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Thank you for posting this. I rate this as about 3/5 for both complexity and quality. It was relatively easy to make some progress, but getting a perfect answer that you know is perfect looks hard. I think adding more rooms to the dungeon would have made things more difficult as it would have added more combinations to consider.

I only had time to construct a simple model based on the average value of the score for different encounters in different dungeons. Based on this my submission is:

COG/GOB/WHD

And when Goblins aren't present:

CON/WOB/NHD

I was expecting earlier choices of foraging location to have a much stronger impact, and mistook some of the randomness for affects of earlier choices. In retrospect it would have been better to spend longer exploreing various possibilites rather than settling on an exploit strategy so soon. Adding an explicit target was a big improvement as it gave some idea of "how good a strategy" we should be searching for.

I starte off by going to each one in turn. And then visiting those sites that yielded the best results. It rapidly became clear that some sites were better at different times of the day, and visiting one site too much could result in diminishing returns. Then I spent an entire day at each site in turn and then visited the sites that produce the most food at a given time. The relative order of visiting sites did have an affect so this didn't always work particularly well. After a bit of playing around and experimentation I ended up settling on the following cycle towards the end:

08:00 Pig Swamp

09:00 Bunny Ride

10:00 Snake Shores

11:00 Dog Valley

12:00 Dog Valley

13:00 Dog Valley

14:00 Dog Valley

15:00 Rooster Peaks

16:00 Monkey Meadow

17:00 Bunny Ridge

18:00 Pig Swamp

19:00 Pig Swamp

20:00 Tiger Forest

21:00 Tiger Forest

22:00 Tiger Forest

23:00 Tiger Forest

This got me 2761 food total.

I enjoyed this. Though I think the 10 minuite estimate is far too low. This leaves less than 1s per decision!

Thank you for posting this. Overall I would rate this as a middle of the road (ie good) scenario. Complexity 3/5, quality 3/5.

I thought the bonus objective was in principal a good addition, though it could have done with an extra couple of known words. As it is unless you spot the anomaly with Cadagals boots it seems next to impossible to figure out what it might mean.

Overall I think a gap of about 2 months is better than short gaps of one month followed by longer gaps of several months. Though possibly not this time as that would put it right in the middle of the Christmas period!

 Looking at how various combinataions of race and class do against one another when their levels are the same there are clearly some combinations that do a lot better than others. Increasing the level helps to an extent, but the race/class combination looks like it is easily the most important factor. Special items do help, but less than the level. In most cases boots seem a bit more useful than gauntlets.

Manually scanning through the data suggests that the following combinations hopefully won't be too bad:

DWARF NINJA  v HUMAN WARRIOR + 1 boots of speed + 2 gauntlets
ELF KNIGHT     v HUMAN KNIGHT + 3 boots of speed +1 gauntlets
DWARF WARRIOR  v ELF NINJA + 3 gauntlets + 2 boots of speed
HUMAN MONK     v DWARF MONK + 4 boots of speed

 

As for the bonus obective. It looks like someone is threatening us if we do well in one or more of the fights, however I can't establish the details with any reliability. And as we have no idea who sent, and what their real intentions are, we would probably be wise to ignore it ad do what we would have done anyway, at least for now.
 

In general there seems to be a weak correlation between each of the attributes and costs,both when you consider every exorcist and the individual group.
- For corporeality the mystics seem to have a weak negative linear correlation.  The rest look like they have a weak step function
- For sliminess the mystics seem to have a weak negative linear correlation. All except the Pummelers (Which look linear) seem to have a weak step function.
- For intellect the Mystics again appear to have a weak linear correlation. The Slayers have a linear positive correlation, the rest seem to have a weak positive correlation.
- For hostility the Mystics have a weak negative linear function, the Wraiths  have a positive linear one, the rest appear to have a positive step function.
- For grotesueness the Mystic have a weak negative correlation, the destroyers have a positive linear correaltion, the rest seem to have a weak positive step function.
   
So one is always negative linear. One is a positive step function for everything, the other 4 are positive linear in one, but have a step function for the rest.

 Fitting a model to this leaves the best results as:
A: Entity Eliminators    (1737)
B: Spectre Slayers    (1999)
C: Mundanifying Mystics    (2862)
D: Entity Eliminators    (1737)
E: Wraith Wranglers    (1747)
F: Mundanifying Mystics    (2842)
G: Demon Destroyers    (1459)
H: Phantom Pummelers    (1804)
I: Wraith Wranglers    (1961)
J: Wraith Wranglers    (1934)
K: Mundanifying Mystics    (2842)
L: Mundanifying Mystics    (2783)
M: Spectre Slayers    (1857)
N: Phantom Pummelers    (1778)
O: Wraith Wranglers    (1747)
P: Mundanifying Mystics    (2775)
Q: Wraith Wranglers    (1513)
R: Mundanifying Mystics    (2940)
S: Spectre Slayers    (1686)
T: Mundanifying Mystics    (2821)
U: Phantom Pummelers    (1756)
V: Demon Destroyers    (1567)
W: Demon Destroyers    (1942)
Total Cost: 48089

But unfortunately we can't have them all due to anoying guild rules.

When no slayers are present total cost is 48737

When no eliminators are present total cost is 48444

Max 3 pummeller restriction isn't relevant yet, but destroyers are used. Re-running this when destroyers aren't present yields the following results:

When no slayers or destroyers are present the total cost is 49934

When no eliminators or destroyers are present the total cost is 49162

So the money saved by the destroyer call out fee is worth it in both cases, and we don't need to worry
about the pummeler restriction.

based on this model the best choice is therefore:
A: Spectre Slayers    (1942)
B: Spectre Slayers    (1999)
C: Mundanifying Mystics    (2862)
D: Wraith Wranglers    (1887)
E: Wraith Wranglers    (1747)
F: Mundanifying Mystics    (2842)
G: Demon Destroyers    (1459)
H: Phantom Pummelers    (1804)
I: Wraith Wranglers    (1961)
J: Wraith Wranglers    (1934)
K: Mundanifying Mystics    (2842)
L: Mundanifying Mystics    (2783)
M: Spectre Slayers    (1857)
N: Phantom Pummelers    (1778)
O: Wraith Wranglers    (1747)
P: Mundanifying Mystics    (2775)
Q: Wraith Wranglers    (1513)
R: Mundanifying Mystics    (2940)
S: Spectre Slayers    (1686)
T: Mundanifying Mystics    (2821)
U: Phantom Pummelers    (1756)
V: Demon Destroyers    (1567)
W: Demon Destroyers    (1942)
Total cost is estimated to be 48444

There is still quite a bit of variation, and I don't think all of this is random, and if I was doing this for real I would definitiely analyse the data further to svae more money. As it is lack of time means that I will go with the above for my entry.

All potions have between 3 and 8 ingredients. Those with 6 and 7 are most liekly to succeed with 3 being particularly unlikely. In particular Barkskin Potion is never brewed successfully with only 3.
Barkskin Potion, in common with all other potions has two ingredients that must be present, in this case Crushed Onyx and Ground Bone.
 
The same set of ingredients sometimes produce different potions so there is clearly some randomness involved.
 
Scanning through the results there are several combinations that always produce the required potion. The most convincing (With 118 entries) is:
Crushed Onyx
Dragon Tongue
Dragons Blood
Eye of Newt
Giants Toe
Ground Bone
 
Sadly 3 of these ingredients aren't available however. The same is true of most of the combinationsn that have a 100 percent success rate. There is only one exception but as that is based on a single record using that is highly risky.
 
The next best with a 65.5 percent chance of success based on 29 records is:
Crushed Onyx
Demon Claw
Ground Bone
Vampire Fang 
 
So I'm going to have to recommend he uses these, and hope he doesn't end up with Inert Glop instead. 

Those apprenticed under Escher, Geisel, and Penrose never produce impossible structures. Those apprenticed under Johnson and Statmin always do. Self Taught architects sometimes do.

I couldn't find a reliable way of determining which Self-Taught architects would produce impossible structures, so I will have to go with four of D, E, G, H, K.

All the really cheap structures are made out of wood and dreams. Unfortunately none of the 5 architects proposals have these materials. Excluding these the next cheapest ones are all made out of 2 of wood/dreams/steel, the next set have Glass and one of the other 3, this suggests K will be cheapest. Silver is the next cheapest, so we want D, E and H.

My submission is therefore : D, E, H, K
 

There is some evidence that 2 artillery is sufficient to deal with 3 tyrants, but the amount of data is a bit small. I couldn't see any other change I could make which wouldn't lead to at least some measurable risk of loseing.  Risking being eaten to impress my superiors feels like a poor trade off, especially as they should hopefully be at least somewhat impressed with winning a battle at 10:16 odds, so I will stick with my initial selection. (Though I'm pretty sure that someone who was willing to take some risk of being eaten for extra prestige would be well advised to take one fewer artillery.)

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