New elf player, when is the best time to become a fighting city?

[TheHollowKnight]

So a few years ago I played a lot of human(got to the chapter after dwarves) and eventually I shifted to a mainly fighting city, as thats what I prefer(still having goods, but just enough to research and nothing else) however I'm completely blind in what the elves do better than humans early on in the game(I know they're pretty much the same much later)

So far it seems that population is less of an issue due to how early you get to upgrade residences compared to humans. I suppose my big question is, is turning into a fighting city in dwarves, still the most optimal?(mainly because of the fact you have more units to use instead of 3 basic ones)

What are elves also better at fighting? I'm unfamiliar with treants, golems, sorcerers, but I was always told humans we're better at fighting. Thank you!

 

[Fayeanne]

Of the five Barracks units, compared to Humans, Golems are your strongest, your Archers and Sword Dancers are basically equivalent, and your Treants and Sorceresses will struggle. Priests and Paladins are just that good. You can get the Paladin equivalent (Vallorian Guard) by using a building crafted in the Magic Academy, and you'll get the Priest equivalent in Fairies chapter (which is right after Dwarves) so you could try fighting while in Dwarves since you'll lack just one unit type (Mage).

 

[crackie]

Well you get Blossom mages at Fairies, which even at level 1, are still my favorites. The extra military production from merc camp building also starts making things more sustainable. I was always a fighting city, but around Orcs is when I started cooking with fire. But that was mainly a space issue to have enough armories to feed my Needles.

 

[The Fairy]

I am elf everywhere. My strategy is sort of the same in all chapters. I fight until I start loosing too many troops or run out of troops cause I can't train more. And then I cater some of the harder fights as my goods allows (without depleting myself, trying to always keep a decent amount of goods in storage). I do cater relatively more in the early chapters though, but am mostly a fighting city. And from the beginning I focus mainly on the fighting wonders.

 

[Iyapo1]

@TheHollowKnight
Orcs is where you put down 4 or 5 fully upgraded armories(breeding grounds) to get orcs, you can get around it but if the goal is to transition to fighting it is a good chapter to transition in.

Unless you are scroll boosted...in which case I recommend you hybridize as soon as possible.

 

[TheHollowKnight]

@TheHollowKnight
Orcs is where you put down 4 or 5 fully upgraded armories(breeding grounds) to get orcs, you can get around it but if the goal is to transition to fighting it is a good chapter to transition in.

Unless you are scroll boosted...in which case I recommend you hybridize as soon as possible.

How do you mean hybridize? Do you mean go 50/50 with fighting and catering? I've been away a while, but the tl;dr of what I know about scrolls is a building put way to much into the economy.

 

[Henroo]

@TheHollowKnight Compared to humans, elves have a *MUCH* better heavy ranged unit (Golem). I think the evish Archer unit is slightly better than the human Crossbowman. Sword Dancer/Ax Barbarian is basically a tie. But barracks light melee really does not matter, almost any good combat player is going to rely on Cerberus as your go-to light melee unit. In heavy melee, I think the Elvish Treant is slightly worse than the human Paladin, but it is fairly close and Treants will still do good for you. The big weakness of the elvish military is in the mage unit category. Elvish Sorceresses are fairly weak. Especially compared to the human Priest mage unit, which is one of the best units of any type in the game. I switched to using Blossom Mages instead of Sorceresses ASAP in my elvish city and have not looked back.

 

[Iyapo1]

Are you scroll boosted? Because yes a building set flooded the market. It is not better yet. There are ways around it, if your goal is to fight...that is a good way around it. Do what @The Fairy suggested fight until you cant fight any more and then cater. Focus on military wonders(I recommend the Martial Monestary as number 1)

 

[Aritra]

Are you scroll boosted? Because yes a building set flooded the market. It is not better yet. There are ways around it, if your goal is to fight...that is a good way around it. Do what @The Fairy suggested fight until you cant fight any more and then cater. Focus on military wonders(I recommend the Martial Monestary as number 1)

What's the connection between the new set and boosts regarding fighting strategy?

 

[Iyapo1]

What's the connection between the new set and boosts regarding fighting strategy?

In the post you quoted I was talking about the moonstone sets and scrolls flooding the market.

 

[Guurt The Destroyer]

My chapter 3 elf city has been mostly a fighting city. I fight first 2 floors of Spire and 95% of tournament battles. I cater when fighting is not possible. I can sometimes fight some of the chests on third floor of Spire depending on the make up.

I mostly only use Golems and Archers. For the double fights in the Spire I will use Orc Strategists rather than Golems as they are certainly better, but harder to produce. I have 2 level 9 Armories, and a level 8 Armory. My Baracks is level 12 and I only have 1 AW which is a level 3 Tempest. I produce way more units than I need and my unit numbers are constantly increasing no matter how much fighting I do.

I could probably fight 100% of the time if my units had the health to survive the triple fights in the Spire.

I have never quite understood the wait until later chapters to be a fighting city. Most of the time fighting costs me far less resources than catering.

I had intended to become a fighting only city, but I will probably remain as a hybrid that mostly fights.

This is my one and only city and I am new to the game, so maybe I could do better doing catering only at this point. I don't know.

Since I can't use units for tech or building it makes more sense to me to try to fight as much as possible so my goods can be mostly used for upgrades and tech progress.

 

[Aritra]

In the post you quoted I was talking about the moonstone sets and scrolls flooding the market.

still not seeing the connection...

 

[The Fairy]

still not seeing the connection...

The moonstone set floods the market with scrolls so if you are scrolls boosted then it is harder to trade and therefore also harder to cater a lot.

 

[crackie]

still not seeing the connection...

It's hard to trade scrolls out so your T2 inventory is perpetually suffering. Totally experiencing this in my 2nd city that is scroll boosted. Not even making scrolls anymore, but cross-trading for T2's instead and it's STILL rough. That makes catering harder. Might have to attend the Iyapo School of Blooming Trader Guild in the Fairies chapter until that darn bee is high enough to let me graduate.

@TheHollowKnightThe big weakness of the elvish military is in the mage unit category. Elvish Sorceresses are fairly weak. Especially compared to the human Priest mage unit, which is one of the best units of any type in the game. I switched to using Blossom Mages instead of Sorceresses ASAP in my elvish city and have not looked back.

I feel like I'm still the only one around here with love for Bud Sorceress! The Priest is very close to the Blossom Mage without the pretty pink flowers dress so I concede he is better than Buddy as Blossoms are my favorite units. Howeverrrr, they serve different purposes! Blossom/Priests help kill faster and Buddy helps survive longer. In early to mid chapters, Bud Sorceress, Sword Dancers (lvl 3), and Treants (lvl 3) are the only units with nerf abilities. I'm usually pretty economical with my buff buildings and rely mostly on my fed Fire Phoenix to get the job done. If I only drop 1 UUU for the week, I'm going to need some nerfing in the high tents to survive. Sword Dancers and Treants, both being melee, automatically makes them annoying to deploy. So if I'm trying to fight tents 25+ on 1 UUU, I will need a Bud Sorceress to lighten the beating and help me survive. If the enemy stack overwhelmingly outnumber mine, killing faster strategy doesn't work because enemy will still kill me pretty quickly! Buddy's job is to just nerf everyone so if they go after her, she's also doing her job as cannon fodder and taking the heat off my other units that are doing the heavy lifting killing things. If you don't use any UUU/DAs and you're fighting in lower tents like 15-20, the scenario will also translate. You need to mix in some Bud Sorceresses to nerf.

 

[Iyapo1]

I'm usually pretty economical with my buff buildings and rely mostly on my fed Fire Phoenix to get the job done

I run a catering city with no intention of transitioning to fighting so my knowledge on a good fighting build is limited.
A new player does not have an evolved fire phoenix. Thus my recommendation that they save up AWKP and heavily invest in the Martial Monestary as their first wonder....thoughts on that?

Might have to attend the Iyapo School of Blooming Trader Guild in the Fairies chapter until that darn bee is high enough to let me graduate.

Spoiler: Off topic for a fighting city

It is starting to get pretty shiny at lv 23! 2 trades > a T2 manufactory. So 2 coin trades for silk and two for crystal, two supply trades for silk and two for crystal = 4 scrolls manufactories I dont need. I dont yet make enough supplies to keep it fed but the Pilgrims set will let me remove a few t1s and add extra workshops. Once that happens, I keep two scrolls for myself and i am pretty much permanently off the board for t2 trades. The BTG is almost a total waste of space for a fighting city. The demand for goods is lower so cross trading t1s and/or t3s is much easier. Just send an email to your FS and ask your silk and crystal players what they will give it up for . I still think it will be fun going through the early guest races with a 40% Portal Production boost....tiny settlements! No expansions needed!

 

[Aritra]

@Iyapo1 @The Fairy @crackie
Thanks. Got it.
I knew about the moonstone issue overrunning the market with scrolls. Didn't see the connection to fighting. I believe I understand now.

 

[Gkyr]

@TheHollowKnightThe big weakness of the elvish military is in the mage unit category. Elvish Sorceresses are fairly weak.

I feel like I'm still the only one around here with love for Bud Sorceress! The Priest is very close to the Blossom Mage without the pretty pink flowers dress so I concede he is better than Buddy as Blossoms are my favorite units. Howeverrrr, they serve different purposes! Blossom/Priests help kill faster and Buddy helps survive longer. In early to mid chapters, Bud Sorceress, Sword Dancers (lvl 3), and Treants (lvl 3) are the only units with nerf abilities. You need to mix in some Bud Sorceresses to nerf.

@crackie Exactly. I have always felt that Bud Sorceresses are under-appreciated. At level 3, at which one spends the vast majority of the intermediate game, the Bud is the only troop that nerfs your opponents attack AND defense stats. So, as @crackie mentioned, pairing them up with a strong unit can do wonders. My best combination are a pair of Bud Sorceresses and three powerful Golems. Essentially, I am cutting the attack/resistance of the opposing force in half, or doubling the effectiveness of my Golems.

 

[Henroo]

@crackie Exactly. I have always felt that Bud Sorceresses are under-appreciated. At level 3, at which one spends the vast majority of the intermediate game, the Bud is the only troop that nerfs your opponents attack AND defense stats. So, as @crackie mentioned, pairing them up with a strong unit can do wonders. My best combination are a pair of Bud Sorceresses and three powerful Golems. Essentially, I am cutting the attack/resistance of the opposing force in half, or doubling the effectiveness of my Golems.

I think the kind of strategy you are talking about requires manual fighting. I run 3 cities and go pretty deep in the tournament and to the top of the spire every week, so I just don't have time to do manual battles anymore. When using autofight Blossom Mages will outperform Bud Sorceresses in almost any encounter. In fact when using autofight 1 star and 2 star Blossoms will typically outperform Bud Sorceresses.

 

[crackie]

A new player does not have an evolved fire phoenix. Thus my recommendation that they save up AWKP and heavily invest in the Martial Monestary as their first wonder....thoughts on that?

It's going to depend on their their short term, mid term, and long term goals of what they want their city to do. For example, if their short term goal is 1k weekly score in tourney, then just do the first 5 provinces to 5 stars. The first 5 provinces are meant to be easy for everyone. No Fire Phoenix, military wonders, or extra buffs needed. Everyone can "bare knuckle" fight the first 5 provinces without buffing. If they want to complete 10 provinces, you can still get by with no buffs, but at this point, offense plays a bigger role. You'll survive long enough to still win, so the "kill faster" strategy is optimal. That means ELRs, MMMs, and Needles over UUUs and Monastery.

At 15+, the disparity between your stack and enemy stack is wide enough that health buffs come into play. At 20+, health buffs are a necessity. Whether they want to get extra health from UUU/DAs or Monastery is a choice. Monastery is gigantic though and gobbles up tons of KPs to move the meter a tiny bit. An upgrade will not even move the health by a full percentage point so you'll need to get it to lvl 5-10 before you feel it doing anything. It's almost easier to drop UUUs/DAs. However, it can help buffer if you have a dry RNG run in the MA on UUUs. It's also a wonder that will always offset survival, so in that sense, it can't "hurt" you to upgrade. Early game, I definitely favored Needles over Monastery for the barrack production boost because troop training is just awful starting out. The light range boost is a nice bonus. If you're perpetually running out of troops, offensive boosts aren't that helpful when you have nothing to fight with

My Fairy city is built to fight but is currently predominantly catering because the original idea was to fight the first 5 provinces and cater the rest until my army squads reach the fabled >999+ mark by Orcs. Everything is still super cheap to cater in Fairies so I'm saving all my pet food and buff buildings for when I'm ready to take my massive army out for a joyride. My in-game goal is to burn a path of destruction while laughing maniacally. Since I have dreams of chasing a comparative operator, I'm catering a city that is a quarter covered in armories with military wonders leveled up to double digits, but it will be mine, oh yes, it will be mine...

Spoiler: Offtopic about fighting city

There was a monkey wrench thrown into my plans as I was recently con(nned)vinced to start a new FS. Only 4 cities are above chap 4 and I'm one of them. Their baby level 3 T2 manus are making enough to give everyone an extra 10 goods a day so I can't rely on my FS for trades yet until they get bigger. I'm also one of the resident retail banks for the baby cities to get goods from to help them grow so I need goods to help hold down the fort until my little startup gets bigger.

 

[Henroo]

At 15+, the disparity between your stack and enemy stack is wide enough that health buffs come into play. At 20+, health buffs are a necessity. Whether they want to get extra health from UUU/DAs or Monastery is a choice. Monastery is gigantic though and gobbles up tons of KPs to move the meter a tiny bit. An upgrade will not even move the health by a full percentage point so you'll need to get it to lvl 5-10 before you feel it doing anything. It's almost easier to drop UUUs/DAs. However, it can help buffer if you have a dry RNG run in the MA on UUUs. It's also a wonder that will always offset survival, so in that sense, it can't "hurt" you to upgrade.

Keep in mind that in addition to buffing your troop's health, Monastery/Sanctuary also is one of the best square for square culture sources you have. I feel this aspect often gets ignored. But when you level MM/Sanctuary, you are not only helping your troops out, but you are also improving your culture situation. I know this is not the primary reason any of us build this AW, but it is a nice bonus.