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Mercenary Camp

Pauly7

Magus
Apologies if this has already been discussed elsewhere, but I don't recall it.

Most tournament players seem to agree that at higher game levels the troops from the Merc Camp are far superior to those from the Barracks. I have always maintained that until the point the Barracks training speed has reached maximum then it would be counter productive to work on the Merc Camp and Flying Academy as you would be needlessly capping the number of troops that you can produce. For that reason I have, until this point, never used the Mercenary Camp.

Now that my Needles has maxed (aside from the top 4 levels, which I will shelve for the time being), what I am wondering is - does anyone have any data or experience on exactly how much better the Merc Camp troops are compared to Barracks? The reason I ask is, as I am now working through Flying Academy levels I will still not be producing those troops because there will still be far fewer of them coming off the production line. What I am trying to get at is - is there a specific tipping point where it is worth starting to use the Merc Camp, even though the Flying Academy is still at a lower level than the Needles?
 

Julian

Sorcerer
I don't have any hard data. However, when I reached a 3 star blossom mage and a 2 star frog, I found these became my most powerful troops. They both have long attack ranges. This allows them to hold back and attack at a distance beyond the fire of the opposition. You can often do battles with only minor losses. Therefore, your calculations must include more than just training speed.
 

CrazyWizard

Shaman
First of all it depends on your race how effecive this one is, it's especially effective for elves.

Human:
  • Barbarian vs Drone Ride: both suck, I do not know how much the one sucks more than the other, I just know both have a hard time, I could see no benefit last time I tried drone riders
  • Crossbowmen vs Ranger, Ranger has a lower HP, but higher damage, beter movement and more importantly its special power is extremely superior to the crossbowmens power. it also has a really high bonus vs mages as these are the main problem units as an enemy.
  • Priest vs Blossom Mage: the priest is far superior, it's only "weakness" is heavy melee, and those don't get even close enough to the priest to land a blow. it has higher damage, higher HP, improved special powers, and has a better defence and attack vs heavy ranges, which actually can hit you.
  • Paladin vs Valorian: These 2 trading blows, the one has the advantage at kristal tournament and the other at the silk tournament. they are very similar.
  • Mortar vs Frog Prince: Every human players knows how much the mortar sucks, the frog prince is amazing, the only real difference is it's power. but that change in special power was enough for a nerf to this unit, while the mortar can't even hurt a fly. you should just for this unit alone build it as it makes humans a viable force to be reckoned with in the 2 heavy ranged tournament instead of being laughing stock.
Elves:
  • Sworddancer vs Drone Ride: both suck, I do not know how much the one sucks more than the other, I just know both have a hard time, I could see no benefit last time I tried drone riders
  • Archer vs Ranger: Archers are good, but rangers in general are slightly better. both will work, but I prefer the ranger as it's extra move usually outperforms it's weak HP., in some matchups that extra move is citical, it also allows it to work better with terrain, creating more stable results.
  • Sorceres vs Blossom: Sorceres lacks range, as soon as it moves in for the kill it brings itself into range of harm, with 5 range the blossom will have 2 turn to do twice the damage to the enemy before getting itself in harms way, this makes it vastly more superior. blossom is a poor mans priest but when you have no priest it's the best alternative, where sorceres is no alternative all. it's similar to, but not in as bad as the position of the human mortar.
  • Treant vs Valorian: Valorian has much less HP but it has 1 main advantage, the +1 range hit. this makes it much more able to handle enemy sorceress units(who have 1 more range than the elven version) as is always able to hit them back. Because of this 1 range it is also able to handle the map obstacles much better, treants generate full-loss on autocombat based on the map where it's AI can't seem to handle the sorceres, even with 125% HP, it just makes dumb moves giving the enemey sorceres free reign to kill him as he will never ever ever gets into damage range. the valorian on the other hand, I never had a single autoloss with them.
  • Golem vs Frog Prince: both rock, with the mayor range advantage tot the frog prince, in some cases golems are still superior, but in many cases the frog prince will have almost no, or 0 losses, a feat the golems cannot achieve. they are also great units in some non heavy range tournaments, where certain encounters they just work for example marble encounters where the golems still incurr heavy losses, the frog prince deals with it with flair thanks to it's superior range as it will reign spit onto the enemy before it can shoot back.
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Pauly7

Magus
Many thanks both and tons of useful info as usual @CrazyWizard.

My city is Human. So it seems the only areas I really need to be concerned with here are Light Ranged and, particularly, Heavy Ranged. Between those it seems that there is not a huge difference in LR, so presumably I am still better with Crossbowmen until the Flying Academy has at least almost caught up with the Needles.

So Heavy Ranged becomes the real point here. Clearly those frogs are much much better, but how many frogs, in comparison, would you like to be producing before you considered it viable to be training them? For example, if I were able to produce 50% more Mortars than Frogs, would that cumulative Mortar force still be superior? Sorry, I know I could eventually get there myself by experimenting, but if anyone has a steer on that it may help me a lot.
 

CrazyWizard

Shaman
Yes crossbowmen arent useless they will do untill you get at least close in training comparison.
As for the frogs, lets make it simpel, any fight you cannot win it doesnt matter how much mortars you can trow at it, it just won't work.
The frog prince will win those fight for you so even a slow produced frog is still better than a trillion mortars.

So as long as you can get away with your mortars use them (if you have a decent leveled temple of toads this would suffice in most of your mortar production) then switch to frog prince and get as much out of it as you can as they will win actual battles
 

Pauly7

Magus
It's not quite so cut and dried because those unwinnable fights become winnable once the right number of Armourers or UUUs have been thrown into the mix. I realise, though, that this is a finite source so I can't necessarily always tool myself up as much as I would need. Temple of the Toads helps as well, as you say.
 

Gargon667

Mentor
As usual there is no exact answer.

The advantages of the units are very nicely outlined above already, nothing to add. Maybe for the record: I think the Drone Rider is slightly better because of the higher movement range, but it still does not make it strong enough to use as a go to unit for anything. I wholeheartedly agree to ignore all LM units completely and only use them if the game throws them at you for free, in which case you obviously use whichever one you get. But don´t waste your production queue on them :)

What I in your place would do: Keep a bunch of squads of Frogs around no matter how slow (so you can win the fights you loose with Cannons). But do the bulk of fights with the barrack troops. Same of course you can do with Rangers (for those Mage only encounters). As the crazy wiz pointed out: it doesn´t matter how slow a unit is produced if you have 0 losses.
But since most (auto)fights lead to some kind of losses, go for the one that is faster as a general rule and switch to the slower /stronger unit when the difference in losses becomes significant. It is a good idea to experiment: You´ll see how many more Cannons you loose vs how many Frogs you loose when doing similar fights (of course variation is big, so do lots), that may help you guess when the best time for switching over for good is.
 

CrazyWizard

Shaman
I still like the cerberus, I do not want to ignore 2 tournaments because the units suck.

Also my training method is defferently since I use brown bear(s).

I found out that if you add 100% HP boosters that those LM units somewhat perform like regular units (without that boost) and I use free sworddancers as long as possible and then switch to the cerberus, training is is issue, since the all train about the same speed for me (balance those wonders)

Now as for training I can train 3x 5-6 stacks of units before I need to pick them up (using my bears)
So I fill up the 5 slots of for example the training grounds, when the first stack finishes and timewise it's possible I try to keep the training grounds open and add a "6th" stack when the first one finishes.
I then add 5 stacks to the mercenary camp, again if possible timewise I add a 6th stack agaian.
Then again with the barracks, when I set the barracks (with or without 6th stack) I set a timer on my phone, as you will no longer be able to see how long the training time takes.

When that time is finished I activate my bear(s) and pick up all the units with bear bonus, I then use my stack of timeboosters from the spire to create more units in my mercenary camp (or if I need more cerberus in the training grounds) untill the bear is done and I used my time booster allotment for that time.

Then the whole cycle starts over again.
This way I am amble to squeeze out a lot more units for my tournaments and for a human it's near perfectly allotted.

Priest and paladin in the barracks, ranger and frogs in the mercenary camp and cerberus in the training grounds.
this allows the most amount of units with the least amount of pet food. (unless you have 5-6-7 brown bears then the equasion changes)
 

m4rt1n

Adept
Forest Rangers I find far superior to Crossbowmen and Poison Dryad at max levels 3***. Also the Frog Prince at max 3* is a no brainer, it is far superior as a heavy ranged especially against 3* Dogs, wipes them out. Human City also, I only train Forest Rangers and Frog Princes in my Mercenary Camp but would not be without them now I also have a decent training speed from the Flying Academy AW.
 

Gargon667

Mentor
I still like the cerberus, I do not want to ignore 2 tournaments because the units suck.

I found out that if you add 100% HP boosters that those LM units somewhat perform like regular units (without that boost) and I use free sworddancers as long as possible and then switch to the cerberus, training is is issue, since the all train about the same speed for me (balance those wonders)

Why would you ignore 2 tourneys without dogs? I assume you talk about Scroll/Dust? Rangers (even Archers) are just as good as dogs in both tourneys (I would argue Rangers are actually better)

Sure 100% extra HP makes LM suck less, but 100% HP boost makes just as much sense if you use other units instead. The HR enemy is specialized against LM units, making any encounter where you have to fight HR a bad choice for dogs. leaving only encounters against LR/Mages and IMO Rangers are much better to deal with these than dogs (especially because they are boostable with ELR). There are only few encounters where I would prefer dogs over either Golems or Rangers. The difference doesn´t warrant having an extra lvl 30 AW (Vic Springs) in my eyes. Once above 500 AW levels and you have to level crappy AWs anyway, one might as well get the Vic Springs just for those few encounters, sure, but that is not anything relevant for most people.
 

CrazyWizard

Shaman
* Jar jar binks voice* Me sa want me knowledge points, me sa don't care which tournament is running, me sa want all

I am not running away from any challeng :cool:
 

AstralSoul

Illusionist
When your Needles is at level 31 and you are at Sorcerers and Dragons, trust me... you will use no dogs...
 

CrazyWizard

Shaman
When your Needles is at level 31 and you are at Sorcerers and Dragons, trust me... you will use no dogs...

lol thats quite the edge case.
And yeah I find dogs not really viable untill you unlocked and leveld the victory springs, so thats after elementals. it's another mayor drawback of the training grounds it's "booster" is way to late in game
 

m4rt1n

Adept
Get the Flying Academy at 10+ and the Mercenary camp comes into its own, comparable training speeds that go overnight with a Barracks and level 16+ Needles. Better choice of troops for combat in different tournaments.

Frog Prince disseminate any Dogs and the Forest Warden is superior even to human 3* Crossbowmen in my opinion. Elves get the Blossom Mage, the best Elven Mage in my opinion but still not quite as good as the human 3* Priest.
 

CrazyWizard

Shaman
Get the Flying Academy at 10+ and the Mercenary camp comes into its own, comparable training speeds that go overnight with a Barracks and level 16+ Needles. Better choice of troops for combat in different tournaments.

Frog Prince disseminate any Dogs and the Forest Warden is superior even to human 3* Crossbowmen in my opinion. Elves get the Blossom Mage, the best Elven Mage in my opinion but still not quite as good as the human 3* Priest.

This sounds like you think the crossbowmen are superior to archers?
Because I can't share that opinion, since archer have defense breaking abilities where the crossbowmen have the attack reducing power I don't think these 2 are even in the same league. the archer is far superior.

I think the 2* forest warden is a decent matchup for the crossbowmen with both there weakness and advantages while the 3* forest waren is also way out of the crossbowmen's league
 

Paladestar

Enchanter
This sounds like you think the crossbowmen are superior to archers?
Because I can't share that opinion, since archer have defense breaking abilities where the crossbowmen have the attack reducing power I don't think these 2 are even in the same league. the archer is far superior.

I think the 2* forest warden is a decent matchup for the crossbowmen with both there weakness and advantages while the 3* forest waren is also way out of the crossbowmen's league

Archers' biggest problem is their lack of defense to mages. They do not reduce the damage from mages at all, so while Archers can really hurt mages, they are also still vulnerable to mages. A full hit from a mage, with no damage reduction, hurts like hell and it hurts a lot more if one mage debuffs your Archer's defense before the others then hit it. Unless the battleground layout allows your Archers to kill or severely harm the enemy mages on round one of a battle, you're gonna have a bad time with Archers.
 
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