Prepare To Dominate

So we find ourselves smack-dab in the midst of another Kill Event with a new name, a new merger, and a newfound will to DOMINATE!

Welcome, everyone, to Domination II, part of the Domination Family of Alliances!  We have unearthed a new sisterhood with Domination I and we couldn't be more pleased with how things are progressing.  Let's get right down to all the important details, shall we?

There are  many ways for you to stay connected with others in the Domination groups.  One way is to join our Facebook group of Alliances.  This group is for everyone in all our allied groups (not only Domination), so no Alliance-Sensitive information should be shared there, please.  This is a great way to make Facebook connections with other players in order to send and receive GOLD with each other.  It's also just another fun way to connect with those who share in a common interest.  Our regal King, (1Dn) Contrapposto, is the faithful admin and is sure to keep things lively and respectful.

Let's not forget about the ever-present Chat Rooms!  We have one within the Game of War just for members of Domination!  It's important to create relationships to strengthen our bonds of brotherhood.  Chat rooms are an excellent means to do so.  Please join room Domination Family Chat and get to know everyone in our new family!

Another chat room you will want to familiarize yourself with is Domination TipsNTricks.  This is a read-only chat room that is designed to keep you up-to-date not only on the current rules of Kingdom Ales, but also what is expected of you as a proud member of Domination.  Included in this room is a list of all our current allies for quick reference as well as some basic information to keep the alliance running smoothly.

We currently have two R4 ambassadors joining us from 1Dn; Emerald00 and bogo 3.  These are duplicate accounts to their main accounts located within 1Dn.  If you have a question, please feel free to come to any R4.  We are all working together to benefit our growth and prosperity.  If there is something we don't have an answer to, we are dedicated to finding out more information until we can provide an adequate response.

Thank you, everyone, for being so awesome and cooperative as we make all these many new changes.  I am certain that this will lead our Alliance to new heights we never before imagined.  Much thanks to Contrapposto and everyone at Domination I for their leadership and helpfulness.  Onward and upward to many great new adventures!  Game on!


~Sparkle

Here is another cool checklist from appheroics.com

Go here to view the webpage: http://appheroics.com/battle-checklist/

Here’s a brief checklist on basic preparations you should take before doing any fighting. On more than one occasion, I’ve forgotten at least one of these and regretted it.

Battle Checklist

1. Resources: Use or trade away any resources over your Storehouse cap which you don’t want to lose when defending against a superior attacker. Since silver is not protected by the Storehouse until Level 21, keep only 100k silver to use for scouting.
2. Hero Skills: Make sure your hero skills are set for battle, down the left side of the tree. Jumping into a kill event while still in Builder Mode  SUCKS! You can purchase hero skill resets for 150k loyalty in the Alliance Store. Ask your Leader or a Rank 4 to purchase them from the catalog if the store isn’t stocked.
3. Hero Equipment: Put on your best gear with attack and defense boosts.
4. War Items: Make sure you have Attack Boosts, Defense Boosts, Anti-Scout, March Recalls, and 8 hour Peace Shields
5. VIP: Activate VIP. At VIP 5 it starts providing a march speed boost, getting you to the target quicker. At VIP 9, it provides a 15% Attack Bonus. At VIP 10, you also get a 15% Troop Health Bonus and 15% Troop Defense Bonus
6. Boost Up!: Attack Boost, Defense Boost, and Anti-Scout are part of a mutually-exclusive 3 boost group. You can only run one of these 3 at a time. The boost’s effect is taken into account at the moment of impact. For example, you can run Anti-Scout as your default so no opponents can get a read on your troop strength. You can march all the way to their city and switch to Attack or Defense Boost a few seconds before impact. As long as the boost is in effect at the moment the battle takes place and the report is generated, you’ll realize that benefit. If you have plenty of Anti-Scout boosts, you can immediately switch back.

If you have an overwhelming force and expect to obliterate the opponent when marching on an enemy, you should use the Defense Boost to minimize the number of your troops that get killed. If you can zero an opponent without the extra Attack Boost, then why use it? You might as well minimize your casualties with the Defense Boost instead. When defending your own city from an attacker, especially when you have plenty of hospital capacity, run the Attack Boost to maximize your kills and make them pay. I did a video with an in-depth battle test comparing identical battle scenarios with the only variable being the Attack or Defense Boost. Here it is:

What do you do to prepare for battle? Tell us in the comments below and please leave a favorable review if you found this information helpful.

Troop Tiers

Hey guys, I was doing some research on troop tiers and found this information at appheroics.com.  

Here is the source of the information below:

http://appheroics.com/game-of-war-troops/

There are 4 Game of War Troops types: Infantry, Ranged, Cavalry, and Siege and each type is weak or strong against the others. If you look at the order they are listed in the Barracks screen, it’s a circle you can memorize. Infantry are weak against Ranged, Ranged are weak against Cavalry, Cavalry is weak against Infantry. If you’re more of a visual learner, imagine an army of Infantry soldiers charging up a hill only to face a terrifying rain of arrows from the Ranged units at the top. Unfortunately, the archers weren’t paying attention to their flank and get mowed down by Cavalry riders that had circled around behind them. Then the victorious Cavalry foolishly charge against another group of bad ass infantry who have formed an impenetrable shield walland gut the passing horses with their spears and swords.

Siege is a unique type, as its purpose is destroying wall traps when attacking an enemy city. Siege is weak against all other troop types and they are fairly ineffective against opponents with no traps or when sent as reinforcements to defend a fellow alliance member’s city. When troops fight against the same type, i.e. Infantry vs. Infantry, the outcome is decided by who has better boosts as determined primarily by research and hero skill point allocation.

Normal Troops

There are 4 different Tiers of every type, each stronger than the last. Beginning players often confuse the tiers as the rows on the barracks screen, which consist of 3 troops each, when in fact each tier consists of  4 troop types. The table below shows the breakdown:

Tier	Infantry	Ranged	Cavalry	Siege
1	Swordsman	Slingers	Outriders	Battering Rams
2	Hoplites	Skirmish Archers	Light Cavalry	Ballista
3	Armored Pikeman	Guardians	Companion Cavalry	Siege Towers
4	Immortals	Marksmen	War Elephants	Onager

Players often abbreviate when referring to the tiers: T1, T2, T3, and T4.

In the majority of cases, I believe having an even mix of troops is best, although I have found myself needing siege less and less and I recommend keeping only 10% – 15% as many siege as you have of the other 3 types. I’ve heard all kinds of arguments to the contrary, only one of which seems to have any truth to it – Maximizing Ranged troops is best because most players tend to train more Infantry.

This is probably true below Stronghold 15, because Swordsmen are the first troop listed in Barracks and I’ve noticed many players researching Hoplites as their first Tier 2 troop, due also to some inherent preference in moving from left to right in any given list. Much like I outlined in my2nd beginner video which suggested taking the minimal upgrade path to Stronghold 8 (SH8), I also recommend getting to SH15 as quickly as possible so you can train T3 troops. At that point, players usually are not biased to Infantry to the same degree.

Biases to one or two troop types might make sense for T4, when research to unlock each of them takes a really long time, you have likely reached a Lvl 50 hero where crafting equipment can be tailored to supremacy in a single type, and you’ve likely collected and combined more of one troop gem type than the others. I have not reached the end of the Road to T4 Troops yet and I haven’t figured out what my plan will be when I get there yet.

Strategic Troops

In the Barracks and Academy, you’ll notice there are options for Strategic Troops. The game was not originally designed with these and it’s my opinion they were added primarily to give Level 21s with Tier 4 troops something else to do. Strategic Troops apparently hit harder than their normal counterparts for each type, but in addition to the standard weakness (i.e., Infantry weak against Ranged), they are also weak against their own type (i.e. Infantry weak against Ranged AND other Infantry). For example, Spearmen (Infantry) are weak against Hunters (Ranged) as well as other Spearmen. Practically speaking, I think this means that if you send an even mix of Strategic Troops against an equal even mix of normal troops of the same tier, the Strategic Troops win easily. For example, 10k Spearmen/10k Hunters/10k Chariots sent against 10k Swordsmen/10k Slingers/10k Outriders results in the first group winning if all other boosts are the same. If you send Strategic troops against a force that is not even, but biased towards one or two troop types, they will die twice as fast. This notion of a troop type being weak against itself is a little perplexing. If two players fight each other with the same Strategic Troop type, they can’t both be at a disadvantage, otherwise there would be no point in the game developers noting that weakness in their description. What I think this means is that the attacker’s Strategic Troops are weak against their own type, which would suggest Strategic Troops are a better defense option. Also interesting to note is there is no Strategic Siege unit and the 3 Strategic Troop types apparently don’t have the strength advantage against Siege that Normal troops do, based on their descriptions in the Barracks.

I have little experience with Strategic Troops because they have an entirely different research tree in the Academy, so none of my huge research boosts for Normal Troops count for Strategic Troops. After the Hero vs Monster update came out, it became much more important for me to focus on hero research to be able to complete monster kill events. As a beginning player, it’s important to know that Normal Troop research is a prerequisite for the corresponding Strategic Troop research, meaning you can’t just choose to research Strategic Troops without doing Normal research first. Because you have limited time and resources to train and research, I don’t recommend pursuing Strategic troops heavily before reaching at least SH15 and unlocking regular T3. The guy who spends all his time researching lots of different areas ends up getting smashed by the guy that focused on getting to T3 as quickly as possible.

If you have conducted controlled experiments or have general impressions of the performance of Strategic Troops vs Normal Troops that sheds light on any of my assumptions, please leave a comment below.

The table below shows the Strategic Troops

Tier	Infantry	Ranged	Cavalry
1	Spearmen	Hunters	Chariots
2	Peltasts	Rangers	Scythed Chariots
3	Phalangite	Stalkers	Lancers
4	Legionnaires	Dianas	Cataphracts