Army System questions

[Chris]

1) does anyone have any clue how the siege technology and fortification options affect things?

2) how much does training affect troop effectiveness?

[Chris]

I tried training some troops today and didnt like the results for the most part:

I think the first training i did (defense) yielded significantly higher defensive bonus, but i didnt record it

775/473 with 87 untrained and 6 defense

770/474 with 86 untrained and 7 defense

832.5/470 with 85 untrained and 7 defense and 1 attack

862.5/470 with 85 untrained and 7 defense and 2 attack (note that I gained one unit upon posting this)

863.75/466 with 84 untrained and 7 defense and 3 attack

I have 1 piece of armor and 2 weapons... Does this affect how much change the training would make?

[Chris]

My conclusion on the training thing is that it's only worthwhile to train as many as you have equipment for (armor for defensives and weapons for offensives).

I still have no clue whatsoever what difference siege engines and fortifications make though...

[Shimensin]

fortification makes it 109324% harder for us gnomes to siege their bases of course

[Chris]

from what i've seen so far it doesnt seem to make any difference.

I have ballistas and they dont even make me do any extra damage. I also did they same damage to someone with level 2 fortifications before I bought ballistas as I did afterward.

[Shimensin]

Balandar is just ripping our money off our precious

Well, I'll give you the gold to compensate the loss if you want

[Rhoach]

I'm kinda confused by this as well...

[Darkstar]

i also have many questions about army thingy. it seems my army has become obselete... i thought it was because my equipment sucked, but then i dunno. i can't attack anyone and win, and i can't properly defend myself either. i was wondering, like shim, what the advantages of trainging units was, and if the 5-million leather hats strategy works... thanks.

[Balandar]

why have 100 5 str items when you can buy 1 1000 str item.

100 x 5 = 500.

1 x 1000 = 1000.

1000 > 500.

As to siege and fortification... /shrug. I didn't create the game and have no plans on fixing the bugs when they are working on version 2.0.

[DashZero]

Ok cool, we are talking game mechanics! Heres what I see:

A cool buy/sell/damage/defense mechanic. The damage per cost of better items is higher:

• Dagger: 10 damage for 100 gold or 10/100 = 0.10 damage/gold
  
• Mace: 100 damage for 750 gold or 100/750 = 0.13 damage/gold
  
• War Hammer: 1000 damage for 4300 gold or 1000/4300 = 0.23 damage/gold
  

Same is true for defensive items - higher cost items are better values. Also as best I can tell 1 warrior will be equiped with 1 item. The warrior will equip the best available weapon. So, if you have 1 warrior and a mace and a dagger and you attack, only the mace will take damage. Defensive weapons are no different. Even though you would think a shield a helm and scale mail could all go on the same warrior, they never do. I assume only trained warriors can actually fight - not sure though.

RULES SO FAR:

1. Buy the most expensive offense and defensive items you can afford.

2. Make sure you have as many trained warriors as you have weapons. So, best set up is: trained Attack soldiers = attack weapons, and trained Defense soldier = defense weapons.

Wow - I just learned something. Resell and upgrade is a reasonable strategy. By that I mean that you can trade up for more damage per gold than you start with. Example: Buy 10 daggers (that will cost 1000 gold) sell them at the 75% resell rate and get 750 gold. That resell breaks even (10 daggers collectively do 10*10=100 damage, the money from selling them - 750 gold - is enough to buy a Mace which does 100 damage.) It gets even better in the Mace to War Hammer upgrade. Resell 10 Maces for 10*750*.75 = 5625 gold. That is more than enough to buy a War Hammer. So, don't feel bad that you bought low damage weapons! Sell them and upgrade! You have to realize that even though selling low damage items and upgrading to high damageones will not decrease your damage total, it is still cheaper to buy the better item directly.

EXAMPLE: Buy 10 daggers (1000 gold) upgrade to a Mace. Repeat 6 more times. You have now spent 7000 gold and own 7 Maces. Sell the 7 Maces (7*750*.75=3934 gold). Throw in 366 more gold and buy a War Hammer. This War Hammer now cost 7366 gold instead of 4300 if you had bought it direct. (See Rule #1) Nonetheless, selling and upgrading will give you equal or better damage, so next rule:

3. Upgrade weapons if you can.

More in a bit...

[DashZero]

Other stuff:

The gold you get per hour is either a function of how long the game has progressed, or of how many people you have in your army (or maybe your unit production level). I think it is the second one, so next rule is:

4. Maximize your unit production for maximum gold.

There are only 2 reasons I can think of to attack people: 1. Major reason: To defeat them and take some of their gold. 2. Minor possibility: To kill some of their army. The first reason is pretty obvious and the way to minimize attacks on yourself if your opponents want gold is easy too: Spend it all! If you do you will not be an attractive target to attack. Second possible reason is less of a big deal as far as I can tell. It seems our army size unit production far outstrips the gold production needed to supply and train the soldiers. So, you will always have "throwaway" untrained soldiers. Maybe this changes as you get to higher levels, not really sure. If you do want to kill someones soldiers, attack for 10 turns each attack. The higher the turns the higher the chance for a death, or so it seems. The soldier killed always seems to be an untrained one though, and you will have more to replace him soon.

5. Having a lot of gold makes you attractive to attackers. You will be attacked and lose your gold. Spending all your gold as quickly as possible after you make it minimizes the attractiveness of attacking you.

6. If you want to kill soldiers set turns to 10 when you attack.

I really only see one strategy to play the game.

Phase 1 Preparation: Throw all your money into attack stuff. Beat up anyone you can. Make money to buy more attack stuff and to increase unit production.

Phase 1 Execution: You have a high production rate so you are making a good income. You have a buff attack force and can wail on a bunch of people so you can gather 5000 gold or so, but you can't really have a lot of gold on hand and sitting there, because you violate Rule 5 above. So you can attack a lot, gather some gold and then quickly buy a high ticket item.

Phase 2 Preparation: You need a way to gather more than 5000ish gold and not get it taken from you. Start buying defensive stuff and make yourself difficult to be beaten.

Phase 2 Execution: Success here would be having the ability to build all the gold you want and not have it taken away by attackers. Unless you are the biggest fish in the pond this will be tough. An alternative is to use the upgrade strategy I mentioned earlier. Attack until you have enough for an expensive item. Buy it so you appear poor (and so no one attacks.) Repeat 5 or 10 times. Sell all the items you have purchased and upgrade to a better one. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Upgrade to both Attack things and Defensive things to make keeping gold easier and winning gold easier.

Hmmm...this strategy makes me question buying defensive stuff at all. A simpler strategy may just be to stay broke, do attack runs to gather the max you can, buy the best offensive weapon you can, appear broke again, repeat until you can upgrade to better offensive gear.