Let’s talk about equipment. Your hero can be equipped with six items while each hero can handle three. I so often see players neglecting to place the appropriate equipment on their heroes and captains to amplify their abilities. Doing so is a mistake, let me tell you! Dress them up and watch your bonuses stack!

To craft equipment, you will need the materials, coins, and like all good things, time. Try and pick equipment that matches what the captains already provide, so that you can specialize and swap captains to perform different tasks as necessary. For example, put all your best crypting gear on Carter, and your best resource gathering gear on Stror. Avoid putting resource gathering gear on your hero, and reconsider crypting gear unless you are going solely for the tar production bonus that they provide. 

A good suggestion on timing of gear-making is to make the best crypting gear you can right now, then use that to provide you with other materials, and work your way up. I try to make a set every other rarity possible, so that I am still conserving what materials I can get. Don’t forget that rarer crypts provide you with higher quality materials.

Standard equipment, the first section in the workshop, is created with silver and materials found in common, rare, and epic crypts. You can get higher quality gear from higher quality crypts. I recommend saving your rare and epic tar until you can crypt with high efficiency. A hint is to take note of which type of crypt provides the resource you need, and prioritize those. Of note in the standard equipment section is the Honored Ruler gear, which improves your production rate, a great set of equipment to wear when you are away and your captains are idle in the city. 

The unique equipment in the second section provides more diverse and powerful bonuses. These are created using “Master Coins” earned from destroying Cursed Citadels. Their materials are also earned solely from exploring epic crypts. It might be wise to wait on creating these until you are more advanced. Of note in this section is the Omniscience set, which aids both march speed and crypt efficiency. 

Tournament equipment is the next set that is also created with Master Coins, and materials from epic crypts. These items require a special material as well, tournament trophies, which act the same as other materials but can only be obtained as a reward from the Conqueror’s Revival Event, which occurs concurrently with player versus player events. Each of these items are very powerful, and worth your attention when you are able.

The Ragnarok equipment is a unique set, crafted with the rune stones purchased from the Ragnarok shop. Remember that the shop is available even outside of the event, and can be found at the bottom of the event page at any time. 

The Immortal Warrior set of equipment, rewarded through the guardsmen trials, is another unique set. Notable about these is that unless you’re playing ten years from now you likely won’t ever have to dismantle it.

The last unique piece of equipment is The Burning Crown, unlocked as a reward for completing the intro to the game. This piece of equipment is notable in that it is the only item that boosts troop training speed. When/if you lose this item, you will never be able to get it back. Stop using it for combat before it is gone for good!

Equipment is created using silver or Master Coins. All equipment is repaired and dismantled using silver. Items lose durability when they are used in a battle, and each time they are repaired, their maximum durability is reduced. This means that at a certain point, you will be spending silver to repair every few times you use it, so you may want to consider using other items. Dismantling will allow you to recoup one of the materials involved in its creation.

This is a good time to state that in this game, multiple instances of bonuses are applied at a single time. 100 strength with a 50% boost is 150, but if you have a second 50% boost the total will be 200, not 225. Still a good idea to combine multiple sources to have a higher bonus!

If you note something that I missed, please let me know by attacking me with a single S1 and I will update it!

Thanks 275,

Joe

Joe’s Journal, Volume 5.1

More captain talk. As captains are a major part of the game, I’m inclined to give them some more attention. It is massively important that you both select the proper captain for whatever task you’re trying to accomplish, and you have them dressed for the occasion, with equipment that I will touch on in my next entry. Please note that a dead captain does not add their power to your city, nor does an inactive one.

Captains give their bonus only when they are in the proper place to perform their job. For most, it’s at the location of whatever battle is occurring. For Aurora, Farhad, and Helen, they just have to be present hanging out in your city, when their respective tasks are initiated. For Carter, he’s got to be the one crypting.

Captains gain power and therefore bonuses in two different ways; experience level and star level. The experience is gained by using them, or having them selected when you gain the bonus for achievements. The star level is improved using their specific captain fragments and essence of the immortals, which can be obtained from Smurfs. Wait, no, that’s not correct. From epic monster rewards or special events. The powers combine to create an even larger bonus. You can check captain’s bonuses by selecting the captain in question from a battle report.

Your captains’ levels and star ranks are used to determine their individual efficacy at whatever they are doing. It is only your hero level and guardsman level that dictate the difficulty of certain tasks, like your competitors in events and how many points you’ll need to earn rewards for the Rise of the Ancients (Tinman). For this reason, many players recommend that you level up your captains before you level up your hero, and even unlock monsters, specialists, and engineers before your guardsmen. This will allow you to gain better rewards more easily, and gain titles from your victories in events.

Raising your captain’s star ranks also gives you points to spend in the Hall of Fame, found in the menu or by clicking on your hero. The Hall of Fame gives you fantastic bonuses to overall gameplay, if you have captains of sufficient level in each category. So get those captains to work!

Thanks 275,

Joe

Captain selection plays a huge role in your efficiency in the game. At the start of the game, you should have at least Logos, Sofia, and Tengel. Here I am going to recommend activities for each captain, with an explanation as to why. Of course, there are probably uses I don’t know, so if you have a good suggestion please write to me!

Logos: Player versus player (PVP) battles in which you are using specialists. People sometimes use specialists as frontline troops for stacking against epics, but this is not a good reason to use Logos to attack epics. Logos’s power counts when he is involved in the battle.

Aydae: A good captain for attacks in which you might take a decent amount of damage. Hitting common monsters or citadels. Her power affects all guardsmen, including griffins, and most mercenaries are included in this bonus. Aydae’s power is active only when she is involved in the battle.

Proscope: Used for scouting. Scout your enemies before you attack them. It’s good to know if there are troops, resources, or if you’re about to get demolished by reinforcements from their big friends. Proscope must be the captain chosen for scouting to use his power.

Tengel: A very useful captain, with the unique bonus of adding march range and speed. People use him for mercenary exchanges on other kingdoms, which will be important when we open. Tengel’s uses vary, for whenever you want to get somewhere quick. Personally, I use him as my secondary crypt explorer and have him outfitted accordingly. Tengel’s power only benefits his own marches.

Doria: One of the least useful captains, in my opinion. You only get her victory point bonus if you win the combat, so do not use her for epic monsters. That said, she can be nice for daily common monster hunts and potentially heroic raids. Doria must be in the combat to benefit.

Stror: For mining resources. This one is obvious. However, Stror is also useful to boost your carrying capacity, so consider using him when raiding a player with a massive hoard of resources. Stror must be mining or involved in the combat.

Carter: Useful for crypts. Don’t forget that crypts give every player in your clan a chest. Crypt efficiency determines how high of a percentage your exploration covers, while cost reduces the amount of tar used to do so. It is important to improve both of these scores. Carter must be the one exploring.

Dustan: Useful to include during PVP battles. Dustan, unlike Doria, will give you the conquest point bonus if you lose the battle. Dustan does NOT give bonuses for attacking Shadow Invasion. Dustan must be involved in the battle to give his bonus.

Ingrid: Useful in the same way Aydae is, but monsters are less represented in most armies. Consider her though, as bonuses to monsters are harder to come by from other sources, including equipment. Ingrid must be involved in the battle to boost your monsters.

Brann: Useful for citadel battles, or PVP battles when you need to use your leadership, dominance, and authority to bring other troops. Brann must be involved in the combat to boost your engineers.

Ye Ho-Sung/Bernard/Lucius/Brunhild: The lower value epic captains compared to their legendary counterparts. However, these captains may outpace the legendaries in the early levels, as shards for those captains are harder to come by. They all must be involved in the combat to count.

Aurora: Grants a bonus to construction speed if she is present in the city at the time the construction is initiated. After that, you can switch her out.

Sofia: Her power affects your entire army, monsters included, and can be a good source to help control losses when facing formidable enemies who are sure to do some damage, especially ones with multiple stacks. When following the citadel army advice, she can drastically reduce the number of troops you will lose. She may be able to help in Great Hunt as well. Do not use her against epic monsters.

Xi Guiying: A bit of an enigmatic choice, her bonuses affect two completely different aspects of play. I can’t say I would ever use her, unless it was to store my backup crypting or mining gear as a backup Carter or Stror, respectively.

Farhad: Much like Aurora, Farhad needs to be loafing around in your city to grant his bonus, at the time you start your research. I equip him with honored ruler gear as well. After you begin research, switch him out.

Cleopatra: A very useful captain for combat. Cleo is the go-to choice for epic monsters, because with epics you will almost never kill them, so your health does not matter, only strength, to reap the rewards as much as possible. Cleopatra must be the captain chosen to boost your strength.

Alexander/Minamoto/Wu Zetian/Leonidas: The superior versions of Lucius, Bernard, Brunhild, and Ye Ho-Sung respectively. If you are using these captains, consider their legendary varieties if available to you. Notably, Wu Zetian is often used for citadel battles because no monsters found in citadels are strong against flying troops.

Ramses II: The improved Sofia. You can use him to control losses against high level citadels. He is also useful to have when you are being attacked in PVP, as he will improve your odds of survival. You can only obtain fragments in the Pharaoh’s Bazaar.

Amanitore: A very useful captain to use in raids, and to reinforce your allies or clan forts. Note that her bonus does not apply to marches in which you are the only player, such as attacking citadels. She also only affects your troops in a group march or raid. Useful for ancient vaults and runic raids.

Helen: Add her to the ranks of Aurora and Farhad, Helen is an extremely useful captain to have during troop training. She needs to be idle in the city to apply her bonus to your work.

Mythics: If you can get the mythic captains, you don’t need me telling you what to do with them.

As always, if I missed anything or made points that were glaringly wrong, please let me know by attacking Enso’s castle and sending me the battle report, with your comments.

TLDR: Look at your captain’s bonuses before you send them on missions!

Thanks 275,

Joe

A question I see asked a great many times is “how can I revive my troops? I have run out of gold and sacred potions!” It is a situation we have all been in, forcing you to decide whether to leave your troops dying in the temple, abandon them, or buy another package to get the gold to revive them. A piece of wisdom I can share right now: it is often cheaper to delete those troops and spend the time (and the silver) to train new ones.

Here are some things to consider: A single archer costs some hundred silver to train, along with a bit of food. That same archer costs 4 gold to revive. Which is cheaper, reviving or training anew? That depends on the relative value of gold, in this instance. If we base the value of gold on the resource supply levels of player-built mines, one gold comes out to be worth 2500 silver! Based on this, unless you are seriously pressed for time, it is NEVER a good plan to spend gold to revive your guardsmen.

There are, of course, other factors at play here, including the reduction in revival costs. Moreover, a level 5 (G5) archer takes as much gold to revive as a level 1 (G1) archer, but is significantly more powerful. That said, they cost more time and silver to train. I do feel safe in stating that gold is significantly more valuable, and should be saved for purchases such as blueprints.

A general rule of thumb is this: spend potions and gold to revive only your mercenaries and your monsters, as these troops are much more difficult to obtain than guardsmen, specialists, or engineers. Delete the least powerful troops and train new ones if you need them. Don’t forget to clear them out of your temple! Injured troops still eat food. Let them retire to go live on a farm! At least that’s where Diesel told me they went…

As always, if I have made some glaring error and you want to tell me how wrong I am, move your castle right beside the next epic monster.

Thanks 275,

Joe

Let’s dive into another interesting advanced topic; troop stacking. With this technique you can drastically increase the power of your attacks. I would like to draw your attention to two interesting battle reports, posted above. One, you’ll notice, was an utter and epic failure, where the attacker (me) got literally nothing. In my defense I did this purely for informational purposes and I was not dropped on my head as a child. The other was a great victory, with a ton of points! You can clearly see the difference in the attacking squads, but let’s dive a little further into it.

Fauk had 13 stacks of troops, defined by the individual grouping of each troop. His most powerful was the stack of 2,304 Quicksands. I had just 1 stack of 523 Epic Monster Hunters. Due to the number of stacks, Fauk got a grand total of 25 individual attacks on the epic monster, while I got a whopping 0. This is because all stacks of attackers and defenders have had an attack in a round of combat unless they are killed first. The round then repeats until one side has no more troops left to attack. This means that some of Fauk’s stacks had the opportunity to attack two to three times, multiplying their value!

Troop stacking is all about maximizing efficiency. How do you insulate your most effective troops to ensure that they have one or more attacks and you don’t end up with dead troops before they swing? The game determines combat order randomly. The only way I have seen initiative come into play is with engineers in a siege. So the first attack may be yours or you may lose a stack of troops. Luckily, the order is switched each round of combat, if you make it that long. The game determines the first attacker based on which stack can deal the most damage to the enemy, and the first recipient of damage on who will take the most damage, each considering bonuses, but not your troops’ features. In an epic monster battle, since all your troops will assuredly die, your first to die stack will always be the stack with the highest total health.

For best stacking practice against epics, you will want to ensure that your least effective, and cheapest troops, have the most total health. This is so they die first, and leave the more effective troops to be the ones that benefit from the multiple attacks. These low level troops will coincidentally be the cheapest to train! A good and general way to go about this is to use the following format: 100 G1 Archers, 100 G1 Spearmen, 50 G1 Riders, 50 G2 Archers, etc. If you have Epic Monster Hunters, resist the urge to throw them all at the monster like I did!

The more stacks that you have in a battle the more attacks you will be able to squeak out, but it is also highly dependent on the number of stacks you are going against. For this reason, many players prefer to stack effectively against Doomsday, Hellforge, Ragnarok, and other epics with 4 stacks, as opposed to Arachne’s Swarm which has 8. Once you unlock monsters and specialists, the amount of potential stacks you can attack with can grow immensely. That said, you may find it more efficient to take only up to 3 levels of troops, and relieve your lower level ones as the benefit to cost ratio diminishes.

Anyway, a good resource that I have used to help determine stack amounts is totalcalculator.org. This helps take some of the labor out of your bolstering. I would also be remiss if I did not state that all this only applies if you expect to lose the battle. If you’re going to win, ignore everything you just read. If you have any questions or see that I have made a glaring error, please write “wrong” as many times as will fit in one message and send it to me directly.

Thanks 275,

Joe

For my first article, I would like to tackle the concept of No-Value Cities (NVCs). A NVC is a city that an attacker will get no points or resources from, even if they attack multiple times. This is a very effective deterrent for attackers during “Clash for the Throne” and other player versus player (PVP) events. I know there has been a lot of talk about the kingdom opening, so I believe this is a very important concept to implement, and I see many clans already doing so.

To follow this technique, you’ll need to keep your resource amounts under the values that are protected from enemies. You can determine the value protected by calculating the sum of what your warehouse and resource producing buildings protect. You can also see it by viewing the “statistics” menu on your city capital. No matter how many times you are attacked, your resource values will not drop below this number.

Get rid of your resources by using them to build or upgrade your kingdom buildings. You can (and should) also send them to your clan buildings, as the clan resource buildings cannot be attacked by enemies. It is also good advice to send your gold ingots in from the “taxes” section of your capitol, as the amount is visible to enemy players and they will use them to determine who and where to attack.

The last resource that enemies will be wanting is to destroy your troops for conquest points. To protect your troops, send them to your clan forts as reinforcements. You can recall them at any time by selecting “send back”. Unfortunately these buildings can still be attacked, but if your entire clan shelters there, there is a great strength in numbers!

Anyway, don’t be afraid of a little violence! Reviving troops killed in an assault as the defender only costs silver, and nobody is able to steal your gold, your tar, or destroy your buildings. But if you follow these rules, you won’t have to worry about anything at all. Oh, and a shield of peace works too. If you have a shield, ignore everything you just read.

TLDR: To be a No-Value City (NVC), keep your building resources and silver below their protected values, send your troops to clan forts, and pay your ingots as taxes. If you have a shield of peace active, remember to close your portals or you can get attacked through them.

Thanks 275,

Joe