Question Barracks of Mercs troops ?

[Gargon667]

Okay, now i will just take that Spire thing for itself here then; Where in the world do you find that Spire which is giving more than you put into it ??

I can tell you it's not mine. It takes tons of goods and gives back lousy fragments, coins or supply instants most of the time, My Spire does not add up. Ohh, and the fights, same problem. Dead, thrown out. Not worth it as mine is working ;-)

We just had a super long discussion on this (sorry don´t remember the title, but it can´t be far down), use the search function

Your spire is the same as everybody else´s spire, your town and playing style is what is different.

And yes there are tons of crappy rewards, too that doesn´t mean that when you look at the entire pile of rewards at the end of the week it isn´t a huge pile of goodies buried under a whole lot of junk (and even the junk comes for free, so why the heck not?)

 

[DeletedUser]

I can't speak to this as I autofight everything in the spire, but I think @Pauly7 caters?

This takes some time, planning, and a city that is focused on it to fix.

1. You need a little stash of 1,2, and 5h Timer instants (approx 80h total)*
2. You need 5-day booster buildings to make it easy (ideally 2x UUU + 1x ELR +1x MMM) Double the ELR&MMM if you don't have a Fire Bird.
3. You have to place those 5-day boosters on a Thursday or Friday so that you can make use of them for 2 whole spires
4. You should be in a FS that reaches the same reward level that you reach (bronze/silver/gold if you complete 1/2/3 floors)

Monastery, needles, and dragon abbey are important too as they serve the same function as the 5-day boosters.
*Rushing every gate with timers costs just under 80 hours worth but the spire rewards well over 100h worth so it's more than sustainable, and you can even use excess timers on your barracks to replace troops faster.

A question to clear this up. And it's very important to remember what i wrote initially, and repeated in my last comment i think; I'm in it for the FUN

This sound like something which costs as much as an entire tournament ?

Before i took my break from the game i a few times catered the first floor of the Spire. It costed a lot of goods and supplies. I don't know how it is now with the changes. But again, to return to my initial post, i want to add fighting to the game to take the pressure of producing a ton of goods which can be done because i can produce troops alongside the goods

And again, remember; It's only 10 provinces 6 rounds. And ONLY if there's an excess of goods and troops, they can be spend on more provinces or maybe the Spire. But again depending on the pay-back. I like KP's from provinces more than fragments, coin and supply instants

 

[Pauly7]

Many people think the Spire is not worth the cost when they have tried it a few times, but perhaps are not completing it and, more importantly, are not in a fellowship that are doing well in the spire. The majority of the worth comes from the team rewards paid out at the end of the week. If you're not aware of them, if you are in a fellowship that wins a spire gold medal then on a Friday night you can expect to win: 275 diamonds, 22 combining catalysts and 165 hours worth of time reducing instants.

The above are guaranteed, so long as your team does well. The individual rewards are more random, but if you go to the top then on average you can expect to win quite a few more diamonds, quite a few more combining catalysts and then a smattering of other things. Once every 10 weeks you should win a magic residence, once ever 20 weeks a magic workshop, you should win teleport spells most weeks, a Dwarven Armourer once every week or two, a Genie once every 10 weeks or so (maybe!) There are also quite a lot more time boosters to be found in the regular chests and mystery chests and of course there's the lesser prizes that we remember most, such as spell fragments, supplies instants, coin rains and portal profit spells. Most of these things should be beneficial to you. Even the spell fragments are crucial in order to keep crafting in the magic academy. So... indirectly many of these prizes then also lead to you being able to get the other temp combat buildings, pet foods and anything else that you can come to mention from the Magic Academy.

One of the best things about all these time instants that you are winning is that these can be used in your barracks or merc camp to produce more troops and so doing well in the spire also will improve your tournament output.

As @SoggyShorts says, it's all about being set up right for it, whether you choose to fight or cater. For me, I keep that separation, always fighting tournaments, always catering spires. I have the luxury of having quite a big goods output because of old school set buildings that pay out lots of goods, but I've also had to set up my city to give me boat loads of supplies, tools, mana, seeds, etc. However you decide to do it, it's always worth making the adjustments that you need to in order to do well in the spire, providing that you can get into a team that also has the same ambitions.

 

[DeletedUser]

We just had a super long discussion on this (sorry don´t remember the title, but it can´t be far down), use the search function

Your spire is the same as everybody else´s spire, your town and playing style is what is different.

And yes there are tons of crappy rewards, too that doesn´t mean that when you look at the entire pile of rewards at the end of the week it isn´t a huge pile of goodies buried under a whole lot of junk (and even the junk comes for free, so why the heck not?)

Again, like i commented on Soggy's, this sounds like what was not my initial request; It sounds like doing another tournament, or something that costs the same as a tournament. And that i don't need. I wanted an easier and more enjoyable game

 

[Pauly7]

There's always cost, of course, but if you're set up so it's comfortable then it doesn't have to be stressful or challenging. I cater my way up spires and my goods totals only go upwards. I have to spend a few diamonds completing the most difficult of the spire negotiations. I spend 75-100 diamonds each week that way, but it is always easily surpassed by what I'm winning in return. The biggest headache for me can be having enough coins and supplies when I need them, but once you've got a couple of magic workshops and residences and a good level Prosperity Towers it's not too troublesome to find the right balance. It's also helped a lot by all those coin rains and supplies instants you're winning.

 

[Gargon667]

Again, like i commented on Soggy's, this sounds like what was not my initial request; It sounds like doing another tournament, or something that costs the same as a tournament. And that i don't need. I wanted an easier and more enjoyable game

That is exactly what i call the spire I play it for the fun, because it is so much easier than my tourney is (which admittedly is difficult because I play a minimum of 10k points every week, so it wouldn´t be if I played less), and I really like the convincing mini game. I can play the spire just with a bit of cannonfodder troops and a few games of mastermind. And on top of that it gives me back so much more resources than I put in, so it is not only free, it makes extra resources, just for playing it. Can´t say there is anything more fun than a spire The fact that it makes tourneys easier is the icing on the cake!

 

[DeletedUser]

So how is it easier to fight in the Spire, which troops do you use ?

No matter what troops i use, they get beaten if there's two rounds. I might get away with it when there's only one round of fights.

I think the problem for us understanding each other, is that we have different value place upon what's an easy and fun game, and how much time and stress what amount of production is.

To me, this limit is hit rather hard catering 10 provinces 6 rounds. It forces (or forced) me to run 4*3-hour + 1*9-hour factory production. I actually don't remember how many factories i had. I think i had 6 of each tier at highest level. Then of course came the Mermaids event. I have 4, so the give me over 100k T1 each day. I have only two plank factories at level 17, and i'm actually thinking of killing them. Then i only need to focus on T2 + T3. Which i hope with combined fighting could be done with 3 of each. Then there's of course the needed Sentient, but that's a different story, and not needed in tournament, though in the Spire.

Then there's of course the changes, so i don't know exactly how many goods is needed.

Regarding troops, as i wrote earlier, my Sword Acrobats performs very well. How is the Venom Drone Rider compared ?

And is the an equivalent in the Training Grounds that has the same skills ?

 

[Pauly7]

No matter what troops i use, they get beaten if there's two rounds. I might get away with it when there's only one round of fights.

Yep, double or triple round battles can be prohibitively difficult if you're not ready for them. The quickest solution to fighting these is to be ready with military buffs - i.e. place dwarven armourers, unleashed unit upgrades, enlightened light ranges or magnificent mage multipliers (can't believe I just spelled those out longhand, haha), or any combination of the above. I can't remember if you said you had a fire phoenix. If you do then it needs to be fed. If you don't the spire will be bolt hard to fight.

Playing the longer game you really need those supporting AWs to be upgraded. I would advise concentrating on getting all of Martial Monastery, Needles of the Tempest and Temple of the Toads up to at least level 11 and see how it feels from there. Of course you will need more troops too so Flying Academy, Shrooms and/or Bulwark will have to follow suit.... it's a never ending cycle!

You will also get more troop variation in spire encounters so it is even more important to be able to do some manual fighting.

Spire catering is easier to accomplish in the shorter term or medium term, I think.

 

[Gargon667]

So how is it easier to fight in the Spire, which troops do you use ?

No matter what troops i use, they get beaten if there's two rounds. I might get away with it when there's only one round of fights.

I think the problem for us understanding each other, is that we have different value place upon what's an easy and fun game, and how much time and stress what amount of production is.

To me, this limit is hit rather hard catering 10 provinces 6 rounds. It forces (or forced) me to run 4*3-hour + 1*9-hour factory production. I actually don't remember how many factories i had. I think i had 6 of each tier at highest level. Then of course came the Mermaids event. I have 4, so the give me over 100k T1 each day. I have only two plank factories at level 17, and i'm actually thinking of killing them. Then i only need to focus on T2 + T3. Which i hope with combined fighting could be done with 3 of each. Then there's of course the needed Sentient, but that's a different story, and not needed in tournament, though in the Spire.

Then there's of course the changes, so i don't know exactly how many goods is needed.

Regarding troops, as i wrote earlier, my Sword Acrobats performs very well. How is the Venom Drone Rider compared ?

And is the an equivalent in the Training Grounds that has the same skills ?

Well if you run 5 collections a day on your factories, you have all the activity you need. The problem is that catering starts out rather OK, but gets less efficient the further you progress in the game, meaning it takes a lot of effort for rather little result. In double digit chapters I wouldn´t bother thinking about catering as my main way of playing tourneys. If you put the same amount of activity into your fighting career you´ll have a much easier time achieving the same (or better) result.

I would suggest you spend that time reading up on fighting. Check out all the units, go play around with them and really check how well they do in the fights.
You´ve said a few times that your Sword Dancers are doing well. There can be the occasional fight where they don´t all die and actually win, yes, but that is not the norm. They really are the worst unit in the game and it is rare that no other units would do better. So I would suggest you need more reading and trying things Do a bit of that and if you find fights that you cannot win or that produce unexpected results, post some screenshots, maybe we can help with the explaining.

Both other LM units, Drone Riders (Merc Camp) and Dogs (Training grounds) are better than Sword Dancers, but they are still among the worst units in the game, because LM units in general are the weakest type of units. Dogs would be the best of the worst which doesn´t actually make them good, but they at least can be used in the occasional fight.

 

[Deleted User - 341074]

This sound like something which costs as much as an entire tournament ?

Honestly, I'm not sure, I'll check on Friday. As per your first post "an entire tournament" is 10x6, right?

I like KP's from provinces more than fragments, coin and supply instants

I think almost everyone does, but it's a very rare player who would trade 1,000 diamonds for a few dozen KP.

 

[BlueBlou]

I think I see where the arguments about gaining more from the spire can cause confusion. It all depends on what you consider valuable. If you look at goods, like I do, no, the spire is a drain. You do not get more crystal from the spire than you had to use to progress up the spire. You get other rewards and it is the other rewards one will have to consider whether it is worthwhile or not. For certain aspects of the game, you do need what the spire can give to be in a better position than you were before. Again, that will be on the individual on what is important for him or her.

 

[CrazyWizard]

Well if you run 5 collections a day on your factories, you have all the activity you need. The problem is that catering starts out rather OK, but gets less efficient the further you progress in the game, meaning it takes a lot of effort for rather little result. In double digit chapters I wouldn´t bother thinking about catering as my main way of playing tourneys. If you put the same amount of activity into your fighting career you´ll have a much easier time achieving the same (or better) result.

I would suggest you spend that time reading up on fighting. Check out all the units, go play around with them and really check how well they do in the fights.
You´ve said a few times that your Sword Dancers are doing well. There can be the occasional fight where they don´t all die and actually win, yes, but that is not the norm. They really are the worst unit in the game and it is rare that no other units would do better. So I would suggest you need more reading and trying things Do a bit of that and if you find fights that you cannot win or that produce unexpected results, post some screenshots, maybe we can help with the explaining.

Both other LM units, Drone Riders (Merc Camp) and Dogs (Training grounds) are better than Sword Dancers, but they are still among the worst units in the game, because LM units in general are the weakest type of units. Dogs would be the best of the worst which doesn´t actually make them good, but they at least can be used in the occasional fight.

Ill cater everything on all my accounts on all worlds.
You need a sink for all those goods you produce anyway, where else are you going to spend it on?

There are 3 goods thats are most "troublesome" for most caterers

• mana
• seeds
• orcs

Orcs I try to cater around as much as I can, but do not expect to get away with the production of 1 armory a week. you'll need a few 3-4 maybe?
Mana and seeds can be solved with event buildings.

Don't expect to be able to cater yourself efficiently to the top in the first week, it takes a bit of time to adopt your city.
Like other parts of the game, see whats your bottleneck and then fix that bottleneck.

For supplies you can use the spells you win in the tournaments to boost your workshops. ensorcelled boosts both your workshop and your cities coin production. it also double whammies with the supply spell as each 5% from the ensorcelled spell gets a 150-200% bonus from the supply spell.

The easiest way to get to the top of the spire is if you play the tournament beyond the minimum and the spire.

The tournements give you the spells you need to effectively cater the spire, the spire give you the timeboosters you need to make more units for the tournament. those in turn give you more spells for the spire ect.

Playing just 1 part makes it a lot harder (but not impossible) to do.

 

[Deleted User - 341074]

I think I see where the arguments about gaining more from the spire can cause confusion. It all depends on what you consider valuable. If you look at goods, like I do, no, the spire is a drain. You do not get more crystal from the spire than you had to use to progress up the spire. You get other rewards and it is the other rewards one will have to consider whether it is worthwhile or not. For certain aspects of the game, you do need what the spire can give to be in a better position than you were before. Again, that will be on the individual on what is important for him or her.

Indeed, it's significantly easier to compare using fighting.

Use barracks time to make troops = Use timers won in the spire to replace said troops
Use supplies in barracks = use supply instants won in the spire to restock
Use MMM/ELR/UUU = use CCs and SF won in the spire to replenish.

But what beats everything for me is -->use diamonds won in the spire to get anything you want.

 

[BlueBlou]

The tournements give you the spells you need to effectively cater the spire.

I find that not completely true as the number of MMs you can gain from a tournament is limited. Whether you do 10 provinces for 6 rounds or 40 provinces for 6 rounds, you get the exact same reward if you are in a fs that get 10 chests.

Using 18 MM can go very quickly, which will mean that you will need to craft more in the MA from relics. Unless you play a lot of provinces in tourney, your relics will run out eventually, especially seeing as the MM requires the same relic as a CC in crafting.

 

[Pauly7]

I find that not completely true as the number of MMs you can gain from a tournament is limited. Whether you do 10 provinces for 6 rounds or 40 provinces for 6 rounds, you get the exact same reward if you are in a fs that get 10 chests.

But the tournament does provide buckets of PoP and EE spells which are both usually vital for Spire catering as these are what is going to increase your supplies and coins output.

 

[CrazyWizard]

I find that not completely true as the number of MMs you can gain from a tournament is limited. Whether you do 10 provinces for 6 rounds or 40 provinces for 6 rounds, you get the exact same reward if you are in a fs that get 10 chests.

Using 18 MM can go very quickly, which will mean that you will need to craft more in the MA from relics. Unless you play a lot of provinces in tourney, your relics will run out eventually, especially seeing as the MM requires the same relic as a CC in crafting.

If you need MM to sustain the spire, adjust your town and build an extra factory.

But the tournament does provide buckets of PoP and EE spells which are both usually vital for Spire catering as these are what is going to increase your supplies and coins output.

Especially supplies you can use as a "throwaway good" this saves you on other more rare goods.

 

[DeletedUser]

Well, back on track with fighting

Thank you @SoggyShorts @Pauly7 @Gargon667 @CrazyWizard and the rest for comments too

From having done some fights(auto) now, both in my chapter 11 and 15 city, i'm in line with @Pauly7 on fighting the tournament and catering the Spire. I goes pretty easy actually auto fighting tournament. 90% or so of the first 5 rounds 10 provinces was won on auto fight. It's interesting those mixed why they are so hard when parring the fitting troops one still get a beating.

Treants have been really good, and so has Sword Acrobats. I know some of you hate them, but they do the job in my fights. Venom Drone Rider has also been good. Ranger and Archers sucked the most. Then Blossom Mage 2 and Blossom Princess have been good as well

I like that it doesn't cost me several 100K's goods

I can see the point of the new FS wins from the Spire, time instants. Not for troops production as many of you use them for. But again, i'm only going for 10 provinces, so i don't need that many. So i love them for upgrading buildings. And i do need to do a lot of this at the moment. So maybe in a couple of months when all military production buildings upgraded and the AW's too have reached a good level, if there's time instants building up, they can be used for something else then

I actually find this task interesting, mixed catering and fighting. I have a lot of space in my cities and getting done what i want i tournament. I though still need to use a little more space for sentient production, and of course for settlement buildings. But i'm going small on that, so it leaves room for FA extra production too

And thank you for your stat @Pauly7 i'll have a closer look at that and see how it fits with the tournaments i play

 

[Pauly7]

i'm in line with @Pauly7 on fighting the tournament and catering the Spire. I goes pretty easy actually auto fighting tournament.

I think it's a good choice. It works for me (and, I think, CrazyWiz as well). It's good to be able to compartmentalise what you need your resources for and how much. After all, we're making goods, so might as well use them on something. Then you can track how much of each resource your Spire runs need, then make necessary adjustments. For me, I had to make massive adjustments to the amount of coins and supplies I was making, but anything's possible.

Treants have been really good, and so has Sword Acrobats. I know some of you hate them, but they do the job in my fights. Venom Drone Rider has also been good. Ranger and Archers sucked the most. Then Blossom Mage 2 and Blossom Princess have been good as well

I like that it doesn't cost me several 100K's goods

I still can't quite figure out what you're trying here. When you say you think Acrobats and Treants are doing well compared to the others, are you picking the right troops for each battle, or just indiscriminately using the same ones and seeing how far they go?

If you're playing on PC, a good tip is that when you are at the troop choosing screen, hover your mouse over one of your own troops and it will highlight how many of the enemies that troop will be effective against. It will light up the two types which it's actually strong against, plus any that are the same troop types. Ignore the latter, but when autofighting you are looking to pick the troop of yours that lights up at least 3, and preferably 4 of the enemy's troops.... So, for example, if you hover your mouse over your Heavy Melee troops and the enemy line up is made up of 2 x Light Melee, 2 x Heavy Ranged and 1 x Mages, you will see those LM and HR troops light up blue and yellow, respectively, and you think to yourself - OK these HM of mine are good against 4 of theirs, so I'm fine to use HM on this fight.

On another occasion, perhaps all of the enemies are Mages. Then when you hover your mouse over your Rangers you will see all 5 light up pink. In this scenario I 100% guarantee you that your Rangers will do 10 times as well as your Sword Acrobats will.

 

[CrazyWizard]

Well, back on track with fighting

Thank you @SoggyShorts @Pauly7 @Gargon667 @CrazyWizard and the rest for comments too

From having done some fights(auto) now, both in my chapter 11 and 15 city, i'm in line with @Pauly7 on fighting the tournament and catering the Spire. I goes pretty easy actually auto fighting tournament. 90% or so of the first 5 rounds 10 provinces was won on auto fight. It's interesting those mixed why they are so hard when parring the fitting troops one still get a beating.

Treants have been really good, and so has Sword Acrobats. I know some of you hate them, but they do the job in my fights. Venom Drone Rider has also been good. Ranger and Archers sucked the most. Then Blossom Mage 2 and Blossom Princess have been good as well

I like that it doesn't cost me several 100K's goods

I can see the point of the new FS wins from the Spire, time instants. Not for troops production as many of you use them for. But again, i'm only going for 10 provinces, so i don't need that many. So i love them for upgrading buildings. And i do need to do a lot of this at the moment. So maybe in a couple of months when all military production buildings upgraded and the AW's too have reached a good level, if there's time instants building up, they can be used for something else then

I actually find this task interesting, mixed catering and fighting. I have a lot of space in my cities and getting done what i want i tournament. I though still need to use a little more space for sentient production, and of course for settlement buildings. But i'm going small on that, so it leaves room for FA extra production too

And thank you for your stat @Pauly7 i'll have a closer look at that and see how it fits with the tournaments i play

Without booster buildings the combat triangle ain't great but it ain't completely wrong either so things like treants and sword acrobats do work.
a long long long time ago in some non-sensible battles I used treants as they just worked with there massive HP. especially in the old unit format.

But we use buildings like:
Fire Phoenix, Enlightened Ranged and the mage version. and this changes the entire game to ranged only.
Sword acrobats work (better than axe warriors) in certain battles but there losses are always bigger than anything else. this doesn't mean there useless. but there usefullness is limited.

We like to get the maximum result with the least input, and light melee needs too much input compared to other options.

This changes the entire game

 

[CrazyWizard]

I think it's a good choice. It works for me (and, I think, CrazyWiz as well).

I autofight almost everything, except during marble and steel tournament there I (partially) manually combat more than half the battles.
Those are the tournaments I still achieve somewhat old school results. but those are fun to manually battle as they are pretty rewarding (many 0 casualties battles or else little)