Forging

In my very first post on Lord EXP, I discussed collecting materials and "synthesizing" them to at least blue before forging equipment. Today, I'll talking about the forging, itself.

Once you have a Blacksmith, you can forge equipment. Initially, you'll be forging Level 5 equipment, which simply requires certain materials that you can make in the Workshop (or collect fighting monsters or gathering) and synthesize to a higher level, as necessary. You can click on your character in the upper left corner of the screen in the castle view to see all your equipment and "equip" yourself with different equipment, as desired. You can view all the available equipment in either the Workshop or the Blacksmith by clicking on the chest of materials and then clicking the Equipment tab.

As mentioned in my earlier post, you can't wear (equip) equipment that is a higher level than your Lord Level. As your Lord Level increases, you will obviously want to be able to wear better equipment, so it is a good idea to "forge ahead." (Hah!) When you forge equipment higher than Level 5 (not including "sets," which I'll cover in a moment), you have to "forge in" another piece of equipment that is at the same level or one step (increments of five) down. So to forge Level 10 equipment, you need a piece of Level 5 (or 10) equipment, or "equipment substitute." The equipment substitutes look like little square/diamond-shaped shields with a bulge in the middle. To get equipment substitutes, you can either forge them or get them in chests for various awards. I forged most of the ones I used and got the give-aways, later. Go figure.

When you forge equipment Level 10 or above, as you can see in the figure below, there is a plus sign in the middle. When you click the plus, it gives you a list of the available equipment or equipment substitutes you can use for the forging.

When you get to even higher level equipment, there is a temptation to forge previous equipment into the next one. For example, see below, where only one piece of equipment at Level 25 is available to forge into the Level 30 piece of equipment. One problem with forging your Level 25 equipment into the Level 30 equipment is that you may be wearing it at the time. The second problem is that it is good to hold onto old equipment because you will eventually be getting heroes, and heroes need equipment, too.

Once you select the equipment to "forge in" with the materials, the screen will show the likelihood of various Level/color outcomes of the forging. At this point, you can still adjust the materials or back out to wait on better materials. If you are ready to forge, you can press the forge option (or add more steel, if necessary).

After you select "Forge," there is an odd screen that asks you to draw a symbol. I don't think it matters. I always draw a heart. If you don't do this, it doesn't forge.

To solve the issue of "forging in" lower level equipment, I just went ahead and started working on an "Equipment Set." You can find Equipment Sets at the top level of the Blacksmith > Forge menu, in a symbol at the top. I started with the "Ancient Prophet Set," which is Level 25. Boy, is this a cool set. I cannot recommend it enough, as you will come to see...

First of all, with the Equipment Sets, there is no lower level equipment to forge in. Instead, you have to have "Ancient Blueprints." To get Ancient Blueprints, you have to collect shards by killing monsters, and it takes 100 shards to make a blueprint! Yikes! Some of the equipment asks for anywhere from 5 to 100 (or more?) blueprints to forge. However, you can forge with as few as one... but that will be at the "white" level for that material item. Here's what an Ancient Prophet "Research Codex" (which goes in the "weapon" slot) Forge screen looks like:

As you get up to higher level equipment sets, the materials become challenging to collect (at a high level color). For example, in the Gladiator's Axe (Level 35) shown below, you can see that I only have 5 out of 100 "Brutal Horns." For the blueprints, while it may seem that I have few, consider the fact that I have already used some for the Ancient Prophet set.

The Ancient Prophet Set is excellent for research. I typically had two blueprints, each, when I forged the elements. I used some blue and some purple materials. Part of the reason I have all purple equipment is that I have researched the "Elite Troops" (all except the last two ring levels), which helps you forge better equipment. Anyway, when I added the fifth piece (helmet), my power went up 100K (compared to a Level 20 piece of equipment), and when I added the sixth piece (the ring), my power went up 150K. Also, having six pieces of blue and then six pieces of purple equipment are "achievements" with rewards you can access at the bottom of the Lord page (same page which shows your equipment).

In addition to the power (for what it's worth) of the Ancient Prophet Set, the real benefit is the research speed. Many of the research topics are reduced so much that they become "three seconds," effectively instantaneous, as seen below.

On a day that was a "Lucky Day" (reduced price for research) as well as a "Daily Event" for research/building upgrades, I researched a whole bunch of topics just as quick as I could click through them... limited only by my resources to buy so many. I was in the top ten of the Daily Event, that day. It was worth over 2000 in gold for the Daily Event awards. (Nevermind the fact that it is great to have all that research done in one afternoon.)

Happy Clashing,
Lisa Kay

Dark Knight

Dark Knight events can be initiated by leadership, and generally a time will be given. During (near) Dark Knight events, it is best to:

1) Don't gather that day or at least near the expected time. Make sure your stamina is up, also.
2) Be online at the appointed time, if you can.
3) The attacks come in waves. Watch until you have lost two waves in a row, after which, you are "knocked out," and you will not be attacked anymore. You can tell based on the reports that come in messages. After that, use your remaining troops to reinforce other people who are still not knocked out.

You can reinforce people BEFORE you're knocked out, too, if you have "instant recalls" or many speedups... There is much more complex instruction available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CByMiK3Z0cA

Happy Clashing,
Lisa Kay

Donating

Don't forget, every rank can and is required to contribute under Alliance Donation. Pick an area and contribute 3K (or 5K) wood or food at a time. If the higher level option (more alliance points) lights up, pick that one.

It is not necessary to spend gold unless you want. I recommend clicking until the cooldown is maxed (just over four hours). While your initial reaction may be that this is "giving away" resources, keep in mind: 1) It isn't really that many. 2) It builds "skills" that improve everyone in the alliance. 3) It gives you alliance points that you can use in the Alliance Store to get things like teleports. 4) The highest donors each week get rewards. 5) It is required as a member of the alliance.

I try to donate whenever the cooldown ends, if I'm online. If I weren't FTP, I'd auto-donate.

It is also important to donate materials to the alliance building projects. Under Items, toward the bottom of the page, there are some wooden crates of Sandstone, Diamonds, Marble, Granite, and sometimes a resource pack that contains several or all those. If you "Use" that last one, it adds to the individual wooden crates under Items. If you click on the Diamonds and "Use" them, that makes them available to donate to the Alliance building projects. Then, go over to Alliance > Alliance Territory > Alliance Fort > Dragon 2, and click on the yellow upgrade arrow.

Then, you'll see sliders for different things you can donate. Right now, it needs diamonds. There's really no reason not to do this. You can't use them for anything else. There is also no point in over donating (such as Sandstone, when there is already enough.)

Happy Clashing,
Lisa Kay

Alliance Research

Under Alliance Science and Research, toward the bottom, are areas with little purple bottles (if you are R4 or R5), which are areas available to be researched. Only one can be done at a time.

If none are active, R4/R5 should click on one of those to kick it off.

Only R4 or R5 can do this. (To see who can do what, go to Alliance > Manage > Modify Permissions.)

Happy Clashing,
Lisa Kay

Training Soldiers

As you upgrade your castle, you can train higher level soldiers. Always train the highest level ones (except sometimes to satisfy a quest that asks for lower). There is no need to train lower level guys. As they are killed off, you'll be left with only the top level or two, and that's OK. Always train as many as you can in all the training buildings (unless they are upgrading).

There is a billboard down near the farms that you can click to see how much income you get of each resource type (farms, mills, mines). In the case of farms, it also tells how much your soldiers eat. Don't be misled if the eating/hour is less that the farm output/hour. You still don't have enough food. For one thing, most people aren't online enough to keep resources collected. (Once at capacity, farms don't produce anymore until collected... but soldiers eat.) More significantly, you use a lot of food building/researching/etc.)

Bottom line: you will get a lot of food as awards and giveaways (at the harbor, from Novia, Daily Awards, etc.), but you will eventually find that you need to gather food, as well.

As your troops get higher level and our marches allow more troops, you'll find that you can succeed in fights against higher level monsters, obviously. There are also research areas, equipment, etc., that can help. With all that, I found that I plateaued at monster level 13. I just couldn't beat 14, even through much power growth. I was asking other people, and they said the same thing. I couldn't figure it out. Finally, it turned out, the trick is to send the dragon on the march. I don't remember exactly when you get your dragon, but the key is to upgrade it to level 10. Then it can go on marches.

At Civilization/Popularity level "Neutrality + 3," you get your second dragon.

Happy Clashing,
Lisa Kay

Super Mines

Welcome new members. Tutorial of the day: You can identify the Alliance Area by going to Alliance > Alliance Territory > Alliance Turret. The turrets mark several corners of the territory, and light blue line with little blobs on it outlines the whole area. (There's also a highlight that sweeps the area, to help you see which side of the line is "in" and which is "out.") You can bring any turret directly onto the map view by clicking the map coordinates given in the aforementioned menu.

There is also a Super Mine listed under the Alliance Territory. At present, we have one, set as a sawmill. You can "gather" at the supermine, just as you can at individual farms/sawmills/mines on the world map. There are benefits to gathering at the supermine as opposed to any other farm/sawmill/mine on the map. First, you get more/faster. Second, you cannot be attacked in the supermine. The second one is particularly important right now, with a kill event going on. If you leave troops gathering in a regular sawmill, they are highly likely to get killed.

What is a "kill event," you say? Well, if you click on the Event Center (one of your buildings in your castle view), there is a line for Daily Event. Those are competitions against all other players (in the kingdom, I think), for who can do the most of something. If you look at the detail, you can see that right now, it is set to "kill enemies." That means that lots of powerful folks are teleporting all over the place, seeing how many soldiers they can kill (and farms/sawmills/mines are easy pickings).

You can read more about strategy for Daily Event types at f.elex.com/threads/11668-Daily-events-A-guide-with-actual-tips.

Happy Clashing,
Lisa Kay

Festival Carnival

Sell your cupcakes at the Event Center > Festival Carnival. This is also known as the "Welfare Store."

Happy Clashing,
Lisa Kay