"Steem Monsters" + "Drug Wars" - Power Strategy Tips #13

As I have now been playing Steem Monsters and Drug Wars for several months now, I have wanted to contribute something of ACTIONABLE value to my fellow players (and FUTURE players) - but NOT just fill my Steemit feed with daily images of quest reward - or battle - SPAM, (no offense to those doing so). Ultimately, Steemit is about ADDING VALUE to the social experience - that is the magic of blockchain technology. So, after some serious pondering, I decided that a weekly "Steem Monster + Drugs Wars player strategy diary" type series, with CONCISE and ACTIONABLE tips, would be of most value to my audience. Please let me know your thoughts (good and/or bad), and I hope that readers (now and into the future) will benefit from this series. If you gain a better understanding of blockchain, gaming, "blockchain gaming", marketing, and/or any other area of knowledge I end up exploring as this series naturally progresses, then I will have done my "good deed" (of providing value) for the week. Also, feel free to hit me up on the battlefield...

@transcript-junky

1 ) In the last update I did not include much direct feedback on my SteemMonsters activity. This was partly getting a bit addicted to my new ability to battle (and thus loot) on Drug Wars, PLUS an especially heavy workload on other projects, PLUS another period of boredom with SteemMonsters. I did, however get a nice JUICY DUMP of reward cards from the last season, and in light of my lower activity on SteemMonsters this past week I meditated on the situation and came to the following conclusions to help move things forward:

1a. Even if I need to take a FULL-ON break for a week or two from SteemMonsters, in the WORST case senario it is possible to AT LEAST earn a nice helping of season reward cards just by winning ONE battle after the new season begins. As soon as you win just that SINGLE first battle you are granted the maximum number of cards for starting level for the season. For this new season that was 18 cards - which is certainly better than ZERO cards; especially is one/some of those 18 cards are high-value ones. Since the number of cards you earn depends on the level you ended the previous season the season rewards will tend to be low if you don;t pay much, but during periods when you simply don't have the time/energy to invest in active SteemMonsters playing activity you can STILL remain "in the game" by performing this simple task. It's better than nothing, and it keeps a slow tickle of reward cards coming in.

2 ) In the last update I outlined my new strategy tweak of focusing on building my "hobo battalion" to be as large as possible, since it SEEMED at the time of writing that the "hobos" were not wiped out during large raids. Well, since that last post the rules seem to have changed. In fact, SEVERAL aspects of the battling feature of the game have changed, and so since these sorts of changes can have SIGNIFICANT and IMMEDIATE negative effects on the effectiveness of my strategy I have decided that the BEST thing I can do is lean a bit more towards the CONSERVATIVE side, and focus primarily on obtaining MAXIMUM gains from raids (the new strategy for that explained below) and use MOST of the gains from the raiding to increase asset production. As I mentioned in the past post, most people who have assets on hand ABOVE their storage capacity have an amount within the margin of a few thousand to 20k, on average. This means that if I can set my daily goal of building my offense to be able to EXTRACT around 20k of assets per raid, I can then continue raiding at that level until I'm wiped out, and by investing the BOOTY in increasing production it will, over time, make rebounding to the 20k raid capacity FASTER after each wipe-out. I will try this out and report on the results in the next post of this series.

3 ) The new training feature in Drug Wars allows you to upgrade the skill/effectiveness level of your troops. The BEST thing about it is that once you upgrade each skill it is PERMANENT. So again, this addresses the issue of increasing the efficiency of bounce-back when your forces are wiped (which, for me, usually happens while I am sleeping). Maybe if FUTURE becomes valuable enough in the future I can hire (out-source) someone across the globe to continue battling for me while I sleep. Actually, this is NOT a joke - especially if the value of FUTURE token starts to moon. This may actually be a VALID/SENSIBLE investment cost. Haha!

4 ) Since I, unfortunately, have a limited amount of energy, due to working on SEVERAL major projects, AND the usual life issues which come up, for the past two weeks I have had to tone down my SteemMonsters activity. The good news is that (as I wrote about in the past few updates) I have set a strategy to enable me to AT LEAST "stay in the game", and I DID manage to complete a few daily quests this past week. As a result of this most recent slump I also took some time to meditate on what is going on with my, psychologically, which is preventing me from participating in SteemMonsters at full-force. Here are a few conclusions I have drawn at this juncture:

4a. The nature of the #SteemMonsters game requires more ACTIVE participation (ex. choosing the teams, watching the battles unfold, etc.) as compared to the battling in Drug Wars. This means that (even while multi-tasking) there is a higher demand on my limited time and attention. Drug Wars is simply easier to play, and less time/energy intensive.

4b. the frequency of newly-published posts on the #steemmonsters hashtag pages is a bit inconsistent, and there are some days when I simply cannot find an interesting enough post which fulfills my main goal of "reading one @steemmonsters post per day"

4c. I think that I need to work more on finding the BALANCE of time devoted to Drug Wars and SteemMonsters IN COMBINATION. For instance, maybe as I continue building my assets through battling on Drug Wars that will free up some more time/energy to re-focus SteemMonsters. Also, there is a good chance that changes in the SteemMonsters game will REKINDLE my interests in SPURTS over time. This has tended to be the case in the past, and so I will continue experimenting in finding ways to MAXIMIZE enjoyment and MINIMIZE boredom. Sometimes it's just a matter of taking a step back. Some days I am just really in the mood to play SteemMonsters, so it's best to just take things "one day at a time", as the saying goes.

5 ) All in all, I believe that progress is INDEED being made in terms of the GRANDER mission of this endeavor, which includes THIS weekly strategy tips series posts, AND my "blockchain gaming" series. The expanded knowledge of the expanding realm of "blockchain gaming", which includes some NEW branches of the subject which I was unaware of when I first set out on this endeavor (ex. eSports, collectibles, virtual reality, etc.) is proving to be BOTH an intellectually stimulating, and increasingly profitable pursuit. That is, the gameplay is rewarded by the research, and the research effort is rewarded by the game-play. So overall this is a worthwhile project at this point.

I hope you find some/any of these tips useful in increasing your understanding and/or skill level in the Steem Monsters (Splinterland) and/or Drug Wars game(s). More JUICY tips to come with each weekly update, as I become more experienced and successful in the game.

See you on the battlefield...

@transcript-junky