, we should consider whether the Well is worthwhile or not, compared with other same-age buildings that produce coins, supplies or goods, and then apply a discount (for the days when the Well produces something else).
- The non-boosted output is an important factor for the owners of certain Great Buildings. Worth considering.
Comparison of Well output vs Coin buildings
The Well is very similar to the Cathedral of Aachen output. If you are still in the Bronze Age, keep it in your inventory a bit. Otherwise, the Well compares favourably to using the same space for houses. The exception to this rule is if you have a St Mark's Great Building. In this case, the Well benefit is dubious, and it would probably NOT be a good idea to have a second Well.
This analysis is tricky because the population provided by houses costs additional space in happiness buildings (2-4 squares per house, depending on the Age), but enables the use of Goods, Supply and Military buildings. Furthermore, different houses provide different output depending on the collection period. For simplicity though, I'm going to assume a five-times daily collection of coins from houses (every four hours, with a break overnight). Refer to this thread and table for a more in-depth view of how your coin output may compare for different types of houses (although that table assumes 24-hour collection, with no overnight break). Also, although houses have a "happiness" cost (in space and cost of building cultural buildings), for simplicity I'm going to assume that the benefit of the population balances with that cost, so a Wishing Well should be compared with the coins output from TWO houses (or 1.5 in Industrial Age), based on the basic amount of space used. An additional comparison is made with the coin output of the Cathedral of Aachen, since that can be split into a six-square attack GB, and an 18 square coin-producing GB. So if you halve the coin output of the Cathedral, that is an appropriate comparison with nine-square Well output.
.
Note: House coins output assumes that city is enthusiastic, i.e. +20% bonus, and coins are collected 4 times daily (every 4 hrs, 8am-8pm) or twice daily (8 hour houses).
Note: this analysis is not current, as the coin and supplies outputs in each era have been increased since original release and these calculations were made. Use as a rough guideline only.
.
So, the Wishing Well coin output is initially worse than houses (Bronze Age), but pulls ahead by the Iron Age, and is very much better than house output the further on you progress. The penalty for building the Well very early is somewhat offset by your savings in upgrading houses in each Age though.
.
It is also interesting to compare the Well coin output with that of the Cathedral of Aachen. By the time you get to the Industrial Age, two Wells produce the same daily coin output as a Level 10 Cathedral - without you and your friends having to invest a huge number of forge points to get there!
.
The St Mark's Great Building changes the equation a LOT though. At minimum, this GB doubles the coin output of your houses. When you go through the table again and double the output of your houses, you'll notice that houses definitely outperform the Wishing Well. So then the only value of the Well is in its supply output, free construction, automatic (free) upgrades as you advance, decorative nature, and value as a collectors item.
.
| Age | Well Coins | House type | House output (2hs) | Cathedral GB? |
| Bronze | 450 | Chalet | 768 | L1 = 870 |
| Iron | 1080 | Cottage | 1056 | L3 = 1490 |
| EMA | 1800 | Clapboard | 1152 | L4 = 1910 |
| HMA | 2520 | TownHouse | 1632 | L6 =2905 |
| LMA | 3330 | Apartment | 2112 | L7 = 3475 |
| CA | 5060 | CountryHouse | 2688 | L9 = 4735 |
| Indust. | 6320 | BoardingHs | 3780 | L10 = 6320 |
Note: this analysis is not current, as the coin and supplies outputs in each era have been increased since original release and these calculations were made. Use as a rough guideline only.
.
So, the Wishing Well coin output is initially worse than houses (Bronze Age), but pulls ahead by the Iron Age, and is very much better than house output the further on you progress. The penalty for building the Well very early is somewhat offset by your savings in upgrading houses in each Age though.
.
It is also interesting to compare the Well coin output with that of the Cathedral of Aachen. By the time you get to the Industrial Age, two Wells produce the same daily coin output as a Level 10 Cathedral - without you and your friends having to invest a huge number of forge points to get there!
.
The St Mark's Great Building changes the equation a LOT though. At minimum, this GB doubles the coin output of your houses. When you go through the table again and double the output of your houses, you'll notice that houses definitely outperform the Wishing Well. So then the only value of the Well is in its supply output, free construction, automatic (free) upgrades as you advance, decorative nature, and value as a collectors item.
Comparison of Well output vs Supply buildings
The Well is similar to the supply output of the Notre Dame GB (albeit at lower levels in earlier Ages). It is a good supply building, slightly better on average than other (non-diamond) supply buildings in each age, but with the advantage of never needing to be replaced/upgraded. However, A Lighthouse or Royal Albert Hall Great Building makes the Well uneconomical. If you have one of these GBs, then you can get better supply output from normal buildings.
In some ways, analysing the supply output is easier than coin output, because there are many 3x3 Supply buildings. In other ways, it is harder, because Supply buildings USE population, so require additional space for houses AND for Cultural buildings. Where possible, I compare the Well with same-size production buildings, but in some cases have to pro-rate the production output for differently-sized supply buildings. Note that the Wishing Well is productive at the new levels as soon as you advance into a new Age, but supply buildings for that Age typically require further research. So it seems appropriate to compare the Well with the FIRST available supply building of each era - or the nearest sized building, if that is easier.
.
Housing provides both coins and people, and we don't need the coin part. So, I'm including an estimated cost (in squares) of HALF the housing needed to provide the people needed to man the (proportional amount of the) supply building. (The other half of the housing is assumed to provide the coins). However, the housing cost will include spaces needed by cultural/happiness buildings (but not the construction cost).
So, using the Bronze age as an example, the Well produces 450 supplies (occasionally). By comparison, a Pottery produces (using 3 x four hour production periods, and one 8 hour production) 374 supplies, but this is pro-rated by 3/4 due to the larger size (4x3) of the Pottery vs the Well, resulting in an equivalent production of 280.5 supplies, or 336.6 after including the happiness bonus. However, the Pottery requires 41 people to operate, pro-rated to 30.75 to compare size better, or about one Chalet. The Chalet requires 4 squares, plus 2 squares for happiness, halved to factor out coin production; so the estimate is that the Pottery requires an extra 3 squares to produce that level of supplies.
.
Finally, as with the coin production comparison, I'm listing values of the Notre Dame output at different levels, assuming the supply output of the ND requires about 9 squares (of the total 24 square footprint, including happiness boost).
Note: Supply building output assumes that city is enthusiastic, i.e. +20% bonus, and supplies are collected 4 times daily (every 4 hrs daytime, and 8 hour production overnight).
.
This table surprised me. The Well is clearly MUCH better in the Bronze age (twice as good as Potteries for its size), but the supply production benefit drops gradually to parity (with Breweries) in the Late Middle Ages (factoring in the extra footprint of housing and happiness needed for Breweries). It then improves again relative to early Colonial and Industrial Age buildings. So it's a GOOD production building, and cheap not only in initial cost saving (free!), but also in that you never need to upgrade it; but it's not a super-outstanding supply building. It does compare reasonably well with the Supply output of the Notre Dame GB (at least after the Iron Age - and to be fair, it's very difficult to construct a Notre Dame before the High Middle Ages).
.
Again though, if the player has a Lighthouse or Royal Albert Hall GB, the picture changes. Those GBs boost supply building output by 60-145% (Lighthouse), or by 70-230% (RAH). Since the Wishing Well is only a bit better than other (non-diamond) supply buildings, and is NOT boosted by those GBs, you'd be better off with regular supply buildings instead of the Wishing Well - at least as far as Supply output is concerned.
.
Housing provides both coins and people, and we don't need the coin part. So, I'm including an estimated cost (in squares) of HALF the housing needed to provide the people needed to man the (proportional amount of the) supply building. (The other half of the housing is assumed to provide the coins). However, the housing cost will include spaces needed by cultural/happiness buildings (but not the construction cost).
So, using the Bronze age as an example, the Well produces 450 supplies (occasionally). By comparison, a Pottery produces (using 3 x four hour production periods, and one 8 hour production) 374 supplies, but this is pro-rated by 3/4 due to the larger size (4x3) of the Pottery vs the Well, resulting in an equivalent production of 280.5 supplies, or 336.6 after including the happiness bonus. However, the Pottery requires 41 people to operate, pro-rated to 30.75 to compare size better, or about one Chalet. The Chalet requires 4 squares, plus 2 squares for happiness, halved to factor out coin production; so the estimate is that the Pottery requires an extra 3 squares to produce that level of supplies.
.
Finally, as with the coin production comparison, I'm listing values of the Notre Dame output at different levels, assuming the supply output of the ND requires about 9 squares (of the total 24 square footprint, including happiness boost).
| Age | Well Supplies | Supply building | Building output | Extra pop space needed | Notre Dame GB? |
| Bronze | 450 | Pottery | 336.6 | 3 | L1 = 1380 |
| Iron | 1080 | Butcher | 1062 | 2 | L1 = 1380 |
| EMA | 1800 | Tannery | 1464 | 1.5 | L2 = 1680 |
| HMA | 2500 | Alchemist | 2502 | 1.35 | L4 =2550 |
| LMA | 3330 | Brewery | 3612 | 2.65 | L6 = 3680 |
| CA | 4320 | Sailmaker | 4200 | 2.85 | L7 = 4320 |
| Indust. | 5130 | Chem.Plant | 5040 | 4.4 | L9 = 5750 |
.
This table surprised me. The Well is clearly MUCH better in the Bronze age (twice as good as Potteries for its size), but the supply production benefit drops gradually to parity (with Breweries) in the Late Middle Ages (factoring in the extra footprint of housing and happiness needed for Breweries). It then improves again relative to early Colonial and Industrial Age buildings. So it's a GOOD production building, and cheap not only in initial cost saving (free!), but also in that you never need to upgrade it; but it's not a super-outstanding supply building. It does compare reasonably well with the Supply output of the Notre Dame GB (at least after the Iron Age - and to be fair, it's very difficult to construct a Notre Dame before the High Middle Ages).
.
Again though, if the player has a Lighthouse or Royal Albert Hall GB, the picture changes. Those GBs boost supply building output by 60-145% (Lighthouse), or by 70-230% (RAH). Since the Wishing Well is only a bit better than other (non-diamond) supply buildings, and is NOT boosted by those GBs, you'd be better off with regular supply buildings instead of the Wishing Well - at least as far as Supply output is concerned.
Initially poor value, but gets much better in later Ages.
The Wishing Well occasionally produces 10 Goods (random type) of your current Age (unless you are in Modern Era or later). It is not easy comparing the Well directly to a Goods production building, since you neither pay the (coins+supply) costs of producing Goods, nor need to maintain houses for people and coins, plus supply buildings to provide the Resources needed, nor the cultural buildings to keep everyone happy. However, if you look at the value of the Goods produced, we can compare that more easily to the regular coin and supply output, and see in that way how well it fares.
List of the daily output items from a Wishing Well
So, initially, the free daily goods output is disappointing - I'd prefer coins or supplies in the Early Middle Ages and earlier. However, from the High Middle Ages onwards, the Goods value is quite good, and definitely desirable. As with the other Goods-producing Great Buildings (like Tower of Babel, St Mark's and Lighthouse), you will want to advance to later Ages as rapidly as possible, if you have a Wishing Well (or two 
)
List of the daily output items from a Wishing Well
| Age | Coins | Supplies | Value of 10 Goods |
| Bronze | 450 | 450 | 200 each, c+s |
| Iron | 1080 | 1080 | 400 each, c+s |
| EMA | 1800 | 1800 | 800 each, c+s |
| HMA | 2520 | 2500 | 1600 each, c+s |
| LMA | 3330 | 3330 | 3200 each, c+s |
| CA | 5060 | 4320 | 4800 each, c+s |
| Indust. | 6320 | 5130 | 6400 each, c+s |
)So, the Well is good for supply production (always better than other supply buildings EXCEPT during the Late Middle Ages). It is VERY good for coin production (except during the Bronze Age). It is weak on value of Goods produced, until the High Middle Ages and onwards, when it is Excellent. And these three factors understate the value of the Well output, because there will normally be a significant period at the start of each Age when the Well is already updated, before you can normally bring any coin/supply or goods buildings online from the new Age (never mind the free upgrade). (The Well goes from being about par value at the end of an age, to nearly 100% better than other buildings at a start of an Age, then slowly declines in relative value for its space, as you progress through the Age). About 10-15% of the time, you will get forge points, medals or (rarely) diamonds instead, but even if you discount the average production output of the Well by this amount, it's still a good production building - and free too! The forge points, medals and diamonds are just gravy, although the medals become very nice in their own right (for buying city expansions) as you progress.
.
As stated in the Summary, the Well is very good to have, EXCEPT if you already have the St Marks and/or Lighthouse/RAH great buildings (and especially if you have two or more). I personally already have a Lighthouse and St Marks though, and still plan to keep my Wishing Wells. They might be relatively less productive than houses and supply buildings for me, but I am already swimming in so many extra coins/supplies from those GBs, that I can afford a bit of decorative inefficiency. And I like the idea of occasionally getting free diamonds and medals. I just won't buy a second Well with Easter eggs (or diamonds).
.
Note that based on a maybe 1% chance of getting 50 diamonds when you collect, you could hope for about 175 diamonds per year from each Well (on average, if you are very active). So, if there is another event like the Summer Casino where you could spend diamonds to have a chance at a 2nd Well, I would recommend this as worth 100 diamonds or less, unless you intend to keep your city going for more than another year!
Last edited by a moderator: