Settlers Online Combat Tactics PART ONE

SETTLERS ONLINE COMBAT TACTICS PART ONE

There have been enough of us asking more about combat and camp composition and troop setups in the chat to justify creating this series of posts.

To be perfectly honest: I don’t know so much about the combat system myself. I use the guides, tweak them a bit with the combat simulator when needed and that’s about it.

But how does it really work? Can I do better? Or at least find an alternative solution that still works and that suit my troop limitations at the moment?

I had thought about doing some research but... never had the real motivation. Then enter Brayarg, some teasing about it (and he knows a great deal more than me) and we ended up deciding to give it a go in hopes that everyone will benefit from this.

There’s a lot of ground to cover so we’re going to break this into several posts.

For now we will start with the Basics.

THE BASICS

In this section we will examine the basics of combat within Settlers Online.

What is a round? What are the attributes of each unit? And how do these combine to form a simple attack - and expected outcome.

(following this we will look more in depth at more units and various enemy setups together with various allied combos to defeat them)

What is a Round?

A round is a combat cycle in which all units, enemy and allied participate. If, at the end of the round there are still units alive on BOTH sides, another round will begin. Rounds (combat cycles) will continue until one of the sides has lost ALL units - and thus lost the battle.

Combat Replays

When we see the replay of a combat we see that Allied units always attack first, only then having the Enemy units “respond”. This IS NOT how it actually happens.

In reality the Allied attack and the Enemy attack takes place at the same time (following the Initiative classes of the units - see below for more info). It is only displayed in this way so you can see first the damage Allied units give, followed by the damage inflicted by Enemy units.

We will make this clearer when we create a very simple attack scenario and see how it happens, stage by stage.

Unit Attributes

If you go onto the Combat Simulator you will see that a Recruit has the following Attributes (and costs):

Recruit (R)

Attributes:

• HP 40
• Min. damage 15
• Max. damage 30
• Experience 2
• Accuracy 80%
• Value 1.25

Costs:

• Beer (5)
• Bronze sword (10)
• Settlers (1)

What does each of these things mean?

HP - Hit Points or Health Points

It tells us how much damage the unit can take before it dies. The higher the HP the stronger the unit. The lower the HP the weaker the unit.

Min. Damage - Minimum Damage

This gives us the minimum amount of damage this unit can dish out. This is the least the unit will inflict IF it engages with the target.

Max. Damage - Maximum Damage

Conversely, this gives us the most damage this unit can inflict. Again, only if the unit actually connects to the target and hits it.

One note about min and max damage:

A striking unit will only give either one or the other, there are NO values in between. So a Recruit will only give either 15 hit points damage or 30 hit points damage - never 17, 20 or 25. There are only 2 values at play here.

Experience - XP

This gives you how much XP you would get from defeating the unit. This is not important with our attacking units - but it is important with enemy units if you want to know how much XP you are likely to get from a particular camp or attack.

Usually tougher units will yield more XP as they will be more difficult to kill.

Accuracy

This gives you the probability for an attack (for that unit) to give maximum damage. So, 8 times out of 10, on average, a Recruit will inflict 30 damage.

This doesn’t mean that if you were to attack 10 times, 8 times the Recruit would do 30 damage. It’s an average, something to be expected but not definite. Settlers Online mechanics are not completely rigid in this aspect in order for battle outcomes - even with exact same setups - yield slightly different outcomes pretty much every time.

Value

Is how much the unit is worth in terms of gold coins. This is not necessary to the combat itself, but it is useful if you want to use a cost effective setup to take down a particularly difficult camp. It helps give you an idea how much an adventure can cost you resource wise - and compare that to how much you can get from it.

There are two, very important things, that are not mentioned above, and those are Initiative and Abilities.

Initiative

Each unit can have one of the three types of initiative:

Fast - First Strike

Normal - Second Strike

Slow - Third Strike

Fast - First Strike

This means this type of unit, within a round, is the first (fastest) to engage in combat (to strike).

Normal - Second Strike

Normal units attack secondly, after first strike units (if they are present, on either side).

Slow - Third Strike

Slow units are the last ones to attack. They wait for First Strike units to attack, followed by Normal units, only then having their turn.

Using a combination of different types of units to respond to a particular enemy camp composition is usually the best strategy.

There are also three extra characteristics, called Abilities that each unit can possess as added to Initiative. These are:

Attack the Weakest

AC Bonus In Tower

and

Splash Damage

Let’s see how they work.

Attack the Weakest

The name says it all. A unit that has this type of Initiative characteristic will, when it’s time comes, attack whichever units are the weakest on the opposite camp. If they kill them all but still have more attacks, they will go after the next weakest unit, until their attack ends.

We will examine the consequences of this - and how to adjust accordingly - in a subsequent post.

Another characteristic that you will see on some units is AC Bonus in Tower.

AC Bonus In Tower - Armor Class Bonus In Tower

This means if the unit is inside a tower (building) during an attack, it automatically acquires DOUBLE hit points.

For allied units this does not matter (unless through PvP - player versus player attacks - only these are not implemented yet) since they will always be inside garrisons and being the ones attacking enemy buildings (camps, towers, castles, etc).

But it matters for Enemy units. In some adventures (Stealing From The Rich and Traitors if memory serves) you have a few camps that are Towers, that are needed to be destroyed in order to successfully complete the adventure. The units within, of course, will have this ability, which makes them twice as tough as normal (usually archers). This means our troop composition must account for that extra factor.

Still, if you’re not attacking a camp which is in fact a tower, you do not need to worry about any of the Enemy units having this characteristic.

Splash Damage

In regular combat when Unit A attacks Unit B, the damage Unit A inflicts may be greater than Unit B’s Hit Points. This means Unit B dies. But what happens to the excess damage?

Well, with normal units this damage is LOST.

But, in units (usually Boss Units, the toughest ones), that have SPLASH DAMAGE characteristic that will not be the case...

What will happen is that excess damage will be carried on to the next unit.

And the next.

And the next.

UNTIL either all the damage the Boss Unit could throw gets used up

OR

You run out of that type of units that are soaking the damage...

.

Splash Damage means whatever this Boss Unit throws at you will never be wasted and just keep hitting your units until the damage inflicted runs out.

COMBAT EXAMPLE01: WILD MARY

Let us imagine you are facing Wild Mary. A single, very powerful unit facing the entirety of your 200 unit strong army.

Here are her characteristics:

Wild Mary (DwW)

Attributes:

• HP 60000
• Min. damage 740
• Max. damage 800
• Experience 430
• Accuracy 50%

Abilities:

• First Strike
• Splash damage

Let us imagine we are going to put 200 Recruits facing her. What would happen?

Well, since Wild Mary has First Strike, she would be the first to attack. She would at least give 740 damage. Which means (considering each recruit has 40 Hit Points) she would take down 18 recruits, minimum, just in her first strike.

For the sake of illustrating the point we’re trying to make with this example, let’s say that every recruit always has 100% accuracy (instead of their real 80% accuracy) and that, as such, they always hit the target with maximum damage.

This means 182 recruits will do 18*30 damage, which is, 5 460 damage.

Only Wild Mary has 60 000 hit points...

First round finishes, what do we have?

182 recruits on one side (one at half health) and Wild Mary with 54 540 hit points still to use.

Second round. Same as before. She gives minimum damage - and takes 19 recruits this time (remember one was at half strength) and gets maximum damaged from the remaining 163 recruits: 4 890 damage.

So at the beginning of the third round Wild Mary still has 49 650 hit points to spare.

Well, I think you are seeing where this is going...

After 11 rounds Wild Mary will be standing and there will be no more recruits left to attack.

And because Boss Units RECOVER, next time you hit the camp, she will be there, waiting, in full health, the full 60 000 hit points all over again...

So, how do we do this? How do we defeat this seemingly impossible unit?

Well, clearly we will have to use something more than just Recruits - perhaps a combination of things? That’s just one of the things we will see in our next post about SETTLERS ONLINE COMBAT TACTICS.

We hope you’ve enjoyed it so far!

A Few Tips On GOLD COINS, MINES, ECONOMY OVERVIEW, TRADE OFFICE, PLANNING AHEAD

Here are a few more suggestions for you.

1 - GOLD COINS
If you need gold coins you have two main avenues to acquire them: through gold production chain and through trading in the Trade Office.

Gold production will only yield well at very high levels (when everything is at level 4 or 5, ideally), but it will always provide a steady income, which might be a very welcome thing if you do not have much time to play this game and to spend time at the Trade Office.

And, in order to support your gold mines you will need a steady income of marble and hardwood planks and tools.

So you'll need to have these three production lines running smoothly...


2 - MINES
Perhaps you need more mines but have not enough licenses... Well, perhaps you can do with less mines - but a higher level. Upgrade them as soon as they are built. Maybe buff them if needed. But remember a mine at level 2 will last only half the time a mine at level 1... so you will need to replace your mines more often. Also, you may need to buff your tool production though, for the levelling up of mines uses lots of tools.


3- ECONOMY OVERVIEW
Look at your Economy Overview. Check what you have. Check what you are doing now. And look at what you'll need to build. At what resources will be required. Begin adjusting your productions accordingly.


4 - TRADE OFFICE
Get used to the Trade Office and putting up trades.

So, you need Bread? Don't have any gold coins?

Then look at what you do have, in excess perhaps, or perhaps simply something you can spare. Trade for it. It doesn't work? Trade Bread for something else. If you have spare Bows, Ore, Ingots, Horses, Marble, Pine logs, whatever it is that you can do without, use the CastleEmpireSim Trade Calculator and come up with some decent trades. Don't expect your trades to be picked up within seconds. Trade Office is busiest at different times of day (usually morning and evening, I find). And try not to trade 10k of something for 25k of another thing. Chances are such vast amounts won't be picked up easily. Smaller amounts usually work best - and move faster. It's more work for you perhaps but you'll get what you need just the same - and, potentially, with better rates.

One word about the Trade Calculator: convert things to gold coins first. Use that as the base for your trades. If you convert directly between resources you won't get a very accurate description, which means you might be putting out there a deal not so good for you - or a too good a deal that is unlikely to be picked up by anyone.

In any case, before you put up a trade, check around to see what's being offered - and adjust accordingly. If someone is selling a lot cheaper than you, chances are your deal won't be picked up. Things change all the time so putting up trades is a game of constant adaptation. For instance, maybe there are lots of people selling 500, 1k and more of the item you have in mind - but perhaps there is no one selling 200 or 300 of it - that's your window of opportunity.


5 - PLAN AHEAD
In any case, if you want to smooth your production a bit more (and the advantage of spending some time doing that is that you'll spend less time compensating for it in the future), my suggestion is that you come up with a plan of what you want to do. What production lines do you want to invest in the future? You will go out adventuring a lot so bread, brew and weaponry will be needed. But if you want to sell stuff well, decide on what you would like to sell regularly and plan on building strong production lines of that.

Hope this helps you develop further!

A Few Tips On PRODUCTION LINES

Whatever the level you are at you will always struggle with resources.

If it's not pinewood planks, it will be marble or hardwood planks, or tools, or not enough swords of one kind or another, or bread, or granite and exotic wood planks or, plain and simple, the basis of all trading: gold coins.

This will happen.

And you know why?

Because, if you are playing the game right, you will use up the resources you are creating to upgrade buildings, to go on adventures - to play the game.

So, how to solve this unsolvable problem?

Well, you don't solve it really - you only make it less of a problem.

The main thing to do is to make your production more efficient. This means you will need to buy less in the Trade Office and will in turn be able to sell more instead.

But how do we do that?

The first thing we need to make sure is that our production lines respect building ratios. You can't just have one farm and one mill and one bakery and expect your bread production to be efficient. It won't be. Because you do not have enough buildings to make it so. (so click on the link above and have a good look at what that forum post contains and, perhaps, change a few things in your production lines accordingly)

But even if you have the correct proportions of buildings maybe your production still won't be all that effective.

Why?

Because the distance from these buildings to the storehouse and/or deposits, is also a crucial factor. So if you put buildings too far away or too close, your production will change accordingly. So, click on this link if you want to know more about efficient building placement (it's a series of youtube videos, the link is for the first one).

But perhaps you have already sorted out the ratio of buildings and placed them efficiently in regards to your storehouses. And still you don't have enough...

Well then, you can try and keep those buildings buffed - so that you have more production over time. And, of course, you can build more buildings and increase your production line.

But perhaps you do not have enough licenses to do just that?

Then you need to either purchase gems - or simply save up on the ones you get once a week, if you log in everyday.
Or maybe you can do without some buildings. For instance in the beginning I had several stone masons and pinewood planks sawmills. Now I only have the one stone mason - and even that one won't be staying around for much longer.
But that's because at the higher levels your needs will change somewhat - and you will need to tweak and alter your production accordingly.


The thing with this game is that a lot of things are inter-dependent. To me, that's one of the fun things. And, in fact, it is a bit like life and how we humans are: we do not stand alone - we are a part of the social fabric and interaction is the name of the game.

Of course, Settlers Online is just a game. And you can choose to play it whichever way you want it. But, chances are, if you've read it this far, you are interested in improving the efficiency of your production lines.

Besides all that has been said you can still do a couple of things more:

Check the building ratios for each of the production lines you have (or want to have), and add up the numbers and compare to what you have. See if anything's missing. See if anything's in excess perhaps. Then remove and add accordingly.

Check if a few well placed buffs can sort out your production deficit. Or if the upgrading of a well placed building can smooth your production out. Sometimes the solution can be as easy as that - and the Economy Overview can be instrumental in finding out such things. So use it often - and find out how useful it is.


These are just some ideas on how to direct and adjust your production lines. They are general ideas. Let me know if you want something more in depth at a particular problem and I will try to reply here with a post.

Happy Settlering!

A Few Tips on Adventuring PART TWO

Now that we know the basic terminology for single player adventures we can look a bit into multiplayer ones.

As the name says, a multiplayer adventure is an adventure where you have more than one player involved. The most common are 2 player adventures (they are also easier), but there are also 3 player adventures.

The first thing I want to say about a multiplayer adventure is that, whoever starts the adventure does not have to invite anyone in order to complete it. You can start your adventure and finish it all by yourself, thus reclaiming ALL the XP for yourself.

HOWEVER!...

We are in a Guild people! And, in my opinion, it is always best if you do share your multiplayer adventure with someone else!

And why is that?!

Well, whenever we finish an adventure we get XP and LOOT, right? As such it follows that on a multiplayer adventure the XP has to be divided by all players.
The same however does not happen with the LOOT. Everyone gets a complete set of LOOT (even if it is probably different for each of them).

For this to happen, the only thing a player needs to do in order to get his or her share of the loot is to kill at least ONE enemy unit. So, if you invite someone and get them to kill ONE unit, your adventuring partner will automatically be awarded a FULL set of loot.

This strategy ensures, as you the rest of the camps, that you will not only get a full set of loot but also almost the full XP.

So, at the very least, you can always invite someone - and really help them out in the process. Within a guild this is a very good scenario, where players can invite one another and help one another by "giving" free sets of loot. Something particularly important to those at levels below you.

But inviting someone else into your multiplayer adventure can also be beneficial to you in other ways.

As you probably know by now, sometimes during adventures there are camps that take more than a wave to fall. That first wave, in which all units are lost is called a suicide wave. And, after such a wave, the unlucky general needs to recover for a full 4h.

So (and if you check the guides you will often see this), a simple strategy is to have your invited adventure partner be the one that sends out the suicide wave. They ensure their lootspot and get it more quickly, as they save you the recovery time. This is especially true and relevant if both are using only normal generals (and a couple of them at that...)

In any case, the message here is: you don't have anything to lose (well, apart from 40 or 50 XP...) whilst all involved have a lot to gain! A full set of loot can really help someone else, no matter at which level they are at.

Still, there is an even better scenario than the ones described above.

There is nothing stopping us to truly share a multiplayer adventure, with players working side by side in taking down the enemy camps. In this case the XP will be more evenly shared, of course. But, it will mean a more fun experience - and it might mean that all involved will learn a bit more about the game by sharing and discussing strategies in taking down the enemy camps.

And just so we're clear: you don't get better or worse loot if you kill more or less units. The loot is randomly generated from within a set group of choices. So you have no control on the loot outcome for any of the players participating in an adventure...


So, if you'd like to share an adventure with someone, or would like one of the more experienced players to "show you the ropes", don't be shy, chat with whoever's online, ask questions and put your name forth for the next multiplayer adventure going around!

Happy adventuring Guilders!

A Few Tips On TAVERN, SILOS, MASON, FORESTER, CUTTER, FISHERMAN

Hi!

Just a couple of tips that bounced around this afternoon on chat but that are probably best kept here for the time being, until the day we have enough material in the blog that will deem it to be properly organised...

TAVERN
We all struggle for building deeds, right?
So why not get rid of the Tavern since, contrary to the Trade Office or the Provision House, it really isn't useful 99% of the time.
And, whenever you do need it, to buy some specialist or other, you simply need to wait for a mine to collapse, build the Tavern, buy the Specialist, destroy the Tavern again (it's quite cheap so, easily doable - and even if you don't have the resources for this, just ask around, someone will happily give them to you), and rebuild your mine once more.
Make that license count!
;)

SILOS
Perhaps most people do not know this (and I was one of them) but Silos CANNOT be buffed! (same with the gem pit... unfortunately...). So, if you try and buff someone else's Silos, you will only be wasting the buffs...

MASONS, FORESTERS, CUTTERS and FISHERMAN
All these buildings have one thing in common: they have two travel times. One is between the storehouse and the shop, another between the shop and the deposit. For this reason these buildings do not need to be placed in the most favourable of placements in relation to the storehouse. They also do not need to be just next to the deposit. These buildings can instead be placed at any point along the shortest route between the deposit AND the storehouse. This is good news because, if you don't have a storehouse nearby the deposit - and you are not going to build another storehouse closer... - you can simply place these deposit-dependant buildings on a position that will free up precious slots around the storehouse (minimum travel time) and instead pick a position further away that, even so, will not affect the production time of the building.

We hope these tips will be useful for you!

A Few Tips On RESOURCES

We've been seeing a lot of people asking about what they should and should not trade, either inside or outside the guild.

The first thing we would like you to know is that you are free to trade wherever you want!

(but, having said that, and because we are in this guild together, it is important that the deals made inside the guild are agreed upon by both parts and fair)

As you know there are 4 tabs of resources whenever you click on one of your storehouses or mayor's house:

Basic
Intermediate
Advanced
Expert
(and Military, but that's just for your troops, sure they are a resource but... contrary to the other four, you cannot build anything with them... except craters of course... :p)

Each of these more or less map out our development as players.

We all remember in the early stages of the game how stone and pinewood planks were so needed! Then, as we levelled up, it was marble and hardwood planks that became important. Then gold coins and marble. And, finally, granite and exotic wood planks.

These are the basic building blocks of your levelling your production lines.

And, if you remember correctly, at each stage, the levelling of the buildings became more difficult!
And if marble and hardwood were hard to come by in the beginning, gold coins didn't became much easier (at least for me!) and with granite and exotic wood planks... well, you can't even produce them in your island!...
Only through adventures and treasure searches, by solving quests (and getting the rewards) or downright trading can we hope to get our hands on these precious and crucial resources.

Which means that whatever you get that will end up on your EXPERT tab you WILL need sometime in the future. It also means it's EXPENSIVE and hard to come by.

Oldboot is of the opinion that what gets on the Expert tab should stay there until the time to be used. Of course, what you decide to do with your goods is your decision and your decision alone. More than anything we want you to have as much information as possible in order to make a decision you won't regret afterwards.

If you're tempted to trade stuff in your Expert page just because you are desperate of one resource or another, simply ask around first - there might be people that can help you, with you keeping the resources you don't want to get rid off anyway.

And I'll tell you another thing. Building licenses are limited, right? It follows then that it is to our best interest to have each of the buildings we own, that produce resources, generate as much as possible. That means: as high levelled as possible, as close to the storehouse as production line efficiency permits and buffed.

Buffs are easy to do, even if sometimes hard to come by. Having the production line levelled and efficient? Also time consuming and difficult - but you can do it if you look around, chat to people, investigate. But the levelling up can only happen if you have the resources there. And, as said before, these are rarer (and more expensive) than the rest.

I'll give you an example. A few days ago one of my marble masons upgraded to level 5 (max level of upgrading). It cost 200 exotic wood planks and 600 granite (if memory serves...) and the upgrade took 7 days to complete during which its production was stopped.
But what about now?
Now, a level 5 marble mason with a production time of roughly 10 minutes generates 5 marble at each cycle. Buffed it produces twice as much. 10 Marble every 10 minutes. That's 60 marble per hour. Which translates into about 1200 marble per day (since I can't keep it buffed all the time). Of course, in order to do this,  you also have to keep your Geologist going out to find new deposits because they will be exhausted a lot faster.

Nevertheless, in my opinion, it pays off to level up your buildings. And it also pays off to (at the very least) keep a portion of the Expert resources you will obtain throughout the game.

If you want to trade for it, please do - only be mindful of your deals, do some research, look at the market and consider things well so that, whatever your choice, it will be a well thought through one.

Good luck in your trading!

A Few Tips On Adventuring PART ONE

Yesterday I was chatting a bit with one of our players and we had an interesting conversation about some of the key ideas about going on adventures. If you haven’t started long ago in the game, then you might’ve heard people chat about doing adventures – but maybe you don’t know exactly what that means – nor some of the terminology involved.

The objective of this post is to clarify at least some of these things.

I don’t know exactly at which level you are given your very first adventure – perhaps someone reading this knows and can post it here as a comment? Perhaps around level 26? In any case, this is not so important: the adventures will come in due time.

Adventures can be obtained in several ways:

-          Through Adventure Search with the Explorer

-          Through Quests given

-          Through Trading in the Market

-          Through purchase in the Merchant in exchange for Map Fragments, Gems or Guild Coins (The Nords only at the moment)

But what is an Adventure?

An Adventure is a quest in which you send one or more Generals with troops to an island. There you need to take out Camps, pretty much like you did in your own island, when conquering the territory. And, at the end, you will get experience points (XP) and resources (loot).

But just how do we do it?

Well, an Adventure will always end up in your stock. You can find it on the Star Menu, under the Misc (or All) tab.

When you left click on it you are given the option to activate it.

Adventures come in three main levels of difficulty – that are also unlocked as you level up. Those adventures with a white circle are Easy. Those with a green circle are Medium. And those with a blue circle are Hard.

There are adventures for one player, two players and three players. More on that later because first we need to cover the basics of Adventuring...

THE BASICS

When you go on an Adventure you need to take troops with you. This means you need to build them first. And this means that you need to know what to build.

If no one had done these adventures before we would be stuck with sending some random combination of units to that island and... pray for the best.

But these adventures have been around for a while and, as such, people have taken their time to create maps and strategies that can help us all successfully complete them with minimal losses.

Why is this important?

LOOT AND XP

Because if you suffer less losses you will be able to go on adventures more often. Which means you will gather loot and XP more often.

Loot means resources that you get after completing an adventure: exotic wood logs, marble, iron swords, bread, brew, etc, to name a few. All kinds of things that may (or may not...) be useful to you.

XP you need to level up so, after adventuring becomes available you will need to go on adventures regularly if you want to level up. And, the higher your level, the more XP you will need to advance to the next.

Typically, adventures giving higher XP give worse loot and adventures with great loot have lower XP... you can’t have it all!

So, it is also important to know what is your objective when you’re going on an adventure: do you need the XP to level up? Or is it resources you’re looking for? (granite perhaps...)

Once again, the guides will tell you all about this.

You will see a lot of talk about “loot slots”.

But what are they?

LOOT SLOTS

Whenever you finish an adventure you get 6 different sets of resources, plus the XP.

For example, last time I completed the Horseback adventure I got:

300 Granite

400 Hardwood Planks

700 Iron Swords

700 Horse

150 Bread

500 Meat Deposit

7230 XP

Each of these items is a “slot”. Each “slot” has various loot possibilities, with different percentages. For instance, for the first slot, where I got 300 Granite, if we look at the guide, we see that the four items we can get there are:

500 Exotic Wood Logs, 33.3%

600 Exotic Wood Logs, 16.7%

200  Granite, 33.3%

300 Granite, 16.7%

The percentage measures the probability of getting that particular item for this first slot.

So, I was lucky this time around...

It is important to look at the loot each adventure gives if you are going on an adventure in search of particular things. You can never know exactly what you’re going to get – but you can have a very clear idea of what are your chances of getting what...

Okay. So now we know about loot and XP. What other things we need to know?

ATTACK WAVES

Well, one of the first expressions you might come across which might be unclear is “wave”.

The adventure guide might say something like: “you will need 2 waves to defeat the Leader Camp.”

What is this thing, waves?

Well, a wave is an attack. So, two waves means two attacks. So, what is being said is that you need to attack the camp twice in order to defeat it. Simple, right?

But, notice that it was also a mention to something called the Leader Camp...

So are there camps other than Leader Camps?!

CAMPS AND LEADER CAMPS

There are. And they are not as important as the Leader Camps. Because, Leader Camps are the ones that hold an area under control. If you take out a Leader Camp – you automatically take out ALL other camps in that area.

So, the best strategy (if at all possible) is to ONLY take out the Leader Camps, for this will save you troops. Again, the guides will let you know if this possible – and how it can be done.

Of course, sometimes, in order to destroy the Leader Camp we must first clear some of the other camps along the way. But, sometimes, even where there are camps between your Garrison and the Leader Camp, there is a way to avoid them and hit the Leader Camp only.

(the Garrison, by the way, is the name given to each of the camps that have one of your Generals and issued troops)

And that’s when you get to hear the word “Block”!

BLOCKS! AND INFLUENCE ZONES

And what the heck is that now?!

Well, if you click on a camp (it can be one in your island) you will see that it has a squared shadow over it. This means that, if a General enters that area, the General will be diverted into the said camp and engage in battle. It’s what we can call an influence zone.

And what happens a lot on adventures is that you will have one or more camps of these secondary camps looming over the Leader Camp.

There are two strategies to deal with this:

1.      You take these secondary camps one at a time, which will naturally accrue higher troop losses.

2.      Or you can block these camps’ influence zone and attack only the Leader Camp.

That’s what blocks do: they do a “fake” attack on the secondary camp (or camps) and let the General carrying the real army pass by them and attack the Leader Camp.

But why is this better? You will quickly find out as soon as I explain the two types of blocks.

(Also, as far as I'm aware, Leader Camps DON'T have an influence zone - only the secondary camps do)

SINGLE BLOCKS AND ROUND BLOCKS

There are two types of Blocks:

1.      Simple or Single Block

2.      Round Block

Single/Simple Block

In this block you send out one General (a normal General typically) with ONLY 1 Recruit. That’s it. One Recruit ONLY.

This general will attack the secondary camp and, of course, lose. But, this attack has a duration – typically about 20 seconds. And, during this time, the influence zone is switched off... which means another General can pass through it and reach the Leader’s Camp and attack. Perhaps even taking it out in one fell swoop.

So, for a Single Block to work, it needs to be well timed and, for that to happen, the best and simplest of ways is to merely place your General’s garrison where the guide tells you to...

For the location was chosen in such a way that, if you send the Generals one after the other (and there is no substantial server lag...) they will hit their designated targets at the correct time and allow a better victory (with less loss of troops).

The downside of the Single Block is that your losing General will be recovering for 4h... (that and you have lost yet another Recruit...)

These are two of the reasons why, whenever is possible, we should use a Round Block instead.

Round Block

If you have ever watched a Battle Report replay, you know what a Round is. It’s when your troops attack the target and then the target attacks your troops back. After all troops have had their turn, the Round ends. If there are still troops alive on both sides, another Round begins.

So, a Round Block is a Block where we use multiple Rounds to allow the General attacking the Leader Camp to pass.

And, for this, the adventures guides are also incredibly useful. They will give you the combination of troops that makes the number of Rounds be as high as possible.

Why is this important? Because the higher the number of Rounds, the more time your General will have to enter the enemy camp, engage in combat and defeat it.

And, contrary to a Single Block, a successful Round Block carries no losses and no wounded General waiting time.

When you send your Round Block General to the designated secondary camp, the attack will go on for several rounds (typically between 8 and 12 rounds). During all this time, your other General has time to finish breakfast, shave, suit up, hit the Leaders Camp (since the influence zone will be off throughout the duration of the Round Block), destroy it and go back to the garrison in time to watch the evening news.

And, the good news about that is that, if things are well timed (ie, the Leader Camp attacking General does his deed BEFORE the Round Block finishes) the WHOLE area under the Leader’s Camp control will be yours at the end of this attack. Which means that you will have automatically defeated all secondary camps. Which means NONE of the troops involved in the Round Block will be lost.

So, the great advantages are: no troop loss, no recovery time and a greater time interval to perform the attack on the Leader’s Camp.

This is why Round Blocks should be as long as possible: to give time to the General attacking the Leader’s Camp to win his battle.

If, however, you take too long in sending out the General attacking the Leader’s Camp – and the Round Block ends whilst the Leader’s Camp is still being attacked, at the very least you will lose some of the troops used for the Round Block.

Because this usually means either Cavalry or Soldiers, it is best to use the guide and follow the instructions to the letter, so that no losses are taken.

Of course, Blocking can also be used to take camps other than Leader Camps. It is just that, more often than not, blocking will be used when taking out Leader Camps.

ENEMY RECOVERY TIME?

Another question that I posed myself a while ago was: well, if I attack a camp – and wait for a few hours, to build troops, to get some more troops – do the enemy units therein recover in the intervening time?!

It seems likely that they would – but, as far as I know, and at my current level (38), I am still to find such a scenario. So, to the best of my ability I would say, don’t worry about it. Even if your General takes 4h to recover, the damage done, is done, it stays and you will be able to take out the rest of the camp as easily as if the attacks had been in quick sequence.

Even the “boss”, the tougher unit, hardest to defeat, even the hit points loss it suffers during the first attack will remain for the second. And, I guess it has to be this way since some boss units are so tough that, if they recovered after that initial attack it would take too long to take them out – if not outright impossible.

REQUIREMENTS TO GO ON ADVENTURES

So, due to all that we have seen – and remembering that adventures are time bound (ie, you have to complete them within a certain time frame), it is important to be prepared before we start them. It is also important to account for the recovery time. Especially if you only have one or two Generals.

I would venture to say that two normal Generals is the absolute minimum to go on adventures. If you have only one the losses will be much greater – and you will take substantially more time to complete some of the adventures. Other adventures simply won’t be possible to play at all. So, save up some gold coins for that second General and, if you can, get your hands on one of the special Generals, the Battle Hardened or the Veteran General.

(More on these later. As it stands I don’t exactly know what’s the difference between them... apart from the fact that they are both faster than the Normal General. Which is great not only to send troops – but also for Blocking!)

(NOTE: the main difference between the Veteran and the Battle Hardened General is that, even though they are both faster than the normal General, the Veteran General can carry 250 units rather than the usual 200 – and this can help A LOT in taking out some camps! More units per each attack means not only less attacks but also less troop losses!)

SENDING TROOPS

When you send troops to an adventure island you do not need to leave at least one General behind. You can load up both of them with 200 troops, send them to the island, offload them there  (push the sliding bars to zero on every unit for both Generals) and send them back to the home island once again in order to get some more troops. When you get back to the adventure island all the units you left behind will still be there, waiting to be used.

This is quite convenient because each travel takes half an hour (with a Normal General – 15 minutes with a Veteran or Battle Hardened General) and, quite often, you need in excess of 800 troops just for one of the easy adventures (even though you won’t lose them all...). This means at least 4 trips so, it’s good if you can do it in 2 hours (2 trips for each of the two Generals), instead of 3 or 4 hours... (leaving one General behind and sending the other back for another 2 or 3 times for the reinforcements).

PLANNING AHEAD

One of the simple strategies that I do when adventuring is that I pick beforehand the adventure I will do (typically today the one I will do tomorrow). I then look at the guide and see how many troops I’ll need. Then I check to see if I have the necessary resources to build them. If I don’t I either ask around to see if someone within the guild wants to swap something for them – or I go on the market and place a trade – or outright buy what I need with either gold or guild coins.

Then I build the troops during the night so that, in the morning, everything will be ready. I also account to the fact that, each day, 96 settlers are produced. So, if I’m going to go on an adventure say 12h from now, I’ll have another 48 settlers to use by then. This means I don’t have to use so much bread to make more settlers... I just leave those 50 settlers lacking, which will then become the last 50 recruits I’ll need. I say recruits because they are both cheap and quick to make.

There is more to be said but I’ll wrap up here for now... this has been a long enough post! I hope it was helpful to you!

If you have any comments, anything that you have spotted that is incorrect – or something you feel should be added – please let me know so I can make the necessary changes.

Thanks!

Nim.