Saga Thoughts

No news is like a punch in the face

2010-10-05T17:05:00.000-07:00

Still nothing to report on the Saga front.

Darktide Beta over while Silverlode gets bought out...

2010-09-11T23:52:00.000-07:00

So while I wait for more Beta content, I bring you a girl playing Wii.

Beta level cap = 25? Tried out Ignite Destroyer Skill

2010-08-23T21:46:00.000-07:00

So I leveled to 22 today. I am in the final zone now, it looks like enemies cap out at about 25 or so.

Not a lot of loot to capture, no new ships since 18.

I leveled to get the "Ignite" skill. This is a 75 point talent near the bottom of the Destroyer line. It really didn't seem to be working well. Like "Charge" it does not have the range of my long range cannons, and it didn't seem to tick if I shot it by itself. It links I believe to your crew damage, which on my ship I run alot of short range crew, so possibly this is the reason.

Overall I think the talents and spells need some work, they just don't seem to be better then the passive bonus like cannon recharge.

Overall I think this phase of beta is done for me. I like the game, but not a lot left to do in the end-game for Gos.

I will watch the patch notes, as new stuff gets added I will keep writing, but for now, back to other mmo games.

Darktide: PVP Zone added to Open Beta

2010-08-18T09:12:00.001-07:00

So I take a couple days off, and the developers add PVP to the Beta servers.

It takes me almost 10 minutes to sail from the 20-25 zone to this PVP area.

I guess the PVP area spawns free loot in the middle of the zone. (Who doesn't like free loot.)

As you can see below, its a very red zone. There isn't anything on the map except a supply hut on the bottom left.

So after exploring the ruins, and sailing around it looks like they have removed all free loot (chests/barrels), thus the reason why the zone is completely empty.

Sadly the duration of the excitement in the PVP zone didn't last but August 13th to the 16th.

Maybe the next patch will put in some more PVP.

Darktide Tricks for the early levels: Part 5

2010-08-10T11:36:00.001-07:00

Content past 29 seems a little weak. At 20 I'm basically running out of zones soon. Still grinding along with my level 19 class ship.
I went the Destroyer route this beta, and it seems to have good damage against specifically flying dragons that have to close to attack. I can eat those for almost no armor loss.
It's funny I stopped using my spells for normal attack rotation, mostly just hold them back unless I get jumped by several enemy at once.
Short range crew seem especially powerful. I loaded 50% 50% medium/close. It seems to do the trick.
Long range cannons I only put on one side of my hull. Mostly because its hella hard to get good long or short range guns. Mostly mediums are the easiest to get.

Darktide Tricks for the early levels: Part 4

2010-08-07T22:29:00.001-07:00

Only one trick today, (its a weekend).

When you hit 19 you will get your new class based ship. This ship is loaded with more cannon slots, and if you skimp you will hit a wall where you damage is pretty lacking.

One trick with "Saga Credits" is this 19 credit cannon. The Blue version is 150 credits/cannon, the purple 310/cannon, yet the green is 19.

Seems to be a hella good deal for grinding experience.

Darktide Tricks for the early levels: Part 3

2010-08-07T01:07:00.000-07:00

A couple more tricks:

Whats the best experience? SPEED. Kill enemy that doesn't hurt you too bad in vast quantity. There is an experience cap for each level. At 15 I was able to kill level 19 mobs while buffed. However, the experience for 19s was the same as 17s + or - a 5% or so.

I was pretty much able to level 15-19 killing level 16-17 enemies.

You get your class ship at 19, but you get enough points to use it at 15. This lets you stack points into another line if you like. I personally got the commander heal completely unlocked. Not a great heal, but helpful.

The Destroyer ship at 19 is kinda lackluster. I really don't know which is the best class to play yet. I have almost the entire Destroyer tree opened, and its seems kinda less useful. I mostly fight at medium range, so it's hard to figure out what is the best class to run in the release game.

100 wood is the number to save for to get the ship at 19. It's actually pretty easy, I had 200.

Everytime you get a BLUE or PURPLE drop, thats a nice crew member, or a decent cannon. I love seeing those drop. By level 19, I had only seen two purples and about 20 blues. However, as I don't mind buying "Saga Credits" I never had a lot of trouble upgrading my ship without those drops. I think for people playing for free, you will definitely need to farm a lot for your upgrades. At 19, I still had a lot of level 7 and 9 cannons and crew on my ship. Theres a HUGE damage upgrade between 19 cannons and 9 cannons. Almost 3 times damage.

Some crew are just plain better then their alternatives. Orc Snipers seem to have the better stats from when I went to the merchant isles. I assume most of the crew are placeholders now, after all its beta right.

Darktide Tricks for the early levels: Part 2

2010-08-05T18:52:00.001-07:00

Even more tricks:

You replace cannons a lot. Sometimes you need the inventory space, and you wonder if you should sell the old cannons to the vendor. Don't. Store them on an old ship in your captain's log for free space. This also works for crew that you don't need.

Most of the white cannons and crew are tradeable to friends. Save them, your friends will love the few gear.

You can't trade "soulbound" units. Store them instead on your extra ships.

Docks are buggy in terms of getting stuck. Stay away from the lumber while trading to get from being annoyed.

If you don't spend skill points on other lines, you can have your first "class" ship at 15. Sadly, it looks like the first ship is buyable at 19.

Anyone want to see what a "Dragon ship" looks like?

Darktide Tricks for the early levels:

2010-08-04T23:28:00.001-07:00

Here are some of the tricks I've learned that might help new players:

Run 1 long range gun on each side of your boat. Even though it isn't the best damage, it sure is nice to pull ships from longer range, so to avoid getting multiple red attackers on you at once.
The early crew are not too different from each other. Pick any medium range crew member, but don't forget to upgrade them as better crew is available.
If you have "Saga Credits" to burn, the buffs are the best cheapest way to improve your ship. 30% attack speed, double experience and 40% movement makes the game much easier at early levels. I honestly never let those buffs go down.
Medium range cannons are the overall best at early levels. Why? Because there are no long range crew. You have to get into medium crew range at the minimum to get them to fire. Most enemies at the low level fire mostly in the medium range.
If you want a cool looking crew member, get the "Wight". These birdmen fly around the top of your ship and crossbow the enemy. Awesome.
Don't sell "quest" items. Seriously, you will regret it. You don't need gold, you need quest items...
Once you leave newby cove, you will find your treasure maps might not be in the first zone. Zoom out and look around.

For more Tricks and Thoughts:

Part 2 - http://sagathoughts.blogspot.com/2010/08/darktide-tricks-for-early-levels-part-2.html
Part 3 - http://sagathoughts.blogspot.com/2010/08/darktide-tricks-for-early-levels-part-3.html
Part 4 - http://sagathoughts.blogspot.com/2010/08/darktide-tricks-for-early-levels-part-4.html
Part 5 - http://sagathoughts.blogspot.com/2010/08/darktide-thoughts-content-past-29.html

Keep watching the blog for Part 4 and on versions of this guide. Stay tuned...

Darktide Thoughts? It's still Saga to me...

2010-08-04T22:05:00.000-07:00

So I've been playing the Open Beta of Darktide, and have a couple thoughts.

Well I figure, this is a Saga game, so I'm keeping it Sagathoughts, and so be it.

I knew it all along. Video Gamers are the best employees

2010-07-21T00:21:00.000-07:00

http://www.forbes.com/2010/07/19/career-leadership-strategy-technology-videogames.html

But there is a growing school of thought
that says game-playing in moderation, and in your free
time, can make you more successful in your career.

We're finding that the younger people coming into the
teams who have had experience playing online games are
the highest-level performers because they are constantly
motivated to seek out the next challenge and grab on to
performance metrics

Ebon Guards? Signup for Darktide?

2010-07-05T19:48:00.001-07:00

http://playdarktide.com

So if you are like me, and are still waiting for your Refer a Friend Ebon Guards, and would like another shot at them: Signup for Beta on Captains of Darktide.

In game we've seen a couple people that are now looking to trade these rare Ebon Guards, so it might make sense to check this out.

Cheatsheet to 35 : The fastest way to level to 35 in Saga

2010-06-13T12:13:00.000-07:00

So my first army in 2008 was Light. I leveled 1-22 then stalled.

I know alot of people stall out, so if you are "rich" and want to know the ABSOLUTE best way to level the fastest in Saga, here's the cheatsheet.

Step 1: Pick any Army you like.

All of them are equally fast to level if you follow the rules. If you want to get the best, then pick War or Machine. Both of those armies have specific factional troops that make killing flying mobs easiest. This makes 27-35 faster.

Step 2: Buy Wargs

Honestly I could finish the guide with that statement. I decided to help my friend power through the 20s on his Magic army with my 35 Undead Army. I was opening Blasted Lands, and tanking while he power leveled killing Drakes. It wasn't bad, but I thought I could do better. I mailed him 36 Wargs, created 3 units, added tanks (Daemons), and proceeded to crush every mission with those Wargs. The wargs are so perfect for leveling they basically do your work for you.

Problem with Wargs? You basically have to open Rogue Factional packs to get them. $4 per pack, you need 36 Wargs. Horribly expensive. Sure I have them, like many others, but god, what a horrible price to play this game.

Step 3: Ignore the Economysim

One thing alot of players get all caught up in, is the economy simulation of this game.

IGNORE THE DAMN ECONOMY-SIM. Jesus, don't farm lumber raid for 10 days to build out your wooden walls, just level up. If you level, you can farm end game quests for 3-5k per quest, and buy the damn lumber if you want a pretty castle. If you want to play castle builder, I can show you several good free Ipod games to play.

Yes, yes, I know you want to open up your territories and get free stuff, but seriously, don't be that guy. Ignore the damn Economy (for now), and focus on getting to 27 asap.

Step 4: Early Levels - Win Trade

If you are at a point where you need more levels on your troops, then fight yourself on two accounts. If you have concerns about the legality of this: http://sagathoughts.blogspot.com/2008/07/rating-means-nothing-pvp-for-fun.html (The linked article lists several posts from the developers that speak to what you can do with your accounts. )

Win trading is helpful. Because you can limit the damage of your new army by moving the troops around, you can level troops that level very slowly. For example, any melee troop.

There are many troops that you would love to use, but you only have a level 2, instead of a level 7. Well, just win trade yourself.

Step 5: Levels 1-20, Win Trade a high level army. (Or level quests).

Fight yourself, if you are killing high level troops, you can get level 1-10 in about 10 fights. If you don't have a high level 2nd army, fight a friend where they let you experience off them. If you don't have a friend, do quests. Low levels go by quickly.

Step 6: Level 20-27: Trial of the Gods quest.

This is a horribly annoying quest. Without Wargs and a normal 20ish army, I can beat it occasionally. With Wargs, you roll it everytime. Why do it? Because the waves are good experience, and doing this quest badly 1 time is faster then doing almost any other quest and winning.

Step 7: 27-35 Blasted Lands. Experience/Loot Farming.

This has been talked about in this blog. Blasted Lands makes solo leveling so fast, you shoot through these levels. Your Army should be 3 Warg packs, 2-3 human archer packs, and "Let Fly" spells. Start it with a heavy cav to run the stairs, or an Undead Knight, then flee him after the "Drakes are coming" step. 200k experience per run, 35 should come quickly.

Army Composition: Levels 1-35

Wargs X 3
Heavy Cav X 2
Human Archers X 3
Drakes X 2
Ice Drakes X 3
Rogue Hero X 1
Let Fly X 3

New fun Fact of this game is you don't really need to play with factional troops anymore. I personally only field Daemons when leveling Magic, and Humongous when leveling Undead.

Best tanking and damaging Armor

2010-06-08T00:29:00.001-07:00

Looking over a couple days farming of items, I've been trying to figure out the new Items lottery design.

So far, these are my two favorite prefix/suffixs at this point for Plate:

For Damaging Troops, (ie glass dps cannons.):

"Martyr / of Ultimate Speed"

This Prefix scales up to 90% damage with a higher level item

The negatives are the following:

Bad DR - its glass
Morale - who cares
Light HP penalty. who cares, it's glass
Decent Movement bonus
Light ATR penatly. Not a problem if the weapon makes up for it.

For Tanking style Melee Troops:

"Raider's / of Lion's Pride"

This item has 3 good stats + stamina
I really like HP bonus on tanks. I've seen 11,000 hp tank units, and that really helps.
Speed is important for melee troops, more time on target.

Quest: Mithril Mines, Melee Troop Leveling and Strategies

2010-06-06T13:10:00.000-07:00

So since I've been back, I've been running lots of leveling quests.

One quest I did alot back in the day was Mithril Mines. Back in 2008 I did this quest differently. I would kill all the archers, then bug out all the mobs by sticking one of my units in a spot that would cause a pathing bug for all the mobs. This would get them all grouped up, then I would Fireball them down. As the fireball had a 1 minute refresh time, (unlike now, where you use it and its gone), I could rotate two sets of Fireballs to kill the mobs with no danger.

I wroteup the quest back in 2008 if you want to see even more info on it: http://sagathoughts.blogspot.com/2008/07/who-loves-mithril-mines-everyone.html

So today's post is to talk about the differences, and why this quest is still excellent for leveling.

First of all this is not the experience farm the "Blasted Lands" quest is. Blasted is much better for leveling your Army from 27-35.
The problem with Blasted Lands, is it doesn't do a good job of leveling all your troops to troop level 10. It is best to run with Human Archers, or any troop that kills Drake easily.
If you need to level non-ranged troops, Mithril is better.
Blasted Lands runs faster, Mithril has a pause in the middle between waves, so if you are loot farming, Blasted is better

Strategies for Mithril Mines:

First of all, make sure you farm Blasted Lands first to get a good set of items for your troops in Mithril Mines. I personally like DR, hitpoints, movement for my melee that I level in Mithril Mines. This seems to make them survive long enough to get good experience.
I like to run mostly Melee troops in Mithril. Then, I stick them in Ranged Defense formation, and don't change that the entire fight. (Ranged of course increases their defense vs ranged attackers and gives a speed bonus, but penalizes them vs melee mobs.)
I hand select the target, and make all my units focus fire. Many of the mobs in Mithril have need 8000 hitpoints, so if you let your 400dps units attack them individually, it will take 20 secs to kill each unit, and you will get swamped.
The kill order is Melee troops, then ranged. Because you are running around in ranged Defense, the ranged archers shooting you are not doing very good damage. Kill those melee troops, they can hurt you the most. Fire your use abilities anytime you get to a pack of melee to quickly own them.

Overall this troop experience isn't great, but you end up leveling 6 troops at once. This is useful for getting your army to 10. In my last army, I ended up with alot of certain troops at 10, and alot at 5. I would rather take longer, and have a better balanced army at the end.

Quest: Blasted Lands - drakes and loot everywhere

2010-06-04T00:56:00.001-07:00

So since I've been back, I've had numerous people tell me that the new loot farming quest is Blasted Lands.

I've run this quest from Army level 27-30, I have to admit, this is a great TV quest. Most of the time my army fights by itself, then I loot at the end.

A couple tricks I found out:

Human Archers
Let Fly X 3
For starting the mission, a heavy cav unit with movement items. After it starts it, just flee the unit.
To start the mission, just run up the hill. Its a bad pathing nightmare.

Rewards:

200,000 experience
around 3000 gold
4-6 items, all end game.

Quest: Trial of the Gods - Good item farming and leveling 25-30

2010-06-01T10:42:00.001-07:00

Trial of the Gods is the newest quest. It starts out as a way to get the new Rogue Hero Olvir Jezrek.

However, after you get the hero, the quest randomizes a map with different armies to fight, and different item loot to gain. This quest is very useful for folks leveling in what I believe is the most hard levels to finish; ie 25-30.

Overview at the "Gold" level:

At Gold this quest gives about 1100 gold and 80,000 experience.
The troops you fight are about level 8.
I was consistently beating this at level 22+
Sometimes the map spawns as all flyers, so be ready to counterspawn your drakes and ice drakes.
They come in from 3 directions, so you need about 3 tanks to hold them.
The CP cap allows for about 6 troops. Sometimes they spawn buildings you can grab for more CP.
Don't spawn your army until you know what you are fighting. I would prespawn an archer troop, then hold the rest until I see the matchup.
Normally my setup was 3 archer troops in the middle, then tanks in three directions.
If it gets out of control, just try to hold on, often it would end before I got overwhelmed.

In terms of comparison with other great exp quests like Mithril Mines, its right up there in terms of rewards. The best thing is the loot is USEABLE at the level you are farming this quest, so it might now be end-game, but it will make your last ten - fifteen levels way easier

From my latest run:

Loot distribution changes everytime, but this is a sample

This is the number of troops that spawn, as you can tell its around 20ish.

Territories and Free Super Cards:

2010-05-30T15:35:00.001-07:00

So I was searching my blog for answers from back in the day. I forgot how to open up the territories on my new undead army. Well, it turns out I never posted the how/to on this, so here's the answers if you have the same question as a new, or returning player:

Territories:

Open at 6,13,17,20 level. You get only four total, even though your interface will show 8. (Room for future growth.)

The 17th level territory requires you finishing a certain number of quests. 20 Quests finished at the Silver level, with the color of gold. You don't have to beat them at the gold level, just the silver level.

Free Super Cards:

If you get high enough to open these up, you get a number of free cards:

- Rogue Olvir Jezrek (hero): Seriously good overpowered hero card. The 15% AR bonus is amazing for doign quests. He also has sick base stats for tanking. Wait, there's more... He grows everytime you use his ability. Grows HUGE. lol

- Ice Drake: Excellent as a Flyer tank. Just excellent for many missions. Requires 25,000 food to open.

- Armored Behemoth. Great for missions where you hit alot of Machine armies to fight. Requires 15,000 gold to open.

Saga could learn alot from Free Apple Ipod games

2010-05-30T13:53:00.000-07:00

So I tried the Silverlode Ipod free game, "Saga Catapult". - http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/saga-catapult/id319957016?mt=8

It kinda lead me down the road, that Saga the MMORTS should learn lessons from the Ipod market successes:

Give away ALOT for free, to get the players addicted.
MICRO-TRANACTIONS are key. Get them buying
Make sure you have a BIG playerbase of free players. Without them, you can buildup enough player mass.
Get the economy solid so the players are creating addiction.

Saga right now makes it too hard for the free player.

I think Silverlode should 10X the gold drops. Let the players build up giant armies of bought units.

Also 2X or 5X the experience gains. Why should it take a month to level 1-35 when in reality, most players when they cap out, buy a NEW ARMY to rollup.

Just my 2 cents.

Quest: Red Dragon Roost - trivialized by new units.

2010-05-29T14:23:00.001-07:00

So this mission starts at level 17, so the gold mission is something like level 27. Always a hard mission in the past, as a clump of 10 Red Dragons would kick my ass solo.

Now using the new Ice Drakes (50% Attack rating, 125% Defense rating, 25% damage vs flyers) and Drakes (+50% Attack rating, Defence rating, and 100% damage vs "special" units) wow this becomes a farm quest.

Sadly not as profitable as Mithril Mines, but still pretty fun to do.

My setup the first time I beat it on gold:

- 2 troops of 8 Drakes (starting level was around 3)
- 2 troops of 1 Ice Drakes (starting level war around 3)
- 2 troops of 2 Rogue Giant Redeemer (healer for between rounds, starting level 2)
- 2 sets of the 5 stack spell "Horror" which debuffs and area by 90% Attack rating. (Use any debuff in this slot.)
- 1 set of the spell "Regeneration" which was an area heal (use any heal you like)

Mission Step:

- First Wave 5 or so Dragons, kill easy. Pop a Redeemer at the break, and heal up.
- Second Wave 10 or so Dragons, kite them until they bunch up, cast the debuff spell. Pop a Redeemer at the break and heal up.
- Third Wave 20+ Dragons plus occasionally other archers. A little more kiting here to keep the other archers from killing the Drake tanks. Depending on the group that is spawned I would either Fireball them down, or kill them with a unit. Debuff the Dragons as before then kill them quickly.
- Profit.

Rogue Warg Riders - Is this the new Overpowered Unit?

2010-05-28T19:10:00.000-07:00

So Rogue Warg Riders might be the new PvP chase card.

Ranged
Can trigger the use ability to charge, or to tank something, tower, unit etc.
Good for reacting vs a unit.
Good stats

For PvE this troop unit is good too. Not many ranged units can survive an accidental attack as well as the Wargs.

Alot of people are looking for these to finish their sets.

If you do buy boosters, make sure you pick up the "Rogue Faction Packs". Every other booster, except maybe a free one, is much less useful.

Additionally, the card distribution in the Rogue packs is excellent. It seems to have many times better cards in it as well as the Rogue units.

Heading back to the Warg. Is it a required card if you prefer PvE? No, no, no. There are better cards. Unlike the Redeemer, which I feel is REQUIRED for easymode PvE.

Use it as a chase card to grab units you like.

So I'm back...

2010-05-27T23:48:00.000-07:00

Logged in Saga yesterday on my two accounts.

I'm not going to say it was my first time back since I stopped writing this daily blog. I've been back before, but this is the first time I really felt like playing.

If you as a reader read back some of the history on tis blog, you will find that I bought a stack load of undead factional boosters before they released that army. Strangely now playing, I find that the undead have a lot of PVE promise now, similar to machine.

If you add the new rogue troops to the undead army, it really makes leveling fun. I leveled my undead army to 20 without a lot of the normal nonsense, I still have my 35 nature army, but undead seem better.

Anyhow, why am I writing again?

I never really stopped. I wrote a wow blog for awhile on Gameriot. I write a paintball blog here on blogspot. Sorry saga thoughts just didn't hold me after 120+ posts.

What do I want to do here?

Well, I think there's a lot of metagame still left to do in the PVE side of the game. As much as I thought pvp would be golden here, honestly saga is a great relaxing persistent pve daily game.

I plan, to write more about pve, maximizing and minimizing to setup the most rewarding pve process. Whether I'm successful, we will see, but hopefully I will at least entertain my number one reader - ed - who still subscribed to a dead blog for two years.

If you play Warhammer Online

2008-09-12T14:48:00.000-07:00

Look for me on Server Name: Red Eye Mountain on the US servers.

My characters will be named Gos something.

Short Break for updates

2008-08-30T15:01:00.000-07:00

I case you've been wondering, I'm taking a break from daily updates.

Playing other games at the moment.

I'll resume when I get more time for Saga.

I wonder if they fixed the bugs...

2008-08-28T19:57:00.000-07:00

"• Final Tournament Test Thursday • 27 August 2008 Tournaments are almost ready but we need your help. Tomorrow Thursday August 28th between Noon and 4PM EST, the SAGA staff will be on the live servers playing in tournaments. Please join us in playing as many tournament games as you can. We want to have at least 5 tournaments running simultaneously. In order for this to work, we need everyone joining the tournaments to play at least 1 game. Please do NOT leave if you didn’t get good troops. If you want to concede, please do so after entering a game. There may be a little something for those who do well in tournaments, and coal in your stocking if you enter tournaments then drop before your first game, and by coal we mean ineligibility for any cool future promotions we have planned." - https://www.playsaga.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7514

Finally I can play paid tourneys and open those packs I've been saving.

Market Price in Gold/Mats for Cards:

2008-08-27T11:54:00.000-07:00

http://www.sagatraders.com/marketguide/

So Sagatraders has given the trade list.

This brings the point of WTH is Silverlode thinking when they made the market so poorly. Why not allow big gold trades for units, why limit us?

Why not build a better search engine.

Anyway, as a sample, here is the undead list. Overall its a pretty good list.

If you can get to Level 35 you can farm a TON of gold. Good way to play for free imo. Get to 35 then start collecting your army.

Items might give flying?

2008-08-26T11:10:00.001-07:00

I'd love to see a flying deathbringer...

Getting Peasants for your Undead Army

2008-08-25T11:55:00.001-07:00

So on my Order Army I did kill the beast.

It works really well.

Sadly on my Undead army my peasants aren't reproducting as well as I like, and I have to go steal some from the game.

Slow as a Chersus up a Hill seems to be the one that Brotherhood people use.

It's pretty lame as slow, but if you are looking for more workers, they do live here.

What good are the new Deathbringer unit?

2008-08-24T12:32:00.000-07:00

So looking at the deathbringer, it's hard to figure out his appeal.

Well, honestly, this is an excellent PvP unit for undead.

It's best feature is that it has the damage and range to kill 6CP units, which are very common in PvP. Eagle, Gryphons, Ravens, Treants, Elementals, etc etc, this units damage is targetted at putting the most dps on a unit with alot of hitpoints.

It has all of the stats that matter for a good 6CP killer. Speed - Range - attack speed - and a snare.

It fires two shots per attack, one followed quickly by the second. This allow microkiting.

It is fast with a very decent stamina pool, a big hitpoint pool and a 31 DR.

The only disadvantages are the low morale, and the fact that they are ranged and machines.

Here is a videa with a level 2 Deathbringer vs a level 10 Treant pack. The Treant was winning so I had to move it around so you get the idea of the damage.

Battle Server problems since the patch...

2008-08-24T12:23:00.001-07:00

If you've been since the undead patch, you will undoubtably realize that the Saga "WAR" screen is not working that well. You might be fine for an hour, then go into a 20min period where you can't connect.

This affects:

Join tourneys
Starting Quests
PvP fights

So pretty much everything except tooling around you nation screen.

If you try and try again, and again, you might get in, but your 70 attempts is probably screwing up other players.

It's 'probably' the tournaments that are doing it, but we haven't seen much from the developers.

Big boy got changed!

2008-08-23T11:08:00.001-07:00

Near double the hitpoints and now he's a sexy 6 CP unit.

People are loving the humongoblin.

I have to admit, he makes questing very easy.

I have to do a shoutout to my new Undead Guild, and my two members - Dispater and Forsaken Dread. Our combined level is 37! Thats end game lol. - Still recruiting more. If you like Undead, its the place to be.

Undead Territory Defense will be staffed by...

2008-08-22T14:34:00.000-07:00

We all got like 10 of them :)

If you are rolling a NEW UNDEAD army, make sure to send me a tell about the all UNDEAD GUILD.

Only requirement to join is that you are rolling undead...

You must have lots of Humongous :)

66 Undead Factional Packs, what I got...

2008-08-22T13:22:00.000-07:00

Forsaken Warrior 78 - 3 Troops
Undead Reaper 25 - 2 Troops
Undead Pikeman 19 - 1 Troop
Undead Archer 25 - 2 Troops
Undead Raider 26 - 2 Troops
Forsaken Rider 25 - 2 Troops
Undead Arbalister 19 - 1 Troop
Death Knight 13 - 1 Troops
Diabolist 14 - 3.5 Troops
Necromancer 10 - 2.5 Troops
Lich 5 - 5 Troops
Wight 12 - 3 Troops
Forsaken Dragon 8 - 8 Troops
Humongous 10 - 10 Troops
Abomination 6 - 6 Troops
Bone Wagon 10 - 2.5 Troops
Death Bringer 7 - 7 Troops

Visions of Death 12
Earth Fire 6
Horror 14
Fell Trance 8
Regeneration 1

Wow, alot more of the big CP troops then the low CP.

I expect sagaunits and sagatraders to drop their prices some this initial run.

Make sure you remember the sagathoughts discount on the right if you are buying any units. -- >

INSANE undead packs...

2008-08-22T13:12:00.001-07:00

So Undead are out! WIN

But seriously, these Undead faction packs are amazing.

Not yet...

2008-08-22T09:33:00.001-07:00

Undead Release on Friday

2008-08-20T23:42:00.001-07:00

"The day has finally come. We’re bringing out the dead on Friday August 22nd. After the servers come back up from the August 22nd patch the undead will be available as a playable race. The Undead Faction boosters currently available as preorder items on the saga store will be removed prior to the patch. The Undead Faction boosters contain undead in much greater quantities than regular packs will after Friday, so if your planning on building an Undead city you may want to pick up a few" - Source https://www.playsaga.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7393

Fixing the inbalance between attacking and defending.

2008-08-20T15:46:00.000-07:00

The problem in tournaments is that the attacker is at a disadvantage.

You don't control a respawn point, so if the defender beats you, you basically are in big trouble.

My suggestions is to have a neutral keep in the middle of the board that an attacker can capture to provide a respawn point.

This would help tournament games become more fun, as currently there is alot of running away instead of attacking.

A lot of Tournament bugs still plaguing the system

2008-08-19T12:00:00.000-07:00

Illian posted a good post on Tourney bugs:

https://www.playsaga.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7375

"1. Point system is horrible. Right now its whoever can kill the ENTIRE enemy
unit. - 5 pts per killing entire enemy unit (counts if the enemy retreats his
unit). However, having a healing unit or garrisionning will keep you from losing
the negative five points and this AGAIN favors the defender. I like to attack in
tournaments but right now.. the biggest advantage is to the defender in points,
dam from towers, and WAYY closer deployment zone. The point system needs to be
addressed greatly especially with how it calculates. For one, killing an entire
unit takes 5 poitns but a healing unit healing an entire can return anywherefrom
5-25 pts! The poitn system needs a major overhaul.

2. Healing bug still
there. They said this was fixed.. yea right.. it was like they said it as fixed
to shut us up because NOTHING about healing = massive point gain even after full
health units was not even addressed/fixed. Basically.. if the point system is
only focusing on units killed.. you just left it to whoever has the healer
becomes the advantaged defende that is most likely to win. Id rather had 3
faction units with a healer instead one with 8 faction units. And id probably
win...

3. The forfeit bug is still there despite me and my guildies
attempt at reporting it SEVERAL times. Then tournaments come back up with the
announcement that Saga believes it is bug free... there hasn even been any real
FIXES!!! The forfeit bug happens due to the fact that there is a leak in the
structure. If u forfeit or someone else does.. there is a hole where u can join
otehr tournaments u already forfeited and that battle can overlap the current
one. This can cause big problems for example. I forfeited my first tourney
today.. i made it ot the final on my second tournament and my enemy was suppose
to be pacfist. However, somehow i played this guy naed xenophobe (dunno if he
was from another match or my old one), but i beat him and it counted as my final
match up! i didnt even play pacifist and it said i beat him. "

This happened to me a couple times with the forfeit. I didn't like my cards after a win, so I forfeit, then it showed 3 tourney games up for me.

Also defending is VERY much stronger then attacking. I never attack now, it's game over if I lose without getting a tower.

Tournaments back up, but you can't play undead...

2008-08-18T11:37:00.000-07:00

Free tourneys are back running, but the undead faction is not playable. There was a past build where you could play undead.

Everything looks pretty smooth now.

Give it a try if you haven't played alot of tourneys.

Lich? How to use it?

2008-08-17T13:25:00.000-07:00

So looking at the Lich the one thing that struck me funny is that I didn't notice the first time that the Lich has a 60 yard range...

This is pretty big for a card with an ability like this. You can definitely "microkite" this guy.

With two of them, and a bunch of snaring archers like these two below:

You can pretty much microkite much of the opposing army.

Poison Bolt - Fear - Plaque Shot - Fear you should have broken the opposing army morale.

Add in the Raider or Archer instead if you prefer.

Your AR on your troops is junk, as is your damage:

According to Lifeinfusion's DPS chart you best DPS bet is the Undead Archer.

http://files.filefront.com/currentsaga+cardsxls/;11518948;/fileinfo.html

However, I often like to control my troops in a pile at once. If you are like me, then you'd want to stack two Lichs and Three Death Bringers.

All have 9 Speed, and will move at the same rate.

This is a pretty good 5 unit army. I feel bad for anyone that has to fight 2 Lichs and 3 bringers.

With 100 Stamina and 5 snares you can kite for a LONG time. Especially in Tourneys.

Undead Full list

2008-08-16T13:10:00.001-07:00

Ok we knew Abom would be amazing, but this is even better. 31 DR? 8 Speed, 29 AR? Chase card.

Undead Arbalister is kinda squishy. I was expecting a 80+ range, and we end up with 60...

Undead Archer is a 2CP unit. 23 AR 25 DR, kinda weak, but the snare makes up for everything. 65 yard range means this is actually usable. Undead has a serious range issue when 65 is the longest they can shoot. What no muscles on zombies?

Death bringer has a placeholder graphic, but overall its a massive card. 31 DR and 9 speed? Its a permasnare.

Diabolist is what I assumed it would be. A nuke like a fire elemental. 7 speed is good enough, but overall this unit is pretty much PvE.

Creeping Dread is the first spell of the five. 25 Godfavor snare, but only 25% snaring per card. With a stack of 4 cards we will see what it can do. Long duration, good for tourneys.

Earth Fire is spell #2. Damage over time, decent. Costly GF price.

Forsaken Dragon is a beast. 35 DR makes it impossible to hit with many archer units when buffed. These will rule the skys.

Horror is spell #3. Nice debuff, cheap and long duration.

Humongous is still the beast we thought it would be. 31DR is better than I expected, but 9 speed is pretty slow for a speedy unit. HP is low, if you can hit this, it will die. I really like the Aboms more.

Undead Knight has a 30 DR. This is massive for capping towers. 8 speed, but overall a solid unit.

Lich is like Humongous. If you get on him, he dies. Large radius fear though, 25 radius is very big.

Necro has a large radius heal too. I like how this will work. Hard to say if they can take a pounding. 24 base DR is low.

Pikeman are as squishy as human archers. I definitely like them for early tourneys though.

Raiders are a weird look at anti ranged. I hope they work out, but I can't tell from the stats.

Reapers were one of my early favs. I like 9 speed infantry, very useful for my playstyle. And 27 DR is enough to make them useable as a 2 CP unit.

Riders are great tourney cards. I will love using these.

Fell Trace is a stun. We love stuns for PvP. Funny to see the undead get one.

Visions is a castable Fear. Seems a little low, probably only dropping 70 morale. But combined with your Lich and warriors... Very combo intensive.

Bone Wagon is a chase card. Nothing but awesomeness here.

Finally we rap up with our third chase card. Wight is so awesome, its hard to find anything to complain about. 31 DR is massive on a flyer.

You can Play all 5 Nations at once...

2008-08-16T13:04:00.000-07:00

"Explanation of new ticking system:
This new system has been implemented to allow you to PLAY ALL 5 OF YOUR NATIONS AT ONCE. (Yay!) In order to activate ticks for your nation though, you will have to actively do something with that nation in terms of battling.
Ways to get ticks:

Do a Quest. Successful completion of a quest will give you 12 hours worth of ticks. If you lose a quest, the same equation which determines whether Gods are Satisfied in PvP is brought into play. If you legitmately tried and lost, you will get your 12 hours of ticks.
Fight a PvP. If the Gods are Satisfied, you get 12 hours.
Raid or be raided. You get 12 hours.
Play a tournament. You get 12 hours per round. Basically, you get 12 hours of ticks per battling action. You can store up to a total of 7 days worth of ticks. If you are offline more than 3 days, you only get those 3 days worth of ticks all at once though. (An improvement on our current system where you only get 2 days worth.) " - Source the Patcher notes

I personally think this is hot. I was going to play my Undead army and retire my light, but now, I guess I will play all three.

Where's the Undead?

2008-08-15T12:51:00.000-07:00

A guy at my work told me if "he" had a blog, his post today would be, "Where the F is the Undead?"

So, in honor of Ed, that's all I will post today.

Saga wants your card ideas for main armies

2008-08-14T13:31:00.000-07:00

Saga wants CARD IDEAS again for when the undead army releases.

It looks like each normal army will get 4 troops. Help them fix the tournament scene by putting in more good pvp troops.

http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=21544022054&topic=5906

They are taking feedback in this facebook dicussion thread.

Tournament Strategies - Rushing

2008-08-13T09:57:00.000-07:00

I've played only about 40 tournament games so far, so I'm no expert.

However I have done 2 good games with Illian, and fought 38 other people.

Here are some tricks I would recommend keeping in mind doing tournaments.

People tend to get cocky when they draw expensive troops in their army. I fought a guy that had a treant/longbow, and rushed right at my keep in the beginning with 5 troops. I kited him through the center of my side of the board and spawned a heavy cav troop that I used to pretty much wipe his army.
YOU CAN'T LOSE THE OPENING BATTLE WITHOUT TAKING A SPAWN POINT. This is a big rule. If you rush the opponent you had better win the overall damage number or gain a watchtower to spawn reenforcements at. If you WIPE on your assault and you are down in terms of points, then you HAVE to assault again. You can't go defensive, the opponent can just wait for the clock to tick out.
Save your big cards until the first battle has begun. Rush with commons. If you are going to push, bring your commons. You will need those big cards later. Just be afraid of AE troops.

These troops are some of the BEST to use early:

PIKEMAN - Slaughters any cav that attack your troops
HEAVY INFANTRY - Kills annoying machines
HUMAN JAVELINEERS - Kills cav
HUMAN XBOWS - Long range makes opponent have to fight you
HUMAN ARCHERS - Kills the dragons that come to AE you.

If you rush, use as big a pack as you can, you need to be able to sit on your watchtower and cap it. Target opponent that can counter cap your watchtower first. Ignore the ranged. You may want to fient to one watchtower and send a light cav to another for a cap. Sending 4 infantry to a watchtower and 1 to another is a good strategy.

Once you TAKE the watchtower set your spawn point and GARRISON all your hurt troops and bring out your factional troops. The opponent will have been trying to kill your commons, and now have to deal with fresh factionals.

Now pound him with your factionals.

This is for you Ironforge!

2008-08-12T11:01:00.000-07:00

Official Answer to all of Ironforge's emails arrive:

"Upon close inspection, the Espionage system is difficult to exploit in any practical fashion. Any given nation can only sustain a few successful espionage attempts in one day. After each successful espionage attempt, the chances of an ensuing success against that nation decrease by 15%. This means that the standard number of possible successful espionages that cause damage is 4 per day. University upgrades and the size of the nation’s Police force can cause the exact number to fluctuate. After a point, it becomes impossible to successfully espionage a nation for the remainder of that day. Also, as further attempts become increasingly difficult, opposing nations will likely fail several times before their attempt succeeds, costing more in resources than the damage they will inflict. Players can increase the likelihood of thwarting espionage attempts by purchasing university upgrades and increasing the number of peasants assigned to be Police in Peasant Management.

Similarly with raiding, once a player has been raided and their buildings damaged, it becomes less and less effective to raid them (because they have nothing to steal!). Also, as wilderness territories are an opt-in system, players should carefully consider the advantages and consequences of moving their territories to wilderness.

After long and careful thought, we have decided that the system works well in its current state – though changes will continue to be made, particularly with regards to world conflict. Claims of “excessive” raiding and espionage will no longer be entertained when they are conducted in the normal spirit of the game. (Given that this is a combat game, “normal” spirit certainly involves destroying one another’s armies, cities, etc.) We will continue to monitor abusive behavior, and act on specific instances of bullying, harassment and poor sportsmanship (including retaliation against game moderators)."

Let me translate into English:

Don't whine about getting attacked either through Espionage or Raids.

Sure wish they would leave the free tourneys in game...

2008-08-12T01:54:00.000-07:00

Wouldn't it be nice if Silverlode would leave free tourneys in for awhile, or possibly offer them once a week? Paid tourneys M-Sa free on Sundays?

Tournaments fun continues

2008-08-11T21:01:00.000-07:00

I got my first win. Besides alot of crashs I did pretty well.

Had a couple EPIC battle I wish I could have fraps.

Sadly I had to play while at work.

Crashing to Desktop on 2/3s of my PCs:

2008-08-11T13:30:00.000-07:00

So since the last patch I've had a couple PCs I play on have an issue with launching Saga. It patches fine, but when the patcher hands off to the launcher, it dies.

Hopefully YOU don't have the same issue, but if you do, here is the post that helped me.

https://www.playsaga.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=39953#39953

I installed this, fixed everything.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloadS/thankyou.aspx?familyId=200b2fd9-ae1a-4a14-984d-389c36f85647&displayLang=en

Monday Tournaments 4PM EST

2008-08-11T10:14:00.000-07:00

"TOURNAMENT TEST MONDAY •
11 August 2008
Tournaments will be turned on for further testing at 4PM EST or shortly after a mini patch scheduled for today to put in some additional tournament code. We expect the event to last 4 hours but may take it down early to fix any problems that arise."

More free tourneys.

Basic Tournament Strategies

2008-08-10T11:45:00.000-07:00

After yesterdays test, it probably good to do a short article on how to WIN tournaments based on the new system.

Here are some of the strategies I liked for discussion:

3 Offense 2 Defense: This is one of the best generic opening strategies. You send your 3 Maraders to take the opponents watchtower, and you have 2 troops on defense to stop them from taking one of yours.
5 on Defense, run the clock out. This is a strategy used against me. It's VERY defensive, and personally I find it pretty boring to play against. Basically you run the clock out after beating back the assaulting force. The best way to beat this is to split your Offense into two forces. MAKE SURE you cap one of the watchtowers. After that you should be able to reenforce.
4 on Offense, ignore your backcourt. This is a good opening strategy with a decent spell. Send 4 troops to assault their KEEP, burn the spell then disband it. When the opponent comes to take your towers use the last troop to countercap their caps. Illian used this well with using a battering ram to stop caps.

More Tournament Tests

2008-08-10T11:44:00.000-07:00

"We are going to run another test on Monday or Tuesday, keep checking the news page for the announcement. This time the tournaments will be in trial mode. They will cost neither event tickets nor boosters to play, however no prizes will be given. Think of it as practice."

If you didn't get a chance to play, you should try it when it come up again. It's MASSIVE FUN.

Another Sample Tournament Video

2008-08-09T10:53:00.000-07:00

Here is another look at the Tournament Beta this weekend. I think we are done after this, basically there were three tournaments.

Illian won the first and Kheldara the second.

Although with the server crashing, they disquald my second match. (I'm the horse).

Sample Tournament Video - Short

2008-08-09T09:39:00.000-07:00

This shows the battle between me and Illian (he won) :)

Gives you an idea of the layout.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGTKe_as1rA - Direct Link

Tourneys up in 30min!

2008-08-09T08:25:00.000-07:00

So I confirmed that so far it looks like Tourneys are still opening for free in 30 mins.

Jump on for free EVENT TICKETS. (You still have to buy packs to play).

Free Tournaments tommorrow!

2008-08-08T15:50:00.000-07:00

https://www.playsaga.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7161

"To give players a sneak peek and help us find any remaining potential problems, we are going to upload the tournament code and run a limited public test tomorrow between the hours of Noon and 4PM EST.

During the public test, NO event tickets will be charged, however full prizes will still be awarded."

FREE Event Tickets.

Card Submissions - VOTE now!

2008-08-08T13:40:00.001-07:00

So the Card Idea Post is up, ready for voting:

Please go here and vote, let your opinion count.

The big front runner is our friend the NEUTRAL FLYER. Yes that is a great idea.

Sadly for us Nature players my ICE ELEMENTAL is the only submission. WTH Illian, you too busy to send in some ideas? Comeon, Nature is great, but we need more troops!

If you are a Nature player, please kick in a vote for Icey if you don't mind. Troops that Stun in PVP help Nature.

Anyway, heres the post to link to: https://www.playsaga.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7143

Still no patch. Probably next week.

2008-08-08T12:16:00.001-07:00

Tournament bugs still plaguing the new code I'm sure.

I will reemphazise this idea. You don't want to join a tournament and have it crash on you. Wasting $11 is no joke for players.

Give them time to keep working it.

I estimate from the Undead update that undead are probably about a month or so from being finished too, so something like September.

Undead Update

2008-08-07T17:32:00.000-07:00

Undead Development update • (Source: Saga News)
7 August 2008

"So, here are a few detailed notes that have been gathered from the various departments:
- All 17 of the new Undead Units have been fully modeled, textured and added into the game.
- 16 of those units have been fully animated (the Forsaken Rider's attack animation is currently being worked on).
- All of the Undead buildings have been modeled, textured and added into the game.
- The building animations (for when the buildings are destroyed) are also being worked on.
- The Undead battle interface has been completed and added into the game.
- The Undead nation interface is 90% complete (one small window remains and will be finished today).
- The icons for the nation interface are done, as are the icons for the Undead units and Spells. Only the spell icons remain to be added into the game engine.
- The character portraits for the Undead have been completed and added into the game.
- The music for the Undead has been completed and added into the game (check out the SAGA Facebook page for a preview!)
- The sounds for the Undead units have been recorded, edited and mastered. They are being added into the game today.
- The programmers have finished adding and modifying the game's code to add the Undead as a full-featured faction. They're now working on tournaments, along with some other new features.
- Monk spent many hours of his recent vacation running battles with the Undead, adjusting their stats and balancing their abilities.
- Only 19 particle effects remain for the Undead's physical attacks, specials, and spells. The Art department has been working on those, and inform me that each particle effect takes about 3 to 6 hours to create, adjust, and add into the game.
- The card art for the Undead units has been completed. The cards won't be added to the website until launch.
- The card art for the Undead spells is waiting for the final approval of the spells' particle effects.
- The quest writers have finished with the Undead tutorials and territory quests, and are currently finalizing which quests the Undead will be able to undertake. (On a side note, we got three new quest writers last week, and they're working on some brand new quest lines unlike anything SAGA has seen before. More on that another day.)
- The quest map (here's a new item) is being expanded. The art director has been working on this over the last week, and is nearly finished with it (To explain, the art director, amazing man that he is, drew the quest map by hand. He brought the original quest map into the office the other day, and it was amazing how much detail went into it - It's about 4 feet tall and almost twice as wide).
Lastly, the testers will be resuming full time testing of the Undead as soon as tournaments are finished (which, if all goes well, should be today or tomorrow). During testing some of the stats, abilities, spells, animation effects, and various other items will continue to be fine-tuned for release.
So there you have it, the run-down of Undead development. "

More updates

2008-08-07T10:48:00.001-07:00

Bugs in tournaments would be bad. If you have to pay 11$ for entry, then you lose due to a bug, you will be PISSED.

Give Silverlode time to fix bugs...

Update on Tournaments and the Patch

2008-08-07T09:58:00.000-07:00

So stay tuned to main Saga Site for more info.

Personally I don't mind waiting. I'd rather see a good product/experience.

No patch yet...

2008-08-06T09:31:00.000-07:00

So far patch hasn't hit, nor any notes.

However, they are moving the chat bar around in missions.

https://www.playsaga.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7126

New Patch is Tommorrow

2008-08-05T11:03:00.002-07:00

Patch tommorrow if all goes well.

Hopefully it contains alot of good stuff.

Warlords of the East as good loot as Mithril Mines?

2008-08-05T10:57:00.000-07:00

So someone on the boards is stating Warlords of the East is running for him/her as good loot as Mithril Mines.

I figured I haven't covered this quest that much, so here is a video, and a loot screen.

Overall I would say that Warlords is EASIER, although with a boss mob at the end that has a high hit rating, it seems slower to me then a fast Mithril. It does drop less loot, overall, but with the number of mobs, it seem decent enough.

If Mithril is causing you pain farming, then Warlords is definitely a good quest.

It also is good for leveling your flyers.

Moving your resources off to alts is a waste...

2008-08-04T09:11:00.000-07:00

So one of the tricks people do when getting raided alot is to move their resources, stone/gold/lumber off to a level 1 Alt account.

This was something I did early, until I found out that even with 0 resources, someone was still able to make 200 resources off me through a raid.

Mana Mines are the only exception. The shards someone gets is directly proportional to your total.

So if you are going to war footing, and think that your high gold count is a problem, the answer is assuredly no. Save your gold, it's nice to have it available for repairs.

Selling items to market to buy with your alts?

2008-08-03T09:42:00.000-07:00

So I tested this today.

I figured I could move a ton of Dragon's Might items and Boar's Teeth to my new undead alt when Undead is released.

I tested with an enhanted item of stamina, nothing that I really would miss.

After selling it on my main, I looked at all 655 pages of chain armor, and it did not appear.

I waited 10 mins, and tryed again.

Thus, my conclusion from this limited testing is that this idea won't work, and most likely I will have to refarm my items :(

Speeding up quest loading

2008-08-02T08:06:00.001-07:00

I don't know how anyone could have missed this trick, but it's a slow news day for Saga.

If you load slowly, make sure to turn these three settings Trees, and Grass to None/Near.

This is the only thing that seems to cause the quests to load slowly. I have a strong machine, and I can load up a quest in about 10secs with this turned off.

Tournament at Scratchplace

2008-08-01T09:23:00.000-07:00

It looks like someone is holding a tournament for Saga right now:

https://www.playsaga.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7061

It's sponsered by http://www.sagaunits.com .

I logged in to see if any games have been played, it's looking pretty early in the competition.

If you are interested head over to www.ladder.scratchsplace.com .

Card Submission Contest

2008-07-31T11:46:00.000-07:00

New Card Idea Submission Contest on Saga News- https://www.playsaga.com/saga_index.php

Here is my submission for anyone thinking that it's too hard to do. This took me all of 20 mins to put together.

Ice Elementals - Nature - Uncommon -
CP 6, AR 23, DR 26, HP 900, DMG 20-50,
Range 1, Stamina 100, Speed 10, Morale 100, S/A 2,
Res 80, Special: "It's Cold in Here" –
Ice Elemental and all nearby units (20m) are unable to move for 10 seconds. Cooldown: 60 seconds."

"On top of that, the top submissions will be put up for the SAGA player community to vote on, and the three cards that receive the most votes will receive the SAGA t-shirt of their choice. "

Free stuff is fun, give it a try.

Organizing your Troop List

2008-07-30T10:50:00.000-07:00

When you get alot of troops, sometimes organizing them is hard.

There are a couple features that help.

First is Sort by Level: (See picture above.)

This allows you to see your troops in a level order. Which is helpful for figuring out what is needed to level.

Second is Sort by Name: (See picture above.)

This is useful because you can rename, (see below), you units to have them groups up in a common section. I liked to see my active troops at the TOP of my list, to make repairing them in between fights easier. So I just stuck an "A" before their name.

You can TYPE ANYTHING you want in the box for the troops name.

Setting up Undead to counter PvP openings

2008-07-29T10:07:00.000-07:00

So I was thinking about the standard counters to 150CP PvP battle opening with undead.

Alot of players tend to open the same way in PvP, then adjust as the battle proceeds.

For example Christian's the "PACman" opens with phoenix's and clerics.

Illian tends to open with Treants/stone giants/eagles.

Slobboik opens with heavy cav/ravens/dark elf bowman.

Kheldara opens with chariots/giant bows.

The question is what is standard opening going to be for Undead Players? Figuring this out both lets you plan which troops are crutial to level first, and what other armies need to counter them from the jump.

I think the most successful opening will be Bone Wagons heading to cap opponents buildings and Wights in the sky.

Bone Wagons are counter for heavy cav. They are one of the few ranged units that can deal with heavy cav and trade damage for damage. If you are capping the opponents outer buildings and hopefully shrines, he HAS to bring the battle to you.

Wights will stop the early rush of Air, and force the opponent to go to the ground. If the opponent has Air and rushs your Bone Wagons, the advantage of the Wagons and Wights is they will be slowed and attacked by every unit. Bone Wagons have an advantage over Heavy Cav due to the fact they are still ranged and able to shoot at flyers.

Once the opponent goes to the ground, and fields something to deal with your Wights, like strong ground based ranged units, now you go to your Abominations. Garrison your Wights and bring out your pack of Abominations. I wouldn't suggest rushing their ranged, but instead capping more buildings. With the Abominations hps, passive defence, and speed, they will be able to rush and cap opposing buildings.

And anything, even Lancers that rush Abominations will not make short work of them. They are not squishy at all.

If they go to the sky to deal with your Abominations, then its time for the Wights again. Garrison your Bone Wagons, and bring up your 2nd set of Wights.

In terms of counters, Nature brings alot of long range shooters to the party. However if you concentrate on capping buildings with Abominations, only the elven longbows will be a threat. Treants will have a harder time hitting Abominations through their armor passive. Luckly Elven Longbowman are pretty squishy. One unit of Heavy Cav can make a Elven Longbowman retreat.

Machine brings Wooden Tanks and now the new Improved faster Mech Giant to the table. Machines are definitely a bane of Abominations capping, but luckly you can field 5 behemoths now to counter any heavy machine army, with 3 armored behemoths and 2 regular. 5 level 10 behemoths are frustrating to machine players.

Magic brings the overwhelming dps upgrades of the Dark Elf bowman and Ravens. Sadly the DE bows have little AR, so they will miss Abominations pretty frequently. I would say ignore them. Ravens are no match for Wights, so you counter the two best units of Magic from the beginning. Magic will have to dig in their bag of tricks to counter undead, which means you have the opening advantage.

Light has Heavy Lancers, and Knights, both excellent counters to Abominations. Undead has little to counter those strong mounted units, except for a mounted range units and Wights. If the opponent is good you will need to roll over to Arbiters to counter his lancers. I would include the Death Bringer snares for help with that battle. 2 Arbiters, 1 Death bringer, and 2 Wights will give you a chance at battlefield superiority, long enough to cap his buildings.

Orc has Snipers, which in a pack of 3 troops can shred Abominations. However Rock Smashed Scissors, and a troop of 3 units of charging Heavy Cav will shred Snipers.

Undead vs Undead is a good matchup. You need to counter wights with wights, and Abominations with Death Bringers. Death Bringers counter with Humongus's. Bone Chariots with Humongus's.

So looking at the above Theorycrafting, here are the units I think I would need:

6 troops of Bone Chariots
6 troops of Wights
6 troops of Abominations
6 troops of Heavy Cav
3 troops of Armored Behemoth
2 troops of Behemoths
3 troops of Arbiters
6 troops of Death Bringers
3 troops of Humongus's

This is around 1000 CP, but it has counters for most armies.

Some Items are easier to get the others

2008-07-28T09:31:00.001-07:00

So alot of the end-game grinding is training your troops to Level 9 or 10, and gathering powerful enough items to waste shards enchanting.

PvPing with level 6 troops vs a Nation with Level 10s with enchanted Dragon Might is an exercise in futility. Alot of the PvP constructed deck Nations play the game of run in attack, retreat and heal.

This is especially true if they have a special damaging attack like Phoenix's or Dark Elf Raven Riders.

They play as long as they can with a triad of flyers, and because of the healing retreating, your ability to damage these units is limited to the window in which you are attacking them, and your ability to snare/stun them as they run away.

Thank god for Undead. I literally jumped for joy when I read the Wight notes:

Wight
Attack Speed: Medium
Range: Medium
Movement: Medium - flyer
Armor: High
Health: High
Damage: Medium
Stamina: Medium
Maximum Unit Size: 4
Special: Chilling Winds - flying units in target radius (15m) suffer -25%
defense rating and -50% movement speed for 30 seconds. Cooldown: 60 seconds.

Wight's ability to snare a pack of flyers to let your ranged units attack them before they retreat back to their healers is an ability that is very useful for constructed deck PvP. And stripping them of DR is just a bonus.

Anyway, back to items:

The problem with gearing up, is that all items are not as easy to get as others.

The difference between a item suffix like "Dragon Might" and other is pretty significiant. Just having a great item can make certain troops just stronger then others.

Also, there are definitely mission/quests that drop the harder to get items, but the problem is their drop rate is so low that it is actually easier to level troops that can use the easy to find weapons instead.

Easy to get Endgame Items

Twelve Trials Part 3 - Boar's Tusk - Swords Spears Charms Axes
Twelve Trials Part 2- Dragon's Might Wards
Twelve Trials Part 3 - Deadly and Brutal Bows
Mithril Mines- Bows Swords Chain Hammers Weapon Enchants Leather Armor Xbows Guns Staves

Hard to Get End Game Items:

Polearms
Plating
Cloth
Platemail
Lances

One cavaet:

There are certain quests that spawn mobs that are Faction specific. For example "King of the Hill" at Gold level 30 drops good gear, but whoever STARTS the quest, all the enemies are your faction. Kheldara says farming lances in that mission is easy, but as a Nation army, I never fight a lance carrying mob, because all the enemies are Nature faction.

Raiding is FIXED, but only the really angry will raid

2008-07-27T11:50:00.000-07:00

So raiding is INDEED fixed. I spent the last two days testing, and defenders beware. You CAN be raided now, pretty successfully.

Here are some of the realities of the raiding:

Walls can be targetted. Wooden walls take about 20 secs to go through with 3 troops. If the walls are destroyed the first raid, they will have 0 hitpoints the successive raids and post no threat.
Defenders use their speicals! Maybe not intelligently, but this helps a ton of troops become more useful, including the massive human crossbowmen with their 120 range.
Denfending troops once they kill your raiders will go RECAP every node you have taken. This doesn't seem to hurt your plunder if you held the node for awhile before racap, but it is something to be aware of.
Defenders AGRO range has been unbugged. Before many troops wouldn't agro you until you were very close to them. Now they will almost cross the entire board to get you.
Raiders can start anywhere on the edge of the board. This is massive buff for raiding as I can usually take 3 nodes at the start of the fight.
Defenders don't spawn in places where they can't move. Often defenders would spawn in the middle of the moat.
If you reenforce your troops they spawn somewhere differently then where you setup your troops.
God favor cost is WAY up. Not only due to the doubling of the raid cost, but the fact the active defender troops tend to cause you troop loss during the raid. A full raid on a defended territory can EASILY cost 4000 god favor.

Alot of troops that sucked for defending now became awesome:

White Dragons are now worth using, (See video above). I actually saw one blink over to me while attacking, and it was pretty annoying. Considering their new high armor, and low trade cost, they become nice for people defending.
Human Light Cav is still awesome. Light Lancers are awesome. Sabercats, Hell Hounds, Minor Daemons, Wood tanks anything super fast, or with a speed special. At one time I had a spawn of two level 1 Light Cav, two level 1 light lancers and a ballista pounding me. Even with level 10 troops thats alot of attackers.
Level 1s are actually good defenders now. Before they were so buggy that you often could ignore the defenders, or kill them in secs. Now they can swamp you and the respawn before you can wipe them all.
The high god favor means people have to raid you with less CP. I was rolling mostly with 3 troops on my raids, and that makes it way tougher. That still cost 2500 GF a raid.

So don't think you are unvulnerable anymore. Anyone with time and cash can easily burn town alot of your buildings. However the days of easy money while raiding are gone. A level 20 Nation with a bunch of level 1 defenders can make even a full geared level 35 nation take pause.

I recommend EVERYONE to go wilderness if you can meet the following requirments:

For each of your wilderness territories can you field at least 400 CP of level 1 common troops, and leave them there?
Have you built out the 8 watchtowers in your wilderness?
Have you put walls on natural borders to annoy the defenders if possible?
Do you care if you have to repair buildings with god favor every now and then?
Do you spend your shards if you get over 100 as quickly as possible?

If the answer is YES, then by all means, you will find the 12 extra nodes very valuable for your production. For every wilderness you get an extra gold/ore/wood node. And 16 mana shards a day.

Raiding Trick - Capping while fighting

2008-07-27T01:21:00.000-07:00

So in the last couple patchs defending armies are a bit tougher.

You will get rushed while raiding, and if you want to get your plunder you will have to learn this trick:

In this video I am the fire elementals. I get rushed by two level 1 defenders which is no problem, but I still need to cap this mana mine.

As you can see in the video the trick is manuvering them so that your back is to the cap, but they aren't in range to counter cap the node.

Territory Defense Recommendations

2008-07-26T10:51:00.000-07:00

I have already shown off my city build in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8rdP2RqXk0

Here is how I setup my territories, and what I concentrated on. (Click on picture to see it larger).

New Patch Notes

2008-07-26T10:47:00.000-07:00

• Patch 1.42.3 - LIVE •
25 July 2008

Fixed PvP building bugs. Garrison, gatehouses, and attacking should now all work as expected!
Gift system revamped to be more user-friendly and less confusing.
You can now undo the building things during that session. After relogging or crashing, your undos are reset.
You are now able to rotate already placed buildings by right-clicking (soon to be a GUI button).
Peasants cap determined by how many territories you have, 100 for city and 50 for each territory.

Domain

Move to Wilderness tooltip updated.
Build dialog is now considered a HUD element and will stop mouse clicks.
Clearing your nation will now sell off all buildings under construction, refunding exactly as if the player destroyed them manually.
You can no longer clear your nation if you have any damaged buildings.
Gatehouses only take up places they appear to.
You can now select buildings if you can see them.
Building cursor will not show up in dialog windows.
You will no longer be notified that you don't have enough resources to build anything.

Battle

You can no longer get XP from killing your own units.
Flying units will no longer flock around large units.
In a 4 player PVP, if one of the players exits/surrenders in during placement, the others do not have to wait for the timer to run out.
Units will no longer spawn in unpathable regions during Raids.
During a Raid, you can now only deploy troops around the edge of the map.
Large troops will no longer twitch when they are attacking an enemy.
You cannot move your own units when you have a unit from another army selected.
When a computer unit is sieging a building and it's siege is broken, it will not continue trying to siege that building.

Miscellaneous

Trade notes are now subject to the dirty word filter

Tourneyments Start Next week

2008-07-25T14:51:00.000-07:00

"The tournaments should also be available next week." - Slava - Saga Games

https://www.playsaga.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6883&start=45

Epic end game 4 player match

2008-07-25T13:17:00.000-07:00

So several of us got together to demonstrate a big epic battle.

One thing I know when talking to friends that play Saga in the 10-20 Nation level is that they don't understand how fun and epic PvP can be. They spend so much time doing quests with 3 troops per side that the epic nature of the game isn't as obvious.

If you "watch in high quality" I think it looks pretty good full screen too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEF9H4vnCK0#

Thanks to Kheldara and Dark Rage and others for helping set this up. Kheldara was the big winner, and won 3000 or so gold.

The winner of a 225CP FFA can win up to 5000 gold from "Gods" depending on how many troops die in the battle. Also a 2v2 FFA match is no rating change, and give shards.

Defending your Territories - Based on Ironforge Nation

2008-07-24T12:06:00.000-07:00

So I wanted to profile a couple armies each week to analyse what people are doing vs raiding.

This was started BEFORE the massive raiding nerfs in the free-build patch. Nerfs that we assume eventually will be fixed in a future patch but for now take raiding out of the game.

These nerfs I have referred to before: http://sagathoughts.blogspot.com/2008/07/raiding-and-several-pvp-features-are.html

To start off, I sent spys to look at the main army and territory of the opponent. I picked Ironforge because since the raiding nerfs he's been rather chatty all of a sudden.

Lets see why raiding shut him up for so long:

First of all, it looks as though he is in love with his Iron Tanks. This unit is a good PvE unit, but with it's horribly slow movement in PvP, it is pretty avoidable.

On his territories he does a little better. He stacks two troops of Bombardiers with one troop or heavy Cav.

Now ranged defenders are very buggy in raiding defense, they often don't agro on the attacking armies. But if they do agro, bombardiers woudl at least have a long agro range.

Ballistas are also talked about as good territory defense. This is incorrect except on a territory that is flat, with few rivers.

How would I change his defenses?

First,

If I were doing machine for territory defense I would use units that had awesome passives. (Specials don't fire well for the AI)

Hunters for anti mounted. Auto Ballistas for anti infantry. Dwaven Axeman for living forever vs ranged.

I would mix in the awesome commons like Light Cav.
Light Cav with speed gear is FAST to attack. And cheap! 60cents a unit. http://www.sagaunits.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1_6&products_id=125

Get together a ton of speed gear and stick it on every unit. Speed is better then anything for defense. See above this light Cav has a 23 base speed. It will run in fast enough to prevent a cap, if the attacker is spread out trying to cap multiple buildings at once with single units on each.

Make sure you have enough units in the territory. They don't die, so the more that swamp your opponent the better. I like about 600 CP in each territory.

Discussions on Tourneyments:

2008-07-23T09:51:00.000-07:00

So there has been a heated discussion since Slava released the prize chart for Tourneyments.

They are giving 4 for winning 3 for 2nd place 2 for 3rd and 4th places.

My thought is that is too few prices for an 12$ entry for even a small eight person tourney.

Here is the math:

8 people buy 3 boosters and 2$ in tickets = $96
4+3+2+2 = 11 boosters = $33 in prizes?
Top winner is 4 boosters who wins $16 for his $12 entry fee.

And for those that say that you can sell the cards. Fine. Tell me how many boosters are worth MORE then $3.

To demonstrate this, I just bought 4 boosters, here is EACH of them:

Human Javelineers
$0.03
Human Light Cavalry
$0.05
Human Spearmen
$0.03
Elven Archers
$0.15
Elven Warriors
$0.90
Wood Spriggans
$0.05
Rage
$0.75
Giant Bowmen
$0.90
Human Light Lancers
$0.25

Sub-Total: $3.11

Ballista
$0.45
Human Javelineers
$0.03
Human Mercenaries
$0.04
Human Pikemen
$0.03
Elven Archers
$0.15
Elven Druids
$0.50
Elven Sabretooth Riders
$0.35
Dark Elf Bowmen
$1.75
Holy Light
$0.40

Sub-Total: $3.67

Human Javelineers
$0.03
Human Light Cavalry
$0.05
Human Swordmaidens
$0.16
Make Haste
$0.10
Elven Saboteurs
$0.15
Green Dragon
$3.50
Wood Spriggans
$0.05
Ogre Halberdiers
$0.40

Sub-Total: $4.44

Elven Saboteurs
$0.15
Wood Spriggans
$0.05
Orc Infantry
$0.04
Take No Prisoners
$0.75
Human Heavy Infantry
$0.03
Human Pikemen
$0.03
Human Spearmen
$0.03
Elven Druids
$0.50
Dwarven Mechanists
$0.25
Giant Bowmen
$0.90

Sub-Total: $2.73

TOTALS:

Pack 1 Retail Value: $3.11
Pack 2 Retail Value: $3.67
Pack 3 Retail Value: $4.44
Pack 4 Retail Value: $2.73
---------------------------
Total - $13.95 (retail value)

I spend $2.95 X 4 packs = $11.80

Assuming Sagaunits give me 85% of the card value, I can sell them to him for $11.85

5 cent profit!

Here is the rest of the discussion from the forums. I will address only on writer:
https://www.playsaga.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=38427

He is making the mistake assuming that I am complaining about prizes do to my income.
http://sagathoughts.blogspot.com/2008/07/deck-profiling-nature-ccie-part-1.html
There is my army. Don't make that assumption. I can and HAVE bought frankly any army I want. My income isn't the issue.

And don't let your experience working at "the card shop" apply here. This is a game with 100 times the number of players that your card shop can draw. The model is more scaling.

Also MTGO don't work comparing it to Saga. In MTGO you cap at FOUR OF THE SAME CARDS per deck. Saga it maxs at 25. Much HARDER to collect armies then a 60 card Magic Deck.

I am championing for the person who ISN'T like me, and can't afford to throw hundreds of dollars at a hobby.

I will restate my position again, and if anyone want to "fan boy" how smart Silverlode is, and their ideas HAVE to be perfect on the first go, fine. I'm trying to help Silverlode not attack them.

My position is:

If you give more boosters as prizes, you add supply to the market of free cards.
Free cards leads to more supply at the card vendors, (http://sagaunits.com/) thus LOWERING the pricing of expensive army builder cards. Have you not noticed that Saga Units can't seem to keep certain cards in stock right now? Dark Elf Bowman? Grythons, Eagles etc.

That's due to the the fact that we DON'T buy boosters right now. Most people find it hella easier to buy from Saga Units, and the supply of free boosters is going down.
http://sagathoughts.blogspot.com/2008/07/wwwsagaunitcom-and-why-we-buy-card-from.html We need the tourneyment scene to be WILDLY successful to bring the overall cost of the game down. If the game were cheaper their would be more people playing and more cards circulating in the market.

If you run the guild list into excel, there are about 3000 players of saga right now, that are in guilds. This is pretty much a 90% list of all saga players. http://www.playsaga.com/guilds.php If Saga had 200,000 players there would be 1000 times more cards circulating.

I've brought over two players with me so far from other games. You know the first thing that they run into for trouble? Collecting a large enough army to play without investing $100 in the game day one.

We need the prices of cards to go down. Tourneyments are how that worked in MTGO. You could draft and get great cards and lose. You could draft for rares and popular cards, and don't even worry about winning. The players that won would try for infinite and dump great numbers of cards on the market to buy more event tickets to tourney all day long.

All I want is more boosters for prizes, to increase the card supply, and to help keep the prices low enough for new players to be able to buy a decent army.

Having Heavy Cav (a common) at $6 a full unit is not helpful for new players: http://www.sagaunits.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1_6&products_id=122

$17 level 35 leveling army?

2008-07-22T15:34:00.000-07:00

This is a recycle of a forum answer, but it's a slow day for content.

So people ask how to level 1-35 without spending alot of cash: https://www.playsaga.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6751

I'd do it this way: (3 X is three FULL units of the particular troop, etc)

3 X Behemoth
5 X Heavy Cav
3 X Cav Archers
3 X factional common (elven archers etc)
3 X dragons
5+ fireball cards
5+ Hold Fast cards
= 527 CP worth of troops. Plenty enough for any mission.

Profit 1-35

Why?

Heavy Cav plus archer units are great for leveling. Good synergys.
If you need a tank Behemoth is easy to level and use.
For Area Effect maps, the Fireball is a 1.25$ rare. Pretty easy to acquire. With a short cooldown, it is a useful cast.
The best spell in the game right now is Hold Fast. It makes any unit able to tank off a ton of troops.
You need flyers for some missions, dragons are the best flyer for cheapness. Most are easy to trade for.

This army costs about $40 or 250,000 gold and $17.

This is assuming you have no boosters.

To give a perspective, you can easily make about 50k to 100k per hour at level 35 if you are farming.

Tourneyments and going "Infinite" in Saga

2008-07-22T11:23:00.001-07:00

https://www.playsaga.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6883

Tourneyments will cost $2 and 3 boosters. This is $11 in cost to win 4 boosters for first. Assuming a first place finishing, you can use your boosters to reenter in the next tourneyment. If you can trade one of the cards from your spare booster for 10 event tickets, you can run the next tourneyment for free.

This is called "going infinite" in games like Magic the Gathering Online. Where you win enough to play for free every tourneyment.

Can you go infinite? Most likely not in Saga. The prizes aren't high enough to allow you any losses without having to rebuy in.

(See the first comment to this. Sagaunits wants to buy your tourney cards to help you go infinite.)

Spells

2008-07-21T14:26:00.001-07:00

So as we know, spells are getting revamped. Discussion has been for them to be removed from the CP cost and given their own CP totals.

So basically you can field 150CP for troops and 30CP for spells or w/e.

This will help alot, I love spells, but using them is a waste sometimes.

The "Pulling a Christian" Video by Illian

2008-07-21T09:30:00.000-07:00

By popular demand, here is the video that is referred to the most in /conflict in the last couple of days.

Shrine rush in the 1v1 PvP is defined as trying to take early shrines from the other player.

In this video, the player Christians rushs Illian's shrines. As you don't see where their initial units are positioned until the game starts, this ended up bad for his lone Chariot Archers.

This tactic although not strategically valid was not the problem. The problem was immediantly after this, he concedes the game (surrenders), complaining about a phantom itch on his butt.

Wow Christians, if you want to make up an excuse, here are some better ideas:

My mom needs me to go get something from her car.

My mouse unplugged.

The game locked on me.

Sorry phone.

or the best way to concede a game.

"Good game, get you next time."

The Final Charge of the Behemoth Video.

2008-07-21T01:09:00.000-07:00

This is a quick video I made of Mithril Mines.

If you haven't played Saga at the end-game PvE, this is a pretty good representation of the scope and density of the troop fights.

Note all of these enemy troops are level 10 troops, so they take a bit to kill down.

If you click over to YouTube, they have a "watch in high quality" option that looks even better.

Undead Release Date!

2008-07-20T11:31:00.000-07:00

The Undead expansion is due to be released in Early August, both online and in hobby stores across North America and in select UK locations. - Source - http://www.tcgplayer.com/db/game_review.asp?AID=2483&PID=232&DBID=4

10 days till August 1, so we are looking at 3 weeks minimum until the release.

Raiding and several PvP features are broken - Use the time wisely!

2008-07-20T09:57:00.001-07:00

- Source https://www.playsaga.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6800&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=45

So the following features are currently bugged or happening in the game:

Raiding god favor costs on Raiding are doubled. It costs 3000 god favor and 5 shards to do a full raid.
Walls are untargetable in raids right now, so if the defender has a wall between you and plunder, its UNPASSABLE.
You can put full walls around about 75% of your territory mana mines.
In PvP the Gatehouses do not open.
In raids the Defender Archers are getting bugged and often will not shoot through alot of the free-build.
Alot of the new walls are causing LOS issues for your defending troops.

Ok, with all that going on, it is a perfect time to use the safehold time to pump up your army.

You should think about doing the following:

Leveling your raiding army and defending troops for World Conflict.
Setup your walls for your city and wilderness for how you will like them to be.
Grind shards for enhancements of your army.
Get ready for the Undead release by farming gold and moving it to Brotherhood if needed.
Grind gold for upgrading your University. Level 3 police are nice vs espionage.

Sure we can all complain about the state of raiding as this thread shows, but you have to look at the Free-Build changes as an improvement. I like them, if other things are broken temporarily, its just time to do something new.

Finishing your Army Training?

2008-07-19T14:44:00.000-07:00

So when do you call a unit "TRAINED?"

ie ready to PvP with.

Obviously if you are playing in end-game PvP, most players will have level 10 troops that they will fight you with. Especially the Beta players.

PvP in most MMO games is a combination of Gear/Skill/ Strategy. You don't want to be completely undergeared vs your opponents, that's where training or leveling your troops is important.

My theory is level 8 is a fine place to stop leveling a troop, and concentrate on a different unit.

The difference between Level 8 and Level 10 is 10% more Defence Rating, 10% more hitpoints, more morale and 10% more attack rating. In terms of numbers here is a level 10 and level 1 Treant

As you can see the Level 10 has many more hps and defence rating, making it live much longer.

Gear still plays an important part, as you can see looking at the same Level 1 Treant with great gear.

So my answer for this is Level 8. A Level 8 troop is good enough to fight with. After you get to level 8, you should move on to other units, and getting gear.

Deck Profiling - Nature CCIE - Part 1

2008-07-18T10:39:00.000-07:00

So I promised to profile my working army:

"Human Heavy Cavalry", - 7 troops

"Behemoth","2"

"Armored Behemoth","1"

"Ballista","5"

"Trebuchet","3"

"Green Dragon","3"

"Wood Giants","10" - 2 troops

"Treants", - 5 troops

"Fire Elementals", - 6 troops

"Earth Elementals", - 2 troops

"Elven Druids", - 4 troops

"Elven Longbowmen", - 2 troops

"Eagle Riders", - 3 troops

"Lightning Elementals", - 6 troops

"Elven Bear Riders", - 1 troop

"Elven Sabretooth Riders", - 2 troops

"Elven Saboteurs", - 2 troops

Here are my reasoning for this build. I am heavy Elementals with near 6 of each. I love my elementals, and now with the LACK of an anti elemental card in undead they are still very viable as a theme deck.

I don't run more then a full compliment of eagles. My longbowman are only a set of two, and I use primarily for PvE boss kills. I plan on combining Summon Behemoth, Behemoths, and Elven Sabs for heavy Machine kills.

Unlike Illian, I prefer Fire Elementals to Bear Riders. Mostly a theme difference.

Elven Sabertooth Riders are my counter-cappers.

I only have 2 Ballistas that matter, and only 2 Trebs, the rest are 1s and 2s.

With 7 Heavy Cav troops of various levels, I can throw them away if needed.

And 5 sets of Treants. I will probably go to 6 before I'm done, but I'm probably not worried about it for awhile. Treants aren't squishy really, they live along time.

In terms of levels I try to get everything to level 8 for my main army. Anything lower I keep training in PvE.

Gear, I go mainly for speed, and I've enchanted about 10 items or so, using mostly 16%.

With all the Elementals, I go for Wards of Dragon Might and Boar's Tooth Charms. I have most of the Wards done, now finishing the Charms. On Longbowman and Eagles I use Justice like everyone else.

Undead Planning - How many to Collect?

2008-07-17T17:37:00.000-07:00

So I read the the previews:

"Tentonhammer.com Has a Preview of six of the ranged units. Featuring the Lich and Death Bringer.
Rpgvault.com is showing off four mounted and two flying units including the Undead Dragon.
Tcgplayer.com is featuring five of the Undead infantry units. ." - https://www.playsaga.com/saga_index.php

For this blog I decided to profile what I would be looking to collect.

Several units do not meet my playstyle. (Although I reserve the right to change my mind multiple times.) If you don't see it listed here, I don't see me using it for my core army.

Here is initially what I'd like to see in a 1000 CP army for PvP.

This give about 925 CP in troops, leaving 75 CP for spells or substitutions.

I obviously am not going as dense in the Wights as I probably would for a 100CP battle, but I tend to try to build towards a 225 CP fight. I personally like the amount of units on the field in 225 vs 100 CP.

I am iffy on fielding Abominations. They are so slow that I doubt they will be worth the CP, but as they are a passive counter troop, we might see us with them vs a Magic army that is heavy summoners.

Obviously I love Diabolists fielding 6 in a army. I love Fire Elementals, and Diabolists are even cooler.

Deck Profiling

2008-07-17T15:44:00.000-07:00

I plan on sending out my spies to figure out what people have in terms of armies. What they are keeping in their main army, what they like defending with etc etc. I plan on starting with the Level 35s, then moving on down the list.

Like always I will be using my spies and literally espionaging the entire server. If it make people mad, it's a sacrific for science.

However: If you care to volunteer to be profiled, and want to show off your army, or a subset of units, let me know, and I can arrange an interview.

I am also interested in Wall Designs.

I will be profiling my OWN army first, listing every unit I own, and how I have them setup for raids, just to be fair. (Not that I care about fair.)

And yes, if I put a bullseye on your head, wear it with pride. If you feel froggy then jump.

Example City Walls for Free Build

2008-07-17T11:26:00.000-07:00

After many attempts and serveral mistakes, here is what I am sticking with for my wall on my Nature nation.

Here are some of the constaints I went with in my build.

I wanted to use all 100 of the wall segments. This is alot, so I divided it into an outer wall perimeter and an inter castle protecting my storehouses.
I wanted to use the nature borders of my city map to stop ground units. As you can tell, I use the moat and the river to stop ground attackers.
I wanted to go as close the perimeter of my lands as possible. Nature is a ranged army, to have treants, longbowmen and Ballistas defending my walls would be a nice defense.
I wanted to space my gates to have sally points for counterattackes with mounted unit.
I wanted to defend as many buildings inside my walls as possible. I got at least 1 shrine defended, so no shrine rushing

Anyway, enough talk, check out the video.

Ironforge and the True whatever guilds...

2008-07-17T09:21:00.000-07:00

With all the patch notes going on, this was something I until later.

In other games there were alot of guilds that recruited new players. When those players get better at the game they naturally move on and go into other guilds that are at a higher level.

I think the same applies for Ironforge's guild. The only high level player I have seen in that set of four guilds is Ironforge and Silvermoon. The rest are causal players thatlgo in infrequently.

About a month ago, Illian and Kheldara raided Ironforge to the point where he put in a harassment ticket into Silverlode. Harassment of a level 35 by raiding and espionage is not harassment as he soon found out.

At one time I was on of his many guilds. As a new player I wanted to test the resource sharing, which is pretty weak when most players contribute less the 30 resources a day. After hitting about level 20, I dropped out and recently formed my own guild, which resource sharing was FAR from the reason to join.

I think anyone really plans on raiding Ironforge again right now. The walls patch is still going in, getting mines that are walled up is a tactic I don't think we have figured out yet.

As Jonathan Coulton put it, "The voices that control me, from inside my head say I shouldn't kill you. - yet."

Thoughts about building with free build:

2008-07-16T09:15:00.000-07:00

So there will be a patch fixing some of the wall placement freebuild bugs in about an hour from now.

I had some early recommendations to anyone planning their territory defenses using free-build.

The first thing is to decide how you want to build. Concentrated or distributed.
If you want to concentrate in an area and tower it up, you are defending mostly against lower level players. Towers have less effect, in fact low effect against end-game raiders. However, this is good as there are alot of low level raiders.
Distributed works better against an end-gamer player. You make him have to spread out his troops and grab multiple caps before running out of time. Harass him with lots of troops to kill, he might miss buildings or spread out where his dps is lower.
If you distribute the only building to worry about are mana mines and storehouses. Keep those 8 builds as far apart from each other as possible. Stick a tower in shooting range of each of those buildings.
Everything else you can stick where ever. I like to make house subdivisions that mess with the raiders pathing, but that's optional.
If you have a mana mine point far away from the rest, you may want to think about ignoring it, and walling it up.
Ignore your gold mines/ore/lumber, these are secondary importance to a raider. Just make sure NONE can be capped at once. Nothing should be next to each other in range of a single troop cap.
You Keep is a 9th tower, but it's range is SHORT. Remember this.
The hills and mountains are pathing LOS. If you stick your storehouse on a mountain, you can stick other buildings around it to make it harder to cap from each direction. There will always be a way to cap it, but the raider my have to move his capping troops a couple times to find the right spot.

Undead rundown. New newsletter.

2008-07-16T09:04:00.000-07:00

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

My video is about one of the new quests showing 3 of the new units.

My comments about three new units?
- Abomination - Didn't I see this in Plaguelands in World of Warcraft?
- Undead Archers - bowman with wings? Insect bowmen?
- Necromancers - they look like trolls from WoW as well.

Hell, I hate to knock them, but not sexy enough for me. Watch the video, who is sexier, my elementals or the undead?

Here are the direct links to the sites with the new previews:

http://pc.ign.com/objects/877/877653.html will preview the four cavalry and two airborne undead units, including the deadly Forsaken Dragon.
http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/185 will preview the ranged undead contingent, lead by the Liches, commanders of the Undead forces.
http://www.tcgplayer.com/games/Overview.asp?ID=232 will have the melee troops, who like to get up close and personal, featuring the Abomination, the most gruesome creature to ever leave our studio.

A few Unit changes: h.cav nerfed

2008-07-16T08:39:00.000-07:00

"HUMAN HEAVY CAVALRY" - DEFRATING 29 > 28, MAXDAMAGE 23 > 21

Nerf! This should reduce the end-game DR from around 70 maxd to about 65. That's needed as we all know.

"HUMAN LIGHT CAVALRY" - DEFRATING 20 > 22, "DETERMINATION - UNIT GAINS +50% AR, +100% DAMAGE, AND -20% DR FOR 20 SECONDS. COOLDOWN: 90 SECONDS." "DETERMINATION - UNIT GAINS +50% AR, +100% DAMAGE VS. RANGED UNITS FOR 30 SECONDS. COOLDOWN: 90 SECONDS."

"HUMAN LIGHT INFANTRY" - "HOLD THE LINE - UNIT GAINS +30% DR FOR 30 SECONDS. COOLDOWN: 90 SECONDS." > "HOLD THE LINE - FRIENDLY UNITS IN TARGET RADIUS (20M) GAIN +2% DR PER LIGHT INFANTRY FOR 30 SECONDS. COOLDOWN: 90 SECONDS."

Alot of great changes for using L.Cav and L.Inf in quests, but nothing like I'd like for defending my territories, as the AI doesn't use specials for territory defense currently.

All summon spells warmup and cooldown timers reduced.

-Yeah this is nice. Free elementals in the beginning, then ditch the spell.

http://www.towerofevil.com/livefiles/patchnotes/patchnotes.html

On Request! Raid on Karma Good Or Bad

2008-07-15T21:02:00.000-07:00

So if you check the comments section of my previous post http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=6435071171440404091&postID=5553832416058726992&isPopup=true, you will find that Karma Good Or Bad has requested open season on his single wilderness territory.

He wants to be raided.

My video is editted a little make it faster.

In the guise of science, I hit him twice this morning. Here is my review Karma, of your territory defenses.

Alot of high level common troops like cav archers, and light cav, and human archers. Most were higher levels which is good, but as you can tell from my video, my elementals are good at facing those types of troops.
Illian in his PvP Nature guide: http://www.sagaunits.com/sagaguide/naturepvp.html has completely disregarded Fire Elementals in 1v1 PvP, but I think they shine in raiding. Its a fireball that can capture a building. (As you will see in the video)
Your territory was nicely split out, no stack of storehouses in any one area. You make me run around the board which is good.
Kheldara http://sagathoughts.blogspot.com/2008/06/kheldara-interview-raiding-and.html recommends killing any resource node that you don't have near a watch tower. You want the attacker to eat tower arrows while holding off your troops.
If you note I tend to try to tank with my fire elementals while my lightning elementals caps behind them. This combo is good for capping because spreading out troops too much is bad in raids.

List of recommendations:

Up your speed on your defenders. You want them to charge so I have to fight many at once. Speed gear, weapons and armor. If you can have me fighting 3 common armies at once, thats better then killing one at a time.
Don't use anything slower then 12 speed. Just don't do it.
More heavy cav. 25,000 gold for 12 is a great deal.
Dragons are GREAT defenders. Hella easy to level to 7 or 8, and they have none of the pathing issues many troops have. The raider HAS to stop to cap something, and when he does, the dragon is annoying. If you were Light, white dragons are a CHEAP way to annoy people on raids.

Anyway good job Karma! Hopefully others will raid you too, and level your troops for you.

New Units for Undead, from the patch today

2008-07-15T19:54:00.000-07:00

New Units:
abomination
arbalister
archer
bonewagon
bone_horse
deathbringer
diabolist
forsakenrider
forsaken_dragon
forsaken_warrior
humongous
lich
necromancer raider
reaper
undead_knight
wight

Who's excited?

Economic Rating

2008-07-15T15:28:00.000-07:00

So I faked my way to the front page of the "Overall" rating. (I have an artificially raised Military rating based on leveling using PvP. People called it faking. whatever...)

I've been sitting at #11 for a couple days, just trying to figure out what affects the economic rating. I asked one of the saga guys in /help, but he didn't know how it worked.

My Economic rating was 1250 yesterday, and 1350 today. The only difference is I left some cash laying in my nation bank. I normally offload it daily to alts or spend on walls, but I have about 10,000 gold left from doing some quests. Walls don't seem to do anything, I upgraded to full reenforced without any change in rating.

So maybe a full level Rank 3 university is worth 1250 rating. And amassing resources gives rating too.

So assuming that 10,000 gold is equal to 100 rating points that would put Twonstermonster at about 900,000 resources? That's not alot, considering you can easily make over 8,000 gold for a single quest run. That would mean farming a 10 min run 100 times, I could catch up to his rating? Thats only 16 hours, basically a weekend of steady play.

Maybe it has a diministing return as you grow your cash. Ancestral bragged that he had 2,000,000 of each resource on an alt, but that would mean that if he had 6,000,000 resources, that would put his alt economic rating at 60,000 rating, even higher then TM. I assume he was exaggerating, 6,000,000 resources seem like alot not to spend. I tend to buy a unit of heavy cav every time I free up 25,000 gold.

I assume a diministing return, if anyone has any idea leave me a comment.

How many units is too many?

2008-07-14T23:17:00.000-07:00

So collecting units and training, equiping, building units is part of the end-game at 35.

There are other end-games, but that is the one I'm stuck on right this second.

So how many units is enough?

Above are my six lightning elementals: Probably the best counter unit in the game for Nature.
Eats up so many different type of troops. If you wear chain/plate, you are in trouble if these are nearby.
And being a 6 CP troop they last along time doing near max damage.
They aren't infantry or mounted, or machine, so until an anti-elemental card comes out, their counter is Heavy Cav, which they have a good chance of swapping damage with.

Obviously to farm certain missions for gold or items I can get by with a very few number of each unit. There also is a cap on units, 1050 CP for 5 armies so 5250 CP.

Twonstermonter recently noted in Conflict that he had "24 eagles". Or six units. Assuming one unit per each of his four wilderness, that leaves 2 in his main army, unless he cycles them in.

I spend alot of time cycling troops in to try to find the optimum unit composition for each mission. Or if one levels, to bring in a lower level troop for exp.

Six units of your favorite types seems like a good number for complete overkill. Even in a giant 225 CP PvP game, you probably won't have the CP to cycle more then 6 of any one type. You are limited to 3 on the deck at one time, so that's 3 more in spare.
Above are my six Fire Elementals: Easy to level up with a AE, and easy to gear with twelve trials. http://sagathoughts.blogspot.com/2008/07/wards-and-farming-for-treasure-from-ex.html
Get a nice Ward of Dragon Might on one, and a charm from the boar, they can be a good screen for your Lightning Elementals.

Which leads me to wonder if I can play with only the all 6 CP elementals? Treants/Fire/Lightning?

I never liked those nasty elves anyway.