KNOW YOUR ARMY:

Time based on (1)lv9 and (5)lv5 Barr

Porter: 1 power/ 2 Food Per Hour / 5 Sec
Conscript: 1 Power / 3 Food Per Hour / 3 Sec
Spy: 2 Power / 5 Food Per Hour / 10 Sec
Halberdsman: 2 Power / 6 Food Per Hour / 15 Sec
Minotaur: 3 Power / 22 Food Per Hour / 22 secs
Longbowman: 4 Power / 9 Food Per Hour / 35 Sec
Swift Strike Dragon: 5 Power / 18 Food Per Hour / 51 Sec
Battle Dragon: 6 Power / 35 Food Per Hour / 165 Sec
Armored Transport: 6 Power / 10 Food Per Hour / 105 Sec
Giant: 9 Power / 100 Food Per Hour / 495 Sec

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THE PLAY Strategies:

Numbers based off my army configuration chart which can be downloaded here:

Dragons of Atlantis Army Configuration Chart

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I've currently redone this chart so you can put in whatever numbers you like and it will auto-calculate for you.
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After main buildings you have 19 slots available for houses and barracks and you have to choose what you want. At lv 9 Castle you need 14,400 labors for all lv 9 resources.

What I recommend for a balanced "city"

Standard single use buildings
10 barracks
9 houses

Why you may ask? For the main reason that I don't expect to get my barracks up to level 10 and how barracks work is they give a 1% reduction of time for every level with a cap of 90%. So 10 x lv 9 barracks = your 90% reduction for army build times

9 houses net you 40,500 pop which leaves 26,100 for idle pop after you build all lv 9 resources with lv 9 castle. Since the change IDLE POP IS ONLY USED FOR ARMY UNITS CREATED WITH THE ARMY QUE.

Resource Plot Building

There are generally three recommended builds, which you can tweak yourself. I've included all of them here. Mine are of a more balanced build meant for any type of situation in which you can do well. The last is an army focused build, credit to Dreddnawt for this.

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Build 1
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This build is meant for those who like to focus on Mino, BD, and longbowman for their army. Considering these are excellent staples, this build focuses on building these great units. You need lots of metal and lumber for these which is why they have more then the others. Stone is only really used for building your city and that begins to wane later in the game.

14 Farms (You need high food, trust me)
(17 Farms with Lv 10 castle)
9 Metals
7 Lumbers
5 Stone

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Build 2
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A good balance blend of resources for beginning and endgame. Helps beginner players get started and maintain their edge throughout the entire game. Overall balanced build which will keep you going strong you can use camps to make up food difference easily. This helps you to keep pumping out your army while using them at the same time. If you want to focus on primary troop production I recommend Build 2.

14 Farms (You need high food, trust me)
(17 Farms with Lv 10 castle)
7 Lumbers
7 Metals
7 Stone

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Build 3
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Focus build with food as primary supplement for troop creation.

This focus build is primary for troop production and is considered a specialty build. New players will find it hard starting out using this build, but experienced players will be rewarded end-game with a powerful troop building city.

Credit goes to Dreddnawt for this, nice numbers.

21 Farms (You need high food, trust me)
(24 Farms with Lv 10 castle)
5 Lumbers
5 Metals
4 Stone

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Having all these at LV 9 will net you the following BASE resource generation per hour.

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Build 1 GEN
=========

Food: 63,000
Metal: 40,500
Lumber: 31,500
Stone: 22,500

With 90% increase via research you net the following:

Food: 119,700
Metal: 76,950
Lumber: 58,850
Stone: 42,750

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Build 2 GEN
=========

Food: 63,000
Lumber: 31,500
Stone: 31,500
Metals: 31,500

With 90% increase via research you net the following:

Food: 119,700
Lumber: 58,850
Stone: 58,850
Metals: 58,850

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Build 3 GEN
=========

94,500 Food
22,500 Lumber
22,500 Metals
18,000 Stone

With 90% increase via research you net the following:

179,550 Food
42,750 Lumber
42,750 Metals
34,200 Stone

Taking wildernesses will also increase your production.
At higher levels you will mainly be taking food because if higher army upkeep.

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Building your city:

I highly recommend you focus on the following during your initial seven days. Remember resource plots and houses are the quickest items to build in the game.

Lv 9 resource takes 1.1 hour
Lv 9 house takes 47 min

Getting resources up to lv 9
Getting houses up to lv 9
Get research building up to lv 7
Get Levitation (research)up to min lv 6
Get Agriculture (research)up to min lv 6
Get Alloy (research)up to min lv 6
Get Masonry (research)up to min lv 6
Get Levitation (research)up to min lv 6
Get Woodcraft (research)up to min lv 6
Getting castle up to lv 8
Getting dragon up to lv 8
Getting warehouse up to lv 7+
Getting Theater to lv 5

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Army Building

So first question is, are you concerned with raw power level or "true" power level? when you look at the numbers the answer is fairly simple. If you want to gain as much power as quickly as possible, then you build minos (minotaurs). As far as pure power, battle dragons will give the best bang for your buck if invading and a giants w/ archers defending a city are damn near unbeatable with a high wall. Example builds are below:

Offensive:

20,000 Porters
1,000 Spys
15,000 Conscripts
7,500 Longbow
50,000 Minos
10,000 Battle Dragons

Defensive

2,500 Spys
25,000 Conscripts (soaker dmg)
25,000 Longbowman
25,000 Mino
5,000 Giants or 10,000 BD

These are just suggestions, again, use my army builder excel sheet which you can download above to configure.

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How alliances abuse bad power ratios.

Whether people like it or not, numbers rule and those without em drool.

Over the course of my studies and talking with guild leaders I have found out that many have come across numbers much like my own, and using them have figured out how to "RIG" the system.

Right now the mino is the most overbalanced unit in the game. They give 3 power for 1 food and in pure numbers can ALMOST beat out giants, very close.

Now using this info alliance have been having ALL members build at least 5K to 10K minors. Why? Simple numbers.

If a guild has 120 members and each one build 5K minos that's an extra 15K a piece and totals out to 1.8 MILLION.

Up to 10K and that's an extra 3.6 MILLION, 15K, 5.4 MILLION etc...

By doing this, not only do guilds rocket up the charts they have a fighting force = to an army of giants.

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Damage Calculations:

First you need to consider the speed of the unit, GENERALLY SPEAKING, the faster units are the ones who take the losses first. The hiccup is when you throw melee units in with range, then the fastest unit AND range units take damage, not sure why on this.

Now what most people don't know if range is a VERY VERY powerful weapon here. Whether intentional or not this is a critical step. Currently, RANGE IGNORES DEFENSE.

To verify this yourself, send 1 archer to a LV 1 wilderness and then send 1 swift or BD. You will be floored by the results.

Now archers are generally used only in defense. Why? Because of the way the wall multiplies defense.

Archers with LV 10 wall = 5 atk, 300 def roughly

Now the way range works is it is subtracted by the opponents speed. Think of them as rounds.

Round 1, Attack spotted at 1200 vs opponent of halberdsman with 300 speed.

It will take halberds 4 rounds to close to melee range and then they HAVE to take out the melee opponents FIRST.

Never ever ever ever only have just ranged troops.

Those 4 rounds + an additional melee rounds depending on strength of melee force add up to ALOT of attack for those archers without any dying. A combo army of archers + minos are way overpowered.

The only way to counter archers are to use Swift and BD because of speed. However they will still take losses


Dreddnawt's Beginner's Guide to Resource Management

This post was originally a response to Omega’s thread on the old forums. Hopefully he will repost it for new players to see as it was a great thread with a wealth of information explaining troop types, city builds, and garrison to housing ratio

Game Progression Resource Summary:

- A good starting Field will max out, with a lvl 9 Fortress, at 21 Farms / 5 Mills / 5 Mines / 4 Quarries. (Lvl 10 Fortress will yield 24, 5, 5, 4)

- What resources you need most will change as you progress through the game. Changing the type of Wildernesses you control is a much easier way to manage these changes then disintegrating and rebuilding.

- You will need primarily Stone and Lumber to start building your city. In these initial stages, buildings upgrade fast and resources come slow. Sometimes you just need to be patient. Make upgrading Quarries and Lumbermills a priority, but don't forget about Farms and Mines.

- You will soon find you need a lot of Gold for research and Food for your blossoming army. By this stage you should have decent resource production and you'll start being able to offset it through attacking players, wilds and anthropus. Try to stick to attacking wilds and inactive players so you don't end up picking a fight you're not ready for.

- Eventually your need for Stone will drop off while your need for the other materials continues to increase. Managing your Wildernesses becomes more important and you may find the need to begin demolishing your first Quarries to make room.

- As you near finishing the upgrades to your city and researching is completed, you will find Gold and Stone are now all but worthless to you. The need for more Food is a constant monkey on your back but Lumber and Metal have leveled out. Remove the last Quarries you have and get rid of all but a couple Mills and Mines. Don't forget your Wilds, you'll probably have a few Mountains and Forests but will mostly be holding Lakes and Savannas.

- You are now primarily a Militant State with Food production maxed and what needs you have for other resources being fed solely through the plunder your armies bring home. Your Field has 32-36 Farms leaving little space for Mills and Mines. All your Wildernesses are now lvl 9 or 10 Lakes and Savannas. When you reach this point you wont need much of the other resources and what you do need will be easily farmed from other cities and Anthropus Camps.

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In-depth Info
===========

... We were discussing a 14(17), 7, 7, 7 split on resource fields. While that build may work for starters, most will find later in the game they need to cut back the number of hard resources, especially stone, to make room for more farms.

I'd suggest starting out with your resource fields closer to where you'll need them later on so you don't have to scramble to get and use so many mass nullifiers in order to meet food demands. Rather than building 7 mills, 7 mines, and 7 quarry to start, how about 5 mills, 5 mines and 4 quarries. That frees up 7 additional spaces for farms right off the bat and saves you 7 mass nullifiers later also. Not to mention the time and wasted resources upgrading buildings you'll end up destroying later.

My reasoning explained:

Food: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Hands down your most important resource, especially in the later stages of the game when you are trying to build massive armies. Troops gotta eat, you cant have too many farms.

- You can't build anything or train a single troop without food. And most research requires at least some food as well.

- Running out of food will screw you quick. If you are out of any other resource you just have to wait to get some more. Try running out of food and you'll have a really bad day. Don't let yourself be crippled by inattention, stay on top of your food upkeep at all times.

- You want more farms then anything else. More farms = more food production = larger army you can maintain. Without a big army, all you are is a target.

Even using the 21(24), 5, 5, 4 starting build ratio I suggest, you will find you end up destroying most of those mills, mines, and quarries later on anyway to make room for farms to feed your army. When your buildings are all upgraded and your research is all done, all you have left to do is train troops. Some wood and metal will be needed, but mainly what you'll need is more food. Keeping that in mind early in the game will save TONS of headache later. Believe me, I learned from my mistakes.

Lumber: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Lumber is the resource you need the most for buildings and troop training. There is nothing you can build or train that doesn't require Lumber. It is also used to Research Woodcraft, Weapons Calibration, Metallurgy and Levitation.

- Behind food, you want to keep your Lumber production up more then anything else. When you first start out, I suggest you quickly capture a Forest wilderness right after you have taken a Hill or two. You will want to maintain 2-4 Forest Wilds until pretty late in the game when you have to abandon them in favor of Lakes / Savannas to feed your growing army.

- With the exception of Farms, you will want to have more Lumbermills then any other resource simply because you will use more lumber upgrading then any other resource. Running low on lumber can easily stunt the growth of your city.

Lumber will never stop being an essential commodity. Build up your lumber production as quickly as you can and keep it up. You are never wasting your time upgrading a Mill. Capture and keep a few Forests always. Forests should be the last wilds you give up in favor of Lakes / Savannas. Even in the late game, you'll still need lots of lumber to train troops. Plus, who doesn't like getting wood?

Metals: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Much like Lumber, Metal is needed to make and upgrade all buildings and troop types, though you don't usually need as much. Even though, its importance can't be underestimated.

- Metal is required for all but 3 types of research. With so many uses you may find yourself running low on Metals even though the individual upgrades, research, and troops you are working on don't seem to need as much of it. So stay on top of Metal production if you don't want to be left behind.

- Large troop builds, especially Battle Dragons, can deplete your metal resources pretty fast. Be aware of how much you are using and how much you need for research and buildings before making mass quantities of troops.

- Capturing a Mountain wilderness is very beneficial to you. Though I personally make sure to capture all the other types before worrying about Mountains. Still, you will want to hold a high level Mountain or two for a long time.

If you keep an eye on your production and usage you shouldn't have much problem keeping up with demand for Metals. Building 4 or 5 Mines early will help boost your growth and still be able to keep up with research and training needs later on. While it is essential to do most everything, the fact that you don't often need a lot of Metal allows you to cut back the number of mines you have to leave more room for the all important farms.

Stone: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- I found it to be extremely valuable during the initial stages of building up your Fortress, Science Center and Garrisons. But after that, its usefulness quickly diminishes. For early development, upgrading only a few Quarries is just as good as building new ones.

- Stone is used mainly for buildings and even then it is only the main resource in your Fortress, Garrisons, Sentinel, Muster Point and Wall. All others require more lumber then anything else.

- The most Stone you'll really need at one time is building a lvl 10 fortress when you need 1,280,000 stone. You can easily attain this having only 3 lvl 9 Quarries (450k capacity each). So having more then that is pretty much overkill.

- Some may argue that you could need more Stone than that for upgrading your Wall. But if you want to slice hairs, you would technically need 12 Quarries to upgrade to a lvl 10 Wall without pillaging and thats just not worth it for a single fortification. So why bother?

- Stone isn't used at all in troop training, except for Fire Mirrors which you shouldn't be building anyway. Make Bowmen and forget the Mirrors.

- Stone is only used for Researching Masonry(duh), Weapons Calibration, and Metallurgy. And even for those you don't need much of it.

- As soon as you have some troops built you can capture Hills (my suggestion for first wild) to boost your lowly stone production. Grab a few if you want, they're free. Its a lot easier to abandon the Hills and take something else then to disintegrate a lvl 9 Quarry and build a new Farm from scratch.

So, Stone is really your least important resource, especially in the later stages of the game when most your buildings are upgraded as far as they'll go. What I found personally, was having 6 Quarries left me constantly stacked on stone I didn't need while short on other resources. 4 max is good for starters. As you progress you can cut that back even further when the buildings which require a lot of stone are finished.

Game Progression Resource Summary:
- A good starting Field will max out, with a lvl 9 Fortress, at 21 Farms / 5 Mills / 5 Mines / 4 Quarries. (Lvl 10 Fortress will yield 24, 5, 5, 4)

- What resources you need most will change as you progress through the game. Changing the type of Wildernesses you control is a much easier way to manage these changes then disintegrating and rebuilding.

- You will need primarily Stone and Lumber to start building your city. In these initial stages, buildings upgrade fast and resources come slow. Sometimes you just need to be patient. Make upgrading Quarries and Lumbermills a priority, but don't forget about Farms and Mines.

- You will soon find you need a lot of Gold for research and Food for your blossoming army. By this stage you should have decent resource production and you'll start being able to offset it through attacking players, wilds and anthropus. Try to stick to attacking wilds and inactive players so you don't end up picking a fight you're not ready for.

- Eventually your need for Stone will drop off while your need for the other materials continues to increase. Managing your Wildernesses becomes more important and you may find the need to begin demolishing your first Quarries to make room.

- As you near finishing the upgrades to your city and researching is completed, you will find Gold and Stone are now all but worthless to you. The need for more Food is a constant monkey on your back but Lumber and Metal have leveled out. Remove the last Quarries you have and get rid of all but a couple Mills and Mines. Don't forget your Wilds, you'll probably have a few Mountains and Forests but will mostly be holding Lakes and Savannas.

- You are now primarily a Militant State with Food production maxed and what needs you have for other resources being fed solely through the plunder your armies bring home. Your Field has 32-36 Farms leaving little space for Mills and Mines. All your Wildernesses are now lvl 9 or 10 Lakes and Savannas. When you reach this point you wont need much of the other resources and what you do need will be easily farmed from other cities and Anthropus Camps.

Go Forth and Conquer!!!