Who loves Mithril Mines? Everyone!

There are certain Quests that start out really hard, that you end up running alot.

Mithril Mines is one of those quests. It's literally some of the best experience you will find from Nation level 26-30.


The loot is pretty much ranged, chain, leather, Weapon Enchants, and what you see above. The item level is excellent, and often you see 2-6 drops per run. It's the best loot from 26-30 that I've found.

Experience-wise, you get around 100,000 to 180,000 experience per run. A run is long, so this isn't as high as you would think. My average Mithril mines takes 5-10mins.

Although you use alot of direct damage spells, like fireballs in this quest, you do get alot of good troop experience. I do the first 2 waves with my troops, before falling back to kiting with fireballs, then finish with air units killing ground troops.

My special flyer that kites is my Eagle Rider with speed gear on. As you can see, with a 31 charging speed, there is little the AI can do to catch me as I four corners kite the ranged, while fireballing with level 5 fireballs.

Training your Army? Think 5 days before WAR!

So there is a Army Management Screen that allows you to trainup your army for the cost of materials. This give a 15% max buff army wide that is pretty substantial.

The one PROBLEM with a Army buff, is it adds up your TOTAL CP of your army, and your Territory Defense forces into a number which then it applies to the cost of the buff.

For Example, the max Army size is 5000 CP, so if you have a full Army you will have something that costs 15000 food, 15000 gold, 15000 wood, and 15000 stone per day.

This is SUBSTANTIAL, as your daily production will cap out at around 2000 of each material per day.

There are definitely people in the game now that have enough stockpiled production to easily be able to turn this on, and leave it on, but I doubt the average gamer can keep this running all the time.

I was barely able to afford the 5% DR lumber bonus.

It takes about 24 hours per percentage bonus. I have had this turned on since Friday night at 6pm, and now it finally registers 1% bonus on my Army window and the troop mouse-over.

So what does this mean?

1. This is an option for big battles. When you are going into something where you burn your spare production.
2. If you turn off ALL of your units in your territories to 0/25, you will reduce your total Army CP. A 225 battle is 675 total CP. You could get rid of your territory defense and run around 700 total Army CP, which makes the 15% bonus cost 2100 per day. This wouldn't slow someone raiding you down, but it would max your attacking army.
3. Because this takes days to turn on, make sure you think about it 5 days before the big battle.

Rating means nothing, PvP for fun

https://www.playsaga.com/mn_rankings.php

"Another interesting, upcoming tidbit would be the breakdown of rating and tournament rating. We’re hoping to separate the two out so players can better assess their competition. While it will remain possible to a degree to exploit/abuse the rating, your tournament rating will be much harder to compromise. " - http://monkscorner.wordpress.com/2008/03/19/upcoming-pvp-and-balance-changes/

• Am I allowed to have more than one nation/account? •
Yes and yes. You are allowed to have up to two accounts, and each account has space for up to five nations. Our system periodically checks for abuse of this policy, and having any more than two accounts may trigger banning. - http://www.playsaga.com/faq.php?faq_id=44

You can do whatever in game things you want with your accounts. - Monk - https://www.playsaga.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4806&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15

• Rating means nothing. I was able to level my troops fighting in PvP for a 10% experience bonus, playing my girlfriend while watching TV.

• I got my rating on my CCIE account to over 2000. This was done mainly for testing, and to expose for once that rating is not an indication of skill and prowness in Saga. (I testify to the fact that I my PvP skill is not reflective of this rating.)

• I've found that people with 1100+ rating won't play someone they think they might lose to. It's like they think that rating matter? Considering it has taken me about 4 days to out rank everyone in the game, LEGALLY as you can tell from the above quotes, I think we can put the whole rating thing to bed.

• Stop worring about it, and play!

• As Monk says, rating will matter for TOURNEYMENTS not for causal PvP.

• PvP is really fun, a great way to level nation and troops without doing quests. I found it the most fun when I had a troop that was hard to level like Ballistas or Cherbus.

• Did I mention it might be the fastest way to level from 18-25?

Undead Faction only Booster Packs - how many would you need?

https://www.playsaga.com/newsletter/#presale

So the Undead army is coming out. For many new players, the lure to reroll undead is present.

• Assuming the current distribution of 1 rare, 4 uncommon, and 5 common troops, how many packs of the new undead faction would give you a good level 35 endgame army?

Let do the math:

Assume you want to field a MINIMUM of a good 225 CP army for World Conflict and all possible PvP:

I will make the following assumptions:

• Non Factional Cards you can ignore. Heavy Cav, Cav Archers, Ballistas, Armored Behemoth etc. Firstly we won't get those in the undead packs, second we have them already in our existing armies.
• Wilderness Defense forces we will ignore. You can always stock a defense made of non-factional troops. (Although Kheldara doesn't recommend it: http://sagathoughts.blogspot.com/2008/06/kheldara-interview-raiding-and.html )-
• The commons and the rares shouldn't be hard to get.
• Most rares are spells or large units like 20CP type units.
• You have 675 CP total in a 225CP game.
• Assuming a couple spells thats about 20 troop units.
• Most 1 or 2 CP units will be commons. Rarely have I ever seen dense units be uncommons.
• The best units currently are often the 6 CP units. Treants, Gryph riders, eagle riders, dark raven riders. These units are harder to get as they have a uncommon rarity based on the small unit size.
• Out of 20 troop units you will probably field about 10 unit of these 6 CP uncommon unit types. This is about 40 card.
• 4 Uncommon cares per pack, and probably 1 in 6 would be your 6 CP unit. (This is based on the distribution we are seeing now.)

This leads me to predict you will need about 3 packs to pull two 6CP unit.

This means you will need 60 packs to field 10 units of this stronger 6CP unit types.

60 packs sounds like alot, but there is a 11 for 10 sale:

"And as a special incentive to those who are looking to start an Undead army on the quick, for every 10 Undead Faction Packs purchased you'll get 1 additional pack free when the Undead launch!"

So you really need to buy 55 packs!

55 boosters at 3$ = $165

This isn't outragious as fielding 9 units of treants at 20$/unit is $180.

Lets check the commons and rares:

55 boosters = 275 commons = 11 25CP units. Assuming you field only 3-5 common units, this should be plenty.

55 boosters = 55 spells and large units. Assuming you field only 3-5 rare units, this should be plenty.

Overall is this a good deal? Yes pretty much.

You could easily get by with 30 or less boosters and trade to get what you needed.

Saga Guilds - Info and the Top Four Guilds

So there are alot of posts in the guild recruiting forums:
https://www.playsaga.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=28

I'm sure alot of people don't know what to think about all the recruiting. This blog is writen to clear up as much confusion as I can.

How do you know what guild that might fit your playstyle if you join the game by yourself?

Here are a couple things to think about:

1. The average Saga player is very causal. In most spam newby guilds you might have maybe one or two members online at once. So out of a 25 man guild you might see only a couple members in months online.
2. The main reason for most players to join guilds is resource sharing. Basically you can get an about 300 stone/gold/lumber per real day from the guild sharing. This is NOT ALOT in terms over overall production. You make more resource by finishing 1 or 2 quests. However if you have rank 3 university you get guild multiplier that turn your 300 a day into 500 or so. (But if you had enough gold to train up a level 3 university, then why do you need 500/day?)
3. Most players can solo quests pretty easily. I interviewed Vitaris on PvE, and he indicates that he solo's every mission except for the newest heroic: http://sagathoughts.blogspot.com/search/label/Vitaris You don't really need guildmates to help you level. It is fun to get someone to run heroics with, but honestly you don't need a good guild to level to 35.
4. If your guild members pissed people off, that could lead to guild wars or getting your nation pounded by a faction of understandably pissed off power-gamers. This is a real penalty for gaining 300 stone/day :) You do NOT want to join a guild with someone who you do not want to back in a war.

So where do you find guilds?

http://www.playsaga.com/guilds.php - Current realtime list of all guilds.

This list is multi-purpose. First you can find guilds that have open spots. Guilds cap out at 25 members, this is why you see so many guilds with 1, 2, 3 etc. This limit is to prevent every player to be in the same guild for resource farming.

If you find a guild that is less then full (25), then you should ask a member about joining.

If you cross-reference members of a certain guild vs the economics rating list you can see where the guild members are in terms of city size: https://www.playsaga.com/mn_rankings.php

If you /who NATION in game, you can see players levels.

• You most likely want to be in a guild where most members are 20+. Level 20 gives your 4th territory, this maximizes your resources for the most part. (Excluding wilderness bonuses.)
• Many guilds won't take members <>

Top Guilds:

I've rated the top four guilds (currently) to give people an idea who's the best based on the top 20 players and economic rating. The first number is the Nations rank, the second the Nation name, the third the rating as of 7/1/08.

NUMBER 1 - The Einherjar (Order)

• 1 TWONSTERMONSTER 9670 - The Einherjar
• 3 KELETHIN 5160 - The Einherjar
• 5 VITARIS 3790 - The Einherjar
• 11 XEGNUM XEUS 2710 - The Einherjar
• 14 FAIRHAVEN 2182 - The Einherjar
• 161 THE SHOWSTOPPER 1062 - The Einherjar (Guild Leader)

Number 2 - Crusaders (Order)

• 2 ILLIAN 7418 - Crusaders - (Guild Leader)
• 16 KHELDARA 2125 - Crusaders

Number 3 - TEIMPD

• 7 CHALWORTH 3102 - TEIMPD
• 8 SALDAEA 2940 - TEIMPD
• 17 JORALUM 2039 - TEIMPD

Number 4 - True Power (Order)

• 6 IRONFORGE 3180 - True Power - (Guild Leader)
• 19 TONEOFWAR 1910 - True Power
  

Weblinks to guild websites: (If you want me to advertise your guild here, send me a in game or forum email. I'm happy to help anyone who wants to recruit.)

New Player PvE Tricks - Tanking

So I read the manual, and the forums, the new user guild at Saga Units http://www.sagaunits.com/sagaguide/Guide.html, and even the www.freewebs.com/sagaironforge by Ironforge.

One thing they never discuss is how to proper tank mobs with your units at mid-levels.

Early level quests are easy. You field 2 units, they field 3, you attack.

Mid-Levels quests are you field 3 units they field 6. Then when you kill the first wave, they hit you again. This can make is so you burn your entire CP fighting off the waves.

Advanced players know about tanking. I'm not writing this for you. Every machine player I see that Coops with me rolls a couple Mech Giants and Iron Tanks. That's why everyone says Machine is good for PvE, they have a tank that naturally supports them. On the other hand Light always complains about not having a tank for PvE.

Anyway:

What is TANKING?

• Tanking is where you raise a units Defense Rating so high that the mobs fighting it miss alot.
• This allows you to stick archers behind the tank, then you take very little damage from the AI, while you farm them for troop and nation exp.
• The Tank wont live forever, as often you have a mix of ranged and melee hitting it. But it sure takes less damage then a regular damaging troop.
• Also if you have long ranged archery, you can do alot of damage to the AI as it runs to you, making your tank have to take very little damage before the AI units die.
  

Tricks on Tanking:

If you read many guides on Saga, most people will not recommend EVER buying anything from the Item store. Saga is pretty good about giving you upgrades from quest, you rarely need items for your troop units.

HOWEVER, when setting up a tank, this is the one time that you want to shop.

Why? Because the difference between 40DR and 70DR can be huge in mid-game leveling.

So in this screenshot you see that I found a tanking bow with 19% DR bonus and hitpoints.

I love that combination, DR and hitpoints is pretty much what you need for your tanks.

In this screenshot you can find another item I found, which I stuck a 80 shard enchant on. A 80 shard enchant also costs 5k gold, so more gold wasted on tanking.

How many tanks will I need?

The problem is leveling tanks is pretty hard unless you start early. You should think about using your tank in EVER mission that doesn't involve alot of running around. You need levels, every level for the tank is 5% more DR and hitpoints. By the time you need the tank, you will have it leveled to 7 or 8, which is perfect.

How do I use a tank?

Saga is pretty simple. Stick the tank or tanks between you and the melee enemy.

If there is alot of ranged stick it in ranged defense stance, alot of melee stick it in melee defense. Both? Stick it in normal stance.

If you have melee up from and ranged in the back, I like to tank the melee on my tank, and run Heavy Cav through the melee to circle around to the back of the ranged. This allows me to tank the ranged on my Heavy Cav and the melee up from on my tank.

Tanks are slow, so it takes forever to get them into position.

Can I heal the tank?

Not really, the heals in Saga are excellent for healing big troop units with 1CP or 2CP per unit, and bad at healing 20CP units. Too bad huh.

What tank should I use?

One of the highest base DR's in the game is the new Armored Behemoth. For a few more weeks I am sure you can still get one or more for cheap on the Market. It has a impressive 35 DR.

If not, check out your factional units, find any like the Cherbus that has a 34DR or higher. Starting base DR is important, as the item and level buffs are multiplicative. The higher the base DR, the more the bonuses add.

Kheldara - Interview - Raiding and Espionage Focused

I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to interview Kheldara. Kheldara and Illian are in my opinion the most dominate PvP raiders in both the forums and the Conflict channel.

As I am literally clueless about raiding, I figured to go directly to the source, and see how it all works:

General Questions:

How long have you been playing Saga?

Kheldara: "Since closed beta last year. My brother attracted me to the game."

Whats your favorite unit type and why?

Kheldara: "I'll be honest with you. I can't decide on a favorite unit or even a type. The unit on the field is my favorite if it is countering the enemy unit."

Raiding and Espionage Questions:
First of all is raiding fun as it's designed now for end game players?

Kheldara: "As of right now the raiding system is fine, or better put, 'It will do'. It is deficient in incentive and not as exciting as I feel it can be. The AI on the defense is quite subpar."

We all know that you are great raider, on the other hand tell us how often your frontier gets raided?

Kheldara: "When I first started raiding there was retaliation attempts that I experienced. They gained very little and I wouldn't say any of them succeeded. It's been quite a while since I've been raided. OUr gains are CONSIDERABLY higher."

What would be the number one change you would like made to raiding or espionage to make it more interesting?

Kheldara: "I hope one day they enable the ability to defend your own lands if you are currently logged in. As for espionage utilizing the card system for its success. Perhaps a certain card that can be customized. For example the Mercenary Assassins, they can be traded cards, and customized to increase their espionage success. Other than that the entire espionage system is missing that interactive aspect. Even increasing the gold spent for each espionage attack to increase its success and effectiveness."

Is espionage actually useful? I heard there was a cap to prevent you from espionaging more then once per day on a single player successfully?

Kheldara: "Yes there is a cap, but that's where consistency and teamwork can bring enough damage. Unless you are consistent with your goal to hurt with espionage, then do not even bother. It's useful in finding out enemy information yes, But actual damage to the enemy requires an anal determination."

I guess they tuned it down so you couldn't hurt economy PvE players?

Kheldara: "Yes possibly. But it's still possible with enough focus. The 'annoying factor' can be enough."

Everyone talks about Heavy Cav, Ballista, and Cav Archers as the best all around defence force, as an active raider, what do you find the trickist units to fight?

Kheldara: "A good mix is important to have to defend from different types of units being fielded. But with someone with good micromanagement skills a defense like that will only slow (a raider) down. Oh and strong and fast units are more effective."

Can you give an example of a mix that will work?

Kheldara: "If you wanted 1 territory to be well defended. You will need 2-3 units of your strongest factional units. That means level 8+ fitted for speed. Then add heavy Cav. A good defense must be worked for, not merely fielding level 1s and commons. Remember a good raider will not have a problem they will merely be slowed down. They are still fighting the AI."

So Chariots/Gryph Riders/Gold Dragons for Light?

Kheldara: "Your strongest and fastest. The Gold Dragon will never do in any situation other then PvE. Gryph riders will work, and chariots as well. For Nature, its bear riders, treants and eagles."

What raiding bugs are the worst for raiders?

Kheldara: "From the offensive end for a raider, the biggest bug is that inability to detroy buildings. Plunder is one aspect, but because we cannot raze buildings the incentive drops drastically."

Tell us about Guild Wars and the 250 points system. I haven't heard about alot of current wars, are they fun, and are they well designed?

Kheldara: "The current Guild Wars system is horrible. They need a full revamp. They are boring and are NOT rewarding. A war can be over before you even log back in the next day. A single person can win a Guild War. The system is really bad right now. 2-3 successful raids and the war is over. The team aspect of it and contributing to win the war does not even exist."

Specific Raiding Questions, (that I know I personally don't know), but that I'd

like to talk about in my blog:

You have four wilderness territories, isn't that alot of troops to have garrisoned?

Kheldara: "The gain from defending four territories is quite substantial compared to having 1-2 very well defended territories. Yes the amount of troops it takes to defend 4 territories is quite high, but that is where your ability to use the trading system to gather cards comes into play. If you want to feel the benefit of 4 territories it must be well defended. And all of that must be earned."

If a garrison army (the defenders) is defeated in a raid, do troops die and have to get rezd with god favor?

Kheldara: "Currently, we believe it is currently bugged. In our experiences of raiding the troops return full strength. They do not die and need to be resurrected at the temple. That is the current advantage for the defender as again their losses are not as great again reflecting the incentive loss for the raider.

I know the Army Size can vary from 50 CP to 150 CP, how big is the cooresponding force?

Kheldara: "The defending force will depend on your current level. The defender can deploy up to 1000 cp of troops during the entire raid. But the ammount that is deployed depends on the amount of CP the raider chooses to deploy. That is the range from 50-150CP."

For new raiders, what settings do you recommend for raiding? 3min - 5 min, 50CP through 150CP.

Kheldara: "For a new raider, inforamtion is the key to success. That means espionage data, assessment, planning and deploying what is needed to succeed. Spend no less than 5 mins and deploy 150CP. The more deployed, the better your chances to succeed."

Any specific things you want to say about raiding that I missed asking?

Kheldara: "Yes. Raiding requires skill on unit control. Micromanagement. Any defense can be destroyed, any territory raided, as long as you can control the field of battle. Where is this experienced gained? Player vs Player PvP! Get on the field, play other players. You will learn how to defeat the enemy when underhanded. When attacking, you are underhanded. They territory defense will always be stronger, unless the enemy does not deply correctly or at all. Learning to act when at a disadvantage is experience gained from real players. So go play real players."

Any shoutouts you would like to make to any particular players?

Kheldara: "All hail the Einherjar, but fear Illian and his Crusaders. I shop at SagaUnits.com."

THANKS KHELDARA!

New Player Quest List

Welcome new players. I am one too. I was lucky enough to get Sauron to answer some questions for me from the Saga Forums, so I figured to pass them off here on the Blog.

What quest do people farm for peasants? - Slow as a Chersus Up a Hill (Level 7)

What quest do people farm for all general resources? - Mithril Mines (Level 26)

What quest do people farm for stone? - Captain Wham (Level 19)

What quest do people farm for lumber? - Lumber Shipment (Level 14)

What quest do people farm for gold? - Haunted Hills (Level 17) - Twelve Trials: Part 1 (Level 30) - Gold Thieves (Level 17) - Labor Camp Liberation also drops a ton of gold, but takes time to beat. (Level 23)

What quest do people farm to level ground troops? - Stalling Tactics (Level 10) - Angor's Arms (Level 12) - Labor Camp Liberation. (Level 23)

What quest do people farm to level air troops? - Hunka Hunka Burnin Love (Level 18.) - Temple Defilers (Level 20) - Warlords of the East (Level 26)

What quest do people farm to level archers? - Hijacked! (Level 10) - Ashes to Ashes (Level 11) - Firebirds (Level 12)

What quest do people farm to get general experience? - Stalling Tactics (Level 10) - Angor's Arms (Level 12) - Labor Camp Liberation (Level 23)

What quest do people farm for leveling friends? - Mithril Mines (Level 26) - Warlords of the East (Level 26) - Age of Kynan (Level 35) - Hunka Hunka Burnin Love (Level 18.) - Stalling Tactics (Level 10) - Angor's Arms (Level 12) - Labor Camp Liberation (Level 23)

What quest do people farm for items? - Mithril Mines (Level 26) - Warlords of the East (Level 26) - Age of Kynan (Level 35) - Frigid North (Level 20) - Temple Defilers (Level 20) - Hunka Hunka Burnin Love (Level 18.) - Sacred Statue (Level 24) - Some more high level quests.