Attention all you greedy players

The gold upgrades aren't cumulative.

So in a 3v3, the last one will pay for itself after 13 1/3 minutes. The second one in 10 minutes.

Humm. I never bothered reading what was up there for the first upgrade.

Yes, the first upgrade is really essential, but going higher then that is probably never worth it.

btw your calculations are a bit flawed as a gold tick is each 0.9 sec, not each 1 sec. So in a 3 player team the first upgrade actually pays of after already 2 min and 45 secs.

and the first one is correct? in that case i don't get it, please elaborate not cumulative pls.

I remember playing a great 2 v 2 over game ranger with JudeTepes that the extra gold upgrades actually saved us.  It was me (TB) and JudeTepes(Oak) vs. an Oak and UB (both very good players); cataract.  We had a very difficult start because UB's spit is very nasty early game, and could down either of us in a couple spits.  We knew that the game would have to be long because the UB made pushing early game impossible, so while they were focusing on individual upgrades, we were taking gold upgrades (priority 1) and cid upgrades asap.  We made it impossible to kill us after each of us made a mistake and died once due to an undercalculation of the spit, by moving rapidly from flag to flag, and backdoor locking their portal flags.  We held them back due to great defense play while the gold upgrades piled up much faster then they could keep up, and it led to us pushing catas and giants with a double backdoor flaglock that bassically ended it for them.

Needless to say, the UB focused player hated it because he thought it should be less PvE and more PvP focused like DotA, but I think that's the beauty of DG's multilayering paths to victory though proper stragetic, and tactical adjustments that make it so wonderfully competitive.

First off...

1800/60 = 3 minutes? No! 30 MINUTES!

But, actually, it's 4 gold each second for each player, so really looking at about 7.5 minutes, 2.5 minutes for each player assuming 3v3.

Doing the full math:

Level 2 = 2 gp extra per second @ 3600 gold = 30 minutes for one person, 10 for all three.

Level 3 = 2 gp extra per second @ 4800 gold = 45 minutes for one person, 15 for all three.

It's still worth it if purchased early in most games, but not an essential upgrade. Getting anything above rank 1 is dumb. If it's going to be a quick game (like fortress) or if your team is great at pushing, don't get it.

Also, make sure it's the people who don't benefit as much from cash who get the upgrades. Regulas and UB should NEVER be paying for upgrades, because it's too important for your team to get the buff as fast as possible. TB especially benefits less from gold than other players, and he should be one of the main upgraders.

EDIT: Removed the stupid

What he said, minus calling you stupid.

lol, ok, i really got the math wrong. stupid me. experience shows though that most games when exp 1 and currency 1 are bought early ends in a win with approximately equal teams.

"Regulas and UB should NEVER be paying for upgrades, because it's too important for your team to get the buff as fast as possible."

Regulas as mine/snipe build with faceplate+crown+hauberg of life is pretty cheap and effective till late game when he needs damage items and till then the upgrade will have paid off.

Every demigod gains power with gear.  There are a few demigods who are better at *not dying* early game with less gear (such as queen of thorns and oak) but they have almost 0 killing power without gear, just like everyone else, and late game they need just as much gear.

When playing with friends usually the queen buys the gold, xp, and building regen rank 1 upgrades and then the other players spend the majority of the money on getting catapults at rank 8.  In the end everyone spends about the same amount of gold at the citadel and rarely does anyone get any artifacts for themselves.

1,8k at start of the game is the same as 1,8k in the end of the game? this is a false assumtion dont have any data to back this is but it seems common sense to me.

give a player 2k extra from start and watch him rip the other demis to shread with the extra equipment, give a demigod 2k middle of game and hes going to be roughly the same as before this is ofcourse not directly what we are talking about but it illustrates my point.

i always buy the first gold upgrade but its not as black and white as more money at end is always better certain times users may be able to use better equipment/items at start-middle of game to such extent it surpases the gold currency upgrade.

I never buy the gold upgrade.

My money in the beginning is extremely valuable, and it does earn "interest" in the form of extra xp and gold from killing more things.

Later in the game I am more focused on getting catapultasauri, and upgrading their damage. Also theres less time for the gold to take effect. 

there's a basic package of citadel upgrades that you really need to get, and pretty early too, to stay competitive in most games. here they are:

Building Health 1 - grants regen to buildings, they won't regen at all without this

Building Damage 1 - grants splash damage to buildings, they won't deal splash damage at all without this

Gold Upgrade 1 - by far the most efficient of the gold upgrades, 1800 gold for +4 gold per second for whole team. this one in particular should be bought early since the benefits are heavily related to time elapsed. 

Reinforcement Armor 1 - if you bought this and your opponents didn't your creep waves automatically beat enemy creep waves. also important in that it effectively reduces the exp/gold rate of your enemies by making it take longer to kill your creeps. 

Experience Upgrade 1 - also important to buy early since, like the gold upgrade, its benefit is heavily related to time elapsed. this upgrade almost always translates into being an average of 1 level higher than your opponents, which is a huge benefit.

I find you can spend your initial 1k gold on equipment and skip the Citadel upgrade for Health Regen, as it's highly unlikely the enemy is going to push hard enough to reach your Towers and do irreversible damage in the opening minutes. The exception is The Rook - who's initial purchase should always include a scroll of teleport. After that, I just play safe and farm creeps until I can get the Gold Upgrade.

Perhaps a bit of a flame on other players, but a good point.

However, while the first gold upgrade is often worthwhile, as well as intelligently thought-out upgrades to the troops, citidel, etc. Most games don't take long enough for anyone to get artifact-level items, either, so rarely is there point in saving for one... The fact still remains though, that upgrading everything haphazardly is hardly better than upgrading nothing at all. Rushing priests, for example, is generally a bad idea, and often a team will need well buffed heroes rather than stronger infantry which are simply farmed up by AoE's. Simply put, Demigod is a pretty well balanced game, and neither of the two extremes in strategy is as effective as a mix, with the whole team's effort.

If you seriously think all DGs need gold equally, you are just flat out wrong. There are certain builds (specifically, skill based builds) that just don't get much out of extra equipment. QoT imo is one of these. Oak is very strong late game and needs good items assuming he's not going for some funky minion build. 

Hey bune

Yeah it is annoying when no one else is spending money on the citadel. I normally play as Reg or Sedna, and usually after buying a couple of minor items I save my money for the gold upgrade, so I can get it as soon as war rank 3 is reached.

I don't normally get the exp increase, I should test with it more....

Played a custom tonight in which none of the other 3 players on my team spent money in the citadel then one jerk proceeded to rant about me purchasing one not to his approval. Of course we lost the game people were too busy playing "I can solo the game" instead of purchasing ANYTHING in the citadel. Oh wait, no I'm sorry that is wrong. At the end when it was too late someone did purchase 1 upgrade. Anyway buy citadel upgrades that is how you win. Trying to solo your way to victory with uber gears doesn't do much but help your statistics in the long run. It certainly doesn't win matches when the other team does invest in the hundreds upon hundreds of creeps that still find their way to your citadel and past your defenses even though you have +13513515 dmg helm of lulz to compliment your super mana boots of lolcats.

First game I've seen something like this happen in I hope it's not something I come across again.

Obviously we're all aware that the first gold upgrade is currently the only one worth it, but when you think about it, wouldn't it be better if the upgrades got more worth it as you progressed through them, instead of worse? People talking about changes tend to just pick some numbers they think look good, but if anybody is going to do the math (Not it!) we really ought to figure it out so that the second upgrade pays for itself faster than the first (but costs more), and the third faster still, because that's the only way they're EVER going to be bought given the average length of a game.

Maybe the first upgrade could even be made a bit more expensive to add to this effect--the same way that people reallt want giants so they get all the other creeps, we should be really wanting the last gold upgrade so we go through the other ones. Obviously this is a bit of a silly analogy as the other creeps ought to be good enough to actually buy on their own merit without considering it "feeding the enemy XP", but that's another issue entirely.

So, am I thinking logically here in terms of what would actually incentivize players to get the upgrades? I.e., if the first upgrade takes 14 minutes to pay for itself and costs 1800, the second one should cost 2200 and pay for itself in 12 minutes, and the third cost 3000 and pay for itself in 10 minutes, those being numbers I just randomly threw out to get the idea across. Point is, the later on ones are ONLY going to be "worth it" if we get more out of them than the first upgrade, and faster, otherwise gold upgrade will always remain a "one point wonder". Not like most of the upgrades aren't already like that to some extent .

Of some note is that the size of the team affects the usefulness of the upgrade. If you have five players in your team you essentially get five times the gold than if you have a 1v1 game. I would go on to say that balancing it perfectly for team sizes ranging from one to five is impossible unless it is made so that it scales according to the match size. Now, I'm not certain that it needs to be perfectly balanced for all sizes. Having it be a no-brainer in 5v5 and a waster in 1v1 might not be bad *shrug*

Not a bad idea at all. But increasing the cost of the original gold upgrade would just cause less people to buy upgrades at all, and it seems to be that most people shirk responsibility in this subject.

Good point, I was mostly just saying that would be a possibility if for some reason the math worked out for it to be the best idea, but I'll leave that up to other people who actually know the balance behind the numbers they throw around