Friday 21 August
No. 003 · three itemsDamaged equipment gives you no bonus at all
Not a reduced bonus. Nothing, until it is repaired.
Every strike in battle costs one point of durability, so gear you have been fighting in is quietly worth less than the numbers you remember. At zero the piece cannot be repaired at all. It must be replaced, and any enchantment on it is destroyed with it.
If your strength looks wrong before a big fight, check durability before you check anything else. It is also why players strip their gear off entirely before reinforcing someone.
Caveat: One source. Try it on your own account before you plan around it.
Cerberus
InfernoMelee beastMap squads, any rarity
Every family has one member who ignores the rules everyone else follows. In the Inferno, it is this one. You have spent weeks learning that archers handle almost everything, and Cerberus has spent those same weeks waiting for you to send archers.
What to send. Cerberus carries +65% against ranged units, so keep your archers thin and bring melee and mounted layers instead. It also carries +50% against elementals.
Who you can send. That depends on the squad, not on Cerberus. A common squad takes one captain. A rare squad takes your hero and nobody else. A heroic squad takes the hero, every captain and reinforcements, and pays a clan chest to everyone who joins.
Figure: 30,000,000 Label: Silver to rebuild a full army
Experienced players delete fallen troops and retrain them with silver rather than reviving them with gold. A full rebuild runs about 30 million silver, which is a great deal cheaper than the gold equivalent.
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Three from the Atlas runs daily. Corrections, screenshots and battle reports are always welcome.
Thursday 20 August
No. 002 · three itemsAnyone can finish a crypt you left half open
A partly explored crypt can be completed and claimed by any other player on the map. The progress you paid tar for goes to them.
This is the real reason experienced players clear a crypt in one march instead of sending the cheapest march possible. The cheap march looks like the careful choice, and it is the one that leaves your work sitting on the map for somebody else.
One large hit is better on its own terms too. It returns more materials, more silver and more experience than several small hits that add up to the same tar, and it is the only option that carries the ten percent exploration strength bonus.
An open portal walks straight past your walls and your shield
A portal is useful. You can launch marches from it, and your clanmates can launch from theirs when it sits closer to the target than their own city does.
But an open portal is also a door into your city. An enemy attacking through it does not break your walls, because it does not touch them. Your shield does not stop them either. In Kingdom versus Kingdom, an enemy who destroys your army while your portal is open takes your banners with them.
Open it for the march. Close it after.
Figure: 8 Label: Squads in an Arachni Swarm
Most epic monsters field three or four squads. Arachni fields eight. The opening exchanges are one for one, so eight of your stacks are destroyed before any of your good troops swing.
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Three from the Atlas runs daily. Corrections, screenshots and battle reports are always welcome.
Wednesday 19 August
No. 001 · three itemsHealth bonuses do nothing against an epic monster
Health keeps troops alive. Against an epic monster your whole army dies anyway, so health changes nothing about the outcome.
Only strength turns into damage, and damage is what your score is built from. So every point you have spent on health in that fight is a point doing no work at all, no matter how much of it you have.
Before an epic fight, take the health gems off your gear and switch your army strength bonuses on instead. Keep the health setup for the fights you expect to survive.
Caveat: One source. Try it on your own account before you plan around it.
You only need one of each building at a high level
About twelve buildings decide how high your Capitol can go, and your Capitol decides your Guardsman tier. But the game only checks one of each type.
So your second barracks, your fifth farm and your eighth mansion can sit fifteen levels behind and nothing is blocked. One player at Capitol 34 keeps a single barracks at 34 and leaves the rest at 19.
Figure: 33,000 Label: Blueprints, one Consulate upgrade
At the top end, a single Consulate upgrade costs about 33,000 Great Architect's Blueprints. For scale, 15,000 blueprints is roughly 150,000 gold. There are no blueprint discount events — not at Christmas, not ever.
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Three from the Atlas runs daily. Corrections, screenshots and battle reports are always welcome.