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

New Year Carnival Chests

In the Event Center, under New Year Carnival, click on any of the chests on the top border if the progress bar is up to them. I've noticed the game doesn't remind you to collect them like it does for daily awards and some others.

Happy Clashing,
Lisa Kay

Advanced Teleports

For folks still in the old area: another way of getting advanced teleports besides buying in the Alliance Store with 400K Alliance Points is to buy it with 2000 gold under Items > Store > War.

Happy Clashing,
Lisa Kay

Lord EXP

Hint to R1: When you get Lord EXP (shown in Items), use it all. It increases your Lord Level.

Your Lord Level also limits the level of equipment you can wear. Forge the best equipment you can for your Lord Level or one step up (to use when your Lord Level increases). It's best to make materials in the Workshop at the green level, collecting them until you can synthesize at least blue.

Four of any level material can be synthesized into one of the next level material. Four greens makes blue. Four blues makes purple. Etc. Higher level materials make higher level equipment.

When you replace equipment as your Lord Level increases, don't destroy the old equipment, because you can use it to equip heroes, later.

Also: Go to Alliance > Alliance Treasure and dig for treasure. Then, go to the Help List tab on that page and "help" someone else already digging treasure. You don't get the treasure unless someone else helps you before the time is up. You can tell if someone is helping you by looking under the "My Treasure" tab, and it shows how long is left. After that time, you can dig, again.

There are limited digs per day, but it is tough to exceed the limit. One way to get more stuff is to dig higher level treasures (which also take longer... two or four hours instead of one). Each time you log on, collect treasures from your last login and dig again (and help someone else). Sometimes the game doesn't show my latest treasure status, but this can be fixed by quitting the game and re-starting it. (On an apple pad/phone, double click the home button and then drag the game window up.)

Happy Clashing,
Lisa Kay