What's the best strategy to get as many troops as possible?

[Sharazukah]

I am often running out of troops especially when the tournaments come up. I never have enough for the spire and province. I often end up wasting my goods on provinces. What is the best way to get troops fast and lots of them? I am in chapter 4 in all my worlds.

 

[FieryArien]

The most basic things to watch are these:
1) Keep the military buildings at highest possible speed = fully upgraded all the time (Barracks, later Training Grounds and Mercenary Camp).
2) Keep the military buildings producing non-stop = build as many armories as you need to make the training queue long enough for your needs.
3) Make the effort to learn the fighting mechanics in this game. Wiki can help with the basics and search on this forum will reveal some dedicated threads and even links to fan sites.

As you progress you research wonders which can help you. Some make the training faster, one improves health of your troops, some make your training queue longer, some make your troops stronger and one gives you bonus troops for each trained slot.

There is also Fire Phoenix (improves attack of your troops when it’s fed) which can be crafted in the Magic Academy and slowly (it’s not easy) upgraded to give up to 50% bonus attack. Magic Academy also offers military buildings, which temporarily boost attack/health of (some of) your troops.

I’m pretty sure you’ll get some more replies soon. It’s popular and ever repeating topic. ;-)

 

[Sir Derf]

My pair of suggestions, take them or leave them...

Wait for later chapters and do less.

Chapter 4...

Do you have access to all 15 types of troops? Each have different strengths, weaknesses and abilities, that each have places where they work better than the others.

Do you have access to all 5 training slots in your military buildings? This allows you to train more troops during those long periods of inattention, like when these pesky biological bodies require sleep, increasing your daily production rate.

Do you have access to Armories, which can increase your training squad size? Again, more efficient production while you snooze.

At chapter 4, there are many improvements that you do not currently have access to, that will increase your production rate and decrease your loss rate.

With that in mind, consider too that this is a game of choices. It is generally true that you will not be able to do everything that you would lokelike (cockney?) to do all at the same time. Much as you might like to, maybe you can't do as much in the tournament as you would like, or advance as high in the spire.

 

[schadenfreude]

In Chap 4, you def want to get Needles of Tempest wonder down for sure. It not only produces barracks troops faster, but buffs your light range. Sometimes killing faster saves troops because the quicker the battle concludes, the less rounds of damage your troops take. Specifically for light range though, if you buff them enough, they can kill enemy mages in just one shot, which gives you a BIG numbers advantage for the remainder of the encounter. However, the speedier your barracks, the more armories you might need to take advantage. During the day, you might make more troops, but you lose the overnight backend. For example, if your overnight is 8hrs and your barracks takes 3 hours to finish, you're not making troops for 5hrs. If you speed up your barracks to 2hrs for full queue, you lose 6hrs of idle on overnights. In early chapter, if your Needles is too high, you won't have enough space for the extra armories so you would benefit if you are able to reload your barracks queue often during the day. Once you get the Bulwark down from chap 6, you don't need as many armories as the Bulwark is like a super armory that never changes footprint but will extend your troop production queue. With Bulwark, you might be able to cut down on number of armories and use that space for other things (for down the road since you're only in chap 4).

 

[Far Reach]

You have lots of good suggestions above. Judging by your tournament average (about 1k) there are likely to be some simple approaches which could help a lot too. I'd also suggest:

Try experimenting with some manual fighting, and testing out different troop combinations. It may take some practice, but a skilled manual fighter can often win battles with few, or even no, losses. Ranged troops (mages, light ranged or heavy ranged) are generally the most efficient option - particularly when they have high initiative and can attack first. (A common choice is to fill all five slots with exactly the same troop type.) Having a feel for the right troops will also help a lot when auto-fighting.

Be prepared to cater/negotiate/use diplomacy for tougher fights. You have a significant advantage in numbers over the enemy in the early tournament provinces as well as the first four spire provinces. These tend to be easy fights. If you have explored a lot on the world map (relative to your city technology level) then you may have a tough job in all corresponding province combats though. Personally I usually fight in the tournaments, negotiate on the world map and follow a mixed approach in the Spire.

 

[SkyRider99]

I’m pretty sure you’ll get some more replies soon. It’s popular and ever repeating topic. ;-)

Wait for later chapters and do less.

Sometimes killing faster saves troops because the quicker the battle concludes, the less rounds of damage your troops take.

Be prepared to cater/negotiate/use diplomacy for tougher fights. You have a significant advantage in numbers over the enemy in the early tournament provinces as well as the first four spire provinces.

The full replies are IMHO the greatest collection of tips and info that one could hope to see. I will be passing these to my FS for sure.

 

[CrazyWizard]

I am often running out of troops especially when the tournaments come up. I never have enough for the spire and province. I often end up wasting my goods on provinces. What is the best way to get troops fast and lots of them? I am in chapter 4 in all my worlds.

It's a vicous cycle.
To get a lot of troops you need a lot of supplies to get a lot of supplies you need a lot of spells, to get a lot of spells you need a lot of tournaments, and to do a lot of tournaments you need a lot troops.

You are currently in chapter 4, so fighting in general will be a problem atm. not only because you do not have many, that can be solved but because very quickly you're units are yet still to weak to really punch above province 10, thats where the tournaments begin.
But over time these are the tricks I use.

• Aquire about 6 magical workshops (this saves you a lot of spells as each workshop needs a spell and magic workshops have double output)
• The wonders needles, martial monestary/sanctuary, flying academy, dragon abbey, toads and victory springs are your friend
• Level your magic academy to level 5 and craft CC. use this to make time boosters, combat buildings and pet food (also make 1 time buildings so they do not appear again and you have more chances to get combat buildings) the best way to have units is not to loose them them best way to save them is to boost the crap out of them.
• Play the spire and find a gold fellowship once you are able to get at minimum 2 levels weekly and then work towards a full spire you'll love the timeboosters
• Play tournaments beyond level 10. each level will grant you 1 PoP and one EE spell.
• Use Power of Provision en Ensorcelled Endowment to boost your supplies production trough the roof (EE adds 5% to your culture bonus, PoP boosts that by up to 200-300% this means each EE adds 15-20% to your supply production as those powers stack.
• Use timeboosters you earned with crafting and in the spire (this gives you more than a week of extra production) in your barracks / mercenary camp to get a lot of units. use these units to het more spells. use those spells to get more supplies and use those supplies to get more units.

Ps. when you reach chapter 15 you can build Time Warp. this is an amazing wonder that gives you the ability to create your own tournament schedule. and to have 2 tournaments in 1 set of combat boosters. this allows you double your combat boosters as they last for 2 tournaments.
This is the moment where you can really ramp up your tourney performance.