Tag Archives: kingdoms of middle earth

Basic Gear and Gem set-up illustrations

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citrine gemI have noticed a trend on Line in the last few weeks, and I feel stupid for not doing this sooner. It’s really simple: A picture says more than a thousand words. And over the past few weeks, I have seen plenty of illustrations/pictures that depict certain elements of the game, as a short guide so to speak.

And if we look at gear and gems for example, I have articles on Best gear Sets, where and how to use Gems, which gear attributes go where when…and then we have Hero Skills going in the mix as well….

And although they are good reads to get familiar with he material, it’s mostly text and not suited for quick referencing. And while chatting such as in Line, it is much easier to give a picture than explaining it word by word every time. So here below the fold I have posted some illustrations for basic gear/gem set-ups. I know other versions are also around, but hey, I like some photoshopping and I like it to be available on the site.

Feel free to download them and share them on for example Line, whenever a tournament starts again and people start asking the same questions.

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Hero Skills: When to use which?

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skill morale boostHero Skills have been released for a while now, with even a new batch of offensive Skills released recently. But which skills are best in certain situations? In this article I while detail a number of situations and sketch a number of ways on which Skills are most useful in each. Some are very straightforward, others require some more thought. In the end, this will not be a long or difficult read, but could be helpful to some…

  • 1. Types of Skills
  • 2. Attacking general
    • 2.1 Attacking wall/advanced
  • 3. Defending
    • 3.1 Defending wall/advanced
  • 4. Campaign general
    • 4.1 Boss level double-tap
    • 4.2 Advanced campaign set-ups
  • 5. Mining
    • 5.1  Mining warfare
  • 6. Resource production
  • 7. Final words

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CHS: The double-tap

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smaug thumbnailFor most levels in campaign, attacking them is straightforward. You select an army and hero to attack, attack, and presto….you either win or lose. Whatever the case, the next time you attack that camp, the camp has been reset and all Goblins are there again.

But on the boss levels, this is different, and losing on those maps will leave the remaining Goblin force waiting for you for the next round of combat. How many Goblins still stand is indicated by the boss health bar when you click on the level.

It is been long known that finishing off the boss levels in multiple attacks also gives (potentially) much higher High Scores, if done properly. But not many people know how or why this is. In this article, I will provide some information on why this is and how can you can figure out your best attack pattern.

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Best Sets lists and how to use them

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thorin furWhile I used to post a screenshot of the top 30 offensive and defensive gear sets with the Best Sets article, I have now provided a link to a zip file which contains the two spreadsheets I use for that, containing all of the hundreds of possible gear combinations. In order to work with it or understand them, I will provide here a short explanation of what each number represents, and how you should use it to compare gear.

  • 1. First off: Division, Gems and random rolls
  • 2. The numbers explained
  • 3. Using the list effectively

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Update 12.4: New Skills/Hero lvl/buffs/troops…

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Update 12.4 hit the stores a few days ago. And like most updates, it added quite some new features/additions to the game, or showcased what is to come shortly. In no particular order the updates are:

  • 3 New offensive Hero Skills: Spearhead II, Bullseye II, Close Quarters II. Their information has been added to the Hero Skills article.newskills
  • Permanent debuffs added, in addition to the perm buffs. Weapon Disarm (attack debuff) and Armor Exposure (life debuff) items function in similar fashion to BC/SW.newbuffs
  • New T4 wall troop: Stone Sheperds (elven) / Gates of Erebor (dwarf). Apparently they are set up as equivalent to Stone Giants for Wall Troops, with massive health, although first testing showed inconclusive results. At the moment, only six can be trained once. Adding to the Wall Troop article as soon as more concrete info comes out.newwalltroop
  • New Tactical Troop: Enchanters. A new troop sporting both high defense and offense stats. Although not shown anymore, lvl 120(!) is needed to train these. More info will be added to the TT article as soon as more info becomes available.new tt
  • Increased player lvl. There is good reason to think (see above) it won’t be long before the player level cap is raised from 100 to at least 120, to train the Enchanters.
  • Increased Hero lvl.  Another cap raised is Hero lvl. A glitch a few days ago enabled players to level their Heroes beyond 250. This was then revoked, but with the update it is now official: Hero levels now go up to 280!

So that’s it for now. Let me know how you feel about the new stuff, or share any information you might have 🙂

New Hero Skills!

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A small addition to the Hero Skill library came today (I presume as I just noticed), in the form of level II versions of the offensive skills: Close Quarters, Spearhead, and Bullseye. All three Skills seem to follow the same pattern as their defensive level II counter-parts, in terms of Skill % benefit and upgrade costs. Full information on the new skills will be added to the Hero Skill article asap.newskills

Were Scrolls removed from Extra-ordinary Mines?

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dwarf pickLately, I’m having trouble mining Scrolls from extra-ordinary mines. I know mines have undergone some changes, most notably in the number of Tokens, but I want to know whether I’m just really unlucky, or if Scholar Scrolls have really been removed from them. Please let me know if you still find them in mines..

Download the Gear set lists yourself

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gandlaf staff 1So I have been thinking. In the previous update, I stated the top30 images of best sets would follow tomorrow. Not so. Instead, if you follow the link given below, you can download a RAR file containing the 2 spreadsheets with processed gear combinations, one offensive and one defensive.

Now you can look at the full lists yourself, play around, adjust the numbers for your specific random rolls, whatever, it is up to you. I just hope somebody has some use for it…The link will also be added to the Best Sets article.

Link for the spreadsheets

Best Sets updated

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bilbo cloakFinally the Best Sets article has the level 2 Legendaries added to it. As I predicted, the best sets are pretty much identical to those before, just with the level 1’s swapped for levels 2. Remember this for when higher levels are announced and the article isn’t updated immediately (assuming the trend from 1 to 2 continues in 3). The top 30 images will be added tomorrow.

Hero Skills updated

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skill farming II have just released an updated version of the Hero Skills article. Although it was put out pretty soon after Hero Skills were released, no major updates have followed, leaving much of the diagrams on Skill overview and Upgrade costs empty. Took a while for me to realize this, so there you go. Only a few numbers are still missing, if you happen to know them, please leave a comment.

Next up is the Best Sets article. I am putting the new gear ** in my spreadsheets and will probably update the article tonight when I have time. Stay tuned and happy Hobbiting!

Best Sets and Legendary level **

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tauriel bowI know one of the articles desperate in need for an update (again) is the Best Sets article. Although containing all level 1 Legendary gear, the level 2 upgrades haven’t been included yet. Now I have two things to say…or three basically, if you count “I’m gonna do them don’t worry“.

First, because ALL the new gear is basically just the level 1 Legendary gear slightly improved (not even basically actually, just fact), I still believe the Best Sets article at the moment is still relevant enough to use, at least as a starting point. I honestly do not expect any major changes when adding in the level 2’s.

That said, I am gonna update them, but as I have been away for some time, I’m not 100% sure which level 2’s have already been introduced. So what I am asking here is to describe in the comments what pieces have been released, and there base stats and specific Hero bonus. The four bonus attributes are already covered in the Hero equipment article, so I don;t need that, unless you find errors in them of course.

Thanks for being patient and see you soon with an updated article.

Battle Mechanics V: Conclusion

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headerWelcome once more to the final part in this series for now. Warning up front: This article will not contain (much) new information, but will serve, as the title implies, as a conclusion on the previous parts I-IV, summarizing the findings, and perhaps serving as an easy reference piece. So let’s go over what we covered in the previous parts.

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Battle Mechanics IV: Diminishing Returns and how to deal with it

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attackWelcome to the fourth installment in this Battle Mechanics series. In this part, we will once again take a closer look at Diminishing Returns, how it works, and how it influences our choices for gear and Gems, following the formulas we arrived at in parts I, II and III. Diminishing Returns (henceforth DR) can be a tricky subject, but once you understand how it works it is actually pretty easy to work with.

  • 1. The concept behind DR
  • 2. DR visualized
  • 3. DR and distribution of buffs and debuffs
  • 4. Should you always balance buff and debuff?
  • 5. Conclusion on choosing gear with DR in mind

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Battle Mechanics III: Why your opponent doesn’t matter

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skill fierce loyaltyWelcome to part III in this Battle Mechanics series. In part I and II, we constructed the basic battle formula with buffs and debuffs, focusing specifically on gear buff and debuffs. Now it is time to chose the optimal set of gear. But before we get to that, we consider here our opponent. Many people still tell me that I have to take into account the opponent’s gear when choosing my own, in the sense that (usually), if an opponent has mostly debuffs, I should aim for buffs, and vice versa.

In part IV, we are going to (for the last time hopefully) discuss our own gear choices, taking Diminishing Returns into account, but here in part III, I will first briefly detail why you should never look at your opponent’s buffs and debuffs distribution.

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Battle Mechanics II: Separating the Buffs

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lifeWelcome to the second part in this Battle Mechanics article series. In Part I, we constructed the basic battle formula, showing the relation between attack and life, and buffs and debuffs. Although we could go from there into other territory, I feel this second part is needed to avoid any confusion afterwards. In this part we will look at the different types of buffs and how they (possibly) interact.

  • 1. Recap
  • 2. The different Buffs
  • 3. Difference between additive and multiplicative
  • 4. What matters in the end

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Battle Mechanics I: The basic Battle Formula

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tauriel bowWelcome to the first in a series of articles on some basic battle mechanics in the Hobbit | KoM. In this series, we are gonna look at how combat in KoM basically works, and how it affects your gear choices. In this first part, we start of with looking at the basic battle formula, and work from there towards choosing the best gear set-ups, emphasizing primarily the reasons behind the sets such as given in the Best Sets article.

  • 1. The basics
  • 2. Adding in buffs
  • 3. Adding in debuffs
  • 4. Rewriting and final formula

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Tokens removed from Smaug: Big mistake or change for the better?

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tokenAs many of you know Kabam has been battling with auto-clickers/bots for some time now. These programs/bots enabled certain players to constantly and relentlessly attack Smaug faster and longer than humanly possible, giving these players thousands of tokens or massive Goblin kills, and the benefits that come with that.

Of course this was seen by both Kabam and the majority of players as being unfair, so action was decided upon. But the problem proved tricky and a neat solution difficult, although the suggestions on the forums and other places were plentiful. Last week, we were presented with the not that great (to put it mildly) limit on attacking campaign, where after a certain number of attacks players had to wait a cool-down period to be able to attack again. Reactions weren’t that positive understandably, and the changes would also break tournaments such as GK and BK, and possibly even CHS. So from the start this would be temporary.

Today we received an email from Kabam about a more permanent change to Tokens and Smaug. Tokens drops will be limited in the Smaug campaign map, so the old way of getting them is gone. Instead, Tokens will be added to the Calendar, Moon Rune and Goblin Caverns/mines. Also Kabam stated that the daily amount of obtainable tokens would be the same as before, but seeing as it was dependent on effort instead of availability, I have yet to see how this plays out.

Although I agree the botting needed to be stopped, I’m not too happy with these changes at all. Again, non-spending casual players are going to be hot hardest. The Calendar will likely contain limited amounts of Tokens. The Moon Rune is too irregular in timing to provide a constant income of Tokens. Mines will most likely be dominated by the bigg buff players.

And I have seen better suggestions put forward as well. One of those was to have a random element put into Smauging, like a randomly location-changing button in the process. These kind of solutions would eliminate most if not all of the auto-clickers as well it seems to me, while maintaining a nearly identical experience for normal players.

I never was a huge Smauger. I was happy to have the time to farm 30 Tokens a day, and that already helped a lot in keeping up to date with all the new features. I just hope I am being overly negative here and things will be better than what I expect them to be, but I also want to know what you think of the new Token changes, so of course, a poll (multiple answers possible):

 

Legendary Gear II: Kabam needs to slow down

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cat gearSo, the second the last pieces of Legendary Gear I have been introduced, Kabam has introduced the level II Gears already on their forum, and a level II piece as the prize of the current Masters season 2. And all I can think is: Slow down! The rate of introducing new content and features is in my opinion way too high at the moment.

People haven’t gotten a normal chance to catch up with even level I gear and level II is already introduced/foreshadowed? Why not wait with this for a month or 2 (at least)? This way the game is becoming really unattractive to non-spenders, and even to people like me who spend a little (really not that much) it is getting hard to keep up, certainly not helped by the near constant premiums and the changes to Tokens on which I’ll post shortly.

Anyways, the Gears II have been added to the Hero Equipment article, although the base Attack and Life values weren’t given yet on the forum. They will be filled in and taken into account in the Best Sets article when they are truly introduced into the game, which I hop isn’t too soon. That said, the Gear II is pretty  unimaginative, basically being level I Gears with the 3* attribute changed to a 4* one. So expect little changes to overall Best Sets in that regard as well…

Masters Season II tournament series

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trophy-cupThe Masters Season 2 has officially begun. The series of events spans the entire remainder of the month of March, consisting of both individual and alliance based tournaments, in which special items to track progress can be won. Also, prizes will consist of special items that can be traded in in the Sage Tower for various prizes, giving the players freedom to spend their earnings on whatever prize they need most! In this article I will provide all known information about the tournament series 2 as it plays out.

  • 1. Series in a nutshell
  • 2. Schedules
  • 3. Sage Tower trade-ins
  • 4. Season 2 prizes
    • 4.1 Alliance prizes
    • 4.2 Individual prizes
    • 4.3 Cross-world Alliance prizes
    • 4.4 Cross-world individual prizes

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Upcoming Battle Mechanics series

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guard setAs I have noted on some occasions, I am in the process of writing a series of articles on battle mechanics, buffs and debuffs, diminishing returns (DR), and gear choices. Although most of the topics have been touched upon in other articles, sometimes partially, questions about how buffs, debuffs and DR work are still coming in almost daily. So to give you some idea of what the articles are gonna be about, here is a small preview:

  • I. The basic Battle Formula

In this article I will start off with the most basic maths and theory behind combat mechanics, specifically the basic battle formula, dealing with the relation between life and attack, buffs and debuffs.

  • II. Separating the Buffs

In the second article we are gonna go further and look a little bit into how the different buffs interact, multiplicative versus additive buffs, and how they effect our gear choices.

  • III. Why your opponent does not matter

In the third article we will look at the common misconception that you need to take into account your opponent’s gear, and see why this is wrong. This will in the end give us the formulas needed to see how your gear scores.

  • IV. Diminishing returns and how to deal with it

With the basic formula(s) established in the previous articles, we can look into diminishing returns, what exactly it is and how it impacts your gear choices. Math will be provided to make things very clear once and for all, as this topic keeps returning in questions and comments.

  • V. Wrap-up (optional)

This article is still optional at the moment. If written, it will be a conclusion to the previous articles, and sum up how you ultimately chose your gear and calculate its effectiveness.

All in all, the individual articles might not be that long, but neatly separated into individual parts I think this should answer any and all questions concerning gear, buffs and debuffs, and diminishing returns. Stay tuned and I hope you will enjoy them.

Changes to Best Sets article

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elrond ringThe Best Sets article has been a long standing favorite among my visitors. While it was rather straightforward to come up with the lists when we had full sets of gear, the introduction of all the new unique Legendary gear I items made it more and more difficult, as the possible combinations of gear and their buffs and debuffs grew more and more as well…

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Hero Skills: All you need to know!

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Please note more information will follow once available.

skill fierce loyaltyThe latest addition to the game has been Hero Skills, a game-feature that will allow you to enhance your heroes with special skills that will help in a range of areas, from combat, to resource mining, to gem mining, and even allowing you to revive troops lost in battle. Skills are first unlocked, or learned, in the academy, with special items.

Once known, a skills can be learned by a hero and upgraded further. In this article, I will detail all there is to know about this subject!

  • 1. How to learn new skills
  • 2. Giving skills to Heroes
    • 2.1 Free enrolls
    • 2.2 Enrollment scrolls
    • 2.3 Skill Books
  • 3. Upgrading Skills
  • 4. Unlearning/deleting Skills
  • 5. Available skills
    • 5.1 Skill upgrade costs
  • 6. Skill dependencies and unlock costs
  • 7. Enemy’s Skills

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Update 12.2: Box sliders and Hero Skills!

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bard heroSo a rather late message on the newest update 12.2, which hit while a was on holiday, but too good not to mention anyways. This update brought some very cool changes to the game-play and added a completely new game aspect as well: Hero Skills. Starting with that, here are all the changes from the newest Hobbit update:

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Tournaments: Alliance Boss Kill

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THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUGThe Alliance Boss Kill tournament got introduced shortly after the introduction of Alliance Bosses on the campaign map. During normal play, the Bosses can be summoned and killed to receive rewards including Vala Stones, gear, Valto runes and Gatherer Stones to level up your City Guardian. During Boss kill tournaments, you get points for killing the bosses. It is a pretty straightforward principle, so this article wil not be that long or complicated.

  • 1. The basics
  • 2. Scoring
  • 3. Tactics
    • 3.1 Go for the highest Boss(es) only
    • 3.2 Use you attack Hero/gear
    • 3.3 Set your timers
    • 3.4 Spending can seal the deal
  • 4. Conclusion

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Masters Season 1 tournament series

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trophy-cupA new series of tournaments has been announced by Kabam: The Masters Season 1. The series of events spans the entire remainder of the month of February, consisting of both individual and alliance based tournaments, in which special items to track progress can be won. Also, prizes will consist of special items that can be traded in in the Sage Tower for various prizes, giving the players freedom to spend their earnings on whatever prize they need most! Considering the name, there will likely be more Master Seasons in the future. In this article I will provide all known information about the tournament series 1 as it plays out.

  • 1. Series in a nutshell
  • 2. Schedules
  • 3. Sage Tower trade-ins
  • 4. Season 1 prizes
    • 4.1 Alliance prizes
    • 4.2 Individual prizes

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Why the new Gems will mess up gear choices…

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citrine gemOne of the most popular articles on this site is the Best Sets article, describing which sets of gear are most useful for attacking, defending, and for campaign/CHS. At the moment, this article is still very useful, but pretty soon, it will be completely rendered useless. Why? The new Gems. In this article I will explain why this is the case and how gear will be chosen in the near future…and why this makes me think the new Gems stink….

  1. The new way of selecting gear
  2. Why will gear selection change? The old situation
  3. The new situation: The new Gems
  4. The new “best” gear
  5. An example with Replenish and Void gear
  6. Does diminishing returns not factor in at all anymore??
  7. What did I leave out

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Some new Hero Equipment

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elrond ringSome new level 1 Legendary gear has been introduced the past weeks, which I have now added to the Hero Equipment article. These include the Beorn Axe, Bilbo and Gandalf Cloak, Sting, Radagast Staff and Elrond Ring.

Concerning the Elrond Ring I, I am not yet sure whether all (non-random) attributes apply to all troops. If one of you has one, could you please confirm whether this is indeed the case? Nevermind, just confirmed this is indeed the case…

Information on the new Gems

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gem overviewSo the new Gems have been announced, and the Life buffing Emerald gems have been introduced. But for the Ruby, Sapphire and Citrine gems, we are still in the dark, although it seems safe to guess they will each buff either attack, attack debuff, or life debuff like the Emerald Gems. Concerning the Emerald gems, I have seen up to lvl IV right now, while the rest of the levels in the Gem Embedding article are hypothetical for the time being. So my question is, if you have any more info on the higher level gems stats, feel free to post them here and I will add them to the article. Thanks!

Update 12.1(.1): Unstable start but new Gems

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smaug thumbnailSo a few days ago update 12.1 and later 12.1.1 hit the stores. First for Apple and Kindle, and later for Android. Many many Apple users erported highly unstable gameplay, sometimes not even being able to get in-game, prompting many to not update if they had a choice. Right now, the 12.1.1 patch seems to have fixed most problems and all versions are running as stable as we can expect.

In the 12.1 update preview I already posted a list of likely things to be coming in this patch, but now we know for sure. Here are the changes from previous versions:

  • 3D maps can now be toggled (2D/3D), hopefully removing some of the lag with the 3D map.
  • Heroes in Training position now defend wall and rein even when the city is closed. By far one of the biggest changes, meaning no more free wall TKs unless no Hero is assigned, and the option to simply close during TK without giving away rein troops for free.
  • Some changes to item orders and unpacking orders. I still hate the unpacking order. Just keep it as it was: add new chests to the bottom and do NOT have the screen jump around….
  • Two more slots for Oystering Boats. Useful? We’ll see..
  • And lastly: NEW GEMS! Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald and Citrine Gems are coming. I am confident they will work identical to Artamir gems, but simply have the type of buffs for each gear piece switched around, so it would be possible for example to get Attack debuff on every piece of your CHS gear instead of just the ring…Wil scores go up to 1.5B? Probably. Will it widen the gap between top and bottom players even more? Likely. Will it make TK comps even more tedious as noone is gonna stay open? I hope not….

Finally: Troop attack orders updated…

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LT pikemenPhew. Finally! I didnt like doing it, but I figured out all the new troop attack orders and updated the graph that goes with the article. I had to figure out the orders for the new Lake-town troops, and of course update all the orders for the older troops to see where those two figured in.

In short: For the Lake-town troops, the order is identical to the normal Tier 1 to 5 troops. The Pikemen are mostly found near the front of the other’s attack orders, while Longbowmen stay at the back, as their descriptions hinted.

Master Rangers‘ order simply adds the Lake-town troops in their normal positions, but switches Mammoths and Longbowmen in the back.

Stone Giants remain largely the same as Tier 1-5, with the biggest difference being the Pikemen moving more to the back of the queue.

Lyncean Raiders‘ attack order was already a bit messier, and the Longbowmen are now killed before Woodsmen even, while again the Pikemen move back to behind T1.

Woodsmen place the Longbowmen back at the back of the line, while again the Pikemen are staying away from the front.

So once again, take your advantage with this information for TKing, and let’s hope Kabam does not release more new troops any time soon….

More info on coming January update (12.1)

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oystering boatBesides the news about the coming World Mergers, Kabam also released some more info about other changes coming in the next update:

There are a number of popular requests making their way into the January v12.1 update

– 3D World Maps will now be optionable via an on/off toggle in the settings menu
– Incoming Attack Alert Icons will be added to the “My Cities” view
– Two new City tiles for Pearl Boats will be added to Lake-town
– The Battle Cry and Shield Walls cap will be raised to 150 (from 127). This will be the final amount of these items that can be applied per player.

So Lake-town is going to be slightly more useful, and all those extra perm buffs 😦 can be put to use now, for the select group who have them.

World Mergers: All you need to know

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openscreenYes they are coming: the World Mergers. Players going inactive means many servers are slowly dying out, which is bad news for active players. Luckily Kabam has come up with a solution: Merge a few relatively inactive worlds into one more active one. But this will of course have some consequences, especially for players playing in multiple worlds. I do not have all information yet, but Kabam has made an excellent post on the forum with a lot of useful information. For completeness I have copied the contents of that post below, and will amend any info I find that is not in there.

I urge all players, but especially those with multiple worlds to read it carefully and start preparing! Any questions? Feel free to ask in the comments and I’ll try to answer. The forums are of course also a good source for additional info, so check them out as well!

The following list are worlds that are confirmed to be merging with each other. Part of this information is taken from this website (hob-assist.com/), which also has timers running down showing when exactly each merge will take lace! Be sure to check them out! Merger list and Kabam info below the fold:

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So I’m back, finally, time to catch up

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First of all, happy new year’s to you all!! Second of all, wow! I had planned to do so much in the past two weeks, that seeing the fact I didn’t do much at all here is both depressing and good, as it meant I had an awesome time with family and friends over the holidays!

But, it is time to catch up, finally. I went through the posts index to check which articles needed updates and was appalled by the number that need updates or additions to be frank. Starting tonight when I get home I will start with the list and see how fast I can get rid of it. I will start with the ‘Quick wins’ and do the most intensive articles last. Here’s the list of articles in roughly the order I will tackle them:

  1. Hero Equipment. So many new gear, so little to be found here 😦
  2. Best Sets. Because some of the new gear is better than the old.
  3. Attack report and Inventory overview spreadsheets, for the new Tacticals.
  4. Gems article, for the addition of the lvl 7 and 8 gems.
  5. Alli Boss Battles for the Lake-Town bosses
  6. Alliance Shop, for higher levels of the buffs
  7. Lake-town article. Some unfinished parts need work
  8. Troop attack order. This one actually has high priority but I need some time to work this out.
  9. T1-5 attack/life modifiers. Because Kabam seems to have changed the attack/life values of these troops without me knowing….
  10. Tactical Troops article. For the same reason as above but also with the Lake-town troops.
  11. New Smaug. Additional info on drops and percentages
  12. Items list. Quite some new items but not completely sure I wanna add them. I regret this article.
  13. Sage Tower article. for the new trades that were added

That’s it for the existing articles, but like that list, the list of planned new articles also grows:

  1. The Tournament series articles….still
  2. Farming Smaug Tokens article (should be small)
  3. Bug/Improvement list article (should take a while)
  4. Legendary books/heroes article
  5. Article on superstition and chance in this game
  6. An updated article on the troops discussion, as people requested it
  7. Maybe something on Training Tacticals, just for completeness…

Given the above, please feel for me and have patience. I’ll try to update your most beloved articles first but as you can see, there is a lot to do 😉 See you soon and thanks for tuning in!

Hero Equipment: How to acquire Bard’s Gear

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bard heroWith the new Lake-town campaign map, players have the opportunity to farm the levels for Bard’s gear or get them from the new Alliance Bosses. But unlike other drops, the gear requires other gear to be farmed before it becomes available in most cases. Just like with constructing some buildings, you need to work your way up if you want the complete set of Bard’s gear. Below is an overview of the dependencies of all pieces of gear, where and how you can find them, and how to complete the Bard’s set.

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New Campaign map: Lake-town-Along the Shore

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bardgearannouncementToday a new campaign map was released, continuing the Lake-town themed updates lately: Lake-town: Along the Shore. It is a rather short map, consisting of only 2 parts, comprising 10 maps total. Rewards for the map parts are pretty nice, with a lot of resources to be farmed from the two boss levels. Of course, the might of the Goblins also increases exponentially, so the boss levels stick out at 7.2m and 14.4m might (!). Numbers we are used to see from temporary maps, but this one seems permanent.

Other features include:

The two map parts spawn a 210 and 250 Alliance Boss, which drops Lake-Town Advanced chests, containing the following items:

laketown boss drops

 

Besides the Bosses, a number of levels also offer possible drops for Bard’s gear. Bard’s gear is a new set of gear aimed at Bard, the new Hero in Lake-town. The gear can be farmed/unlocked sequentially by going through the new campaign, killing the Alliance Bosses, and trading in Sage Tower. For many of the drops in campaign, you need to use Bard to attack and equip him with his gear you already have unlocked. A post about how to acquire the full set can be found HERE.

The info for this map has been added to the Campaign map which you can find HERE.

Lake-Town 5th City: All you need to know

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laketownarticleheaderLake-Town is the new expansion city to the Kingdoms of Middle Earth that was released late November, and which will be available to everyone after the 4th of December for free! Unlike the 4 older cities, the style of the city matches that of the human Lake-town from the movies, instead of the familiar Elven or Dwarven theme. Although a lot in the city will seem familiar, some key differences with regards to gameplay and buildings also come with the 5th city. In this article I will sum up all available information on this newest city.

  • 1. The Basics
  • 2. The Buildings
    • 2.1 Familiar Buildings
    • 2.2 The new and changed Buildings
  • 3. Construction
    • 3.1 Lake-Town architects
    • 3.2 Pearl and Lake-town architect full overview
  • 4. Oysterboats, Pearls and Tactical training
    • 4.1 Pearls
    • 4.2 Oystering Research
    • 4.3 TT training
  • 5. Heroes
  • 6. How to start with your City construction

Continue reading →

Bard’s gear added

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bardgearannouncementSo Lake-Town has been among us for a few days. I’m working hard on getting all the facts straight, and will put out an article as soon as possible which I will update the coming days, but not having the 5th city myself makes it no easier I’m afraid.

What I do have is some preliminary info on the Bard’s gear that is coming out shortly, mainly through information provided by user Marcel.  Find this information at the Hero Equipment article here!

Lake-Town is released! Sort of…

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So, the good news is: Lake-Town expansion with the coveted Lake-Town 5th city has been released, hell yeah! The bad news? Instead of a AToM to win it first for a head start as promised, Kabam decided to shell out again.

You can now buy *sigh* the starter pack including Deed for 750 Mithril, or 40/50 euro/dollar….And if you do not? Wait one week and get it for free! I advise anyone to just stick it out for a week and get it for free, advantage is not worth the 750 mithril IMO. Unfortunately, that also means that my article on Lake-Town will be postponed for at least a week, but too bad….

Update: Just out of curiosity Im wondering what percentage of my readers will buy it now, so…poll 😉  

Update 2: Apparently, the Deed will also be available in shop separately for around 300 mith

releasefinal

City Buildings: the Sage Tower

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headerThe Sage Tower acts as the event center of your cities. Uniting your cities, only one center can be constructed, serving all your four or five cities. Items won in special events can be exchanged in the Sage Tower, while other items such as gear and Gems can be exchanged for materials acquired in campaign primarily. As there are a large number of Sage Tower trades, this articles is meant to give an overview of these for less-experienced players.

Continue reading →

More Lake-Town news

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Kabam went ahead and made another announcement for Lake-Town, the fifth city which will be released shortly and which is being tested on a few servers at the moment, but not mine unfortunately: (click for bigger version)

announcementsSo in essence, Lake-Town will function like your other cities, but resource production will focus on Pearls, which serve as resources for training tactical troops, and which are produced with the help of Oyestering Boats. Production is sped up with the new research Oystering in your academy. Furthermore, the Lake-Town Vault protects these Pearls but also your Gold from now on, and of course a new range of heroes will be introduced, such as Bard the Bowman, to level up and equip with their very own gear.

That’s it for now, any more news will be posted as soon as possible!

 

So what do you think of the new Index?

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As you might have noticed, I have updated the Index page to look much better (IMO) and present the articles in a much clearer way. I have divided all the articles into 8 new categories, gave each category a  nice banner (again, IMO), and grouped and indented articles which belonged to each other.

Presenting the index as clear as possible was always a priority for me, which is why I added it in shortly after beginning this webpage, but with all the new game features and articles written in the mean-time, the old Index had to go. But of course, I want your opinion!

So what do you think? Does it help you find articles better and more efficiently? Does it look better to you? Or do you have suggestions of your own? I’m very pleased with the results myself, but would love to know what you, the readers, think of it. Let me know! 😉

Kom101: City Buildings Overview

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buibarracksOne of the basics aspects of the game Kingdoms of Middle Earth is acquiring and building up your cities. When starting the game, you have one city, but this can be expanded to 4 cities, and a special 5th Lake-Town city. Cities can contain a number of different buildings, each with their own function and dependencies.

In this article, I will summarize what each building does. Two types of buildings are mentioned: The City buildings contained within your City Walls, and the Field, or resource buildings, which are constructed on field plots. Buildings from the 5th Lake-Town city will come in a separate article.

Although most building and research dependencies for each building have been mentioned, this article on normal construction, and this article on Runecrafting can also help figuring out requirements.

NOTE: Images of the buildings are courtesy of the HobbitArmies Wikia page here

Continue reading →

Hero Equipment: How and where to Embed Gems

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Gem Embedding enables players to make their gear perform even better in war, enhancing attack, defense, and/or march sizes. But the higher level runes are difficult to acquire, as it takes to 1 year and 8 months to just farm one level 6 Gem from scratch with the picks regenerating for free. Although we are helped by Gem Shards and Gems in chests and tournaments, it’s still inefficient to just start combining them to level 6 Gems, so choices have to be made.

In this article, I will look at what the Gems do in each gear piece type, what gear should be Embedded first, and how to most efficiently upgrade Gems along the way.

  • 1. Buff types and Gem effects
  • 2. Diminishing returns
  • 3. Best Gem Embed gears
    • 3.1 Offensive
    • 3.2 Defensive
    • 3.3 Campaign
    • 3.4 All-round set-up
  • 4. Efficiently upgrading Gems

Continue reading →

Lake Town City preview!

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ladetown deedFrom friends from a (I believe) Spanish server, we have gotten the first impressions of Lake Town, the new 5th City that will be released shortly. It looks darker and completely different from the previous cities, and the main purpose will be to produce Pearls needed for TT training.

Also given the look of the Lake Town deed to open up Lake Town. These are gonna be incredibly rare during the first few weeks after introduction, so be sure to compete as hard as you can in the ToM that will award them first!

city5preview

Master Ranger Might increase

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master rangerSo by now I believe all servers have had the Master Ranger might value changed from 0 to 10. With zero might, the Master Rangers gave attackers an incredible TK ratio advantage, and many servers and alliances decided not to use them in TK. But as there was nothing preventing it absolutely, many players complained about the MR usage in attacking other players.

Although Kabam’s initial reactions were mixed or even a bit confusing, they now gave in and gave them 10 might, making them slightly less attractive, but still better than T1. So what are your thoughts on this? Do you agree? Should the might value be even higher? Or should they have done something different. Let me know in the poll and comments. In the mean time, the might value has been updated in the TT article.

Campaign: The new Smaug

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smaug thumbnailLast week we received news the New Smaug was introduced. It was highly anticipated, and  a lot of players took to the forum to explain Kabam how NOT to ruin the experience in the process of upgrading the dragon. Unfortunately, the new Smaug was highly disappointing and was met with a lot of negative feedback.

But in a surprise move, Kabam decided to listen to the critiques within a week and upgraded Smaug again. Read on to see what has changed form the old familiar lizard and a possible way to fix him once and for all…

Continue reading →

Kabam, this is unacceptable!

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Update: Seems Kabam finally got it together and rewarded the correct prizes…

So, we got a nice email last week about the improved Customer Support Kabam has been implementing. All good and well, but unfortunately, it only took a week to be blown out of the water.

Last week (week 44 2014), Kabam organized the Halloween Eve tournament series, coupled with a special Halloween temporary campaign map. The goal was to collect as many Pumpkin items as possible with your alliance, which could be gained in individual and alliance base tournaments and farmed in the campaign map. Especially the individual tourneys had pretty nice prizes for the competitors (500 pumpkins, many chests).

Being the number one ally in the server at the moment, we had individuals work their asses of in these individuals. Last GK tournament, we scored 1st and 2nd. But what happened? Wrong prizes were turned out. In fact, the number 1 got the prizes for 3rd place for example. Unacceptable. And we weren’t alone. More people on the server experienced wrongful payout of prizes, and other servers followed with complaints. Tickets were written, screenshots were made. Kabam’s reaction?

“Nope, sorry, our engineers looked at it and concluded everything went as planned. Here is 5 million might for your inconveniences…bye”

Wait…what?! You are just going to deny it happened? We have screenshots of this going terribly wrong, and you’re going to wave it away and deal out some shitty compensation prizes? We need a better definition of irony for this.  Come on Kabam, you send us a mail about improved customer support and only a week later you decide to screw over hard working players who rightfully deserved their prizes? I’ve been lucky to have never been on the receiving end of bad customer support from Kabam yet, but this is just terrible.

Get. It. Fixed!