I dug this out of the game forum and it was written by someone else but thought it could help some of us. If you find inaccuracies here please let me know and I will correct them.
Regards,
Von
Guide for new players.
1. First, I will explain the productivity ratio of your resources producer.
(farmhouse, woodcutter, stone quarry)
1.1 I will begin with the castle. Every castle we have in the great empire has a maximum production of 3 of each resource. It means that the 3 first resources building you create will produce at 100%. When you build more building than the maximum production of the castle, the next building will decrease by this numbers: the 4th one does 75%, the 5th one does 56%, the 6th one does 42% and the 7th one 31%. Having more building will always give you more resources, but if you have too many, upgrading them may have a bigger cost than what they actually produce (for short-term I mean).
1.2 The same story goes for the Outpost now. If you have an outpost with 6 stone and 2 food, the first 6 stone quarry will produce 100% of the production they are suppose to do and then the 7th one will do 75%, then the 8th one 56% etc... You will have 2 farmhouses at 100% production ratio and then the third one will do 75% and the 4th one 56% etc... If you want to see it by yourself, you can go in one of your castle or OP and then click on your farm house for example and then click on the information window which is on the left of the alliance chat. It will show you his actual ratio with the bonus of the public order, the ratio he is ‘‘supposed to be at'' without public order and the amount he is suppose to produce at 100% with the amount he is actually producing.
2. Second point, you must have a minimum of important building in your castle and OP and I will point out why and how many I suggest.
2.1 For the resources building, I recommend to have 2 building over the maximum. This means, if you can only have 2 building at 100%, you should have 4. That recommendation goes for the lower level. When you feel comfortable with your castle and OP and think you could use more resources, you can have 2 more (4 after the last 100%). Player level 30+ may not need to follow these advices since they should already have 3 OP and produce the resources they need and have as many building as their space let them have. But, for the lower level players, I think having too many building with low production is not a good idea because they are expensive to upgrade and only give a little more resources. When you get a new OP, you should build these building first while you're online and then build the other important building like siege workshop, boosting your wall etc. during the night. You don't need much defense when you just got a new OP because even if you had an army to defend it, you wouldn't have good walls and enough towers to fight.
2.2 After you have enough resources building, you can level them up a little for your quest, but you need to build 2 kind of building as quick as possible because they will be of use for the rest of the game. First, there is the tavern. You can have a maximum of 3 taverns. Each one of them give you spy that are essential to your attack. The faster you get your 3 tavern, the better your spying will be. P.S.: you can only have Tavern in your castle. Next are your guardhouses. Guardhouses prevent your enemy spy to get information from your castle and OP and also prevent sabotages. The more you have, the better it is. You don't need to abuse of that building to be safe, but having 1 or 2 guardhouses won't help you against spying. I suggest that you have at least 7 guardhouses in every OP and castle to prevent anyone from attacking you. Having many guards can dissuade possible attackers that won't be able to know your power because of them. These two essential building are not expensive and are quick to build. I will also suggest that you upgrade your tavern as soon as possible to spy higher target with more guards and have better results. Your guardhouse doesn’t have to be leveled up as soon as you can unless you are sabotaged often or in a war. (This advice comes from my own experience but some people may not need to do as I did depending on their alliance situation.)
2.3 I shouldn’t have to say that but I often see people that don't use the full potential of their estate. You should always upgrade it when it is possible to have your 3 OP the fastest you can and benefit from the amount of resources they will procure you. I also recommend for any players (ruby buyer or not) to have a bakery in every station. It will help you grow your army without a food cost and only costs 1250 rubies for the level 1.
2.4 The last part is only my opinion about your siege and defense workshop. You shouldn't upgrade you siege and defense workshop in your OP ''unless'' you already have everything else maxed up. The most important tools are found in a level one siege and your main castle can provide the others afterward.
3. This part will be about the units and the tools use.
3.1 I know you all may have understood how they work, but I have seen that players are not using them well yet. First, unless your target has fewer than 50% wall defense, you should NEVER use mantlet. The reason is simple. If your enemy has a bonus of 50% already from the wall which you do not reduce, reducing 50% of their range will be at your disadvantage since your mantlet will only decrease his range units and the wall will boost his melee units for 50%. It is better to decrease his wall by 50% with 5 ladders which will also reduce his melee units. Even more, you could use 10 ladders to make sure he doesn't add up new defenses tools to have over 50% bonus and have a better result. The only time mantlet should be used is when your enemy is over level 37 and has less than 100% bonus wall and that you use 20 mantlets for a total of 100% reduce range and he must have mainly range units for that to still be effective. For these reasons, I almost never use mantlet myself and rather use ladder or other offensive tools to decrease my enemy strength. It is also REALLY IMPORTANT that you use more tools than what your enemy defense gives him. For example, if your target has 70% on one wall, I suggest you use 100% to prevent the use of 1 more stone that would give him 95% instead of 70% and give him a 25% advantage. You can choose how many more than what he has you should use, but usually having 100% on each wall prevent any boost. Same goes for the gate, if he has 60% on the wall and 50% on the gate, you could have 90% wall and 80%, but I prefer having 100% for both to prevent anymore boost and have a more powerful attack.
3.2 I may think everyone know it, but it's not the case so let's explain the difference between attacking units and defending units. The offensive power of the units and the defensive of the units can be seen when you click on the info button of the units while in your barracks. It also says the travelling speed, the food consumption and the looting power. You should NEVER attack with your defensive units because their attacking power is too weak to win a fight against any units while attacking. I recommend about 60% melee defensive units and 40% range units. To see which is which, it is easy. When you look at the units’ info, you see three powers. The attacking power is the first on left, the 2nd in the middle is the defensive power against melee then the third one on the right is the defensive power against the range. Usually, the range defenders are better against range attacker and the melee defenders are better against melee attackers. Since there are tools that decrease range defensive power, I suggest you have more melee defenders than range UNLESS you use flaming arrows to boost your range defensive units which can be pretty good against range attackers. It's important not to underestimate the defensive power and attacking power of an unit because it could mean your defeat or win. I always hear a lot of people having problem of foods, well, I found a temporary solution that most player are probably using already.
3.3 There is something important that people sometime don't realize. When you attack someone, the number of fight you win on the wall and gate may change the result of the fight in the courtyard drastically. When defending, if you win 1 of the 3 side, your opponent and you won't get any bonus in the courtyard. If you win 2 fights, your enemy’s army power will decrease my 30% in the courtyard. For the attacking side, if you win 1 side, your army's attacking power decreases by 30% in the courtyard. If you win 2 side, nothing happen to either side when you fight in the courtyard and if you win 3 side, your army gets a boost of 30% when you fight in the courtyard. For these reason, many player choose to leave the gate alone and boost their wall so that the fight in the courtyard is at their advantage. Having more units and power can mean nothing for the results if you can't win at least 2 side when you attack. Now, for the choice of units when you attack, I usually try to have half melee and half range but it depends on the spy results. If he has more melees, then you better have more range and if he has more range, you better have more melees. There is something important when you don't have the barracks level 5. Your enemy may have halberdier and longbowman which are way stronger than macemen and crossbowman. It results in needing almost 3 units for 1 defensive. If you can't have strong unit like 2h sword and heavy crossbowman, you may want to attack another target that doesn't have the barrack level 5 either. If you have the barracks level 5, I’m telling you, don't recruit macemen and crossbowman. They are too weak to fight at high level and may be use as tools depleter but there is not much they can do other than that. Last but not the least, the number of wave you send. Depending on your strategy, using the waves may be interesting. For example, if you enemy has chosen to defend his 2 wall on the side only and left the gate alone, and you don’t have enough units to full 3 waves, you could only full the first wave and then have your one or two other waves depending on your level full so that you have more units attacking his side. When you are facing powerful defense, using the three wave becomes essential and it lets you create a gigantic assault.
4. I will talk about the resources and the choice of OP and little bit about the glacier.
4.1 I think there are two ways of doing the OP choice. My favorite and I will explain why, is to have 1 of each. I choose this way because even if you need a lot of wood and stone, having a food OP gives you the opportunity to have a giant army on 1 single OP. Instead of having my army in my main castle, I chose to have my army on a food OP since he can produce way more food than the castle. It lets me gather more defensive units on the other OP and in my castle and my OP is almost full of attacking units which are always on the road at night to prevent any attack to destroy it. Also, there is the other way that is to have 2 wood and 1 stone. It guarantee you to have a lot of wood and stone and be able to sustain all your OP and your castle, but, you won't be able to use the advantage of having a 6 or 8 food OP and get an high level of production. You could even get 2 stone and 1 wood, but I think this would not be as good since you need more wood overall than stone.
4.2 I know many people will have an hard time having resources villages in the Glacier when they hit level 25. Don't worry, if you look often where there aren't any players near you, they will appear and you will be able to have some. It may take time, but be patient and you will get your own RV. I was really lucky since 1 week after my entrance in the Glacier, about 50 RV appear inside a range of 100 miles which let me get a lot of them. It may take some time but just be patient. Also, never try to attack someone else's village; it's a non-writing rule that we do not attack each other’s village. We capture these which are not yet taken.
RVs pop up at the edges of the populated area. Look for areas where the latest castles, the ones with the "protection bird" on the banner, are beginning to extend past the existing RVs, this is a prime area for the next RVs to start popping.
Regards,
Von
Guide for new players.
1. First, I will explain the productivity ratio of your resources producer.
(farmhouse, woodcutter, stone quarry)
1.1 I will begin with the castle. Every castle we have in the great empire has a maximum production of 3 of each resource. It means that the 3 first resources building you create will produce at 100%. When you build more building than the maximum production of the castle, the next building will decrease by this numbers: the 4th one does 75%, the 5th one does 56%, the 6th one does 42% and the 7th one 31%. Having more building will always give you more resources, but if you have too many, upgrading them may have a bigger cost than what they actually produce (for short-term I mean).
1.2 The same story goes for the Outpost now. If you have an outpost with 6 stone and 2 food, the first 6 stone quarry will produce 100% of the production they are suppose to do and then the 7th one will do 75%, then the 8th one 56% etc... You will have 2 farmhouses at 100% production ratio and then the third one will do 75% and the 4th one 56% etc... If you want to see it by yourself, you can go in one of your castle or OP and then click on your farm house for example and then click on the information window which is on the left of the alliance chat. It will show you his actual ratio with the bonus of the public order, the ratio he is ‘‘supposed to be at'' without public order and the amount he is suppose to produce at 100% with the amount he is actually producing.
2. Second point, you must have a minimum of important building in your castle and OP and I will point out why and how many I suggest.
2.1 For the resources building, I recommend to have 2 building over the maximum. This means, if you can only have 2 building at 100%, you should have 4. That recommendation goes for the lower level. When you feel comfortable with your castle and OP and think you could use more resources, you can have 2 more (4 after the last 100%). Player level 30+ may not need to follow these advices since they should already have 3 OP and produce the resources they need and have as many building as their space let them have. But, for the lower level players, I think having too many building with low production is not a good idea because they are expensive to upgrade and only give a little more resources. When you get a new OP, you should build these building first while you're online and then build the other important building like siege workshop, boosting your wall etc. during the night. You don't need much defense when you just got a new OP because even if you had an army to defend it, you wouldn't have good walls and enough towers to fight.
2.2 After you have enough resources building, you can level them up a little for your quest, but you need to build 2 kind of building as quick as possible because they will be of use for the rest of the game. First, there is the tavern. You can have a maximum of 3 taverns. Each one of them give you spy that are essential to your attack. The faster you get your 3 tavern, the better your spying will be. P.S.: you can only have Tavern in your castle. Next are your guardhouses. Guardhouses prevent your enemy spy to get information from your castle and OP and also prevent sabotages. The more you have, the better it is. You don't need to abuse of that building to be safe, but having 1 or 2 guardhouses won't help you against spying. I suggest that you have at least 7 guardhouses in every OP and castle to prevent anyone from attacking you. Having many guards can dissuade possible attackers that won't be able to know your power because of them. These two essential building are not expensive and are quick to build. I will also suggest that you upgrade your tavern as soon as possible to spy higher target with more guards and have better results. Your guardhouse doesn’t have to be leveled up as soon as you can unless you are sabotaged often or in a war. (This advice comes from my own experience but some people may not need to do as I did depending on their alliance situation.)
2.3 I shouldn’t have to say that but I often see people that don't use the full potential of their estate. You should always upgrade it when it is possible to have your 3 OP the fastest you can and benefit from the amount of resources they will procure you. I also recommend for any players (ruby buyer or not) to have a bakery in every station. It will help you grow your army without a food cost and only costs 1250 rubies for the level 1.
2.4 The last part is only my opinion about your siege and defense workshop. You shouldn't upgrade you siege and defense workshop in your OP ''unless'' you already have everything else maxed up. The most important tools are found in a level one siege and your main castle can provide the others afterward.
3. This part will be about the units and the tools use.
3.1 I know you all may have understood how they work, but I have seen that players are not using them well yet. First, unless your target has fewer than 50% wall defense, you should NEVER use mantlet. The reason is simple. If your enemy has a bonus of 50% already from the wall which you do not reduce, reducing 50% of their range will be at your disadvantage since your mantlet will only decrease his range units and the wall will boost his melee units for 50%. It is better to decrease his wall by 50% with 5 ladders which will also reduce his melee units. Even more, you could use 10 ladders to make sure he doesn't add up new defenses tools to have over 50% bonus and have a better result. The only time mantlet should be used is when your enemy is over level 37 and has less than 100% bonus wall and that you use 20 mantlets for a total of 100% reduce range and he must have mainly range units for that to still be effective. For these reasons, I almost never use mantlet myself and rather use ladder or other offensive tools to decrease my enemy strength. It is also REALLY IMPORTANT that you use more tools than what your enemy defense gives him. For example, if your target has 70% on one wall, I suggest you use 100% to prevent the use of 1 more stone that would give him 95% instead of 70% and give him a 25% advantage. You can choose how many more than what he has you should use, but usually having 100% on each wall prevent any boost. Same goes for the gate, if he has 60% on the wall and 50% on the gate, you could have 90% wall and 80%, but I prefer having 100% for both to prevent anymore boost and have a more powerful attack.
3.2 I may think everyone know it, but it's not the case so let's explain the difference between attacking units and defending units. The offensive power of the units and the defensive of the units can be seen when you click on the info button of the units while in your barracks. It also says the travelling speed, the food consumption and the looting power. You should NEVER attack with your defensive units because their attacking power is too weak to win a fight against any units while attacking. I recommend about 60% melee defensive units and 40% range units. To see which is which, it is easy. When you look at the units’ info, you see three powers. The attacking power is the first on left, the 2nd in the middle is the defensive power against melee then the third one on the right is the defensive power against the range. Usually, the range defenders are better against range attacker and the melee defenders are better against melee attackers. Since there are tools that decrease range defensive power, I suggest you have more melee defenders than range UNLESS you use flaming arrows to boost your range defensive units which can be pretty good against range attackers. It's important not to underestimate the defensive power and attacking power of an unit because it could mean your defeat or win. I always hear a lot of people having problem of foods, well, I found a temporary solution that most player are probably using already.
3.3 There is something important that people sometime don't realize. When you attack someone, the number of fight you win on the wall and gate may change the result of the fight in the courtyard drastically. When defending, if you win 1 of the 3 side, your opponent and you won't get any bonus in the courtyard. If you win 2 fights, your enemy’s army power will decrease my 30% in the courtyard. For the attacking side, if you win 1 side, your army's attacking power decreases by 30% in the courtyard. If you win 2 side, nothing happen to either side when you fight in the courtyard and if you win 3 side, your army gets a boost of 30% when you fight in the courtyard. For these reason, many player choose to leave the gate alone and boost their wall so that the fight in the courtyard is at their advantage. Having more units and power can mean nothing for the results if you can't win at least 2 side when you attack. Now, for the choice of units when you attack, I usually try to have half melee and half range but it depends on the spy results. If he has more melees, then you better have more range and if he has more range, you better have more melees. There is something important when you don't have the barracks level 5. Your enemy may have halberdier and longbowman which are way stronger than macemen and crossbowman. It results in needing almost 3 units for 1 defensive. If you can't have strong unit like 2h sword and heavy crossbowman, you may want to attack another target that doesn't have the barrack level 5 either. If you have the barracks level 5, I’m telling you, don't recruit macemen and crossbowman. They are too weak to fight at high level and may be use as tools depleter but there is not much they can do other than that. Last but not the least, the number of wave you send. Depending on your strategy, using the waves may be interesting. For example, if you enemy has chosen to defend his 2 wall on the side only and left the gate alone, and you don’t have enough units to full 3 waves, you could only full the first wave and then have your one or two other waves depending on your level full so that you have more units attacking his side. When you are facing powerful defense, using the three wave becomes essential and it lets you create a gigantic assault.
4. I will talk about the resources and the choice of OP and little bit about the glacier.
4.1 I think there are two ways of doing the OP choice. My favorite and I will explain why, is to have 1 of each. I choose this way because even if you need a lot of wood and stone, having a food OP gives you the opportunity to have a giant army on 1 single OP. Instead of having my army in my main castle, I chose to have my army on a food OP since he can produce way more food than the castle. It lets me gather more defensive units on the other OP and in my castle and my OP is almost full of attacking units which are always on the road at night to prevent any attack to destroy it. Also, there is the other way that is to have 2 wood and 1 stone. It guarantee you to have a lot of wood and stone and be able to sustain all your OP and your castle, but, you won't be able to use the advantage of having a 6 or 8 food OP and get an high level of production. You could even get 2 stone and 1 wood, but I think this would not be as good since you need more wood overall than stone.
4.2 I know many people will have an hard time having resources villages in the Glacier when they hit level 25. Don't worry, if you look often where there aren't any players near you, they will appear and you will be able to have some. It may take time, but be patient and you will get your own RV. I was really lucky since 1 week after my entrance in the Glacier, about 50 RV appear inside a range of 100 miles which let me get a lot of them. It may take some time but just be patient. Also, never try to attack someone else's village; it's a non-writing rule that we do not attack each other’s village. We capture these which are not yet taken.
RVs pop up at the edges of the populated area. Look for areas where the latest castles, the ones with the "protection bird" on the banner, are beginning to extend past the existing RVs, this is a prime area for the next RVs to start popping.