Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Tavern

If you start on a new city, one of the most important structure, and a relatively easy one to max is the Tavern. If this is not your first city, you can send resources from your bigger cities, so this structure is probably more important than the mines.

The benefits are 2 folds. It allow you to recruit up to 3 more heroes. And daily, with more heroes in taverns, there is a greater chance that you find a green or blue, or if you are extremely lucky, maybe even a purple.

To build the level 5 Tavern, there is a requirement to build a level 5 Hospital, so might as well get started on those too. A level 10 Hospital is needed before you can build a level 10 Tavern. However, there is also a hidden requirement. Even if you can send resources, you to have warehouse and granary large enough to hold the resources you want to receive. So for a level 10 Tavern, there is an unwritten requirement to have a level 12 Warehouse and Granary.



Level Heroes in Tavern Heroes Recruit Population Time Requirements
1 2 1 2 2 min
2 3 1 4 5 min
3 3 1 6 10 min
4 4 1 8 20 min
5 4 2 10 50 min Hospital 5
6 5 2 13 1.25 hr Warehouse 2, Granary 2
7 5 2 16 1.7 hr Warehouse 5, Granary 5
8 6 2 19 2.4 hr Warehouse 7, Granary 7
9 6 2 22 3.7 hr Warehouse 10, Granary 9
10 7 3 25 5.6 hr Hospital 10, Warehouse 12, Granary 12

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Stats for Heroes

We just had a discussion on hero's stats and which ones are desirable. I was a little confused myself, so I thought I'll write it up to be clear.

Military Hero
This is probably the most important type of hero in this game, so I'll start here.
STR affects Attack, and each stat increase Attack by 3. This is the most important stats for a military hero.
DEX affects Tactics (probably affecting dodge and critical hits), probably the next most important stats for doing Floating Castle.
AGI affects Speed, and when doing events, this might even be more important than STR.
DEF is the least important, since a hero gets a lot of defense from the 5 pieces of armor. Each stat increases that number by a far smaller percentage when compared to the increase in any of the other 3 stats.

Summary ::
Wild monsters : STR, AGI
Floating castle : STR, DEX
Attacking : STR, AGI
Defending : STR, DEX

Contest Hero
For a contest hero, STR again is the most important. DEX comes next.
AGI affects Evade, and gives a chance of winning against stronger heros. This is not so important for Arena. But in Pagoda, and you are trying to beat a level and willing to try multiple times for a win, you may want to bring up your Evade to have a winning chance.

Summary ::
Arena : STR, DEX
Pagoda : STR, AGI

Political Hero
STR affects recruiting speed
AGI affects building speed
DEF affects defense bonus
DEX affects production
Given that a building speed is determined at the time the building is started, you may want to put on AGI items only when starting on a long construction.
STR again is important, since you really want to be recruiting as fast as you can.
DEF is the most important and the only stat that matters when you are defending against an invasion. In times of war, I'll say this is the most important stats.
DEX is the least important. Your resources can come from farming.

Summary ::
Before starting a long construction, put on AGI items.
Peace time : STR, DEX
War time : DEF, STR

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Troops Formation

Apologies. I was reading through my own posts and I realized that 4 months ago, way back in July, I deferred the topic of troops formation when I was writing on military scrolls.

http://sislandec.blogspot.com/2010/07/military-scrolls.html

As mentioned in the post above, the soldier types enhancements scrolls only affect troops in Slot 2, 3 and 4, and that skews the formation. The other rule that shaped the formation is this rule :

"More than the recommended number into a single blank will bring penalty to the army".
That recommended number is 40% of your total troops.

Formation #1 : 1-F-H-F-1
In this formation, you put 1 soldier in each of slot 1 and 5, fill up slot 2, and 4 with the 'recommended number' (40% of your total troops), and the remainder goes into slot 3 (it'll be about half of the recommended), hence the term 'F' refers to 'fill', and 'half' refers to 'half recommended'.

I highly recommended using this for FC if you use one of those scrolls mentioned.


In the previous formation, you will always lose the 2 troops in slot 1 and 5, and will have to refill them. As such, it is sort of a hassle in killing devils. It is definitely not recommended if you are aiding, since after a single battle, there will almost certainly be at least an empty slot.

Formation #2 : E-Q-Q-Q-E
So this formation is what I'll recommend for aiding. In this formation, you fill 1/8 of your total troops in slot 1 and 5, and a quarter of your total troops into each of slot 2, 3 and 4. This is the formation I use when I do devil sweep, to avoid having to refill after every combat. This formation also does quite well in FC if you don't want to switch to 1-H-F-H-1.

In PvP, the formation to use is very dependent on your opponent's. In general, you want enough to beat up on their slot 1 and 5, or 1 troop there and sacrifice them. If you know your opponent is using 1-F-H-F-1, then a 2-F-H-F-2 is nice, since after the first round, you should have all 5 slots, while your opponent only has 3 slots (the 1 slot should be killed). Then again, if your opponent ends up using 3-F-H-F-3, you just lost 4 soldiers and emptied slot 1 and 5.

Formation #3 : T-T-T-T-T
20% of troops in each of the slots. This formation is ideal when you know 20% of your troops is sufficient to beat 40% of your opponent's. ie. Ideal for beating up much weaker opponent. This is also a feasible formation when opponent has more than 3 heroes in defense, and you want to win with all 5 slots intact to move on to phase 2 of combat. Take care when using this, since an opponent of equal strength with either of the other 2 formations will likely beat this one.

Mixed troop formation
In mixed troop, each of the above formation can still be applied. If the secondary troop is not of the specialty of your scroll, then you may want to load those on slots 1 and 5.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Rebirth Runes

We were given rebirth runes daily in recent events, and many players have wondered how to use them, so I thought I should write on it.

Rebirth Runes allow a player to refresh the attributes on an equipment. These include armor, gloves, boots, gaiter, helmet, and weapons. The runes come in 3 flavors.
  1. Low-Lvl Rebirth Rune : Equipment level 1 - 20 (The description in the game is wrong)
  2. Mid-Lvl Rebirth Rune : Equipment level 21 - 50
  3. High-Lvl Rebirth Rune : Equipment level 51 - 80
How to use the rebirth runes :
  1. Click on 'Items' at the top of the game.
  2. You should see a 'Rebirth' button near the bottom left of the pop-up window. Click on that 'Rebirth' button.
  3. Now, you should see a screen that says 'Rebirth Tank'. There are 2 tabs : 'Refresh' and 'Equip'. On the 'Equip' tab, select the item you want to refresh. Due to some bugs, the description for item in the top row may not be complete. But do not worry, you can select them to view the full description. Select any item, by clicking and then selecting 'Insert' (which is the only action anyway).
  4. That item will be placed onto the 'Refresh' tab, and its attributes will be displayed. Below the description, it will also tell you the cost to refresh, as well as the number of such runes you have. If that is the correct item, and you are willing to accept that cost, click the 'Refresh' button and the item's attribute will be refreshed.

Good luck.

Friday, November 5, 2010

Synthesis Stone

In the recent event, we get a synthesis stone 1 daily.
One wonder what that is worth, and when it is best to use it.
Again, many of the computation will be based on my previous post :
http://sislandec.blogspot.com/2010/08/value-of-scrolls-and-ashes.html

Level 1 to Level 2 Synthesis
This is a 60% chance without the synthesis stone, and 50% chance when using the stone.
Each attempt saves you 10% from losing 3 level 1 ash and 1 synthesis rune. Since level 1 ash is worth nothing, the saving is 0.1 synthesis rune.

Level 2 to Level 3 Synthesis
You save 10% of losing 3 level 2 ash and 1 synthesis rune. Since each level 2 ash is worth 1.67 synthesis rune, you save 0.6 synthesis runes (0.1 * (3*1.67 + 1)).

Level 3 to Level 4 Synthesis
The saving is 0.1 * (3*13.67+1) = 4.2 synthesis runes.

Level 4 to Level 5 Synthesis
At this level, you stand to lose 2 level 4 ashes and one synthesis rune 2.
Each level 4 ash is worth 118.67 synthesis rune 1, so the total savings here is :
23.73 synthesis rune 1 + 0.1 synthesis rune 2.

For synthesis stone 2 and synthesis stone 3, multiple the value above by 2 and 3 respectively.

If you are buying, each synthesis rune 1 cost 1 diamonds, but each synthesis stone 1 cost 5 diamonds. It is not worth using the stones for Level 3 to 4 synthesis (only 4.2 in value), but definitely worth buying the stone for Level 4 to 5 synthesis.
Synthesis stone 2 cost 8 diamonds, so it is worthwhile at level 3 to 4 synthesis (saves 8.4 synthesis stone 1 and cost only 8 diamonds).
Synthesis stone 3 cost 12 diamonds (1.5 times that of stone 2) and will save you 1.5 times that of stone 2.

Conclusion : Save the stones for higher level synthesis. If you are buying, buy synthesis stone 2 or 3, but not 1, and use them for synthesizing level 4 or higher scrolls.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Upgrade Your Skills Event

In this event, wild creatures will drop Wishing Bottles. The Wishing Bottles can also also be bought using diamonds.
Wishing bottles can be used to exchange for :

2 Wishing Bottles - 250 gold coins
20 Wishing Bottles - Level 2 scroll ash
40 Wishing Bottles - Level 3 scroll ash

One may be tempted to exchange them as soon as you see the gift box flashing, but hold off.
If you recall, I made a previous post that compares the values of the scrolls and ashes at different levels : http://sislandec.blogspot.com/2010/08/value-of-scrolls-and-ashes.html

So 20 wishing bottles get you an equivalent of 1.67 synthesis runes.
40 wishing bottles get you an equivalent of 13.67 synthesis runes.
So I strongly suggest that you wait for 40 wishing bottles, where each bottle gets you 4 times more value.