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.