Diamond suit

Thanks to Gen. DARK505 for providing the stats on the Diamond suit.
The Diamond suit is a new suit introduced during this current Easter event.

Here are the comparisons :

1. Main stat :
Each piece (both Diamond and Lion) adds 28 to 29 to one of the main stat (STR/DEF/AGI/DEX).

2. Armor :
Each piece (both Diamond and Lion) adds 280-300 to Armor.

3. Contest Resistance :
Each piece (both Diamond and Lion) adds 48 to 51 to one of the combat resistance skill (Slash resistance / Pierce resistance / Blunt resistance).

4. Skill :
Each piece (both Diamond and Lion) adds 8-9 to one skill, and that skill can be combat, contest or politics.

5. Secondary stat :
I chose this last, since this is the differentiator.
A piece from the Lion suit will add to TWO secondary stats, both stats will be for contest (DMG, AMR, EVD, Crit).
A piece from the Diamond suit will add to ONE seondary stat. That stat can be war (ATK/Tactic) or contest (AMR/EVD).
Whether this stat is war or contest will greatly affect how good this suit is. See summary below.
Not sure if other secondary stats are possible from a sample size of 5, so if you have a Diamond piece with different stat, please message me in w5 (id : Sisland), pm in in forum (id : sisland).

6. Suit bonus :
When completed, the Diamond suit gives a bonus of STR +29, DEF + 29, HP + 1100.
The Lion suit bonus is DMG + 87, AMR + 116, HP + 1100.
The stat equivalent for the bonus are identical (STR + 29 = DMG +87 for the purpose of contest), but the Diamond suit bonus applies to all 3 categories (war, contest, politics).

Summary :
If you want a suit for contest, the Lion suit is clearly better as it has at least one stat in contest more than the Diamond for each piece.
If you want a suit for politics, the blue Knight suit will give 325 stats, while the Diamond suit will give 200.5 on average. So the blue Knight suit, with is clearly preferred, and if you add a purple Knight gaiter, the comparison favors the Knight suit more.
Now, this last comparison will need a table :

Suit	Military value
Blue Knight	650
Blue Knight with purple Knight gaiter	689.5
Diamond with no pieces military	563
Diamond with 1 piece military	591.5
Diamond with 2 piece military	620
Diamond with 3 piece military	648.5
Diamond with 4 piece military	677
Diamond with all pieces military	705.5

For non-donating players, the Diamond suit can be better than the blue Knight suit in war. This will depend on the secondary stat on each piece. If the secondary stat for all the Diamond pieces are military, then it will be better than the blue Knight suit with a purple Knight gaiter.

Another advantage of the Diamond suit is that it is not BoE.

For me, that advantage is too little, and the chance of getting all pieces with military stat too slim. I will stop hunting for this suit. For those who wish to continue, best of luck.

Planning a hero's skill

I don't normally recommend diversifying the skills in a hero. A hero's focus, with the exception of off-race hero, should be military. However, a hero ultimately gets 320 skill points at war level 80, and he will only need 310 skill points to master all skills in a given category. More so when a hero's specialty does not include Cav-4 and Inf combination. I hope the breakdown below helps you plan a hero's skill.

Hero with Cav-4 and Inf-5/Inf-6 specialties.
You will need to master all skills in the military tab. That leaves only 10 points for 'other uses'.
9 points in First Aid does not make sense, as a mayor without Local is rather useless. So I recommend putting the remaining 9 points in combat tab, Power Attack.

Hero with Cav-4 specialty only.
You will need 250 skill points to master the necessary skills for Cav-4. That leaves 70 points. Here, my suggestion varies depending on a hero's aptitude. If the defense aptitude is high, I'll suggest using 42 points to master Local, and he can be a standby mayor. That still leaves 28 points for some skills in combat.

Hero with Inf-6 specialty
This hero may also have Inf-5 specialty, but that won't make any difference. 217 skill points will be needed to master the necessary military skills. That leaves 103 skill points. Since Inf-6 heros don't really do well against devils or in FC, I suggest putting them in mayor position, especially at the higher levels to gain experience. Again, if the aptitude for defense is high, he will make an excellent mayor too. You will only need 73 skill points to master Local and Military Zeal. The remaining 30 points can be used in combat. If you are low on resources and intend to sit the hero in mayor most of the time, you can consider using those 30 points in other political skills.

Hero with only Inf-5 specialty
This hero require only 155 skill points to master the 5 relevant military skills. That leaves 165 skill points, more than half for other skill category. Again, I will suggest 73 points to master Local and Military Zeal, leaving 92 points for combat.

Blue Darksteel vs Purple Knight

As usual, I had wanted to write something on the Darksteel set, but I kept procastinating. However, I'll put what I know into this blog, since it is now rather urgent.

Hithere just launched an event where you collect lucky ribbons to be traded for prizes.
2000 ribbons can get you a purple knight suit.
1000 ribbons can get you a blue darksteel suit.

I shall be comparing those 2 suits, so you can quickly decide which is a better reward to claim for this event.

Purple Knight :
The min level to wear the suit is level 59.
Each item gives 2 stats (42 or 43) .
The armor bonus on each item is equivalent of 71.5 DEF stat (average 286 armor).
The suit bonus is 1000 HP + 43 STR + 43 DEF.
So it gives a total of 868.5 stats and 1000 HP, applicable to contest and military.
For politician, it is 511 stats.

Blue Darksteel :
The min level to wear the suit is level 70.
Each item gives 1 primary stat (34 or 35) and 2 secondary military only stats.
The armor bonus averages 350, similar to the Mammoth set. It translate to 87.5 DEF stat.
The suit bonus is 1300 HP + 105 ATK + 140 Speed.
The 140 speed came as a surprise, since it translate to 46 stats instead of 35.
Overall, it gives 1036 stats and 1300 HP for military.
For contest, it's value is only 691 stats and 1300 HP.
Political stats total is 172.5.


Summary ::

	Military	Contest	Political
Purple Knight	868.5 stat + 1000 HP	868.5 stat + 1000 HP	511 stat
Blue Darksteel	1036 stat + 1300 HP	691 stat + 1300 HP	172.5 stat

Intangibles :
The purple knight has a lower level requirement.
Only the purple gaiter can be found in regular game (via top legguard box).
The blue darksteel set is NOT BoE.
The blue darksteel set can be found from hunting blue maps.

Overall :
Granted that the purple knight set might be rare, but the stats, especially for military is overwhelming for the blue darksteel. This is especially true for non paying players, and offers a great chance to level the playing field. I strongly recommend getting the blue darksteel set over the purple knight, and if you can get 2000 ribbons, trade for two blue darksteel set instead of one purple knight.

Acknowledgements :
I am writing this blog in between waves of hunting for those ribbons. So I had help on some research. Thanks to pectrox for spotting the stats for purple knight and Stephanie for the stats of blue darksteel.

Good hunting.

Scroll Month Event

I was dragging my feet on writing this post, but I should write it before tomorrow, before someone makes a decision and take the first reward available.
This month, hithere decides to run a month long event. I believe this is the first time hithere runs a month long event.
Everyday in this month, you can claim a Wildered Bottle. And you can trade in for the following prizes :

5 Bottles : Scroll Month 1
Gold Key x 1, Synthesis Stone 1 x 1, Synthesis Rune 1 x 1
This is the basis for the comparisons below.

10 Bottles : Scroll Month 2
Gold Key x 1, Synthesis Stone 1 x 1, Synthesis Rune 1 x 1, Scroll Ash Lv2 x 1
It is not clear that this is better than the first prize. It may be possible to get TWO of the Scroll Month 1 rewards and the trade-off is (gold key, synthesis stone, synthesis rune) against a (scroll ash lv2).
Keep in mind that a scroll ash lv2 is worth only 1.67 synthesis rune, and a synthesis stone when used on level 3 to level 4 synthesis is worth 4.2 synthesis stone. And you get an extra gold key.

15 Bottles : Scroll Month 3
Gold Key x 2, Synthesis Stone 1 x 2, Synthesis Rune 1 x 2, Scroll Ash Lv2 x 2
Compare this with 3 times Scroll Month 1, you are trading (gold key, synthesis stone, synthesis rune) for (scroll ash lv2 x 2). If you use the synthesis rune for level 3 to level 4 synthesis, you are still better off getting Scroll Month 1.

20 Bottles : Scroll Month 4
Gold Key x 3, Synthesis Stone 1 x 3, Synthesis Rune 1 x 3, Scroll Ash Lv3 x 1
A Scroll Ash Lv3 is worth 13.67 Synthesis Rune. So now, the trade off is (gold key, synthesis stone, synthesis rune) for (scroll ash lv3). If you are using the synthesis stone for level 3 to 4, then you are better off claiming Scroll Month 4.

25 Bottles : Scroll Month 5
Gold Key x 4, Synthesis Stone 1 x 4, Synthesis Rune 1 x 4, Scroll Ash Lv4 x 1
A Scroll Ash Lv4 is worth 118.67 Synthesis Rune, so this is clearly a better reward than all the above.

30 Bottles : Scroll Month 6
Gold Key x 5, Synthesis Stone 1 x 5, Synthesis Rune 1 x 5, Scroll Card V x 1
Finally, a Scroll Card V can be used to trade for any of the level 5 scrolls. And a level 5 scroll is worth more than 900 synthesis runes, so this is definitely the ultimate reward. There are 31 days in March, so to get this, you are only allowed a single day off.

Good luck and don't jump and claim the first reward tomorrow, or you'll deny yourself the ultimate reward.

Magic Crystal

You get magic crystal from crystal mines.
Each hour, you gain one magic crystal for every crystal mine your union holds.
They are needed only for upgrading your weapon and armor technology, above level 10.
Approximately no more than 5k magic crystals are needed to upgrade Cav4 to level 30, and no more than 80k for level 40.
Prior to level 40 structures, a player never need more than 100k magic crystals (5k * 10 types * 2 {weapon/armor}). But now, to upgrade all, a player will not need have more than 1.6 million crystals. To upgrade only 3 types, no more than 480k magic crystals will be needed.

I choose to write about this now because tomorrow, there's an event to compete for the crystal mines. However, there is a bug that may cause some confusion. Usually, the number of magic crystals you have is shown on the top banner (beside where it shows the number of gold coins you have). It also shows the number of crystal mines your union holds. A bug exists that when you get more than 1 million magic crystals, those counts disappears from the banner.

There is an easy workaround. To see the number of crystals (and the number of mines your union hold), click on Union and on the Union Info tab, you should see on the bottom left a count of the magic crystals you have and in parenthesis, the number of crystal mines your union holds.

Good hunting tomorrow.

Ga-dearg

pisspounder found the Ga-dearg today, so he sent me his hero equipped with this spear, so that I can document it. Thank you pisspounder.

Ga-dearg is a Spear (weapon), and can be found from Superior Map (blue). I have hunted over 200 maps and have not seen one, so that gives you an approximation on how rare it is. It is a Purple item, BOE, with required level of 60. You can sell it for 2871 gold, but don't do that, unless you are dismissing the hero it is bounded to. The stats of the one pisspounder is :

1. DEF + 46 (primary stats - affect war/category/politics)
2. Attack + 319 (secondary stats - affect war and contest)
3. ATK +140 (secondary stats - affect war only)
4. Armor + 191 (secondary stats - affect war only)
5. Mounted Combat +12 (skill stats bonus)

Stat #1 can be any of the primary stat. Stat #2 is always attack, as it is with all weapons. State #3 and #4 can be any 2 different secondary war stat. Stat #5 can be any skill.
Keep in mind that a single point in primary stat raises 3 points in secondary stats of both war and contest, except for DEF, which rasies 4 points in the secondary stats. For this reason, #3 and #4 are usually about 3 times that of primary stat, unless it is Armor (like above), where it will be about 4 times.

Compare this with a Purple Knight's Pike, requiring level 55 :

1. +38/39 {primary stat}
2. +38/39 {primary stat}
3. +253 attack

A Purple Lionheart Sword, requiring level 70 has these stats :

1. +54 {primary stat}
2. +54 {primary stat}
3. +385 attack

For a political hero, the Purple Lionheart has a value of 108, the Purple Knight Pike has a value of 77, while the Ga-dearg is only worth 46. So clearly, one should not use it on a political hero.

For a contest hero, the Purple Lionheart has a value of about 236, the Purple Knight Pike has a value of about 161. The Ga-dearg is valued at about 152. So it is also a waste on contest hero.

For a war hero, the Purple Lionheart and Purple Knight Pike values are the same as contest at 236 and 161 respectively. But the Ga-dearg is valued at about 246, which makes it better than the Purple Lionheart! And it's required level is lower at 60, so it is an ideal military weapon, just as hithere intended it to be.

Mount Upgrade Bug

There's a bug in mount upgrade. When a mount is upgraded while it is equipped on a hero, the hero will be "damaged" and have a lower troop speed. This sorts of offset the upgraded mount. The mount however, is not affected, it continues to improve.

So until hithere fixes the bug, please do the following :
1. Unequip the mount
2. Upgrade the mount
3. Re-equip the mount

That way, your hero will not be "damaged".

How do you determine if a hero is "damaged"? I'll refer to this post by crumpet that contains the image of a damaged hero.
http://forum.hithere.com/viewthread.php?tid=44293&page=8#pid2513967

In that post, you can see that the hero is trooped with Inf-6. The base speed of Inf-6 is 40, and therefore the speed should never be lower than 40. But the image shows that the speed is 37. That means the hero is damaged by the bug.

Remember, if a hero has never visited your main since they introduced Training Center, that hero cannot be damaged. The easiest way to determine if a hero is damaged is to :
1. Unequip any mounts.
2. Remove all troops from the hero.
3. Add to the hero a troop that is NOT in the hero's specialty.

The speed should correspond to the following table :

Troop	Speed
Infantry-1	40
Infantry-2	20
Infantry-3	50
Infantry-4	30
Infantry-5	30
Infantry-6	40
Cavalry-1	60
Cavalry-2	40
Cavalry-3	30
Cavalry-4	50

That's the base speed of the troops, and your speed should never be lower. If the hero's specialty does not include that type, then the speed should be exactly equal to the base speed.

If you have a damaged hero, I'll like to test the following methods of "resetting" the damage.
1. Unequip the mount, and send the hero to his/her death, let it recover in hospital. (Tested by crumpet, did not work).
2. Unequip the mount, reroll the hero's aptitude. (If this work, the easy way out is for hithere to give every player one card of relearn for every hero).
3. Unequip the mount, refresh the hero's specialty.

If you do test any of the above, please message me in w5 (my id is 'Sisland').
Thank you.

Update (2/10/11) :: Bug has been fixed in today's unannounced maintenance.

Training Center

About 2 weeks ago, hithere introduced a new structure : Training Center.

http://ec.hithere.com/html/14/8/22/4407.htm

The maximum level of that structure is 40, and the link above shows the resources and time needed to construct each level. In that page, it mentioned that Training Tokens will be needed to train the mounts, but the number of tokens were not specified. So here's the formula to determine number of tokens :

[Training token needed for 1 level of upgrade] = 1 + ( [Current mount speed %] / 10 ) {rounded down}

Current mount speed %	Training Tokens Needed
1% - 9%	1
10% - 19%	2
20% - 29%	3
30% - 39%	4
40% - 49%	5
50% - 59%	6
60% - 69%	7
70% - 79%	8
80% - 89%	9
90% - 99%	10

Training Tokens
So, how do you get training tokens? Initially, you should see under Quest -> Beginner, a quest named Training : Mount Training. In that quest, you will need to construct the first level of the training center. The reward is a Destrier Horse (10% mount) and one training token.

After that you will be presented with 3 quests (each one after the completion of the previous). They can be found under Quest -> Development.

Request of the Trainer 1 : Requires you to kill a devil : Rewards 1 training token.
Request of the Trainer 2 : Requires you to kill a harpy : Rewards 2 training tokens.
Request of the Trainer 3 : Requires you to kill a merman : Rewards 3 training tokens.

After you complete them, the same 3 quests can be accepted and completed daily, allowing you to collect 6 training tokens every day. In subsequent days, all 3 quests can be accepted simultaneously and they can be completed in any order.

Full Upgrades
Many players have poundered how long it'll take them to fully upgrade their mounts.

Mounts	Fully Upgraded Speed	Total Tokens Needed	Days
Loof lirpa's Jet	41%	104	18
Destrier Horse	50%	140	24
Armored Horse	70%	220	37
Tornado Horse	100%	340	57

Above chart shows the tokens needed, and the days (rounded up) needed to collect those tokens. However, you cannot upgrade beyond the level of your training center. So unless you have raised your Training Center to level 40, all the above calculation is moot.

Main City
The training center is a structure that can only be built in your main city. Mounts on heros in the main city can be upgraded directly. The upgrade is preserved when you dismount, and follows the horse/mount that was upgraded. You can also upgrade any mounts that are not equipped. If you want to upgrade a mount equipped on a hero in a sub city, you will have to first dismount, go to the main city to upgrade it, and then remount in the sub city.

Which mount to upgrade?
I recommend upgrading your fastet mount first. If you are trying to balance the speed of your 3 hero squad, you can always equip the slowest of the 3 heros with the fastest mount.

End note to WhiteBear : Yes, finally I wrote it, as you predicted.

Knight's Suit

For players who don't have diamonds to spin the [Super] wheel, the Knight's suit is one the best suit you can get. Prior to relatively recent changes, this set cannot be complete short of events. So here's how you can get them :

Arena :
Green Knight (Greaves, Gloves, Chestguard)
Use this only as last resort to complete the set.

Pagoda :
When you complete all 5 pagoda, you can claim an extra reward.
That reward will be a Blue Knight item (Greaves, Gloves, Chestguard, Cuisses), but it'll never be the helmet.

Wild Devils :
This is one of the relatively recent change.
Wild devils now drop Top Legguard equipment box.
With that, you can get Blue/Purple Knight Cuisses/Zealot Trousers.
Your best hope is for a Purple Knight Cuisses to complete the Knight set.

Blue Treasure Map :
This is the most important change that allow us to complete this set.
You can now find Blue Knight Helmet from hunting Blue treasure maps.

Summary
So the best set you can get : Complete Blue Knight set, with Purple Knight Cuisses.
This set is better than Brutish set for military purposes, and you can use it as early as level 59.
The Brutish set is better for Contest, but require that the hero be level 75.
To get the Brutish set, you will also need a level 80 hero to buy it in Arena store.

Dismissing a Hero - Update

Due to the scroll - ash update today, the check list for dismissing a hero needs to be updated. Thanks to pectrox for reminding me.

1. Remove ALL items from the hero.
2. Remove ALL troops from the hero.
3. Use ALL arena points that hero has. Exchange them for items, or just exp scrolls.
4. Sell all BoE items bound to the hero.
5. Unequip all scrolls (and get the ashes).

Scroll Ash Update

Today, EC made a relatively big update. There were several changes, but now, I just want to talk about one of them. Prior to this update, once a scroll is equipped on a hero, it's there. Removing it from the hero, the scroll will disappear. If you replace it with a new scroll, the old scroll disappears.

After today's update, when you remove a scroll, it will turn into ash of the same level. The message given is "Are you sure you want to remove the skill? The skill will be decomposed after removing and turn into the Ash of the same level."

If you replace the scroll with a new one, the old scroll will turn to ash, again, of the same level as the old scroll. The message presented is "Are you sure you want to change the skill? The skill will be decomposed after removing and turn into the Ash of the same level."

Prior to this update, I am usually conservative and do not equip my hero with level 3 scrolls (because I want to synthesize a level 4). But now, you really lose nothing. In a previous post, I had mentioned that a scroll and ash basically have the same value/cost in terms of synthesis stones. So here's the scheme I will now be using (I'll use Sky Archer as example) :

1. Create level 3 Sky Archer.
2. Equip the hero with the level 3 Sky Archer.

3. Create level 3 Sky Archer.
4. Create 2 x level 3 Ash (with any scrolls).
5. Unequip the level 3 Sky Archer (and it turns into a level 3 Ash).
6. Try to synthesize with the level 3 Sky Archer created in #3, and the 3 ashes (2 from #4, and 1 from #5).
7. If synthesis is successful, you have just completed your upgrade.
Otherwise, you still have a level 3 Sky Archer and you can put it back on the hero.

Compare to previous :
1. Create level 3 Sky Archer.
2. Create 3 x level 3 Ash (with any scrolls).
3. Try to synthesize level 4.

The number of level 3 scrolls/ashes is exactly the same (4 of them). So the number of synthesis stones used is the same. But now, you get to use the level 3 Sky Archer without worrying about the loss of any value when you unequip. The only catch is that 2 of the scrolls you use must be Sky Archer, instead of 1. Since Sky Archer is plenty, this is not a problem. This might still be a problem for rarer scrolls, such as Inspiration I.

Now, if you need to do some arena, there's yet another scheme.
1. Create level 3 Sky Archer.
2. Equip the hero with the level 3 Sky Archer.
3. Create level 3 Sky Archer.
4. Create level 3 Confidence.
5. Create 3 Ash (with any scrolls).
6. Unequip the level 3 Sky Archer (and it turns into a level 3 Ash).
7. Equip level 3 Confidence (join as many arena as you can to increase arena level).
8. Unequip the level 3 Confidence (and it turns into a level 3 Ash).
9. Try to synthesize with the level 3 Sky Archer created in #3, and the 3 ashes (from #5, #6, and #8).
10. If synthesis is successful, you have just completed your upgrade.
Otherwise, you still have a level 3 Sky Archer and you can put it back on the hero.

Again, you created exactly 4 level 3's scroll/ash, so you used the same number of synthesis stones. This time, you get to use the Confidence scroll before you turn it into ash to boost your arena level.

For rarer scrolls, here's the scheme :
1. Create level 3 Inspiration I
2. Create level 3 Sky Archer.
3. Equip the hero with the level 3 Sky Archer.
4. Create 2 x level 3 Ash (with any scrolls).
5. Unequip the level 3 Sky Archer (and it turns into a level 3 Ash).
6. Try to synthesize with the level 3 Inspiratio I created in #3, and the 3 ashes (2 from #4, and 1 from #5).
7. If synthesis is successful, you have just completed your upgrade.
Otherwise, you still have a level 3 Inspiration I and you can go back to step #2.

In this scheme, you get to use the Sky Archer while waiting to build ashes to upgrade Inspiration I.

All of the above, it can be used at any level, and the payoff is even greater. Imagine the use of level 4 scrolls that will be turned into ashes when you try for level 5 anyway. Or the use of level 5 scrolls which will be the ashes for level 6!

So equip those scrolls, don't hold back!

Offline Protection

Troop protection

If you are at war, you want to conserve your troops. You want heroes with troops when you are ready to play. You don't want to come back to the game to see that your hero is in hospital and your troops in injury barracks.

1. Sheltering
You can shelter your troops. Unlink your troops from your heroes and put the troops in shelter. This is probably the easiest way until your troops exceeds the capacity of your shelter.

2. Protection Rune
This is a rather expensive way, but it is easy for those who are donating to the game. Throw on protection runes for the duration that you are going to be away. It may be cheaper if you put all your heroes into a single city so that you only need to rune one city.

3. Dodging
When you are online and you see an incoming attack that you want to avoid, you send your heroes on devil hunt just as the incoming attack is arriving. A similar technique can be applied when you are going offline. If you are going away for say 8 hrs, send your troops on a devil that is 4 hrs away. That way, your troops are not in city and cannot be wiped out when you are away. When you get back in 8 hrs, your troops would have just returned from a small victory.

If your hero has troop speed of 200, the longest dodge you can apply is about 14 hrs. So if you are going to be away for longer time, slow down your troops.

• Unequip your mount
• Group a fast hero with a slower one
• Equip the hero with a troop that is NOT his specialty.
  

4. Aiding
If you have a strong neighbor in your union, talk to him/her. Send your troops to his/her city and you can remand them when you get back. Ideally, you don't want this neighbor to be more than half an hour away, so that you don't have to wait too long when you are ready to play.

5. Hiding
This is a risky technique. You can send your heros to hide in mines, or crystal mines. If someone is out to get you, he'll probably be spying the mines near you, so you may have to send them to somewhere a little further. It takes effort to scan mines, but if discovered, those heroes will be fighting at a disadvantage, without walls, towers and mayor bonus. Use this sparingly and only when you need to take the chance. Of course, the further you hide, the longer you will have to wait when you are ready to play.

There is an option to recall troops faster, by the use of diamond tickets.



Resource protection

Resources are probably secondary, troops being much more important than resources. If you have heroes with troops, you can raid nearby cities for resources. But there are some ways you can protect your resources.

1. Storage
This is probably the easiest. You can set use storage to protect your resources, and you even get a storage bonus when you reach Nobility rank of Sir.

2. Protection Rune
Like protecting the troops, the protection rune can also be used. Again, you may want to send all resources to a single city, so that you only need to put the rune on one city.

3. Market
You can try to 'sell' your resources, and probably won't mind if they do get sold. And even if they are not sold, they are safely 'stored' in the market for 24 hours. When you need them, you can simply cancel the trade. At market level 30, you can have 16 trades. Each sale can be a maximum of 20k, so you can protect up to 320k of resources this way.

4. Sending resources
Also using the market, you can send resources between cities. This in some way depends on how far apart your cities are and how long you are going to be away. Each 'trade' allow you to send up to 100k of resources, 5 times more than selling, but once you send, you don't have access to the resources until it arrives. You cannot cancel a send.

5. Friendly raids
If you have friends nearby, you can ask them to raid you with 1 soldier, 4 times. The first raid will yield 20x troop count of each resource. The second raid yields 10x, the third yields 5x, and the forth yields 2x. Subsequently, each raid only yields 1x. This way, if even if an enemy sends in 3 x level 80 heroes (and each level 80 hero have 2850 troops), they can raid at most 8550 of each resource. This is far better than losing 171k of each resource.
This raid count is per player, so the friendly raid can be on any city, not necessarily on the city you want to protect. The raid count resets 8 hrs after the first raid, so this method applies only for a maximum of 8 hrs.

Devil Sweep Techniques

The devil sweep rankings got reset, and so this is probably a good time to write on this event. I barely got to the top spot with a 63 rounds lead, and am rather upset that it got reset. We received no notification, warnings or whatsoever, so my guess is that they will probably do this every year. For those who are new, I had written a beginner's guide here :
http://sislandec.blogspot.com/2010/12/devil-sweep.html
Enough nagging, on with techniques. There are 2 main techniques that I use :

Herding
Many players already know this, or use this technique, but the first time I hear the term 'herding' is from Bear. So I'll give him credit for naming this technique.
Round the week, you kill devils that are 20 squares or further. You do not kill those devils that are near. As the far devils get killed, there is a chance that it will reappear near you. When you repeat this, you can get a significant herd of devils near your city. That way, when the event start, you can use kill those near devils to complete each round quickly.

Preemptive Attack
This technique is probably more suitable for big players, or for smaller players who received aids.
The devils for each round is random, but sometimes you run low on a particular type. As the devils get further, you may want to send attacks out for next round before the current round is completed. Unless you have 13 extra heroes (one for each type), you will probably have to guess what the next round is. But random guess doesn't do so well. If you have a dark knight that is near, you don't have to make a guess on that type. Instead, you send preemptive attacks only for those types that are further.
So if you see that you have no seastrider near you, you may want to send an attack for that type. You want that attack to land only after the current round. So when the next round is revealed, and it includes a seastrider, you already have a good head start. If it does not, you have the option of recalling that attack (especially if the next seastrider is significantly further), and sending another hero to that same seastrider, again landing only after the current round.

Level 69

Many players feel a sigh of relieve when they get past level 69 and land on level 70. Some feelts it is psychological, but it is really the hardest level. At level 69, you need 1.2 mil exp to level up. That is more than the 1.198 mil exp needed to level up at level 79 to the max level of 80.
You can see it in the table below.

When you get past 69 to 70, it is also close enough to call it the halfway mark to the max level of 80. So if you feel that your hero is stuck at level 69, be patience, it is indeed the hardest level of all.

Level	Exp to level up	Total exp attained	Percentage of exp to level 80
1	186	0	0.00%
2	386	186	0.00%
3	602	572	0.00%
4	835	1174	0.01%
5	1087	2009	0.01%
6	1361	3096	0.01%
7	1659	4457	0.02%
8	1984	6116	0.03%
9	2339	8100	0.04%
10	2727	10439	0.05%
11	3151	13166	0.06%
12	3617	16317	0.08%
13	4128	19934	0.09%
14	4689	24062	0.11%
15	5306	28751	0.13%
16	5985	34057	0.16%
17	6732	40042	0.19%
18	7554	46774	0.22%
19	8459	54328	0.25%
20	9457	62787	0.29%
21	10556	72244	0.33%
22	11768	82800	0.38%
23	13103	94568	0.44%
24	14575	107671	0.50%
25	16196	122246	0.57%
26	17984	138442	0.64%
27	19954	156426	0.72%
28	22124	176380	0.82%
29	24516	198504	0.92%
30	27150	223020	1.03%
31	30051	250170	1.16%
32	33246	280221	1.30%
33	36764	313467	1.45%
34	40637	350231	1.62%
35	44898	390868	1.81%
36	49588	435766	2.02%
37	54747	485354	2.25%
38	60420	540101	2.50%
39	66659	600521	2.78%
40	73518	667180	3.09%
41	81056	740698	3.43%
42	89340	821754	3.80%
43	98441	911094	4.22%
44	108437	1009535	4.67%
45	119413	1117972	5.17%
46	131464	1237385	5.73%
47	144692	1368849	6.33%
48	159208	1513541	7.00%
49	175135	1672749	7.74%
50	192606	1847884	8.55%
51	211767	2040490	9.44%
52	232777	2252257	10.42%
53	255809	2485034	11.50%
54	281055	2740843	12.68%
55	308720	3021898	13.99%
56	339032	3330618	15.41%
57	372237	3669650	16.98%
58	408605	4041887	18.71%
59	448430	4450492	20.60%
60	450000	4898922	22.67%
61	465125	5348922	24.75%
62	480500	5814047	26.91%
63	496125	6294547	29.13%
64	512000	6790672	31.43%
65	528125	7302672	33.80%
66	544500	7830797	36.24%
67	561125	8375297	38.76%
68	578000	8936422	41.36%
69	1200000	9514422	44.03%
70	984000	10714422	49.59%
71	1006560	11698422	54.14%
72	1029440	12704982	58.80%
73	1052640	13734422	63.56%
74	1076160	14787062	68.43%
75	1100000	15863222	73.41%
76	1124160	16963222	78.50%
77	1148640	18087382	83.71%
78	1173440	19236022	89.02%
79	1198560	20409462	94.45%
80	1224000 (locked)	21608022	100.00%

Price to identify maps

Today, we (players in w5) just noticed a difference in prices to identify maps. It appears that this is dependent on a player's Nobility rank.

Nobility : Sir or lower
Ordinary Map (Black) : 200 gold
Excellent Map (Green) : 500 gold
Superior Map (Blue) : 1000 gold
Legend Map (Purple) : 100 diamonds (or tickets)

Nobility : Knight or higher
Ordinary Map (Black) : 100 gold
Excellent Map (Green) : 200 gold
Superior Map (Blue) : 500 gold
Legend Map (Purple) : 50 diamonds (or tickets)

Nobility : Marquis or higher
Ordinary Map (Black) : 50 gold
Excellent Map (Green) : 100 gold
Superior Map (Blue) : 200 gold
Legend Map (Purple) : 25 diamonds (or tickets)

Nobility : Prince
Ordinary Map (Black) : FREE
Excellent Map (Green) : 50 gold
Superior Map (Blue) : 100 gold
Legend Map (Purple) : 5 diamonds (or tickets)

Knight is still probably the most achievable rank, and good enough to identify blue maps at a discount. At prince, it might be worth the 5 tickets to identify the purple maps.

Credits :
Nuloej was the first to suggest that it may be rank related, and impimp proved that it was Nobility when he upgraded from Sir to Knight.
pectrox provided the update for Duke and Prince. (updated Feb-1, 2011).

Changing password

This should probably have been in the game's FAQ, but it is not. The reason being that password is tied to an account, which can be used to play any of the hithere games. As such, changing a password is not a game specific question, and not in the game's FAQ.

To change your password, go to this URL.
http://www.hithere.com

On that page, you should see a login form at the top right hand. Sign in.
After you sign in, again near the top right, you should see 3 buttons :
'Edit Profile', 'Edit Password', and 'Logout'.
Click on 'Edit Password', and you will find the form to change your password.

If at any point you suspect that your account is compromised, change your password.