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Messages - Kianne Cassidy

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1
Elevenar / Re: Elvenar Guide
« on: December 19, 2023, 12:45:01 pm »
Frequently Asked Questions

Q) How do I produce sufficient troops so that I'm not always running out?

I can only speak from personal experience, but my highest chapter city has no troubles with its troop levels, so here are some of the things that it has:
  • Human, so fewer combat losses
  • Level 10 Fire Phoenix, fed when fighting a lot of battles at once
  • 3 max-level Armories
  • Level 23 (at the moment) The Sanctuary Ancient Wonder (called Martial Monastery for Elves)
  • Shrine of the Shrewdy Shrooms Ancient Wonder
  • Elvenar chapter, therefore no demand for standard goods, which means I can easily cater the tougher fights to spare troops
  • Lesser Ancient Wonders: Needles of the Tempest (improves Archers), Dragon Abbey (improves Priests)
  • Simia Sapiens Ancient Wonder (but not high enough level yet to really have an impact)
And if I know I am going to be doing a lot of Tournament and/or Spire encounters, often I will put down one or more of those 5-day temporary combat buildings such as Unleashed Unit Upgrade.

Interestingly, you will notice there is no mention of Barracks level.  Once you have the full 5 training slots, leveling your military buildings (Barracks, Training Grounds, Mercenary Camp) only helps you if you are collecting troops often enough to make use of the additional training speed.  So level them as appropriate for your activity.

Q) How do I improve my mana production?

Event buildings.  The buildings you acquire from the always-running events will far outstrip anything you can build from the Culture menu.

There are also a couple of good buildings available in the Crafting pane of your Magic Academy.  Depending on what chapter you are in, the Festival Merchant is a great mana producer.  (After a certain chapter it starts producing seeds, though.  It then becomes a good seed producer, if you happen to need seeds.)

Keep an eye on what turns up in Crafting for anything that produces mana, and whenever an event is running, check the daily prizes for mana producers and spend your event currency on those.  (As a bonus they will typically provide culture and sometimes population as well.)


2
General Discussion / Re: Defiance Game Closure
« on: April 03, 2021, 03:11:14 pm »
And this is what is wrong with online-only games.

If this had been an offline game, people could have continued to play whatever content existed even after the developers stopped adding updates.

*gets off soapbox

3
Elevenar / Re: Elvenar Guide
« on: February 04, 2020, 01:10:53 pm »
The Spire of Eternity

The Spire of Eternity is another weekly event, similar to Tournaments, that appears and disappears on a set schedule. When available, it appears in the upper left corner of your city as a white tower. You must be past a certain point in the main plot to access the Spire.

The Spire consists of 3 floors. Each floor consists of gated segments of 3 encounters then a "boss" encounter. (The "boss" encounter is just more difficult than the other three.)

Note that, like with tournaments, any progress you make up the Spire resets whenever the Spire disappears at the end of the week and then reappears at the beginning of the next week.

What makes the Spire unique is both battling and negotiating have differences:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Battling

Some battles come in "waves." These are running battles where you must fight each battle back-to-back and you cannot change units in between. If your units are damaged in one wave, then you have to take those damaged units into the next wave. (The only way to replenish units between waves is to consume Vitality Surge items, or spend Diamonds.) The game does show you exactly what units you will face each wave, so be sure to check each wave in advance and make sure you are sending the proper forces.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Negotiating

Convincing the ghosts is basically playing a game of "Mastermind" with resources. Keep in mind, all resources used in all guesses are always consumed regardless of whether the guess was correct or not. You always get three rounds of guesses. If you need more, you have to spend Diamonds. Another option, however, is to cancel out early if you didn't get a good first guess, and start over.

Some tips:
  • Your primary goal is to eliminate resources ("nobody needs it") so that you can narrow down the possibilities.
  • In round 2, even when you know which resource goes in a particular slot, you can deliberately put the wrong resource in that slot to help you figure out the other slots.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Benefits

The Spire is an excellent place to get Combining Catalyst items and Spell Fragments. Both of these are used in crafting in the Magic Academy. You can also pick up Magical Residences and Magical Workshops from the Spire, and a few unique buildings like the Genie are available on higher floors. There are also a lot of time instants in the Spire.

Note that the first four encounters (up to the first blue glowy gate) are very easy; when fighting, the squad sizes are such that you have a large advantage. And the negotiations generally only require three guesses; as long as you always guess different resources per ghost per round, you can't lose. Therefore, I would suggest everyone either fight or negotiate the first four encounters, because the one at the gate offers a chance for Teleport Scrolls and Diamonds. Do this every week and you will build up a nice cache of Teleport Scrolls and also gain some Diamonds along the way.

As you go further up in the Spire, the odds tilt against you. The squad sizes start getting very large very quickly, and once you get into floors 2 and 3 the difficulty spikes. You will probably want military boosts (Ancient Wonders, evolving buildings, the expiring boost buildings, etc.) to go higher into the Spire if you are fighting, and if you are negotiating, you will need to spend lots of resources plus possibly some Diamonds for extra guesses. Still, the first floor is fairly doable without these (though I personally tend to at least feed my Fire Phoenix before going to the top of the floor).



4
Elevenar / Re: Fellowship Adventures
« on: July 22, 2019, 11:57:07 am »
Just an update on this:

As of this writing, the developers have fairly significantly altered the quest UI for Fellowship Adventures.  They might be worth us dabbling in, perhaps, although I'm not sure yet whether there are any rewards for getting only partially through the adventure.  My understanding is we would still need to coordinate which badges each of us is working on.

5
Elevenar / Fellowship Adventures
« on: March 29, 2019, 12:01:34 pm »
I have not personally participated in Fellowship Adventures, but I've read about them online.  You can also read the in-game info on them by opening the adventure map and clicking the "?" button.  The below consists of a compilation of various advice and recommendation s that I've read on other sites.

When attempting a Fellowship Adventure, as many people in the guild as possible need to:
- Log in daily
- Be willing to devote most/all of their city's operations toward the adventure while it is active

General Strategies:

- Most of the rewards are for reaching the end. Thus, a quickest way there is to do only one path at each juncture. Doing more than one path is for fellowships that want higher ranking points. If you want the prizes (the good stuff) stick to a single path.

- Coordinate with the guild regarding which path is going to be taken at each juncture. Make sure everyone is on the same page. The different paths require different productions (from workshops and manufactories to gaining enchantments). Choosing a path may require some discussion among the guild members to determine which path is most suitable for the available members (based on what they are most capable of producing).

- Once the paths are determined, each guild member should be assigned toward making specific badges as necessary for each path (see below). This way there are no overlapping effort problems.

- Before the Fellowship Adventure starts, build temporary buildings (workshops, manufactories) and start some 1d and 2d productions (if assigned those badges). Don't collect these until you need them for the relevant Fellowship Adventure quests.

- Be careful when collecting anything; ensure that the proper Fellowship Adventure quest is on the board and ready to accept whatever it is you are about to collect.

- Use trades between guild members to satisfy the requirements for quests that just ask for a certain number of goods. You can use lots of small zero-star trades for this (zero-star to discourage non-guild members from taking the trades) of 100 goods each.

- Consider using the forums to communicate throughout the adventure as the in-game chat has a limit on number of entries and some messages may be lost.

- Consider using an editable spreadsheet (e.g. Google Sheets) to coordinate which badges are needed, and who is doing which badges.

- Players who cannot meaningfully participate but wish the rewards can put a badge into one of the paths that is not being pursued in order to qualify for the rewards. (This is sometimes necessary if they are unable to make badges for the paths that are being taken.) Good communication is needed, though, to make sure the other members know not to bother actually trying to take that side path. Otherwise people might get confused and waste efforts on the wrong path.

Allocation of Tasks:

- People who can log in a lot throughout the day can do the 5m, 15m, 1h, and 3h runs
- People who log in only once a day should be allocated the other runs
- People with free space in their city can build temporary buildings for constructing needed items faster
- People who lack space to build non-boosted manufactories should be assigned badges that won't need them
- Only one person should be in charge of collecting the stage rewards because this ends the stage

More Information:

When searching online, note that apparently Fellowship Adventures have changed throughout the years and thus some posts contain outdated information.  Some of the more helpful links I found:
- Official Wiki
- Gems of Knowledge (current adventure; spammy; visit with ad blocker)

6
Elevenar / Re: Elvenar Guide
« on: October 25, 2018, 01:18:08 pm »
Ancient Wonders

Ancient Wonders are advanced buildings that require rune shards (in addition to regular resources) to build. In addition, upgrading an Ancient Wonder building requires knowledge points (those same ones you spend in your Technology Tree). You unlock Ancient Wonders through the Technology Tree; until you research the technology that gives you access to the first wonders, you cannot interact with other players' wonders.

Whenever you complete a Province (that is, clear all Encounters therein), you are given a random rune shard for one of the Ancient Wonders you have unlocked. There are other ways to obtain shards, such as Tournaments. Keep in mind the rune shards are specific to a particular wonder; you have to use them on the building they are named for. Broken shards, on the other hand, can be used on any wonder.

Using the Ancient Wonder menu in your town, you can apply that building's rune shards to its runic circle. There are nine slots in the circle that must be filled with runes. When you click the "Insert" button, the game randomly picks one of the nine slots and tries to stick the rune there; if the slot is already full, your rune shard breaks and is added to the broken shards cache. This makes filling out the runic circle a rather frustrating experience when you have limited shards; the closer the runic circle comes to completion, the more likely you are to break shards.

If you are trying to build a particular Ancient Wonder, there are two ways to get shards specifically for that building:
  • First, visit other players' cities and find someone else who has already built that wonder. (Tip: You don't have to have even "discovered" the player for this!) By clicking on their wonder (while the Neighborly Help cursor is not active), you can donate knowledge points to their wonder, and if you are one of the top contributors, you will receive one or more rune shards for that wonder once the knowledge point bar is full. (Note that you can do this even for Ancient Wonders that you have not yourself unlocked yet; you'll still obtain the rune shards and they will be waiting and available for when you unlock that wonder.) You receive the reward the instant the bar is filled, even if the player that owns the building never actually upgrades that wonder. (However, you cannot donate to a wonder if its bar is full and it has not yet been upgraded.) Keep an eye on this because only the top contributors are rewarded; if someone comes along and usurps your place in the rewards list, you may lose out on your reward. (You can view the pending reward by pointing the cursor to the chest icon that is to the right of the name of the player in the list of contributors. Note that the player that owns the wonder shows up in the list but does not count in regards to placement for contributor rewards.) Note: Some Ancient Wonders are different between Humans and Elves. Their function is the same, but they are named differently and have different appearances. You can obtain runes for your version of the building by donating knowledge points to the equivalent Ancient Wonder of the opposite race. For example, an Elven player can donate knowledge points to a Human player's Sanctuary wonder and the Elven player will receive rune shards for his own Martial Monastery. You can verify this by looking at the chest icon in the rewards list. The icon will identify the exact rune that the player will receive; this is why sometimes the named rune does not match the name of the wonder itself.
  • Ten broken shards can be forged into a rune for any Ancient Wonder you like; this forging is always guaranteed to work (and is a great way to fill out that last slot in a runic circle). You cannot store more than ten broken shards, so any further broken shards you obtain are wasted. So be sure to spend them when you get to ten. You can get broken shards from certain Tournament rounds (by repeating certain levels of the Tournament multiple times). This is one reason Tournaments are beneficial even if you never reach any of the checkpoints. Also, if you have an abundance of runes for other Ancient Wonders, you can deliberately break them on their runic circles and then use the broken shards on the wonder you actually want to build. This is not necessarily particularly efficient (it is a 10-to-1 ratio, after all), but might still help. (To break runes for a particular wonder, just go to its runic circle and try to insert runes. As the circle fills, more likely than not several of the runes will break. This doesn't work for wonders that you have already built or if the circle is already full.)

Depending on your luck in obtaining the necessary shards for the particular Ancient Wonder that you want to build (and your luck in not breaking them in the runic circle), wonders can be time-consuming and annoying to construct. Whether their benefits are even worth the effort is up to some debate. Some wonders provide unique features that you cannot obtain in any other way, but others just provide things like additional culture or population that you can get through other buildings.

Note that after you have upgraded an Ancient Wonder to certain level thresholds, you will again require runes to upgrade the wonder further. So runes that you acquire for wonders you have already built are not necessarily wasteful.

Some Ancient Wonders will add a large building graphic to the backdrop of your city (usually somewhere in the cliffs to the upper right); this is cosmetic only, but it is a way to quickly identify which wonders that player has built. Also, completing certain wonders for the first time will grant you access to a new portrait to use.


7
Elevenar / Re: Elvenar Guide
« on: August 30, 2018, 12:39:39 pm »
Manual Battle

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Combat Execution

When your unit's turn comes up, the unit is shown at the far left in the turn order at the bottom of the screen. Also, the movement range of the unit is displayed in the hex grid. As you point your mouse at enemies, the game will show the specialization stars for enemies that unit is specialized against. (E.g. if the unit has a three-star specialization, you will see three stars just like during the pre-battle setup screen.) If your cursor turns into a sword or bow icon on the enemy, the unit can attack that enemy. If such an icon does not show up, your unit is not close enough to attack that enemy.

Also, when you point your mouse at various other units (enemies and your own units), you will be shown the movement range of whatever unit you are pointing the mouse cursor at. This is crucial! (Which is why it's so critical that the hex grid actually draw and not be invisible.) Enemy movement ranges are displayed in red outlines. Use the enemy movement ranges to carefully position your own units. For example, Light Ranged can attack Heavy Melee outside of their movement range. Point at the Heavy Melee, then find a tile that is two tiles away from the red movement range--that's a safe place to fire from. (Though any Heavy Melee that has an attack range of 2 like the Paladin will be able to hit your archer; there's nothing you can do about that.)

You can do two things on your turn: move and attack. Attacking ends your unit's turn, so if you are going to move, you have to do it first. To move, just click on the desired destination tile (which has to be within the unit's movement range, of course). To attack, click on the desired enemy target (which also has to be within the unit's range, of course). If you click on your unit itself, the unit will pass his turn doing nothing, so be careful about this as it's very easy to do on accident! You can also have the unit pass his turn by clicking on the icon on the top of the unit's portrait at the bottom of the screen. You can have the unit move first, then pass the rest of his turn, if you wish. Note that you cannot take back a move once you've made it, even if the unit's turn hasn't ended yet.

Note: If you move a unit its maximum movement distance and there are no enemies within range to attack, the unit's turn automatically ends. On the other hand, if you've moved a unit its maximum movement distance and its turn hasn't ended, this is because there is an enemy somewhere that it can hit. Point at the various enemies to find which one(s) this is. It's not necessary to attack if you don't want to, even if there is an enemy within range; just have the unit pass his turn after moving if you don't wish for him to attack.

When attacking, be very, very conscious of the fact that: when you click on an enemy target, if your unit is not presently within range of his target but he can move within range, the game will pick some tile that is within range and move the unit there. (Before you click, it highlights the tiles that it is proposing your unit move to.) The game's pathfinding is pretty bizarre; it appears to pick whatever tile causes the unit to travel the farthest possible distance. Even if the unit only has to move one tile to get within range, the game will often have him move his full maximum movement distance off to the side somewhere. It's crazy. I would highly recommend not relying on this auto-movement. Manually move the unit to the desired tile first, then click the enemy to attack. (As long as the unit is within range of his weapon, he will not move before attacking.)

As you play the game, you will get used to the ranges of your units and you will get good at being able to move the unit to where it can attack. Before then, just move the unit one tile at a time until he is close enough to attack. (You can tell if he is close enough if you point at the target and the game doesn't highlight any tiles for your unit to move to.) You can also click the blue "i" icon on the unit's portrait to bring up that unit's detailed information and look at its attack range there, then count hexes. I highly recommend practicing with Light Ranged units and get good at positioning them outside of the movement range of Heavy Melee; but the same concept applies to all units.

Note: Units have to take their turns in the order presented (which is based on their initiative stats). You cannot have a unit "save" his turn for later. The most you can do is have a unit pass his turn, in which case he has to wait for his next turn in the next round.

Unit Positions

Unit facing doesn't matter in this game. Attacking an enemy from the rear will not do any additional damage. Units always turn to face whomever is going to attack them at the moment that they get attacked, but this is cosmetic only.

All units block movement through their occupied hex to all other units. This includes both friendlies and enemies. Your own units will block your units' movements. This is critical to keep in mind to avoid blocking your own advance.

However, there is no flanking this game. Although a unit blocks his own hex, he doesn't influence any hexes around himself. An enemy unit can waltz right past him without hindrance. If you want to, say, use melee units to protect your ranged units in the back, you'll need to line up multiple melee units or use the terrain to your advantage.

Retaliation

Some units can retaliate when attacked. (The game shows this on the unit's "i" information card as "Strike Back.")

Most of the time, a unit gets only one retaliation per round (the rounds are demarcated at the bottom of the screen). Thus, you can reduce overall retaliations by ganging up on a single enemy within a single round. Later in the game, some units will gain the special ability to retaliate multiple times in a round. You can also see this on the unit's information card.

Furthermore, a unit can only retaliate if its attacker is within its own attack range, so if you strike from outside of the attack range of the enemy, it can't retaliate against you. Remember that attack range is not the same as movement range; the game shows you the enemy's movement range in the hex grid, but not its attack range. You can check the attack range on the--you guessed it--information card of the unit in question.

Enemy AI

As in any game, the computer AI has some predictability that can be exploited.
  • Enemies tend to target the unit with the highest initiative (of those that are within reach). This generally means your Light Ranged will get picked on first.
  • At higher levels, AI units do appear to make more of an attempt to target units they are specialized against. (They don't seem to do this so much at lower levels.)
  • But overall the AI will go for whichever unit is presently within range. So you can bait the computer by deliberately putting your strongest unit within range of an enemy so that the enemy has no choice but to hit that unit.
  • Note though that the AI can sometimes be pretty clever. Say the enemy is a Light Melee that's just itching to attack that Light Ranged that's just out of its reach, and you stick a Heavy Melee in its way; in this sort of situation the AI will often walk all the way around your Heavy Melee before attacking in order to get into position to attack the Light Ranged on its next turn. This is something to watch out for. (And something to try doing yourself.)


8
Elevenar / Re: Elvenar Guide
« on: August 30, 2018, 12:39:27 pm »
Combat

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Basics

You have to unlock the unit types through technologies. In particular, note that you begin the game with some Paladins / Treants in stock, but will not be able to train replacements until quite a bit later on. So be careful when using them in early game.

Squads

Your units are grouped into squads. This means each "unit" that you see during battle is actually multiple units in a squad. Different unit types have different squad sizes. For example, you start out with an overall squad size of 6. Your Axe Barbarian / Sword Dancer units have a size of 1 so 6 of them fit into a squad. But your Paladin / Treants will be just 1 per squad at a squad size of 6.

You can view your current squad size and other details by examining your Barracks. Click the Barracks to open the interface, then hover the mouse over various parts. The Camp tab will show you how many individual units you have if you hover on each unit type; the numbers beneath the icons are squads.

The number of units you presently have in a squad determines the attack power and HP of that squad on the combat field. During combat, as the individual units start getting whittled away in the squad, the squad will deal less and less damage. This applies to enemies as well, so one strategy might be to spread out your damage to weaken as many enemy units as you can.

An interesting side effect of squads: The bigger your squad size, the more powerful the unit, but the more losses you will suffer. This is due to the way HP works. An example would be easiest. When you have a squad size of 6, the HP bar looks like this:

0% |--|--|--|--|--|-- 100%

As the unit takes damage, whenever his HP reaches one of those vertical markers, the squad loses an individual unit (shown via the skull icon in battle). So you start out with 6 units in the squad; when the squad suffers roughly 16% damage, 1 unit is lost, and so on. When the squad is at half health, you've lost roughly 3 units.

Now picture that you get the squad upgrade and now your squad size is 9. Now that same HP bar looks like this instead:

0% |-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|- 100%

Now, when the unit suffers roughly 11% damage, you lose 1 individual unit from the squad. When the squad is at half health, you have lost around 5 units.

In terms of percentages, the damage the unit suffers stays roughly the same as you progress through the game, but the losses increase exponentially. Whereas early in the game, an enemy archer might hit your squad and deal 20% of its health and kill 1 unit, later in the game, an archer will hit your squad, deal 20% of its health, and kill 34 units. Thus, the larger your squad size, the more time-consuming it will be to replace units that you lose during combat.

Bear in mind your "Squad Size" statistic shown in your city affects only world map Province battles, and some Ancient Wonders. Your Squad Size does not impact Tournaments, the Spire, or any other combat situation. Thus, when the game says "increasing Squad Size makes battles easier" this applies only to world map Province battles, not anywhere else.

Buildings

Units are constructed at the Barracks, Training Grounds, and Mercenary Camp. Each building has a number of training slots. These slots are for your convenience only: they allow you to queue up units to be trained in order. When one slot is finished, the next one will automatically start training with no intervention from you. Unlike with Supplies and Goods, you do not need to collect the units from the previous slot before the next slot will train. Thus, you can queue up a bunch of slots and then go to bed and come back in the morning and collect all of your newly minted warriors.

Upgrading your Barracks, Training Grounds, and Mercenary Camp sometimes increases the number of slots you have in that building. Upgrading them will also increase the speed at which units are trained in that building. Upgrading these buildings has no effect on the combat proficiency of your troops, though.

Armories

Armories increase the size of each training slot. With no Armories your training size is 6. This is the same size as your squad when you first start out, so in the beginning, every time you train a slot, you will be training a full squad. This does not remain the case as the game progresses, however; your squad size increases exponentially while your training size increases linearly. What this means is very soon each slot in your Barracks will only be training a small portion of a squad (more or less depending on how many Armories you have). Thus, if you go into battle and lose 3 squads, it may take you days to train them all back again. This means training rates drop off dramatically the further you advance in the game (unless you build lots of Armories). It is recommended to be training units whenever you can spare the Supplies, even if you aren't presently fighting battles; thus you can be storing them up for when you want to use them.

How many Armories you should build depends on your play style. You will almost certainly want to always have at least one, but you can build more if you wish to train units faster. It's totally up to what works for you. Having fewer Armories will not make your units less powerful; it will just make it take longer to train more units.

Technologies

There are two technologies that directly affect combat:
  • Squad Size Upgrade: These technologies will increase your squad size, which increases how many units are in a squad. This will be elaborated upon below. Note that when you research one of these upgrades, your Army Camp will start showing that you have fewer squads than what you had previously. This is because more individual units are now fitting into a single squad--in other words, the squad requires more units to be full. So don't worry, you haven't lost units.
  • Advanced Scouts: This technology caps off the end of every chapter; you have to research it to progress to the next chapter. This technology is also explained in more detail below.
Scouting

Here is an important tip for beginners: Early in the game, never scout more Provinces than what you need to open the chest at the end of your current chapter! (The Technology Tree window will show you the number of required Provinces.) Unlocking the "Advanced Scouts" at the end of the chapter only cuts the difficulty for Provinces that you scout after unlocking the technology. If you scouted them in advance, you are shooting yourself in the foot as you are going to have to slog through unnecessarily difficult battles.

Another tip: scout Provinces in order of difficulty. In other words, first scout the ones that say "Very Easy" or "Easy" on them. Do all of those before you move on to "Medium" ones, and avoid "Hard" and "Very Hard" (you are not intended to clear those Provinces). The higher-difficulty Provinces will become lower in difficulty as you unlock "Squad Size Upgrade" and "Advanced Scouts" technologies, so leave them be until they drop in their difficulty rating.

Unit Types

There are five unit types: Light Melee, Light Ranged, Heavy Melee, Mage, Heavy Ranged. Every unit, both yours and those of the enemy, falls into one of these categories. Each unit type is said to be "specialized" against two other types, and no two types share the same pair of specialization s. If you draw the types on a pentagon and draw arrows representing specialization s, you will see the pattern. (Note that units are specialized toward particular unit types, not toward particular units.)

Every unit type is always "about even" (that is, "neutral") toward its own type--this means a unit has no advantages and no disadvantages against its own type.

Unit Selection

When you are selecting units to enter battle, the interface displays some important information.

First, when you hover your mouse over one of your units, you will see icons overlaid on the unit portraits of the enemy units that your unit is either specialized against -OR- is neutral to. This latter part is a danger that you need to be aware of. A unit that is merely "about even" with the enemy is not specialized in any way against that enemy, so don't be misled by a whole bunch of icons showing up on neutral enemies. Where possible, you ideally want to use units that are specialized, not merely "about even" with the foe. (Though neutral units are still useful in situations where the enemy has a mixture of lots of different unit types and your unit is specialized against some and neutral against the rest.)

In the browser, in order to see the exact nature of a particular unit against other units, click on the blue "i" on his portrait (you can do this with enemy units as well) and the game will list the two unit types that the unit is specialized against. There will be a row of stars beside these specialization s. These stars are basically ratings, but I find they are not really all that accurate. Instead of merely going by the number of stars, point at one of these rows of stars and the game will specifically tell you exactly what benefits the unit gets against that foe. Notice that some benefits are offensive in nature (listed as "+XX%" damage) and some are defensive (listed as "-XX%" damage). You can use this information to guide your strategy: such as to try to get units with a -80% defensive boost to soak up all of the hits from the enemy, and so on.

Note: Underneath the unit portraits are one to three tiny little stars. These are not specialization ratings. They are the unit's level. Every unit has one to three levels. You yourself gain these levels by researching them in the Technology Tree (these level increases apply retroactively to your existing units). Higher level units will have some improvements over lower level units, such as higher health; in addition, level 3 units typically gain some sort of special feature such as a debuff that is applied when they attack.

Note: Enemy squad size is influenced by how many enemies there are in that particular battle. If there are very few enemies, their squad sizes will be bigger; when there are many enemies, their squad sizes will be smaller. Thus, if you go into a battle where there are only one or two enemy units, their squad sizes will be much larger than a battle in that same Province with five or six enemies. This is something to note when trying to compare your squad size to that of the enemy. The idea is the overall difficulty for each battle in a particular Province remains the same regardless of how many enemies there are. With fewer enemies, the enemies will get fewer turns in comparison to you, so each enemy is stronger to compensate for this. When the enemies outnumber you, they get more turns than you do, but individually they are weaker.

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Unit Tips

Light Melee

The main problem with Light Melee is you will tend to have high losses when using them, even against units they are specialized against. There are several reasons for this:
  • Although they are meant to be used against Light Ranged and Mages, both of these unit types are ranged, which means the Light Melee has to chase them down. Battle field obstacles, as well as other combatants, are often a great hindrance with this.
  • Their 1 attack range limits how many Light Melee can surround and attack any single target, which is especially troublesome when the enemy flees into a corner or is surrounded by obstacles or other units.
  • Another irony is that their Strike Back capability is typically useless against their favored enemies unless the AI commits suicide.
  • Add to this that Light Melee gets absolutely pulverized by both of their counter-units (Heavy Ranged and Heavy Melee).
Overall, Light Melee is the weakest unit type by far. I personally suggest avoiding using Light Melee in most situations.  But if you are going to use them...

Axe Barbarian / Sword Dancer

They have a moderate movement range, moderate attack damage, and moderate health. Their initiative is also pretty average. This is your quintessential "middle of the road" unit.

Cerberus

The key selling point of these guys is their long movement range (at later stars they can almost cross the entire map in a single move, barring obstacles) which helps compensate (slightly) for the overall failings of Light Melee. However, keep in mind they are less durable and will die even more easily than your Barracks units. Still, if you are going to use Light Melee at all, these are the ones I would use.

Drone Rider

Honestly, I don't see much point in this unit as it is nearly identical to your Barracks Light Melee. The Drone Rider does have one tile additional movement range, which is handy but not enough to be a game changer like with the Cerberus. Feel free to mix these in with your Axe Barbarians / Sword Dancers if you wish, but don't expect drastically different results.

Light Ranged

Their attack range is 4. Heavy Melee movement range is 2. This means Light Ranged can attack outside of the range of Heavy Melee. If the Heavy Melee enemy has an attack range of 1 (which many of them do), the Heavy Melee will not be able to damage your archer. Every turn, just keep moving your Light Ranged back so that they remain outside of the range of the Heavy Melee.

Light Ranged are specialized against Heavy Melee and Mages. Target Mages first where possible; most of the time, an archer at full health can kill an equal-squad Mage in a single shot, so you're best off if you can hit them before they hit you. You might have to bait the Mages out of hiding, however, if they are hanging back behind other units.

Light Ranged tend to have the highest initiative of any unit. This means they get to shoot first, but it also means they get targeted first. They have almost no defense so you need to keep them out of harm's way.

When one of your archers' turns comes up, always point at all of the enemies and check their movement ranges before moving your archer. Careful placement of your Light Ranged is key.

Crossbowman / Archer

Pretty standard all-around useful units; you unlock these fairly early on and they remain useful for most of the game (or until you get three-star Rangers).

Note that the movement range plus attack range of a Crossbowman / Archer is such that he can strike the enemy directly across from him on his very first turn in battle if there are no terrain obstacles in the way (and assuming the enemy doesn't get to move first, which rarely happens). On many maps this can be utilized to take out Mages before they can even get out of the starting gate.

Ranger

The king of Light Ranged once you unlock all of their stars: they get slightly longer movement range and Strike Back capability. However, they come later in the game, so until you unlock their third star, your Barracks Light Ranged might actually be more useful due to the debuffs they apply. For this reason, you may want to try using a mixture of Crossbowmen / Archers with Rangers earlier in the game.

Dryad

Dryads have one use and one use only: Mistwalker bait.  Enemy Mistwalkers are the strongest unit in the entire game, barring none, but they have one weird quirk: they will almost always target a Dryad if they can reach one.  So when facing Mistwalkers, use one or two Dryads to draw fire away from your more valuable units like your mages.

Heavy Melee

This is fairly unique to Heavy Melee, but don't be afraid to use these guys even against units that they are not specialized against, if you are facing a mixture of enemy unit types. Heavy Melee have extremely high health and deal good damage even against non-ideal targets, so they are better at dealing with being at a disadvantage than the other unit types. For example, if you are facing a mixture of Light Melee, Heavy Ranged, and Light Ranged, go ahead and load up on Heavy Melee even though the archers are specialized against them. Just focus on and kill the Light Ranged first. The same applies to battles that have Mages in them.

Heavy Melee units also have very low initiative so they tend to be targeted last, which also (ironically) aids their survivability if you are using them alongside other unit types. For example, if you are using a mixture of Light Ranged and Heavy Melee in a fight that happens to include some Mages, the Mages will tend to shoot your archers first (which, for Humans, have a defense bonus against Mages), sparing your Heavy Melee (which are weak against Mages). This might not always be a good thing since most other unit types have lower health and defenses than the Heavy Melee, but it does come into play.

You wouldn't want to use Heavy Melee in a fight that is nothing but archers and mages, but when you are looking for a support unit to deal with a diverse enemy group, Heavy Melee is often the best choice.

Paladin

Paladins have an attack range of 2. This might not sound like much, but it gives them a huge advantage in many ways. Here are some tips on how to make use of it:
  • Attack Light Melee and Heavy Melee targets from two tiles away (meaning there is a gap of one tile between your Paladin and the target). This way the enemy units cannot retaliate unless they happen to also have an attack range of 2 (which few units do).
  • Paladins can retaliate from two tiles away as well, which allows them to strike back against all Heavy Melee and even ranged opponents who get too close.
  • Paladins can poke enemies over top of terrain obstacles (those little rocks and shrubs that block tiles). Stand on the opposite side of such obstructions and hit enemies from there.
  • In narrow confines, you can line up your Paladins such that the first one is directly next to the target and the second is right behind him, allowing the second to hit the target over top the first.
  • When chasing down long-ranged units like Heavy Ranged, the movement range of the Paladin is effectively 4 because he can move 2 and then attack 2 tiles past that. This allows the Paladin to catch up to enemies more quickly than a Treant.
  • Barring any obstacles or interfering units, archers cannot stay out of the reach of a Paladin no matter where they shoot from. If they're hitting your Paladin, your Paladin can hit them. Compare with a Treant, where archers that choose their placement wisely can stay out of their reach effectively forever. (Though luckily for Elven players, the computer AI is not good at actually doing this.)

Treant / Orc Warrior

Unfortunately for Elves, these two units are not overly worth using since their limited range puts them at a disadvantage. Having said that, Treants are quite durable, so you can use them successfully in a pinch, but you are generally better off with a unit with greater range.

Vallorian Guard

Prior to unlocking these in the research tree, you can get access to some by crafting a "Vallorian Valor" building in your Magic Academy. I highly recommend these for Elven players, because they are basically weaker Paladins. For Human players, you already have your Paladins, so they are not as useful there. Also remember that until you actually research them much later in the game, your Vallorian Guards will be stuck at 1 star, so for Human players, your Paladins will quickly outpace them.

For Elven players, Vallorian Guards can be used like Paladins. They are a bit more frail, so they will tend to suffer slightly higher losses. Sometimes you may wish to mix in 1 or 2 Treants with your Vallorian Guards to help protect them (your Treants are a lot more durable), but don't be surprised if the Treants don't even get a single hit in while the Vallorians mop up the enemies.

Mage

Priest

Their attack range is 5. This allows them to shoot not only outside of the range of Heavy Melee, but also outside retaliation range of Heavy Ranged units and even Light Ranged when positioned correctly. Many of the tips for archers apply to these guys. Strive to never put them within striking range of the enemy.

The Priest's attacks apply a defense debuff on the enemy. This means stacking all of your damage onto a single enemy is most efficient; however, this might not be practical depending on the layout of the battle field (as trying to all gang up on a single target might put your Priests into harm's way).

Sorceress

Unfortunately, Elven players are at a disadvantage until they can unlock Blossom Mages because the Sorceress is a pretty poor unit. When you are forced to use them, use them carefully (manual battle is recommended). Their very short attack range means their positioning is not as important. Instead, focus on spreading out their attack debuff onto as many enemies as possible. This will help lessen your losses. Do be careful when attacking Heavy Melee that have an attack range of 2. The Sorceress can attack one tile outside of retaliation range, but if you're not careful when moving her, she'll often get too close and needlessly take damage.

Blossom Mage

The Blossom Mage is basically a Priest with lower health and slightly higher damage and initiative. Sadly, the unit that players get isn't as good as the one that the computer uses against you (the enemy variety gets Strike Back). But for Elven players, you can use these like Priests, so they are useful for replacing your Sorceresses. For Human players, they are basically redundant with Priests. See the discussion above on Priests for strategies for using them.

Banshee

These units are not much different than the Sorceress and to add insult to injury, you get their star upgrades later than for the Sorceress. A Human player has no real reason to use these at all. For Elven players, the Banshee is a bit better at dealing with Heavy Ranged enemies than the Sorceress, so when facing large numbers of Heavy Ranged, before you get the Blossom Mage you may want to try Banshees.

Heavy Ranged

The Heavy Ranged category is somewhat unique in that all four of the units found within are useful in specific situations. Also, Heavy Ranged is the second-best unit type overall at dealing with its counter-units. For this reason, they make good support units.

Golem

These guys have relatively high health and hit pretty hard. They are very much like a ranged Heavy Melee, though not nearly as durable. Still, you can often use Golems as a support unit when facing a diverse mix of enemy unit types. (Most other unit types make poor support units since they tend to get slaughtered before they can contribute much to the battle.)

If you are using Golems in a fight that happens to have some Heavy Melee enemies and you are fighting manually, try to keep the Golems out of the range of the Heavy Melee until you take out interfering units. Then, when you have the opportunity, have all of your Golems gang up on the Heavy Melee in a single round; this will hopefully enable them to remove the Heavy Melee enemy without taking a hit from it.

Mortar

Their insane range allows them to more or less ignore terrain obstacles and cherry-pick their targets. However, Mortars can be fairly poor if used exclusively on their own, even against units they are specialized against. This is because their damage output is not that great; this combined with their whopping 1 movement range and lackluster defense means they are easy for the enemy to pin down. For best results, add in at least one unit of another type (typically Heavy Melee) to act as a guard for your Mortars.

Having said that, Mortars make outstanding support units; you can mix them in with your Mages to help take out Light Ranged counter-units, for example, and even use one or two Mortars to take out pesky long-ranged enemies that otherwise like to hide behind terrain, since Mortars can pretty much hit the entire battlefield indiscriminate ly. The AI is also reasonably good at using Mortars on auto-battle since they don't need to move.

Faineant Frog

Pretty much everything that was said about the Mortars can be put here. In addition, once you unlock all three stars for the Frogs, their debuff will decimate enemy forces. However, that happens very late into the game.

Orc Strategist

Prior to unlocking these officially, you can get them by crafting a "Grounds of the Orc Strategist" building in the Magic Academy. I highly suggest these for Human players; they're somewhat redundant to Golems for Elves (but still useful in their own right).

Orc Strategists can be used like Golems (so see the section above), but they specialize in Light Ranged. They will mow down archers like they are made of paper. They also get Strike Back capability which is useful when they are facing Light Melee (and many other unit types as well). I would generally favor Orc Strategists when facing a large number of Light Ranged, and use greater numbers of Golems/Mortars/Frogs otherwise.


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Combat Tips

Buildings to have for fighting: There are no standard buildings you can construct to increase your combat abilities, but there are some event buildings and Ancient Wonders that can help:
  • Sanctuary / Martial Monastery: This Ancient Wonder directly boosts the power of your troops and is almost a necessity if you intend to do any fighting at all.
  • Fire Phoenix: An essential event building. If you missed out on the event where this was the prize, you can craft the base and Artifacts in the Magic Academy and sometimes obtain the needed Artifacts in events and so on. This building must be fed to actually have any effect on your units.
  • Unleashed Unit Upgrade / Enlightened Light Range / etc.: These are expiring buildings that you can craft in the Magic Academy. Once placed, they last five days and you can place multiple buildings and their boosts stack. Note that these buildings do not need a street connection.
Buildings to have for training: Armories help you to train more units at a time. You can add more Armories to your city if you find your training is not keeping up with your combat losses. Some other possibilities:
  • Shrine of the Shrewdy Shrooms: This Ancient Wonder is like an Armory that gets its boost based on how many other Armories you have. It is useful because it will provide more boost than a regular Armory and it also does not consume population/culture.
  • Dwarven Bulwark: An Ancient Wonder that increases your Training Size as a direct percentage of your Squad Size. Unfortunately its other feature is to produce what are almost the most useless units in the game: your Barracks Light Melee.
Know the unit types: See the tips above regarding which units to select for each battle. Early Tournament rounds are a useful place to experiment with these.

Range is king: Overall, ranged units have the advantage especially when using the "Auto-Battle" feature. Priests, Paladins, Rangers, Blossom Mages, Faineant Frogs, etc.

Manual battle to reduce your losses: Only possible on the browser (the app doesn't have manual battle), but once you are familiar with the combat system you can often achieve better results manually controlling your units than relying on the auto-battle.



9
Elevenar / Re: Elvenar Guide
« on: August 30, 2018, 12:39:07 pm »
Quests

"Quests" are given by the face portraits shown on the left side of your screen. Click on one to see what he wants you to do. Side quests can be declined. Most main story quests cannot unless you have already proceeded past the chapter in which they were given.

Quests grant you rewards for performing certain actions. The main story quests also serve as the game's tutorial because the advisors will direct you to do things which help you to learn how to build up your city (and, later, they help you to understand each guest race as you reach them). Main quests follow a preset order. Side quests tend to be related to some action you just performed (such as building an Ancient Wonder).

When you begin your day, one trick is to collect only the resources needed to complete whatever quest is currently on the board. This is because after you complete that quest, you will receive a different quest, and it could be that the new quest will ask for something you already have waiting to be collected.

Declining side quests (the second quest giver) may be beneficial in rare circumstances if the quest giver is asking for something that you know you will be unable to fulfill for a very long time. (Just keep in mind some side quests are in chains, and if you decline one, you might break the chain and miss out on the rest.) It is generally not recommended to decline main quests unless you absolutely have to as you may miss out on future quests (some of them reward Diamonds).

Tip:  Read the main quest dialogues!  This game does in fact have a plot and some of the dialogue is hilarious. You also can learn quite a few tidbits of info about the Elvenar world by what the quest givers say. Furthermore, the dialogue explains why the quest giver is asking you to do whatever it is he wants you to do. Remember that for main quests, the reward is not the point--the point is to teach you some aspect of the game.

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Quest Types

Some notes on some of the types of quests:
  • Produce Item: This is a request to build something at your Workshops or Manufactories. The named object will be one of the time-based productions. For example, a request for "Bread" is fulfilled at your Workshop (the 1h production) and a request for "Warrior Mask" is fulfilled at a Steel Manufactory (the 9h production). Note that you have to actually build the named object; simply obtaining the equivalent amount of Supplies or Goods is not the same. The quest completes when you collect the Good from the building that produced it.
  • Obtain Coins/Supplies/Goods: When the quest giver just says to "obtain" Coins or Supplies or a particular Good, any mechanism for adding the named item to your total will work. But if the quest says to "collect" the resource, you have to get it out of one of your buildings, not via a trade or something.
  • Train Units: This one completes when you collect the troops from the Barracks or other training building.
  • Solve Encounter: Unless the quest giver specifies otherwise, you can either fight or negotiate. Note that this will specify whether it wants a "Spire" Encounter, "Tournament" Encounter, or just plain "Encounter" which means a world map Province Encounter. If the quest says "and/or" you can do any mix-and-match combination, but if it says "or" you HAVE to do ALL of a SINGLE type of Encounter.
  • Clear Province: This means to solve all Encounters within a Province.
  • Have a Building/Technology: If you already have the named building or have researched the named technology this quest will complete automatically.
  • Build/Upgrade a Building: You have to complete the construction for this one to count. Already having a building of the correct type/level does not clear the quest.
  • Place Trade Offer: This one is easy to do because even if you don't want to make a trade, you can put up a tiny trade or even put up a trade and then cancel it after the quest is complete.
  • Accept Trade: In many cases using the Wholesaler counts for this.
  • Spend Knowledge Points: Unless specified otherwise you can complete this quest by spending the points either in your Technology Tree or in any Ancient Wonder. Using an "Ancient Knowledge" instant also counts.
  • Buy Knowledge Points: Click the "+" button beside your knowledge point bar to purchase knowledge points. Note that I personally do not recommend purchasing knowledge points unless you are fulfilling one of these quests, because unlike the Wholesaler, the price increase for each purchase is permanent.
  • Gain Culture: Sometimes the quest says to build a culture building. But if the quest just specifies to gain culture, it also counts if you sell a building that was using culture, thereby granting you back the culture that had been used. Note that gaining culture via Neighborly Help does not count.
  • Gain Population: Gaining population and then losing it again doesn't hurt your progress in this quest. So it's a little silly, but if you are desperate for this one, you can build level 1 Residences and sell them over and over until the quest is complete.
  • Fix Missing Street Connection: This one is a tutorial quest that is given to you if you have some buildings with the red "no action" icon over them. To clear this quest you have to reconnect all of your buildings that are missing a connection; simply connecting one does not help if you have more than one such building. (Amusingly, selling the offending buildings also counts.)
This list doesn't cover every possible quest, but just those that I had some remarks on.

It should be noted that some quests offer an "either/or" option; in this case, if the quest says "or" then you have to do all of one or all of the other. You can't do a little bit of both. If the quest says "and/or" then you can do a mix-and-match combination of any of the options.

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Events

Events are one-time collections of quests and mini-games to earn rewards.  There is usually either an event or a Fellowship Adventure running at any given time.  You can identify them by their special button in the upper left of your interface, the special quest givers, the custom load screen, and, in some cases, the decoration graphics that get added to the backdrop of your city (typically around the outer edges).

Most events involve collecting some sort of special item unique to that event (feathers, snowflakes, tickets, etc.), and spending those items like currency to earn rewards and advance your way toward grand prizes. Events provide a number of special buildings that generally cannot be obtained in any other way--which includes set buildings that gain additional benefits if you place multiple buildings in the set side-by-side. (They have to be touching each other--in fact, each building only gets set bonuses for the other set buildings that it individually is touching. So you can't just chain them in a row and get all of the bonuses.)

While an event is running, every time you log in, it's a good idea to check the event's quests first before collecting anything from any of your buildings. Sometimes when you clear one quest, the next one will ask for something you've already built and you can complete it quickly by simply collecting the awaiting resources. Occasionally you can clear multiple quests in a row like this by selectively collecting things only as they are needed.

Actually getting all the way to the end of a special event typically requires looking up a list of quests online somewhere so that you can prepare in advance for them. It can be helpful during events to build extra level 1 Workshops and Manufactories to more quickly produce the items that the quests require. (There's no need to upgrade the temporary buildings because it doesn't matter for most of the quests how many Supplies/Goods you get for the items; all that counts is that you make the items. Keep in mind that level 1 buildings require no culture.) You can sell the temporary buildings once the event is over (or just set aside a permanent "shanty town" in your city since this will benefit events, Fellowship Adventures, and the Seasons system).

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Tournaments

Note: Tournaments are only available if you are in a Fellowship.

Tournaments occur on a weekly rotating schedule, and each Tournament always takes place within a particular Province type. You will find Tournaments on the world map placed on cleared Provinces of the Tournament's type. Tournament provinces (or "tents") proceed in levels of difficulty (with level 1 being the easiest); you have to clear the level 1 Tournament Province before you can move on to level 2, and so on. However, you can re-fight a particular level once per ~16 hours or so (up to six times each), and the rewards for each level change depending on how many times it has been cleared.

It's important to note that the Squad Size in a Tournament is completely unrelated to your own Squad Size (confusingly enough). Each Tournament round (or "tent") has a preset Squad Size for both your units and the enemy units, which results in the battles becoming increasingly difficult (and expensive) the deeper you go. In early tents, the Squad Sizes give you the advantage, but in later tents, the enemy gets increasingly greater advantage over you.

Tournaments are a good source of relics, Broken Shards, Knowledge Points, and enchantment spells.  Notice that the first 8 tents or so are fairly easy and can usually be fought with few losses, so it could be worth doing at least that many every week even if you don't plan to go further.

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Fellowship Adventures

Note: As you can tell by their name, Fellowship Adventures are only available if you are in a Fellowship.

Fellowship Adventures are to this game what the "raid" is to MMORPGs: they require a lot of input from all of the players in the Fellowship working together. The basic idea is you complete the special quests to gather tokens of specific types, then use those tokens to open gates on the special Fellowship Adventure map. This requires coordination so that everyone knows who is making what tokens and which path on the map the Fellowship is going to take.

Fellowship Adventures consist of three maps, and the only real rewards are in the chests placed at the end of each of the three maps.  When the "flag is pulled" at the end of a map, only those players who placed at least one token in one route will earn the rewards.

Each map consists of three "routes" known as the blue route, the green route, and the orange/yellow route, based on the colors of the waypoints.  At intersections you can switch which route you are taking.

In order to reach the rewards, it is important to only place tokens in the route the Fellowship is taking.  (Mages in the Fellowship can mark which route the Fellowship is taking.  The marked route will have little silver circles beneath each of the waypoints on that route.)  There is one exception to this: If the top of the map has been reached, players who did not get a chance to participate can place 1 token into any waypoint just to ensure he receives the rewards.

If all three maps are cleared, the Fellowship Adventure transitions to a phase known as "The Pit" wherein tokens placed do nothing except advance the Fellowship's score (which is relatively meaningless except for those few hardcore Fellowships competing for the top slots).  Still, at this point there is no reason not to place tokens since all of the rewards have already been gained.

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Seasons

The Seasons system is the "Battle Pass" for Elvenar and consists of daily quests and weekly quests.  Completing these quests advances you along the Seasons line which leads to various rewards.

Daily quests:  Every day you receive four of these.  If you don't complete them all, they disappear and are replaced the next day with four new quests.  (Note that the designation of "day" is based on the time zone of Elvenar's server.)  Most of these you complete just by doing things you'd be doing anyway.  If you complete all four daily quests in a single day, you can open a chest with an additional reward.  (If you forget to open the chest, the game will automatically give you the reward the next day.)

Weekly quests:  Unlike most other games, weekly quests accumulate.  Every week you receive four quests, but if you haven't done previous weekly quests, then all of the quests just pile up in a queue and you can complete them at any time during the entire duration of the Seasons.  Having said that, you can only have four weekly quests active at any given time--which means those are the only four that you can advance.  The rest are inactive in the queue and you have to clear an active weekly quest in order to pull one from the queue.  Note that each week you get two free "resets" which let you discard one of the weekly quests and replace it with a new one that is drawn at random.  So you can use this to decline quests that are too difficult for you to complete (and hope you get something better...).

Since you often get Workshop-related quests (e.g. "Produce Advanced Tools"), it is helpful to have around eight Workshops in your city just to produce these items.  You can also benefit from having four to eight Level 1 Manufactories (I usually use Marble (Humans) or Planks (Elves) since they are so small) to make the 3h and 9h productions that are often asked for.  (This depends on what you are making with your normal city operations.)

So far, it has been possible to reach level 50 (the highest level) in Seasons and win the grand prize even if you miss some daily quests.  I've found that you can miss around 30 daily quests and still reach the grand prize.  (This assuming you do all the weekly quests.)



10
Elevenar / Re: Elvenar Guide
« on: August 30, 2018, 12:38:29 pm »
Neighbors

When you go to the world map, you can see the cities of other nearby players. Note that the game can and will move people, so your neighbors may not stay consistent.

You can view the city of any player you wish, but you can only assist those you have "discovered" or players who are in your Fellowship (guild). To "discover" a player, you need to have scouted a Province that is adjacent to that player's city. (The city will show up in color if it is discovered.)

Keep in mind that other players with more advanced cities (who have cleared more Provinces on the world map) might be able to view you as "discovered" when you see them as undiscovered. This explains why players, for example, can give you aid in situations where you can't return the favor.

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Neighborly Help

Once per day (every 24 hours), you can assist players who you have "discovered" or who are in your Fellowship. You do this by using the shaking hands icon and selecting a building to help. (For example, you can assist Fellowship members off the member listing dialog, and you can help other players off the Notifications window.)

There are three categories of things that you can click on.
  • Main Hall: This allows the player to collect Coins from his Main Hall. The Coins remain until the player collects them, although there is a maximum number of coins that can gather before the player collects them. (Important: Despite the nomenclature, the Coins the player receives do not come from your inventory. They are generated by the game. You do not lose anything by assisting others.)

  • Builder's Hut: This gives the player a "boost" which shortens the time required for the next construction or upgrade he performs. By default the Builder's Hut can store two boosts; you can no longer click on the hut when it already has its maximum boosts. (It is possible to upgrade the number of boosts by spending Diamonds.) The boost is spent the next time the player builds or upgrades a structure. The boost is consumed even if the player cancels the construction before it finishes (which is why the game asks if you're sure in that situation). The boost is not used for buildings that require less than about 1 minute 30 seconds to build.

  • Culture: Doubles the culture that the building provides for 8 hours. You can only click on buildings that are 2x2 or larger. (This is one of the benefits of constructing the larger culture buildings over the tiny ones.) You can't boost buildings that already have a boost applied. Keep in mind that the boost to culture only affects Coins and Supplies that the player collects while the boost is active. If the player doesn't log on during the 8 hour duration of the boost, the boost is entirely wasted.
You yourself always get the same reward for neighborly help regardless of which building you click on. The amount of Coins you get depends on the level of your Main Hall. Also, sometimes (randomly) a treasure chest will appear with a random reward; chests can contain relics, enchantments, or knowledge points. You can only collect 3 chests per day regardless of how many neighbors you assist. (Also note that even though the chest appears to be coming from the owner of the city that you are in, the reward is not coming out of his inventory or anything. The contents of the chest are generated out of thin air by the game.)

How to Choose?

Some players put a note in their city name regarding which type of assist they prefer. Some players abbreviate: C = Culture, B = Builder's Hut (or sometimes BH), MH = Main Hall (or sometimes just M or H). Many times the players specify their preferences in order. Example: "B/C/MH" would mean Builder's Hut first, then a culture building if you can't click on the Builder's Hut, and finally Main Hall if nothing else is available.

Neighborly Aid

If you help someone who has helped you within the past 8 hours, you will get Supplies in addition to Coins when you assist them. This is signified by the golden hands icon.

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Trading

Trading requires a building which your advisor will instruct you to build during the main quest line. Once you have a Trader you cannot sell it.

You can use the Trader to either trade Goods for other Goods with other players, or to straight-up buy Goods with Coins, Supplies, or other Goods. Use the "Wholesaler" tab for the latter. Note that buying Goods is deliberately expensive. However, this is a handy way to get rid of your spare Coins (or Supplies) when you reach your capacity. Every time you buy from the Wholesaler, the price increases for that particular offer. However, all Wholesaler prices reset after 24 hours (there is a timer at the top of the interface showing you the reset time).

You can trade with players you haven't discovered yet, but the Trader extracts an additional cost which is in addition to the Goods that the other player receives. For example, the player might receive 100 Goods but you have to pay 150; the extra 50 is the Trader fee. It's thus cheaper to trade with players you have discovered (or with Fellowship members) because in those cases there is no fee.

The game rates trades according to the base Supply cost of the Goods involved. Tier 1 Goods cost less than tier 2 Goods and so on. A 2-star trade is considered a "fair" trade, meaning the costs of the Goods are considered equal. A 1-star trade often occurs when there is a Trader fee involved, because the game rates the trade's cost after the fee is applied, not before. This is why you often see undiscovered players offering 1-star trades: it's not that they are trying to rip you off, it's that the Trader fee is unbalancing the rating.


11
Elevenar / Elvenar Guide
« on: August 30, 2018, 12:35:39 pm »
Elvenar Guide


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Overview

Elvenar is a browser-based city-building game. There are also some mobile apps available, but the mobile versions are developed separately and thus their features differ from the browser version.

The game is designed to be played in small sessions over a long period of time. In other words, the idea is to log in, collect resources, perhaps start one or two construction projects, maybe fight a couple of battles, and then log out and come back in a few hours or the next day or whenever is convenient. As such, it is not a game for the impatient; do not expect things to progress quickly.

The game is nominally multiplayer, but there is no direct contact between players. You do not compete with players or fight against them. You can view other players' cities on the world map, but their presence does not hinder your own personal progress through the game. There is no PvP; other players cannot harm you in any way. (All combat is against the computer.)

The game is free to play. You can, if you wish, spend real-world money to purchase in-game "Diamonds" which is the game's premium currency that you can spend on various things in the game. (Not to be confused with "Gems" which are an in-game Good.) Keep in mind that Diamonds are never required to advance in the game. The things you can buy with Diamonds are mostly things which allow you to advance more quickly through the game or grant you cosmetic buildings.

Note: If you haven't played yet and are thinking of joining, keep in mind your account name will also be your player name, so pick something you want others to see.

Be sure to check the official wiki for the game's basic manual:
https://en.wiki.elvenar.com/index.php
The official forums are also a useful resource:
https://us.forum.elvenar.com/index.php

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Humans vs Elves

The first decision you have to make is whether to play as Humans or Elves. (Hint: You can play multiple cities with a single account by playing on different worlds, so try both races!) For the most part the two are pretty equivalent, so you really can't go wrong with either that you pick.

There are three main differences between the races:
  • Cosmetic: The buildings look different and your advisors are different. These are cosmetic only and do not affect game play. The Elves tend to have more "nature" style buildings (trees and stumps and whatnot) whereas the Humans have more brick-and-mortar. These differences tend to start disappearing as you advance further in the game as the two races start looking much more similar to one another.

  • Building Shapes: Although in functionality the buildings are basically equivalent, there are some differences in the sizes and orientations of the various structures. These differences do not really affect game play (except in very minor ways) but they do minorly affect the layout of your city.

  • Military Units: Humans and Elves share the unit rosters of the Training Grounds and Mercenary Camp, but their Barracks units are different. This is perhaps the most significant difference between the two races. As such, I have an analysis of the differences between the units below.
Military Units Comparison

Interestingly, the Human units are mostly focused on defense, whereas the Elven units are focused on offense. The practical result is the Elves suffer a lot more losses during combat, leading them to have to spend time and Supplies replacing all of those lost units. Whereas a Human player can often get through combat without a single loss, the Elves are not usually so lucky.
  • Light Melee: Axe Barbarian (Humans) / Sword Dancer (Elves)
    Functionally, these units are almost identical. I prefer the appearance of the Sword Dancer but they work basically the same in combat.

  • Light Ranged: Crossbowman (Humans) / Archer (Elves)
    Again, these units are very similar. I personally like the Archers because I like bows better than crossbows, but in a practical sense, there's not a lot of difference between them. Keeping with the traits of the two races, Crossbowmen have slightly higher health and better defense, whereas Archers deal slightly more damage, but these distinctions are not hugely significant.

  • Heavy Melee: Paladin (Humans) / Treant (Elves)
    Here is where we start to get into the differences. Paladin wins, hands down. The Paladin has an attack range of 2, which makes a huge difference. They can get into range to attack more easily. They can attack melee units outside of retaliation range. They can hit things over obstacles--and over each other. Treants do appear to be a bit more durable than Paladins, but they still will suffer damage in many places where the Paladins do not.

  • Mage: Priest (Humans) / Sorceress (Elves)
    On the surface it would appear that these two break the "defense/offense" trend: the Priest lowers the defense of enemies, making them suffer more damage, whereas the Sorceress lowers the enemy attack power, making them deal less damage. However, the Priest still comes out on top when comparing the two units overall because he can hit at a distance. The Sorceress has to put herself within attack range of the enemy in order to deal damage--which means she's going to be taking damage as well. Note that the Sorceress has a -60% defense boost against Heavy Melee and the Priest does not. Taken in isolation, this would be a big deal. However, the reason for this bonus is because the Sorceress has to get within range in order to deal any damage. If she didn't have this defensive boost, she would get absolutely massacred by the very Heavy Melee she's supposed to be specialized against. Priests, by contrast, can dance around Heavy Melee and stay out of their attack range. So overall, although the Sorceress's defense bonus is helpful, in the end, the fact that the Priest can avoid damage altogether is far better than a mere defense boost. After all, not getting hit at all is always better than taking less-than-normal damage.

  • Heavy Ranged: Mortar (Humans) / Golem (Elves)
    Mortar units have a ridiculous attack range. They can just stand back at the far side of the battle field and pepper enemies almost anywhere. Golems are far more conventional units; they have a decent movement range and a medium attack range, but--naturally--have to expose themselves to attack in order to deal any damage. Having said that, Mortars deal less damage than Golems (all else being equal) and are not as durable; they are quite vulnerable if enemies get within striking range since they can barely move at all. So, ironically, even though Golems have to go out there and take the fight to the enemy, often they can knock down foes more efficiently than the same number of Mortars.
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Bugs

In the browser client there is a bug you should be aware of: the tooltips are slow to update. Very often when you point at something that produces a tooltip, you will get the tooltip from the previous thing you'd pointed at. For example, you might point at a Workshop and it says that it's producing Planks. Or the tooltip might just show " ? ? ? " rather than the production amount. In situations like this the tooltip is wrong. To get the correct tooltip to appear, you need to move the mouse off the desired object and then point at it again to "refresh" the tooltip's content. Usually the second time will be correct.


12
General Discussion / Re: How To Stop Win 10 Auto-Update
« on: June 06, 2016, 11:28:13 am »
If Windows says it has scheduled your update, do not click the "X" on the dialog to close it.  You have to click the tiny little "here" link to cancel the update.

Easier way: Download and run:
http://blog.ultimateoutsider.com/2015/08/using-gwx-stopper-to-permanently-remove.html

13
General Discussion / Re: 2014 Veterans Day Free Meals and Discounts
« on: November 12, 2014, 01:02:29 pm »
Kudos to Olive Garden who gave a veteran I know and love a totally free meal and also a 10% discount to his family.

14
Flotsam and Jetsam / Re: The State of Gaming Today?
« on: September 29, 2014, 05:59:49 pm »
Ahh, MMOs: Where vanquished foes never drop what they were equipped with while fighting you...and instead drop stuff they couldn't possibly have carried around.

(Gimme that purple lightsaber!)

15
General Discussion / Re: Spring? Where??
« on: April 13, 2013, 08:23:50 pm »
79 degrees here.  I expect spring to last all of 3 days before summer kicks in.  Maybe a week, if we're lucky.    8)

16
Very nice, especially for that age.  Those scales must have taken you forever.  I lose patience much too quickly.  :)

17
There is no such thing as forum necromancy in this forum.  It's a stupid concept anyway.  Stuff doesn't automatically become irrelevant just because a couple of years have passed.  If I didn't get 29 useless unanswered posts in my Google results every time I try to find an answer to a technical question just because someone didn't want to (or couldn't) "necro" a year-old topic to post an answer (in a topic that never actually received any answers, mind you), I might actually get some work done once in a while.

Seriously, the entire concept never made any sense to me.  If the topic is timeless (such as this one) then there's no reason why not to post additional replies regarding it whenever desired.  People come and go, and old topics can be revitialized with new observations, and so on.  I don't see any harm in it.

So post away, peoples.  :)

18
General Discussion / Re: Question: Forum Registration Spam?
« on: January 01, 2013, 08:18:12 pm »
As others have said, forum registration is disabled outright so that prevents that avenue for spam. We do allow guests to post, but we require them to type "RBW" somewhere in their post. This blocks automated spam yet to me is more friendly than a CAPTCHA. Registration on the main website is protected via a security key (essentially a password) which the guildmate sponsor gives to the potential new member in order for him to register. This prevents automated spam registrations on the website, and also kind of ensures that new members are recruited by somebody rather than just jumping in as total strangers.

19
Here's one that I heard that was actually spoken through the loudspeaker during the safety thing:

"And if you've never been in a car since 1965, here's how you fasten a seat belt!"

20
Flotsam and Jetsam / Re: Great new Computer... same Old Problems.
« on: August 26, 2012, 12:28:32 pm »
Well, I can't help you in a general sense, but some searches on KOTOR1 and KOTOR2 indicates that there are version-specific patches. People are reporting that if they patch, say, the regular KOTOR1 with the "Best of PC" patch then they can no longer run the game because KOTOR1 is now looking for the "Best of PC" disc, which they don't have. Take a careful look at whatever patch you install, to make sure it's suitable to your version. (In fact, your versions might already be patched; take a look at the patch numbers before patching.)

I have personally run both KOTOR1 and KOTOR2 on a Windows 7 laptop that was not particularly designed for games, and they work even without administrator privileges--what ends up happening is they try to write to their Program Files directory but Windows shuffles those writes off to some other location instead and it all "just works" (up until you try to actually find your screen shots, of course, and then you end up doing a lot of searching...). I also patched them (though I seem to recall the updaters that come with them didn't work, so I had to patch manually). My version of KOTOR1 came off the "Best of PC" collection. My version of KOTOR2 is the original single-game boxed version bought when it was still being sold separately.

(Note: I don't know about your version of KOTOR2, but mine still uses SecurROM. You can try their website to see if if it's a SecurROM issue: https://support.securom.com/analysis.php or https://support.securom.com/pop_swkotor.html)

If you get past the wrong-disc errors and get back to the hangs, one thing to try doing is hunting down where the game's INI files are being saved (you need the editable locations, not the Program Files locations, unless you're running in administrator mode), and edit the graphical settings. Try changing the resolution to match your screen, for example, or adjust the monitor refresh rate if needed. Those sorts of things. You can also try running in a window, although I found that they're buggier when run in a window than full-screen. See for example: http://www.tweakguides.com/KOTOR2_1.html

21
Flotsam and Jetsam / Re: Guess who came in out of the cold?
« on: May 02, 2012, 09:12:56 pm »
Tuesday nights in general should be fine, although I'm not sure I'll be here this coming Tuesday.

22
Flotsam and Jetsam / Re: Guess who came in out of the cold?
« on: May 02, 2012, 05:25:45 pm »
Ahh...give me some warning next time.   :P

But yes, welcome to join us!

23
Flotsam and Jetsam / Re: Guess who came in out of the cold?
« on: May 02, 2012, 11:16:28 am »
Of course, our dedicated leveling group is presently Empire... ;)

24
General Discussion / Re: If you're wanting to return to WoW...
« on: March 20, 2012, 11:13:34 am »
Aaaah, Druids have a bird form now??  I'd totally play a Druid just for that.

I'm envious of these winged mounts right now playing SWTOR because there are those darn Datacrons shining at me but they're too high to reach... shiiiny...

25
General Discussion / Re: If you're wanting to return to WoW...
« on: March 14, 2012, 01:13:10 pm »
Ah, I misunderstood, I thought it was a reference to when flying around. :)

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