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Question Tower auto-fighting which troops

SunshineFantasia

Dreamer
I have recently started fighting in the tower, I have been a non-fighting city, except for the lowest first level in the Spire. I started at the end of the previous chapter, now I'm in the Embassies level, however, it's only now I'm finding the Spire to be an additional enjoyable part of the game. I've researched Youtube and other sources for assistance and have found them helpful up to a point, even searching early threads on this forum - with CrazyWizard and other - again very helpful, but some of it aimed at battlefield rather than auto.. I have fed the Astral and Twilight Phoenixes, but didn't seem to help I don't have and can't get a Fire Phoenix and the Dwarven Armourer I gained when entering this level was useless and made no difference at all.

I am looking for any advice on which troops to use. I did find a video showing you could use just one troop x 5 ie pro-ranger, valorian veteran etc - but nothing to indicate how you choose which single troop would be most effective. Especially when there are two or three waves. I can successfully fight the first wave, but lose on the 2nd, or if I get through that the 3rd. I also realise it might be that I haven't enough troops after the 1st or 2nd battles, though I have also used the hearts to revive them, but they too are often very low 5% in the MA and any higher are few and far between.

I do know that the different mercenary, training grounds and barracks all have different strengths even for the same types, and I'm gradually learning who's the best, but am now stuck (have lost quite a lot of troops, even though they seemed apt, and not having any luck with negotiations either tried three times and given up - which I can usually solve (last chest of lab level). Have managed this once before, but this seems particularly testing., each time none of them want anything for the first and one only in the second, and there's multiple choices left for the 3rd, ending with at least two still not happy.

I started increasing my armouries after reading the forums, but due to size of the Embassies and Beer Festival and Tea rooms and all the other buildings I have decided I need, I have managed to fit in 2x level 35 armouries, 1 x 31 armoury, and four others various levels 4, 8, 11 and 17. Would love more, but space and diamonds do not allow me to upgrade. I also have the training grounds lvl 34 and mercenary camp lvl 18. I have /am upgrading to the point where they don't need to change shape, again due to lack of space.

As I only started recently, I have Dwarven Bulwark level 3, Shrooms lvl 3 and Needles lvl 7 - but again levelling up as much as I can.

One last point, I'm not a fighter and only want to do auto fighting, and am also auto-fighting in the tournament, where I have enough barrack troops for the first ten provinces.

Really appreciate any help and I do like the spire, but I'm not into the technicalities of battlefield fighting, I just like the challenge of deciding which troops to use for most effect.
 
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Jake65

Jake65

Sage
SunshineFantasia said:
I started increasing my armouries
Click to expand...
If this is to increase your training size, the Dwarven Bulwark AW is much ( hugely much) more efficient in training size per tile.
Unless you need the armouries for orcs (efficiency here also debatable :) ) you could sell/teleport some of your armouries and focus on upgrading a Bulwark.
For the sake of numbers, a level 37 armoury is 28 tiles which happens to be the same as the Bulwark.
Armoury training size is 500, Bulwark at level 29 is 7279.
 
Jake65

Jake65

Sage
Do you have a Sanctuary? (Monastery I think if you're non-human ;) )
Worth building and levelling up as it provides a health boost for all your troops and covers some culture needs so you can ditch some culture-only buildings if you're pushed for space.
 

SunshineFantasia

Dreamer
Thanks for the advice, but my question was 'how do you decide which troops to use for auto-fighting in the Spire. I read in an old forum thread that it can be done with 5 x same type of troops, I also saw a Youtube video of it being done to High Halls, but there was no explanation of why certain troops of one type were chosen.

Whilst I can work out for the first wave and am always successful, I am only 50% successful for the second wave and 10% success in 3rd wave. Does it purely rely on unit numbers, or is there some other.

The other part of my post was purely to give as much background as possible. I don't want to do more than auto-fight in the spire, I have no interest in province or battlefield fighting and auto-fight tournaments because negotiations are resource heavy. I only auto-fight in the Spire because of the challenge of working out which is the best approach and which will give me more success and because it does give some good rewards - always handy.

I already have a Bulwark as mentioned, and it can only be upgraded with increasing numbers of KP - currently level 4 - getting to level 29 would be months at least or a year or more, if my work deadlines mean I can't play. Don't currently have any teleport spells either.
I don't have a Monastery, and as with other AWs, you have to gain sufficient KP to upgrade and the longer time periods required. One other reason why I don't want more military AWs is because I do not want to change my city into one geared mostly or only for fighting.
 
C-Nymph

C-Nymph

Necromancer
In combination with armories, the Shrine of the Shrewdy Shrooms is also very efficient in increasing the training size, as its power is linked to the armories :)

Anyway, how to decide which troops to choose for auto-fighting is to keep the combat pentagon in mind. Certain troops are more effective against others and have weaknesses to different troops as well. I always choose my troops based on those mechanics.

I choose the troops that together are the most effective to most of the enemies in all the different waves. They might be weak to a few of the enemy types in all 3 waves, but I try to choose 1 or 2 types of troops that are overall going to have the best chance of winning all three waves. I most often choose 5x the same type or at most 2x one type and 3x another type, I never combine more than 2 types of troops, because in my experience the AI that makes the choices for you during autofighting is rather dumb and will not work as well/smart with more than 2 types of troops.

SunshineFantasia said:
One other reason why I don't want more military AWs is because I do not want to change my city into one geared mostly or only for fighting.
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If you want to have less losses in spire though, I would really recommend working on more military AWs. As otherwise, your losses will remain high, and you might even have difficulty getting through 3 waves without being defeated. At least build a Monastery, but I would also recommend the Needles, Heroes' Forge, Dragon Abbey (also highly recommended for mana!), and Temple of the Toads. They all increase different troops damage %.
 
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Sir Derf

Adept
Excerpted from one of my posts in the Ancient Wonders thread in the Players Guides and Strategies section

  • Troops
    1. Barrack
      1. Dwarven Bulwark (LMU / 3h)
      2. Shrine of the Shrewdy Shrooms (LRU / 3h)
      3. Flying Academy (Mages / 3h)
      4. Temple of the Toads (HRU / 3h)
      5. Pyramid of Purification (HMU / 3h)
    2. Training Ground
      1. Ancient Resting Place (Ghastly Banshees / 3h)
      2. Shrine of the Champion (Orc Warrior / 3h)
    3. Mercenary Camp
      1. Tournament Arena (Venom Drone Riders/ 3h)
      2. Tree of Enlightenment (Rangers / 3h)
    4. Other
      1. Simia Sapiens (Military / Collection)
  • +Training Speed
    1. Needles of the Tempest (Barrack)
    2. Flying Academy (Merc Camp)
    3. Victory Springs (Training Grounds)
  • +Training Size
    1. Dwarven Bulwark (%Squad Size)
    2. Shrine of the Shrewdy Shrooms (* Armory Levels)
  • +Damage
    1. Needles of the Tempest (LRU)
    2. Heroes Forge (HMU)
    3. Dragon Abbey (Mage)
    4. Temple of the Toads (HRU)
    5. Victory Springs (LMU)
  • +Health
    1. Martial Monastery/Sanctuary
 

SunshineFantasia

Dreamer
Thank you Nymoh and Sir Derph, for your informative and helpful posts I will indeed checkout the link to the US forum.

I already have Dragon Alley lvl 24, Shrooms lvl 3 , Bulward ditto 3. (both recent additions), Needles Lvl 7 As I mentinoed in my first post - due to the extremely high space requirements for the Senate, Emabssies, teatoom and beer festival - I have currently no space left for more AWs .

I will keep in mind your suggestion for MM, but I don't wish to sacrifice any cultural items to place MM at 5x5 because any that size are too valuable in people, culture boost and resource I'm also reluctant to replace an 5x5 armoury with MM (which effectively is the only building that has the size, location requirements (most cultural that could go, which are adjacent to a path are the wrong size ratio. Not sure it would be a valid choice exchange, as the existing benefits of the former outweight the potential heatlh benefits (possibly months or even years in the future) for the troops and there are only so many KP to go around.

I am grateful though, and welcome any other advice, I shall continue to fight my way to the High Halls until I've built up more troops enhancements.
 

SpaceCowboy

Soothsayer
It's a very complex topic IMO, and I don't think one can cover all the nuance in one post. If you can play on browser, I highly recommend that you spend some time using manual fights, it gives you a much better feeling about how to set up successful auto-fights.

The main thing about many fights is who gets to deal damage first. There are two points that determine this:

1. Which units have the higher initiative?
2. Which units can get into attack range on the first turn?

For example, imagine you are fighting 4 heavy melee enemies, and one archer. The heavy melee enemies are best countered by mages, but archers are very strong against those. In many cases, you can position one or two heavy ranged troops (I use Mortars) to take the first hit from the archer, and then the mages clean up the rest. This doesn't work when the archer is a Mist Walker though, because that has higher range.

Once you work these two questions out, you can often find a setup that allows you to deal your damage first, and after that the rest of the fight is usually easier. It is also important to understand the position of you troops in multi-round fights. In the second round, the positions of your troops are switch (1-5, 2-4, 3 remains the same), and in the third round they have the positions from the first round again.

In some cases damage is unavoidable, so then you should usually go for some tankier composition. There are also some non-obvious pairings that you have to explore. For example, Frogs are quite string against Orc Warriors, even though it's HR vs. HM.

I hope that helps a little bit - it took me a long time to work all of this out.

Finally, I should mention that when doing any kind of fighting, you should really focus on getting a Fire Phoenix - it's almost mandatory.
 
C-Nymph

C-Nymph

Necromancer
SunshineFantasia said:
I will keep in mind your suggestion for MM, but I don't wish to sacrifice any cultural items to place MM at 5x5 because any that size are too valuable in people, culture boost and resource.
Click to expand...
You wouldn't have to give up any culture items if you were to reorganise your city to use the available space more efficiently (I could help you with a redesign on ElvenArchitect after this weekend if you'd appreciate my help).

Also, the Martial Monastery gives culture too. You currently have 244K culture, if you were to place an MM, even at level 1, it would already give you an additional 13K culture. You could actually get rid of some pure culture buildings (not the hybrid pop-cult ones as I suspect you have those mostly for the pop value). And the MM doesn't change size or shape, it only increases in value with each level, so it quickly becomes very valuable.

I'd always recommend AWs over event buildings, because they are so, so, so powerful! Never underestimate the value of AWs :) (Unless you're talking about the Crystal Lighthouse, because that's worthless :p)
 
m4rt1n

m4rt1n

Adept
C-Nymph said:
I'd always recommend AWs over event buildings, because they are so, so, so powerful! Never underestimate the value of AWs :) (Unless you're talking about the Crystal Lighthouse, because that's worthless :p)
Click to expand...

Great Bell Spire/Crystal Lighthouse is great for me to keep a high culture bonus, thus producing more coins/supplies and now community work, as it extends significantly the help hands time on you culture buildings. Mine is at level 26 and currently extends help from the basic 8:00 hours to 22:24 hours.

I have every AW up to ch20 with the exception of the Enar's Embassy as Dragon Abbey gives me more than enough mana.
 
C-Nymph

C-Nymph

Necromancer
m4rt1n said:
Great Bell Spire/Crystal Lighthouse is great for me to keep a high culture bonus, thus producing more coins/supplies and now community work, as it extends significantly the help hands time on you culture buildings. Mine is at level 26 and currently extends help from the basic 8:00 hours to 22:24 hours.

I have every AW up to ch20 with the exception of the Enar's Embassy as Dragon Abbey gives me more than enough mana.
Click to expand...
I beg to differ on the significance of the GBS/CL, as it only increases neighbourly help duration, so only very indirectly influences the culture bonus. You're still dependent on help hands then, and I highly doubt that's more efficient than having a few extra culture buildings in place of the 24 tiles the GBS/CL would occupy...
 
m4rt1n

m4rt1n

Adept
I use a lot of PoP on big culture as I have a lot, I do 30-40 tourney every week to round 6 and find it really helps me, but everyone plays differently. :)

Edit: To add I have a few AW's currently that have lost value due to the continued problems with the decay bug but keep them as I assume at some point the bug will be fixed, not holding my breathe though...

Not at all dependant on the help hands but like a culture bonus of full sunshine and well into the 200+
 
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OldHag

OldHag

Necromancer
Do you play on pc or mobile?
On the pc you can hover over each troop to highlight which enemy are going to be targeted, which makes it a lot easier to select your troops. If one of your troops targets all 5 enemy troops, that would be the troop to go with for that particular fight.
If you have a fight that requires 2 different troop types, it's a little bit more complicated....but (haha) for example, if my heavy range targets 2 or more enemies, I will use 3 heavy range and they would be accompanied by either 2 mage slots or 2 archer slots. I would place the mage/archer in slots 1 and 5 and my 3 heavy range in slots 2 - 3 and 4
Of course you would need to adjust the troops according to what you are faced with, it could be it could be that you need 2 mage and 3 archers or the other way around but for auto fighting, I find that works for me.
I find that most (by quite a margin) of my fights I use light range - mage - heavy range or any combination of.
Hope this helps.
 
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Jake65

Jake65

Sage
OldHag said:
I would place the mage/archer in slots 1 and 5 and my 3 heavy range in slots 2 - 3 and 4
Click to expand...
I read somewhere that your first pick takes the centre on the map, next two are on the inner left and right, and the last two get the outer left and right
Is this correct?
 
MinervaOz

MinervaOz

Enchanter
Jake65 said:
I read somewhere that your first pick takes the centre on the map, next two are on the inner left and right, and the last two get the outer left and right
Is this correct?
Click to expand...
From top to bottom on the battlefield, the positions are 4, 2, 1, 3, 5. Noting that in the Spire, troop position is reversed in the 2nd wave of a multi-wave battle (and reverts to the original order in the 3rd wave). (And I just noticed @SpaceCowboy already said that)
 
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MinervaOz

MinervaOz

Enchanter
To @SpaceCowboy's excellent reply, I would add: understanding how all troops - enemies as well as your own - move and their firing range is important. On PC you can see this by clicking on the 'i' above the troop icon (I don't know whether it's the same on the app). Troops that move only a few paces and fire from 1 pace are easier to take down, and are more vulnerable to obstacles on the battlefield. The longer range mages (priests and blossoms), for instance, can easily defeat thieves because they can stay out of their range, even though technically they're supposed to be weak against them.

If you play on PC I would recommend scouting with a single archer/crossbow or ranger to see what the terrain is like (I use a barbarian if there's a mist walker in the enemy line-up as I never fight with those). I've often chosen completely different troops, or placed them differently, after doing this. And a good way to learn what your troops can do (and how the AI behaves) is to watch autofights play out - select manual fighting then click the auto-complete button.

If you don't have military AWs then boosters are important. Attack helps, particularly on level 3 - a fed fire chicken is optimal, but mage multipliers and enlightened light range will see you through most fights - but defence is more important. You want to minimise losses so you still have enough fire power to take out the 2nd and 3rd waves.

There will be times when the troop combinations in the various waves are very difficult to accommodate, or the terrain is so horrible you can't avoid significant losses. Particularly if you're not set up for fighting, you should be prepared to negotiate those.
 
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