Hero Skills: When to use which?

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

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 🙂

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

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….

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

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

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Troop Attack Order

Updated with all new troops and attack orders! 14-01-2015

D_Dwarven_PhalanxBack in the days of Tier 1-3 and Wall, we knew which troops would be targeted first by an attacking army. Wall troops die first, then Tier 1-3 fighting troops, then lastly the supply troops. This held no matter what troops you sent at a city. The only ‘exception’ to this was the fact that a Dwarf army would (and will) attack Elven reinforcements first and vice versa, leading to the infamous cart rein shenanigans.

But unfortunately for us, the Tactical Troops messed this up, as they seemed to prefer other targets over the Wall troops to attack first, flanking the enemy armies and attacking the weak points at the back. For some Tactical Troops little changed, but for some, the order in which they attack enemy armies is a mess. This post lists all the attack orders for all troops available in the game right now, and will be updated when the new Tactical Troops are introduced.

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KoM 101: Farming made easy

small-farm-tractorsPerhaps not long awaited, but certainly long planned…my post on farming in Kingdoms of Middle Earth. Farming resources from other players is on of two ways of gaining resources, the other being producing it yourself in your cities. Farming other players however, is vastly more profitable than producing, and so will quickly become essential for your might growth, if done properly of course.

In this article, I will explain to you my method of farming. I know there are many methods and styles to choose from, so if you don’t like this style that’s ok. I’ve just found that it nets me more than enough resources in a short time, trying to be as efficient as possible. It will take some effort to set up, but once working, will really ease your farming trips.

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KoM 101: Getting through your first 7 days

bubbleWhen you start playing Kingdoms of Middle Earth, you are thrown into a busy, confusing world, with cities, wilds, goblins, alliances and players yelling in GC. It can be difficult to get a grasp of the many game aspects. I remember my starting point as extremely slow in hind sight…Figuring everything out by myself, occasionally guided by the KoM wiki, progressing ever so slowly. If I would have known what I know all now, progress would have been much faster.

This article is meant for new players who, instead of figuring out everything by themselves, want to get a head start. Starting a new game, you are placed in your safe bubble for 7 days. But how do you start your journey? What should you build and train, what aspects to focus on? All this and some more tips after the break!

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KoM 101: All Elven and Dwarf Wall troops

Following the article on all Elven and Dwarf troops, some suggestions came in on doing a similar article for the Wall troops of both factions.

headerWall troops can be trained in your City Walls. They provide good Might numbers, but are not overly strong, so most people do not actually build a lot of them, as it gives away easy tk’s for enemies. If you do want to use these, do so during Might tournaments or when you can back them up with a high Hero and normal troops. 

walltroopstats

Problems with farming gold

Gold_ShotOk, I know not many of you are following this blog, but it would be great if someone could give an answer to this. So as you all know, you can farm any resource over vault level by sending carts or wagons alone, provided the enemy does not defend.

To farm gold however, you need to send some attack troops along with your wagons or carts, to be able to also take home gold. They need to ‘breach’ the wall and defeat the defending troops, even if, in actuality, no wall troops are present. So yesterday, I noticed I was running out of gold and farmed some of my close-by neighbors.

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How to ask Alliance for resources/help

ImageEvery player is likely to, some day, run out of resources to build troops, do research or construct buildings. Its incredibly annoying to have to wait for your farms and quarries to produce the needed resources, or to have to farm it for yourself. Luckily, one of the better features of being in an alliance is the ability to ask your alliance buddies for the needed resources, or better yet, the alliance bank.

However, too many times, players -especially the new ones- ask for resources or help at the wrong place. So here are some simple, easy-to-follow rules on how to correctly ask for either resources or help….

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Wall Might and why you shouldn’t have it!

We have all seen the messages, either in chat, on some website, or through our own mailboxes….

DO NOT BUILD WALL MIGHT! (example)

TrainDefenses

If you click on the top alliances, many have this even stated as a “cardinal rule”. At first (2 weeks ago) I disagreed. I built me some mighty wall might. And things were going well for me. My 30K might mighty wall seemed to discourage any attackers form approaching my front lawn. Then, one night, some big ass 200k might player decided otherwise.

At first, I didnt even notice, and just started playing as usual. Then, I looked at my might and saw I was missing some 30k (120k back to 90k). I couldnt figure it out, I had my troops on hiding….weird stuff. Then I went through the reports again and AHA, of course, my wall was knocked down harder than Rihanna. From that moment on, I was in the camp of “NO WALL MIGHT(ish)”.

Find out below my take on wall might…

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