Hot Keys

Gem's of Knowledge has posted the Hot Keys for navigating the game in the browser. They speed up navigation significantly. 

https://elvengems.com/hotkeys/

Fighting Hints for Auto Fight

Troops positioning in auto fight  - by Lc Oct 2021

Difference in AI approach in battle

The AI is designed for manual fight for best results but is very time consuming. With portable devices being more popular, esp playing multiple cities, auto fight becomes the norm. The modification for autofight in the AI is that certain abilities from the player are removed (eg troop retraction). Another factor that affects battle outcome is terrain, which is also out of reach in autofight. Therefore, these issues are just skipped in the following discussion. Recommendation is if lost an expected winnable battle, just cater to minimize further loss.

Cater vs fight

Another principle in Elvenar is that cater vs fight is not absolute. It very much depends on your city strategy, city size, buildings (including temporary aids like MMM, ELR, DA), AWs, and military aids like fire phoenix  & brown bear. Also should be considered in the equation is your supplies including coins, hammers, goods and time boosts available.  These are to be individualized consideration for your own city.   The basic premise is that if battle is not worthy because of significant troop loss, negotiation may be more beneficial.  Players adamant in only fight or negotiation may find themselves at the end in a less optimal position.

Preamble on troops

Troops are from 3 sources, Barracks, Training Ground (TG), and Mercenary Camp(MC). For early chapter players, not all are available and/or training speed in TG and MC is slow, and armies are not graced with max ability (3*).  Without worrying the special attributes of troops from TG and MC (which are specialists particularly effective for one enemy type), we will just talk about troops in general, and Barrack troops are the best utilized until one is more advanced on the tech tree.
Regardless of the source, there are basically 5 troop types: Light Melee (Blue), Light Range (Green), Mage (Pink), Heavy Melee (Red), Heavy Range (Yellow).  For ease of typing, I will just designate them as B, G, P, R, Y .

The fighting prowess is circular. Think of BGPRY in a circle. Each is good against the next 2 and is not much affected by the previous 2. 
                     Eg   P is good against R, Y
                            R is good against Y, B
Troop against its own type is neutral.
                      Eg P is not affected much by P, B, G
For inexplicable reasons, sometimes even perfect match would result in nominal loss of troops (guess just like in RL, any war would result in casualties, even for the superior force), and this is discounted and ignored, and the battle is considered a success.

Troop positioning in autofight.

What I would like to present to you is a simple operational guide to extend your troops survival for better results in battle

Matching your troops against the enemies are paramount in minimizing loss.
The basic principle to be aware is that the enemy troops come in a specific order (representing the physical location on the battle ground in manual fight), then you match yours accordingly.

When the battle panel comes up, there are 5 slots for you to place the troops. Let’s numbered them 1,2,3,4,5 for easy referencing.

The enemies come at your troops in the order of 1, 3,2,5,4

Your choice of troops should be matched with the best tactics against theirs. Ie your 1 against their 1
Your 2 against their 3, your 3 against their 2 etc

If done with skill, within reason, you can hide your vulnerable troops and use them to their max advantage (example below)

This approach is best illustrated in single battles like the tourney, but equally valid on the spire, with the exception that the decision making is more demanding on multi-battle fights. 

It is also important to realize sometimes the enemy combination is such that no matter how good you are with troop placement, it is impossible to do well (either defeated or incurring big loss which is not worthy). Skip that battle or catering is recommended.

This approach of troop placement takes practice and pattern recognition. It involves, without a better term, an overlaid layer of neurooptical recognition to do it well

I personally find that this is one part of this game that is fun and challenging to play and to play it well, stimulating the intellect and mind of the player.

Photo courtesy of chama123

Spire Wizard

 Here is a link to a Spire Wizard to help with negotions. (Untested by Misfits)

http://dzesyi.com/spire-wizard

 

Moving Cities

UPDATE: INNO AS OF NOVEMBER 29 REMOVED THE OPTION TO STOP MOVING CITIES.

Sometimes INNO moves cities around, putting you in a new place with new trading partners. If you do not want them to move you, you can keep that from happening.

First, you will have to do this on a computer. It may not work on a phone or mobile tablet. 

Go to the silver gear at the lower right corner of your screen and click on it. 

Then click on the yellow gear and go to options. About the 3rd or 4th line down there is a box that is checked that allows them to move your city. 

If you uncheck that box then they will not be able to move your city. 

Only do this if you are very satisfied with where your city is. In most instances if they move you, it will give you many more active players visiting your city on a daily basis.

Additionally, once your city has been moved, visit everyone so they know you are there and you can see who is active by who visits back.

Also, when you are in your "real world" and collecting your tithe, the people who have no hours are (?) and the ones you can't collect from have been active in the past 24. Check their Ancient Wonders to see if they have an active building you want to invest KPs in.

-- Hubert contributed to this post

Fellowship Adventures

Quick glossary:

BREWS - the 2/5 minute workshop badge (needs 50 workshops. lvl 1 shops only need 2 minutes, and all higher level shops take 5 minutes)

CARPS - the 3 hour workshop badge (needs 10 workshops)

FARMS - the 9 hour workshop badge (needs 10 workshops)

SMITHS - the 1 day work shop badge (needs 5 workshops)

BRACELET - badge for collecting a specific amount of T1 goods (planks, marble, or steel). The amount varies depending on your chapter.

NECKS - necklace. the 1 day factory build. Requires 3 factories

STATUES - the 2 day factory build. Requires 2 factories

CC - Combining Catalysts (generated from Moonstone Library Set, Pilgrim's Set, as well as produced in Magic Academy using Relics). 1 staff badge is rewarded for every CC produced.

VV - Vision Vapor (reward for crafting items in the Magic Academy). there is a badge that requires you to collect 9 VV from crafting.

- Arcane Residue. this is the badge that requires 9 VV. one of the recent evolving buildings can increase your VV production if you have enough pet food.

WS - Wonder Society badge. put 10 KP (either free KP or using an Ancient Knowledge) into an Ancient Wonder

CROSSROADS - each path has 2 crossroads. These nodes are worth more points then normal nodes, and also allow you to move sideways across the map (to another color's crossroad) as well as advancing further down that color's path.

Strategies:

- Pre-Loading/Initial Collection:  you earn credit towards a badge when you collect the items/resources, and the game allows you to start producing these resources prior to the start of the FA.  Try to anticipate when an FA will start then get the factories and smiths producing their longer 1 and 2 days builds earlier so they will be ready to collect at start of the FA.

- Pre-loading can also be done with troop production (make sure all queues are full then wait to collect until after the FA starts), Magic Academy (MA, load at least 1 CC and 2 regular enchantments. this way you can collect both a Staff and a Hat when the FA starts), as well as bonus Event buildings that produce coin and T1.

- Keep boosted, upgraded T1 factories.  These will be the main source of Bracelets. Also, they take time and resources to build.

- Keep upgraded shops as well. They take time and resources to build, plus you will need the supplies.

- Next week, it may be wise to save a few rounds of the Spire and Tourney for the FA. Make sure that your tourney provinces are off cooldown and ready to complete at the anticipated FA start time.

- Depending on where you are in the Chapters, sometimes you have extra space when you've sold off some of the Guest Race buildings.  Or you might be able to make extra space by using teleports to pull back buildings you don't need right now.  How aggressively to do this depends on how much a person wants to put into the FA.

The FA is mostly for fun, so don't damage their progress for the sake of the FA. Only sell a building if you really don't want it (or want to upgrade it with a new one in your inventory).

Fighting Wonders Tip

From Yoner

To help out anyone that would like to increase their fighting capabilities which will save you resources in the long run cutting down on the need to cater/negotiate in Tournaments and Spire...and also clearing provinces for expansions(ALWAYS use auto-fight for Battles). All of these Wonders are a MUST in your City. This is a reference email, so no need to reply. If you have any questions feel free to message me or one of the Mages. Hope it helps! 

NEEDLES - Light Ranged Units DAMAGE increase / Barracks production speed increase

SANCTUARY/MARTIAL MONASTARY - Health increase for ALL Units

HEROE'S FORGE - Heavy Melee DAMAGE increase / Produces Orcs every 24 hours

DRAGON ABBEY - Mage DAMAGE increase / Bonus Mana with each Enchantment used

TEMPLE OF THE TOADS - Heavy Ranged DAMAGE increase / Heavy Ranged units produced every 3 hours(Barracks unit)

VICTORY SPRINGS - Light Melee DAMAGE increase / Training Grounds production speed increase

Spire Tips

Check out this link for additional Spire Tips: (copy & paste into browser)

https://tinyurl.com/njn8vwzk

Fighting Tip

The first step in learning to fight is to watch the auto fights. Choose your troops, then hit 'fight'. Once on the battlefield screen, look at the bottom buttons. Far left is a sword; hover and it says 'finish battle automatically'. Click there and you can watch the auto fight. Note: At the top will be a red 'battle results' button. Do not click that as it will automatically finish the fight and you won't see the rest of it. Also, next to the sword is a button with 1 > .  Click that until it reaches 3 >>> and that will make the troops move as fast as possible.

Troop placement can be very important.  Usually you want your troops to line up directly across from the enemy unit you want them to focus on.  On the screen where you pick troops, you do this by putting a specific troop in the slot above the enemy troop you want it to focus on.

Note:  They won't always go for that enemy unit first. A lot depends on initiative and range of your troops and the enemy troops. For now, putting them opposite each other and watching has the highest chance of successful outcomes.

Choosing troop types can be challenging.

Try these two things:

1) Visualize that the troop you are examining is weakest against the 2 troops to their left and strongest against the troops to their right. So a Mage is weakest against light melee and light range while strongest against heavy melee and heavy range. Heavy range is weakest against mages and Heavy Melee and strongest against light melee and light rage, and so on.

2) Barracks troops have the same strength or weakness against each type it unit it faces, while Training Guild troops and Merchant troops have an additional advantage over one or the other of the troops it is strongest against. So TG mage is even stronger against Heavy Range while MC mage is additionally strong against Heavy Melee. Therefore, if facing heavy range and a mage is called for, the Barracks Mage will suffer heavier losses than the TG Mage which will kill the enemy faster because of its advantage and so give the enemy units less opportunity to strike back.

Barracks troops suffer greater losses in any fight than the specialty troops of the TG or MC, even with fighting buildings deployed.

Fighting on the computer is easier than on a phone because you get a lot more information.  If you hover over one of your troops you get a pop up what troops your fighter is best against. The better they are against an opponent, the more stars (crossed swords) will show up. The same thing happens when you hover over the enemy troops.  Also, when you hover over your fighter the corresponding enemy troop that it is best against will be highlighted.  These visual clues are helpful.

Here is an actual fight: 

LR (hellhound) X2

HM (Orc General) X1

HM (Brave Knight) X1

LR (nasty thief) X1

When hovering over Barracks Mage, he is 4 stars against the 2HM enemies.  But two of the LR enemies are 5 stars against the Barracks Mage, so don't use that. (Hellhounds are absolute murder on priests.) When hover over the LR, he is also 4 stars against the enemy HM and the 3 LR are only 3 or 4 stars against him.  My HM is also 4 stars against the 3 enemy LM units but only even against the enemy HM. In Training grounds, the LR is 5 stars against the enemy HM units and the HM is 5 stars against the 3 enemy LM units.  The mercenary camp is no help in this one.  So use the training grounds 3LR and 2 HM placed directly opposite the enemy that are best against on the troop selection screen.

Tournament Tip

The way to get to 1650. Once you all have 9 provinces open.

1st round do provinces 1-9 only.

2nd round do provinces 1-8 only.

3rd round do provinces 1-7 only.

4th round do provinces 1-6 only.

5th round do provinces 1-5 only.

6th round do provinces 1-4 only.

Skip the 6th round and you still get 1400 points.

Spire Videos

For any city, but especially larger ones:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZMMc3lPXB4&feature=emb_rel_end

For low-level cities

https://minmaxgame.com/elvenar-spire-tutorial-chapter-4-level-1/

Ensorcelled Endowment Spell

From SapphyreRosa

Ensorcelled Endowment is a misused spell. 

What it does... Gives you a 5% Culture Bonus

How is works... Cast is on a Culture Building. 

When does it work... It only will give you the 5% Culture Bonus on buildings that actively have a Helping Hand on it. In other words, if you do not see a hand on a Culture Building, you will not get the bonus. 
Best buildings to cast the EE Spell on... Culture Building with the highest number of Culture, because those are ones that get Helping Hands on them first. Or the ones you see the Hand already on. 

If you place them on low Culture Building, you are wasting the spell and never get the 5% Bonus.

Note: The Bonus does stack. The more Helping Hands you have on your city, the more Culture you have, plus the addition of the EE Spell stacked bonus. 

Tip: Mobile App is fastest and easiest way to give helping hands to all your neighbors in your World Map.

Spire Gold!

 

Gifting Goods

 Gift of Goods: 

Maximum ratio of 1:8 in same tier (max. game allows). it's a circular trade, ex. marble for steel, steel for plank, plank for marble. Cross tier trades (e.g. Gems for Marble) can be very helpful. They have a ratio of 1:12 (1 tier) and 1:16 (2 tiers) respectively. 

Amount to be determined by how much goods Gift Receiver currently has, as well as how much Gift Giver wants to give. Gift Receiver has to be the one to place the trades because it makes it 0 star trade, if the Gift Giver were to place the trades it would make it an amazing 3 star trade and risk other players grabbing before Gift Receiver can.

Fellowship Adventures

 From SapphyreRosa

The reasons for doing FA are:

To gain the latest Artifacts needed for the newest Evolving Building we all just gained from the last event, so that if you didn’t get all 9 Artifacts, you have a chance to gain 2 more from FA.

To have fun as a team and work together and help each other out. 

DO’s and DON’Ts

DO participate in FA even if it’s only minimal. Any help is better than none at all and you will gain prizes too.

DO squeeze in a Tent City, (Please read section on what’s needed). 

DO use and update FA Spreadsheet, if you can? Or Send me an update and I’ll enter it for you. Spreadsheet is helpful so that we can see what is still needed and not waste time on what’s not. 

DO stick to the Paths we are working on. We aren’t doing every path… There will be a separate message in mail called “FA PATH’s”, when in doubt or need a reminder, please check there. 

DO log in daily and place ONE Badge to insure you get credit each Stage. 

DON’T place Badges on Paths we AREN’T doing, unless you really have to and then it’s only ONE Badge.

DON’T use Diamonds to gain anything for FA, it’s never worth it.

DON’T place all your Badges in at once, within reason, try to leave some room for others to place Badges. Especially in Stage 1, we want everyone to have a chance to place on the path(s) we are working on. 

Most importantly… DO have fun doing FA.

Set Buildings

From SapphyreRosa:

Did you know that Set Buildings need to be laid out a certain way in order to get the most from it?

First, Set buildings are those like Moonstone Library or Air Traders, etc. where there are multiple buildings that need to be attached to each other in order to get the most out of it.

If they aren't chain linked correctly, then you will not get the chain effect and will miss out on some of what it gives. If you hover over each part of the set, if you see it's all lit or of some are grayed out. If it's grayed out, it means the above or that you are mossing some of the buildings to make it a complete set. 

To be able to see how it should be laid out, click on one of the buildings, go to SET tab, and it'll show you how it should look. 

Negotiating the Spire

From sdcowboy:

Most of you probably already know this, but for those that don't, there is a little trick to negotiating in the spire.  When you hit the negotiate button, the required list of goods appears.  In the lower parts of the spire, these are usually five items.  The number increases as you climb.  I will go into this more, later.  Ok, you have hit the button and know what is required.  First and foremost, make sure that you have enough of the required goods and supplies to cover the negotiation.  I know, this sounds simple enough, but I have (and still occasionally do) enter the negotiations without sufficient goods and/or supplies.  If you don't have what is necessary, you will lose all that you have posted for negotiation. DUH.  

OK, now you know and have the goods.  Start by offering one of each good and don't offer in the order that they are listed, mix them up.  The trick is to offer each of the goods/supplies in the first negotiation try.  You will always satisfy at least one character, usually two.  The goods list will dwindle at this point by one or two items.  Us deduction to determine what is wanted by the remaining characters.  That easy with five items and five characters.  With more than five items for five characters, it is a little more complicated.  But the trick is still to offer at least one of every item, but this time it will take two rounds (unless you are very lucky).  

Remember, offering each item at least once will reduce the total number of items asked for with each round.  And use deduction (what has already been offered and refused versus what items can still be offered as per each character) and you will end up not requiring many diamonds for more than three tries.

Troop Production

Troop Production

If you use a hybrid fight/cater strategy, increasing your inventory of squads of troops is at least as important as increasing your inventory of goods.

Overall, troops are cheaper to make than goods. 

1) Make sure the troop building is making troops 24/7. Having one slot not yet completed when coming on to reset is the goal.

2) Upgrading the training building decreases the training time. Upgrading/adding an armory increases the training time. The amount of time is calculated on a 'per unit' basis, so the more troops in one slot, the longer it takes for that slot to finish. Chapters usually rotate between barracks and armory upgrade techs. If this chapter has a barracks upgrade, the armory upgrade comes in the next chapter. Take it slower on bringing the barracks up to max level to avoid reducing the time too much and all slots finishing when away from the game. 

AW Effects on Production

These are the AW's that decrease production time in the regular training buildings:

Needles of the Tempest: Speeds up Barracks production time(Tech Ch 3)
   Bonus effect:  Increases attack power of all light range troops

Flying Academy: Speeds up Mercenary Camp production time(Tech Ch 9)

Bonus effect:  Increases attack power of all light range troops

Flying Academy: Speeds up Mercenary Camp production time(Tech Ch 9)
  Bonus effect:  Produces Barracks Mage troops

Victory Springs: Speeds up Training Grounds production time(Tech Ch12)
  Bonus effect:  Increases attack power of all light melee troops

These are the AW's that increase production time; they impact all 3 training bldgs:

Dwarven Bulwark: Increases training size (time) based on your Squad Size(Tech Ch 6)
  Bonus effect:  Produces Barracks Light Melee troops

Shrine of the Shrewdy Shrooms: Increases training size (time) based on # Armory levels(Tech Ch 8)
  Bonus effect:  Produces Barracks Light Range troops

Alternating placing/upgrading these 2 types of military AW's will help maintain training times within a window acceptable for your time in-game. 

The biggest issue is with the Training Grounds since you don't get the 'speed-up' AW until the end of Ch12. As you upgrade your DB and SSS, the training times for the Training Grounds can be double that of the barracks. 

Indirect effect on production:

Martial Monastery/Sanctuary:  Increases the health of all troops (Tech Ch4)
  Bonus effect: Culture (really good culture! higher culture bonus increases supply production needed for troop production)

Since more troops survive battles, you need to train fewer to replace lost troops.  

Building a Tournament City

For anyone looking for information to update their city for a Tournament build. Check out this article in this link in the Elvenar Forum:  Building a Tournament city.

Pauly makes some good suggestions. If you want to have more balance I'd stick to the first set of Miltary AWs mentions. Check out the AW Comparison Guides in Elven Gems to review the different AWs. Some make more sense in early chapters than later. 

With the new rules having multiple Troop Buildings, Barracks, Training Grounds and Mercenary Camp is more useful because you can Train in all three simultaneously now. Training Troops uses Supplies so you will need to increase the number of and/or upgrade your Workshops to meet the increased demand. 

As always, you need to have enough Space, Population/Coins, Supplies and Goods. Using Spells and Instants frequently a sign of imbalance and that you have a shortage of the item(s) you are using them for. 

Comments with additional suggestions are welcome.

Spire Tip

If you are running low on something when negotiating in the spire, skip that item until the very last.  A lot of the time you will only need one or none at all.

Courtesy of msfreckles

Event Tips

When events come up (about six times a year), there are some things to be aware of.

1) Buildings will be at the chapter you claim them.  If you plan to go into the next chapter before the end of the event, wait to claim the evolving building (at the bottom of the quest window) until after you activate Advanced Scouts for the next chapter. This means that when you get it, you will get better rewards. You can wait until the very end of the event to claim those prizes at the bottom of that window if you want; your quest count will continue to be recorded and you can claim them all at once.

2) If you're close to the next chapter, you might want to fill Advanced Scouts and then wait until the day you want to win a specific daily prize to activate it. Once activated, all the quests requiring xx amount of goods/supplies/troops will go up to the new chapter amounts, so they will be harder to complete. The longer you wait, the easier some quests will be.

3) Scouting some provinces and not completing them will make completing quests for 'solve encounters' and 'gain relics' quests easier.  When you start solving them for 'solve encounters', remember to only solve 7 out of the 8, leaving the last one available for the 'gain relics' quests.  If you have the AW Endless Excavation, you'll get bonus relics when you complete a province, too.

4) You can preset many of the early quests and wait to collect them until the event starts. You just need to make sure the quest for those items is up before collecting.