Guide and Tips for New Players

[just2kwik]

Before I begin, alot of this has been touched on, but still alot of people ask on tips to town building. I'd thought I'd refresh people (old and new) on afew things to help people out before Beginner Protection ends.

*Some of this guide is from my own experience, but most of it came from friends ingame and the guide forums here. Thank you all in advance.


Prestige:

This is good for getting into top alliances and also used as a deterrent to keep people from attacking you. This can be deceiving though, because prestige isn't actually a good gauge for player / alliance strength.


Town Building:

Walls - Try to get this has high as you can afford during BP. Around level 6 is a fine place to be to start focusing on defences and troops during days 6-7.

Town Hall - This is your administration building where taxes are set, production is adjusted, etc. it should be no higher than level 4 during this time.

Cottages - These buildings are your population. 8-10 of these are all you need during this time. I prefer 8. With a level 4 town hall and 8 level 5 cottages, your population limit will be at 12050.

Barracks - These buildings are where you produce troops. 10-12 of these are all you need during this time. I prefer 12. Try to get atleast 2 to level 9, 2 to level 6, and the rest to level 4. Level others up when possible.

*Note - You have only 32 spots to build on within a town. In these early stages, use 20 spots for your barracks and cottages (10 cottages to 10 barracks, or 8 cottages to 12 barracks). The rest of the spots are for these buildings:

Academy - This is your research building. Level 5+ is a good place to before BP ends.

Embassy - This is your diplomacy building (where you apply for alliances and where your allied heros garrison). Levels 3-5 are a good place to be before BP ends, so your allies can reinforce you.

Rally Point - This building is where your troops assemble and where you give out orders for attacks, transport, scouting, healing, etc. Levels 3-5 are a good place to be before BP ends.

Inn - You recruit heroes from here. No need to go higher than level 1.

Feasting Hall - This is where your heroes reside. Levels 3+ is a good place to be before BP ends.

Market - Where you buy and sell resources. Levels 2-3 is a good place to be before BP ends.

Warehouse - Place to store resources to keep enemies from plundering (the amount stored in the warehouse, not your resource fields). Probably the most argued about building in the game. Some consider it useless, and some live by them. I personally use 1-3 just for comforting during seige defense, but this is up to the user. If you (or your alliance) don't use them, build 1 just for the quest then destroy it for an extra cottage or barracks.

Beacon Tower - Levels 5+ is a good place to be before BP ends.

Stable - Building this helps increase troop training speed. Levels 5+ is a good place to be before BP ends. Needed also to level up Horseback Riding (which comes in handy later, along with Archery for NPC farming).

Relief Station - Increases speed of "YOUR" troop movement between cities (your own and ally). Levels 1 is fine before BP ends.

Forge and Workshop - Level as needed to aid your research.


City Building:

Sawmill, Quarry, Ironmine, and Farm - During BP, I usually build these up evenly and adjust later ingame (endgame) by demolishing and building what I need. Start out balanced unless you have more experience. Focus on leveling these up to 6+. Needed to speed up the war machine (buildings and troops).


Tips:

Defense - Build up walls, get leveled as high as you can afford, also concentrate on archer towers. Archer Towers are like archers only they don't have food upkeep. So it's good to have them in the beginning part of the game where you don't have many troops.

Troops - On the newest servers, only focus on Scouts, Warriors, and Archers as they are your most important troops during the early stages. Eventually you can focus on ballistas and transports for farming NPC's.

Tax Rate - If you are still in beginner protection, set your tax rate to 40-50% to gather more money for your research. After you are out of bp, lower your tax rate to 10-20% until you can get your research done and keep loyalty at a good percentage. In later stages, your taxes will be set to 0-10% (endgame).

Research - Concentrate on archery and horseback riding. These are needed for npc farming. Best combination is Archery lvl 8 and Horseback Riding lvl 5.

Second City - It's not advisable to have a second city in BP if new to game (if your old school and know what you are doing, go for it) as this will divide up your resources trying to support both cities. Make sure you are able to fully support and defend your first city before you start the second one. Remember, people can take away one of your cities if you are unable to defend it.

Promotion - Try to stay as civilian as long as possible. The lower your rank and town hall level, the higher the prestige you can gain from buildings, troops, and researches.

Heroes - Keep inn at lvl 1 and feasting hall at lvl 3 so you can accomodate 3 heroes, one with high politics, one with high attack, and one with high intelligence. By high, I mean the differential between highest attributes and hero level should be greater than 62. For example, a lvl 1 hero with attack, intel, or politics over 63 is good.

Mayor - Set your highest politics hero as your mayor. High politics heroes increase resources production, decrease time for building. High attack heroes decrease time for training troops. High intel heroes decrease time for research projects. So be sure to swap them according to what you want to do.

This is a good way to gain gold for your research while you are online. Caution, doing this costs a lot of food so if you don't have enough food, don't try it.

1. Raise Tax Rate to 100%.
2. Do Disaster Relief. It will restore your loyalty. Disaster Relief can be done every 15 minutes, the food cost is equivalent to the population limit in your city.
3. Remember to adjust your tax rate to 40-50% if you are under BP or 10-20% if out of BP when you log off.

Use your resource boosting items (plowshare, blower, etc) during this period of time. Those items will not be that useful once you start farming npc cities. Also, if you have an Art of War, apply it on your intelligent hero, and if you have a Wealth of Nation, apply it on your politics hero, those item will add 25% to your current intel or politics and it last 7 days. Those will greatly help you in building you city and research projects.

Goodluck and enjoy the game.