Hi Belus!

Thank you for your great job and nice guide! 🤗

Thank you Ivar. 

PHASE ONE: BUILDING YOUR FOUNDATION

Before I get in to phase one, I'd like to expound on picking a troop type. Later in the game when you start to go through the Tier 6 and Tier 7 troop types, you have to unlock things for some troop types to get to the others. This makes melee and archery easier to unlock than say, killers, cavalry, and siege. Spies being last on the list are of course the hardest to unlock all of the tech for. 

As a result of this there are lots of melee and archery players, and less of the other troop types, and spy players are very rare. 

When you click on your Barracks building, and click on any given troop type, it will tell you which troop types it is strong against, and which troop types it is weak against. It's like paper, rock, scissors. Each troop type is strong against 2, and weak against 2. Spies are excempt from this as spies only ever fight other spies. 

The troop type you choose is of course entirely up to you, considering a few things could help you make this decision. Melee is by far the most common troop type because it's easiest to unlock all of the tech for. Perhaps this will inspire you to go for melee but a lot of clans won't accept melee players because they have too many. Perhaps this will inspire you to go for a troop type that is strong against melee because it will make for happy hunting when you get to fighting. There is a balance to consider. You might want a sought after troop type that clans want, like killers, cavalry, and siege being the most sought after. Or going for the easiest ones like melee or archery. I went with cavalry because it's right in between. Spies are the rarest but they have a downfall. When doing sieges the AI fighters that attack your stronghold have no spies so they can not really participate much unless another player spies your stronghold. They also can not participate in onslaughts. That being said most players have pretty weak spies so when attacking unshielded towns if your spies are strong it makes for easy kills. Spies also have that special ability of telling you what's in a town or fortress. A lot to consider when picking a troop type. Good luck. 

Now, on to Phase One: Building Your Foundation:

Every home needs a good foundation to build off of. I will break this up in to 3 categories. Town, Knowledge Upgrades, and Hero Gear. The beginning steps of building your foundation will not make you a good fighter right away, but they will set the foundation that will make everything you do from there quicker and easier to build off of. 

-----------------------------Town---------------------------

When designing your town you will want to consider the troop type you chose. Each troop type takes more of one kind of resource to train. For example, I am cavalry, and cavalry takes more stone than other resources to train. That being said, when it comes to deciding how many of what kind of resource buildings to build, you will want to build an extra building of that resource type. There are 25 building slots for resource buildings, so I would recommend 6 of each resource type, which will leave one left over, which you should make which ever resource your troop type will need more of. 

On the other side of your town you have to build one of each of the following buildings, forge, gem workshop, and the war bloc(you don't actually have to build one of these, but I'd recommend it because you'll want it later on in the game). Aside from those there are other buildings that have dedicated spots, watchtower, vault, oracle, shrine of odin, mead hall, wall, hero abode, market, valkyries citidale, sanctuary of the aesir, rune workshop, and hall of mysteries. This will leave you with 15 building slots to decide how many manors, barracks, and infirmaries you want to build. 

A lot of people have a hard time deciding how to do this side as well. Building more barracks will allow you to train more troops at a time. Building more infirmaries will allow you to capture more fallen warriors for healing at a time. And building more manors will allow you to produce more silver quicker over time. The manors do one more thing though, they speed up warrior training, so the more manors you have the quicker you can train troops. I can not tell you how to set this part up, but I can tell you how I set mine up. 

I have 2 barracks. I feel this allows me to train plenty of troops at a time, especially since when I train troops I play number of warrior scrolls and just boost through them. I have 1 infirmary. It's important to note that the infirmary allows you to not only heal troops but to ressurect them for gold, and a single infirmary has no limit to the amount of troops sent for resurrection, only healing. And the reason I have only one infirmary is because I used the rest of my slots for manors so I could max out my silver production, capacity, and troop training speed. This was one of the mistakes I made early on in the game. I made a ton of infirmaries thinking it would send lots of troops for healing, which it did, but it greatly slowed down my troop training time and I burned through boosts very quickly when it came to troop training. I also barely produced any silver. So that is my recommendation, 2 barracks, one infirmary, and the rest manors. 

When it comes to upgrading your town for phase one, only upgrade the necessary buildings to get to your next palace upgrade. Getting to your next palace upgrade is important because, having a higher palace will get you bigger rewards in personal checkpoints in contests, it will give you better bank offers if you plan on spending money, it will give you better daily, weekly, and monthly quest rewards, and it will give you bigger loyalty rewards. This was one of the mistakes I made early on in the game. I would for example, not upgrade my palace to level 7, until all of my buildings were at level 6. This made it take a long time to get to my next palace upgrade, and nobody told me the next palace upgrade gave me all of the bigger rewards. I did not know that at first. 

There are many buildings you do not have to upgrade to get to the next palace upgrade. Only do the ones you need. That being said, the Valkyries Citidale needs to be upgraded periodically to get to next levels of your troop type upgrade. So does the Valley of the Aesir. It's never too early to pluck away at those so upgrade them as needed. The rune workshop will allow you to fuse runes quicker, but once you get to a high enough VIP level rune fusing is free anyways so no need to worry about that one as if you're in a good enough clan to get you lots of VIP points, which Cagon will do if you join us, you'll get there quickly enough. And the Hall of Mysteries will allow your Shamans to gain experience and upgrade quicker, but that one will take a while anyways because charms are hard to come by and those upgrades are expensive in the oracle. We'll worry about our Shamans later, they're not that important for phase one. 

Getting your palace upgraded quickly is the ultimate goal here in buildings, and making sure you have the right amount of resource buildings, manors, infirmaries, and barracks. I would recommend pausing at palace level 26. The reason being is at level 27 all of the buildings start to require bronze, and at level 26 it's still fairly easy to get all of your personal checkpoints in clan and kingdom battles as well as personal competitions. In a clan battle for example, all you have to do is kill 13 ubers, or 29 level 6 invaders, or a combination of the two, and you can get all 15 of your personal checkpoints, if your clan wins that battle. This becomes harder at palace leel 27. This is a good point to pause, and start working on all of the other buildings to level 26. The oracle is another reason you want to upgrade quickly. Aside from all of the benefits of having an upper level palace, upgrading the oracle will allow you to do quicker knowledge upgrades. 

------------------------------Knowledge Upgrades---------------------------

There are 2 very important knowledge upgrade tech trees you need to focus on first and foremost. Economy and Invaders. Everything else can wait and you won't regret waiting. Focusing on maxing out these two tech trees will make getting everything else quicker once you get to it. 

Economy: This one is important because it will make your town produce more resources quicker. But perhaps most importantly, it has the Building I and Building II upgrades, which will make upgrading your town go quicker. This and the Oracle itself feed off of each other. Upgrading the Oracle makes your knowledge upgrades quicker and unlocks the next levels of upgrades, and in the economy section of the Oracle building I and building II allows you to upgrade your town quicker. It's of the utmost importance to focus on these two things during phase one. 

And perhaps the most important thing of all in the knowledge upgrades is the invaders tech. You will want to get all of the upgrades that have to do with fighting invaders unlocked as quickly as possible. In that tech tree there are also some fighting stats to unlock, and some number of marches upgrades. Don't worry about those yet. Just focus on anything that has to do with fighting invaders and unlock every last bit of it as quickly as possible. 

Fighting invaders has been and still is the most important thing you can do in this game. It's worth a lot of points in all three of the kingdom battles, in clan battles, and it's worth points in personal and clan lust for power contests, personal and clan invader fighting contests, personal invader hunt contests, some personal and clan trick of the gods contests, and if you're feeling up to spending lots of hero energy you can even hit monsters in Jotunheim. It's also how you get materials for building hero and shaman gear, and how you get gems. Hitting invaders will also give you other goodies like boosts and gold and VIP points, and hitting ubers will give you hero keys, bronze, manuscripts, boosts, gold, specialty gems you can't get from regular invaders, and tons of other goodies. Hitting invaders also helps to upgrade your hero to the next level. And it leads us to our final and ever important part of Phase One. 

---------------------------------Hero Gear------------------------------

Hero Gear is an ongoing part of Vikings. From the first gear you get, to upgrading your legendary troop types fighting gear and ubba gear for fortress fighting, and everything in between, hero gear is something you will not be done working on for a very very long time, so the sooner you get started the better. 

The first type of hero gear you should go for is the Royal Guard gear. It's never too early to start hitting Royal Guards, but what you really want to do is get all of your invader fighting tech unlocked, and start pounding level 6 Royal Guards every time they are on the map. The Avarin uber invader also drops Royal Guard materials. This will allow you to build the Guardsmans Helmet, Sword of Vengeance, White Robe, White Boots, and 2 Plated Gauntlets. This gear will make you stronger against fighting invaders. 

Important note: Do not make hero gear until you can make it out of all legendary/gold materials. Using lesser materials like epic/purple or rare/blue is a waste of materials and will only have to be replaced later with legendary/gold, so just wait until you can do all legendary/gold right away. 

Once you have the full Royal Guard outfit and all of the invaders tech unlocked, you will be as strong as you will ever be against invaders, and you will be ready to start working on other gear as quickly as is possible. 

The gems you will want for your Royal Guard gear is the peridot for increased hero energy, the emerald for increased hero energy restoration, and amber for increased marching speed. There aren't any runes that have to do with fighting invaders but I threw in some predominance runes in to my Royal Guard gear for their increased resource yeilding speed ups. 

------------------------Overview of Phase One: Building Your Foundation-----------------------

Once your palace and town buildings are all up to level 26, your economy stats are as far as you can get them, your invader fighting stats are upgraded all the way, and your hero has a full outfit of legendary Royal Guard gear, congratulations. You now have a rock solid foundation that will make everything else you do from here quicker and easier. Don't rest too easy though, as all you've done is essentially lay the concrete for which to build a strong house on top of. Next week, I will post about Phase 2: Building Your Home. 

WHY CAGON WILL BE GOOD FOR HELPING YOU THROUGH PHASE ONE

When a clan wins a clan battle the chief is rewarded with lots of food, wood, iron, stone, and silver. As chief I do resource sharing, so any member who got any points will share in these rewards, the top 5 points earners getting the most. This along with all of the boosts you get will help you move through the town and knowledge upgrades quicker. We also almost always get all 15 checkpoints which means lots of hero energy for you to use to get your hero gear. We also get lots of VIP points which will help you increase your VIP level to get to free gem and rune fusing quicker, among other things. 

Kingdom 421, coordinates 207:419

Game tip:

Plarium has become more and more generous over the years. Always get your free stuff. It's important to log in every day, even if you don't plan on playing that day. Reason being is to get your free stuff. There are daily free bank offers, free tasks, loki's chest, free champion materials in Helheim, sometimes Plarium gives gifts when they do maintainence and if you miss a day of logging in you might miss one of them, and free loyalty rewards that operate on a 30 day cycle, each day getting better and better, and if you miss a day of logging in and claiming these they go back to day 1. Also sometimes the daily, weekly, and monthly quests are simply rewards for logging in every day, so if you have a monthly quest of logging in for so many days, and you miss a day, you miss that monthly quest. 

PHASE TWO: BUILDING YOUR CASTLE

Before I get started on phase 2, I'd like to add to something I said. I believe I mentioned it's never too early to start working on your aesirs and in the valkyries citidale, but I forgot to mention Helheim and upgradable town skins. It's also never too early to start trying to make your way through the floors and nodes of helheim. It won't really do much for you in the ways of upgrading your town, knowledge, or hero gear, but in the long term it will give you a good head start on fighting, once we get there. Same with the upgradable town skins. You will find them by clicking on your palace. Keep an eye on them, and every time you can upgrade them. 

Now, on to Phase Two: Building Your Castle

Now that you have a good foundation, it's time to start building your castle. I will break this one up in to 4 categories. Hero gear, Buildings, Knowledge upgrades, and Shamans. 

------------------------------------Hero Gear------------------------------------

I'm starting with this this time because it's the most crucial thing you can do to quicken your growth. By  now you should have a full outfit of legendary royal guard gear for hitting invaders, and your invader fighting tech tree maxed out which will make getting further hero gear quicker, using less energy, but getting the other outfits together is what will help you grow faster. The upper level town and knowledge upgrades can take a very very long time, but hero gear will help with that. You will need to start working on 2 more outfits. One for speeding up buildings, and one for speeding up knowledge upgrades. 

It used to be essential back in the day, when the VIP level only went to 15, to build a third outfit for food production, to keep your food out of the red, but with VIP level 30, if you also play troop upkeep scrolls of 50%, your troops will no longer eat, so such an outfit is now obsolete, and building one is a waste of materials, time, and silver. If you have a good enough clan that will get you VIP points every clan battle like Cagon, you'll get to VIP level 30 quickly enough.

There are three types of hero gear. Standard, invader, and specialty. Building the specialty gear for knowledge and town upgrades speeds them up the most, so that will be the ultimate goal. I'd not recommend going for the invader gear. The standard gear is a quick way to get started, especially the victors bracelets for building and the falcon figurine for knowledges. But ultimately in the end you will want to replace those with the specialty amulets. 

You will also want to get gems for this equipment. The only way to get gems for knowledge and building speed ups is by hitting ubers. Longobards drop Indicolite gems, which speed up construction speed, and Picts drop Aquamarine gems, which speed up knowledges. So hit lots of those two ubers whenever they are on the map. 

The specialty gear you will want has to be unlocked in the forge of your clans stronghold. Cagon already has all of our gear unlocked, but if your clan does not you will want to help out with this by donating coal to your stronghold. Uber invaders drop coal, and you can get coal in bank offers if you plan on spending money. The best gear you can get for your hero in regards to building and knowledge upgrades is as follows: 

Building:

Bjorns Helmet, Bjorns Armor, Bjorns Spear, Haakoons Boots, and Bjorns goblets

Knowledge:

Sigurds Hood, Haakoons Cloak, Haralds Blade, Olafs Greaves, and Olafs Seals

These pieces of equipment, when made in legendary level, combined with legendary gems Indicolite and Aquamarine will signifigantly speed up those long winded building and knowledge upgrades, and are absolutely essential for rapid growth. Now, what to do with that rapid growth. 

---------------------------------Buildings------------------------------

Buildings in phase two is pretty straight forward. Conceptually it's the same as phase one so just refer back to that. One of each resource building, and only the essential buildings needed to get your palace up in levels. From levels 27 to 31 you will need bronze for upgrading. You can get bronze from hitting ubers, doing personal tasks, from the clan store, and bank offers. Bank offers are a way of getting through this part quickly, but I have multiple accounts in this game, and I've never had to buy a pack with bronze in it. I got all my bronze from ubers, tasks, and in the clan store. 

Once you get your oracle up to level 31 you can unlock all of your economy stats, so for phase two getting up to level 31 will be as far as you really need to go. At this level your bank offers, loyalty rewards, personal checkpoints in clan and kingdom battles, personal contest checkpoints, and daily, weekly, and monthly quest rewards are all starting to get pretty choice. The checkpoints will start to include important things that you will need for further phases like obsidian and gold nuggets. You will start to get more and more task refreshers, hero energy, and ghost energy, among other goodies. The checkpoints will also be harder to pass, requiring more points, so keep that in mind when moving from phase one to phase two.

------------------------Knowledge Upgrades------------------------------

For phase two you will want to continue working on your economy stats for all the same reasons as stated in phase one. Getting your resource buildings producing more, holding more, and doing it all quicker, as well as getting your building speed faster. Again, you will be able to finish this tech tree once your oracle gets to level 31. 

There are two other important tech trees you will want to begin work on. We'll start with the hero knowledge. Since you are going to begin making some more complex equipment, it couldn't hurt to get the very first knowledge in the hero section maxed out. Equipment crafting speed. You will need this one maxed out to unlock further hero knowledge in the future anyways, so now is a good time to knock this one out. 

Most importantly though, you will want to begin working on the Shamans section in the oracle. I said hitting invaders is probably the most important thing you can do in this game. Well hitting ghosts and upgrading your shaman, and building shaman gear is a close second. The Shamans knowledge tree is a little bit trickier than the invaders tech tree. The military stats are intertwined with the ghost hitting knowledges, so you will need to unlock some of them to get your ghost fighting skills maxed out, instead of the military stats being at the end like in the invaders knowledge tree. It's the same concept though. Ultimately you will want to get to the point where all ghost fighting knowledge is maxed out, and you can hit level 6 ghosts. 

This is important because runes are every bit as important as gems. It's also important because shaman gear is as important as hero gear. Hitting ghosts are worth points in tons of contests just like hitting invaders. This will be a harder tech tree to work through. It doesn't take a lot of time boosts, and it doesn't take manuscripts like some of the other upper level knowledges, but it does take a whole lot of resources. The upper levels of this tech tree get very expensive. But they do one more thing though. 

This tech tree will make you a lot bigger influence wise. As such, it's worth a lot of points in clan battles, kingdoms battle revenges, and influence increasing contests both personal and clan. So it would be worth your while to wait until such contests to boost the upper levels through. 

Game tip for these upgrades: Some of them are better to just use gold for than resources and speed up boosts. If you're getting enough gold from contests, and from doing your achievements to spare, it's better to just spend the gold on some of these upper levels in this tech tree. 

--------------------------------Shamans-------------------------------

Ultimately in the end you will want 4 shamans. Baggi the Big, which everybody just gets, Inga the Wise, Raine the Wanderer, and which ever shaman specializes in the troop type you chose. For phase two however, we will just concentrate on 2. Your Baggie the Big and Inga the Wise. Let's start with Baggi. 

Baggi provides you with some good economy stats and most importantly, building speed increases. He is the easiest one to upgrade because you can get charms for him in the clan store. He is the only one you can get charms for in the clan store. 

Inga provides you with some very important stats. Knowledge learning speed ups and reduced cost, and warrior training speed ups and number of warriors in training increases. She is harder to upgrade. This is the first place I would recommend spending money if you have money to spend. You can get her charms in one of two ways. Every once in a while there is a contest called a ghost hunt. Checkpoints in each ghost hunt give charms for a different shaman. You can wait a very long time for a ghost hunt that gives charms for inga, or you can just get her charms in a bank offer. I would highly recommend dropping $20 on a bank offer and just getting her charms that way. Otherwise it takes a very long time to upgrade this very important shaman. 

I will include a money spending game tip at the end of this post, and when it comes to bank offers for shamans you can find them sometimes with charms for multiple shamans. For example, and Ulf The Brave bank offer can often be found also having charms for Inga the Wise and Baggi the Big, as well as including shamans energy and gold and other stuff, so if you spend wisely a good bank offer will upgrade both your fighting shaman and your inga. 

The recomendations for the shaman gear are the same as the hero gear with one exception. There is no shaman gear for hitting ghosts that is comparable to the royal guard gear for the hero. 

For Baggi, you will want to make an outfit of shaman gear for building speed increases, with Indicolite gems, and for Inga you will want to make an outfit of shaman gear for knowledge speed increases with Auquamarine gems. It's important to note that not every type of shaman gear has an option for knowledge or building speed increases. For example, there is no shaman armor or boots that gives a building speed increase, so I would recommend just going with the cheapest piece of shaman gear you can get, just for the sake of placing a gem and rune for the pieces lacking this speed increase. 

Baggi:

Mask of Valor, Beech Bludgeon, Predators Cloak(cheapest piece no building speed ups), Crushers Boots(cheapest piece no building speed ups), and Creators Bracelets

Inga:

Mask of Valor(cheapest piece no knowledge speed ups), Rod of Wisdom, Embroidered Tunic, Hermits Boots, Lockets of Enlightenment

Once your Shaman knowledge is upgraded enough in the Oracle, at least to the point where you can hit level 5 ghosts, and you have at least one shaman that is strong enough to start hitting ghosts without burning through your shaman energy too fast, you will want to start trying to get some runes together. The two most important for phase 2 and further phases are:

The Sagacity rune for knowledge upgrades, dropped by Plague Ravens

and

The Majesty rune for building upgrades, dropped by Helheim Warriors

-------------------Overview of Phase Two: Building Your Castle------------------------

The upper levels of town and knowledge upgrades are very time consuming, so you will want to do what you can to reduce that time. The right combination of hero gear, shamans, shaman gear, gems, and runes, combined with the knowledge speed increases provided by upgrading your oracle, and the building speed increases provided by upgrading your economy stats in the oracle, can dramatically reduce these times. There are also of course knowledge and building speed up scrolls, and occassional in game bonuses that will also reduce these times, as well as in game bonuses that add 10% to speed up scrolls. Between all of these things, you can really get or growth times down by a lot. 

WHY CAGON WILL BE GOOD FOR HELPING YOU THROUGH PHASE TWO

Same as Phase One, resources and boosts, but lets add hero energy and VIP points from clan battles to that list. We are also currently 34 members strong, and that many helping hands will reduce your upgrade times by that much more. We also have a list of ubers and the gems and materials they drop in our rules and regulations section as a helpful guide for knowing which ubers to hit to help you get your hero and shaman gear. I will soon add a list of ghosts and runes they drop. 

Kingdom 421, coordinates 207:419

Game tip: 

This will be a money spending tip. Aside from the fact that the higher you get your palace the bigger and better the bank offers become(not necessarily costing more but offering more for the same amount of money), there is a thing they call mega packs. Once you do spend money, the prices of your bank offers change and the bank offers become smaller, giving less stuff for more money, even though the prices are lower. If you hold off on spending money again for 30 days, the mega packs will return, and the bank offers will become big again. This is the thriftiest way to spend real world money in the game, and it can get you very far. 

PHASE 3: FORTIFYING YOUR CASTLE

I missed an entry last week. Got too busy with real life stuff, which is rule number 1 in Cagon. Real life comes first. 

If you have followed the first two phases you will not regret it at this point. The whole point of those two phases is to make preparing for war quicker, cheaper, and easier. With enough upgrades, hero gear, gems, the right shamans, shaman gear, and runes, combined with playing scrolls, you should be able to rather quickly burn through this phase, fortifying your castle. You're not quite ready to start fighting just yet, but the purpose of this phase will be to get you ready for fighting, specifically defense fighting. The next phase will all be about starting to fight, but for the preparations of fighting, we will break this one up in to 4 categories. Lean and mean, knowledge and building upgrades, troop training, and hero sets. 

-------------------------------Lean And Mean------------------------------------

There is a difference between having big influence, and being strong. Lots of knowledge upgrades, a maxed out town, and copious amounts of troops will make you big, but they won't make you strong. Before getting ready to fight you will really want to concentrate on all of the ways that will make you strong, but won't inflate your influence. VIP levels, hero gear, shamans gear, gems, runes, upgradable town skins, helheim, and achievements will all increase your fighting stats without increasing your influence. 

--VIP levels: VIP levels are easy enough to understand. Upgrade them as often as you can and keep your VIP status active. Hitting uber invaders and uber chiefs is a great way to extend your VIP status and keep it going, but it won't get you many VIP points. Keep an eye on the contests that give VIP points and do your best to max those out. You may want to spend a little money on bank offers that give good amounts of VIP points too, if you can. 

--Shamans, Shaman Gear and Hero Gear: Once you have your Baggi the Big and Inga the Wise upgraded fully, and the hero and shaman gear for town and knowledge upgrades all built, with runes and gems for them, you will want to start working on two other shamans. The Raine the Wanderer for fortress fighting, and which ever shaman is for your specific troop type. You will also and probably most importantly of all, want to start building gear for them. 

There are two levels of hero and shaman gear for regular fighting. Don't bother with the lower levels. Build the most powerful specialty hero gear you can, the ones with the arrows pointing upwards. These are upgradeable with helheim fire and more materials. For the shaman gear you will have to observe the stats they offer, don't be tricked, there are two levels of fighting gear for shamans and you don't want to build the weaker ones by accident. The shaman gear is not upgradable. 

And for fortress fighting it's rather obvious. There is only one kind of fortress fighting gear for the hero, and one kind for the shaman. Again, the hero one is upgradable but the shaman one is not. 

--Gems and Runes: For this phase, you should concentrate mostly on defense gems and runes. For beginners, defense fighting is the best way to go. Your troop specific defense gems and runes, your troop specific health gems, and tourmaline for all troop defense. Those 3 gems and one rune, set in every piece of hero gear and shaman gear will give you the maximum defense you can get from gems and runes. The gems are fairly easy to get, the runes take a while longer. 

--Upgradable town skins: Little known fact about the upgradable town skins. You do not have to be wearing them for their stats to apply. You can select any of them but that's just for appearance. Every one of these you get and upgrade will provide permenent bonuses. And, you can still apply the bastion of the beast on top of them, which is not an upgradable town skin, and does have to be applied to get the bonuses from. Ultimately you will want all of them, but you can find charts online which show all of the bonuses they provide, and you will want to prioritize the ones that provide defense and health stats first.

--Helheim: Going through the levels of helheim gets you helheim fire which you will need for upgrading your legendary fighting and fortress fighting hero gear. This is essential. Also, passing all of the nodes on any given floor with all 3 stars will upgrade your helheim town to its next level, providing you with additional fighting bonuses. This is also essential. Also, when you go through nodes in auto mode 10 at a time you will get 500% defense scrolls, 500% offense scrolls, and 3250% marching scrolls. These scrolls will play a crucial role once you start fighting. Helheim is an essential part of this game now and should not be overlooked. 

--Achievements: Not only will achievements improve your fighting stats without increasing your influence, but a lot of them give some very nice gold as a reward. Aside from the ones listed in your achievements section in your menu, there are a number of secret achievements. You can find a full list online of all of the achievements and how to get them, or you can also ask your clan mates if they know how. At Cagon we keep a list of a few of the trickier ones in our regulations, with what town level you need to be at, and how to get them. Some achievements won't be available until you start fighting, but we will get there in our next phase. 

Those are all the ways to greatly improve your fighting stats without increasing your influence. If you do this you will be a lot stronger than your influence suggests, and leave people who try to attack you scratching their heads as to why they were not able to defeat you easier. You won't necessarily be able to hold your own against the heavy weight fighters of Vikings, but players of similar size as you and even some what bigger will not know what hit them. 

------------------------------Buildings and Knowledge Upgrades------------------------------------

--Buildings: We will start with buildings since it's straight forward and easy. Keep upgrading them according to the pattern in phase one and two. Just do one of each building needed to get to the next palace level. Once you are at palace level 35 though you will have noticed that resource buildings from levels 31 to 35 start to offer fighting upgrades. Work on your defense and health ones first when going back to finish the rest of your town to level 35. Quick tip: Which ever resource your troops take the most of to train, leave one of those buildings at level 33. Reason being, is you will always be lowest on that resource, so when you start going for your planner achievement, which is demolishing so many buildings level 33 or above, you will want it to be that one because it won't cost you any of that resource to build back up and demolish again. 

--Knowledge upgrades: This one is also straight forward, but there is a good order to go about this. Start with your training category. If you did phase one and two then you will be pleasantly surprised at how quickly you can burn through this tech tree. You do not need all of it. For example, if you're an archer, there's no need to max out T5 siege training cost. No sense in using resources and boosts on influence that provides you with nothing useful. Just get what you need, and get all the extras along the way like the extra marches, training speed, resource production, etc... 

Next you will just want to go from the top on down. In the military section only get what you need to unlock your T5 troop type. No need to unlock the others, you won't use them. And then go back and max out your troop defense during defense, offense during defense, and health during defense. Remember we are working on fortifying your castle here, offense comes later. You will want to be a strong defense fighter at first, keeping your influence low. 

You can skip the espionage section for now unless you chose to be a spy. If you chose to be a spy you will want all of that stuff. 

Get the extra marches from the invaders section and unlock all of the fighting stats from that section. You can't max out your defense in that section without also getting all of the offense stats, so just get it all. 

Get as far as you can in the hero section. That one is tricky as it all needs manuscrips, so just get as far as you can and keep going back to it when you get more manuscripts. You can get manuscripts from hitting ubers and uber chiefs, from personal tasks, you can buy them fairly cheaply in your clan store, and you can get them in bank offers. I never bought any bank offers with manuscripts though. If you're going to spend money I'd recommend getting task refreshers galore though, as not only can you get manuscripts from personal task refreshers, but clan task refreshers give you lots of clan store points, and the tasks can get you through checkopints in task completion contests as well as giving you lots of resources to play with. 

In the tier I - V section unlock everything up until tier IV, and then only unlock defense and health for your tier V's. 

You can start plucking away at your tier VI and tier VII upgrades, but I wouldn't worry about getting all the way through those just yet. The training limit in the tier VI section is nice, and then the training limit, as well as troop health during defense II, troop defense during defense II, and troop offense during defense II, in the tier VII section is also a good start. Both the tier VI and tier VII sections are very hard to get through though, and I wouldn't recommend it until you're ready for a higher level of fighting. For now though, we're just getting you ready for the feather weight division, so to speak. 

You will want to unlock all of the shaman knowledge that you haven't already. Get as far as you can with that one too. 

Then there is special knowledge. We will skip the special knowledge for now. Do not waste any soul shards on the special knowledge. Once you start fighting, you start getting soul shards. You will want to use these for unlocking aesirs first and foremost. Many people make mistakes on the special knowledge, and we will get to that in our next phase, but for now, don't make the same mistakes others make, just wait on this one. 

And last but not least the Valkyries Citidel. If you haven't already started plucking away at this one it's beyond time to start. Just unlock your defense and health stats of your troop type up to tier 5. 

------------------------------------Troop Training--------------------------------

To further prepare for troop training you will need one more hero outfit and one more shaman outfit, along with the gems and runes for it. For the hero the specialty gear you want is Ragnars Helmet, Sweyn's Flail, Ivar's Jacket, Bjorn's High Boots, and 2 Sweyn's Lockets. For your Inga you will want the Priests Mask, Staff of Greatness, Predators Cloak, Mentors Boots, and 2 Sacral Rings. Some of those shaman pieces don't have any training stats, but that's because none are available, so the ones I listed are just the cheapest pieces of gear meant to hold a gem and a rune. You will want a euclase gem and a brotherhood rune for each piece of hero and shaman gear as well. 

This is your final hero and shaman gear you will need. Anything beyond that will be extra and up to you. 

After that start training tier 1 troops like a maniac. Reason being, they are the cheapest and quickest to train, and will get you through several achievements, the first of which we go for will be Brave Heart, so train 115 million T1's at the very minimum. 

-------------------------------------Hero Sets--------------------------------------

If you haven't already started making different hero sets you will want at least 3 of them for now. 

--Economy/Invader fighting. This should be your standard hero set, and should be the one you're working on already. The gear for this should be your royal guard gear. The stats should be set up to max out on knowledge and building upgrades, the rest being up to you. I would not recommend using any military related stats for this one, strictly stick to the economy side to max out resource production, and building cost and speed. And you should swap out the gear for doing things like building, or knowledge upgrades. No need for a whole other set for those when you can just change hero gear out. 

--Troop training. This should be the second hero set you make. The gear for this should be the gear listed above in troop training. The stats should be set to max out for all things related to troop training, which will require unlocking what you need from both the economy side and military side to max out training speed, training cost, and number of warriors in training. 

--Defense fighting. This should be the third set you make. The gear for this should be your troop specific, upgradable, legendary fighting gear. The stats should be set to max out for all things defense related in regards to what kind of troop you are using. You can use this one for defending forts too, just swap the gear out for the fortress fighting gear. 

------------------------------Overview of Phase Three: Fortifying Your Castle---------------------

If you are at this level you should have most of if not all of phases 1 and 2 done already, so you should be upgrading rather quickly, or almost as quickly as possible anyways. In this phase we are preparing for phase 4, the featherweight fighting division. You will be a lean and mean fighting machine if you can get all of these things done. Ready to train troops quickly, lose them, train more, get soul shards, get fighting achievements and troop training achievements, and be an all around bad ass for still being a low influence player. 

WHY CAGON WILL BE GOOD FOR HELPING YOU THROUGH PHASE THREE

Aside from all of the previously listed reasons, in our regulations section we have a list of a couple of the tricky achievements and instructions on how to get them, and a list of uber invaders, the kind of materials they drop, and the kinds of gems they drop, to make material and gem hunting easier. 

Kingdom 421, coordinates 207:419

Game tip:

Training upper level troops is both expensive and time consuming, but if you watch the in game bonuses as I do, Plarium gives 10% training speed ups frequently. However, every once in a while they will throw a 50% training speed up out. If you have the resources, this is the time to train tons of upper level troops. 

Resurecting troops is also very expensive with gold, and Plarium also does frequent bonuses on this one too. However, every once in a while they will throw out a 95% resurection cost reduction in gold. If you have the gold to spare, take advantage of this. 

Update regarding Cagon: 

There has been a lot of fighting in our kingdom over the place of power and who gets to be the Konung clan. It has been brought to my attention this weekend, that one of the clans fighting, is insisting Cagon be the Konung clan or they will not stop. I did not ask them to do this, but we seem to be the middle ground in our kingdom that nobody wants to fight against. I guess this is what good diplomacy has gotten us. Not sure how long this will last, but it appears that Cagon will nave no choice but to be the Konung clan for a while. 

 

Phase 4: Defense Fighting(The Featherweight Fighting Division)

The reason I will recommend starting with defense fighting is two fold. One, it's the easiest way to fight. And two, when you start getting in to offense fighting, you will have to drop your shields to do so, so you will want to have the strongest defense possible at that point to defend against any counter attacks. 

By this time you should have the shaman for your troop type up to level 60, your Raine the Wanderer up to level 60, and all of the best troop specific fighting gear for both your hero and your shamans, as well as your fortress fighting gear for your hero and Raine, and you should have at least some of your hero fighting gear upgraded(doesn't have to be all the way but as high as you can get it). Your hero should also be above level 60, I'd recommend 65 or higher before you start fighting but as high as you can get it. You should have a troop set for defense for your hero with as many defense stats as you can get. You should have gems and runes set for defense. All troop defense(tourmaline), and whatever troop specific defense gem, troop specific health gem, and troop specific defense rune your troop type requires. 

Your Valkyries Citidale should be maxed for health and defense for your troop type up to tier 5 at least. You should have a good amount of main knowledge focusing on defense in your oracle. Your VIP level should be at least level 30 or higher. You should have as many achievements as you can get. Your upgradable town skins should be as high as you can get them, especially the ones that provide defense stats. And last but not least, you should be well on your way through Helheim, unlocking as many floors as you can and getting all 3 stars on as many nodes as you can. You should not have done any of your special knowledge in the oracle yet. Those are tricky, and mistakes can be made, so we will talk about those in this Phase. 

The purpose of this section will be to get you started on some of your fighting and troop training achievements, and to start getting you soul shards. It's important to note that you are never done upgrading. You should always be working towards maximum strength so we will spend a little time on that, but otherwise we will focus on the most useful ways to spend your troops, and what to start doing with the soul shards. 

-------------------------------Further Upgrades---------------------------------

Always be working on your oracle and town upgrades, and for now do so with the intent of focusing on defense and health. 

Get to the point in your T7 upgrades where you can not only start training your troop type, but to where that training will be as cheap and fast as possible maxing out training cost and training speed. Don't worry too much about the T6's, they're an obsolete item. Just get that stuff as you get the totems needed to unlock it. 

Always be pounding the invaders and ghosts to improve your upgradable hero gear and max out your runes. It takes a long time and a lot of effort to do both of those things. 

The quickest way to upgrade your hero gear is to pound the uber chiefs when they are on the map, and do tons of task refreshers for the standard materials(during task completion contests to get a little extra gold and boosts our of them as well). 

As for ghosts keep hitting the Helheim Warrior for the good building speed rune, the Plague Raven for the good knowledge upgrade speed rune, and the Marsh Nixa for the good troop training speed rune, until you have all of them maxed to the gold level. This will be of the utmost importance when you get to the really high knowledge upgrades, for getting your planner achievement, and for training T7 troops. You won't regret it. Also always be hitting whichever ghosts drop your troop specific offense and highest defense runes you can get until they're all maxed out at the gold level too. 

Keep an eye on your upgradable town skins, and your VIP, and always be plucking away at Helheim. 

Get what Aesirs you can with resources and gold. Skip the ones that don't provide you with relevant fighting stats, you don't need them. All troop defense, all troop health, troop specific defense, troop specific health. Don't need any offense just yet, it won't be useful to you and will only bloat your influence. Stay lean and mean for this phase. 

In short, upgrading never stops. Hold off on your special knowledge until you read the last part of this Phase. 

-----------------------------Let's start fighting------------------------------------

Here we will focus on achievements and soul shards. You don't want to just fight for the sake of fighting, you will lose troops, a lot of troops, especially in the featherweight division. You want this troop loss to be productive and help you grow. 

-Jot fighting: 

In Phase 3 I told you to train 115 million T1's. This will get you working towards your Need More Warriors achievement, but it was also to prepare you to lose those troops in Jotunheim for the Brave Heart achievement. The Need More Warriors achievement, aside from giving you gold, will also give you impoved troop training speed. And the Brave Heart achievement will give you gold, an offense in an onslaught bonus, and a troop revival bonus. And last but not least, losing these troops in Jotunheim will also get you kills and some soul shards, though not that many of either right away, but it will get you working towards town skins that require kills, and towards the Gladiator achievement. So here's what you do. 

Don't do it alone, try to get your clan involved, especially the big players. If you arne't in such a clan you can take the lead yourself on this one, or join a clan like Cagon with members that will join you. Make sure you don't have a lot of resources in your town otherwise you will lose them. Give them to an alt, a bank, or to the clan stronghold. 

Play a hero double. Play a couple of hours of disguise. Put on a Bastion of the Beast town skin if you have one. Your upgradable town skins bonuses are always applied, you won't lose them by playing a Bastion of the Beast, and you don't have to wear them to get their stats. Put on your hero defense set. Select your troop specific shaman.  Ask your konung clan for the imposter repute for 1 hour while you are still in your home kingdom(optional, this is for the troll achievement and won't negatively affect your fighting stats). Or you could ask for a troop specific fighting scroll for one hour(also optional, this will improve your fighting stats but won't get you the troll achievement). Move to Jotunheim. Play a Warrior Number in an Onslaught scroll of the highest percent you can. Set up an 8 hour onslaught with just a hero against the place of power there(save your second hero and shaman to stay in the town), but don't send it. Instruct your clan mates to send troops set for defense not offense, and wait for as many of your clan mates to join this onslaught as you can. If your clan mates don't want to drop shields to join this onslaught let them know they can reinforce your mead hall instead. If your clan has a member or two with strong spies save the mead hall for them though, as spies can not join onslaughts. Don't forget to reshield quickly with an 8 hour shield after setting up the onslaught. 

Once all of the clan mates who are going to join you have joined you, give them a one minute warning, and all of you should use that time to play an infirmary expander scroll, a 35% reduced enemy health scroll, a 35% reduced enemy offense scroll, a 500% defense scroll if you have them or the next highest % if you don't, and summon an aes that provides the best defense or health bonus when summoned. After everybody is ready, drop your shields by sending a single troop or spy to a nearby town that is unshielded, and wait. 

If you are smaller than 350 billion or 400 billion influence, which during this phase you should be a lot smaller than that, it will not take long at all for someone to come along and zero you. Do not reshield until you have gotten your Brave Heart achievement. You need to lose 115 million troops in Jotunheim within an hour to get your Brave Heart achievement to level 1. You need to kill 5 million troops with a negative repute to get your Troll achievement. If you succeed in that one it will not show up for 3 hours as it's a secret achievement. 

Tip: Don't try for more than one Brave Heart achievement at a time. If you train 500 million T1's thinking you'll get through the first 3 levels in one go, and someone comes along and kills 450 million of them in one onslaught, you will only get one level out of it. It will count the first 115 million towards the achievement, and then reset for level 2, so all of those extra troops that were killed will be a waste. I learned this the hard way. 

This routine in Jot can be followed all the way to level 10 Brave Heart, getting a few Need More Warriors achievements along the way, if you stay small enough the whole time. Once you get to be 350, 400 billion influence, people will be very reluctant to attack you with full strength, and it will become harder to lose those troops and get that achievement. 

Train the right amount of T1's because they're cheap and quick to train, and follow the above routine until you get all of your Brave Heart achievements, and again, you will get some of the Need More Warriors achievements along the way, and possibly even a Wolf of Jotunheim achievement or two as you get stronger, possibly a Troll achievement or two or three if you go for it, and it will all add up towards Collector achievements, and the checkpoints if you pass enough will add up towards Friend of the Nibelungs achievements, and it will get you started on and maybe even through a Gladiator achievement. It will also give you some soul shards. 

The amount of troops you need to let die in Jotunheim for the different levels of Brave Heart are as follows. 

1) 115 million

2) 135 million

3) 130 million

4) 135 million

5) 130 million

6) 140 million

7) 155 million

8) 260 million

9) 400 million

10) 900 million

It couldn't hurt to have some upper level toops when you go for these achievement too but expect to lose them as well if you do. They'll get you more kills and soul shards, but again, expect to lose them.  

If you do this during times of keys hunt contests, especially personal keys hunt contests, it's very easy to place in the top ranks of those contests and get a little extra something for placing in these top ranks. 

-Siege fighting

Siege fighting is another great way to get achievements and soul shards if you have a clan that does frequent sieges. I like siege fighting, especially for featherweight division fighters, because it's simple, you do not have to drop shields, and it's defense, which is what we're geared up for anyways. 

T1's are not good for sieges, so save those for losing them in Jotunheim. For a siege you will want T5's - T7's. Anything less will be slaughtered too quickly and easily. 

Sieging is a relatively easy process. Get your hero set for defense, but put on it's Ubba gear for fortress fighting instead of it's troop specific fighting gear, and make sure you have all of the same defense and health gems and defense runes you'd want for defense in Jotunheim, and select your Raine the Wanderer and again, make sure all of the same defense and health gems and runes you'd want in Jotunheim are there in his gear. Play a hero double, a Bastion of the Beast, a few hours of disguise if you don't want any enemies to see your gear, like if you're sieging during a clan battle for example, play a 3250% number of warriors in a march increase and send two marches of your strongest warriors to reinforce your clans stronghold, one with the hero and shaman, and another with just the hero. Marches can be sent without a hero, but will die quicker. 

Before the computer player marches get there make sure you play an infirmary expander scroll, a revival of warriors scroll, a 35% enemy health reduction scroll, a 35% enemy offense reduction scroll, a 500% defense or the next best % scroll, and summon an aes with the best defense or health bonus you can. It's also a good time to ask for a positive fighting repute from your konung clan, or the imposter repute if you want to go for the Troll achievement. It's a good idea to try and heal warriors as you they die, and as they die you might want to pull your marches back in between attacks and reload them to full strength again. 

It's important to note that this procedure for doing a siege is best done during times when there is no major event going on in the kingdom, when it's safe for you to siege without the threat of another kingdom counter attacking your siege. For sieging during clan and kingdom battles it's a little different of a procedure, and involves sending your troops in right before the march gets there, and pulling them back right afterwards so as to not leave them exposed for other clans counter attacks. 

Sieging is a good way to work towards your Gladiator achievement, upgradable town skins that require killing enemy warriors, and get lots of soul shards. 

-Homgang Fighting(optional and up to the clan if they want to do this contest)

Fighting in Holmgang is exactly the same routine as sieging. Since you are still a featherweight fighter, and only concentrating on defense, stick to defending the forts in Holmgang. 

-KvK and KvK:F fighting

I'd not recommend this as a featherweight fighter. You will only get the enemy kingdom more points than you get. You are not quite ready for this yet. It will waste troops that would be better spent getting Jot achievements, and taking part in sieges and Holmgang defenses. We'll get there though. 

---------------------------------What to do with soul shards------------------------------

Soul shards will get you two things. Aesirs, and secret knowledge in your oracle. Start with the Aesirs first. 

-Aesirs

Some Aesirs can only be unlocked with soul shards. You will want to use your soul shards on these first and foremost as their bonuses are greater than what you can get from the secret knowledge in your oracle. A lot greater. Also, once you have enough Aesirs to level 10 you can start working on the Lord of Ghosts achievement. The Lord of Ghosts achievement has confused many a player so I'll give you a quick run down. You will 1, have to look it up in google or refer back to this to find out the right order to summon the Aesirs in for this achievement, and 2, the part that confuses people, will have to summon them rapidly. You can't summon an Earth Aesir, and then 2 hours later summon a fire Aesir, and then 2 hours later summon an Ice Aesir, and expect to get the Lort of Ghosts achievement. You have to summon them rapidly, like within a minute of each other, and you have to summon a final Aesir to finish it off. The final Aesir doesn't have to be level 10, and doesn't have to fit into the pattern of Earth, Fire, Ice, Earth, Fire, Ice, it just has to cancel out the last Aesir you did to complete the achievement. 

With your soul shards, the first Aesirs I'd recommend unlocking and maxing out are Honir, Magni, Forseti and Freyer. Those are the four that will help you with your development the most. They all come with some nice standing offense, defense, and health bonuses, but more importantly, if you summon them Honer gives a 30% learning speed increase, Magni gives a 30% building speed increase, Forseti gives a 30% troop training speed increase, and Freyer gives a 40% troop training speed increase. All but Freyer are fairly cheap as far as Aesirs soul shard cost goes. Freyer is pretty expensive on the soul shards but worth it. Also the first three, Honir, Magni, and Forseti can get you Lord of Ghosts level 1 if you rapidly summon them in the right order. 

You don't have to unlock all of the Aesirs. Just the ones that will give you relevant defense, health, or offense knowledge that will help you. For example, I don't have Vali because I don't need Vali. It provides no relevant bonuses for me. It will only bloat my influence and give me nothing in return. 

-Secret Knowledge

As far as the secret knowledge goes in your oracle, you will want to select which one you do first very carefully. Most of these knowledges are not that signifigant of increases. What is signifigant is the troop specific ones towards the bottom of each category. These upgrades will give you the largest offense and defense bonuses out of all of the rest of the categories put together. So, it goes as follows. 

The secret attack knowledge has melee offense and defense, and killer offense and defense. 

The secret defense knowledge has ranged offense and defense, and cavalry offense and defense. 

The secret fortress knowledge has siege offense and defense, and scout offense and defense. 

You will want to do the one with your troop type first. So, even if you're a melee player and want to work on your defense stats, it's better to go for the secret attack knowledge first because the melee defense in that is greater than the entire secret defense knowledge combined. Or if you're a ranged player and want to improve your offense, it's better to go for the defense secret knowledge first because the ranged offense will be stronger than the entire secret offense knowledge category combined. This is a mistake many players have made and regret. I got lucky. I happen to be cavalry, and wanted to work on my defense first, so the defense category worked best for me. 

It's important to choose the order you do these in wisely because once you start on one, the others get very expensive and time consuming. And once you start on a second one the third and final one gets very very expensive and time consuming. Aside from going for the one with your troop type first, I'd recommend going for the fortress one second, but that is entirely up to you. 

Since it takes so long to get all of your Aesirs with soul shards, I'd also recommend doing a lot of if not all of your first secret knowledge category with gold. It's relatively cheap and if you get enough achievements done you can get through all of it with just achievement gold. That way you don't have to wait, and it will get you through some of your Freyas Tears achievements for spending that gold. 

------------------------------------Preparing for Phase 5, Middleweight Fiting Division----------------------

In the beginning of this phase I mentioned further upgrades. I mentioned getting to the point where you can train T7's, and also maxing out the knowledges which reduces T7 training cost and time. There is one last achievement to work on while you're in the featherweight defense division. The Bloody Jarl. 

It may seem a waste, but you will have to train millions of T7's, and dismiss them. You don't want to hold on to them just yet, as they will bloat your influence, and you want to stay lean and mean so people will be willing to attack you in Jotunheim. This achievement is of the utmost importance to move from featherweight to middleweight fighting. One, it will give you tons of gold. Over 500 million for all 10 levels combined. And two, most importantly, it will give you a 20% troop training speed increase, as well as 20% offense increase against T5's, T6's, and T7's. The importance of that troop training speed up, combined with the troop training speed up of the Need More Warriors achievement can not be overstated. Upper level troops take so long to train, that every training speed up you can get, whether it be from knowledge upgrades, achievements, hero/shaman gear, the Inga the Wise shaman, gems, runes, scrolls, in game bonuses, bonuses from winning CvC's and KvK events, the Bastion of the Beast town skin, and summoning the right Aesirs, will add up and greatly to reduce this time, saving you literally years, decades even, of boosts. 

The Bloody Jarl: How many T7's to dismiss to gain each level

1) 5M

2) 28M

3) 28M

4) 28M

5) 32M

6) 30M

7) 35M

8) 45M

9) 90M

10) 185M

It may seem like a daunting task, and a waste, but again, it's worth tons of gold and the bonuses you get are essential to becoming a stronger player. It will also get you further along in your Need More Warriors achievement, and your Jarl Almight achievement. 

------------Overview of Phase 4: Defense Fighting(The Featherweight Fighting Division)------------

Here we discussed some further upgrades, but most importantly the processes for doing some productive fighting in Jotunheim, Sieges, and Holmgang, all with the intent of getting soul shards and getting achievements. We discussed what to do with those soul shards and how to best select which special knowledge category to start with. If you're working your way through this Phase you should also get started on some, and maxed on others, of the following achievements: Braveheart, Collector, Freyas Tears, Gladiator, Jarl Almighty, Lord of Ghosts, Need More Warriors, The Bloody Jarl, Troll, and Wolf of Jotunheim. 

WHY CAGON WILL BE A GOOD FIT FOR HELPING YOU THROUGH PHASE FOUR

We have members who will join you in Jotunheim to help you get those achievements. We do plenty of sieges. We do some Holmgangs if the clan is feeling up to it. We have guides in our regulations section for the secret achievements to help you through those, so you don't have to google every time you want to upgrade one. Our stronghold will provide you with plenty of fighting bonuses making you stronger without bloating your influence. And we have guides in our regulations section for which invaders drop which gems for gem hunting, and which ubers drop which materials and gems, and a guide for which floors/nodes of helheim drop which scrolls. 

Game Tip: 

Popular consensus has it, and I can confirm, that if you apply your champions stats in helheim in the following ratio, you will get the furthest. 

25% strength, 50% agility, 25% intuition, and 0% vitality

A quick guide to the new update: 

So I haven't posted in a while. Was going to do Phase 5, but then they released a huge update and a new achievement and I decided I needed a little time off to go through all of that information, and see where it might fit in to all of the other phases. So today, instead of doing Phase 5, I will list some recommendations on what I've learned about this new massive update. 

First and foremost, I can tell you that soul shards have now become more important than ever before. The buildings from levels 36 to 40 all require soul shards. The 6 new branches of secret knowledge you unlock in the Oracle after Palace level 36 all require soul shards. Upgrading T8 warriors in the Valkyries Citadel requires soul Shards. And T8 warriors require 1 soul shard per warrior to train. The good news about the T8 warriors is though, that they don't take any other resources to train, simply 1 soul shard is all that's required to train 1 T8 warrior, so that's cool. 

Now, about the most efficient way to spend your soul shards from palace 35 and above......

I would recommend doing buildings first, and it's more than just a recomendation, it's necessary if you want to unlock the new branches of knowledge. But aside from that, I'd recommend putting the new secret knowledges as secondary to the buildings, because the buildings now come with a lot of great fighting boosts at those levels. Plus the Oracle will bring you to new heights regarding knowledge upgrade speeds, so if you get your Palace and then Oracle to level 40 as quickly as possible, not only will you have a lot of extra fighting bonuses, be training more troops, have bigger marches, have bigger mead halls, etc..., but when you go back to start doing the knowledges they'll be faster for you, which I consider the utmost importance. I hate burning through speed ups, I like to get the most out of them as I can. 

-The 6 new branches of knowledge: 

These are not like the first 3 branches of secret knowledge where my recommendation was to choose the one with your specific troop type and do that one first. My recommendation for this one is to definitely do the T8 branch first. Once you start one, the other 5 triple in price and time. And it's so very expensive to unlock the T8 warriors in the T8 secret knowledge branch, that you will not want that to be your second  or third knowledge. It takes 4.5 million soul shards to unlock one T8 troop type. So if you make that your second choice, that price will go up to 13.5 million, and then 3 times that many if you make it your third choice. Considering that in order to get all the way through that knowledge tree, you will have to eventually unlock them all, that's a heck of a lot of soul shards if it's your second or third choice. 

As for the other 5 branches. I have no recommendations for them just yet. The Blood Lust knowledge in the town section seems intriguing but I haven't gotten that far. I can only tell you my plan, which is already underway. I already made T8's my first choice, and second to that I will do Fortresses II because at this point in the game, with sieges, Holmgang, and KvK:F, fortress fighting is actually more common that town and tile fighting. You never get much on tiles anyways, and attacking enemy towns is usually a trap(if their shields are down it's because they want you to hit them, if they want you to hit them it's because they know they'll win), and when you drop your shields to play defense, hardly anybody hits you because they know what I just previously mentioned, that you want them to hit you; and then after Fortresses II I will work on Towns. 

That leaves the other 3 new branches of knowledge. Offense, Defense, and Health. I will go for health first, because generally speaking health applies to both offense and defense. Then I will go for defense because I favor defense over offense(I'd much rather be the one dropping shields and waiting to get hit, than the one trying to hit the one dropping sheilds and waiting to be hit). Then offense will be my last choice. 

-The New Seasonal Contests and Seasonal Store: 

This is a great new update for big players and small players alike. The big players like myself are most definitely going to go for the new hero skins and town skins. I've already unlocked the new hero skin and it is great. The new hero and town skins are definitely my favorite part of the update because it fits right in with my lean and mean philosophy of fighting, where they make you stronger, but don't inflate your influence. 

For the smaller developing players the seasonal store is a great new way to get all sorts of things. My personal favorite thing in the seasonal store for developing players is that it's a way to get charms for Inga the Wise. She is a crucial shaman for knowledge upgrades and troop training. You could get charms for Baggi the Big in the clan store already, so he was always rather easy to upgrade, but there has previously not been a quick way to upgrade the Inga, and now there is. Aside from that there are some nice packs in the seasonal store for speed ups, boosts, and resources, and even specialty resources like obsidian and gold nuggets for helping get your T7's nailed down, and your town from 32 and above. 

So take part in those seasonal personal contests as much as possible, get lots of runic coins, and check out the seasonal store. There is definitely something in there for everybody. 

-The new achievement: 

The new Art of War achievement is still perplexing Vikings accross the board. Some in my clan already have level 1 myself included, and one of us even has level 2 but none of us know for sure how to get it. All we know for now is that it happens when we do a lot of fighting. Holmgang and Sieges are when we have all gotten ours. It could have to do with earning soul shards, or possibly killing so many of each troop type, or even playing Aesirs and/or boosts, but for now there is no popular consensus, so more information is needed on this new achievement. I will keep an eye on it and post when it gets figured out. 

-Stronghold Resourse Transformation has changed: 

I wasn't going to include anything about strongholds in this thread, because I wanted it to be about developing your own accounts, but I will mention this upgrade because it is confusing some people. You can now tranform 10 times the amount of resources in the stronghold than you previously could, making it take tremendously longer and making it burn through resources tremendously faster. 

My tip on this one is that it didn't really change much, it just amplified what you were already doing, so to figure out what you were already doing, slide the resources you want to transfer bar over to how many resources you used to transform, so around 2000 to 2100, and then slide the transformation time to how long you used to prefer depending on whether you wanted to conserve boosts or conserve resources, and look at the ratio of how many food for example, will become 1 ale. And let that be your guide. After you figure out what that ratio is, slide your transformation bar all the way to maximum, and then adjust your time bar to fit that ratio, and that will be comparable to what you were doing before. 

-------------------------------Overview of the new update--------------------------------------

In short, the new update doesn't change my Phased approach to development, but it does add a few things. The seasonal contests and seasonal store definitely adds a lot of options for Phases 1 - 4 in regards to another way to get resources, boosts, and upgrade shamans. And the new town levels, knowledges, and seasonal store adds a lot for the upper level fighters to go through and play with, which are phases I've not even gotten to yet. Keep on keeping on Vikings, you're doing great. 

-Some updates on Cagons development and why we will be better than ever at helping you with this new update: 

We have more than doubled in size since I first started writing this thread. Most recently we merged with a great clan from another kingdom, and have gotten more fighters than ever before from featherweight to rock solid heavy weight fighters. There are now 2 players in Cagon who can out score me in kill events, which is great. The friendly competition amongst ourselves is making us all stronger fighters. We've also picked up a few more tiny developing players, which also serve their purpose in a good clan. All are growing fast and doing better than ever. Due to our recent growth spurt though, we have increased our sieges to level 4 so we can all get more soul shards than ever, and we've increased our presence in Jotunheim and the frequency with which we will do Holmgangs.

We are still open for more members if anybody wishes to join. 

Coords 204:419 in kingdom 421. Write BelusTheConqueror or Mysterion420 to join. 

Very nicely put together 👏 Some minor stuff is outdated (new shaman equipment was introduced for building, knowledge and training, also new levels of achievements). 

How long did it take to write all this?