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superdad
05-04-2012, 12:08 PM
Ghost’s beginners guide is a good place to start, and has hints towards this strategy. I’m going to lay it all out here so that people can understand in depth what I feel is the optimal strategy. First, as an aside, since anything with the word optimal would have you camp…

Camping

This guide will not discuss camping. Camping involves purposely staying at a low level, using zero energy/stamina to grow your gold income and expand your land/stash while being relatively safe. The most optimal strategy is to camp for 15 years until you have infinite income, and only then start playing the game. Camp as much as you can stomach, but know that if you follow my strategy here, you will not need to camp for 1 minute.

You will also spend significantly less gold on units that will be replaced, but that you couldn’t replace if you camped, because you hit level 20 (and 30) so much later when you camp. Camp as much as you want. You WILL be stronger for it, but understand that you really don’t really need to if you follow this guide.

Upgrading

In general, the priority should be on upgrading Stash > Expansion >> Gold income buildings = Unit production buildings (although gold buildings take massively higher priority early) > Units.

What should I be focussing on?

Some people talk about maximizing gold gained per energy. Gold gained per experience. Loot per energy. How do I spend my gold? On units or weapons? Should I be attacking others? Should I maximize my defense or my offense? Here is what I consider my ideal strategy…


You maximize firstly your attack and defense gained per loot per experience required to acquire it. So maximize loot while minimizing experience gained. Then maximize gold per experience gained. This is where the camping strategy comes in, because you set exp gained to zero and gain gold, thus setting up your economy. Once you have enough economy (I didn’t camp at all), then your main priority is maximizing loot from NPC monsters while minimizing experience. So in practice, how do you do that?

Hero Strength

Firstly, you must absolutely spend every skillpoint into hero strength. Not attack, not defense, not stamina. You won’t need them, because your army score will be insanely high with this strategy, and largely you won’t be pvp fighting enough that you want a massive bank of stamina. You maximize hero strength for one reason and one reason only. The less you have to hit something, the less experience you gain before that monster is killed and you take it’s loot. This has massive ramifications on how much weapons/armor you can pull in by using energy per each level. This is the single most important statistic to maximize. Each level-up, you want to gain as much atk/def through weapons/armor as possible.

Spending gold on units instead of weapons/armor

There are a few reasons for this, but mainly it’s because it’s much more efficient to spend gold on units than on weapons/armor. The weapons you gain around level 20 maps are worth 6000 gold or more. You can either buy 1 weapon or you can buy 20 of the best unit. The efficiency calculations are so far off that it’s surprising such an imbalance exists, because it limits strategies (to this one).

The only time you want to really buy armor/weapons is if you have none to equip on units. This generally means that you let your ally count get too high. At the start of the game, you should make sure you get 3-defense weapons (1/3) and armor (1/3) on every unit to make sure your gold is safe while your stash is weak.

How to find what you should be attacking.

Start on the farthest (hardest) map you have. See if you can kill the weakest monster in 1 shot. If you can, farm this monster. If you cannot, then go back a map and repeat until you can 1-shot a monster. Typically, on a given map the easiest monster will drop the same quality of gear as harder monsters, they will just yield more gold, but will cost you more experience, so this is bad. Note, sometimes, a map has high exp monsters, and the most efficient monster is actually a map farther back. How about an example to clarify…

Lets say you are on the farthest map available. You can either 2-shot a monster for 15 experience per attack (30 exp total) and get a shot at a 20/9 weapon, or you can move back a map and 1-shot a monster for 8 exp (8 exp total) and get a shot at a 17/8 weapon. In case A, you get 20 attack and 9 def for 30 exp. In case B, you get 17 atk and 8 def for 8 exp. Case B is roughly 3x more efficient. Lets say that in your level-up, if you did case A, you would get eight 20/9 weapons, but case B would give twenty-four 17/8 weapons in the same level-up. Going with case B, you can grow your allies faster, as well you are almost certainly pulling in more gold (per level-up) since you are 1-shotting the monster. With that increased gold you can also now afford more units to equip the weapons/armor that you can getting more of.

Now note, that most people don’t even farm as efficiently as case A. They’ll do something like 4-hit the hardest monster on the map that takes 4 hits @ 25 experience per hit. They are getting 1 loot chance per 100 experience gained, while you are getting 1 per 8 exp gained.

What about Energy? Shouldn't I optimize how I spend it?

Notice how none of this discussion revolves around maximizing energy at all. Energy is entirely meaningless, and you need to get your head around that fact. If given the choice of killing a monster with 1 energy/10 experience or 300 energy/1 experience, I would spend 300 energy every time. I would level extremely slow, but I would be absolutely godly. You don’t care about energy, you ONLY care about loot(maximize) and experience (minimize), and to a slightly lesser scale, gold (maximize).

This is why when you have 35 energy left, you should NOT attack that 15 experience/35 energy monster to 2-shot it later, you should STILL attack the 22 energy/8 experience monster. Sure it seems smart to "save energy" by negating the harder monster's counter-attack, but in reality, you are gaining more exp per kill, thus less loot per level.

Exceptions to 1-shotting monster strategy

The only times you should be hitting monsters more than 1-shotting them is when you are fishing for better gear for your hero, or if the 1-shot monster is significantly far-back. For the first example, if you know a hero upgrade weapon drops from a certain monster, you should farm that until you get it, no matter what the loot/exp ratio. Getting this item faster means more time 1-shotting harder monsters, thus getting better loot per exp.

The second example of when you want to deviate is when the 1-shot monster is 6 or more maps back – this is a rough guideline I use. At this point, the gear you are gaining is significantly worse than 2-shotting the hardest map (easiest monster on that map) that often it’s better to spend a little more exp to get a significantly better weapon. The reason for this is that stronger weapons will get replaced later, so there is some priority towards fewer yet stronger weapons/armor, instead of massive amounts of weaker weapons.

This second point brings us to another fact. You aren’t just maximizing loot/exp, as if you were, you’d be fighting in the first map with the 1 exp monsters, and you would never leave this map. You are actually maximizing weapon attack/damage gained per loot per exp.

I.e. It is generally better to spend 8 exp to acquire a 18/6 weapon than to gain 1 exp to get a 2/1 weapon, even though you would get 8 times more 2/1 weapons in this manner. Obviously my strategy is thus tailorable to your ally count desires. If you wish to quickly swell your ranks, then fight at lower exp monsters, just to farm in more (quantity) gear in the same level-up. If you want to stay very low in allies, then maybe even 2-shotting monsters is where you want to be at, since you don’t want to maximize quantity, but rather quality instead. However, just a caution… be careful taking this too far. High-ally count people can still see lower ones, just left often. The safest place to be is always strong with higher allies instead of invincible at low allies. Someone with 4x your ally count may actually beat you. The worst place to be is high allies with average or worst strength.

When to gain allies?

I believe the best method is to follow my strategy here, and upgrade your ally count as much as you can, while still equipping your best (or near-best) weapons/armor/units. You want high allies, but you don’t want to be equipping them with junk, lest you be open to losing your coffers. That being said, don’t go insane mix/maxing this. You don’t need your very best gear equipped. You’ll be pulling in so much armor/weapons with this strategy that even if you max your ally count, you’ll still almost certainly be at least double the strength of anyone you see.

What units should I get?

This is more open to preference, but I found the best way was to do the following (this part of my guide is personal opinion, and your mileage may vary):

- Upgrade barracks to rank 2-3 only.
- Get magic academy, upgrade until you get the 2/9 Illusionists.
- If you want to attack people, get battering rams (8/1) in the siege workshop. I would skip this though, as I would rather use my experience gaining armor than fighting people and losing units and weapons (since you gain experience and thus will gain less armor/weapons that level).
- (Option) Get beast warren to level 6. You will use any honor gained to buy werewolves. You can buy the units on the way if you want (7/4’s, worms, etc). Werewolves are the best way to spend your honor. We all like attacking now and then, even if it isn't ideal for this strategy. Sometimes you find that juicy pinata.
- Get coliseum. You can get some 6/9 gladiators for offense if you want. You get coliseum for the riflemen (6/14).
- Get spire at level 30. Level it up to level 7 to access the 11/32 insane defense priests.
- After this, do whatever you want to max your offense.



Conclusion

Following this strategy will ensure that you are essentially unbeatable. You will be a pillar of strength.

Camping is obviously ideal, since it’s a zero cost endeavour (income goes up with zero exp spent). The only cost is your real-life time, and if you have the patience to do it. Also understand that the main strength in this game comes from massive amounts of weapons/armor which are most efficiently gained through energy, not through gold. Using my method you will have more gold than you can spend, and you also won’t have to camp for months to get there. Camping may make you survive 99.9% of fights, but my method will still have you survive 99%.


Early-game walkthrough

/edit, as per several private message requests, I will put together a quick early level walkthrough.

From levels 1-10, you should focus on getting your gold economy going, stash and expansions upgrading non-stop, and get the magic academy upgraded to level 4 as quick as possible. This is a lot of gold, so there are two ways to do this. Either camp, or pvp a bit.

Just remember, if you don't camp, you will be average strength only until level 15. This is because until approximately level 15 or so, purchased weapons/armor are about as good as you get from the maps. Your main strength starts showing in the 15-50 range, where you can farm gear that is miles above what you can buy in the store (for a TON of gold no less).

For the mostpart, until level 15 or so it doesn't really matter if you pvp a bit here and there. The truth is, there is a TON of free money in this level range, from people who have no idea what they are doing. Raiding people's silos (especially upgrades silos) give amazing gold for only 1 experience point gained (this is the important part, the exp). This gold helps you set up your early units/armor/expansions/stash/academy upgrades.

As far as monsters to farm, you want to grind the rats in Morogdar's Den. Once the cursed graveyard opens, you should quickly farm those rats for a weapon upgrade, but go back to Morodgar's Den once you have a new hero weapon/armor. The same goes for the next few maps. Once you can 1-shot the rats in the cursed craveyard, you should start farming those.

For the mostpart, in these levels, you don't really care if you level slightly faster. You'll be pretty safe as long as you fill up with 0/3 clerics, 1/3 weapons, and 0/3 armor. if you need cash, get some 3/1 Sorcerers, and go hit people with silos. Once you get level 3 academy, you can dump all your honor into 9/10 water elementals. For only 90 honor, this is pretty efficient at these levels. Once you get level 4 academy, fill your roster with 2/9 illusionists. Congrats, you are no longer killable.

Keep farming 1-shot rats and swell your army-count to match your weapons/armor. These will be the limiting factor. If you find yourself comparable to others, it's likely that you aren't growing allies fast enough. You want to hit 20 allies or so as quickly as possible (only when your weapon/armor allows), as this is almost certainly take you out of range of campers.

From here on out, make sure you gain as little exp as possible (try to avoid pvp for the mostpart at this point, and focus on 1-shottable monsters). You can pvp if you want, but just understand that it'll keep your ally count lower, since you'll be gaining less loot per level if you pvp. If you don't pvp, you can swell your ally count a lot faster than anyone else, while equipping them with actual good stuff, and you will turn invincible faster.



Kingdom Age (mobile): 780-467-472

Ghost818
05-04-2012, 12:38 PM
There is one thing you should add to this. Instead of the mass unit buying, first they should mass buy the 1/3 army equipment. Meaning for all the units that you have that aren't equipped, even if you have max allies, buy out the 1/3 armor and weapon. This gives a massive defense boost and not so massive attack boost. Then they could mass unit buy :D

superdad
05-04-2012, 12:56 PM
/edit... I will cut/paste in here some excellent discussion that spawned, and a large clarification post that should help answer some questions.....


(Just as a preface, I’m going to be saying “your strategy” a lot, and I don’t mean this as “your strategy”, “you”, whatever… I just mean it to differentiate between the two strategies.)

What Neon is suggesting is actually what I will be doing, but not yet. Neon, your example is perfect, but the application is at the wrong time. You are talking about getting 5/3 equipment, but that also will get replaced when 6/4 equipment is available. Are you then going to be replacing the 5/3 equipment completely with 6/4? No, because by the time you start that process, 7/5 equipment will be available. Both strategies are in this constant state of “restarting”, and this phase lasts until the end of the game.

The difference between the two strategies is that I’m always farming basically 1 level of equipment behind what your suggestion is, but I’m getting 3x as much equipment as you are. My strategy thus allows you to swell your ally count earlier and stronger than any other strategy in the game (camping doesn’t count, because you can camp and do my strategy, and this is indeed optimal). So, while your strategy may beat my strategy if we both stay at 10 allies forever, my 50 ally count absolutely crushes yours. I’m fully equipping my army with this rainbow from 4/2, 5/3, 6/4, 7/5 equipment (three times as much), whereas yours is equipped with more 7/5, but less everything else, and you are filling the gap with TONS of 1/3’s. I wish I could link my excel graphs, where I simulated both strategies. It’s not even remotely close. Yes, if you stay very very low ally count, then farming latest maps is the best way, since you are always optimal. However, whenever you want to swell your allies to the ally count my strategy will naturally be sitting at, it is going to be excruciatingly painful for you, and you will be far far behind me, because for 20-40 levels, I’ve been pulling in 3x the gear.

What my strategy facilitates is the swelling of allies commensurate with your level, and the strength in that swell, that nobody can compete with at the same ally count.

So when does my strategy “stop working”? This strategy then needs to be switched whenever you reach max allies in your level, equipped with gear that you are currently farming. For example, suppose I have 100 allies. My equipment looks like this (I will discuss armor only, for clarity sake):

30x 6/12
90x 5/11
90x 4/10
90x 3/9
Total a/d from armor: 1260/3060

Now I’m capped on armor. At this point, I’m farming 6/12s, but I *could* be farming some 7/13’s less efficiently. For comparison-sake, other person’s 100 ally army looks like this (they farmed 1 map ahead of me, but pulled in 3x less equipment):

10x 7/13
30x 6/12
30x 5/11
30x 4/10
0x 3/9
200x 1/3
Total a/d from armor: 720/1720

Does this help? So while your 10-ally count is better than mine (only slightly mind you, if you look at the numbers, it’s only better by 10/10), my 100 ally count is nearly double. AND also keep in mind that your strategy is highly efficient, probably 3x more efficient than 90% of players – just not as efficient as me.

So where does your strategy start to pull ahead? It pulls ahead if 7/13 are the best armor available in the game, and you are 10 ahead of me. While I’m technically ahead of you at this point, you will reach “max cap” 10 items faster than me. However, look at what happened in that time… in the 8 months it both took us to reach complete cap, I was stronger than you for 99.9% of the time. You only were stronger than me for the last 10 items, since you capped 10 items faster than me – and you were only marginally better than me (10/10 at the highest advantage for you), and we’re back to even probably 1 day later at most.


Answering the question regarding why you want weapons...

You want weapons for higher defense score. You also cannot choose to get armor or weapons, you get what you get. But regardless, every unit carries 1 armor/1 weapon, and the weapons count towards your defense score, so you want those also.

Answering the question regarding pvp attacking or not…

With my strategy you can pvp or not, just like any strategy. You will have the strength to do it, that’s for sure. You will not find anyone else in your ally range that can attack you, and as soon as you hit skeletal beasts, imps, etc.. you can attack anyone you want, even campers. You will be able to beat them all. If you do choose to pvp, you generally want to be getting at least 173 gold per experience gained though, so you want to only be raiding level 3 silos or better. This gold can be used to fuel expansions/stash/units/etc. It is entirely optional. So should you pvp or not? Basically, everyone needs gold, and you either get it through camping, or this light-pvp. This is the boat that everyone is in though, and it is way more efficient to gain gold this way than to look for people with unvaulted gold. Even if you find someone with 10k gold, 3k unvaulted, if you attack them and take 300 gold (a pretty good haul), and you gain 5 exp in the attack, you have done yourself a disservice. This is roughly the same as raiding only a level 1 silo!!! Also, raiding silos doesn’t count hero defense attribute (at least I don’t think so?), so you are safe from those attacks where you double the guy’s power, but still lose, because this guy dumped 50 points into hero defense.

Regarding when to stop dumping points into hero strength…

There certainly exists a point, but I’m not sure where it is. Ideally, you’ll want some hero defense for “end-game”. I guess it depends on how long you want to spend at end-game. With my strategy, you will probably be in the top 1% of strength for max-level players when you get there. A LONG time down the road (I’m talking maybe a year or more), people that dumped points into hero attack/defense will be stronger, because EVENTUALLY they’ll farm up max allies with max gear, and they’ll have “better” hero attributes. However, the second the level cap is raised, you will surpass them very very fast again, and they’ll spend another year trying to catch you… but they will eventually. There’s a balance here, but I’m not sure it’s even worth investigating. By the time it matters, you will likely be playing another game.



TL: DR : what this strategy allows for is the fastest ally swelling of any strategy. This is because you can swell your ally count while maintaining very strong equipment power. This is especially strong in levels 15+, where raking in 3x as much equipment as even the 2nd most efficient strategy means you are “generating” upwards of 100,000 to a million extra gold every level-up in terms of equipment you gained that he didn’t. You maintain optimal strength at any point of the game, except for maybe the last day or so of reaching cap, and for that day, you are so close that it’s negligible, and for the rest of the time (8+ months roughly?), you are roughly double or triple the strength of the second most efficient strategy.

Hello Kitty
05-04-2012, 01:08 PM
Added, thanks for the suggestion. I tried to not talk about too much, since the guide was getting so long already, but I think I found a good spot to add it in.Thanks for the write-up. Do mostly PvP (gold player) and have wanted to do maps, but not level up too quickly. I like the 1-hit monster approach and getting loot at the same time.

rareay84
05-04-2012, 01:09 PM
Good option. I think I'll take a bunch of your advice once I get a few things squared away.

Sexyman
05-04-2012, 01:16 PM
I like your thinking a lot. Say you do like to PVP...would you still follow this guide? Or would you put some points into attack/def?

Ghost818
05-04-2012, 01:20 PM
I hope people don't take the wrong impression, by me investing my points into hero strength, the point is to maximize energy spent vs loot gained. That loot is what I need so I could PVP all day and not lose.

Sexyman
05-04-2012, 01:23 PM
I hope people don't take the wrong impression, by me investing my points into hero strength, the point is to maximize energy spent vs loot gained. That loot is what I need so I could PVP all day and not lose.

So really the idea is leveling up slowly because you are gaining less xp per loot? Would you take PVP (attacking) out of the equation completely?

Hello Kitty
05-04-2012, 01:44 PM
So really the idea is leveling up slowly because you are gaining less xp per loot? Would you take PVP (attacking) out of the equation completely?Depends on what strategy you want to take or how you want to play the game.

I do mostly PvP to build my economy and build A/D (only requires Stamina), but have bought diamond units that allow me to have a good success rate at the lower level when I attack. I like PvP because of the return and invest my earnings in economy and units for when I get to higher levels.

Sometimes I'd like to do the maps, but don't want to level up, which is why I really appreciated this original post for the idea that gives me variety and the need to start considering investing in Hero Strength.

Sexyman
05-04-2012, 02:17 PM
Now you said up top to not have too many allies so that they are getting junk, but I still have a question. Following this strategy, you will come to a point where you have enough units, weapons, and armor to support your army. As you keep increasing your allies, you will go into battle with a LOT of units, causing the inevitable, losing a lot of units. How do you prevent this?

Also... if you had gems while using this strategy, what would you spend your gems on? Cheap units or the more expensive ones?

Ghost818
05-04-2012, 02:38 PM
So really the idea is leveling up slowly because you are gaining less xp per loot? Would you take PVP (attacking) out of the equation completely?

If you are trying to level slowly:

#1 Find monsters that the furthest maps that will die in one hit

#2 Forget about PVP because if your goal is maximize loot per xp then you arent doing yourself a favor by gaining xp with PVP.

Just my opinion, I have never been a camper or crawler so dont take my opinion as foundation.

ShawnBB
05-04-2012, 02:55 PM
Superdad,this is a super post! I'm now survive 99% exactly because I've been doing the same thing you have mentioned. You pretty much digged every single bit of strategy of this game as from my perspective.

Here could be a little improvement according to my experience.
1- werewolf, (24/23). Since you have the idea of getting extreme stats units, which are illusionist and battering ram. Will cannon (36/20) be a better choice since its stats differs way more than werewolf? Cheap 17 defense units are everywhere, but precious 35+ attack units are rare and expensive.

2- the loot drop rate related to monster's strength. No matter it is one shot or two shots, the final drop rate actually matters more than anything. You won't enjoy killing one shot weaks that has a low drop rate, in that way the loot drop stats increase per energy will be horrible and you end up looting nothing.
So stay with 2 shot(perfect), or even 3 shots(acceptable) monsters will not only bring a higher drop rate, but also drop an item that will be replaced a lot later(could even be used in game forever).

3- the 1/5 armor(160 gold) is actually a better option even in mid early stage, KA's Econ system is wealthy enough to support you to buy 3 everytime you add an Allie.

dtgamemaster
05-04-2012, 08:49 PM
Are you sure this is an "optimal strategy"?

For Early game perhaps.

Assuming you are going to have defence/offence values in the thousands..

Which would be better.

1) A percentage increase from investing in Army Attack/Defense
or
2) Fixed additions of '24,24' to an already large value of thousands, from investing in Hero Strength

It is not as simple as you think. It isn't as if the player not investing heavily in Hero Strength can't farm items from PVE..he just will be slower in the startup but eventually catch up and surpass as the weapon/armour slots are filled.

Just giving u guys food for thought.

ps. Of cos this is assuming points in army attack/defense gives a percentage increase..but from what i see in other games, it should be as such. It can't be added static values as this will make this stat totally worthless and might i say..this game totally garbage

Sexyman
05-04-2012, 09:11 PM
True... But if you choose to not go this route you face the possibility of losing a lot in be beginning, which to some people might seem like a big deal. It might be wise to do this strategy for a while then as you get towards mid-end game switch over and start putting at least some points into att/def so that you dont get slaughtered by people with much crappier stats than yourself.

heath4pack
05-05-2012, 04:54 AM
Good option. I think I'll take a bunch of your advice once I get a few things squared away.

Same here. Thx for the post superdad

Romaro
05-05-2012, 05:48 AM
Depends on what strategy you want to take or how you want to play the game.

I do mostly PvP to build my economy and build A/D (only requires Stamina), but have bought diamond units that allow me to have a good success rate at the lower level when I attack. I like PvP because of the return and invest my earnings in economy and units for when I get to higher levels.

Sometimes I'd like to do the maps, but don't want to level up, which is why I really appreciated this original post for the idea that gives me variety and the need to start considering investing in Hero Strength.

Interesting strategy HK:). I have and ally still 13th level not have gems unit that have 10lvl beast warren, 6lvl siege workshop, when I see his stat, his only few do map with 0.35k win 1 lose, 0.45k succeed raid 1 lose. Right now his kingdom got every beast from each level and his stat 2.3k/2.5k, very good strategy like you HK, " Do mostly PvP to build Eco and build A/D".
I will follow this strategy since I desperate looking bronze dragon from PvP :(
So I just upgrade my "pet shop" just to have dragon :)

superdad
05-05-2012, 08:21 AM
I guess it all depends on what your goals are. If your goals are to be as strong as humanly possible @ endgame, and you don't care at all from here until then, the optimal strategy is to pump every point into hero attack/defense, and get literally bent-over for 50 levels, and then a long time at 50 as well. However, once you (eventually) max your allies/weapon/armor with the best units in the game, then you will absolutely be stronger than anyone else, because you have maxed hero atk/def. The problem is that you'll spend a LOT longer to get there, and you'll be a walking pinata on the way. So the only way this strat can work is with intense camping. Camping also works very well until level 18 or so, but at that point, the weapons/armor in the fields far-surpass what you can buy.

So that strategy will be insane camping from 1-18 where you will be untouchable, but it will take you 3 months to hit level 10. Then you'll be super strong from 10-18. Then you'll slowly turn into a walking bullseye from 18-50. Then you'll probably spend 6-8 months at level 50 being destroyed constantly. However, you'll chip away, and in a year or so at level 50, you'll be the strongest person in the game.

I guess it all depends on how you want to go at it.

The strategy I have laid out here goes like this:

Level 1-10: Average strength. If you camped, you'll be super strong though. I only say average strength because if you don't camp you will hit level 4 magic academy (for the 2/9 illusionists) around level 11 or so. After that you can't be touched. Campers will still have you beat, since the weapons/armor they can buy at this level are still very strong compared to the loot drops. Also, they'll have spent time upgrading barracks to level 10. The good news is, they won't attack anyone, because they are camping, so while you can't kill them, they don't want to attack you either.

Level 10-45 or so: Nobody will even come close to touching you. You will be a God in these levels, both in attack and defense. The reason this strategy dominates here is because the weapons/armor become twice as good as anything you can buy in the store, and you are maximizing loot gained per level. This is thekey point. You can fill your ally rank faster than anyone else, and fill the troops with good gear. Other people that fill allies and don't do this strategy will be equipping 1/3 weapons/armor and you will be equipping 6/8 range. You will literally double or triple the strength of non-gold players from level 10-45. You will even be stronger than campers. Infact, some of the juiciest targets in this range are the campers. I've taken 2000 gold per attack off a camper before. Now, just be careful of campers with massive amounts of field-acquired weapons/armor as this means they are coming out of camping and likely are doing your strategy. Just avoid that guy. He's going all-out and all the power to him.

Level 45-50: This is where people that dump power into hero attack/defense will likely start beating you again. You will likely still be stronger than 99% of the people though.

Level 50: You will be one of the strongest in the game, but every day that goes past, you will slowly lose your edge. The reason for this is because you have most of your points into hero strength, you already have a maxed army with max weapons. As other people max out, their hero str/attack will start to overcome your 2x lead in army strength.

Don't get me wrong, you WILL get eclipsed at some point, but it is likely not going to happen for a LONG time. The players that will pass you are the atk/def players, and they will be getting destroyed at level 50. It may take them 1 year, it may take them 2 years. It may take them an entire lifetime, but by the time they retire from work, they will probably be stronger than you. For the most part, while you have low hero atk/def, your maxed army score will be so much higher than anything around you that you will be safe for a LONG time, likely as long as you plan on playing the game. I mean, how long do you plan to play this game at max-level anyways? A full year or more? I doubt it.


So while this strategy will be absolutely crushingly dominant for a solid year (or more) of play, it will absolutely be beaten long long long term by hero attack/defense players. They deserve it though, they've been a walking pinata for a year and a half.

Romaro
05-05-2012, 08:56 AM
good point, thanks superdad, change strategy now :)

PorkChopExpress
05-05-2012, 12:48 PM
Just curious to know what the result would be for (a non-Gem) PvP when one person puts all of their upgrades (through lvl 50) into Hero Strength (which takes 2 points for one upgrade) against one person who puts all of their upgrades into defense (one point per upgrade) - assuming that their attack/defense #s are equal....

Wouldn't the all-Hero strength strategy backfire in that situation?

Sexyman
05-05-2012, 01:15 PM
so if you want to be an instantaneous badass, go with this strategy. if you want to be a badass in a year dump your points into ATT/DEF

Futon
05-05-2012, 06:36 PM
Nice read but i have a few questions. I screwed up at the start and wasted a few levels of skill points. Right now i'm LVL 28 with only hero strength of 32. As a result i have a hard time following the pve farming strategy because i can't 1 shot anything on recent maps. Right now my progression is on The Infested Cavern and I've been farming on Highland Pass but it takes 2 hits on everything. Any suggestions?

My current weapon is Sword of Lore 11/5 and armor is High Ranger Plate 6/12. I thought maybe if i could upgrade my weapon it would make farming easier but i'm not sure where to farm for that. Any help would be appreciated :D

superdad
05-05-2012, 07:08 PM
If player A goes all into Hero Defense, and Player B does my guide, player B will destroy player A for levels 10 through 50. After a year or so at level 50, my strat will be even on defense, but would lose if I attack player A, since his hero defense. It would take a LONG time for him to catch up to me though, since he would spend that majority of his time at level 50 losing fights to everyone, because he farms items 100x slower than I do. Also, if he attacked me, it would still be a coinflip (at 50, I would be unbeatable before that, and even for a LONG time at 50).

Just to give you some numbers. I just restarted, and I'm in the absolutely weakest time-period right now. I'm level 12, with 13 allies and did not camp for a single second. Most people my level and ally count have atk/def of 250/350. The odd camper is 450/600. That's the highest I've seen, and he had 2 gold units. My score is 430/690, and I'm only starting to get into maps where armor/weap are way better than store options. So even at level 12, in the weakest point in this strategy, I am absolutely crushing 99% of players, and beating almost every camper too. I can't attack the toughest of them, but I don't want to. I can still attack 99% of other players (silos mostly, but I'm about to stop that now).

I will try to provide updates so you guys can see how this strategy develops. It really picks up steam from level 12 onwards, since you start getting 10/6 weapons and 6/10 armor, while to buy that from the store, you'd pay like 4000-6000 gold. So I really start passing campers now, because it takes them ~3 hours to get *one* of those, and I get 5-10 each hour. I'm skyrocketing past them now.

@Futon: It really depends on if you are enjoying your current game or not. I recently restarted, because I did a lot of pvp from 15-30 and leveled quickly. I was still 99.9% dominant, but I wanted to see just how crazy my numbers would be if I executed the strategy perfect - so I restarted. It's up to you. The thing about my strategy is you absolutely have to do it from the beginning or there is really no point. You must max hero strength, or you level too fast to do my strategy. You won't pull in the armor/weapons that I do in the same level up, and there is no way to catch up. The only good thing is that if you are finding yourself in a good enough spot now, you can maybe survive (not be godly, but make it) to level 50, and if you have any points in hero atk/def, then you will eventually be stronger.

I dunno, if it were me, I'd reset the game, because I enjoy executing a perfect strategy. But you are talking to a guy that had like 25 level 80 WoW characters (before cataclysm). I really enjoy restarting stuff.

superdad
05-05-2012, 07:30 PM
OH also, just for reference.. before I reset, when I was at level 28, I had 40-50 allies and a score of 3200/3700. I'm not sure what your scores are now, but you can use those to compare. That was with me not optimally doing my strategy either, I pvp'd way too much from 15-30, and did a handful of quests from 25-30 that powerleveled me.

I'd suspect properly done, the numbers would be even better. Not for the same ally count, since that was basically geared-out army, but the perfect execution would allow a higher ally count with still great weapons.

Futon
05-05-2012, 07:34 PM
It's a shame i can't play multiple games on the same device. If there wasn't so much downtime i would restart, but i don't think i wanna go through those first 28 levels again. Nice to know that i'm screwed though lol.

I couldn't stand lvling on wow. Always gave someone a lot of gold to do it for me :P

EDIT : My numbers are no where near that. I played a pretty sloppy game though. I'm lvl 28 with 43 allies and 1900/1900 stats. I did pvp for a long time without a clue as to what i was doing (not checking peoples stats at all before attacking).

Sexyman
05-05-2012, 07:49 PM
It's a shame i can't play multiple games on the same device. If there wasn't so much downtime i would restart, but i don't think i wanna go through those first 28 levels again. Nice to know that i'm screwed though lol.

I couldn't stand lvling on wow. Always gave someone a lot of gold to do it for me :P

EDIT : My numbers are no where near that. I played a pretty sloppy game though. I'm lvl 28 with 43 allies and 1900/1900 stats. I did pvp for a long time without a clue as to what i was doing (not checking peoples stats at all before attacking).

Futon, you could politely ask funzio to reset for you. Just explain why, and they should be ok with doing it. Always worth a try right?

Futon
05-05-2012, 07:52 PM
Futon, you could politely ask funzio to reset for you. Just explain why, and they should be ok with doing it. Always worth a try right?

Yeah i'm just not sure what the benefits would be.

Sexyman
05-05-2012, 07:53 PM
Yeah i'm just not sure what the benefits would be.

A more fun game, and one that you can enjoy by winning a lot?

Futon
05-05-2012, 08:06 PM
A more fun game, and one that you can enjoy by winning a lot?
That's a good point. I do tend to be a perfectionist and screwed up quite a bit. I emailed them so hopefully they will reset and i can get a fresh start and try to do it correctly this time around.

Futon
05-05-2012, 08:18 PM
Futon, you could politely ask funzio to reset for you. Just explain why, and they should be ok with doing it. Always worth a try right?

They said :

Thank you for contacting Funzio Support. I apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced. We are not offering resets at this time. If we do start offering resets, will will let everyone in the game know. Thank you for your understanding.
Regards,
S

:(

FisK
05-05-2012, 08:45 PM
They said :

Thank you for contacting Funzio Support. I apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced. We are not offering resets at this time. If we do start offering resets, will will let everyone in the game know. Thank you for your understanding.
Regards,
S

:(

Sounds wired that they will not reset a game. It should be one of the easiest thing to do. Just find the right acount on the server and hit the "Delete" button.

Well when you are left with the misuse of the game Transfer method see the first 2 posts in Ghost guide to reset the game (http://www.funzio.com/forum/showthread.php?27020-Instructions-On-How-To-Reset-Game):
http://www.funzio.com/forum/showthread.php?27020-Instructions-On-How-To-Reset-Game

PorkChopExpress
05-05-2012, 11:54 PM
Superdad... 450/600? That's the best you've seen on lvl 13? From my perspective that's horrendous... I'm level 10, 34 allies, w/l 400+ to 12... my attack/defense is 2000/1980 - and I do the occasional PvP (when I see someone holding 2-3x their (assumed) vault & PvE (hit Silos @ lvl 4 up)... U wouldn't stand a chance against me now - and I'm 3 levels behind u... Love the thought put into documenting your approach... find it fascinating to read other people's approaches to the game, BUT the statement around 450/600 seems dubious and extremely harmful to your argument...

superdad
05-06-2012, 04:41 AM
Superdad... 450/600? That's the best you've seen on lvl 13? From my perspective that's horrendous... I'm level 10, 34 allies, w/l 400+ to 12... my attack/defense is 2000/1980 - and I do the occasional PvP (when I see someone holding 2-3x their (assumed) vault & PvE (hit Silos @ lvl 4 up)... U wouldn't stand a chance against me now - and I'm 3 levels behind u... Love the thought put into documenting your approach... find it fascinating to read other people's approaches to the game, BUT the statement around 450/600 seems dubious and extremely harmful to your argument...

Everything you say is what I've said. Camping is absolutely the strongest way to play the game, since it's a zero-cost investment (exp). Also, camping has it's greatest strength from levels 1-10, where the armor you can buy in the store compares to what people at that same level can find in the killing fields. Your post doesn't invalidate mine, it is exactly what I talk about several times.

Also, you are at 34 allies, I am at ~10. You can't just straight up compare numbers with different ally counts. My allies are equipping 10/8 weapons now, and 8/10 armor. I have illusionists (2/9) and, if I wanted to attack, could buy battering rams (8/1). With 34 allies, I'd be at: 2720/2754. I just checked my game, and I don't have enough gear to get there, but I'm about half-way there. This is the level range where I start to pass campers, and I pass them by around level 15 or so.

You'll find very fast that once you get into the 15-25 range that you won't be able to buy gear anywhere close to what you can find killing monsters. So the hourly income isn't *that* important. The gear that is even comparable costs 10,000 gold, and my strategey can pull in ~5 of those in an hour, whereas it may take 5 hours with a very good income to save for only 1 piece. Very quickly, campers start falling behind after level 10-15 range.

The absolute best strategy is to do what you are doing (intense camping), AND follow my strategy. My post was to point out that people don't HAVE to camp to succeed at this game. Your stats put you as a very severe camper (which is sweet, nice job btw), but there are only 1 of you in every 10,000 players, and campers don't attack generally, because that entirely goes againt camping. So nobody has to fear a camper in the range that the campers are strongest.

TL:DR, camping plus my strategy is the strongest way to play this game. My post was to say that you don't have to camp if you follow my guide, because you'll quickly get out of the range (level 1-15) where campers are dominant, and will do so with very solid strength yourself (beating 999 out of 1000 players), AND the only people that beat you are people that don't attack you, because they are camping.

superdad
05-06-2012, 10:19 AM
Update on my game:

Level 13
Allies: 16
Attack: 535
Defense: 913
Income: 590

As you can see, no camping at all. I have built every gold building for my level. I have spent about 6 full energy bars looking for an upgrade for my hero weapon, and have missed it. Infact, I went 32 kills without a single loot! Talk about some bad luck. I'm still basically unbeatable. People at my ally count have about 300/400 stats, with campers in the 600/700 range. The strategy is really taking off now.

I will provide updates roughly once a day so you guys can see how the strategy evolves level by level and day by day.

Futon
05-06-2012, 12:27 PM
How did you reset superdad?

hydrota
05-06-2012, 12:34 PM
How did you reset superdad?

You must transfer the game to another device, OR you can send a game too your device, then send that game back to its original and your will be new again.

superdad
05-06-2012, 03:05 PM
Ghost has step by step instructions in his beginner guide. It is stickied at the top of these forums.

superdad
05-07-2012, 08:56 AM
So, I found a juicy target with some level 7 silos and swelled a bit to be able to take some monster cash for very little exp. I've pushed myself a bit far, but I'm still extremely strong and will catch up pretty quickly. I think I'm using about 10-15 weapons with 2/1 power only, which makes me very sad, but it shall be remedied shortly.

My stats now:

Level 15
Allies: 23
Attack: 900
Defense: 1276
Income: 654

Remember, this strategy only starts taking off at this point. I will see the biggest % increases in the next 10-15 levels, where I start to enter godmode.

Most people in my ally range are in the 700/800 range. The camper that I attacked was 875/875ish, with maxed out weapons and fairly low gold, so I knew I'd be safe to swell up and beat him. Free ~6k gold is pretty nice at this level. I expect the next update will be pretty significant gains.

I should also have werewolves in a few days, and will then focus on upgrading my economy more. There hasn't been much need yet, as I've been working mostly on getting my defense in an absolutely crushingly safe spot.

DinoARC
05-08-2012, 11:41 AM
Thanks for the really interesting thread. Superdad, do you think there is a point where investing points in Hero Strength is no longer benficial? For example, let's say it takes you 2 swings to take out some of the highest level monsters after you dropped all skill points into Hero Strength (purely a hypothetical as I've never leveled that high). Is there a point where you cannot reduce the number of swings further, and any additional points invested in Hero Strength provide no further benefit? I'm curious if I could free up a few points to invest elsewhere after Hero Strength was already providing it's maximum utility.

NeonBlue
05-08-2012, 01:12 PM
Great analysis, superdad! Thanks for the thorough explanation.

I have some questions -- the first is, roughly, "what does success look like?"

I understand how this method helps you gear up and achieve high attack and defense scores. I understand why you'd want defense, to some extent -- it's to protect your unvaulted gold, right?

But what is attack good for? PvP seems to not be worth the XP gained. (Sure, I get some nice units, but I also lose the nearly-as-good units I've bought, such that each fight costs me 1-200 gold in replacement costs.) So if PvP is just a way of earning (or losing) gold, while costing xp, it doesn't seem to fit into your strategy. But without PvP, why do you want those shiny high-attack weapons on the first place?

And when you speak of "rocketing past" other players, do you mean in level? Or attack/defense scores? Or "I could beat you if I wanted" bragging rights?

Please note: I'm not in any way criticizing your strategy -- in fact I just restarted my game on my secondary device and am going to follow your plan to the letter; I believe your analysis is absolutely correct.

I'm just wondering if you have some longer-term vision that explains *why* this approach is successful. Is it because you will reach the top level sooner than with other strategies? Or that you will get beat less on your way there? Why is it worth building a strong army, when the nature of this approach is to spend all your effort acquiring equipment, but not using it? Or does this turn into a heavy PvP strategy later on? And if so, what is the goal at that point?

On my main account, I camped and got a very nice economy going, I upgraded my Siege Workshop and have all the Catapults and Zeppelins I need to be able to beat people with many more allies than I have. I successfully defend against all attacks. I'm adding allies in order to do all the Tournament challenges (because without adding them I can't see players at the level I need to attack). But I find myself wondering "what's the point? is this success? am I 'winning'?"

I'd love to think that your approach, or any approach, would be a path to playing the game that doesn't strand me in such nihilistic thoughts.

TL / DR: Why is leveling slowly and carefully, and building a strong army as you go, better than leveling quickly and recklessly? What is the implied ultimate goal of the game?

Joe Brown1
05-08-2012, 01:20 PM
I have followed a form of this strategy and at lvl 22 currently have A: 1331/D: 1439 with only 14 allies (I could probably add a lot more allies but don't seem to need them at this point and am pouring gold into income/vault/land upgrades) and no gold. I have only been robbed one in the last week or two and that was by someone with over 30 gold units. One advantage is that due to work, I only have so much time to farm so I do have approx 2,000 IPH. A few comments, I tend to farm borderline 1/2 hit monsters to get weapons that last longer. Also, I have discovered that some monsters are not available until you quest the area, so when I can 2 hit kill most monsters in an area, I quest that area to unlock new monsters. I have gotten some good hero weapons that way. Great write-up - thanks for the effort!:cool:

NeonBlue
05-08-2012, 01:26 PM
Okay, my second question is refreshingly non-philosophical:

Why farm equipment that I know I'm going to replace?

Yes, I can one-shot rats in Morogdar's Den, and so farming in Lanibod's Crypt (my current highest map) is more "expensive" in terms of xp gains. But since I plan to fully replace, eventually, the Morog's Den equipment, then isn't that actually "wasted" xp, making it more expensive in the long run? Unless I truly need that equipment now, why not spend the xp, however inefficiently, toward farming gear I'll eventually be farming anyway?




Why not farm only the highest level gear, regardless of the xp gains, because that's the gear I'll be able to use the longest?

(Once again, this is a question not a challenge -- I'm assuming there is a good mathematical answer to this, that I'm missing.)

---

Third Question: Are the quest rewards ever worth it? Or are they too xp-expensive for the gear they return?

Futon
05-08-2012, 01:38 PM
Okay, my second question is refreshingly non-philosophical:

Why farm equipment that I know I'm going to replace?

Yes, I can one-shot rats in Morogdar's Den, and so farming in Lanibod's Crypt (my current highest map) is more "expensive" in terms of xp gains. But since I plan to fully replace, eventually, the Morog's Den equipment, then isn't that actually "wasted" xp, making it more expensive in the long run? Unless I truly need that equipment now, why not spend the xp, however inefficiently, toward farming gear I'll eventually be farming anyway?




Why not farm only the highest level gear, regardless of the xp gains, because that's the gear I'll be able to use the longest?

(Once again, this is a question not a challenge -- I'm assuming there is a good mathematical answer to this, that I'm missing.)

---

Third Question: Are the quest rewards ever worth it? Or are they too xp-expensive for the gear they return?

It really depends on how many allies you plan to have so how many units you need to equip.

Let's say you have 200 energy, this strategy suggests you farm the 20 energy rat 10 times for a chance at 5/5 armor. You want to kill the 50 energy rat for 10/10 armor. Even with 100% drop rate 10x 5/5 =50/50, 4x10/10=40/40. Now these numbers are completely made up, but the point is to equip all your units with decent gear, not just a few with great gear and the rest with crap gear. It's also a way to slow down your leveling so that you stay ahead of your peers in average gear/stats to level.

I only use the strategy when I've farmed myself the best Hero Equipment available. I have to equip 141 units, to do that with your strategy would take forever and you'd end up leveling to fast which would just make it that much worse.

Edit: For your third question it depends. I realized my economy and army att/def were way to behind for my level so i stopped questing until i catch back up. You level way faster when you quest, so if you think you're weak i'd stop questing.

Edit again : They did just raise the level cap though so i'm not sure how much it matters now. Level cap 75.

NeonBlue
05-08-2012, 01:53 PM
I have to equip 141 units, to do that with your strategy would take forever and you'd end up leveling to fast which would just make it that much worse.


I'm still trying to grasp the math of this. Let me use some fake-math to ask my question (all numbers are made up, don't try to match them to actual gear or levels):

Let's say that to fully equip your army with 4/2 weapons, if you do it the most xp-efficient way possible (all one-shots), will cost you 100 xp. At that point you will have gained a level, upgraded your Hero Strength, and you are now able to one-shot things that drop 5/3 weapons, so you begin farming those. That will cost you 200 xp to fully equip your army with.

In the meantime, I said "to heck with it" and skipped the 4/2 weapons. Instead of spending 100 xp there, I flailed inefficiently at the 5/3 farming. I spent my 100 xp and I only got a quarter of the equipment I need.

But...now you and I are both farming 5/3 weapons, and we both gained 100 xp and are at the same level. I, however, already have 1/4 of my army geared up with 5/3, and you are starting over at 0. So you will now need to spend 200 xp for that 5/3 equipment, and I only need to spend another 150 xp (because I already got 1/4 of what I need).

Doesn't that put me ahead, with the only risk being that I was lower-geared during our farming spree?

Futon
05-08-2012, 02:38 PM
It depends on how much 4/2 he got more than you while you were farming 5/3.

If you need to farm for 100 units. And you can farm 10 pieces of gear with 100xp or 5 pieces of gear with 100xp which is better? Using your stats 10x 4/2 = 40/20 and 5x 5/3 = 25/15 see the problem? Unless your army is tiny it's just not efficient to farm for the best of the best all the time. You should farm for your best hero weapon/armor and then whatever is most efficient.

So if you can spend 10 energy for a chance at 4/2 or spend 20 energy for a chance at 5/3... the 4/2 is more efficient by a lot.

John Snow
05-08-2012, 02:59 PM
I'm still trying to grasp the math of this. Let me use some fake-math to ask my question (all numbers are made up, don't try to match them to actual gear or levels):

Let's say that to fully equip your army with 4/2 weapons, if you do it the most xp-efficient way possible (all one-shots), will cost you 100 xp. At that point you will have gained a level, upgraded your Hero Strength, and you are now able to one-shot things that drop 5/3 weapons, so you begin farming those. That will cost you 200 xp to fully equip your army with.

In the meantime, I said "to heck with it" and skipped the 4/2 weapons. Instead of spending 100 xp there, I flailed inefficiently at the 5/3 farming. I spent my 100 xp and I only got a quarter of the equipment I need.

But...now you and I are both farming 5/3 weapons, and we both gained 100 xp and are at the same level. I, however, already have 1/4 of my army geared up with 5/3, and you are starting over at 0. So you will now need to spend 200 xp for that 5/3 equipment, and I only need to spend another 150 xp (because I already got 1/4 of what I need).

Doesn't that put me ahead, with the only risk being that I was lower-geared during our farming spree?

The relative strengths of your economies are going to also play a role here because any income disparity could either be the equalizer or launch you much farther ahead since you could simply purchase equipment.

NeonBlue
05-08-2012, 06:23 PM
Hmm, no, you're not getting my meaning.

I'm assuming that both players want to eventually fully equip their 100 units with the 5/3 gear. Player 1 does so by going directly for that goal. Player 2 goes after 100 units of 4/2 gear first, and then moves on to replace that with the 5/3 gear.

In the end, Player 2 has gained more xp in total, because they took 100 xp getting the first set of gear, and replaced that gear by taking the 200 xp.

Meanwhile, Player 1 took the 100 xp hit while inefficiently farming the 5/3 gear, but at least they got some. So when they leveled to the point they could one-hit the 5/3 stuff, they didn't have to spend the full 200 xp, as they already had 50 pieces of it.

Thus, both players end up with all 100 units carrying 5/3 gear, but Player 1 has spent less than the full 300 xp spent by Player 2.

Again, I'm assuming that the Player 2 strategy is to farm efficiently (one-shotting), but also to equip the entire army with whatever they are currently farming.

Given that assumption, it seems to me that Player 1 ends up in a slightly better position (same gear, lower xp), with the only risk being the time they spent less well armed, because they skipped the 4/2 gear. But if they simply don't PvP during that time, then what's the loss?

Futon
05-08-2012, 06:29 PM
Hmm, no, you're not getting my meaning.

I'm assuming that both players want to eventually fully equip their 100 units with the 5/3 gear. Player 1 does so by going directly for that goal. Player 2 goes after 100 units of 4/2 gear first, and then moves on to replace that with the 5/3 gear.

In the end, Player 2 has gained more xp in total, because they took 100 xp getting the first set of gear, and replaced that gear by taking the 200 xp.

Meanwhile, Player 1 took the 100 xp hit while inefficiently farming the 5/3 gear, but at least they got some. So when they leveled to the point they could one-hit the 5/3 stuff, they didn't have to spend the full 200 xp, as they already had 50 pieces of it.

Thus, both players end up with all 100 units carrying 5/3 gear, but Player 1 has spent less than the full 300 xp spent by Player 2.

Again, I'm assuming that the Player 2 strategy is to farm efficiently (one-shotting), but also to equip the entire army with whatever they are currently farming.

Given that assumption, it seems to me that Player 1 ends up in a slightly better position (same gear, lower xp), with the only risk being the time they spent less well armed, because they skipped the 4/2 gear. But if they simply don't PvP during that time, then what's the loss?

No one does it like that though. They simply farm the one hit monster until they can move on to the next 1 hit monster and they just keep moving forward that way. Unless you're farming for your end game army then there's no reason to think like that. You simply farm the most efficient thing that you can at all times, which will get you better gear faster.

You farm the 1 shot 4/2 stuff until you can farm the 1 shot 5/3 stuff, and then you farm the 1 shot 6/4 stuff and just keep moving like that when you can.

superdad
05-09-2012, 07:06 AM
(Just as a preface, I’m going to be saying “your strategy” a lot, and I don’t mean this as “your strategy”, “you”, whatever… I just mean it to differentiate between the two strategies.)

What Neon is suggesting is actually what I will be doing, but not yet. Neon, your example is perfect, but the application is at the wrong time. You are talking about getting 5/3 equipment, but that also will get replaced when 6/4 equipment is available. Are you then going to be replacing the 5/3 equipment completely with 6/4? No, because by the time you start that process, 7/5 equipment will be available. Both strategies are in this constant state of “restarting”, and this phase lasts until the end of the game.

The difference between the two strategies is that I’m always farming basically 1 level of equipment behind what your suggestion is, but I’m getting 3x as much equipment as you are. My strategy thus allows you to swell your ally count earlier and stronger than any other strategy in the game (camping doesn’t count, because you can camp and do my strategy, and this is indeed optimal). So, while your strategy may beat my strategy if we both stay at 10 allies forever, my 50 ally count absolutely crushes yours. I’m fully equipping my army with this rainbow from 4/2, 5/3, 6/4, 7/5 equipment (three times as much), whereas yours is equipped with more 7/5, but less everything else, and you are filling the gap with TONS of 1/3’s. I wish I could link my excel graphs, where I simulated both strategies. It’s not even remotely close. Yes, if you stay very very low ally count, then farming latest maps is the best way, since you are always optimal. However, whenever you want to swell your allies to the ally count my strategy will naturally be sitting at, it is going to be excruciatingly painful for you, and you will be far far behind me, because for 20-40 levels, I’ve been pulling in 3x the gear.

What my strategy facilitates is the swelling of allies commensurate with your level, and the strength in that swell, that nobody can compete with at the same ally count.

So when does my strategy “stop working”? This strategy then needs to be switched whenever you reach max allies in your level, equipped with gear that you are currently farming. For example, suppose I have 100 allies. My equipment looks like this (I will discuss armor only, for clarity sake):

30x 6/12
90x 5/11
90x 4/10
90x 3/9
Total a/d from armor: 1260/3060

Now I’m capped on armor. At this point, I’m farming 6/12s, but I *could* be farming some 7/13’s less efficiently. For comparison-sake, other person’s 100 ally army looks like this (they farmed 1 map ahead of me, but pulled in 3x less equipment):

10x 7/13
30x 6/12
30x 5/11
30x 4/10
0x 3/9
200x 1/3
Total a/d from armor: 720/1720

Does this help? So while your 10-ally count is better than mine (only slightly mind you, if you look at the numbers, it’s only better by 10/10), my 100 ally count is nearly double. AND also keep in mind that your strategy is highly efficient, probably 3x more efficient than 90% of players – just not as efficient as me.

So where does your strategy start to pull ahead? It pulls ahead if 7/13 are the best armor available in the game, and you are 10 ahead of me. While I’m technically ahead of you at this point, you will reach “max cap” 10 items faster than me. However, look at what happened in that time… in the 8 months it both took us to reach complete cap, I was stronger than you for 99.9% of the time. You only were stronger than me for the last 10 items, since you capped 10 items faster than me – and you were only marginally better than me (10/10 at the highest advantage for you), and we’re back to even probably 1 day later at most.


Answering the question regarding why you want weapons...

You want weapons for higher defense score. You also cannot choose to get armor or weapons, you get what you get. But regardless, every unit carries 1 armor/1 weapon, and the weapons count towards your defense score, so you want those also.

Answering the question regarding pvp attacking or not…

With my strategy you can pvp or not, just like any strategy. You will have the strength to do it, that’s for sure. You will not find anyone else in your ally range that can attack you, and as soon as you hit skeletal beasts, imps, etc.. you can attack anyone you want, even campers. You will be able to beat them all. If you do choose to pvp, you generally want to be getting at least 173 gold per experience gained though, so you want to only be raiding level 3 silos or better. This gold can be used to fuel expansions/stash/units/etc. It is entirely optional. So should you pvp or not? Basically, everyone needs gold, and you either get it through camping, or this light-pvp. This is the boat that everyone is in though, and it is way more efficient to gain gold this way than to look for people with unvaulted gold. Even if you find someone with 10k gold, 3k unvaulted, if you attack them and take 300 gold (a pretty good haul), and you gain 5 exp in the attack, you have done yourself a disservice. This is roughly the same as raiding only a level 1 silo!!! Also, raiding silos doesn’t count hero defense attribute (at least I don’t think so?), so you are safe from those attacks where you double the guy’s power, but still lose, because this guy dumped 50 points into hero defense.

Regarding when to stop dumping points into hero strength…

There certainly exists a point, but I’m not sure where it is. Ideally, you’ll want some hero defense for “end-game”. I guess it depends on how long you want to spend at end-game. With my strategy, you will probably be in the top 1% of strength for max-level players when you get there. A LONG time down the road (I’m talking maybe a year or more), people that dumped points into hero attack/defense will be stronger, because EVENTUALLY they’ll farm up max allies with max gear, and they’ll have “better” hero attributes. However, the second the level cap is raised, you will surpass them very very fast again, and they’ll spend another year trying to catch you… but they will eventually. There’s a balance here, but I’m not sure it’s even worth investigating. By the time it matters, you will likely be playing another game.



TL: DR : what this strategy allows for is the fastest ally swelling of any strategy. This is because you can swell your ally count while maintaining very strong equipment power. This is especially strong in levels 15+, where raking in 3x as much equipment as even the 2nd most efficient strategy means you are “generating” upwards of 100,000 to a million extra gold every level-up in terms of equipment you gained that he didn’t. You maintain optimal strength at any point of the game, except for maybe the last day or so of reaching cap, and for that day, you are so close that it’s negligible, and for the rest of the time (8+ months roughly?), you are roughly double or triple the strength of the second most efficient strategy.

superdad
05-09-2012, 07:13 AM
Just an update of my stats for anyone interested:

Level: 19
Allies: 25 (75 max allies/equip)
Weapons: 97
Armor: 99
Attack: 1335
Defense: 1742
Income: 728
Battles: 77-1 (that loss peeves me, because it happened at level ~3 vs someone that bought a 100 gem unit, and now it's on my record >< )
Enemies killed: 733
Raids: 380

The single best player in my ally/level range I've found in the past 3 days has been a 1036/1250, with an income of 2200, and 3-4 gold units, and he had 32 allies to my 23 at the time. So you see, I'm really pulling away from even campers that buy gold units, and it would be even a bigger disparity if I swelled allies. From now on I will probably start to swell allies every 3 weapons/armor I get from farming. At least do that for 2-3 levels then cool off while I replace my "lower" 4/9 armor, etc.

Level 20 will be a key point for me, giving me access to riflemen. You see, until level 20, the best defense unit is 2/9 illusionists (for me), whereas hardcore campers can 10-rank magic academy and get access to warlocks. So theoretically a hard-hard-hardcore camper could beat me if he had 75/75 warlocks, and 75/75 weapons and armor that cost 6000 gold each. He maybe would have had to spend 1 year at my level to get that gold, but theoretically, he can be higher than me.

As soon as I hit riflemen though, it will (I'm pretty sure) be 100% theoretically impossible for anyone to be higher than me, because the equipment I have surpass the equipment they can buy. Actually, the only way *anyone* could beat me is if they hit level 20, then stall there for 2-4 months to upgrade their colloseum to level 10, AND purchase 75/75 of the top unit. That could be possible, but I don't think anyone is silly enough to do something so crazy. Other than that 1 case, it will literally be impossible for me to have a worse army than anyone else in the game, barring gold spenders.

Note that while my weapons/armor could support a bigger ally count, I have about 10-15 "duds" in each one (stuff that most people equip TONS of with no second thought to it). I could easily swell to my max armor/weapon and still be the top 99.999% of my range, but I'm still pvp'ing a bit for quick gold (since I'm overpowering atm anyways), and I'd rather lose less units.

I'm farming wolves in eagle's peak right now, and probably will be doing so for another 3-4 levels at least.

el_gringo
05-09-2012, 08:10 AM
Superdad, I don't think we are allies. I have 31 allies at level 18 and my stats are a little superior to yours - pm me your ally code.

Futon
05-09-2012, 08:19 AM
6 allies = 18 extra units/armor/weapons so i assume you should be ahead of him.

el_gringo
05-09-2012, 08:21 AM
6 allies = 18 extra units/armor/weapons so i assume you should be ahead of him.

Indeed - but I can see people with 27 allies at my level in my rivals list.

NeonBlue
05-09-2012, 09:14 AM
Ahh, I get it now! Thanks, superdad, for the (once-again) clear and cogent analysis. The piece I was missing was "It's good to have the biggest ally size you can (so long as you can keep them well-equipped, of course)."

In CC, if I'm remembering correctly, it was safer to keep the ally size low -- if I sat with 10 allies, I would never show up on the Rivals list of those with 20 or more. I wonder if that has to do with the total number of players (since the game tries to match you with similar opponents). If that's the case, and if the total number of KA players grows a lot over time, then I'd think there might be other "safe spots" at the low end of the ally count.


As for PvP, if it's used only as a source of income, then I think I'd rather economy-camp, since endless checking of rivals in search of high-value buildings bores me quickly. But perhaps the Honor Points will come in handy at some point. In CC, hitting Laundromats (the lowest-value building to raid, similar to Cottages) went from "why would anyone bother?" to "ooh, it's about honor-per-xp, not gold!" once we started figuring out the "xp is evil" aspect to these games.

superdad
05-09-2012, 10:06 AM
Superdad, I don't think we are allies. I have 31 allies at level 18 and my stats are a little superior to yours - pm me your ally code.

My code is in the first post of this thread, add me, I'd love to see your base.

What was your strat? Did you camp at all?

The purpose of my strategy/post here is to be highly competitive with zero camping, and like I say in a bunch of spots, the absolute optimal strategy is to camp hard at first, then implement this strategy once you are ready to fly. This strategy is about optimizing how you spend your exp, and camping therefore is non-related. You can camp or not camp, with my strategy or not. But once you spend your experience, this is the best way to do it. Camping + my strat is the absolute best way to go at it.

Since I reset the game, I haven't camped for 1 minute, I have spent energy and (some) stamina nonstop, checking on my game roughly hourly. I am where I am after only about 1 week. Anyone that developped their economy for an extended period of time and then executed my strategy could be 300-400 points higher than me (or more).

Again, the goal of this isn't to be the strongest in the game at any level. It's to develop the optimal way of spending your experience. It has also the side benefit of showing that you can be extremely dominant without any camping whatsoever - and that the power of camper vs non-camper decreases severely with level.

I'm already crushing people (generally 30% higher army score than them) that camped (they have 2000+ income, level 10 barracks/academy/etc) but didn't follow my strategy. Anyone that camped AND did my strategy will obviously be the single strongest people in their level range.

I hope this clears up the purpose of this thread.

superdad
05-09-2012, 10:16 AM
Indeed - but I can see people with 27 allies at my level in my rivals list.


And this is exactly why you want to use my strategy... because people with higher ally counts can see you. So the optimal thing to do is to swell your ally count, but to do so in a very controlled and optimized fashion.

6 allies indeed makes a big difference, as this is worth roughly 130 points in army score at our place. Also, as per my previous post, if I wanted absolute power, I would have camped significantly, and would likely be 300-400 points higher than I am right now (at least, especailly if I camped long enough to unlock warlocks at this point).

Maybe I will do an absolute power test with a reset later (or on my wife's ipad), where I camp and develop my economy first, AND execute my strategy. That would be a better fit for comparing stats with people.

Joe Brown1
05-09-2012, 10:42 AM
That is kind of the strategy I am pursuing (mainly due to work schedule not intent). I have periods of farming - mostly along the lines you outlined - and periods where I am too busy to farm much and am concentrating on my econ. Currently at 2,245 IPH with 1,340A/1458D and only 14 allies. Have not been challenged in quite awhile other than a very heavy gold user (ironically, they tried to raid my stash of gold in excess of my vault while I was on, I added a bunch of units and accepted 2 ally requests aney ended up losing everything they won from me before they stopped attacking) It seems to work well thus far.

NeonBlue
05-09-2012, 04:33 PM
Hey superdad, have you calculated the value of Honor? As in, if I get 1 Honor point and it costs 1 xp, is that a good deal? (Yeah, I'm being lazy -- I could figure it out, but I'm sure you've done the math and created three spreadsheets already to answer this question!)

custos
05-09-2012, 05:00 PM
Maybe I will do an absolute power test with a reset later (or on my wife's ipad), where I camp and develop my economy first, AND execute my strategy. That would be a better fit for comparing stats with people.

I would be interested to see how that worked out, just out of curiosity. I'm guessing it's impossible to camp at one level indefinitely while expanding, building and upgrading because you would end up (perhaps inadvertently) completing economy-based quests, which earn XP.

NeonBlue
05-09-2012, 05:14 PM
I'm guessing it's impossible to camp at one level indefinitely while expanding, building and upgrading because you would end up (perhaps inadvertently) completing economy-based quests, which earn XP.

Back in MW, one player posted about what we called the "ultra-turtle." She didn't acquire any units, because she wanted to lose every attack (thus avoiding the inadvertant xp). She was able to stay at level 3 as long as she wanted.

In KA, I held at level 2 for a while, and I just made sure not to upgrade any buildings I had a quest for (e.g. Barracks). By never completing the first set of quests, I didn't open up the "collect from x building y times" ones. I eventually got bored and moved on, but it felt like I could have stayed there indefinitely. (Though who knows -- they may have added new quests since then that would make this more difficult.)

custos
05-09-2012, 05:21 PM
I'm not sure this will work in KA. I think have completed quests that were not yet on my quest list, i.e. "future quests", and been awarded with the gold and XP for completing that quest. Obviously you could stay at a level forever if you did nothing but collect gold, but that wouldn't too much fun :)

NeonBlue
05-09-2012, 05:39 PM
Custos, do you recall what type of quests you completed as "future quests"? Were they of the "collect from a Bakery three times" sort? Or "build a guard tower"? Or PvE (e.g. "kill three goblins")?

My theory was that when you complete a quest in your current list, you can at that point be given credit for the next quest you would have been given, if it's something you've already done (e.g. "level your Barracks to 5").

But at least for me, if I didn't touch the "first layer" quests, then that didn't happen. (As far as I can recall.)

Ghost818
05-09-2012, 06:06 PM
I'm not sure this will work in KA. I think have completed quests that were not yet on my quest list, i.e. "future quests", and been awarded with the gold and XP for completing that quest. Obviously you could stay at a level forever if you did nothing but collect gold, but that wouldn't too much fun :)

Custos is correct on the future quest thing. For example if you have a quest to build one tailor, and you've already built everything but a tailor. Right when you build that tailor and complete it, other quests that are supposed to come after it and you've already completed it will be automatically completed and rewarded, but you wont be notified that you completed it. Think of those as holiday bonuses lol.

NeonBlue
05-09-2012, 06:11 PM
Ghost, I agree. But I'm saying that if you *don't* build that Tailor, then you won't open up the quests that follow it, so you'll never get "credit" for having already built your Baker, Guard Tower, etc.

In other words, if you want to camp indefinitely at a low level, you can... so long as you're careful never to fulfill any of the quests already in your quest log. That "build a Tailor" quest blocks out all the other "build a whatever" quests, making it safe for you to build anything other than a Tailor.

superdad
05-09-2012, 06:12 PM
Value of honor.:

If you compare to the Cannon (36/20, 500 honor), the most comparable unit is probably the top wizard spire unit (33/17, 3700). Since cannon is better, lets call it 4000. So 1 honor is worth about 8 gold. The werewolf calc is pretty close.

I think honor units die less frequently though, so maybe slightly higher. Overall, fairly negligible though, seeing as for 1 honor, 1 exp, I get ~173 gold. Bumping that to 181 isn't really changing a whole lot. Certainly not to the point where it's worth gaining 9 exp to get 6+ honor in battles.

Hoodcrazy
05-09-2012, 06:37 PM
Looking back i would change a few things ive done. First i put 30p total into Atk/Def, i would put them mostly into Hero Strength instead. I have 50p into Hero Strength so far, im taking Stamina to 20-25 then going straight back to Hero Str only. The idea being that i can more quickly farm equips to make my army stronger rather than using skill points. The stats on equips from the strongest map you can farm will be far stronger than the units you can buy until you are getting Unit buildings near Lv10.

Obviously upgrade your vault ASAP always, 2nd i look to build/upgrade, 3rd buy expansion if possible but money building takes priority for me if i have to choose, as empty space in your kingdom doesnt help you at all. I try to keep mine full of money buildings, more buildings = more chances to collect gold. And of course build/upgrade Unit buildings as needed. Before i upgrade a Unit building i look to see what its going to add to my shop and i target certain units i want to unlock, being either a new highest Atk or Def stat, or an Honor unit. As far as Allies goes, keep only as many allies as i can fully equip, see Info button on your Profile page.

Buying Units can be tricky when you start having many allies. To start off id only buy 2 units, the one with highest attack, and the one with highest defense. Later on in the game you'll have to buy some "middle road" units, ones that are not best attackers but have better attack then your defensive units, and vice versa. Basicly you dont want you defense units getting killled while you attack, and dont want your attack units dieing when you are raided so the middle road units are like a buffer. Problem is, every time you unlock a new unit with better Atk or Def, you will want to equip your whole army with them, which could be quite impossible to do right away. I confess i did drop $40 on gems and ive bought the 45-60gem units, helps a ton this early in the game, but its probably wiser to buy the higher cost ones as their stats will never be trumped. The 45-60 gem units have stats like 30/30~ish and some of the Lv10 units can reach or beat that.

Using Stamina is up to you really. I only have 10 stamina and so far that has been enough, any more and id probly lose too many units, but i am now at a point where i can attack a rival 8-10 times in 1 visit and going to put points into Stamina. Tournament Round quests provide tons of Honor, and if you are following the above advice you should be able to find ppl weak enough to hit. If i cant find anyone for Tournament fights i look to fight weaker ppl for honor, while checking their Gold and Buildings for some easy cash. Generally i have a really tough time making any decent gold this way, most ppl are vaulted up and the good money buildings to raid are hard to find.

Energy can be used 3 ways how i see it. You can do quests, go for map mastery, or farm the hardest map for good Loot. I kinda go back and forth between the 3. Generally i farm the hard map until i get a new Weapon/Armor then i go back to the other 2. If i have extra gold i try to press the quests because they require certain equips and units to proceed. Once i can kill all monsters on a map with 1 hit i go back there for Lv5 Mastery, its good profit, rakes in tons of Loot to equip a growing army, and rewards Honor and Indestructible units.

I know the OP mentioned not discussing camping, but id just like to say i dont see the point of it. When im being hit by armies with 10-20k Attack already and then ppl are camping down at low level with weak stats, yea you are strong for your level but in the grand scheme of the game you are way at the bottom of the food chain so, meh. Pretty sure those 20k attack ppl are using as much Energy/Stamina as possible. Im proud to say i fight ppl with 20-30 more allies than me and can still win consistently. Honestly all i can think is how much Energy and Stamina you waste by camping, but hey enjoy the game ^^

custos
05-09-2012, 11:03 PM
Ghost, I agree. But I'm saying that if you *don't* build that Tailor, then you won't open up the quests that follow it, so you'll never get "credit" for having already built your Baker, Guard Tower, etc.

In other words, if you want to camp indefinitely at a low level, you can... so long as you're careful never to fulfill any of the quests already in your quest log. That "build a Tailor" quest blocks out all the other "build a whatever" quests, making it safe for you to build anything other than a Tailor.

Yeah, you might be right, I can't remember for sure. I guess the trouble is that if you have completed a whole bunch of "future quests" while camping you only have to do one "current quest" by mistake (e.g. defeat 5 rivals -- and they might have attacked you, and lost, so you had no control over that) and that opens a slot for all the future quests you've already done. That would be funny to log on only to discover you have levelled up a couple of levels seemingly without having done anything. :)

NeonBlue
05-10-2012, 01:06 AM
Thanks superdad. In terms of "the value of honor" (heh), I want to compare it back to xp, rather than to gold. For me, gold isn't worth taking *any* xp for, since I get plenty of gold from my money buildings. (Even on my "let's play like superdad" account, I camped a little, enough to get the economy rolling -- but then, that's kind of my favorite part of the game. Yep, I'm one of those WoW players who levels my professions first, and plays the AH for fun.)

Back to KA: Since I don't PvP for gold, I started doing it for Honor. I *think* it makes sense strategically, but I'm not sure. So, using the werewolf as an example, I'll get a guaranteed 24/23 unit at a cost of 400 xp exactly. (Attacking seems to grant a somewhat randomized xp:honor ratio, but raiding gives me exactly 1:1, so long as I don't raid the third time.)

Since I'm nowhere near farming weapons or armor that have stats like 24:23, it's tough to compare. The wolves in Eagle's Peak cost me 4 xp per kill. So, in 100 kills, if I get...what, maybe 25 drops? ... will that be a total upgrade to my attack/defense that is greater than upgrading my weakest unit to 24:23? Hmm, yeah, I suppose it would be. Oh, dang.

Now I'll have to admit that I PvP not for gold, not for honor...but because crushing other people is fun.

superdad
05-10-2012, 06:21 AM
Ya, I mean at some point, we gotta have fun playing this game right? haha

I have to admit, I've pvp'd more than I should, simply because I love seeing someone with two upgrade silos up, and I love turning them into rubble without them having any recourse, because I'm 3x stronger than him.

As far as the value of werewolves, I'd say it's more complex than that. The werewolves will probably last you longer than the weapons found off wolves in eagle's peak (great unit to farm btw - I love those things). The value of the upgrades you get off wolves depends on the items you already have. Generally, if you've followed my strategy, you are probably upgrading 6/4 weapons (they'd be at your bottom-end?). So the upgrades aren't *that* big, and you could probably put a case together for spending 400xp for werewolves.

Also, the time required for you to farm up that 400xp through stamina (1 per 3 mins) is slower than through energy. If you are spending both, then that's one thing, but if it really is a chocie (stamina vs energy) and you aren't going to spend energy on wolves ALSO, then undoubtably you will level slower this way. Wolves would get you about 1 exp per minute through constant farming, and stamina is 1 exp per 3 mins. So you level 3x slower, and thus would gain more gold for that level, so it kinda forces you to camp a bit.

I'm going to actually like when Diablo III comes out, because D3 will force me to camp on KA, since I'll be playing D3 all the time and not spending my stamina/energy. My goal is to hit level 30 by next Tuesday, so that I can camp at level 30 until I get level 7 wizard spire @ level 30.

Honor per exp, or loot per exp. It's probably better to go loot per exp, but have fun. If you are so strong that only someone spending $200 on gold units can beat you, then why not pvp for fun.

NeonBlue
05-10-2012, 10:27 AM
Yeah, great point about speed of acquisition of farming honor vs. loot. I'm considering doing both, because that would be faster than either alone, in combination with keeping a smaller ally size.

I figure, if I'm not getting attacked -- or if all my gold is vaulted and I don't mind being attacked -- then I have no need for a large army. A lower number of units means I more quickly equip them all with decent gear, leaving time for PvP Honor-farming before I level to the point of opening up new loot-farming opportunities in PvE.

Two things appeal to me about Honor-bought units over gold units: (1) I can save up Honor indefinitely, laying low and waiting to shop until the moment I want to become a major PvP force; (2) If they are, as you suspect, higher in survivability, that's a big thing; I've stopped doing PvP on my main account because it costs $100-$300 in replacement costs for every fight.


This might not be a good plan (and I look forward to your mathematically-based shoot-down of it!), but I believe if I continue putting all my points into Hero Strength, I can't do any permanent damage. I may end up weaker at the bottom end of my equipment rainbow, but that will only matter until our low-end stuff drops out of use. At that point, I think we'll be even again, but I'll have more Honor stockpiled.

superdad
05-11-2012, 05:43 AM
It won't be weaker only at the bottom of the rainbow, it will be weaker all throughout (if you look at the numbers in my post above). That being said, you are counter-balancing that with werewolves. It would probably be worth it when the werewolves are replacing riflemen or worse, but I have a feeling it wouldn't be worth it when you are replacing priests (the 11/32 unit).

That being said, I'm still pvping a bunch, just for the quick gold, because gaining 3 experience here and there is really just a drop in the water once you are farming mobs that give 8 exp per kill.

You are also talking to a guy that just gained an entire level-up without getting a single item, because I went something like 0 for70 on wolves. It was a ridiculous streak. My entire strategy revolves around *roughly* equal drop chance on mobs. If they modified this to make the easier monsters drop loot less often, then it may be optimal to farm slightly harder monsters on the map (likely the middle road monsters), and 2-shot farm them.

The problem is, the only way to truly know is to collect massive amounts of data and figure out drop rates over a massive sample size.

Futon
05-11-2012, 01:44 PM
Yeah, great point about speed of acquisition of farming honor vs. loot. I'm considering doing both, because that would be faster than either alone, in combination with keeping a smaller ally size.

I figure, if I'm not getting attacked -- or if all my gold is vaulted and I don't mind being attacked -- then I have no need for a large army. A lower number of units means I more quickly equip them all with decent gear, leaving time for PvP Honor-farming before I level to the point of opening up new loot-farming opportunities in PvE.

Two things appeal to me about Honor-bought units over gold units: (1) I can save up Honor indefinitely, laying low and waiting to shop until the moment I want to become a major PvP force; (2) If they are, as you suspect, higher in survivability, that's a big thing; I've stopped doing PvP on my main account because it costs $100-$300 in replacement costs for every fight.


This might not be a good plan (and I look forward to your mathematically-based shoot-down of it!), but I believe if I continue putting all my points into Hero Strength, I can't do any permanent damage. I may end up weaker at the bottom end of my equipment rainbow, but that will only matter until our low-end stuff drops out of use. At that point, I think we'll be even again, but I'll have more Honor stockpiled.

I don't think the honor units are that much different when it comes to survivability. At least they aren't in my experience. I bought a ton while leveling and fighting and have lost every one of them. I lost 6 War Golems and 12 Rogues both say they are low death rate. Yet i lost most of my golems right after buying them in bulk. I stopped buying honor units because of this and i'm just saving indefinitely now.

superdad
05-14-2012, 07:04 AM
Stat update for those interested.

Previously:
Level: 19
Allies: 25 (75 max allies/equip)
Weapons: 97
Armor: 99
Attack: 1335
Defense: 1742
Income: 728
Battles: 77-1 (that loss peeves me, because it happened at level ~3 vs someone that bought a 100 gem unit, and now it's on my record >< )
Enemies killed: 733
Raids: 380


new update: (I edited these, as I decided to go up in allies a bit)

Level: 26
Allies: 54 (162 max allies/equip)
Weapons: 173
Armor: 170 (note that 98% of this gear is 3/7 or better. There is almost no fluff in there)
Attack: 3498
Defense: 4551
Income: 1371
Battles: 108-2
Enemies killed: 1454
Raids: 652

Most people in my range are 1300-2200. I've seen the odd ~2400, but maybe only one if 3-4 days.

MaverickMunkey
05-14-2012, 12:46 PM
I don't think the honor units are that much different when it comes to survivability. At least they aren't in my experience. I bought a ton while leveling and fighting and have lost every one of them. I lost 6 War Golems and 12 Rogues both say they are low death rate. Yet i lost most of my golems right after buying them in bulk. I stopped buying honor units because of this and i'm just saving indefinitely now.

I have found that the Werewolves are very low casualty and I haven't lost one yet. 400 Valor and good stats!

Futon
05-14-2012, 01:06 PM
I have found that the Werewolves are very low casualty and I haven't lost one yet. 400 Valor and good stats!

I think i'm just going to end up going with the Canon's from gnomish lab 2. 500 honor and 36/20 with the same death rate... hopefully i don't lose any.

chiu
06-02-2012, 06:02 PM
Damn this strategy was absolutely godly till the recent loot drop change.. I wish I had lvled up faster so I could've farmed the 25 equipments but it just wasn't meant to be =( it was fun while it lasted haha RIP

Ola68
06-03-2012, 03:54 AM
Agree, it was great while it lasted, now it only gives you runeboxes, have 50 of them.

Ola68
06-03-2012, 03:58 AM
Do you have any updates on your stats superdad?

el_gringo
06-03-2012, 09:25 AM
OH also, just for reference.. before I reset, when I was at level 28, I had 40-50 allies and a score of 3200/3700. I'm not sure what your scores are now, but you can use those to compare. That was with me not optimally doing my strategy either, I pvp'd way too much from 15-30, and did a handful of quests from 25-30 that powerleveled me.

I'd suspect properly done, the numbers would be even better. Not for the same ally count, since that was basically geared-out army, but the perfect execution would allow a higher ally count with still great weapons.

How much better? I'm at lvl 26 in that ally range (50 atm) with 3385/3547 stats without having camped (my highest unit building is lvl 7) and given that I have invested heavily in att/def skill points I can't see it as being much more advantageous.

Edit to say just read the WHOLE thread, lol. Are you spending every last skill point on hero strenght?

Ola68
06-03-2012, 09:46 AM
There is a status update above for Lvl 26. I havn't gained that much the last couple of levels, take out a couple of hundreds from my numbers to get some additional flavor and remember I am at 33 allies. I think the diff btw his and my numbers are that he probably sticked to the strategy better and has cheaper units in there.

John0897
06-28-2012, 10:57 AM
Some of the recent posts imply this strategy no longer works. Is that true, or does that only apply when there is an event where boxes that need to be opened drop. Sunch as what is going on right now with the hellfire.

PorkChopExpress
06-29-2012, 07:48 AM
Strategy still works - just hindered a (tiny) bit by events. You'd have to find spots and farm them... Just found a great spot and have been farming it for the past 3+ days. My stats are;

LVL 59
Allies: 276
Attack: 24k
Defense: 22.5k
(No gems purchased - all free play)

Have only seen one other person with stats better than mine (unbelievably - at least to me - he has nearly double my stats) and he spent at least $200 (probably closer to $500) on non gem units (since he only has 2k/hr economy, but has 100+ Lichs & high end army equipment - but only has 2000 enemies defeated).

Good ol' Nick
06-29-2012, 11:35 AM
I find that focusing on the 3-6 hour money buildings is best (this includes upgrading these buildings over all others). I check on my kingdom a few times a day, but sometimes I go a few hours without checking at all (these collection times are very forgiving of inconsistency). The buildings in the 12hr range and higher are usually only collected from once a day by the casual player. Also, the 24hr and higher buildings are almost always raided within the first hour of needing to be collected (not so great for the casual player). Another thing about the 24hr+ buildings is that if you are misfortunate enough to be raided, that sends a large chunk of revenue out the window.