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    Your Elvenar Team

Chapter 4 or Chapter 5?

Nerwa

Well-Known Member
Do you negotiate almost exclusively, or do you like to fight in addition? Chapter 5 has several military updates that tilted the balance for me: upgraded Golem & Sorceress, adding Banshees, and - the big 'un - upgrades for the Training Grounds. It's possible research all the military upgrades and 2/3 of the squad size upgrades without researching the factory upgrades.

It also depends on which evolved buildings & set pieces you have. Several of mine (including Triumph of the Tides & a couple of the Pilgrims set pieces) change their output from T1 to T2 when upgraded to Ch. 5. (Of course, you don't HAVE to upgrade them. I'm leaving 2 of my Pilgrims set pieces at Ch. 4 for the T1 but upgrading ToT for T2.)

If you mostly negotiate & are fine with what your evolved & sets are producing, then I'd stay at ch. 4.
 
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Henroo

Oh Wise One
Thanks Nerwa and Rp44. I do fight most of the tourney and some of the spire. That’s very helpful to know.
If you are trying to build a fighting city then pausing in the early chapters is not ideal. I think pausing early benefits catering cities way more than fighting cities because it keeps catering costs down. If you are trying to fight then pausing early hurts you because you have not yet unlocked many useful unit promotions and some of the key military ancient wonders. In my opinion fighting gets easier as you advance. In early and mid game chapters I used a fighting/catering hybrid strategy. But around chapter 10 or 11 I switched to almost entirely fighting. And have not looked back since.
 

Nerwa

Well-Known Member
If you are trying to build a fighting city then pausing in the early chapters is not ideal.

Hmm. I'm going to have to disagree on this one, Henroo. I would say that it's a matter of "both/and" not "either/or". While the upper chapters may be better for fighting, Ch5 is still good. And there's some strategic benefit to taking a break on the climb up to the higher chapters.

I haven't tried doing a 100% fighting city but, given how easy it is to maintain 65-70% fighting, I'd say it would be feasible. Probably a push, and I'd need to restructure my city a bit. But what matters to me is that fighting on Ch5 is fun!

Between the barracks, the training grounds, and the various specialty buildings I'm producing 12/15 of the different troop types. The next tech on my research tree is the Banshee which will bring me up to 13/15. If the RNG favors me with a 2 Panda --> 1 Bear crafting after the FA, I'll be producing 14/15. Round things out with troop instants, and I'll have at least some of every type. Lots of variety for fighting options.

Upgrade-wise, 6/15 are at 2 stars; the remaining are 1-stars. Since my opponents aren't higher than 2-stars, it balances out. In terms of AWs - sure, I'm looking forward to some of those to go along with my Needles & Monastery. But the 5-day expiring buildings add up decently.

Strategically, there's the Brown Bear & Fire Phoenix issue. As a newer city, I missed out on those events so I'm dependent on the Spire & the MA - which is slow-going. (After 5 months of active playing I've earned 5 Bear artifacts & 1 Phoenix artifact.) Sticking around in a lower chapter gives me more chances at acquiring those artifacts before things get harder. Or at least at time to stockpile diamonds & blueprints for crafting them when the MA does cough up the recipes.

Add in things like general stockpiling (time instants, AWKP, troop instants), new event buildings that may be useful, and a more relaxed pace. Lots of good reasons to pause in Ch5.
 

StarLoad

Well-Known Member
Hmm. I'm going to have to disagree on this one, Henroo. I would say that it's a matter of "both/and" not "either/or". ...
You make good points @Nerwa and I think that many of us that are in the Upper chapter 15+dont realize the impact of the recent bldgs that give free Frogs, Rangers V Guards and the Unit instants, ECT. Those free troops even at 1star in Lower chapter battles are going up against 1star Barracks and training grounds troops and fare very well.

So maybe Both/And should be the new version of catering vrs battling?

Edit for Typo's
 

Henroo

Oh Wise One
Add in things like general stockpiling (time instants, AWKP, troop instants), new event buildings that may be useful, and a more relaxed pace. Lots of good reasons to pause in Ch5.
I still say fighting gets easier as you advance and that stopping early is not ideal for a fighting city. But if you are going to pause early, I actually think you would be better off to do so at the end of Dwarves (ch 6) instead of the end of ch 5. In the Dwarves chapter you are going to get the 3 star promotions for your barracks light melee, light range, and heavy melee. These 3 promotions will make fighting much easier. You are also going to unlock the Dwarven Bulwark ancient wonder at the end of the chapter. The increased training time this AW provides is going to let your military buildings produce a lot more troops between your log ins. It is truly a game changer in terms of troop availability. And if you are running a fighting/cater hybrid, the Mountain Halls AW you unlock at the end of Dwarves is going to help you produce a lot more goods.
 

Guurt The Destroyer

Well-Known Member
If I was going to do a small city that would never progress then I would stop at Faeries.

You can easily run a very small footprint city all the way through Faeries.

Faeries offer Blossom Mages which make combat a million times easier. Not just because Blossom Mages are a great unit, but because they have a unique training ground which at this stage can only produce Blossom Mages. You end up with a LOT of them and you can afford to have a lot die and still be building them up. It doesn't even matter that you won't be producing them while you are sleeping since at this stage you can't possibly keep Blossom Mage production up for long enough to actually go to sleep.

Also, Orcs in my opinion is the first time that the buildings for races really start to require a lot of space. The upgrades that happen in Orcs take up a lot more space, and the Orc Rally Point is a massive building. Plus you need a lot of Mushroom Farms and Armories that can breed Orcs are large 5 x 5 buildings. If you stop at Faeries you can avoid all these larger buildings.

EDIT: Also, if you just did the first research item into Orcs you could then use Orc Nests to produce Orcs without actually having upgrade your armories to the larger 5x5. This way you don't have to worry about the Orc resources eventually being a bottleneck. Also, the Orc residences are a major, major upgrade in workers from the previous version. So you can probably run less residences using them and save a bunch more space.
 
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Henroo

Oh Wise One
Faeries offer Blossom Mages which make combat a million times easier. Not just because Blossom Mages are a great unit, but because they have a unique training ground which at this stage can only produce Blossom Mages. You end up with a LOT of them and you can afford to have a lot die and still be building them up. It doesn't even matter that you won't be producing them while you are sleeping since at this stage you can't possibly keep Blossom Mage production up for long enough to actually go to sleep.

I think the value of Blossoms is dependent on if you are playing as elf or human. I do agree they are critical for an elvish player because that is the best mage unit available to an elvish player. But a human player has Priests as their basic mage unit and Priests are a fantastic mage unit. Furthermore, you will have gotten the 2 star promotions for Priest in ch 5 and the 3 star promotion for them happens in Fairies. And 2 or 3 star Priests are going to be a far better mage unit than a 1 star Blossom
 

Guurt The Destroyer

Well-Known Member
I think the value of Blossoms is dependent on if you are playing as elf or human. I do agree they are critical for an elvish player because that is the best mage unit available to an elvish player. But a human player has Priests as their basic mage unit and Priests are a fantastic mage unit. Furthermore, you will have gotten the 2 star promotions for Priest in ch 5 and the 3 star promotion for them happens in Fairies. And 2 or 3 star Priests are going to be a far better mage unit than a 1 star Blossom

That is true. I only have an elvish city. So I hadn't thought of that.
 

Nerwa

Well-Known Member
In the Dwarves chapter you are going to get the 3 star promotions for your barracks light melee, light range, and heavy melee. These 3 promotions will make fighting much easier. You are also going to unlock the Dwarven Bulwark ancient wonder at the end of the chapter. The increased training time this AW provides is going to let your military buildings produce a lot more troops between your log ins. It is truly a game changer in terms of troop availability.

For me, it's not about the absolute strength of certain troops; it's about having a diversity of troops who are strong relative to their opponents. I have more fun the more choices I have. The harder my opponents get, the weaker my 1-star special troops will be (relatively speaking). So it's a trade-off.

Troop availability is not at all a problem for me, and I haven't maxed out the upgrades on either military buildings or my 3 armories. Occasionally (1x-2x week) I'll use up a few time boosts to speed up training, but usually that's because I'm maxed out on supplies & I'd rather have more troops than pay the wholesaler for goods that I don't need (because I have plenty of those as well). Plus, doesn't the Dwarven Bulwark only help the military buildings, not the special troop buildings? I get a significant percentage of troops that I like from those.

Like I said, I don't see this as either/or. I'm having a lot of fun with the fights at my level. I get to the top of the Spire & do 6 rounds of tourney each week without any stress or shortages, which is plenty for me.
It may be that I'll have even more fun at the end of Ch 6; I won't know until I get there. :cool: I certainly won't complain if that happens!
 
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