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Tournament Strategies

Silly Bubbles

Necromancer
Hi, I haven't focused on tournament much so far as my priority is progress in the research but now when I hit Ch18, I'd love to improve my tournament. At this moment, I'm consistently averaging 2k without dwarven armorers etc from 4 rounds with only level 7 Martial Monastery.

So far the only strategy I have is to start building army related AWs and try my best to balance them out so I don't have to use too many of them as too high number of AW upgrades will grow the enemy squad size too much and will make my score worse rather than improve it. By balancing I mean to make sure that I get the most out of my troops without inefficiencies eg losing too early and being left with too many troops or winning too much and running out of troops too early (there's no point in having strong but small army).

I'd love to hear what your strategy is, any tips or other things that I need to consider to improve my tournament.
 

kurgkurg

Conjurer
improve military AW-s - Simia is the best Aw in game, but you need much more to get good results in tourney. Also, improve your troops training time, best to have it over 20h to use all time boosters for more troops. Mercenary camp is the key, those troops are the best.
Ch 18 fighting is much harder than ch 15/16, but possible to do better :)
For hard-core fighting best to delete all non-military AW-s, but you cant get back in ch 16 :)
 

Far Reach

Conjurer
Hi, I haven't focused on tournament much so far as my priority is progress in the research but now when I hit Ch18, I'd love to improve my tournament. At this moment, I'm consistently averaging 2k without dwarven armorers etc from 4 rounds with only level 7 Martial Monastery.

Have you experimented with manual fighting ? Even if you don't manually fight much, the insights gained from it can help a lot with troop selection when auto fighting. It is also useful to understand which the hardest battles are going to be (e.g. so you can cater them).

Ranged troops (Mages, LR and HR) tend to be the most effective, particularly if accompanied by building boosts (from wonders, expired booster buildings and/or the Fire Phoenix).

As @kurgkurg suggests, try to keep your troop production buildings busy all of the time. Having long duration training queues is easily achieved by adding armouries.

The Timewarp Wonder (or fed Polar Bears) will reduce your round time and allow you to do the full 6 rounds. This is much more efficient in terms of score and troop costs than doing more provinces for fewer rounds.
 

Far Reach

Conjurer
Ch 18 fighting is much harder than ch 15/16, but possible to do better :)

Looking at ElvenStats, you have tournament cities both in chapters 16 and 18, and the main difference between them seems to be the research level. I'm interested in just much harder you think C18 is than C16. (How do your Squad Sizes, and Training Speeds compare ?)
 

Turing

Bard
as too high number of AW upgrades will grow the enemy squad size too much and will make my score worse rather than improve it.

Regarding this specifically: the better combat AW will always be beneficial for all players. You're in a situation where the cost of AW is quite high compared to average (Ch18, but moderate number of AW levels currently), but even so the benefits massively outweight the costs. For example upgrading needles and flying academy from 0 to 30 will add 15% to your squad size. But will add 100% to your 2 biggest troop sources - probably adding something like 60%-75% to your total troop training. Oh, and you'd get free mages and a LR damage boost as well.

So upgrades to wonders like needles, monastery, one of bulwark/shrooms, flying academy, toads and simia sapiens are always beneficial to level 30 (beyond L30 they sometimes give little benefit)
Some others (heroes forge, victory springs, pyramid) give similar benefits, but are aiding melee troops and the training camp - which tend to be the least useful. So whether these are worth it depends how much you think you'll use their troops. The squad size cost of them is not prohibitive.
Dragon Abbey may be less useful than it seems - mages are great, but you can get bigger damage boosts from the temporary buildings.

Regarding general strategy, I'd suggest:
Craft every combat building (ELR, MMM, UUU) in the MA that you can now. Even if not using them yet, there's no limit on how many you can store. These are crucial to success. And, before pushing hard, you can take time to figure out when you would use them. Different tournaments benefit from different ones.
I would also suggest removing almost all your culture buildings (not pop+culture ones) to increase your manufacturies as much as possible - having good production to be able to cater the tricky matchups is helpful. With fighting there is huge variability in cost - some enemy troop combinations you can beat almost without loss; others are painful no matter what you do.

And what Far Reach said about doing SOME manual fighting. The bonuses troops get against each other is not the whole story; the way the battle will play out matters.
 
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Gargon667

Mentor
My absolutely most important AW is TWarp, which (especially together with a Polar Bear) will reduce the tourney cooldown between rounds so far that you can squeeze 2 tourneys into 5 days, which instantly doubles the Power of all 5 day booster buildings. I think that is the biggest possible boost any military AW can give.
After that I think Flying Academy and Simia Sapiens are best to make more of the by far best troops anyone has available. Needles, Dragon Abbey, Toads and Martial Monastery/Sanctuary are all going to improve your tourney play. Everything is more likely to have no (for a few that help a little, like VicSprings, Forge) or negative impact on your score, but of course some are good enough to keep anyway, like Shrooms, GA, MHalls, PTowers...

As for strategy in fighting, that will be a much longer topic...
 

CrazyWizard

Shaman
My absolutely most important AW is TWarp, which (especially together with a Polar Bear) will reduce the tourney cooldown between rounds so far that you can squeeze 2 tourneys into 5 days, which instantly doubles the Power of all 5 day booster buildings. I think that is the biggest possible boost any military AW can give.
After that I think Flying Academy and Simia Sapiens are best to make more of the by far best troops anyone has available. Needles, Dragon Abbey, Toads and Martial Monastery/Sanctuary are all going to improve your tourney play. Everything is more likely to have no (for a few that help a little, like VicSprings, Forge) or negative impact on your score, but of course some are good enough to keep anyway, like Shrooms, GA, MHalls, PTowers...

As for strategy in fighting, that will be a much longer topic...
Not to mention tournaments are a lot more fun if you do not need to schedule them but can just blast trough them and rake in hundreds of kp in half an hour to an hour or so.
 

Gargon667

Mentor
Not to mention tournaments are a lot more fun if you do not need to schedule them but can just blast trough them and rake in hundreds of kp in half an hour to an hour or so.

For me it´s more like: "it´s Saturday evening and I haven´t started my tourney yet!!! ARRRRRGGGGHHHH now I have do do silly thousands of clicks while watching a movie....
 
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Gargon667

Mentor
oh and then the wednesday evening after: "the boosters running out, more silly thousands of clicks even faster", while watching another movie
 
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Turing

Bard
My absolutely most important AW is TWarp, which (especially together with a Polar Bear) will reduce the tourney cooldown between rounds so far that you can squeeze 2 tourneys into 5 days, which instantly doubles the Power of all 5 day booster buildings. I think that is the biggest possible boost any military AW can give.

Although I agree with this, it is a bit all or nothing. To do this needs a pretty much max timewarp; anything under around L25 and you can't do the 2 tourney's in one 5-day building duration and the strategy fails. Which is the way with the timewarp - it can change the way you do the tourney, but it's usually all or nothing for a particular effect. Adding a level at random may hurt rather than help.

OP, if you currently have few combat AWs I'd suggest starting with some of the others, while figuring out what you want from the timewarp. Doing 6 rounds requires doing 2 in one day at some point. A lowish timewarp or a polar bear help with that a lot. A somewhat higher timewarp might mean you can do 3 rounds in one chicken feed. And then there's the max timewarp which lets you do 2 tourneys inside 5 days. But all these depend a bit on your schedule. For the timewarp it's very much a case of deciding what you want from it, and then upgrading it enough to achieve it. Random TW upgrades won't help in the way that ANY upgrade of some of the other AWs is always beneficial.
 

CrazyWizard

Shaman
Although I agree with this, it is a bit all or nothing. To do this needs a pretty much max timewarp; anything under around L25 and you can't do the 2 tourney's in one 5-day building duration and the strategy fails. Which is the way with the timewarp - it can change the way you do the tourney, but it's usually all or nothing for a particular effect. Adding a level at random may hurt rather than help.

OP, if you currently have few combat AWs I'd suggest starting with some of the others, while figuring out what you want from the timewarp. Doing 6 rounds requires doing 2 in one day at some point. A lowish timewarp or a polar bear help with that a lot. A somewhat higher timewarp might mean you can do 3 rounds in one chicken feed. And then there's the max timewarp which lets you do 2 tourneys inside 5 days. But all these depend a bit on your schedule. For the timewarp it's very much a case of deciding what you want from it, and then upgrading it enough to achieve it. Random TW upgrades won't help in the way that ANY upgrade of some of the other AWs is always beneficial.
Do not forget the power of the icebear.
This gives you another 10-20% off depending on it's level (it starts at 10% at level 1)
This allows you to do double tournaments much earlier more like level 20.
 

kurgkurg

Conjurer
Looking at ElvenStats, you have tournament cities both in chapters 16 and 18, and the main difference between them seems to be the research level. I'm interested in just much harder you think C18 is than C16. (How do your Squad Sizes, and Training Speeds compare ?)
my ch 18 isn't tournament city :) its just for research. I like to play different cities :)

you can see differences in results in my A-world tourney city and W-world research city. F-world is FA city, it's not pure fighting, but I can do there good results, just not all the time, because too many expansions and some non-military AW-s for better FA- it makes a big difference of fighting in A and W, although they are in same ch
I have over 20h training time in A and F, but still not in W. sorry,but I don't know my squad sizes, I play by gut feeling, don't count much :D
 
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Far Reach

Conjurer
my ch 18 isn't tournament city :) its just for research. I like to play different cities :)

Thanks. There has been a separate discussion about how much difference going through later chapters makes (e.g. C16 v C18), and I've been suggesting (from my analysis) not that much. I was wondering whether your earlier comment (about C18 fighting being much harder than C15/16) was based on a direct comparison. As it happens my end of C18 city far outscores my C15 city - but (as with your cities) it is not a good comparison because I treat them so differently.
 

kurgkurg

Conjurer
The biggest problem for ch18 city to me is to make enough troops, to do let's say 15k score all the time. Space needed for settlement and more production buildings, I cant build so many armories what needed. Your squad size goes up, but if you want to do every next chapter, you cant prefer the military part enough. Ok, you may buy more expansions, I don't have done that because it makes fighting more harder, and troops are also not my preference in this city.
 

Silly Bubbles

Necromancer
you can squeeze 2 tourneys into 5 days, which instantly doubles the Power of all 5 day booster buildings.

At this moment, I'm squeezing 2 Spires into 5 days. It's a hard decision to choose between the two. I might have to increase the power of the troops first and then see how that goes.
 

CrazyWizard

Shaman
At this moment, I'm squeezing 2 Spires into 5 days. It's a hard decision to choose between the two. I might have to increase the power of the troops first and then see how that goes.
I squeeze on another account of min 2 spire and 2 tournaments in 1 set of buildings.

I start on friday as late as possible and then do 1-2 tournament rounds, then on saturnday I do another 4-5 rounds
Then those buildings work untill wednesday so plenty of time for another spire and tournament
 

SkyRider99

Mentor
The biggest problem for ch18 city to me is to make enough troops
Always an issue. My choke point is with orcs. I'd like to fight with orcs more often, but the necessity to also cater with orcs keeps my numbers down.
If it was easy, anybody could do it :p
 
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