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    Your Elvenar Team

Grounds of the Orc Strategist, and military advice

Tehya1

Well-Known Member
I am in Ch. 3, and I am grabbing as many military buildings as I can, but I know that I will have to upgrade some of them as I progress. I know there is an orc chapter, so is it wise to grab a Grounds of the orc strategist in ch. 3?

I am also crafting temporary troop boosting buildings, and I have a fire phoenix as well as a brown bear (well green asteroid? lol) that I feed on Sundays. So far, those plus constant recrruiting are allowing me to fight for over half the tournament provinces and spire chests, but I want a stronger army. Any suggestions? Which buildings would help me in chapter 3, because it looks like I will be in ch 3 for awhile.
 

Huor

Guest
On a troop note, if you see vallorian valor and grounds of the orc strategist come up in the MA, grab them! Nothing like watching an orc strategist clean up a light ranged squad. Great for an early chapter player as you can't train the orc strategist until chapter 8 and the vallorian guards are from chapter 10!

The vallorian guards will make quick work of heavy ranged and light melee units, but they have the movement range of a paladin so you better pack a lunch. I've had a couple of enemy units die of boredom waiting for the guards to get there, but that works too.

I made them as soon as I could. They don't make many in the early chapters, but they are a big help in combat! Just remember to replace them as you change chapters.
 

Huor

Guest
There are 4 nice combat modifying buildings in the game. 3 can be made in the MA, and 1 can only be won in the spire. All of them last 5 days! They can cover the spire and the tournament! They can be stacked with each other and the various combat AW’s! The 3 that can be made in the MA are unleashed unit upgrade (UUU) that adds 25% health to ALL your units. The enlightened light range which adds 50% damage to all your light ranged units. The magnificent mage multiplier (MMM) that adds 50% damage to all your mage units. The dwarven armorer adds 50% health to ALL your units and can ONLY be won in the spire. If you see any of these come up in the MA, you should build them if you can. As these are expiring buildings, the chapter you won or created them in does NOT matter. They can be kept forever and used when you are ready!

I'm working on my brown bear right now. Converted all my red panda artifacts so far. If you have a tides building, depending on the evolution's, it is worth a lot of vallorian vallors worth of production.

The tempest is a great early aw if you do any fighting. I would also add the sanctuary/monastery when it comes up.
 
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crackie

Chef, Scroll-Keeper, Buddy's #1 Fan
I agree with @Huor about Vallorian Valors and Orc Strategists. Since you are an elf city too, early game, Vallorian Valors work much better than Treants or level 1 bud sorceress/banshees for heavy range. Once my mages got promoted though, I've weened off Vallorian Valors and switched to mages for handling heavy range for the most part (unless there are a lot of light melee around). Vallorian Valors, while slightly faster than a Treant, still takes too damn long to get to the battle scene for my liking. I've also find Orc Strategists still better than sword dancers, drone riders, and even golems at handling light range, even at level 1. I still am using Orc Strategists (still level 1) a lot in middle chapters, but I rarely use Vallorian Valors now. At higher provinces, they don't really survive too long as a level 1 unit. At lower provinces, I can get by with mages. I also crafted the military buff buildings and pet foods, but hoarded them in my inventory. Didn't really start using them until Fairies/Orc chapters bc that's about when I'm doing 20 provinces consistently. Prior to that, I wasn't doing enough provinces to need that much buffing. I knew I'd need them for later. Now I can weather a RNG dry spell on pet food and buff buildings.
 

Gladiola

Well-Known Member
One choice would be to hold off using the frogs instant until you finish some more squad size researches. It will give you 10 squads so you get more total troops when your squadsizes are bigger. (Whereas if you use it now then do the researches you will have fewer than 10 squads worth of frogs.)

I had a grounds of the orc strategist when I was in chapter 3 and 4, but I ended up deciding it was not worth the space. I found that orc strats don't really perform substantially better than golems from my barracks. If you are playing human or manual fighting you might have a different experience. Human mortars are not as good as elf golems. (Or so I'm told.)

I do a combination of fighting and catering, and I have found that I don't need military boost buildings or to feed my fire phoenix in order to get to the top of the Spire and get 2500-3000 points in the tournament. (I could get more but I don't have that many open provinces.) I just use barracks troops until I run out or start losing, then cater the rest. I am in the Dwarves chapter, so I'm saving the military boost buildings and pet food for later on when I have more open tournament provinces and more costly fights. I have 18 DAs and 10-15 of each of the other temporary military buildings.
 

BrinDarby

Well-Known Member
@Tehya1 ,
If you got a Triumph of Tides, last event, then you can skip a ValorianValor
or sell off any u have, GotOS , Dojo, or any other bldg like bumblebee that
gives you troops ya cant train yet, are very attractive....

Back before you could run multiple cues in Barracks/TG/MC simultaniously
these bldgs were far more valuable. Even now, my view (Im CH4) is to @least
have 1 of each. Over time they really add up, and I've never had worries of
running outta troops...

Personally I can do the 1st 6 provinces in tourn, fighting... after that I cater.
I fight 1st six encs in Spire, then cater the rest..... Ever since CH1, I have had
@least 1 VV and GotOS....

If you have the space, and can use some xtra culture, pretend the troops are freebies.
VV/GotOS are easily upgradable or replaceable.... go for it....
 

Mont Clair

Active Member
I use my Triumph for Mana (14.5k every 24 hours is sweet. Best mana production I have seen so far in Chap 9, and I have Festival Merchant and event mana buildings). Still recommend getting that VV.
 

Tehya1

Well-Known Member
I have the VV and GotOS now, and I just wish they produced units faster lol The spire shreds my whole army on the second waves even though I go in with more units and a fed FF.
 

Henroo

Oh Wise One
I just won a Fainient Frogs instant. Do I need a special building for those and how do they compae to the treant and VV?
As far as I know the only building in the game which makes Fainient Frogs is the Witch Hut evolving building from last year's Halloween event. It is not currently available. As far as how Frogs compare to Treants or Valorian Guards, they really do not. Treants and VGs are both heavy melee units. Frogs are heavy ranged. Once they get all 3 promotions, Frogs are probably the best heavy ranged unit in the game. The problem is that they do not get the promotions until very late in the game (final promotion comes in chapter 15). And without the promotions, Frogs are not that great. It looks like you are Elvish. Golems are a pretty good heavy ranged unit. And you will get the promotions for them fairly early. 2 star and 3 star Golems are probably going to outperform 1 star Frogs in most situations which require heavy ranged.
 

Henroo

Oh Wise One
I use my Triumph for Mana (14.5k every 24 hours is sweet. Best mana production I have seen so far in Chap 9, and I have Festival Merchant and event mana buildings). Still recommend getting that VV.
Once you hit the Elementals chapter and beyond, demand for mana goes down. But demand for Divine Seeds and sentient goods is insane. If you upgrade Triumph of Tides it can make both seeds and sentient goods. It is highly likely a player who is Elementals or higher is going to use one of these options instead of mana. That is one reason I really like Triumph: you can select the option which best suits your city at any given time.
 

Henroo

Oh Wise One
What about AWs? Needles of the Tempest that help with Barracks production unlocks in Chap 3. That would be great to get to boost your army production :)
Needles is one of the most important wonders for a fighting city. But I don't think you can take full advantage of it until the end of Dwarves, when you unlock the Dwarven Bulwark. This gives a massive increase in training time. After all, there is little point in speeding up the barracks if you run out of troops every time you are logged out of the game for more than a few hours. But once you have both the Dwarven Bulwark and Needles, you can have a fast barracks which will also have enough training time to keep making troops during the periods you are logged out of the game. :) I think for an early game elven city the most important AW is Martial Monastery (unlocked at the end of chapter 4).
 

SoggyShorts

Mathematician par Excellence
I know there is an orc chapter, so is it wise to grab a Grounds of the orc strategist in ch. 3?
Just a quick note on this:
The game has a few confusing terms regarding "Orcs"
  • Players refer to chapter 8 as "Orcs" because we are too lazy to type "Orcs & Goblins"
  • There are Orc Strategist and Orc warriors units
  • There is a resource like coins introduced in chapter 8 called "Orcs" sometimes called "orc heads" produced by chapter 8+ armories and some other chapter 8+ buildings.
 

Mont Clair

Active Member
But I don't think you can take full advantage of it until the end of Dwarves, when you unlock the Dwarven Bulwark. This gives a massive increase in training time.

DB increases training size. I do agree that a combination of both is great, but since OP is saying they are running out of troops quickly now, this can be a minor fix to the issue until OP unlocks DB, three chapters later. With DB, you get free light melee troops too, so that will be nice if you need to kill some light ranged or mage.

Also yes on Martial Monastery. That is also a great AW to have so your troops get more HP when fighting.
 

Henroo

Oh Wise One
DB increases training size. I do agree that a combination of both is great, but since OP is saying they are running out of troops quickly now, this can be a minor fix to the issue until OP unlocks DB, three chapters later.
But increasing training size is normally the best answer for "not enough troops." Until you get Dwarven Bulwark, most early game cities will only manage something like 3 hours of training time if they keep their Barracks upgraded. At least that is about what I had in my early game chapters and I had 4 maxed armories. This means if you go to sleep for 8 hours your barracks will be idle for 5 hours. Once I got DB my troop situation improved **SO** much. My training time increased dramatically and my military buildings had much less downtime between my log-ins.
 
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