Intermediate help - skill points, attributes, armies, etc.

Intro: Hi there. I recently started playing this game as of about a week ago and am currently level five. I started out with no knowledge of the game, except for reading the help icon in-game. I have played a few MMO's before extensively, so I am not new to the genre. That said, I do have a few specific questions that perhaps some more knowledgeable players can answer.

Being familiar with MMO's, I know that there are different aspects to different builds, and being creative is fun. However, I know that cookie cutter builds and strategies are better 99% of the time.

So far, by sifting through the threads on this forum I have deduced that the way to go about building an army is either 1. Full cavalry or 2. Inf / Cat.

What I'd like to know is:

-Full benefits of going full cav (or) the benefits of going inf/cat.
-Which is better, really?
-Where should I put my attributes and skill points regarding each army?

I intend on resetting my skill points / attributes sometime soon because in my initial ignorance I placed them badly. (points in unlock chest, etc.)

As I said, I have browsed the forum a bit and found snippets of information regarding these questions, but I'd really like a concrete answer from an expert or someone who is experienced in higher level play of the game.

Thanks!

The cat/inf build makes for easy farming. Attacking forts for resources is how a lot of players get by for upgrades and selling resources for money to study techs.
The downsides are obviously feeding them as cats eat 10 crop each and going up against a solid Cav build.
You also don't have to rebuild as often as cats usually take out their foes at range and complete the battle before any enemies reach them - if you're commanding properly.

Cav builds on the other hand, you need to rebuild after almost every battle. Some may not like this but it can be an advantage to gaining extra prestige.
Another great thing about the heavy Cav build is that the majority of high rankers are running the Cat/Inf build which easily falls to the Cav one.
I personally don't like heavy Cav for farming.

For Cat/Inf I put points in Speed>fortune.
For heavy Cav Speed>defence

Hope that helps. I may have been pretty short but I'm at work >.<

Thanks. That is useful information.

So, you're saying that as a inf/cat army, you put the maximum amount of points into speed, then the rest into fortune? Interesting. How about skill points?

(from what I understand so far):

Cat/inf army: Max speed, then rest into fortune. Max hidden attack (?) then rest into (?).

Cav army: Max speed, then rest into defense. Max (?).

Right now I am leaning towards inf / cat army. Any more in depth information regarding my questions are greatly appreciated!

Some max speed, some don't. The important part is to have speed sitting higher than fortune.
It's really up to the individual if you don't want to max speed out, but it's definitely not a bad idea to do so.

Hidden attack is also another one for personal tastes. Many believe it's useless and that open chest, break cranny and heal are all well above it's usefulness.

The whole idea of max speed is to ensure you get the first strike. Although, when maxed out on both sides, that'll come down to who's defending.
Cavalry need two turns with max speed to reach the enemy line so you need high defence to get as many there as possible.
With a Cav army, defence tech and equipables are definitely needed.

Hmm, I see.

Hidden attack serves the sole purpose of hiding an incoming attack, right? So the player wouldn't be able to tell if there was an incoming attack to their base? Which is useful to cats because they're slow moving?

Cavs you explained. They need defense because they're melee and to survive the 2 turns it takes to cross the field defense is valuable.

I'm still wondering, however, which army is better when maxed out. Which one is easier to construct and maintain on a regular basis when you take into consideration item requirements? (you mentioned equippables being essential to a cav army)

I am still leaning towards the infantry / cat army, it seems to be a more defensive and safe way to play, with less casualties, which appeals to me right now because I don't have unlimited resources or anywhere near it. However, if a cav army is just better overall I'd like to know now before I embark on the wrong path.

Correct. Hidden attack does not notify of impending attack on main screen. It's a good way to try and catch an enemy with many troops at his base.
A hidden attack will still show in the Actions tab so if you have a clever foe, you can count on him checking this regularly, thus reducing the skills worth.
It can also be a problem for people who launch the attack then forget about it as it does not show on their screen either.

Ok Cat/inf takes a while to build 10k+ without coins as max you can train at once time is 249.
You rarely need to replace these except for first time attacks on high level forts that have turrets with max shooting.
You will need max shooting at tech centre to use this build effectively at on high level forts and players.

Cavalry armies scare the majority of haypi right now being that they're the destroyer of cats.
Losses are high in each battle so the need to constantly replace them is evident, but their cost is lower than that of a Catapult.
Being that they're highest in Iron, you will find that occupying oasis to boost this will not be terribly difficult because most others are occupying wood (aside from the standard % of crops occupied).

If you're wanting to farm forts and build your army slowly but surely, I'd suggest Inf/Cat army.

You CAN change later on when you'd like to try something different.

what adina have mention is correct. to explain on equitable, they are mainly sword, amour, horse, manual and ring. all the equipable max lvl is 15 except for ring which is 10.
as mentioned, due to inf cat or full cav army require speed, u will run short of stats point to distribute., therefore, the equipment are there to help improve the overall stats.
all stats max at 100. including equipment, total u can ad up will be 145 exclusive of tech upgrades.
it is advisable to build a inf cat build early in game for fort milking. but the advantage dies off once u reach marquis lvl.
from that point onward, it is better to go cav cats, though still heavily relying on cats. but the advantage will be that u will be able to charge ur opponent army if they are 3/4 field away from u.
full cav will be best when u reach 1st duke. i have tried a 60k cav army against a lvl8 fort. my losses is only 112 with max healing.
so at high lvl, u can actually do without cats for farming fort
next will be skill
chest opening is good for low lvl to acquire treasures, equipment and gold. but will be useless once u have all the best item.
hidden attack. this skill is rather unpredictable even when at max lvl, which render it rather unreliable and can be easily countered by checking the action tab often. furthermore, it will happened even when u farm forts, which may result in u forgetting to command and lost units as it is not shown on screen.
healing at max lvl allow u to save up to 20% of ur unit even when u are wipe out. the downside is ur opponent can attack u another time for more prestige but it always work and can be prevent by sending your army to hide when offline which result in ur opponent can't pick u off easily.
cranny break at max can drain your opponent 50% of their resource even when their cranny is at max. suitable for raiders and starve strategy, when u need to drain your opponent of crops
convince is useful when u are at low lvl and can help u gain some units. the downside is when ur opponent attack u a second time, u get to take away som of ur prestige due to these extra units. at high lvl, where u have lvl9-10 turrets, traps is obsoleted as traps can't deal with cats and will be destroyed after 1 attack. whereas turrets at lvl9-10 can kill cats once they move forward and is reusable and good for gaining prestige.

Thanks for being more detailed Obelisk!
I thought Julien was probably aware of those things so skimmed over them.
My bad!!

Thanks for the info. Very useful & detailed. Answered my questions.

I skimmed the previous posts, so please forgive if I repeat anything already said.

Both armies have advantages and disadvantages as everything else in life. The decision of going with one over the other is mostly due to prefference in gameplay.
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The first thing we need to talk about is this notion of one army being more expensive in terms of crop consumption than the other.

Put that thought out of your head. No matter what others try to tell you, you just need to remember that it is all a number's game. The best way to meassure an army's strength is in their consumption. Swords consume 1 crop an hour, Cats do 10, and Cavs do 4. Now lets run a little math just to give you an idea of what to expect.

Lets use the commonly accepted to be a competent mid-level army of 10,000 Cav. This army will consume 40k crop an hour. Fairly simple. An equivalent Sword/Cat army would be 5,000 Sword + 3,500 Cat. As you can probably tell, the second army has a lot more options to shift numbers back and forth, but those figures will suffice for now.

Without thinking about how a player's stats affect these numbers, lets look at some totals. The Cav army has a total combined attack of 1,750,000 and total life of 5,000,000. The Sword/Cat army has 1,425,000 of which 1,050,000 will hit at least twice without being reduced due to loss of troops (may hit many more times depending on opposing units and their relative speed), and a total life of 2,325,000.

So here we see that assuming equal numbers in terms of crop consumption, the Cav army has an advantage in both power and durability, but is vulnerable to having its numbers reduced dramatically before it gets a chance to reach the enemy. That is why you have to tailor your stats to each army's needs.
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Now lets talk stats.

You now know that a Cav army already packs a mean punch, so you need to work on them surviving long enough to deliver that punch. That is why Defense is crucial. Speed is in no short demand here either. The faster you reach the enemy, the better it will be for your exposed horses. My personal preference is to make Speed my primary, and Defense my secondary, but other players may disagree. Bottom line is that spending points on any other attribute for a Cav army will be a waste in terms of combat.

On the other hand, if you wish to fight little and focus on hunting instead, then you should look at Speed/Fortune (probably in that order as well). Well talk more about it later.

As for skills, there is really only one you need and that is Heal. Cav armies will suffer losses, there is no way around this, but you can alleviate your troop expenditure by having more and more of them being revived at the end of each battle.

Many players opt to make Hidden Attack their primary skill in a Cav army, but this is a big mistake. That skill is a good option for secondary, but your Army will already be blazing fast if you built it with Speed as your primary (and I don't see why you shouldn't). Often times your attacks will already be fast enough for players to either not notice as they may be chatting, commanding, or mailing. If you are a coin spender that can relocate your city at will then this is even more useless.

The secondary option I preffer the most for a Cav army is Break Cranny. Not only will this snatch more resources from players with fewer attacks, but it will also go long ways to starve an opponent (a tactick this army will likely need to use extensively to gain more prestige).

As for how stats affect a Sword/Cat army, that might be a bit less straightforward.

Regardless of the route you wish to take, Speed should also be your primary here. Speed will not be as valuable in actual combat for this army save for duking it out with other Cats, but the movement speed on map will be a big boost.

Your secondary attribute for this army might also be a bit tricky. Some players seem to like Fortune, but I have no idea as to why. I rather go for Attack. You improved chance of getting a double strike will mean very little if my attacks hit first, and hit hard. A Cat with max attack will be hitting at an abusive 2,120 each. If that attack hits first, that can take out two Cats before they get a chance to shoot back. Thats huge.

Fortune is not completely useless, just unreliable. It will carry some perks of better hunt results than your already slow army would have gotten otherwise, but that benefit does not make up for it in my point of view.

In the case of skills for this army, this is where Hidden Attack shines. Since your attacks will be so slow, you really want any edge you can possibly get for your opponent not knowing your on route to burn him. Even if he does spot you in the Actions tab, your "unknown" numbers will likely have him either hiding or underestimating you by meeting you with only a few troops. Easy prestige.

Heal is a good option for secondary to help you mitigate Sword losses (which might be massive some times), but it should deffinitley not be your primary skill. Break Cranny again is a decent alternative to secondary.
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Then lets talk about the actual armies. I'll talk Sword/Cat first.

Cats are devastating and are generally very forgiving to play with. Players that have ruined their attribute distribution can still play fairly well with this army. All they really need to learn is that cats can attack from very far, and that they need to be screened with some form of meat wall.

The army's first major disadvantage comes in speed. This army is slow. Very slow. Cats are essentially the game's snails, and you will feel it as you travel around the map. Even if you max speed at 100, and its branch technology, Marching, you will still be moving incredibly slow. This translates to you being able to deliver fewer attacks within the space of an hour. Fewer attacks per hour = to less resources/prestige per hour. Sure, you can see larger numbers in terms of prestige in a single battle with this army, but it still doesn't add up to larger gains at the end of your day's playtime.

The second disadvantage comes in the form of hunt results. These wont be great since the main factor to good hunts is speed, and cats lack that even if you max the attribute. That will slow down your gold income, but this is where the army will actually shine alternatively.

Since you will be taking little to no losses, you will have a lot of resources to burn. There is no faster way to make gold in this game than selling resources and the Sword/Cat army will grab those in large cuantities from raiding unoccupied forts. Cav armies have a hard time overcomming forts without taking major losses, but Cat armies can take these with relative ease.

If you built your Cat army right, you will be dealing massive amounts of damage. What's better, you will have mastered all the necesary techs to have deadlier LvL 10 turrets. This is a big plus as other armies will take longer to match the effectiveness of your turrets. Since Cats are a high-value target for prestige, you can bait inexperienced players into attacking a few hundred exposed Cats you leave in your city. That's where you pounce by blasting them with those turrets for some easy prestige.

Thats enough about that. The rest has been covered already. Now for Cavs.

This army may seem like it has more drawbacks than the Sword/Cat, but that is simply not true. The main reason is because if you built it right, you will have a potential nuclear weapon running around.

Cav armies are fast. Blazing fast. You can multiply many times over just how many attacks a Cav army can do when compared to a Cat army within a single hour. While Cats get big numbers for both resources and pres in a single attack, Cavs can gain many times more by outpacing the slow competition. If you are a diligent scout, you can overcome 3-5 more targets at the very least before a single Cat attack resolves.

The one major drawback is that you WILL take losses. There is no way around this. However, that may not be such a bad thing after all. Since you can farm innactives much better than the competition, you can replenish your troops quite easily. And since you get between 4 and 6 prestige for every Cav you build, you will see a nice prestige boost to compliment whatever pres you have already gained in battle.

Another less crucial drawback is that since your resources will be in high use, you will have a lot less to sell than a Cat army does. However, your army will be rendering much better hunt results to make up for this difference. So really, no real loss there.

Arguably, you will have trouble keeping your resources high to make up for your losses because you wont be able to take forts as effortless as a big Cat army, but like I said above, you can attack many more times before one Cat attack on a fort resolves. All you need to do is identify your neighboring innactive players, and you'll have all the resources you could possibly need within a few minutes.

Truth is that this army is so fast that between retraining troops and selling on market, your one REAL drawback will be running out of population quickly.

It is what it is, right? All that really means is that you can do all that you may wish to do in a shorter amount of time, letting you focus on other game elements or simply give you more spare time to reconnect with the real world.
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There might be more to say, but I think I already spoke more than any of you may have wished.

Hope it helps.