House of Herecles 1. Document changelog2. Our coalition

2.1. Management2.2. Roles & Responsibilities2.3. Communication2.4. Ranks2.5. Army strength requirements

3. Kratos essentials3.1. Overview3.2. Raiding3.3. Persian positions

4. Events4.1. Coalition challenge

5. How-to’s5.1. How to see your army strength5.2. How to apply coalition standards

6. Uncategorized6.1. Acropolis6.2. Drachma’s6.3. No time to Waste - Your first days6.4. Growing & City building6.5. Inbound raids6.6. Spy or Die, and the need for speed6.7. Lesson in colonies6.8. The Big Hug6.9. Limits on Giving and Taking6.10. Things to do in a friend’s city6.11. Urban Planning6.12. Hunger Pains6.13. Acropolis Not?????6.14. Mixing Your Drinks6.15. Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger6.16. GP’s6.17. Armies come and go6.18. Where am I? What does my location mean?6.19. What are allies? Can I raid them?

1. Document changelog2015 Jul 15: Updated “Ranks” & “Army Strength Requirements” sections2015 Jan 28: Moved and Updated “How to apply coalitions standards” section2015 Jan 28: Updated “Communication” section2015 Jan 11: Updated “Persian positions” section2015 Jan 11: Added “Raiding” section 2015 Jan 11: Updated “Ranks” section2015 Jan 11: Added “Roles & Responsibilities” section2015 Jan 11: Updated “Management” section2015 Jan 10: Updated “Army strength requirements” section2014 Dec 12: Applying categorization & structure2014 Dec 12: Added: “ranks” section2014 Dec 05: Added: “coalition challenge” section2014 Nov 28: Added: “how to see my Army strength” section 2014 Nov 26: Added: “what does my location mean” section2014 Nov 26: Added: “raid smart, stay safe” section2014 Nov 26: Added: “what are allies? Can i raid them” section2014 Nov 23: Added army strength targets2014 Nov 23: Added coalition standards section2014 Nov 21: Added management section2014 Nov 21: Expanded acropolis section2014 Nov 21: Expanded drachma section

TODO: Being attacked → friend, allies / normal coalitionsTODO: Pantheons?TODO: Politics

2. Our coalition

2.1. ManagementSo who is our leader? Well, you got the privilege to have two leaders! Our management currently look like this, yes we can only have 1 hegemon, but we are joint leadersLeader: ______ (subject to real world commitments) Middle managementLower management, Even though we have this hierarchical setup this doesn't mean all others are our slaves, on the contrary! We found most members of our coalition are strong, knowledge and dedicated, in fact we learn a lot from our members and they enable us to make this guide. So please don’t hesitate to bring ideas to the table or get involved in tactics, strategy drafting and policy making!

2.2. Roles & ResponsibilitiesCoalition diplomacy & co-operation:Promotions (citizen and upwards): Promotions (scholar and trainees): Conflict officer (Issues with outside members): Introduction & knowledge sharing officer: Demeter & grain scrolls officer: Agreement status officer: Talent recruitment officer:Standards officer: Data sheet analysis & creations:Spare article officer:Q&A officers (in skype): ,

2.3. CommunicationIn the game there is the in game chat: we don't really use it a lot, because well… you can’t always see it (while browsing the map or visiting cities) and its hard reading back messages when there are a lot of messages (or backlog). So what we’ve done it set up a skype chat group to make communication and helping each other out a little bit easier. To join our group, on skype and mention you’re in game name. We use this primarily for text-chat and don’t really use the voice chat functionality, so don’t worry, it’s just a better version of the in game chat- If you already have a skype account and don’t want to mix personal/professional life and gaming on skype you might want to check this link (it offers you an easy solution to run 2 skype accounts at once): https://support.skype.com/en/faq/FA829/how-can-i-run-multiple-skype-accounts-on-windows-desktopPlease also rename your skype account so people can find you easier in game. Please do it like this?

Ingame coordinates can be found here:

2.4. Ranks (I was more looking at the experience level for the positions. Poles are upper management…commandants are middle and standard bearers are lower)To be promoted within our coalition the requirements for each rank are made up not only of unit power but also teamwork & communication. That word again joining skype is the foundation of this team which helps us with missions or objectives laid down from the management. For now the definitions are as follows. The most valuable area you can help is by making a strong defensive force and keeping them safe till we request it.01 Hegemon & 02 Polemarch: Founders & Middle management03 Commandant: Team-leads/ lower management04 Standard-bearer: > 1m defense/ 5m offense; level 70 power players to take down paths05 Ambassador: > 500k defense; level 6506 Hippeus: > 250k defense; level 6007 Metic: > 150k defense; level 5508 Centurion: > 100k defense; level 5009 Citizen: > 50k defense; level 40

If you have some ideas about this, feel free to make suggestions.

2.5. Army strength requirements (like the minimum requirements…we will need a lot more Defense when we’re ready for a Pan)As a coalition we need to work together to achieve our goals, (challenges, pantheons, etc.).For this we have set the requirements for our member so we can reach those goals.Our first one is the defensive strength you have, we want all members to meet the requirements set below:When you are level 70 or above: Minimum 400k of defensive strengthWhen you are level 65 or above: Minimum 300k of defensive strengthWhen you are level 60 or above: Minimum 200k of defensive strengthWhen you are level 55 or above: Minimum 150k of defensive strengthWhen you are level 50 or above: Minimum 100k of defensive strengthWhen you are level 40 or above: Minimum 50k of defensive strengthWhen you are level 30 or above: Minimum 10k of defensive strength

3. Herecles essentials

3.1. OverviewDo your raids (3.2)Fight Persians (3.3)Acropolis your units Have some sieges/ protectoratesBuild an armyBuild more of it (signing agreements, upgrading production)Build it faster (using scrolls)Build it stronger (updating agreements)Upgrade your city

All these topics are elaborated in the subsections below

3.2. Raiding (The galley trick glitch exist and the proper way of doing it is to send your galleys 15-20 sec before raid hits at the city that you are raiding and watch the timer and cancel galley 5 seconds after. The more gullies you have the more you can carry make sure you also send enough troops to carry the maximum load. The trick works only if 50k is available above the Acropolis security. Acropolis at level 20 it protects 18K resources.) Raiding means stealing resources from cities, it’s the best way to get extra resources.

In order to grow within this game it is key you are able to grow your city, your army, your agreement level, etc. The best way to do this is using your raids to get as much resources as you can possibly get, with as little losses (no losses) as you can possibly get.

First we will go through a few basics about raiding:

You can raid a maximum of 50k of resources from another city in 1 raid, even when the city has more resources, you can’t take more.

There is also a limit which states you can only take 50k of resources from another city in a week, so if you raided 50k in 1 single raid, you can’t raid that city for resources for another 7 days.

The acropolis of the enemy protects a part of their resources, so if your spy report tells you the city has 20k timber, 25k bronze and 15k grain. You need to take into account these players can have an acropolis of a high level defending these resources. In this case let’s say the acropolis defends 17k resources, you will be able to take (20-17=) 3k timber, (25-17=) 8k bronze, (15-17 is less than 0, so) 0k grain. We suggest you make a list of the Acropolis sizes you encounter in

your region, so you can take it into account when you are spying and are looking for good raiding spots.

The most accurate way to determine the Acropolis size is to spy the city again, after you raided (when your raid returned less than 50k resources). When your raid returns less than 50k resources it means you have taken the maximum amount of resources you could take from the city, all remaining resources are protected by the Acropolis. This means if you’ve raided, and afterwards the spy reports tells you there is 16k timber, 16k bronze and 11k grain, then the Acropolis size it 16 ! (This player had little grain so you didn’t raid any too). Key is your army did have the carrying capacity of 50k or more, else the city may still hold raid able resources and the acropolis number is inaccurate.

The player you are raiding can see your raid incoming on their screen if they are playing at the moment, they may decide to defend their city by placing units from their acropolis into their city.

When your raid fails because the defense was stronger, the report does not show their entire defense, just the part you were able to kill.Every day you receive 10 raiding slots, we strongly recommend you use them all, every day. If you have little time to play, just hit the 10 closest cities without a coalition. These players are probably inactive and have quit the game already, so they probably won't have defense anymore, and thus they won’t attack your city afterwards. Say you got 60 Agema horses, you can then send 6 to every city and they will probably collect at least 3k resources each. So that’s an extra 10x3= 30k resources a day, with 5 minute’s effort (wait for your horses to return home, so you can put them in the acropolis safely). We recommend to not send less than 2 Agemas to such cities as they will not have the carrying capacity to take the resources home. (The raid screen will show you how much carrying capacity your selected forces have.)

Now when you do have the time to raid, you should invest time in finding ‘raiding sweet spots’, cities that are preferably inactive, have no coalition, have many resource capacity, have a weak acropolis, have little to no defense. So you should invest time spying the region (start with 1 spy per city), tracking down progress of players around you (haven’t they leveled up for over a week?), noting down acropolis strengths, etc.

Stuff you might want to note down for the cities around you, in excel or google docs, etc.: ● Player name● Coordinates: So you are able to go to their city location quickly● Coalition: Are they at peace or allies? → So don’t raid them. Were they in a

coalition last time you check and are they without one now? → They are probably inactive and you can raid them. Which coalition is this, are they one of the top 10 ranked coalitions? → You might want to think twice about attacking them.

● Last spy date: When did I last check their city?● Last spy size: How many resources did I discover?

● Max spy size: What is the maximum amount of resources my spies have ever reported here?

● Acropolis size: What is the size of the Acropolis the last time I checked? A● Max raid able: Max spy size - 3x Acropolis size --> how much potential does this city

hold for raiding a big amount of resources. This is a nice input to determine which cities you want to spy.

● Raid able: Last spy size - 3x Acropolis size → When you just spied the city, how much resources can you take?

● Last raid size: How much resources was i able to take last time.● Last raid date: When did i last raid it → if you took 50k or close to that, you

should wait 7 days before raiding it again.● Level of city: What level is this player, you might not want to attack player 10 levels

higher, also when you are say a level 60 player, you might not even want to look at cities below level 40 to attack (there storages are less developed, they can't give you 50k raids.

● Last check: When did you last check the level & coalition, did it go up, did it stay the same. Basically when someone below level 50 stays the same level for 7 days he probably is inactive, use this info to your advantage and re-check cities after approx. 7 days.

● Status: Is this player active? if so you might not want to raid him, as he may decide to defend, or attack your city in return. / is he inactive, unknown?

● Comment: Did you chat to this guy about not raiding him anymore, did he attack you in return, did he send political attacks to you, take down your sieges, did he kill all your spies last time, did he defend his city right before you attacked? All good info to know before making the same mistake twice.

The game has a big red button at the left bottom of the screen, helping you with many of these details already, especially with the raiding limits. Use this to your advantage and work towards and excel/ docs system if you feel you need more info and want invest more time in raiding to get better results.

Last but not least: Make sure you are behind your screen when your raiding forces return home so you can safely put them in the acropolis. Some players send an attack right after you raided them to kill your offensive army.

Political Attacks: Assassins you can send 10 assassins per pol and can send 10 pol's per city. If you do that just before the daily reset and then refresh after reset...you can do that again. Which means that a player can send 200 assassins at a city within a 10 minute period. Time that with an attack on the city. Equals one heck of a defense that can get wiped out.

3.3. Persian positionsYou may have seen the oracle, you may have seen the Persian camps, you probably battled a few already, you may even think you have figured it out, well guess again, you are wrong, we all were when we started so let’s get you in the correct mindset to play them correctly.

First - there’s a difference between the regular Persian camps and the Persian mission camps (the Amazon missions) which appear every 5th level of regular Persian camps. The Persian mission camps are shown with a pair of crossed swords in their icon in the oracle - and the number of camps rises from the regular 24 to 26 camps until the two mission camps are killed.The Persian mission camps are very tough, and losses here do not count towards the Dead Pool - so we recommend that you skip these until you are a high level - and we mean level 80-90. (I treated the missions like regular positions…but I sent in my entire Off/Def to defeat the missions…excluding champs, Evocatus, Legates, Marauders, and Carth. Was highly successful with all missions and only have 1 left.)

Within the regular camps there may be one or two camps that have a quest on them. It’s always the highest camp number, so for instance red 24, or red and green 24, or green 24. This is a special camp as killing it unlocks a higher level quest camp. Killing non-quest regular camps unlock random camp number but never above the quest level.

The concept of Persians works on a Bank or ‘Dead Pool’ system, units that die in Persians raids will be added to the dead pool. Think of it as like a loan - when the Persian quest camp is killed and pays out soldiers - these have a resource value (the cost of building them) - but it’s a loan not a gift. It will not give you more troops until the loan is repaid by killing off your troops with a similar resource value.

So what is the advantage? Feed the Persian camps with cheap weak Javelins (for defense Persian camps) or Swords/Hoplites for attack Persian camps. When they pay out you get strong troops that you can’t get any other way until you can make them yourself!That is the important point - do not raid Persians with Agema Horse or cavalry - you are wasting these high value units. (When you get to the higher positions…you will have to start using Agemas…for instance: an Lvl 92 will take 2,753,100 in Off/Def ratings to defeat. It would take months of building infantry and phalanx to beat that position) Each unit has a specific value, which is the number of resources it costs to build (so don’t use bought champion units or Heroes as they have no build value). Once you get a reward the resources are subtracted from that dead pool and you will have to fill it again (by losing units). The higher the reward, the more dead pool you need to fill before your next payout.

If you have not played Persians yet then you have a choice red (offensive) green (defensive). We recommend as a starter you pick offense for the reason it has multiple benefits. 1st you are able to level faster (in the beginning) and you will get the right units to start raiding properly. After you’ve reached about level 35 (your level, not Persian levels) we recommend you switch to defense as it will help you view how many units are in a Persian battle, making it simple to see

how many more you need to kill it, and the higher defensive power you gain the more you will be able to hold rank in our team and reach monthly targets. However you should keep mixing offense/ defense if you need more raiding forces after you’ve reached level 35.

You should always ‘reserve’ units you will not use in fighting Persians, offensively to be able to perform big raids, score PVP, help the team. Defensively to meet the requirements for the coalition and to help the team. We think it’s best to reserve your cavalry units as they are fast & strong raiders, and defensively very powerful too. (Yep)

Never think ‘I have just won lots of units in Persians now I can attack that guy that keep raiding me’, because if you lose them you will find it much harder and time consuming to input the units you need to kill the next level camp as the required dead pool is based on the rewarded units, and those are gone now.

When you progress further in the game you will learn a lot more about the workings of Persians camps and you will learn you will probably have to use phalanx and cavalry units to fight and get your rewards. But at all times you should take no risk and send in everything you have. You might end up having no payout and will have to build forces from scratch. And if you can't raid, this game and the speed you can load your barracks is severely impaired.

Here’s our simple system for fighting Persians for players below lvl 35:● Ignore the Persians until you have 24 camps (the maximum) - now you can start● The Quest camp - is the highest level offence or defense camp● Send units to the quest camp and kill it - do not send attack troops (swords/Hoplitess) to

a defense camp - and do not send Javs to an attack camp● If you get no reward, attack the next quest camp that spawned (a higher level and

stronger camp)● Repeat until you get a reward in units● Attack the highest non quest-camp

(so if you kill camp 20 quest and there’s a camp 18 kill that)● This should reward your full dead pool but if nothing is rewarded revert back to the

highest quest again and kill it● Repeat this process until you see yourself building units for day even a week to kill one

camp. Generally that is far enough for our new member.

6 Rules of Engagement inserted somewhere:

1) Always have storage capacity at 90% or higher.2) Always attack positions from lowest to highest.3) Make sure agreements are updated as high as possible.4) Send in 2 & ½ times the rating to defeat position.5) Mix of troops works best…infantry, phalanx, and horse6) Never risk all troops…keep a certain amount of forces in reserve.

The following link shows the approximate strength you will need to kill a Persian camp, it’s based on when you send a mixed army, so sending for instance only Javs might take way more or less units than expected as the composition of the camp you encounter will determine what units will be more and what units will be less effective. http://tinyurl.com/persians20141218

Below is a link to the Persian guide for soldiers (another game from Plarium), this game has the exact same design and even the resource figures of the troops are the same. It is very complex and will require you to read, re-read, re-re-read, etc. This guide is for advanced players and really only starts to make a difference when hitting Persian camps of level 35 and higher.

http://www.maginniss.com/soldiers-inc.html

I’ve extracted the summary of this guide and translated some wordings to the Sparta wordings instead of the Soldier’s wordings, which may or may not bring more confusion.

1. Starting from an actual reward, calculate your reward value in resources. Multiply this number by 1.125 to account for interest and set this number aside as the bank

2. Use a Persian presence chart and/or scout both quest camps available that day3. Calculate, adjust and eliminate the LEAST DESIRED of the two quest camps, freeing

the scrolls from the reward4. Calculate and subtract the dead units (including scouts) from your bank5. Calculate and plan for a 51% victory on the now freed highest mission, and subtract this

value from BANK6. Calculate, adjust and/or eliminate other missions, each time subtracting the dead

resource value from the bank7. When the bank reaches or goes below 0, eliminate the highest mission you planned for

above8. Bank resets with maximum payout, calculate and set as new BANK value

Wait until server reset to repeat for new quest camps or continue to eliminate other camps as desired

4. Events

4.1. Coalition challengeAttacking

● Don’t send sieges, you risk sieging an online player and if he is quick enough he will kill all your offensive units in a split second, raid is safer

● Acropolis all the time: When you go to sleep, work, etc., also make sure you can acropolis the offensive army when they come back from a raid

● Raid people close to you, so they can't prepare and invite the entire coalition for a defense army to annihilate your attack (think about approx. 1-2 hrs)

● Send blank attacks with 1 swordsman to several players, diversion is the key to create chaos among them

● Spying might help you to not get into nasty surprises● Never ever send an attack to a defense you are going

to lose or win marginally, you got to win by a big difference (defense gets more points)

● Go to the map, pick the zoomed out map mode and check the box that says challenge, it will show you enemies close to you.

Defending● Don’t defend alone, offense is always stronger,

we want to win, not lose → Acro & spend resources

● Tell us when you get attacked, skype please !!, by what level player, how far away, how long it takes for the attack to land, so we can decide if we got a chance to group defend or whether we should pick another moment (we need a lot of time to move a big defense in)

Communication● Join us on skype (see other section), here you can easily share info and screenshots,

coordinate attacks, consult other players, and most of all coordinate the “group hug” defense tactic

Recruiting● No kicking of scholars, we don’t want new scholars to join during a challenge● No accepting new members, we don’t want new members at all during a challenge

City● Keep your resource levels low, you don’t want to give away too much when being raided

Acropolis is your best friend, keep those units alive

5. How-to’s

5.1. How to see your army strengthIf you want to see your offensive/ defensive strength, go the city and either send your offense/ defense to acropolis or recall them from acropolis. (You don’t have to actually send them), but just load them up for transport and on the bottom it will tell you the defensive or offensive strength. (See screenshots below)

5.2. How to apply coalition standardsCoalition standards its sole use is to expand the size of a coalition to allow for new members. Sounds good!When you level up to level 50 you will receive 1 coalition standard, after that you will receive additional standards every 5 levels, so on level 55, level 60, level 65, etc.Now in order to expand our coalition standards you need to ‘apply the standards’, you can do this as follows: Go the embassy, find the main tab ‘My coalition’, then find the sub tab called ‘Expansion’ (its indicated with 3 arrows). Over there you can apply them to our coalition and the progress bar will go up. (Spend them all at once, or repeat so the counter called ‘My coalition standards’, reaches 0).

6. Uncategorized9.

6.1. AcropolisBuild up your Acropolis to about 10k as fast as you can – it saves losing stuff to raiders. AND always put all your army in there when you are not raiding. DO NOT DEFEND when you are low level and well, not even when you are high level (think of raids with 1.500.000 attack strength hitting your city, yes all units in your city will die) – so HIDE. If this was a film, it would be called ACROPOLIS NOW! (Defending is much harder in this game as opposed to attacking). When you grow your level in the game you will see you will receive much less raids then before (about lvl 55), at this point you don’t have to focus on upgrading the acropolis that much anymore, level 10 to 15 should be ok.

6.2. Drachma’s (excellent advice)Save your Gold Coins (Drachmas) – the best use for them is to hoard them and buy a 2nd Artisan (1500 drachms) – it will take you until about level 30 – 34 to do that. Don’t buy back dead units. Don’t lose them! HIDE them in the Acropolis. Think turtle – only come out to raid, then hide. When you do decide to purchase drachmas spend them wisely, this is our view of their usage per item, think about this and decide what you want to do with them.

● Artisans: Yes, yes, yes! best decision around to spend drachma on● City expansion: Well first do the ones that require you to have friends dummy! Then yes,

full speed on buying up the last slots, prio 2, after artisans!!!● Champion units: Pretty good, strong offense or defense boost, but also be willing to pay

drachma’s to revive them (when they die, it’s better to revive them then to rebuy them)● Offensive/defensive unit: No!!! Just don’t it’s a waste of your drachma, get fighting on

those Persian positions!● Walls, towers, gates and city scheme’s (including their upgrades): if you think about

having a better defense, don’t! it add little defensive power (I - could destroy it with 0.5% of my army), if you want to strike fear into others and pimp your city, go ahead, invest in it (drachma buyers strike fear into other players when they think about spying and or raiding you, unless they are level 60+)

● Resource production boost: Quite a good investment, but only when you are a drachma buyer AND you have your resource production buildings over level 15.

● Articles: Only when you want to spend quite some money on this game, but better to just be patient and wait a day for the next article to pop-up

● Healer: Heal your champion units, Agema horseman, mounted Peltast and scouts only when you are a regular drachma buyer and already got all the other useful stuff! (this is a recurring purchase)

● GP’s, can’t buy those, too bad, only with fighting Persian position missions, PVP challenges and Persian position challenges (bi-weekly or something like that)

● Elixirs: Waste of money● Dominion points: Waste of money● Dominion activator: Quite good, but only apply when dominion level is 7 or more and

when you play regularly (which means at least twice a day). It will get you more xp through divine quests, (more quests, faster/instant finishing), it also adds other bonuses which you will enjoy when playing actively

● Boost and special: Waste of money

6.3. No time to Waste - Your first daysDon’t waste the first 3 game days:You can’t be attacked by strong players in the first 3 days, and the game moves all your outdoor attack troops into the Acropolis automatically.The first rule of Sparta is ACROPOLIS NOW! If your troops are not safe in the Acropolis, you will have to bury them, then replace them.So follow the 50 quests or actions directed by Leonidas in the early few days – you should be level mid 20’s by day 2 or 3.Did you put your troops in ACROP before reading this? Did You Feel Lucky?

6.4. Growing & City buildingBest way to get more space in your city is to add friends. Each 10 friends allows you unlock one extra section of the city. SOME sections have 5 spaces – do them first.Add a Hall of Heroes – your friends can gift you a hero (free troops)!Don’t make 3 granaries initially –the game makes you upgrade them – why build targets?The Infirmary has little value, heals some troops if your city is raided – but ACROPOLIS NOW! Means they stay hidden and safe, so the infirmary is always empty?

6.5. Inbound raidsIf you use Full Screen view, or normal city view and scroll down to the bottom so your friend list is visible (you do have friends? How will you grow your city if you don’t have friends?)In the lower left corner you may see no icons (no attacks in or out), or you may see some.

Pointing the mouse at the icon, gives more info, clicking it gives full info. Try it.If you see a red icon, with an arrow pointing left – you have a raid inbound.Acropolis Now!!!

6.6. Spy or Die, and the need for speedSpying saves you making expensive mistakes. Your target sees your raid coming (see above), and can either hide or put out a strong defense (with his coalition mates).The disadvantage of spying is that he sees the spy and hides his army (but he can do that if he sees the attack coming anyway).I say spy or die!The only exception is your low level neighbors that you raid for resources – after a few raids they do not have armies left, and may have quit the game.When you can, stop sending swordsmen on raids – other units go 2x faster. Fast is GOOD!

6.7. Lesson in coloniesAlready early in the game you will learn about colonies, those nice little islands that get extra resources! However there is a catch, you need to hold it for an hour to get your first collect, and yes you do have to click it to collect. So first problem, if you somehow manage to keep that colony for 10 hours and then it gets taken over, in case you haven’t clicked collect, well, no resources for you, bummer !! As you might start to understand, colonies can be a pain in the ass, and sometimes they will be constantly under attack so you can’t even squeeze out a single collect, so from now on we will call them irritators, instead of colonies, just kidding :)

Anyway let me share some experiences in colonies and fighting over them with other players, this guide will be level based, your level that is! Why? You will see! (Read all levels for the complete story)

Level 0 - 50Don’t go for colonies. Wait? What!Yes don’t go for them, you don’t have the ‘status of your level’ to scare people away, you don’t have the defense to hold them, trust me high level players will launch over 2 million attack force if they suspect you are defending it. When people browse their oracle and see a ‘low’ level player they are like: sweetttt jackpot!!!.Anyway, you can try but you will get attacked a lot and get attacked with big armies. So if you try anyway, don’t don’t don’t don’t don’t don’t don’t don’t don’t defend it with your defence army, just 1 soldier, 1 jav or 1 hero !!! its not worth losing that much resources (troops) to gain so few (and you will probably not get a single collect anyway)

Level 50-8999Yes you can try to take some colonies, but still the same rules apply: don’t defend them with more than 1 low level unit, there are stronger players out there, and did i mention 3 players can combine their army and attack it? so yeah: don’t waste your defense army. The second part is the fighting, someone takes over your colony (or takes it back because you took it from them). As i experienced the blockhead method of constantly attacking (playing Ping-Pong of ownership) doesn’t really work with high level players, attacking their cities out of rage starts coalition wars so you don't want to go there either. The better way is politics: Ask them to find another colony because you had this one from the spawn (grain spawn Friday around 17:00 GMT+1 and Tuesday around 17:00 GMT+1, these times do vary!).Tell them this Ping-Pong is not working for any of you, and start looking for other agreements.There are 1000 ways, but the best is to actually try to talk about it, at least that’s my experience.

Level over nine thousand!!!Same as above, but maybe on this level you can actually use your defensive force to hold it.Wait, you got a huge defensive force? What is it doing in your colony!? Get it over to our level 5 Pantheon!!!

6.8. The Big HugApparently there are people who raid your city and steal stuff. Gosh.Some do not stop when you mail them “Cease your raids or take the consequences, hugs & kisses, etc.”If you have a troublesome neighbor, normally a higher level one – what do you do?If you see his raid coming (see above), AND the guild has agreed to boost your defense, extra troops from the guild can get there faster than the raider. It works. Low or no defense lost and one sore raider. The defense moves to the next target, repeat.We call it Rolling Thunder, It does what it says.For this tactic to work properly we do need time to move our defense and we need it coordinated, so first of: post your message in skype, add details of the attacker and how long it will take for the attack to hit your city

6.9. Limits on Giving and TakingThe game has many sneaky limits.You can make two free resource gifts to each city in any day. So when gifting, send the maximum that you can. Sending 2 lots of 100 wood uses up this limit the same as 2 lots each 10k.Secondly, you can gift a maximum of 50k total resources to each city each week.This same limit applies to raiding - you can’t raid more than 50k from any city in a week.There may be a third limit on how much of any resource any player can be gifted in total. We have just noticed this, and will update our advice when we understand how it works.All these limits reset - either daily (# of resource gifts), weekly (50k raiding or gifting cap) or we assume weekly for the third new limit. (Update: daily on the third limit)

6.10. Things to do in a friend’s citySo you’ve called into your friend’s city - you’ve admired his buildings, some of which you may have, others look new and interesting. What else can you do when you’re visiting?If he has been raided, there will be damaged towers. A visitor can repair ONE tower instantly by clicking the repair icon. It costs nothing also.If your friend has a Hall of Heroes, click on it - it gifts him ONE free hero - the game also mails him to say who this kind friend is. He should return the favor. Try to visit some coalition members daily to gift them a hero, all the little clicks add up to a nice force :)The Hall for Heroes can hold 50 heroes - that’s a free 3k attack or defense resource.Have you built a Hall for Heroes in your city? Why not?

6.11. Urban PlanningWhile the game directs you to upgrade your buildings, you may want to do it in a different order. I suggest that you ramp farms/forges/timber yards to level 6 as a priority. Ramp the Acrop to hold c 10-12k of each resource, building warehouse and granary capacity behind it, not exceeding the Acropolis capacity (well, at first that is, later you will want to have a big storage to accommodate your raids). To trade or gift resources, you need to develop the port - the initial 4 galleys are a tight limit. Grow the port so you can trade or gift 10k + shipments.

The game directs you to build and ramp only 4 farms/forges/timber yards, but you should build and ramp all of them (6 Farms, 5 Forges and Timber Yards).When you are more comfortable with managing your stores, you can ramp the warehouse and granary capacity above the Acropolis capacity - BUT ONLY FILL THEM WHEN YOU ARE ONLINE - use the resources before you go offline - spend them on troops or upgrades until the stores are lower than the Acropolis capacity. When you have progressed a little further in the game, read: armies come and go!

6.12. Hunger PainsIf you run out of grain, your army dies. So you log out with a mighty army, and come back to find it’s half the size.If you see a ! at the grain indicator, hover the mouse over it.

You get a pop up message giving you the bad news.Now 309 divided by 23 is over 13 hrs. So no panic? You could go to sleep and still be safe?Well there’s 100 Javelins cooking in the training camp, and as they join the army, the 23 deficit becomes 24, then 25, heading to 123/hr. overnight.Never leave the game unless you are happy there’s enough grain to cover 12 hrs. use.If there is not enough grain for your 12hrs sleep or work/study time in real life, either raid some (your neighbors will love you!) or send some javelins to raid Persian camps. They don’t do as much damage in groups of 50 as groups of 200-300, but if you don’t cut your grain usage, they will be gone by morning! Early in the game you will have to deal with grain shortage very often, but when you finally unlock Eleusis, you can build the temple of Demeter (when you have a farm over level 10). Focus all your attention and resources (or most) on upgrading the temple of Demeter, on level 20 it reduces your grain consumption by 85%, this means a Jav or a swordsman that normally consumes 1 grain per hour will now consume 0.15 grain per hour. This is a huge reduction and will definitely help you gain more grain so you can build more units/upgrade more!

6.13. Acropolis Not?????So before you went offline, you sent all your army to the Acropolis for safety.

You log on the next day and find they did not report to the Acropolis, they stayed outside and were slaughtered.It happens to all of us, it has happened to me, and here’s how to prevent it.The basic cause is that the game is filling up the browser cache - the symptoms are that it runs slower, buildings (city view) or cities (map view) disappear, menu icons do not appear when the menu is opened, the timers (building time, unit travel time) stop counting, and worst of all clicking commands are ignored. Very late in this process it tells you the browser cache is full - before this happens, it has stopped acting on your commands.To be sure that troops go to the Acropolis do the following:When you click on Send to Acropolis, select ALL, then wait for the troop bars to fillWhen the troop bars are full, click send, then wait Until you get the feedback “Troops moved successfully”If you wait a bit longer you will see the Acropolis fill up with the moved troops.

If any part of this does not happen, it is almost certain the troops are still outside and at risk.Try once more - if it still does not complete - you need to fix it.

Empty the browser cache, then close and reopen the game, then repeat the sending troops to Acropolis steps above. It should work this time.

I’d recommend emptying the browser cache frequently, and at any time you see the signs above - slow game, missing icons, frozen timers, error messages.

6.14. Mixing Your DrinksYou were told never to mix your drinks - but in the game it’s encouraged.The elixirs provide small boosts to your unit strength.You mix and load the elixirs in the Sanctum of Asclepius (is he the patron saint of Greek Bartenders?).Unless you want to spend 5k Drachms to remove a single Elixir (of Lvl 5 - 8), you will be limited to making and using lvl 4 Elixirs. They can be loaded and unloaded freely.To make level 4 Elixirs, ramp the Sanctum to lvl 2.The Sanctum menu has 3 tabs:Info - here you can upgrade the SanctumCache - here you open the Mystery Chests to find lvl 1 elixirs, and you can select an Elixir to put in one of the 3 slots (initially only 1 is active)Amphora Chamber - here you mix the elixirs. Only Elixirs of the same type can be mixed, 2 x Lvl 1 to make 1 Lvl 2, 2 x Lvl 2 to make 1 Lvl 3 and so on. Thus you need 16 Lvl 1 to make 1 Lvl 4 Elixir.There are two unit groups - Offence/DefenseThere are 4 unit classes - Light and heavy Infantry, Phalanx units and Cavalry units.Thus a total of 8 different Unit types, and each has a specific Elixir.Simple? No - it’s confusing, especially as the level 4 Elixirs only provide small boosts (2% for cavalry, 6% for defensive light infantry).BUT it’s a free upgrade so let’s use it.

RAMP the Sanctum to Lvl 2, mix your Elixirs to make lvl 4 Elixirs.You will get other Slot activation Amphora for completing the weekly PVP (Player Vs Player) challenges so have 3 slots available.I normally have mine loaded with light infantry attack and defense boosts, and the cavalry attack boost - and I rarely change them.I can’t be bothered switching the loaded Elixirs for the sake of a 2-6% boost, life is too short.But I make and use a lot of Light Infantry (Javelins & Hoplites mainly), and +2% on the strong cavalry units has to help.If anyone has a better idea about using this, please share it.

6.15. Harder, Better, Faster, Strongerhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThFnvjYYtFwYour units are expensive, and take time to build - can we make them faster and stronger?Yes - but it takes time and lots of resources.Ramp the agreements to their max level 20 - this adds 2% attack & defense for each step, so an upgrade of +40% is possible. Because I make and burn a lot of Javelins and Hoplites I am ramping the Akanthos and Athens agreements, ahead of what the game suggests.Use the Scrolls to speed up both the unit make time and their travel speed.I’ve spent 40 scrolls on Javelin build time speed up - that saves 12% (Wow - Watch out for speed cameras!!)Since units normally go to a fight in a group, and travel at the speed of the slowest unit, there’s not much advantage in having the fastest Hoplites, if they travel with Heroes which caps the speed to the 12mph of the Heroes. (Read armies come and go for long-term scroll strategies)

6.16. GP’s So you got this stack of GP’s and you ask yourself what to do with it, well the answer is here.You get yourself able to build Agema horseman yourself! How → buy articles.You are already used to receiving articles every day to unlock new agreements. But after you have signed Orchomenus, Stymphalos lvl 5 and Crete you will no longer receive articles to unlock the rest. The picture below will summarize it, but basically you have two choices, go for the top row: Capua, Massilia, Pompeii and Ephesus or go for the bottom row: Argos, Dion, troy, Olympia, Corinth, Pella and Sparta, (update: they have added another row: Sidon, Tyre and Carthage). The correct answer is go for the bottom row, from left to right, why: because Agema rules! And you don't receive GP that easy, so better spend them well. You can unlock top row after the Agema too, but if you start with it you will lose weeks of progress! (I would suggest to go for the Carth first because they are great raiders…then go for Sparta and up to Rome and Cannes.)The image below will show a bit more info.

To gain GP’s mainly focus on doing Persian positions during the Persian positions quests (the ones that appear bottom of the screen and take 14 days, they earn you items and around x you will receive 100 GP, then you need a sick amount to get 10 more (don’t even try),The other source of GP is during PVP quests, try to get??? (12 or 35k) of PVP points and receive 100. Other sources are Persian mission camps, maybe some other random quests

around, but PVP and Persian quest are basically it, focus on building the army during the week and fighting with them during the challenges!

6.17. Armies come and goYup, in the end you will have lost either your full defense army or full offense army (or both) at least once, so what’s the deal, what’s the gain? Well speaking long term, the things that last are: city progress, XP, status, experience, challenges, etc. So even though your army may die, you have a much better city to rebuild a new army, so don’t focus all your attention on your army, and keep upgrading the other stuff too. Here’s my long term strategy, it will take weeks, months, but it will get me to the next level and more able to replace my army, just my 2 cents.

Focus on the city: Get resource production to level 20, first grain, and then the others (start with what you need most. This also mean that you should get that epic temple of Demeter to Level 20!!!Sanctum of Asclepius: get it to the level you need, if you start having two level 5 Elixir of the same type, you might want to enable yourself to mix them, upgrade till what you need.Acropolis: Well mine is lvl 15, I think it will only upgrade it when i have nothing else to spend it on, when you reach a higher level you will get attacked less often, and the difference between losing 100k of res and 103k of res doesn't matter that much, I’d focus on spending it before the raid arrives.Granary + Warehouse: definitely get them to 20, no need to do it right away, but make sure raiding gains never get you maxed out, hate to waste resources right?Oracle: upgrade as desired, could be a good strategy to be able to reach colonies further away from the center of the map (check coordinates), you will find less high lvl players there.Port & Harbor: Definitely get them to 20!!! Maybe not right away, but bigger and faster trading is good, you can switch to the stuff you need faster and move out resources before you get raided easier (if you have too). Agora & Ephorate: Well as you upgraded anything to lvl 20, there’s not much use to being able to do it faster, also when you have all articles after a while, there’s no use to getting them quicker right, so only lvl 20 them if you do it early in the game, else don't bother :P

Focus on agreements; Sign them all, upgrade them all, but hit the ones with the units you use most first, 40% increased damage and defense is really really really a lot, long term good stuff right there !!!

Focus on scrolls with long term in mind! Warning, this is strongly biased to my point of view on the game, you may think different, hell maybe you think of even better stuff, don’t throw away your own opinion, but here’s my focus:I focus on grain reduction: I want to have it to lvl 80, why, it enables me to have a bigger army in the end !I focus on combat experience, more Xp for the same action, leveling up is always good, unlocks scrolls sooner!I will focus on: Jav building time: they will be the main ingredient to fighting Persian positions, to leveling up via that and getting better units in return, may as well build them faster right?

I will focus on: mounted Peltast building speed, they are the best defense unit to build, might as well build faster and enable you to make more a day.Third colony, as I’m a real colony fighter, i want to have three, but you will need quite the level and political experience for this, if you can't hold two for a few days without attacks, don’t go for 3.Then what, well i guess when i finished upgrading the above i will be level 9000 and 85 years old, but well, if i ever manage to get more scrolls, i will probably focus on reducing building times of other units i create, and travel times of Agema and other stuff i send in attack by themselves.

Hope it helps you a bit in long term planning!

6.18. Where am I? What does my location mean?Each city has a location given by its X,Y location. These X,Y locations are measured from 0,0 where Leonidas (level 124 - the top level) lives in Sparta.

The distance from you to King Leonidas = 0.1 x Sqrt( X^2 + Y^2) in miles.The distance between any two cities is = 0.1 x Sqrt((X1-X2)^2 +(Y1-Y2)^2) in miles.Each step is 0.1 mile, so from 0,0 to 0,60 is 60 steps, 6 miles or 1 hour travel time for a basic swordsman moving at 6mph.

I have tried catching siege raiders by launching at their home city when I think they will be landing, but without much luck. It’s a great idea but needs a lot for it to work.

More importantly the game builds cities for new players in a spiral moving out from 0, 0. I think it’s a clockwise spiral - but the direction does not matter - it means older & stronger cities will be closer to the center, closer to 0,0.The newer weaker players will be further out.So look outwards for weaker players, and inwards for bigger cities, that may be stronger than you.

6.19. What are allies? Can I raid them?To answer the second question first - NO!!!!!They should not raid you either.If an Ally raids you - mail him “Stop raiding me, we are allies of your coalition. Please return my stolen resources” and see what happens.Repeated raids by an Ally - complain to - he will raise it with their leader. It could result in the Raider getting booted and becoming a fair target for both guilds.

Ahem! If you raid an Ally, we will not defend you, and if you persist, it could be you that gets booted. So don’t do it.

To see the list of allies, click Embassy or Coalition Icon.Click My Coalition (top row, 4th tab), click Diplomacy (lower row, 3rd Tab) - Allies are listed.

If in doubt check before you raid, you can also check by clicking the coalition icon on the player, then his coalition page will show up, this may take a second or 2, on the top right our stance towards that coalition shows up: neutral, enemy or war: go ahead!, ally or peace: don’t.

If there’s no coalition icon, a raid is probably safe (unless he was thrown out of his last coalition for excessive aggression, raiding allies, doing nasty things to goats, or any other personality disorders) .

Since we don’t have a war on at present, and no enemy coalitions (no living ones anyway) I can’t show the third red icon. These pictures are old data - check what the current situation is please.

Do not start a war just so that I can get the missing icon - I’ll be too busy to update the guide.

(didn’t see this)

Tribute…what is it and how to get it.

Basically put, tribute is the ships in the harbor, carts at the gate, and collection from protectorates. Have three sieges to get collection from protectorates. Tribute is also cumulative. The more you visit friend’s cities, the more you will get by the end of the week.

The maximum tribute you can get from a protectorate is 400 p/h. The city has to be lvl 60 or higher and active.

Tips for getting a placement in the top 10. The six categories are: Offense, Defense, Siege, Tribute, Raiding, and Persian Positions.

1) Offense top 10. To score high in this category, you will need the combat experience maxed out in the Academy. The easy hunting grounds for offensive ranking points is sieges and colonies. Without the city defense bonus, defensive units are extremely vulnerable. Otherwise, attacking enemies will also work for position points.

2) Defense top 10. To score high in this category, you will need the combat experience maxed out in the Academy. In order to get a top placement, you will need to lose 8 to 10 mil in defensive units. Suggest everybody stays away from this category.

3) Siege top 10. You will need a minimum of 5,000 light infantry to get a high placement in this category. The best way to do this is to clear out the residual troops and towers in all the cities that you plan to siege. If you stay with lvl 10 cities and below…staying away from the farms…you will have better success with maintaining the siege for the entire week.

4) Tribute top 10. What you will need to have is 3 lvl 55 or higher and active cities sieged as protectorates, preferably lvl 60 or higher to get the maximum tribute. The trick in this category is to stop collecting from your protectorates about 11 & ½ hours before the weekly reset. Just after the weekly reset, collect from your protectorates to get a higher position in the category right off the bat. Then…on the following Sunday, you want to collect from your protectorates 2 minutes before the weekly reset to score a higher position.

5) Raid top 10. You will need the minimum galley capacity of 34K to score in this category. You will also have to have around 80 cities planned out to raid. The trick is to stop raiding about 11 hours before the weekly reset. Then right after reset…you will start out with 9 or 10 raids. What the top players in this category do is load the city with resources by sending res to the city. They can then get the maximum raid of 86K. Times that by the, hopefully 10 raids you saved until after reset and the 70 raids you get for the week. Equals the maximum raid amount for the week of 6,880,000 which will be the perfect score.

6) Persian Positions top 10. In order to score high in this category, you will need to be hitting positions in the 90’s and higher. The trick for this category is to stop hitting positions 3 days before the weekly reset. After the reset, you can start hitting positions. You will have 36 positions all told and after the daily reset, you will get 12 more. That starts you out with 48 positions on the first day of the competition.

Pantheons. The ultimate goal of every coalition is to conquer, upgrade, and defend pantheons. Pans are the only source of Orichalcum. Ori is used to upgrade troops to veteran status. What this does is make them stronger and they use less grain.

1) In order for House of Herecles to maintain one pan, we will need a consolidated Def of at least 70 mil. The reason for this is because we will send 2/3rds of the Def to the pan and the other 3rd will be used to defend cities and replenish the troops that are lost in the pan when it gets attacked.

2) To build a strong and lasting Def…use this ratio. Train your units 5/1 Def/Off. Simply put…5 Jave equal 1 Sword, 5 Pelts equal 1 Myr, 5 Trojans equal 1 Promo, 5 m/p’s equal 1 Mac Cav…etc. A strong and consolidated Def will win more often than not in this game.