Foundation ..

STAGE 1: FOUNDATION


Step 1: Resources

It is important to have a high resource output if you want to build quickly. Therefore, the first week of your beginner's protection will be devoted (almost) solely to upgrading your resources. It is imperative that every resource field reach at least level 5 before you exit beginner's protection. Higher is better, however. I recommend at least level 7, but depending on how much time you are willing to dedicate to the game, this may not be possible. The first things other than Resources you will be building will be City buildings, which take more wood than anything else. Consequently, you could upgrade your Wood output slightly above your others, but really it won't make too much of a difference.


Step 2: City

During beginner's protection, it is more important to increase resource output. Therefore, for the first 3-5 days, you must build only if the resource reward for completing the quests is equal to or greater than the cost of building. The exception to this is the Career Centre, which you can upgrade until you have the capacity for 2 heroes. More faction quests, scrimmages and duels means more back. From this point on, focus on doing as many resource-reward faction quests as possible. If this requires recruiting units, keep the cost down by recruiting cheap infantry. Keep in mind the various factions' Order Arrow rewards. If you piss off the wrong faction, you will not be able to collect them.

The building that will be the most useful to you is a high level, preferably level 20, Builder's Guild. This will save maximum time. Therefore, you must have, as soon as possible and does not interfere too much with Resource Field upgrades, a level 1 Command Centre, a level 3 Barrack and a level 5 Drill Ground. These are the prerequisites for the Builder's Guild. It is also necessary, before fully upgrading the Guild, to have at least a level 3 Granary and level 8 Warehouse, in order to store all of the necessary resources. I recommend building the Warehouse and Guild in concert, which will save you some building time.

If this is not all done before the Beginner's Protection period ends, don't worry. We will return to it. In fact, a level 20 Builder's Guild is impossible to complete before Beginner's Protection ends. I will elaborate further in a moment.


Step 3: League

You may not think that joining a league has much to do with building, but it does. You absolutely must join the right league before Beginner's Protection ends. Seeing that you are part of a league, other players will be hesitant to plunder you, fearing reprisal. This frees up your non-stolen resources to continue building. To find the right league for you, check your messages. There should be a "Recommended Leagues" message. Check all of these. They are all potential candidates. Now, search the Map of the surrounding area like so:

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Red is your city. Blue is 3 fields in every direction, green is 5 in every direction. You want to search from 3 to 5 fields (7x7 areas) in every direction for the leagues that have the most members in your area. They will be the best able to protect you. It is good, but not necessary, for them to have many members in other states also. This can be taken care of later however. If at any point you notice that the league you choose tends not to move to help its members, it is a good idea to change. Back to leagues later. Now that you have one, there are other matters to attend to.


Step 4: City and Deployment

Your Beginner's Protection is over now. You should have, at least but not limited to: level 5-7 Resource Fields - ALL OF THEM!, a level 1 Command Centre (ComC), a level 3 Barrack (BK), a level 5 Drill Ground (DG), a level 5 Builder's Guild (BG), level 5 Warehouse (W) and Granary (G), Career Centre (CarC) with the capacity for 2 heroes, and a level 3-5 market (M). Now, this is the absolute minimum. You want to have at least this much, but if you have more, good. A Stable (S) and Scout Camp (SC) come to mind.

Your next step is to eventually research your fastest cavalry unit. For Wu, this is Female Cavalry; for Wei, it is Light Cavalry, and for Shu, it is the Lancer. Your task is to recruit one or several cavalry raiding parties, as well as messengers to lead them. I would recommend a maximum of 3, but it is your choice. You may need to raid with infantry to get enough resources to do this.

The job of these is to increase your resources by plundering nearby safe cities. A safe city is a city with less than 70 residents. With this number of residents, it is reasonably certain that there will be little to no defenses. Less than thirty practically guarantees it. The first few raids might be conducted by heroes, so as to minimize the effect of those from the opposing army. For cities of 0 residents, I recommend parties able to carry 200 of each resource twice a day, or 300-400 once a day. This supplies a steady, reliable income of resources. This is, of course, assuming few other active players in the area. If there are, it might be better to strip them of everything they have all at once, before anyone else can (0 resident cities have 800 resource stores, total). This will dramatically increase your available resources.


Step 5: Construction

Once you have the raiding parties going, it is time to continue building. Whether your priority is attack or defense, the first step is a Builder's Guild of at least level 10, but preferably level 15 or even a full 20. This will drastically reduce your building times - at BG 20, all construction in the city takes 50% the time it would take otherwise. If you like, you can alternate upgrading it with upgrading your other structures. Drill Ground and Barrack/Stable for offense, or Drill Ground and City Wall (CW)/Tower (T)/Scout Camp for defense.


Step 6: Unit Choice

Once you reach BG 15-20, you want to research all the units needed for your type of game. For defensive players, this means archers and high defense units - Heavy and Guard Cavalry for Wu, Qing Cavalry for Wei and Lancer and Imperial Guard for Shu. Note that I really do not recommend a defensive stance for Shu players. You will also need a high-level wall, blindages included. This means S/SC 10-15 and CW 15, as well as T 5-10.

Offensive players will want more offensive units - Sword Infantry and Female Cavalry for Wu, Guardsman and Light/Qing Cavalry for Wei, and Glaiveman/Imperial Guard for Shu. This requires BK/S 10-15. You may also want to upgrade your warehouse and granary to accommodate all the farming you will undoubtedly be doing. Eventually you will work your way up to an Ironworks, and start using Rams and Demolishers.

Note that all armies will be composed primarily of cheap and easy-to-produce infantry, reinforced with expensive but strong cavalry. Archers may be used for attack, but I personally prefer them in a tower where the enemy cannot see them. It is your choice, and you may end up doing both.


Step 7: Familiarizing Yourself With Other Structures

The market is fairly essential to keep a balance of resources. If you have not noticed this and upgraded yours already, do so now. While it is true that you are conveniencing other players here, and not only yourself, you can destroy them later. You are building an Empire, after all.

The Library is useful for researching upgrades, but you may want to hold off on using it until you have established yourself as a power in your area. Deploy codes allow you to get up to 30 messengers to order your ever-growing army. There are transport upgrades and upgrades unique to each faction here as well.

The Theatre is useful only once you have a sub-city or two. For every 250 000 resources inputted, it increases commercial value a measly 5000 points. That is worth it in the long run, but takes a long time to build up to.

The Monitor's Office is useful for heavily defensive types. Increases the durability of your buildings. Just remember that you can't defend forever. A game bug allows it to be built only in a city with a mansion, not an annexe.

The Governor's House can upgrade to level 5, but costs an atrocious amount of resources to do so, in return for two functions: at level 3 you can command a Curfew, which negates Lobbyists for 24 hours, but costs you 20 loyalty. At level 5, you can enter War Mode: 5 hours of double food output, followed by 24 hours of no food output. I recommend never using it.

The Mansion and Annexe will be extensively explained during Stage 2: Expansion, as well as the League Flag.

STAGE 2 - EXPANSION

Now that you have a good-sized city with a fair defending force, it it time to increase your power further.


Step 1: Choosing your method

There are two methods by which you can grow.

A) Consolidation
This method is good for defensive players. It consists of continuing as you have been, growing one city's resource fields and army until you are certain that your city can withstand anything. This usually means CW 20, T 20, AS and WS 20 and VC 20. This allows you maximum defensive power and maximum troop upgrades. Only once you are sure you can defend will you expand. This method is for new players who are not yet confident about playing the game. It does however, have one major problem: army size. You can only grow an army so large on 6 farms, even with level 20 farms and a fully upgraded mill. To counteract this, the best strategy is to build predominantly defensive units in your first city, with maybe 1/3 of your forces dedicated to attack. This way, you can host your main attacking force elsewhere, where it can grow to a staggering size. Always keep in mind that a negative food output is not only acceptable but encouraged. You can host an army half again as large, and cover your shortfall with a few faction quests and raids.

B) Replication
This method is better for more aggressive players, or just confident players. It consists of building one or more sub-cities as early on as possible. These sub-cities might be built on Guarded Spaces, where there are more farms, so that larger armies can be built. Many players recommend building your main attacking force on a 15-space, where you can build the largest army. However, you may wish, if the space is close enough, to build them elsewhere, and simply station them there when necessary. It is your choice. It is a bad idea to send your troops to support another city that is far away. If you get a 15-space that is more than, say 20 minutes of infantry-march from your hiring city, make it independent.

Personally, I built my mansion on a 15-space (10 minutes away) to maximize my food output, but I hire my attacking and defending forces in my first city, where they are upgraded. All I hire in my other cities are plunderers and archers. This allows forces stationed in all cities to be upgraded, while negating the cost of upgrading soldiers from multiple cities. This method will not, of course, work when I build more cities farther away, but for now, it does. The only disadvantage with this model is that it does not allow the heroes stationed in the non-army cities to be sent on faction quests. This is not a problem, though; it is simply a matter if sending the hero to the city hosting the army. Heroes can be commanded from any city with a career centre. This model also allows for the production of the huge numbers of men required to go on faction quests later in the game.

Note: What do I mean by "stationed"? If you deploy your units, there is an option to "support" another city. They will defend it from attack and eat that city's grain, but cannot be commanded from there, even if it is your city; they must first be returned to the original city. You can call them back in your command centre, or the other city can send them back from theirs.

EDIT: [701666663]: Shu uses some of the same units for plundering as it does for its main attack force, so this method is not always best for players of that nation.


Step 2: Recognizing good locations

On your map, there are lots of free spaces. The trick is choosing the best one for you. With your first few cities, keep in mind the three P's: Placement, Proximity and Production.

-- If you are building your city on a 6 or a 9-space, the resource production should be balanced enough for autonomy - you can build the city independently of your others, as far away as you want. But if you are building on a 15-space, you might want another city nearby to provide wood, stone and iron.
-- If you find a cluster of, for example, Stone oases nearby, you might want to place a city right in the middle of them, just to profit from all that extra stone. You could then dedicate that city solely to shipping large amounts of stone to one or more of your other cities. You might even search specifically for such a cluster in your area if you noticed a constant deficiency in one of your resources.
--Try to spread your cities around several base areas, instead of having them all in one. More on this in Stage 2.5.
-- Having cities in multiple states has advantages that will be also discussed in Stage 2.5.


Step 3: Founding the sub-city

Your Mansion or Annexe will allow you to build one sub-city at M10, M15 and M20. At each of these levels, you will be allowed to hire the necessary units for one sub-city, no more - you will be able to hire either one Lobbyist or 3 Pioneers (thank you to Tsao for that info). If you are quick enough, you will have surmised that there are two ways to build a sub-city. This is true. You may either use a Lobbyist to take over another person's sub-city, or start your own with 3 lobbyists. Once the new sub-city is successfully built or stolen, the corresponding unit will disappear.

To build a city using pioneers, you must have 3 pioneers and 800 of each resource to fill up the stocks. Simply click on the square you wish to colonize. If there is an army there occupying a Guarded Space, you will have to destroy them. If not, when you mouse over the button, instead of saying "Deploy", it will say "Build City". Click. Ta-da! With this method, you have much more control over the direction of your city's buildings - what goes up, what gets upgraded, etc.

To take over a city using a lobbyist, you must first ascertain that it is not the player's main city. If they have only one city, it is their main city, regardless of whether it has a mansion in it yet or not. Therefore, you cannot "kill" a player by taking over their only city. After the player has built a second city, the one with a mansion in it will be their main city. How do you tell which of a player's cities is their main? I would say to look on their profile for the one with the highest population, but that is not always correct. I will edit this if I find a better answer. Once you have ascertained which city is the sub-city, you must annihilate their army, destroy their annexe (if there is one) with demolishers and reduce their city's loyalty to 0 with your lobbyist, at which point it will be yours. The advantage to this is that you can obtain an already-built city, and make other people do your work for you. The disadvantages are that you may risk severely pissing off someone with one or many other cities to crush you with, and any league members they may have. Also, if they do have an annexe, well, from what I have heard, demolishers can be somewhat...unpredictable, and might damage or destroy more than just the annexe. Finally...demolishers take a bloody great amount of time and resources to research and build, so this method is primarily for use later in the game. It's great against players from enemy leagues though. No better way to demoralize your opponent into a farm than to...acquire...his hard work and time spent.


Step 4: Building up your sub-city

Once your sub-city is built, you must determine the kind of sub-city it is: Dependent (D) or Independent (I). Dependent cities are there only to provide resources or space to station an army. Independent cities function on their own, and support nearby dependent cities, though you can have two dependent cities which support each other (like a D6-space providing resources to a D15, which stations the army from the I-). This model usually results in clusters of cities - one Independent and one or more Dependents in one place, and several clusters all over the map. Usually, all research (Weapons, Defense, Speed) for a city cluster is done in the Independent city, to minimize cost. The exception to this is transport. Trading resources between cities is vital, so upgrade your markets and libraries accordingly.

If your city is Independent, follow Stage 1. If not, your upgrading will be dissimilar. You still want resources first (R 5-7), but since you can get help from your other city(cities), it is not quite as important. Next, Builder's Guilds are cheap, especially now that you have multiple cities. What you are spending is time, not resources. Spend only as much time as you feel you will save from the upgrades. This usually entails BG20, but you may be satisfied with BG15. The only other strictly necessary structures for a dependent city are W and G (storage), CW (defense), Mr (trade), and maybe T (only if you intend to station archers there), An(only if you want to build another sub), L (transport research) and LF. League Flags will be covered in the next section.

Note that (as far as I know), the only difference between a Mansion and an Annexe is that the Mansion determines what your main city is. And no, if a Mansion in a secondary city is destroyed, Main City status does not revert back to the first city you built. Since, outside this one consideration, these two buildings are the same building,you cannot have both of them in one city. Choose which city to build your mansion in carefully - you don't want those 15 farms spaces stolen, but your Independent has all your research in it. Which is more valuable to you? Which is easier to defend?

STAGE 2.5 - DOMINATION


Part 1 - League Flags and Base Regions

League Flags have one purpose: they show off the fact that you own an area. They have two effects: One - at level 10, they turn the base region you are in blue, to show you own it. Two - if your blue bits and your league leader's blue bits connect, you can move your city around inside them. But it takes a bloody great long time. Last I heard, it was 15 hours.

Now, base regions. When you put up a flag, your base region is not the 7x7 area around you. It's the 7x7 space you live in based on the grid starting at 0:0. Which means that if you are on 143:220, you are in the centre of your base region, but if you are at 434:189, you are in a corner of it. How do you figure out if you are in the centre or not? Easy. Take your coordinates. [My fictional city is at 345:678.] Subtract 3 (the number between the centre and the edge of a space) from both. [Now it's 342:675.] Now divide by 7 (the number of spaces in an area). [Ok...48.86:96.43]. Round both numbers down, to the nearest unit [48:96], multiply by 7 [336:672], add 3 [339:675]. This is the centre of your base region. Focus on it. At LF10, this area will turn blue.

Thanks to Tsao for that method. Now presumably, once all of the map is owned by your league, or just by you, you win. Since none of the servers have made it to this point yet, it's difficult to say. I doubt any lone wolf would be able to withstand a league though. So this leads us to:


Part 2 - Being an active contributor to your league

A) Paying gold
You can pay gold to get Marching Pocks and Marching Chests, or Tiger Tokens to donate to your league. But there are other ways to help.

B) King of the Hill
Helping your league win KotH is good - it means your league taxes other leagues instead of the other way round. Let me explain the basics of what goes on, for those who don't know.

Friday, Regional: Four cities, each one corresponding to a group of states - East, North, South and West. Find the corresponding one for you under the King of the Hill button in the sidebar (which you can only see when in the Resource or City panes). The objective is to capture one of these cities from NPCs and, with the help of your leaguemates, continue to hold it against other leagues' forces until the end of the round. Round lasts from 10:00 server time to 10:30, also server time. Troop limit inside the city is 800. Troops set to destroy will automatically support if city is held by an ally. Units with higher defense are automatically swapped in to replace units with lower defense. Travel time to city is 4:00 if inside the region, 8:00 if outside the region. This is one of the reasons why I mentioned previously that joining a league with many people in different states was a good idea. It is possible, with enough active players, to get more than one regional capital.

Saturday, National: Everyone goes for a single city, otherwise same deal as Regional. Travel time everywhere is 4:00. 19:00 to 19:30 server time.

EDIT: Correction, the limit for defenders in the city is increasing with server age.

Prizes are the same for both events: One for the person who held the city the longest, one for the one who held it at the end, one for the one with most kills, several for random (?) participants.

Winning these weekly events repeatedly will slowly give your league an advantage over other leagues.


C) Spreading
Go, build! This is the other reason it's good to be in a league with people all over the place. You can cover the map with sub-cities, all over the map, like a plague, spreading, covering everything, killing everyone in your path, until YOU are all that is left. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

This is also why you want to space your sub-cities to be in different base regions. That way, you can cover a 14x14 area of the map with 4 cities. You could, theoretically, have cities with nothing in them but an annexe and an LF10. Near an Independent, of course, to provide a defending force.