Thursday, February 13, 2014

Basic Multi-City Strategy

Of course, every player is different. Every build will be unique. This is what works for me and how I wish I had done it the first time. 

First city has the fewest city spaces, so it will not be the best for training. Plus you have to have an embassy to join an alliance, so it is probably there, along with your highest level hero. For these reasons, I think City #1 should be where troops live. Train them in your other cities and let them live in City #1. 

This will be your "Starve" city. Troops don't go away when you don't feed them, so let them starve. They don't mind. Resist the temptation to build a lot of farms. Use your troops early to hit level 6 goblin camps for Second City Relics. You can build your might afterward. Attack your neighbors for rss

Focus on homes and barracks in City #1. I would do 10 homes and 13 barracks, then 1 of each other building. If you're online more often, make fewer homes and more barracks.

Do not use your HBCs in your first or second cities. They are hard to get, so save them for your Third City. You'll see why. Save a Hero buff or two, like "Trains with Gandalf." That will help building times in your next cities when you assign a higher hero to Construction.

City #2 will be your first training city, but it the same number of city plots as your City #1. So, I would train more T1 troops in City #1 while you start building out City #2 and immediately start hunting Third City Relics. 

Start City #2 with a vault to protect enough rss to build your city. Build one of each rss field to Level 5, then switch back to city view. DO NOT build an Embassy, unless you rely heavily on reinforcements for troop kills. Don't build a 2nd Academy yet either, unless you saved some lower topics to research, like Saddlebags, Vigor, Hones Blades and Far Seeing. Watch Tower is optional too. Build 5-6 homes and as many barracks as you can fit. I would make City #2 a training city for T3 troops. Save your HBCs for your 3rd city!

Your available playing time will determine how you fill out your rss fields. If you're online a lot, don't build them out much; focus on farming neighbors for rss. Fewer rss fields mean more Idle Population to train as troops. If you're not online much, make City #1 your "Rss City" (an even split producing ore, stone and wood) and City #2 your "Food City" (at least 50-75% farms). I also don't like wilds, because it's annoying when they are flipped and I don't have many rss fields built out. That's my preference. I find myself tearing down rss fields I spent a lot of time building, because I want more people to train as troops. 

Hopefully, you kept relic hunting after your 2nd City and rolled right into your 3rd City. This is where you want to start rune crafting for maximum benefit. Tier 4 troops are mean and take a long time to train, so you need as many barracks as you can and keep homes down to only 3 or 4. Keep this city lean and mean. Only 1 of each rss field, fully runecrafted. No other rss fields, no embassy or watch tower. Build a Vault at first, but only level it to maybe L4 or L5. Build an Academy and do all your L10 research topics there. After you're done with all your L10 research, tear down your Academy and build a barracks. Same goes with the Vault.

Try to farm from your new cities to help level up your heroes and keep your vault full of rss. Level up one hero as high as you can to build faster and then train troops faster when you're done. Always keep your training queues full and reassign troops to City #1 when they are trained. 

That's my basic strategy, or at least how I would have done it in hind sight.

Saturday, February 8, 2014

Bubble Bank Formula

This is a basic build/research order I used for the bubble bank. No Mithril was purchased, just the free Mith for getting a Kabam ID. Use it wisely and it will last to get the bank rolling. With a bit of focus you can have wagons rolling in under a day.

Remember to place the bank in a central location with the relocation rune, next to your old bank, preferably. Placing it by the old bank facilitates moving billions of res in a relatively short amount of time.

Here's the basic build order I like. Again, it's also my preference a bit. You can tweak it to suit you.

Farm to L4
Masonry to L1
Smelting to L1
Saddlebags to L1
Lumber Mill to L3
Embassy
Quarry to L2
Mine to L3
Join Alliance
Cartography to L1
Farm to L5
Register Kabam ID
Register WB ID
Lumber Mill to L2
Armory to L1
Academy to L2
Masonry to L2
Forge to L1
Siege Weapons to L1
Stables to L1
Barracks to L2
Smelting to L2
Armory to L2
Siege Weapons to L2
Academy to L4
Saddle Bags to L2
Armory to L4
Saddle Bags to L3
Forge to L4
Barracks to L3
Siege Weapons to L3
Stables to L4 via Mith 
Saddle Bags to L4
Barracks to L7
Wall to L1
Keep to L2
Siege Weapons to L4
Homes, 5 to L3

You can now start training wagons. Don't bother with porters, carts or troops. Train Wags to drop in 1 hour increments. Fill out the rest of the city with barracks. Level up Cartography and Tavern to boost march times during the week. Level barracks to decrease training times for wagons. Keep training wagons all week until you start your next bubble bank. Remember to give yourself a day of lead time before your bubble expires to build your next bubble or you can't march wags for a day.

Next City Deeds

If you're looking to expand your kingdom in Middle-Earth, it's probably a lot easier than you might think. The following system should get you enough relics for your next city deed. 

This works for 2nd city, 3rd or 4th city deed. The program knows how many cities you own, so it will drop the next city relics you need.

First, decide which city will be your launch of attack. This will typically be your 1st city or your "troop city," if you have one already. You'll want to select the city with the highest level Sage Tower as well, to maximize relic drop rates. It's always best practice to use your highest level hero with your nicest hero gear. But in this case, I use city 1 because it has my highest group of 9 heroes, since I've been farming from that city the longest. This will minimize troop losses across the board while relic hunting.

Second, go to map view and start bookmarking goblin camps near your attacking city. You can view the level of every camp by pinching the map. Only bookmark level 6 through level 8 camps. Name them in a logical manner like so: GC 6.01, GC 6.02, GC 7.01, GC 8.01, etc. This will organize them nicely in your bookmarks and make it easy to cycle through them. I'd recommend marking 9 of each level camp. You should then have 27 camps bookmarked at this point.

Third, send out waves of one attack per set of goblin camps once every hour. Only send troops that are strong against the troops at that camp. Send the following.

Level 6 camps: 1500 T1 Foot
Level 7 camps: 1900 T1 Ranged
Level 8 camps: 2700 T1 any single type

If you have a level 9 Sage tower, you should get a relic about every other attack. With 27 camps bookmarked, that should work out to 12-13 relics per hour. That means, to the diligent relic hunter, you should be able to get your next city deed in a day or two.

Saturday, January 25, 2014

Campaign High Scores


Save up some stamina, because I'm a break down CHS like a fraction. To start, let's review basic combat. 

First, always use your highest hero wearing your best hero gear (armor/jewelry). This will boost all your troop strength and defense. If you have a Rune of Fury and/or Rune of Invulnerability, they are another great way to boost troop strength and defense. 

Second, each troop type is strong against one type and weak against the other. It's like Rock/Paper/Scissors. 

Foot: strong to Mounted, weak to Ranged.
Ranged: strong to Foot, weak to Mounted.
Mounted: strong to Ranged, weak to Foot

If you know the defending troop types, send the troops that are strongest against them. That way you minimize troop losses.

Third, higher tier troops come with higher strength and defense levels.

T1=4 Might
T2=16 Might
T3=24 Might
T4=72 Might
T5=144 Might

That means, four T1 troops will die to every one T2 of the same troop type. The equation goes as follows: (TierLevel*Troop#)*(1+buff)=TotalMight. If your total might is greater, then you win. It's more complex than that, but basically that's it. Lowest tier troops die before higher tier troops. So, your T4 & T5 troops will all survive if you send enough T1 troops to absorb the might of the opposing army.

Now onto Campaign High Scoring...

There are basically three criteria for scoring in Campaign mode: speed of victory, number of troops sent and number of troops lost. The highest scores are done with the fewest troops sent, the fewest troops lost and use a Speed Up to finish fast. Basically, if you have T5 troops, calculate the might required to match the defending might, then send troops that are strong against the predominant troops type. 

Tip 1: only send one troop type to minimize losses.
Tip 2: send only your highest tier troops
Tip 3: use a Bilbo's Hourglass to speed the combat time
Tip 4: check your combat report after each battle and see if you could've sent fewer troops, then try it again. Remember, sometimes sending more troops will achieve fewer casualties and thus a higher score. So find the sweet spot.

Now onto each campaign. I'll only post the map, the defending might and your strong troop type...

Clearing The High Pass:
1-1: 100 might, send Ranged
1-2: 120 might, send Foot
1-3: 180 might, send Foot

2-1: 1,920 might, send Mounted
2-2: 2,400 might, send Foot
2-3: 2,560 might, send Ranged
2-4: 3,240 might, send Ranged

3-1: 4,960 might, send Mounted
3-2: 4,800 might, send Foot
3-3: 5,760 might, send Ranged
3-4: 5,920 might, send Foot
3-5: 10,560 might, send Mounted

4-1: 9,480 might, send Mounted
4-2: 9,840 might, send Foot
4-3: 10,320 might, send Ranged
4-4: 11,640 might, send Ranged
4-5: 18,720 might, send Any

5-1: 24,000 might, send Ranged
5-2: 24,000 might, send Ranged
5-3: 26,400 might, send Foot
5-4: 29,760 might, send Foot 
5-5: 39,840 might, send Ranged

The Necromancer
1-1: 264 might, send Any
1-2: 420 might, send Any
1-3: 600 might, send Any

2-1: 1,344 might, send Any
2-2: 1,464 might, send Any
2-3: 2,004 might, send Any
2-4: 2,880 might, send Any

3-1: 3,036 might, send Any
3-2: 3,880 might, send Any
3-3: 4,536 might, send Any
3-4: 5,712 might, send Any

4-1: 5,364 might, send Any
4-2: 6,180 might, send Any
4-3: 6,684 might, send Any
4-4: 7,272 might, send Any
4-5: 8,256 might, send Any

5-1: 7,944 might, send Any
5-2: 8,508 might, send Any
5-3: 9,072 might, send Any
5-4: 9,600 might, send Mounted
5-5: 12,768 might, send Any

Avenging Moria
1-1: 39,360 might, send Mounted
1-2: 39,360 might, send Foot
1-3: 41,280 might, send Ranged
1-4: 42,200 might, send Any
1-5: 76,800 might, send Ranged

2-1: 38,400 might, send Foot
2-2: 50,400 might, send Ranged
2-3: 60,000 might, send Foot
2-4: 67,200 might, send Ranged
2-5: 110,400 might, send Foot

3-1: 134,400 might, send Foot
3-2: 139,200 might, send Foot
3-3: 153,600 might, send Ranged
3-4: 177,600 might, send Mounted
3-5: 259,200 might, send Mounted

4-1: 254,400 might, send Foot
4-2: 264,000 might, send Foot
4-3: 254,400 might, send Mounted
4-4: 264,000 might, send Mounted
4-5: 499,200 might, send Ranged

5-1: 528,000 might, send Ranged
5-2: 576,000 might, send Mounted
5-3: 576,000 might, send Foot
5-4: 720,000 might, send Foot

Through Mirkwood
1-1: 140 might, send Foot
1-2: 180 might, send Ranged
1-3: 200 might, send Ranged
1-4: 280 might, send Ranged

2-1: 2,560 might, send Foot
2-2: 3,200 might, send Ranged
2-3: 3,840 might, send Ranged
2-4: 4,800 might, send Any

3-1: 5,120 might, send Mounted
3-2: 6,080 might, send Ranged
3-3: 7,520 might, send Foot
3-4: 9,280 might, send Foot
3-5: 12,000 might, send Mounted

4-1: 9,600 might, send Ranged
4-2: 12,000 might, send Foot
4-3: 13,200 might, send Ranged
4-4: 15,600 might, send Mounted
4-5: 21,600 might, send Any

5-1: 24,000 might, send Mounted
5-2: 31,200 might, send Foot
5-3: 36,000 might, send Ranged
5-4: 45,600 might, send Mounted

Discovering Smaug
1-1: 36,000 might, send Any
1-2: 40,800 might, send Foot 
1-3: 48,000 might, send Mounted

2-1: 120,000 might, send Foot
2-2: 132,000 might, send Foot
2-3: 144,000 might, send Ranged
2-4: 720,000 might, send Any