Cost of Completing Winter Sports - Apple Edition
I knew Winter Sports would require a different strategy than I used for Fall Colors. When I completed Fall Colors there were two patterns that I identified in paid runs which would signal a cheap climb to the top. A short while ago they changed the patterns, removing the ones that we were exploiting.
I did some research into the new patterns in this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/wordscapes/s/fXH0YA1Dtk
I found that the patterns on paid runs for Apple and Android differed from one another. The Apple patterns seemed a bit more favourable. One could ascend higher more cheaply than on Android. The Apple patterns were somewhat akin to the early iterations of Mt Fortune, but more favourable in the lower levels. The Android patterns were a mixed bag.
In this post, I am solely focused on the Apple version of Mt Fortune. I will do an Android one soon.
Apple Strategy
An old strategy for the early sets was to just go to level 15 and stop there every time no matter what. I think that would be a reliably cheap way to complete the set and I think many Apple users will do this and get good results. But it doesn’t make for a very interesting post, so I complicated my set of rules. If you do the ‘Exit-at-level-15-no-matter-what’ strategy please track your cost. I’d like to know how it fares.
General Observations
- It’s still the case that rockfalls do not occur on back-to-back levels.
- On paid runs, I never got a rockfall before level 5, and always got 1 before level 10.
- The one rockfall before level 10 occurs most frequently on 6 or 9, less frequently on 8, and least frequently on 7.
- I never got to the top level with less than a 600 save.
- I got one rockfall between 10-15 about half the time, and two rockfalls the other half.
- Coin prizes were extremely stingy, more so than any previous iteration. I only got coin prizes twice.
Rarity of portraits
It’s a well known fact that the animated portraits on top row are rarer than the portraits on the second row, which are in turn rarer than the portraits on the third row, and the portraits on the bottom row are the most common. It is also true that rarer portraits appear more frequently, but by no means often, near the top. This can be seen in the advertised prizes, which aren’t what you get much of the time, but sometimes you do. This remains true for this iteration of Mt Fortune.
What I decided to do then was to try a scaled strategy, where I would be conservative at the start, and ramp up to be less restrained towards the end. A new portrait found on the mountain has 10x the value of a duplicate, so I hoped to get multiple new portraits by taking additional opportunities to get prizes at higher levels. With my best hopes, I came up with the below rules.
Rules
First stage 1. If the first rockfall comes before level 5, ascend only to level 10 and exit on level 11 without selecting a tile. 2. If the first rockfall comes after level 5 and before level 10, ascend to level 15, and exit on level 16 without selecting a tile. 3. If the first rockfall comes after level 10, and before level 15, proceed to level 20, and exit on level 21 without selecting a tile. 4. If no rockfall comes before level 15, proceed to the top.
The 3rd and 4th rules never came into play, even after I changed to a more aggressive strategy. I did break the rules a few times, mostly with reason.
On run 9, I got the first rockfall at level 7. This had never happened before, not even in the 20 runs I did in my previous research. I guessed it might be significant, so I proceeded to the top. I got there with a 600 save! So, at least prima facie, it seemed like an exploitable pattern. Runs 21 and 23 later showed that to be false.
On runs 11 and 16, I proceeded past level 15 after getting rockfalls on levels 9 and 11 and no other before level 16. Previous runs saw three rocks before 15 when the first rock appeared on 9, so this was different. Or maybe I just got a little greedy. My previous research actually had a few instances of similar patterns, so these were nothing special.
Second stage - After bottom two portrait rows are completed 1. If the first rockfall comes before level 5, ascend only to level 10 and exit on level 11 without selecting a tile. 2. If only two rockfalls have occurred before level 15, proceed until the 150 save, and if (a) the 150 is before level 18, choose one more tile on the subsequent level and exit the following level without selecting a tile, or (b) if the 150 save is on level 18 or after, proceed to the top. 3. If more than two rockfalls have occurred before level 15, ascend to level 15, and exit on level 16 without selecting a tile.
Those were the rules I came up with, but as you can see, I didn’t really follow them. Allow me to rationalise.
My goal here wasn’t exactly to complete the portraits as cheaply as possible, but to figure out how to do that. This necessitated some experimenting, and often the results of those experiments didn’t work. So at times where I saw a pattern that had not occurred before, and where that pattern involved the 150 save occurring after level 15, I proceeded to the top, with some mixed results. I also tried it where a pattern was appearing that was exactly like one that had got me to the top with a 600 save. 15 times, I went to the top. 8 times with a 600 save, 7 times with a 1200 save.
You may wonder what was going on in runs 33/34 and runs 41 to 44, where I got Free Plays. I was unsure, too, at first. Initially, I thought PF had added additional Free Plays and opportunities to watch ads throughout the day. It turned out to be a syncing issue because of the way my two devices are set up. I use Apple to back up my game and I have two phones that are basically cloned. I don’t get the Cloud Save/Device Save option that many of you have, and my coins, hints, rockets and targets are separate. My gems, brilliance and crown points are linked. I was using one device to record my runs and the other to do the runs. When I had to give a help to my teammates I would open the App on the phone I was recording the stats on. This had the effect of reloading my Free Play from one phone to the other. I thought, “Have I just figured out a way to load Free Plays indefinitely?” Well, yes I had but it would do me no good. While it reloaded the Free Play, it also reverted my Mt Fortune progress, but not my coins. I had discovered a way to inefficiently spend coins for no portraits. I suppose I could grind for bees, gems and the occasional clues in a time intensive way. No, thanks.
Final thoughts
Would my strategy have been effective had I stuck to it? Maybe. As you can see from runs 47 onwards, I very rarely got any new portraits on the mountain, so ascending to the higher levels chasing the rarer portraits was not worth the cost, which is exactly the advice I’ve given about previous versions of Mt Fortune. My recommendation to Apple users who want to complete the portraits quickly and cheaply is to:
- Follow my first two rules above until the bottom rows are completed.
- After the bottom two rows are completed, exit after the level following the 150 save, unless that level is a jackpot level, then exit after the jackpot level.
That’s it. I think you might be able to do it for less than 40k coins following those rules.
While this time around I wasn’t such a stickler for applying a consistent strategy, and I know I overpaid for it, I think I had more fun rolling the dice and hoping for outcomes. If you have the coins, this could be a consideration in favour of not being purely frugal.
One final thought. Some may wonder why would anyone want to finish the portraits so quickly and spend all those coins doing so. I think there are some good reasons. - It’s freeing to have it done. One less task to do. - You get to use your favourite portraits from the set right away. - You avoid what I call PF risk. They might change the rules, or shorten the expected time you have to complete it, both of which occurred with Fall Colors. - You can continue to do the Free Plays each day, filling the duplicate wheel and recovering some of the coins spent. It’s not demonstrated that grinding for months is actually cheaper (though I suspect it probably is).
Thank you for your attention. Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comments.
Results
Total Climbs: 67
Portraits found on the Mountain: 192
Portraits from duplicate wheel: 48
Duplicates found: 500 (including 1 from Fall Colors)
Net cost: 54,775
Coin prizes: 1500 (1x1000, 1x500)
Gems: 28,690
Hints: 19
Rockets: 46
Targets: 36
Bees: 856