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.