Is this a good castle build order?

[pikeman93]

Day 1: Town hall
Day 2: Archer's tower
Day 3: Blacksmith
Day 4: Barracks
Day 5: Stables
Day 6: Training Ground
Day 7: Citadel
Day 1: Upg. archer's tower


This way, I can get out cavaliers in week 1. However, is citadel more worth it than griffin tower? Training ground requires three prerequisite buildings, and town hall is a must, so the last building should either be griffin tower or citadel.

[Salamandre]

Going out on first week without any spell is a waste of time, because you don't know what magic schools to select and if need to visit shrines around.

Suggested order:

1) Mage guild, select main hero and put chain in place for second and third turn, to move marksmans towards him.
2) Archers
3) If got more than 25 archers ie Valeska and scouts, upgrade, if not, citadel
4) Blacksmith
5) Baracks
6) Monks
7) Angels

If can't have angels, castle then. Gold later, take it by force.

[BoardGuest808888]

I prefer to by pass the Cavalry in the 1st week and go for upgraded griffin/swordman and griffin hording building. If that's not available, then monk.

[pikeman93]

@Salamander - I don't get it. Why angels on the first week? The building costs like 20,000 gold. You spend more than 27000 on the first week and then you run out of troops on the second week. Very bad idea IMO.

@BoardGuest - I like that one better, but is it really wise to pass on cavaliers on the first week? Those things are strong.

[Banedon]

If you can get enough gold from the map, Angels in the first week is very strong. It doesn't matter if you can't recruit them - you just want to stockpile them. As long as you're still able to clear all the neutrals you want to, you lose nothing by stockpiling the Angels. And as long as your income suffices, you'll be able to hire them eventually.

Go for the Angels if you can; otherwise at least get the Monk dwelling. Cavaliers are nice and all but if I remember right the dwelling + perquisite Stables cost a ton of wood, so they'll be hard to get to

[Salamandre]

@Pikeman

You thrust too much the theory. The different soils, units speed and abilities offer a large scale of possibilities during the first week. Also depends of what heros you got, have you an artillery specialist, have you got slow and earth enough fast, have you got tactics...etc etc.

When you will experiment a better game play you will know that a an angel can win fights that no cavaliers/archers can. And yes you can get that gold, on the majority of templates. If you know how to fight with minimal loses.

[pikeman93]

Salamandre - but the problem is, what units would you use for your exploration force? I usually use 5 cavaliers, upgraded to champions at a nearby stables, but based on your build order, it seems that you have no choice but to use angels as your exploration force. 2 angels cost 6000 gold, and you have 4500 debt if you build PoG on the first week, so you have to somehow get 11000 external gold on the first week. That's... almost impossible to find.

[Kristo]

Well, just one Angel can do quite a bit by itself. That'll save you 3000 gold right there. And you could always go for the Castle instead if you can't make the gold requirements for the Portal of Glory. A 50% bonus to the growth of everything else will balance missing out on a couple of Angels.

[pikeman93]

^^In that case, should I make PoG on the second week instead?

[Kristo]

Yes, assuming you can afford it you should make it as soon as you can. Consider how the total number of angels grows by week.

Portal of Glory built on day 7, Castle built in second week:
1, 2, 5, 8, 11, 14, ...

Portal of Glory second week, Castle built first week:
0, 1, 4, 7, 10, 13, ...

Portal of Glory third week, Castle built sometime before:
0, 0, 1, 4, 7, 10, ...

Portal of Glory third week, Castle built fourth week:
0, 0, 1, 2, 5, 8, ...

Obviously, one would like to have 14 (Arch)Angels by the first day of week 6, but if you can't, 13 is a nice compromise. The number drops off considerably the longer you wait.

[pikeman93]

Thanks Kristo!

Okay, I tried a strategy like that. This is what I did:

1:Town Hall
2:Archer's tower
3:Blacksmith
4:Barracks
5:Stable
6:Training grounds
7:Citadel
8:Mage Guild 1 -> Explore with 5 cavaliers
9:Marketplace
10:Griffin tower
11:Monestary
12:Castle
13:Portal of Glory
14:Capital

The problem with that is that I need SO much external sources of gold, like 30,000, and that's without a secondary hero or taking account of unit prices in the third week. Where can I get 30,000? I can fight dwarves, sell excess resources at an external marketplace, occupy gold mines, and... that's about it. :[ I'm playing the Divided Loyalties map, which has PLENTY of resources around, probably the most out of all the maps, but I still can't get external 30,000 gold before the first day of third week.


BTW Kristo, after a castle, don't the 7th level units increase growth by 2 each time? Why 3?

[Pol]

In two weeks? And why without secondary hero? It's not much, average 2500 per day and something over to build an army.

[pikeman93]

^^2500 per day? You mean I should make 2500 per day, or spend 2500/day?

[Salamandre]

http://www.multiupload.com/ID1HKGC7Y7


Saves day1-day8, day by day, Divided loyalties, knight level (as you suggest), playing red. 6 secondary heros +Angels + castle + orange player defeated (3 towns) +3 angels recruited day 8. Hope it helps, was my first try, can be done much better with proper map knowledge.

[pikeman93]

That helped so much! Thanks Salamandre.

So let me get this straight - you managed to gather 21000 extra gold through treasure chests, gold piles, windmill, and sieging necropolis, right?

Shoot, now I see what's wrong with my strategy - I didn't siege early enough in order to gather extra gold. Doh.

[pikeman93]

Wait Salamandre, for that map, how were you able to get past that neutral stack (southwest of the starting position) unscathed on Turn 1 using just 2 griffins? They consist of upgraded level 3 creatures!

[Salamandre]

I asked them politely to shave off.

My saves are made at the end of the turn, so after I used my 6 heros chain to transfer units. Big part of heroes strategy is how you cover the land using intelligent chain (main hero always at end of turn with fast units only).

[pikeman93]

Sorry I don't get it. You had 27 archers and ~35 pikemen and you barely ended up with any casualties after fighting upgraded level 3 stacks. What do you mean by "chaining" and how does it work?

EDIT: NVM I think I know what you mean.

[Salamandre]

I can't explain in one post what chaining is. Basically why would one need to recruit more than -let's say- 3 heros? 1 to fight, 2 to collect gold around. Now, when you recruit 6-8 this means you plan to fight with all of them. How do you fight with one hero if your army is on another one? You have to plan:

When the one with army ends movement, another takes his army and transfer to a third. The fourth will take army from the third and give it to the fifth. And so on, all this in same turn. If you plan using a main hero, don't let him -after chain- with a slow unit because he will get a movement penalty on next turn. He always should have one unit of speed 6 or higher.

And level 3rd are not scary at all, depends of many variables. Golems are a cake for example. The only early stacks on the map that scare me are the gran elves.