Farm & Food Cities:

We believe Farm specialized cities to be the 3^rd best type of specific cities. Lumber and Iron cities are more strategic, but Farm cities are more effective than stone cities.

Pro:

- You can support a larger army without having negative food production.

Con:

- If your farms cannot support that large army, then you will have negative food production and no means of getting more food. Since you used up all your resource field slots, you cannot produce other resources to make gold.

Sawmill & Lumber Cities:

We believe Lumber cities to be the 1^st best type of specific cities. This means that this is a better city than food, stone, or iron.

Pro:

- Due to the high prices of lumber in the market, you can usually sell 1 lumber for twice the amount of food. Therefore, you can support a twice as large army as that of a Food city. In addition to that, lumber is a necessity for researching technologies, constructing buildings, training troops, and building fortified units. In essence, lumber is the most important resource in the Evony.

Con:

- You have to wait 30 minutes for resources to transport to your city through the market.

Quarry & Stone Cities:

We believe Stone cities to be the 4^th best type of specific cities. This means that this is the worst city to have and that food, lumber, and iron are all better options.

Pro:

- You can have a huge amount of stone to build fortifications and construct buildings.

Con:

- Stone is the least valuable resource and therefore is fairly worthless. The average trade rate is 100 stone for 1 food, 500 stone for 1 lumber and iron. The prices speak for themselves.

Ironmine & Iron Cities:

We believe Iron cities to be the 2^nd best type of specific cities. It was tough to decide which was more effective – iron or lumber cities. Iron is definitely a good city to have. Why is Iron worse than Lumber? Yes, we are aware that lumber and iron prices are virtually equal, so it boiled down to one thing: Ironmines take longer to build than Sawmills. That is the only reason.

Pro:

- Due to the high prices of iron in the market, you can usually sell 1 iron for twice the amount of food. Therefore, you can support a twice as large army as that of a Food city. In addition to that, iron is a necessity for researching technologies, constructing buildings, training troops, and building fortified units. Iron is equal in prices to that of lumber.

Con:

- You have to wait 30 minutes for resources to transport to your city through the market.

Sending a bunch of your troops to reinforce an ally’s city will leave them there to fight and defend the city. The owner of the city may not control your army and you may recall your troops at any time. Food will be consumed on the owner’s part as if your army were his/hers.

You have to select the “allow troops of allied members to garrison your current city” option in the embassy to allow your alliance teammates to support you.

Prestige and honor can be two confusing things. How do you earn them? What do they do? Well, in the simple form, nothing. But they show everything.

Prestige: Gained by building units and buildings, researching techs and killing NPC’s

Honor: Gained by killing more of the enemy than you lose. Must be another player

Wait… I lost Honor but won the fight… Honor is based on the resources that were transferred in the fight. This most often happens when you attack a city with a small amount of traps. Your men may be more valuable than the traps you took down, therefore resulting in a loss of honor.

WHAT! I just lost 11k honor because some jerk with three times my prestige destroyed my army! This isn’t all that unlikely. Honor isn’t really that important: Though fun to earn, it isn’t really a measure of ability so much as a measure of bullying.

Prestige is required for rank advancement and a quest requires prestige. This makes prestige more important than honor. There is no way to cheat for prestige. Some people say you can by building and rebuilding cottages. This wastes 700 goods and gets 1 prestige.  It’s almost as fast to just make warriors. Warriors also generate 1 prestige per make, but it’s not at all cheating. Warriors are a staple to the fighting force. Feel free to build as many as you want, or as few as you want.

This is the player scale for ability:

20k or less prestige: Beginner

21k — 30k prestige: Learner

31k — 40k prestige: Low Player

41k — 50k prestige: Average player

51k — 70k prestige: Advanced player

71k — 100k prestige: Threat Player

101k–200k prestige: Power Player

201k and up prestige: Player Lord

Of course, any of these ranks could be an inactive player, but the further you move up the spectrum, the less likely.

Hint: Judge peoples cities by their prestige, their armies by their honor

How to quickly earn prestige: Be active. There isn’t any way to really speed your prestige. Make sure you are building and researching things in all of your cities. Also, make sure you are always producing troops and wall defenses, and those troops are attacking valleys. Of course, attacking valleys doesn’t result in much prestige, but the rank advancement and medals will help you.

Honor scale: (only applies to 50k prestige and up)

% of honor compared to prestige:

0% honor = hasn’t fought/been fought or lost big

1-9% honor = probably attacked an inactive, or lost honor recently.

10-20% honor = average player

50% honor = fighter

80% honor = champion

100% honor = warlord

150% and up (some over 1000% honor) = war god

But in truth, there are a lot of war gods. Just make sure you don’t get in there way.

Lord Arumen

For a quick reference:

Level 1 cottages offer 100 population.

Level 2 cottages offer 300 population.

Level 3 cottages offer 600 population.

Level 4 cottages offer 1,000 population.

Level 5 cottages offer 1,500 population.

Level 6 cottages offer 2,100 population.

Level 7 cottages offer 2,800 population.

Level 8 cottages offer 3,600 population.

Level 9 cottages offer 4,500 population.

Level 10 cottages offer 5,500 population.

If I had 2 level 7 cottages, 5 level 4 cottages, and 1 level 9 cottage, I would have a total population limit of 15,100 people.

How come I don’t have a population of 15,100 then?

The reason is because of your tax rate. If my tax rate was 0%, then I would indeed get 15,100 people. If my tax rate was 10%, then I would have 13,590 people (90% of my population limit).

Now population is used for two main things: Workers and Troops for your army.

In any city, you need people to work in your farms, sawmills, quarries, and ironmines. Therefore, with each resource building that you build, you a certain portion of your population goes to work.

The remaining population is used to train, or recruit, troops. If I had 5,000 idle population, I have the ability to create 5,000 men. Of course, since troops such as archers take “2 population” I can only train 2,500 archers.

Yes, your population does replenish after you train troops – it just takes a short period of time.

The link: Troop Training Calculator – Beta Version

As this is in beta stage, we’d like all users to please submit feedback, good and bad, so that we can improve on all aspects of the calculator.

Submit Feedback & Questions for this calculator.

Expect great edits to this calculator and also expect more basic, advanced, and even premium calculators in the near future!

Your army is a crucial part of this game. While I personally used a very small army the first few months, it all depends on your play style. I categorize war into three different play styles:

1. Diplomatic: Small armies, a lot of talking to other players. Most people will stop attacking you, for a few days at least, if you ask them (as long as you’re far smaller than them.) Your army will only be for raiding inactive and very weak players.
2. War Lord: Build up large armies consisting of only warriors and archers. As of the point this was written, archers are the “God” unit that in large numbers beat anything. WIth the new patch though, Ballistae and Trebuchets are more important, so consider making them.
3. Defensive: Build up large armies of swords and archers. More expensive but a very good offensive force when need be. Also, your walls will be filled with mostly Archers Towers (Which I will talk about later)

The best units to build in this game are: Archers, Warriors, and Swords. But why is this?

Archers: Ranged infantry, and they are the “God” unit. Enough of these can kill any unit, since they do 60 damage to infantry and have a range of 1260 (since they require archery 1 to build). That gives them 5 shots on the fastest infantry.

Warriors: Cost only 230 goods and carry 20. They take a mere 30 seconds to build and become a screaming axe of death when they get to about 70k in size.

Swords: Cost wise, Swords are the best unit in the game. And they are worth it, but only with archers as backup. Else they will be mowed down all the same by the opposing archers.

Other Units:

Workers: Weak and pitiful, they carry a lot. Also, 250 are required for a new city.

Scouts: Worst fighters, besides Transporters and Workers, a scout army is a VERY important thing to have. You will kill off enemy scouts and prevent them from gaining full knowledge. Do reduced damage to walls, or none at all.

Pike men: Fast and with a 50% bonus versus Calvary, they look like a good choice. And if you mass them they are. But don’t rely on them.

Calvary: Powerful against archers in en masse, these units die quickly to abati.

Hint: When you attack a city and your force dies and you all you see are abati, they DIDN’T get killed by them. The units failed to break through the wall. Unless those units are calvary

Cataphracts: Extremely powerful, a legion of these would be the most destructive force in the game. It would also be impossible to support. They cost 36 food each.

Transporters: Hold 5000 goods, but move very slow. Transporters are a necessity for sieges, allowing you to steal a lot of the enemy’s goods.

Ballista: These weirdly target archers first. Good against archers, but often killed by other things soon afterwards.

Ram: Powerful durability wreckers. Use to smash through high level walls.

Catapults:  Powerful ranged units. Can kill towers easily without being hit. Super expensive and extensive to build.

Now what’s important: Don’t mix units of the same type. Send armies of one kind of melee, archers, and siege. Warriors, Pikes, and Swords sounds like it should work the best, but fails too, unless you are trying to use the meat shield method, upon which this works.

Following these basic combat rules should lead you to victory on the field.

Lord Arumen

You will truly be beginning when you have gotten your good production up to 1800 per hour. That’s a decent 1 per 2 seconds, so you should see a steady flow.

Then you need to have a level (lvl) 2 rally point, lvl 1 inn, lvl 1 feasting hall, lvl 1 wall, lvl 1 academy, lvl 2 forge, lvl 1 workshop, 4 lvl 2 cottages. This will let you do a lot more. First, you probably have a decent amount of gold (10,000 or so). Go to the academy. Click on Agricultural Tech and get it. That will increase your food production. Do the same for Lumbering tech. This is for wood.

Hint: Running low on supplies? Click BUY under your recourses. This is EXTREMELY useful early in the game, and much better than buying amulets.

YOUR ARMY

Next we need an army.

Get your barracks to level two. Train 2 warriors in groups of 50 or so. That will give you roughly 100 men. You may not have enough for this, so train in smaller groups. If you’re lucky, you will get a junior battalion.

Junior Battalion: 100-250 free warriors and 100-250 free workers. Useful at the very beginning, not so much after that.

With this force, you should be able to take over a lvl one valley. But first we need a hero. Upgrade the feasting hall to lvl 2. (You should have a Mayor by now. If not, get a hero with high politics and intelligence and appoint him as mayor. The you will still need a second hero)

Hint: Make Sure you choose a hero with high attack for your general and high politics and intelligence for your mayor

For your first valley take anything (a forest would be most useful at this point) and with this valley you will increase your production of a certain good. Flats don’t increase production; instead they are able to be turned into cities.

ACADEMY

After taking your first flat, go to your academy. Level it up to lvl 2 (Use a beginners instruction for instantaneous build). Then research Informatics. Speed up is free on this (The only tech on which it is)

Informatics: A lot of new layers are confused on this. This tech is ONLY useful at levels two and up. Otherwise, it does nothing but give you scouts. If your tech level of this is one higher than a valley your scouting, you can see what TYPE of unit is there. If it is two levels higher you can see TYPE AND NUMBER. This is one of the most useful abilities in the game.

Then research military science. This will increase unit production speed. This will help later in the game more than now, but you need military science to build a lot of other units.

TOWN HALL:

We want this up next. You should have it to level 2 by the time you read this. That’s good. Click upgrade on the next one. OH dear! The time for building is probably around 50 minutes. Don’t worry; we can get two quests done by this: Use Primary Plans. These will speed up research or build time by an hour. This will instantly complete the town hall, while finishing two quests. Get the rewards in the quest tab, then go back to the present. You will now be able to receive the Lord’s Package. Open it up like the newbie’s package.

This will put you on your way to being a great lord. Things to note: DON’T go to a lvl 5 town hall, there are many things to improve in your city. Going to a lvl 5 Town Hall will end your safety early, which will hurt you.

Lord Arumen

In Evony, the Academy is one of the most essential buildings you can construct. The Academy makes people win battles, obtain resources more quickly, construct other buildings faster, and create military units and fortifications with immense speed.

The following can be researched in the Academy:

Agriculture: “enhances food production”

This is just as important as any of the other military enhancements because armies need food. Without food, your armies will starve.

Lumbering: “enhances lumber production”

Just like agriculture, lumbering is a must. Lumber is required for every single unit you create.

Masonry: “enhances stone production”

The faster you can get stone, the more fortified units you can create. We all need more defense!

Mining: “enhances iron production”

Similar to lumbering, iron is needed for any creation of a military unit. Iron is a necessity.

Metal Casting: “enhances production speed of mechanics”

From personal experience, trust me, you need at least level 9 or 10 of Metal Casting once you have established yourself. Mechanics are powerful units in Evony and you want to build them as fast as you can.

Informatics: “the more detailed information you gain”

Informatics is not a technology that is most useful for offense, but rather a very helpful and strategic defensive research. If you have high informatics, you will know the size and strength of your attackers and can be ready whether it be retreat or stand and win.

Military Science: “enhances training speed”

Although this does not directly relate to victory or loss in battle, generally the lords who can train their troops the quickest will have a larger army. The larger your army is the most dominant you are. This is also a pre-requisite for many other technologies.

Military Tradition: “enhances army’s attack”

Without a doubt, anyone without a high military tradition will lose many battles. The more attack you have, the stronger you are.

Iron Working: “enhances army’s defense”

Again, this is very vital to a strong civilization. Without defense, your troops will get massacred within moments.

Logistics: “enhances army’s load”

You can carry more resources with higher logistics. This is important if you intend on attacking cities that are far away, or want to transport resources to and from your different cities.

Compass: “enhances infantry moving speed”

The higher this is, the faster your troops will move around. Given the fact that the majority of your army will be infantry (archers, warriors, etc) it would be wise to have a high compass level. It could determine victory or loss in battle.

Horseback Riding: “enhances moving speed of cavalry and mechanics”

The higher this is, the faster your troops will move around. Horseback riding helps scouts, cavalry, cataphracts, ballistae, transporters, battering rams, and catapults. I must say, the mechanics units move very slowly, so you might want to research this.

Archery: “enhances shooting range”

This is considered to be the most important technology. If you do not plan on trying to get level 10 archery you are making a huge mistake. Why? For more information on the importance of range, click HERE.

Stockpile: “enhances warehouse capacity”

This is probably the least essential technology in the game. The goal of this research is to help you keep resources if you get plundered. The biggest problem with this is that anyone with privateering will come in and destroy you anyways.

Medicine: “enhances army’s life”

The higher your medicine level, the more “hitpoints” each and every military unit will have. This is important, because if your attack, defense, and range is exactly equal to your opponent’s, then it will come down to whoever has more life.

Construction: “enhances construction speed of buildings and fortified units”

This is one of the most useful technologies in Evony. The faster you can build buildings and defenses, the more powerful you will be.

Engineering: “enhances durability of walls”

The higher your engineering level, the more space you have to build fortified units. Who doesn’t want to build more defenses?

Machinery: “enhances repairable rate of fortified units”

For those of you who do not understand this, it is similar to when an NPC regenerates its traps and archer towers. The higher your machinery level, the more fortifications will regenerate after being defeated. This is highly useful when an enemy destroys your defenses and then gets a surprise when 75% of your defenses spring back up!

Privateering: “Decreases rival’s warehouse down to 3% whilst plundering”

Although you need a level 10 Academy to research privateering, it is extremely useful. If you have a powerful army, you can plunder your enemies who have a warehouse without fear of them keeping the majority of their resources.

Workers: Workers are meant to transfer bulk resources. They are very weak and cannot defend themselves well. Thankfully though, they can carry a lot of load. In addition, you need 250 to construct a new city.

Scouts: Scouts are the weakest of all the cavalry units. Scouts are very important to have however, because you need them to scout out enemy cities and valleys. Scouts also are the only units that can destroy your opponents’ scouts when he/she scouts you.

Pike-men: Pike-men are very fast and are the ideal unit to destroy enemy cavalry units. However, due to the fact that other units are just as effective, few players use Pike-men in bulk.

Archers: Without a doubt, the most intimidating army is one that consists of a large amount of Archers. Archers are by far the most valuable unit. Why? I have explained the importance of range in a past article. To read more on why range and archers are your top priority, please click HERE.

Cavalry: Cavalry are swift and speedy. If you have a lot of them, you can take out archers, swordsmen, warriors, and virtually anything in your path. Their biggest weakness is Abatis.

Cataphracts: Cataphracts are a terror when you have them in great multitude. Of course, everything has a catch. Cataphracts would destroy everyone in your path if you had enough of them, however, they are extremely difficult to support. With a cost of 36 food per Cataphract, anyone who can maintain a large army of them has to be very actively plundering.

Transporters: Transporters are Workers that are beefed up. They are slower but have a load of 5,000 which is very important when you are plundering or putting a city under siege.

Ballista: Ballista are expensive, take a long time to create, and are pretty slow, but are worth it if you make enough of them. They are one of the only units that can effectively take out archers.

Battering Rams: These are powerful durability wreckers. They are used to smash through enemy walls and defenses.

Catapults: These are the strongest ranged units. If your archery technology is high enough, you can take out enemy archer towers without even being hit once. Catapults are also the most expensive to build, not to mention they take a very long time to build.

I will go into more detail on battle strategies in later articles.