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

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

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.