Mercenary Camp?

Are any of the troops worth the space needed?


I have a Trainings Ground, but I don't use it at all. The troops from there suck.

 

If you compete in Tournaments WEEKLY and have a semi or full Military based City, then the answer is Yes.

Good luck!

 

Personally, I think there are two that are worthy, The frog and the lizard. The frog is long range, so if your enemy is a slow mover, you should not loose any troops, the Lizard is like a treant but harder to kill (imo). Hope it helps

 

Cerberus is the best light melee unit, hands down. The Training Grounds is worth it for Cerberus alone.
Definitely get a Mercenary Camp; get one immediately if you are playing Elves. Blossom Mages are great, while sorceresses are terrible.

 

Agreed. And I also like the light range unit Ranger. He's really good against mages as well as more movement range than my archers. I tend to use him when there are enemy mages along with Heavy Melee since he's decent against them as well where Cerberus is vulnerable to them. He's still 1-star, so currently using him on the map provinces and in the lower province rounds of the tourneys.
Both these buildings help me keep my units training 24/7. Since their training times are so much longer, I can put a couple in for overnight or when I'm at work and avoid the training queues running out while I'm away.

 

Spoiler: Merc Camp 16

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Chapter 13 one, with baby bumper guards...
And for @SoggyShorts I include Spoilers

Training Grounds is Great for Dogs and Bud Sorceress once leveled up

 

For my elven city, I found the merc camp to be really important for the Blossom Mages alone. (Longer range than the sorceress which allows you to hit all heavy melee while staying out of range.) And later on, I've found a use for the Ranger (more movement than your normal archer) and the Frog (which is the only troop elves have access to which can hit the far side of the board).

For my human city, I found the merc camp less useful, though now that I'm toward the end of Elementals, I will likely add the merc camp to add more variety and make use of those troops' specializations.

 

Got into Halflings at the start of the Harvest Festival event; so looking forward to seeing what this one can do! BTW, now that my Drone Rider is lvl 2, I'm able to throw them in in the early provinces of the scrolls tourney and save a few dogs. Their initiative is higher, so they draw the hits, and they're decent against the light melee and are ok against the abbots. They're cannon fodder, but I have a few from rotating troop training to keep my queues going and they can take out a light range or 2 before they're toast.

 

Ok, I feel I need to warn you though, the Frogs will seem rather weak when you first get them. They are highly specialized and I'd only recommend them in scenarios where you really need to take out the thing hiding on the far side of the map before it gets to you. Or on those maps where the terrain makes using them worthwhile.

 

If you like to do a lot in tournaments I would always recommend the extra buildings. While your barracks can do the job the extra buildings give you an edge once you learn when to use them. The usefulness of the units can vary a little over time depending on where you are in the tech tree, so you need to keep an eye on that. Once you approach the second promotion tech generally these troops start to shine.

I currently don't use frog or lizards much although I am keen to see frogs with their second promotion. I do use the drone riders, angers and mages (even on my human town) from time to time. I use my barracks troops as cannon fodder and use the specialist troops for the fights I need more speciality or firepower.

 

I really want to echo this. My previous approach was to mainly focus on Barracks troops, because with a Level 6 Needles, it was the best for cranking out troops. I'd lean on Merc Camp/Training Grounds for some key specialists (Cerberus/Blossom Mage), but mostly get by with Barracks. Now my Barracks troops still get filled out by AWs (except for Heavy Melee, but that will change with the Amuni AWs), but I'm looking to train the non-Barracks troops significantly more frequently. Because I'm seeing much better results.

As an example, I've had a few fights today where 5x Golems lost, but 5x Orc Heavy Ranged won. Same with 5x Sword Dancers losing, but 5x Drone Riders win. As tournaments become more and more a game of efficiency for me (how easily can I score 2K each month). Because again, using Scrolls as an example, if I'm facing 5 rangers and 1 mages, 5x Sword Dancers will be fine. But 5x Drone Riders means more overall bonus damage and defense.

 

I agree. Promotion is when they start to come through. Level III Cerebrus just rocks, he runs across the battlefield, kills the mage, then next move runs away or kills another. Level II and III Drone Riders can do practically the same thing to Light Range. Blossom Mage, as stated before, is always awesome regardless of rank. The only Training Ground and Merc troop I legitimately don't have a use for is the Banshee. I rarely, if ever, come across a situation where she's better then the Sorcereress, but then again, my Banshee is only level 1.

 

Banshees have really excelled for me at Rank 3 in Gems tournaments. They're very strong against Heavy Ranged, and their double debuffs also make them good enough against the Heavy Melee in those fights (because Heavy Melee rarely get an attack in before I can hit them at least once). If there's a lot of Light Ranged in the fight, and mages still make sense, then I'll probably stick with Blossom Mages (just for the range advantage that negates the Dryads' strike-back). So still pretty situational, but definitely no longer as useless as the Banshee was in the first 10 or so chapters.

 

you probably need to wait till they are level 2 or above

 

Cerberus are great agaisnt mages why you using archers?

 

Your Merc Camp and Training Grounds get upgraded in alternating chapters. So you will have some chapters where your Ranger training speeds are 33% or more faster than your Cerberus training speeds.
So during those chapters, even though Cerberus might be 5-10% better than Rangers, you're better off using Rangers because you can train a lot more of them.

 

Also, there are some fights (few and far between) where the enemies are mages and heavy melee as the only units. You don't want Cerberus in those fights.