RtW 2.1 Update: What Will Change? - Pt.1

With the big update coming on Wednesday there are a lot of questions around on what are the changes, how does it affect us and how should we use or change what we have as commanders. How do we prepare? What and when should I do to improve my account? - Let's have a look. 

This article has only few pictures due to the fact that we do not have any pictures of items etc. available nor can I show you "live" screenshots on how to use items etc. - this will only be available once the update has been patched in.

This article includes access to the NEW Lady Death's Commander 2.0 Tool © (v.1.1)

Commander Respect Changes

The main changes are in the lower levels' respect requirements and in the value of respect items after ascension. 

Respect requirements OLD vs NEW

T1  R0 -> R1  400 -> 200
T1  R1 -> R2  400 -> 320
T1  R3 -> R4  560 -> 800
T1  R4 -> R5  600 -> 1,520

T2  R0 -> R1  1,000 -> 500
T2  R0 -> R1  1,000 -> 800

T3  R0 -> R1  3,000 -> 1,500
T3  R0 -> R1  3,000 -> 2,400

Value of Respect Items OLD vs NEW

Legendary Items: before Ascension 100 -> 100
Legendary Items: after Ascension 30 -> 70

Epic Items: before 1st Ascension 40 -> 40
Epic Items: after 1st Ascension 12 -> 40
Epic Items: after 2nd Ascension 12 -> 28

This will lead to a shift in respect levels. You will not get any items back, but instead the amount of total respect that your commanders have will be calculated down to how many items this equates according to the old system and then it will be converted to the output in respect in the new system.

Example: 

Let's assume Haldir Respect like mine: 
This means I have a a total respect of 29,040 + 749 on him. This equates to 2049 + 62 items (and some stray respect) = 2111 items, which will be just shy of Z1 after the update.

So you dont have to calculate all that yourself, I made a spreadsheet where you can simply look it up. 

Here are the three Quality overviews. Please mind that I do not have information on all the higher Zenith levels' requirements. 
The changes are marked with a darker color so you can easier see where there are differences.

Epic Commanders - T1 

Legendary Commanders - T2

Mythic Commanders - T3

Commander Ascension Changes

The devs made Ascension a little bit cheaper and more obtainable by some changes to that system as well. 

OLD

• Commander respect item of the designated Commander 
  - Original Epic commanders: 50 for ascension to Legendary
  - Original Epic/Legendary commanders: 150 for ascension to Mythic
• 10 Designated respect item of a T2 commander to ascend to Legendary
• 40 Designated respect item of a T3 commander to ascend to Mythic

NEW

• Any Commander respect item of the commander's original rarity: 
  - Original Epic commanders: 30 for ascension to Legendary
  - Original Epic commanders: 150 for ascension to Mythic
  - Original Legendary commanders: 100 for ascension to Mythic
• Any Legendary respect items: 10 items
• Any Mythic respect items: 40 items

Level for Ascension

OLD vs NEW

• Epic commanders to Legendary: R5 -> R4
  
• Epic commanders to Mythic: R10 unchanged
• Legendary commanders to Mythic: R10 unchanged

On commanders which you ascended you will receive the respective amount of respect items back. If you have ascended an Epic commander (t1) to Legendary or Mythic, you will receive 20 items of that commander. If you ascended a Legendary (t2) commander to Mythic, you will receive  50 items of that commander. 

Commander Relic Changes

All Relics will now cost 10 Mithril to unlock them. Originally they cost 40/50/60 Mithril depending on the commander's original rarity.

This means you will receive back the following amount of Mithril:

• Epic Commander's Relic crafted: 30 Mithril
• Legendary Commander's Relic crafted: 40 Mithril
• Mythic Commander's Relic crafted: 50 Mithril

The Mithril costs to upgrade the Relics remain the same as before:

• Epic Commander's Relics: 40 / 40 / 80 / 80 / 120
• Legendary Commander's Relics: 50 / 50 / 100 / 100 / 150
• Mythic Commander's Relics: 60 / 60 / 120 / 120 / 180

Commander Respect Reversion Vouchers

To allow you to adjust your commanders according to the new system and skills, you will receive a certain amount of Respect Reversion Vouchers. Requirement for these vouchers are that the commander is at least Respect Level 5 AND at least Legendary. This means you will not receive any vouchers for Purple Respect 5 Commanders.

Every Voucher you receive allows you to pull out up to 10 Respect Items out of the commander that you use it on. You cannot draw more respect than down to Respect level 4.

You will receive the vouchers via in game mail and they are valid for 30 days.

CAREFUL!
If using respect vouchers would reduce your R10+ commander far enough, it will also revert the Relic that you might have. It appears that you will get back all Mithril. However, any items used to strengthen the Relic would be returned as Worn-out items instead of the items you used originally.

My advice: Do NOT pull more items on commanders that are R10+ and have a strengthened Relic.

Commander Ascension Material Exchange Vouchers

The wording is a bit awkward for this one, but this is how I read it:
For every Ascension that you performed before the update you will receive a voucher to "exchange" if  required.
With these you can exchange the Designated Respect items that have been consumed during Ascension into Any Respect Items of the same quality.
You can apply 1x Voucher per commander.
e.g. You used Saruman items on Lurtz. You can now exchange these items against a collection of other items like Gil, Gala, Sunind, etc. 

It does NOT sound like you could fully undo the ascension.

You will receive these vouchers via in game mail and they are valid for 30 days.

How to Prepare

To get as many Respect Reset Vouchers as possible you want as many commanders as possible at Respect level 5 & Ascended to Legendary.

But when is it worth it to use items on commanders and when is it a waste?

As we heard above, you get one voucher per each legendary commander with respect 5 that you own. This means you will want to level up some commanders in order to get more tokens. 
*Disclaimer: These are general suggestions. You will always have to evaluate based on your individual account development and spending pattern. 

• t1 for majority of players worth it including opposite side commanders for RP players (where else do you use your t1 tokens and vouchers?) -> you will need to ascend the commander and here is where you need to be mindful: if you have to use tokens of a commander that is in your main army, you are better advised NOT to do it.
• t2 depends already a bit on what you're planning to do. It will likely be worth it if you do not need the respect items for other things. 
  As most people would likely use their reset vouchers on t3 commanders, it will often be worth it to level up at least if you are close.
• t3 is very dependent on situation
  -> if you need 10 or less items to get to r5, definitely do it
  -> if you need more than 10 items, but plan to use that commander in the future anyway, definitely do it now to get the extra tokens
  -> if it requires you to trade other t3 items for this commander, definitely DONT do it as you lose value, not worth it
  -> everything else has to be looked at on a case by case basis

If you are unsure whether or not to level up your commander, ask a friend or trusted member of your team who has a good understanding of the game in general and of the changes to come. Better ask than be sorry.

DO's and DONT's

A few general words of advice:

• Do NOT trade any respect items at this point. It is a waste of value.
  Gain for trade vs cost for trade at the example of t3 items:
  1x t3 items gets you 16 t3 vouchers
  1x t3 items costs you 40 t3 vouchers
  This means you lose a lot of value if you trade. Especially now with the requirements for Ascension you can make use of ANY item until you have all your commanders ascended to Mythic. Of course some commanders you might never want to ascend, but you get the idea. 
• Do NOT rush anything after the update
  Make sure to create a solid plan before you make any decisions that you cannot reverse. 
  You can enhance the value of your account by a lot with these changes, but you can also lose a lot of value if you do things rushed and without proper basis of information.
  
• Do inform yourself on the new commander stats and suggested army setups.
  There are a lot of theorycrafters and testers and math geniuses out there. Make sure to get input from a multitude of sources BEFORE you do anything irreversible in game.
• You will get the most value out of the vouchers if you use them on T3 commanders. Don't use them on your lower tier commanders unless you are really sure you need those respect items for another commander of that level.

I can't stress it enough: Take your time. Do not rush anything. You have 30 days time to make your decisions. No need to do anything within the first 10 minutes. You can do it in the last 10 days instead.

Commander Spreadsheet

You have seen some screenshots above from my Commander 2.0 Spreadsheet. This spreadsheet is not yet updated with the new skills and some numbers are missing in the respect table at higher Zenith levels. However, in order to give you the full access to what is there, here the link to it. I hope it helps you when making your decisions and calculations.

 NEW ! Lady Death's Commander 2.0 Tool © (v.1.1)

Summary & Evaluation

Looking at all these changes, overall the game is going back to being more accessible for F2P players and low spenders. A number of changes are being made that will benefit these players and bring them closer en par to "Dolphin" level players, which means they will be enabled to hold their own better in PvP fights.

Another huge thing is the Respect Refund Tokens, which allow you to undo mistakes from the switch to 2.0. This is also why you should definitely take your time. You get the chance to enhance the value of your account by making smart decisions based on your individual situation. Every account is unique. This means that with all the suggestions and tips in this article or on any other source, you always have to apply it to your own situation and make possibly adjustments to these tips. 

Last time to repeat it: don't rush things. Take your time. May the Valar's wisdom guide you in your decisions. 

RtW 2.1 Update: What Will Change? - Pt.2 will include information to further changes on Respect Levels and Skills.

Basics: Counter - Unit Buffs - Race Buffs

Another question that keeps coming up even though it all has been around for quite some time already. So I figured it's way past time to do a thorough explanation on how the troop size counters work and what it is with the extra buffs you can get. I hope this enables you to plan your army accordingly and decide for yourself which buffs you want to ensure or which ones you can pass up on. 

Introduction

There are 3 different things at play when composing your army out of units that tend to get confused or meshed with each other. You want to keep in mind when setting up your army that there are these types of "buffs":

• Race (Bloodline) of the formation's commander
• Counter or unit size in connection to countering opponents' units
• Size in connection to the extra buff for same size on all your army's commanders

See below, what they impact and how to manage obtaining the best possible buff combination.

Power of Bloodline

You can find this buff on your commander's Skill page in the Commander interface. The Power of Bloodline gains more points as you develop all your commanders' respect levels. The more influence you gain overall, the more points you will get for the different Bloodlines over time. You can check the status of your influence level when you go to the Mathom House and there on the Commander Map.

 However, you can also add leftover points that you cannot make use of with skills and by that slightly improve the stats.

This buff only applies if your commander leads the troops that his Power of Bloodline indicates. It only concerns the troop's race on this one commander/formation. The other formations do not have to lead the same race, but rather the race their own commander's Bloodline indicates.

See this example: Sauron buffs Orcs, Uruk-hai, Evil Men and Trolls. Saruman buffs Orcs, Uruk-hai and Evil Men. Meanwhile Lurtz buffs Orcs and Uruk-hai. 

What does this mean? Do you have to use Orcs or Uruk-hai because they get buffed by all three?
You certainly could if that is what you want, but you don't have to. You can also use Trolls on Sauron, Evil Men on Saruman and Orcs on Lurtz - all three Buffs would be activated in that case.

Since I don't have Orcs or Uruk-hai on him, I cannot activate Lurtz' buff, but the other two still apply regardless.

Counter

The basic counter is: Small < Medium < Large < Small.

Meaning: A formation with Medium sized Units will counter a formation that has Small sized Units. Large Units counter Medium. Lastly, Small Units counter Large.

Now, important to know here is that this is based on individual formations. Regardless what else you have in your army, if one formation has Small units and hits an opponent's formation with Large units, you will do more damage with your Small against Large compared to what you do against Small or Medium. At the same time you take more damage from attacks by Medium against your Small than you take from Small or Large armies. 

The game will indicate the "counter" in your report overview when both armies have troops of same size and one counters the other. 

Army Buff

If all commanders in your formation have units of the same size, you get an additional buff. This buff is unrelated to the counter buff, but it is an extra on top. However, strict requirement for this is that all formations in that army have the same size units. This can apply to one formation armies already - then it is of course easy to get.

The buffs you receive depend on the unit size:

• Small Unit: [Unit] Attack +10 & [Unit] Initiative +5
• Medium Unit: [Unit] Defense +10
• Large Unit: [Unit] Attack +5 & [Unit] Defense +5

Regardless of whether or not you have these buffs activated, the Counter function still applies on a formation vs formation level.

Activating these buffs might be superfluous for some or it might give you the little extra edge you need to survive. 

Basics: Schedules in Game

For three years now most of the scheduled maintenance, server end/start, migration to/from Bag End etc have been pretty consistent. Yet, the questions arise time and time again. So I guess it is time for an overview. 

*These times/days might change slightly

Another type of question that gets raised a lot is "How long does it take ...?" Some of the durations are visible above, but here for a clearer overview and with a short explanation:

I hope this overview can help you with your planning.

Basics: Season Start Guide

We have seen how to level commanders, but let's have a look how to do this effectively during season start and make the most of the stamina we have as well as grow with resources and look at the Ring Trees and other things you need to know. This guide is more of an overview on all aspects you should consider. It might not always give you the one fool-proof recipe, but rather help you guide into making your own decisions based on knowing what options you have.

Disclaimer: Seasonal information is subject to change depending on patches brought out to the game by the developers. If there are any mistakes, please bear with me and let me know on discord where I need to make adjustments. Thank you.

Building Levels

Your Settlement restarts every season at the same basic level - you have to level up all the way up to level 20 respectively depending on the building in your base. Very few buildings require only one level.

General rule to make the most of the resources you have, is to follow the guide by the game that will lead you through 20 chapters to progress at season start. See next big headline "Chapter Progress" below. 

Your buildings will give you access to more resources (some buildings "produce" certain resources) and also to higher level troops, bigger armies and other things you need. Depending on the campaign or season you are playing the buildings might look significantly different in what you have available. 

If you don't need the season/campaign related information, you can skip these paragraphs and jump directly to "Important Buildings".

Season 1

The structure of the buildings looks different to what seasoned players are used to from campaigns and the earlier season 1 servers. We see the connection of buildings to each other a bit more clearly. There are still some level requirements that are not displayed at first sight though.

The buildings are (numbers in parenthesis indicate max level, "?" indicates unknown with best guess from other campaigns)

• 
  Main Hall (10), then on the left side 
• Storage (20) that unlocks access to the 
• Resource Tributes (20), first Wood and Stone, which unlocks then Grain and Ore. 
• The tributes unlock the Market (1), which in turn unlocks the 
• Resource Center (4)
• Underneath that you have the building Battlements (10?), which unlocks with Main Hall 6, and this will unlock the
• Bowman Tower (10?)

On the right side you find the buildings 

• Barracks (20), which unlock the
• Commander's Chamber (3), which in turn unlocks
• Training Grounds (10).

On the far right you can see

• Conscription Post (20), which unlocks the
• Apothecary (10).

Then you have the Troop Quarters with the respective races' troop buildings. For your main troop you have a t4 building. All quarters go up to level 10 and the troop buildings up to level 6 each.

Season 2

At the time of writing no access to this campaign and no information on what the building tree looks like currently. However, this season is NRP based, so it will probably have an Embassy building to allow you the option to build camps for opposite alignment troops outside your base.

Campaign Rebuilding Glory

The main buildings are: 

• 
  Main Hall (10)
• Tier 1: Storage (20), Apothecary (10), Barracks (20)
• Tier 2: Lumber & Stone Tributes (20), Conscription Post (20)
• Tier 3: Grain & Ore Tributes (20), Fellowship Hall (5)
• Tier 4: Market (1), Battlements (
• Tier 5: Military Embassy (if NRP, 6?), Training Grounds (10), Resource Center (4)
• Tier 9: Bowman Tower (10)
  

Then you have the Troop Quarters with the respective races' troop buildings. For your main troop you have a t4 building. All quarters go up to level 10 and the troop buildings up to level 6 each.

Campaign Tactics Evolved

At the time of writing no access to this campaign. It is however available as NRP only and should look similar to Rebuilding Glory with the difference of an Embassy Building to unlock opposite alignment's camps outside the settlement and by levelling this building you enhance the amount of camps you can build.

Campaign Rings of Power: Kings of Men

The main buildings are: 

• 
  Main Hall (10)
  
• Tier 1: Storage (20), Apothecary (10), Barracks (20)
• Tier 2: Lumber & Stone Tributes (20), Conscription Post (20)
• Tier 3: Grain & Ore Tributes (20), Fellowship Hall (5)
• Tier 4: Market (1), Battlements (10)
• Tier 5: Military Embassy (6?), Training Grounds (10), Resource Center (4)
• Tier 9: Bowman Tower (10)

Then you have the Men and Evil Men Quarters with the troop buildings. For both types you have a t4 building, which allows you to conscript Swans or War Chariots or both. All quarters go up to level 10 and the troop buildings up to level 6 each.

Important Buildings

Of course, all buildings are needed and give you different value. There are however some that you might need more attention than others at any given time. Here are some examples of the more important buildings, on which you should focus during your start:

• Main Hall: imperative for overall progress and to unlock higher level troops, which let you take higher level tiles. 
• Barracks: increases number of formations in your army, number of armies and amount of troops you can own at a time
• Conscription Post: Conscription Time and Conscription Queues
• Training Grounds: increases the Command one commander can carry, i.e. it increases the amount of troops in your army
• Quarters: grant access to building and upgrading the troop buildings, which reduce conscription times of the troop types for which they grant access. The quarters also give additional resource production (one resource type per quarter)

Before you start taking tiles, make sure to build your Apothecary, Conscription Post and Barracks. You do not want any troops to die when instead they could end up wounded and you want to start conscripting more troops immediately. Some players don't start taking tiles before they unlocked the third formation.

Chapter Progress

As mentioned above, the game provides you with a guide on how to develop your settlement. In most cases you want to follow that guide's suggestions - in order to progress and get more  tile space and resources as reward, which will help you proceed, you will have to finish most of them as advised. However, at times you might want to deviate and also focus on some buildings that the game does not particularly suggest to you. 

There are 20 chapters with progressive tasks, which can include building tasks, taking tiles, reach certain levels on commanders, joining a fellowship/warband and others. As mentioned, you will be rewarded with additional tile space and resources (in season 1 you also get other items like gems) to help you progress.

At the end of the day you should still apply common sense and not just follow blindly, but it is a very good guide to follow in general in order to avoid wasting your early game resources unnecessarily on buildings you might not need at that time.

Tiles, Mobs, Special Structures

(*Season 1 & 2 values may differ)

The most important thing to do at season start is to take tiles. This is how you gain ring power, which allows you to unlock ring abilities over time and progress faster. 

Tiles 

Tiles require 20 Stamina and are also needed to gain ring power as well as build a steady income on resources.

• Level 1: 
  available rss: produces all types of resources, 50/h each, total production 200/h
  (1) army Level 1 defender, (1) formation, t1 troops, ~30 EXP
• Level 10: 
  available rss: grain, ore; produces 240/h
  (1) army Level 4 defender, (2) formations, t1 troops, ~650 EXP
• Level 15:
  available rss: wood, stone; produces 280/h
  (1) army Level 7 defender, (2) formations, t1 troops, ~1,200 EXP
• Level 30:
  available rss: grain, ore; produces 360/h
  (1) army Level 12 defender, (3) formations, t1 troops, ~3,200 EXP
• Level 40:
  available rss: wood, stone; produces 420/h
  (1) army  Level 15 defender, (3) formations, t1 troops, ~4,000 EXP
• Level 60: 
  available rss: grain, ore; produces 560/h
  (1) army Level 18 defender, (3) formations, t1 troops, ~7,100 EXP
• Level 90: 
  available rss: wood, stone; produces 640/h
  (1) army Level 20 defender, (3) formations, t2 troops, ~9,500 EXP
• Level 130:
  available rss: grain, ore; produces 800/h
  (1) army Level 25 defender, (4) formations, t2 troops, ~18,700 EXP
• Level 150:
  available rss: wood, stone; produces 880/h
  (1) army Level 28 defender, (4) formations, t2 troops, ~23,000 EXP
• Level 200:
  available rss: grain, ore, wood, stone; produces 1000/h
  (2) army Level 35 defenders, (4) formations, t3 troops, (2x) ~33,000 EXP
• Level 230:
  available rss: grain, ore, wood, stone; produces 1200/h
  (2) army Level 40 defenders, (4) formations, t3 troops
• Level 260:
  available rss: grain, ore, wood, stone; produces 1400/h
  (2) army Level 42 defenders, (4) formations 
• Level 300:
  available rss: grain, ore, wood, stone; produces 1600/h
  (2) army Level 45 defenders, (4) formations

I do not have any reports of the current level 230/260/300 tiles to provide you with the EXP info, but when you are ready to take them you might already be past level 40 - unless your commanders are quite well developed.

Mobs

Mobs require 10 Stamina and are easier to beat for good EXP with fewer losses, which makes them a good source for your main army once you have gotten over the first stages of growth. On top of saving a lot of stamina you also get some goodies. However, these have been capped per day. Mobs appear in the levels 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35 and 40. Compared to tile defenders they are easier at the same/similar level.

With DD commanders you can even go ahead and hit them with 1 troop each. Commanders heal fast and the troop losses are neglectable with such numbers.

Special Structures 

All across the map there are special structures that have defenders on them and almost all of them give you PvE EXP. Keeps are an exception to this and will not gain you any EXP from hitting them.

• Camps: Some camps are easy and give good Exp. Other camps can be tricky, watch out not to waste too many troops for too little exp. 
  The defenders vary from 2x level 15 (Hobbit Camp, 500 health) to 2x level 50
• 
  Altars: 2x level 20 defender
• Springs: 3x level 30 - careful here though, make sure that you don't occupy all Springs around a structure and leave the other teams in your faction out cold. They are needed to build fortresses to occupy structures
  
• Neutral or (unguarded) enemy crossings (3x level 30)/tunnels (2x level 20) are fairly easy and depending your level worth it to hit - careful here that you don't hit accidentally a pass, which is much stronger.
• Defensive Camps: Now, these you can hit only later in game once they have been taken. They do however give you EXP also beyond the confinements of other PVE, which means you can get EXP beyond level 40.

Commander Levels

In all seasons (except season 1) you start with your commanders at level 5 and have to work your way up to max their levels at 50. The levels require increasing amounts of EXP per level. This lets you progress very quickly in the beginning, but requires a bit more "stamina" on your account to see things all the way through.

You gain EXP with PvE up to level 40. Beyond that there is no way to level your commanders other than PvP - fighting with other players' armies. The only exceptions are purple scrolls which can be used until you reached level 45 (do not waste those scrolls before you reached level 40, even if it may be tempting sometimes). The other exceptions are Defensive Camps, which can give you decent amount of EXP also when you are above level 40. For some reason the game counts this as PvP - no guarantee though that they might not change this (secretly).

While levelling, make sure not to aim for too high levels of tiles or mobs. If you keep losing a lot of troops per every hit, you will not be able to sustain that for long and end up being much slower than you would hope for. Aim preferably for slow and steady. 

Try to rotate through your commanders. There are several options to approach the season start. Some say to wait till you have 3 formations available for your army. If you do that, make sure to hit once or twice with your main commanders before you do the real start with the secondary and lower commanders. That way you do not lose Stamina while you wait to be ready to unlock the third slot.

You can use your main gear on the weaker commanders. This will aid you with limiting the troop losses as much as possible. You can then work through your less developed commanders and take tiles in the meantime to get your resource and power production running. Once you reached the point where you can use 3 armies, go ahead and set up two armies for your main army commanders: in each army 2x main commanders + 1x less developed commander. Since you likely used all your commanders already, you can also rotate through on this spot. The advantage is that the higher EXP level on those commanders will also make up a little for lower respect levels and you can comfortably hit higher tiles than just level 10/15. 

Another thing you should consider: Damage Dealer (commanders where the damage comes from the commander itself and not from the troops) do not need a specific amount of troops to deal their damage. It does not scale on the amount of troops. This allows you to load up these commanders with just a single troop and reducing your losses quite significantly.

Again: test a bit and play around to see what you can hit comfortably without losing too many troops. Make sure you can sustain your growth.

For a more detailed explanation on all the different options how to level Commanders, please read the guide "Basics: How to Gain Commander Experience". 

Resources

Resources of course are a basic need. You need them to build and upgrade your buildings as well to conscript and hire troops. You will need Wood, Stone, Ore for buildings and Wood, Ore, Grain for troops. If you are a spender, you can level up your market very quickly and allow for better barter options. When going for tiles, make sure to get a healthy balance on your resources especially in early game. In the screenshot you see that most resources are balanced, but Ore is very low. If you find yourself to be short on one specific resource (in most cases it will be Stone), then try to alleviate this problem by focusing a bit more on those tiles instead. You can always rebalance later on.

I would recommend to use barter (see more on the topic Market further down towards the end of the article) only very scarcely in the beginning as you need every resource you can get and you put in more rss than you gain. If in desperate need, of course it's a solution, but try to do it as a last resort only.

Expansion

In general, expansion is largely dictated by your fellowship or warband. However, you also need to consider your individual expansion for resources. If you ended up in a poor spawn location with a lot of competition, you might want to work with forts to get to more remote areas that are not quite as busy.

When you farm tiles from a fort further away from your base, you will have longer reinforcement times, but you can compensate for that by circling around the gear as mentioned in the paragraph under "Commander Levels" and using all your commanders - maybe on some lower level tiles around your base that you had dropped already or haven't taken yet. With your main commanders you can sweep mobs close to your base while you wait for the reinforcements to arrive.

In general it is a good practice to expand with forts in all major directions right at the start - or rather as soon as your resources allow for forts. This will give you an advantage over people who sleep on that and you can move further on farming further away early on.

What you should not do in most of the cases is to relocate into a different area. Depending on your server and your team's/faction's expansion planning you might be asked to resettle very early on either to expand further or to join the first skirmishes and battles at the front lines. Only relocate early on if you are absolutely sure that you won't have to move again within the next three days.

Troops

You want to unlock t2 and t3 asap. Another focus will be to get to the troop types that you will be using mostly as quickly as you can too. 

Keep in mind: you should always try to use troops that you can sustain conscripting and healing in reasonable amounts based on your resource income. Sometimes this will mean you have to stick to t2 troops rather than t3. 

Often medium sized troops will be superior against tiles as there are a lot of small troops on defenders and if there are medium troops, at least you will not have a direct counter against you. But at times you might not be able to sustain medium troops for early game. In that case it is better to use small troops or a tier lower than you would usually use, which will still allow for taking tiles and sweeping mobs and have a steady progress going for yourself - maybe at tiles one level lower than you might hit with other troops.

Ring Abilities

The ring varies from campaign to campaign slightly as well as from faction to faction. Every faction has a unique ring ability that can be unlocked. All the other abilities are the same as the rest of the server.

There are different approaches on how to set up your ring skills in early game. The main point is that you want to level it up as soon as you can and especially unlock the milestones like level 10 for resources, level 30 for EXP-based and PvE-based skills and lastly for level 50. Don't forget to put always points into "Dominance" (top left tree) whenever you can to open up more tile space. 

Beyond that, I advise against using some of the available skills 

• "Abundant Wisdom" and "Abundant Might" in early game.
  You will need those in PvP however. 
• Skills I generally don't use as they are a waste of points in my opinion are "Clairvoyance" (spy - or scout - up to two armies on neutral tiles and structures, not keeps), 
• "Invigoration" which I usually do not skill at all since it would cost so many AP and get you in the danger of accidentally using it when instead you wanted to use Stamina Potions. 
• I also do not use "Time out of Time" and 
• "Extract" if I can help it (opinions on this differ).
  

"Extract" is a more expensive way to "Gather" resources from a tile you own. In my opinion, the price in AP for Extract is just too high compared to Gather. If you are desperate for resources, you might reconsider that of course You should gather as soon as you can, but don't start on tiles lower than 130/h as it would be a waste of AP.If you decide to Extract, you should do so sparingly as it costs a lot of AP and gains you little. The only thing would be to do it on 90/h Stone tiles if really needed.

Important to keep in mind is that you can reset the ring points. However, this works only for some of the skills. Those that are unlocking a specific skill with just one point as well as the basic tree skills that unlock the dependent skills will remain as is when you reset. You can do the reset once every 24 hours.

Fellowship/Warband (FS/WB)

You want to join a team as soon as possible. Once you built your Fellowship Hall you can help and get help for your buildings to speed things up. 
Note: If you use speed-ups to finish buildings faster, you should wait until you received all available help and only then use the boosts. This way you can save a bit. 

Very important for your team to grow is that you Boost at all times when you have boosters. It costs you only a little bit of Grain, but it will give you contribution points and Coins for the FS/WB Store, which you can use as soon as it unlocks. 

These Boosts will unlock certain very important milestones for your team, like more resource production or unlocking of buildings like Fortress (essential for map movement and structures), Altar (mind sharpen), Well (gather) or Employment Hall (neutral troops). Always make sure to use up all your daily attempts to boost. They refill at one attempt per 30 Minutes.

Make sure to always check the pins and announcements and follow the requested movements in order to be able to keep up with your team and help where help is required.

Market

If you are a spender and can afford it, try to level up your market as soon as possible by as much as possible. You can trade your blue and green gear for Silver and Gold Ingots as well as purple gear for Gold Ingots and Equipment vouchers per item. Make sure not to trade items that you need. You should first lock the ones you want to keep in your inventory (by clicking on the lock on the items you want to keep).

The higher your market the better the daily offers you get and also the better the Barter deal you get (starting from level 8 for 42% up to level 30 for 80%). Levels 31 - 40 will increase the resources obtained from the Merit Store that will open with server progress.

The Silver Ingots are seasonal items, which means they get lost if not used by the end of season. Make sure not to waste any of them.

There are many different play styles and certainly other approaches. For me, keeping the above points in mind, is what worked well so far. The main point is that you have a good plan and understanding on what you want to do in which order and at what time. Then follow up on it and - good luck on your spawn spot!

Basics: How to Gain Commander Experience

Every season the race starts: to level the commanders as fast as possible to allow for best possible growth and battle readiness in case there are early skirmishes - no one wants to get caught with their pants down.

Over time there have been some changes on how best to obtain experience as well as requirements per Level and how to level.

You can level up to 40 with PvE and after that you have to find PvP to level your commanders - aside from a small change that was made recently, .... , but keep reading - you will find out!

Ring Abilities

Before we talk about the different options to gain EXP in order to level up your commanders, we should have a look at what help the game gives you with the Ring Abilities.

You will not be able to use them right away, but it is good to keep this in mind and then make use of this as quickly as you can.

Please mind, the ring trees are set up slightly different between the different campaigns and factions/races you chose. So you should first familiarize yourself with what options you have and from what ring level they are available to you. Here you see the current bottom right section of your ring tree in Season 1. 

There are two skills on the ring tree that affect your EXP gain. "Considerable EXP", which gives 1% EXP per ring point to your commanders for everything that gives EXP, and "Combat Master", which will give you 2% extra per ring point for EXP you gain from sweeping Mobs. 

In both cases you need ring level 30 first in order to be able to unlock it. 

Taking Tiles

The most common way to gain EXP especially in those early hours/days of a server is taking tiles. You need to farm anyway to get a steady inflow of resources and for that you want to be able to hit higher tile levels. To get there you hit - you know it - tiles.

• Make sure to take only tiles that you can take comfortably. This retains your troops better and you don't have to wait for new troops to be produced 
  If you lose half your march on a single tile, this is clearly too much to keep you going.
  During early days for a first tile of level "so-and-so" it is maybe acceptable, but not beyond that
• Your spawn area is dried up? Farm from a fort. Reinforcement takes a bit longer (new options with forts now, an article on that will come soon), but it's doable.
  Do NOT relocate for a handful of tiles to farm. You will need the relo for when you go to war.
  If you are certain there won't be a front too soon, you might consider relocating to a better farm spot with less traffic and competition to the tiles
  
• If there are no tiles and you have exhausted other methods, you could always drop and retake a tile close to your base.
  We did that in early seasons when servers were extremely overcrowded, but it shouldn't be necessary with majority of the servers these days.
  If it is crowded and things are too soon to move other places, this is a work around solution if need be.

Sweeping Mobs

Mobs have easier defenders than tiles with the same level. They also give now decent EXP too and you need only 10 Stamina to take a mob.

Not much to explain - kill these mobs. You get even extra stuff - like bait for bosses (see below) - and very rarely also an EXP tip in your tavern. These tips however are lower in EXP than they used to be. I have seen as high as 60k EXP while there used to be 120k on tips from level 40 mobs previously.

Same rule as for tiles applies to mobs as well: don't bite off a bigger piece than you can chew. Hit them at a level where you don't lose too many troops.

For mobs try to keep walking distance as short as you can. They respawn fairly quickly and are around plenty usually.

If you do not seem to find mobs of a certain level, try to search for them. Sometimes this might trigger one to spawn relatively close to your base. It does not work consistently, but there is a good chance it does. Especially in early game this can help you a lot with leveling. 

For DD there is also a bit of a "cheat code". The commander damage does not scale on number of troops, so you can just go ahead and put 1 single troop on each. Play around a bit with how high levels you can beat. Commanders heal back quickly and losing 4 troops on a whole army is really not even worth mentioning.

Camps, Altars, Springs, Crossings

• Camps: Some camps are easy and give good Exp. Other camps can be tricky, watch out not to waste too many troops for too little exp. 
  The defenders vary from 2x level 15 (Hobbit Camp, 500 health) to 2x level 50
• Ruins: 2x level 25 defender (2x 18k EXP)
• 
  Altars: 2x level 20 defender
• Springs: 3x level 30 - careful here though, make sure that you don't occupy all Springs around a structure and leave the other teams in your faction out cold. They are needed to build fortresses to occupy structures
  
• Neutral or (unguarded) enemy crossings/tunnels (2x level 20 / 2x ~9,500) are fairly easy and depending your level worth it to hit - careful here that you don't hit accidentally a pass, which is much stronger.
• Defensive Camps: Now, these you can hit only later in game once they have been taken. They do however give you EXP also beyond the confinements of other PVE, which means you can get EXP beyond level 40.

Rally Bosses

If you get bait for a boss, team up with others close to rally. You get exp from them too. However, they are not very popular anymore and you might end up struggling to find rally buddies. Try to make sure that people are available to join before you start rallies and allow for enough time for them to join.

Rewards from bosses are meagre, but the smaller ones especially are super easy to kill and give a fair amount of EXP if you kill off their lives.

Tavern Tips

So, you used to be able to get EXP from Tavern Tips. 

If you were on a break from the game for a bit, you will be displeased to hear that this is not the case anymore:  

Tavern Tips do NOT give exp anymore. However, there are random mobs that still throw exp tips every once in a while. Make sure to use those if you get lucky enough to receive one.

 

EXP Scrolls

1. Map Tips

Starting with server progress after finishing chapter 3 in the season the mob tips appear in the tavern.

You get six designated mobs every day. Three on your tiles near your base (could be faction or neutral tile too if not enough of yours are around) that are tied to one map tip each. 

These are one Conflict tip each with up to 5x 30k EXP + 6x 10k EXP each by end of season if you unlocked the highest reward by taking a 260 or 300 tile at anytime in the season. 

    

Then there are three mobs that also only you can see for the fourth map tip, but they do not have any indicator to point them out. You have to find them sitting on tiles owned by you, your team mates or faction mates. If you cannot find them, you can also choose to take random mobs on the map instead that have the minimum level required.

 

For the fifth map tip you just have to find three regular mobs to kill at a certain level or above

Killing the first 6 mobs gives exp, but I suggest you do that with your second or third army instead of your main as they are typically easier than what your main can manage. Don't waste your main formation's stamina on this. However, regular mobs while still levelling in early game you can (and should) do with your main.

2. Market & Merit Store

You can buy the scrolls also in your market. They refresh daily. The quality and quantity of scrolls available will upgrade based on your market level and seasonal progress

Purple scrolls give exp beyond level 40 and up to level 45. Make sure to save them up and don't spend on commanders below level 40. The game will have you confirm the use of purple scrolls if you try to use them on lower level commanders.

Once the Merit Store is available (server progress), you can exchange up to 3x for a purple EXP Scroll for your higher level commanders.

3. Summary

Daily/Weekly EXP Scrolls*:

• Tavern maximum:
  3x (5) 30k + (6) 10k = 210k
  1x (1) 100k + (9) 30k = 370k 
  1x (8) 30k = 240k
• Daily Market maximum:
  1x 100k for 100 gold ingot
  4x 10k for 20 silver ingot (40 k / 80 S-ingot)
  2x 30k for 60 silver ingot (60 k / 120 S-ingot)
  2x 100k for 200 silver ingot (200 k / 400 S-ingot)
• Weekly Merit Store maximum:
  3x 100k for 40k Merit (300 k / 120k Merit)

That adds up to: 3,100,000* EXP from purple scrolls for levels 40-45 and 5,740,000* EXP from blue/green scrolls for up to level 40 per week.

*Please keep in mind that these maximum numbers are calculated on the highest server and market development and assume you took at least one 260 tile at some point in the season.

Mind Sharpener

It is not as effective anymore. However, before you let your commanders sitting and do nothing because you are busy in real life, might as well send them to mind sharpen.

You don't have a 200+? No problem. Send your march to the FS altar. It will give the same amount of EXP as you get from a 200/h tile.

For mind sharpen send one commander at a time, the exp it shows in the preview gets spread across all commanders in one army, e.g. it says you get 100k and you send 4 armies = every commander gets 25k geowth. It is better to send them all separately to different tiles instead or one after another, to not deplete your AP too quickly for other purposes. 

Mind Sharpener on tiles below 200/h is not really worth it. Even then the gain is not that high anymore, which is why this should only really be used for times when you otherwise cannot be active. It is, frankly speaking, a waste of AP and Stamina if you could use these for other things instead.

If you know you will be unavailable for the day, respec your ring abilites so you can get the most out of it at least. And if able to, try to use the boost items to optimize the gain.

However, as I said a couple times, you should not do it at all, nor should you need this. The other options to gain EXP are way more effective and sustainable. This is really only a thing to do if you have super busy RL days and need to catch up while you are not really able to play. It's, so to say, an "emergency" workaround for desperate times when otherwise you couldn't play enough to level up

PVP

Once you reached level 40 with your commanders, none of the above will give you EXP anymore aside from the purple scrolls. The only way to level up to 50, which should be your goal, is to battle. 

In battles you will get decent amounts of EXP for player armies you wound or kill. Here you get points according to the opponent's level. If the opponent is higher or equal level, you get more EXP than if they are (much) lower level than yours.

Your aim should be to avoid giving the opponent "free prestige and EXP" while you just lose troops and barely gain anything. This means you should choose wisely which armies you hit - at least as far as you can steer it. It is not always in your hands of course. 

Sidenote:
If you're wondering why your commanders level at different speed, this might be because they do different damage. Those that do more damage will gain a few more EXP than the others. Often it is not significantly noticable, sometimes you see rather big discrepancies, but either way, you are levelling them and that is what counts. 

Try to play smart, but don't shy away from fights with even results. You gain EXP with them (yes, the opponent will do so too) and you cannot avoid fighting completely since you need to level as quickly as possible. If you wait too long with it, you will end up under-levelled compared to others and then it will be even harder to level your commanders. 

So, the sweet point is to find equal levels, which will give decent results in order for you to level quickly.

Conclusion

While it might seem daunting at first to level up your commanders - and four of them - it is really not too hard to get to level 40. Even catching up if you started a bit later is not really too hard.

After that you do have to work for it to stay on top of things and not fall behind. Beyond Level 40 there is not quick and easy fix anymore. It is a war game and war you have to do in order to progress. 

Keep in mind: the main point is to enjoy your time. Try to enjoy the way to the goal as much as accomplishing it.

Tools: Lady Death's Keep Planning Tool© (v1.0)

Fresh off the press - the newest little helper. This one can be a huge help for leaders and council members to plan their strategic moves on which keeps to take and - if in Rebuilding Glory - which keeps to upgrade first. 

Link at the end of the article.

Keep Planning Tool© (v1.0)

The tool is work in progress. Thus far there are only a part of the mechanics that I would like to implement. The raw data about the keeps is in the file. 

There are three tabs:

• Keeps: Region, Keep name, Power, Defender Level, Amount of Defenders, Siege/Wall Health
• Rebuilding Glory Buffs: Region, Keep Name, Power, Max Level, Level Buffs
• Points: Level, Points

Keeps

All Keeps are listed alphabetically. The Regions are colour coded for the regions that have a designated faction assigned. 

The Power is  the hourly power production of the keep.

Defender Level and Amount of Defenders shows how strong the defenders are that your fighting commanders will fight

Siege indicates the Wall Health and how much siege damage you will have to make to occupy the keep.

Rebuilding Glory Buffs

The Keeps are listed alphabetically again. Also the Regions are colour coded here too according to the starting factions they belong to. You will also find the hourly Power Production here again.

The column Max shows what is the max level this keep can be upgraded to.

The rest of the table shows at which level you unlock which buff. These are also colour coded depending on type of resource, good or evil neutral units to hire, or any of the other different buffs we get. 

Points

This tab is not complete yet. If you can provide me with the data of missing levels, please shoot me a message with a screenshot of the points needed for the next level.

The number indicates how many points you need to accumulate as a faction to unlock the corresponding buff. 

Link

That was already all the explanation needed for the time being. I plan to enhance the tool over time, but wanted to enable you to use it as a reference frame already. 

You can find the file here:

  Lady Death's Keep Planning Tool© (v1.0)

Enjoy!

UPGRADE ! - Lady Death's 2.0 Gear Tool (v2.0)©

 We have seen yet another change to the gear.

Just last week, on May 1, 2024, the devs patched in the new adjustments to the gear set effects. Now some of the sets activate already with just two items of the same type, which will help especially F2P or lower spenders to be able to get at least some extra buff. 

While I was reworking and refreshing the sheet anyway, this was the perfect opportunity to finally implement what has been asked by multiple people - a tracker for your own gear items. I am excited to introduce this too and hope it helps you with managing your gear and planning your setups better in the future. 

You can find the link to Lady Death's Gear Tool (v2.0)© at the end of the article.

Changes in Game

So, what has changed? 

In short, some of the effects on the gear now activate already if you have only 2 pieces. The requirement for the sets got adjusted accordingly and also the stats got adjusted to the effect that you will still have the same boost with 4 items of the same type.

Originally there had been planned some 2-set effects. However, when the game team launched the changes for 2.0, they had opted to put all effects in 4-sets. I believe this was done to avoid some OP mixes with classic gear, which originally I believe they did not intend to keep in the game. So in order to avoid having insane combinations (which some are still possible), they simply made the requirement for all effects to have 4 items with the effect to activate the buff.

This however made it quite challenging for some people. If you do not spend a huge amount of money, getting a full set of 4 items with the desired effect is not that easy. And the devs listened to the community - they reworked the system and I think it turned out quite nicely.

Some of the effects got turned into sets that require only 2 pieces to activate. You can now mix and match these effects. You can also double those effects to get back to the same buff that you had previously with the 4-set requirement. 

The effects that changed  into 2-piece Sets are:

• Might: Physical Damage dealt by the commander's formation +5.0%
• Lore of the Arcane: [This Formation] Burn, Poison, and Focus Damage dealt +5.0%
• Fortitude: Physical Damage dealt by the commander's formation +5.0%
• Agility: Initiative of the Commander's formation +5.0 during combat
• Upkeep: [Commander] Recovery administered +3.0%
• Siege Ladder: Siege of the Commander's formation +5.0%
• all racial effects: When the commander's formation is comprised of race [Beasts/Dwarves/Elves/Evil Men/Men/Orcs/Trolls/Undead/Uruk-hai], damage received -5.0%

As you can see, the effects got halfed from their original values:

• if formerly +/- 10%, they have now +/- 5% 
• if formerly +/- 10, they have now +/- 5 
• Upkeep went from +5% to +3%

I said you can mix and match the sets. What does this mean? 
Examples:
1. Hand w/Agility, Armor w/Siege, Head w/Siege, Accessory w/Agility will result in both effects activating. 
2. Four pieces with Agility will result in the effect activating twice, resulting in the same effect as it used to have before the patch update.
You can see in this screenshot how both Siege Ladder and Might activate and give the buff. 

However, as soon as you mix in just one piece of 1.0 (aka classic) gear, you do not get any set effect at all, even if you have two or three pieces of a 2-set.
Example:
Hand w/Dwarven Siege (purple hammer), Armor w/Siege Ladder, Head w/Siege Ladder, Accessory w/Drums of Moria Dwarven siege means the Siege Ladder effect (+5%) will not activate. You get only the buff from the Hand/Accessory pieces.
Or as in this screenshot, if you use the Hithlain with Elven Siege (Classic), you do not get the other set bonus. The game displays this by "graying out" the effect icon. 

The following effects have not changed and still need a full 4-piece Set as always:

• Sharp Blade: Attack +20.0 during combat
• Flay: Damage ignores 15.0% of the target's Defense
• War Cry: This formation's damage dealt +20.0%
• Perseverance: Damage dealt +2.0% each round
• Thick Armor: Defense +20.0 during combat
• Power Overwhelming: Damage received -20.0% when in the Stun or Madness status
• Evasive Action: This formation's damage received -20.0%
• Divide and Conquer: Damage received -2.0% each round

With the changes made to some of the sets, you can now not only get buffs if you don't have enough items to create a full set. It also enables you to adjust your strategy on what you are using and by deliberately picking two different sets to optimize your army setup. It means there es much more room to play around.

Changes on Lady Death's Gear Tool (v2.0)©

With this article I officially launch upgraded Lady Death's Gear Tool (v2.0)©. This is the second major update on my Gear Tool and I hope this makes it even more convenient for you to use and provides you an even better experience and support in planning and strategizing your army compositions.

So, what does it look like now?

There have been no changes to the basic tabs that you already knew. I updated the data collected from game according to the new changes. The tab "Effects" is now updated with the new values and information. 
There have been no changes made to the basic tabs "Gear" and "Relics". 

I have added a third tab "Filter your Gear" and now there can three people work with the tool at the same time. As always, please try to remember to never change any real data, the layout etc. Only filter according to what you're looking for and when you're done, please reset everything again for the next user to be able to find what they need. 

There are two brand new tabs added to Lady Death's Gear Tool (v2.0)©:

• 
  Instructions: 
  Here you find all information to the related articles with explanations and version history in the first section.
  The second section gives an overview on all available tabs with links to said tabs for your convenience. A table of content if you will.
  The third section provides a Quick Start instructions, which will allow you to get a small reminder on what to do where and how to use Lady Death's Gear Tool (v2.0)©
• Gear Tracker©:
  This has been requested by many over time and finally I am able to launch it. Your own personal gear managing and tracking tool to support you with finding sets. 
  It enables you to inventory your own gear pieces, which enables you to plan better which gear changes to make and which effects will allow you to get set effects activated.
  I hope this is a tremendous help when redoing your gear and reduces the amount of Elven Craftsman Hammers used as now you will know what you have in your Items Bag.
  

Of course these changes are hopefully only the start and I will work on continuous improvement to make Lady Death's Gear Tool (v2.0)© even more useful over time. Suggestions and ideas are always welcome, but I can hint already that I have something in mind that will help with the planning even more. Putting this into reality will take a bit of work and time. So please stay tuned. 

How to Use the NEW Gear Tracker© 

Since it is going to take you a good while longer to work with the Gear Tracker than just looking up the ideal pieces, for this tab I made only one, which is protected from any changes.

This means you will have to pull a copy of the sheet first. You can do this either by adding a copy to your own Google Drive, or by saving the file to your computer.

With this I explicitly allow you to download and save a version of GT for your personal use. Please pay me the courtesy not to share your version, but a link to my Blog instead and let people get the link to the tool here themselves. Of course you are welcome to share links to specific articles if you want to.

Once you have the file copied you are good to go. You can duplicate the tab "Gear Tracker" as many times as you want and track the gear for all your accounts - if you have more than one of course.

Now you are good to go and enter the items you own. Just type in the number of times you have it and the tool will calculate also automatically for you how many items you have of which gear piece to get an idea how you're standing on refining your pieces. 

With the sections divided optically with different colours per quality type, alternating lines and frame dividers on gear slot, this should help to give you an easy overview on which sets you can go for to get the best out of your gear.

If you have any questions, remarks, or suggestions, please do not hesitate to reach out to me on Discord under ladydeath1. 

Lady Death's Gear Tool (v2.0)©