Squad sizes and Auto-Fighting. Seriously!

[mucksterme]

Scanning the responses I think people have covered most of the salient points.
I will just add this.
Even if you are not ready for fighting, keep training troops.
Build up your army so they'll be there when you are ready for them.
And know this, any troops you train now will automatically upgrade when you research improvements.
So you don't have to worry about having a bunch of obsolete archers sitting around playing cards.

 

[Gkyr]

@Gladiola:
If you are interested in attempts to reverse-engineer the algorithms, check out the minmaxgame website and the associated extrapolations upon it.

 

[Gladiola]

@mucksterme really good points! I have learned, now that I am all the way in chapter 3 (soon to be chapter 4) that I should always be building troops. I would add that early on, those troops should probably be archers, even after you can build the full range of barracks troops. I use way more archers than anything else. And I was a little worried about them not upgrading and was glad when I got the Sword Dancer Promotion research that they did so.

@Gkyr I have read it. It's interesting.

Overall I would say that now I have more experience in tournaments and spire, upgrading buildings to higher levels in a city with a small footprint seems to be a useful strategy for my style of gameplay, which is taking things slowly through the chapters while I accumulate lots of goodies along the way. I'm able to complete 7 tournament provinces to six stars and go to the top of the Spire while continuing to complete research and upgrade buildings as well as contribute to Fellowship Adventures.

While "get bigger, faster" may be an exciting challenge for many players, it's definitely not the only successful way to play.

 

[crackie]

Build up your army so they'll be there when you are ready for them.
And know this, any troops you train now will automatically upgrade when you research improvements.
So you don't have to worry about having a bunch of obsolete archers sitting around playing cards.

Yes, this. I've decided to try a fun experiment and chase the fabled ">999+" in early chapters. I’ll only fight the first 5 easy tourney provinces and cater everything else. By Orcs, I should be able to sustainably slaughter everything autofighting and have a giant stash of military buildings to boot.

 

[Gladiola]

@crackie I think that >999 is going to be pretty hard to catch. Squad sizes increase pretty dramatically in the early chapters, and unless you move very slowly barracks upgrades keep up plus some (assuming use of armories and mayble needles) but probably not enough to hit >999 before orcs.

I'll be interested to hear how it goes. Not interested enough to stop fighting though. I like the current balance of fighting and catering I do.

 

[crackie]

Haha my main city does enough fighting for me to have a second city vacation home to try silly things with. I am only 200 KPs away from a level 20 Needles. The only thing slowing down this experiment is I’ve ran out of land to stick more armories and I don’t want to buy plots with diamonds yet. It will be resolved once I get a Bulwark at the end of the chapter. It’s a city covered in armories and a crazy Needles to...not fight with (yet). I have 3 libraries to go that need to be upgraded from Chap 3 so I am waiting on RRs. Knowing I am waiting on RRs, I have the smallest settlement with only 3 mines so I am usually tech locked too waiting on granite and copper. It’s going a little faster now that I can craft RRs with diamonds though. In the meantime, I also have 72 military buildings stashed for a rainy day. I’m sure you’ll pass me in Dwarf before I get out of Dwarf. I think it can be done, but we shall see

 

[Deleted User - 849288676]

@crackie Thanks for the reply!

I hadn't given the booster buildings a try because I haven't had the room in my city up until recently. I may try them out in the next week or two. This weeks spire was the perfect representation of my point though. I'm screwed on the 6th fight in. I pit light melee and light ranged, both of which have complete advantage/parity over the opposing force, with squad sizes of 86 on my end to 96 on the Spires (2nd city, chapter 3). Every other fight I've ever taken at that ratio, with that advantage balance, I would win, no booster building needed. This time, both fights were sound defeats.

The terrain is an interesting point. You're comment is the first hint I've seen about it, anywhere. The game itself never mentions it as a factor, from what I've seen (including in the combat help menu that I just checked to see if I missed it), so if it is that important of a factor, I'm very frustrated with them for not communicating it as a mechanic. If it's that influential on a core game mechanic, there is no excuse for not communicating it to players.

To be honest, I haven't really had a problem keeping enough soldiers recruited to field a full 5 squads of any of the unit types, yet, even with them getting wiped out regularly. I tried catering the spire one time and found it also severely lacking in communication as to how that works. For me it was just a guessing game as to what resource was needed where, which make that process far more expensive than throwing away units.

From what you've said, I'm inferring that there is a lot more nuance to these mechanics than they've communicated which enables people who know about them to be able to deal with them easily. But for the rest of us, who aren't in the know, it's just an incredibly frustrating experience. I've now reached the point where I don't plan on interacting with the Spire at all, beyond possibly the first four fights. For me, it's a just a waste of time, resources and frustration.

 

[Iyapo1]

I've now reached the point where I don't plan on interacting with the Spire at all, beyond possibly the first four fights.

The spire is a source of diamonds. It is also a source of CCs and spell frags that can be used in crafting in the Magic Academy which opens the mystical object(the golden chest in the MA).
The mystical object is the best source of free diamonds in the game.

Refusing to interact with the spire because it is frustrating and expensive is a valid game choice. It will simply reduce your access to the best source of free in game currency.

 

[Fayeanne]

The first four fights in the Spire are quite easy, so worth doing even if you don't go higher, especially given the good rewards at the first gate.

But yes, terrain plays a big role even when auto-fighting, even on mobile, especially when using Light Melee, which suffer the most from terrain issues. It's obvious if you load into a manual fight battle, but not communicated at all for mobile to my knowledge. I'm hoping terrain preview gets implemented someday, which would make this more obvious.

If it helps any, Spire negotiation is a game of Mastermind using resources. (But, of course, they can't really come right out and say that.)

 

[Gladiola]

@Shadenir there are a number of youtube videos that will take you step by step through the most effective process for convincing in Spire. You will never succeed 100% of the time (I get 50% or better on the first try and haven't had to go beyond three attempts, I don't think -- by that I mean rounds, not guesses).

Here's a video that helped me:

 

[Gladiola]

@crackie I finally made it to chapter 4, so I am nipping at your heels. I'll be in Dwarves any ... month ... now.

 

[crackie]

The good thing about military buff buildings is they don’t need to be connected to roads so you can cram them anywhere there is a 2x2 space. That Fire Phoenix is more bang for your space though, if you can craft and evolve one. They said they are leaving Phoenix evolves in the MA in the foreseeable future. That means blueprints or diamonds so def worth hitting the Spire! There are rumors that bear evolves might hit Spire after Mermaids. Brown bear is another friend of the fighting city (also adorable). Numerically speaking, you have to fight High Halls and Lab underhanded for 2 rounds (except the 3 wave gate bosses) so some sort of buffing is required. I can do it with a pet feed on my Fire Phoenix but it is a hairy battle and if it’s rough manual fighting, it will be rougher autofighting.

As @Fayeanne said, terrain is very obvious if you have been manual fighting and most manual fighters I know lean more on range units since they have more versatility with terrain and can use terrain to its advantage. I broke down the mayhem that is the “funnel” terrain in this post as an example of how it will bork you.

I have also been doing some autofight experiments by observing what the heck AI is doing with our troops. Apparently, it does a good job ignoring matchups and the fighting pentagon once you set them loose on their own. Others have contributed their autofighting knowledge in that thread. But it basically explains the significant troop loss difference. AI doesn’t isolate best matchup pairs and the “Pick same unit for all 5 slot” strategy is a big compromise. It makes you pick a lot of “equal” instead of “better than” combos.

 

[crackie]

@crackie I finally made it to chapter 4, so I am nipping at your heels. I'll be in Dwarves any ... month ... now.

Excellent! I just got my Bulwark there so things are moving a little faster. Next Bulwark upgrade is a 2-fer with free rune stage! It also means I am at end of Dwarf and knocking on doors of Fairy Adv Scouts, so another really really long round of Royal Restoration upgrades on my libraries and evolve buildings. Barrack units are at 15% and Training camp units are 20% towards the unnecessary but amusing goal. You might catch me!