Warhammer Chaos and Conquest guide

Intro

Firstly, importantly, this is a follow-on to my rather long overview of this game.

At present, and until early June (2020), this page will be a work in progress; the main content and databases are to follow. On reflection, they won’t probably won’t. This game is not worth my time, effort, or money. Nor yours. Please do read on to see why I feel this way, it may open your eyes to this game, and the many others like it.

So we are clear, this guide is for people who either already play, or have read my overview and for some unfathomable reason still want to play this game.

As at mid-June I am adding pages ad-hoc, I’ll write the menu shortly. Events today, Gathering tomorrow, they materials and/or units.

This is shot of general chat, as at 24th May, 2020. Sums up the game in a nutshell. It bears out earlier comments about the game and the nature of it and its player base.

I will soon reveal the dirty little secrets the devs don’t want you to know!

It will be interesting to see if the devs read my guides and fix the ‘exploits’ I will list below, while utterly ignoring all the improvements I suggested in the overview, and directly.

Strictly speaking, they are not exploits, or cheats, it is playing the game as designed, as intended, but not as expected or wanted. They want you to power up, to level up, to SPEND.

As I prefer to play the game in a more friendly way, as if PvE, it doesn’t tick all their boxes. It is, perhaps, unfathomable to them that anyone would want to a play a terminally slow game at an even slower pace. As you will see over time though, at least in terms of PvE events, my fortress will become insanely powerful. Without ever spending a penny. Ultimately it will be reflected in my main account when my (rushed) high level fortress catches up with my level 2 one!

Further play has solidly confirmed both my opinion of the completely out-of-whack balance of the game, the use of psychological and design ‘tricks’ to extract the maximum money from players, and the often toxic nature of a solid percentage of players.

Trolls, bullies, sociopaths, call them what you will, they are common to all PVP games, and most prevalent in PAY TO WIN games like this.

It should be noted that not all alliances (guilds) are like that, but this is a pvp pay to win game. There are people for whom having money to waste is justification for bullying, a typical troll content being of the variety, “Boo-hoo, cry me a river. Spend money like me or get rekt, loser.”

The comment above was the essence of a realm chat spat that went on for hours. Personally, on my high level account, I stay shielded and my fortress cannot be targeted. If my armies are targeted, I simply retreat. You play your game, I’ll play mine. Mine is fitting for groups like the one below. I wouldn’t like to be attacked, so why would I wish to attack someone else to rob and destroy them? It may be the nature of PvP games, but it’s psychotic!

For none pay to win games, losing is simply laughed off, or frustrating, it doesn’t have a financial or (generally) time cost to it.

But this game, this type, see there is a problem, beside mental health problems, addiction, financial ruin, there is greed. If you lose everything (defenses are destroyed, troops wounded and need to be healed) and chose to pay to return to the game, well, that is literally, actually money in the bank for the developers. The more frequently, the more painful this is, the more money they make. They are about to add Realm verses Realm to ramp up the losses. Just so you fully understand this: they are exploiting your misery, emotional pain and financial loss to bolster their lifestyle. It is in their best interests to make the game as unbalanced as possible (while keeping enough active players).

Or there’s this view:

I do not have the time this month but, finished, this section will include details on every item in the game – warlords, building, rituals, components, and materials. Who drops what, and when. It will go into detail about cost – in time, in alliance coins, in warpstone, and in cash.

It will endeavour to ram home – with compelling facts and examples – the fact that this game and it’s creators have one aim: to, in my opinion, screw you over. Whether you think it’s worth the cost, or not, this in my opinion. You, the developers, and the publishers are free to disagree, and to comment accordingly below, but yes. In my view, my feeling, (noting there is nothing compulsory in the game), is many of the ‘events’ are rigged to screw you over.

Here is a current example, the Slambo event.

You can test the maths of this yourself. Here, using a tier III capable fortress as an example, the game works at roughly 1,250 power per hour (e.g if you wanted 500 Ogres, with 12,500 power, it would take 10 hours. If you pick the right ritual, it works to a similar value).

The reward, in all cases, is close to identical.

The requirement for ‘gold’ with a level 17 fortress is 1 million power.
That’s 800 hours pro-rata, for a 48-hour event.
This represents a real cost of around £50 with speed-up bundles, or farming over 44 million alliance coins

The same challenge with a level 18 fortress requires 3.75 million power.
That’s 3,000 hours of power-ups
This represents a real cost of around £150 with speed-up bundles, or farming over 165 million alliance coins

HOWEVER, as I will show shortly:
The requirement for the ‘gold’ reward with a level 2 (to level 7) fortress is 200k power.
A lesser 417 hours – for a 48-hour event.
This represents a real cost of around 60,000 warpstone, or farming 10.8 million alliance coins

Talk about shifting goalposts. The developers are basically ******! They are literally screwing players over, the further you progress, the more money they want for the same event rewards!

CLEAR JUMPS INCLUDE 7 to 8, and 17 to 18, Also, I’m told, 11 to 12, and 21 to 22. There is no need to do this jumps, they are unbalanced, unsettling, and unfair. The only reason they would do this is to to make money selling speed-ups.

7 and 17 are absolutely stop points.

(Event requirements may vary with your level and training, T&C apply, all sales are final)

My advice

These are my feelings, you and the devs are free to disagree. My advice, if you decide to play: follow these ‘rules’ – or don’t play at all.

PLAY, DON’T PA¥!
It is described as ‘free to play’, play it thus.
The developers and publishers clearly see players as cattle to be farmed, milked dry. Do not let them!

PLAY YOUR GAME, NOT THEIRS!
Their game, and often that of other players is to farm YOU. ‘Pay to win’ gamers see you as fodder. The game owners see both them and you as fodder. Bear that in mind.

PLAY THE LONG GAME.
This is a game for which unlocks can take up to a year EACH (unless you wish to pay to win) – and years to get to being able to unlock them. There is no point in rushing, you’ll only hit the wall unprepared.

SLOW AND STEADY WINS THE RACE
Do not level up the fortress until every other building AND ritual is learnt AND you have a full army.

For full army, as an example, if you can send out two 1,200 marches of t1 infantry, then you want to have at least 2,400 available, ideally a few extra too. If you can send out out three marches of 1,650 t2, then you want 5,000 t2. Ideally balanced to the task at hand, with all rituals learnt at that fortress level.

DIMINISHING RETURNS
Also, importantly, NOTE THIS: as you progress the in-game rewards get harder and harder to achieve – more expensive to achieve if you pay to win.

As shown at the start, the reward for a ‘gold’ achievement is almost identical at level 2 to level 18 to level 30. The cost and difficulty however rise in orders of magnitude. Increasing by a single level can treble the time and financial cost of the game.

Please note that there are specific points in Fortress level where this occurs, it is not an incremental increase, which is the intelligent way to do it, instead it is mountainous increase, beyond rationalisation. It’s jarring, crass, and, I suspect, there as another way to screw money out of you!
(e.g. See Slambo references).

To emphasise this point, below is an event for the epic warlord ‘Great Unclean’. At low levels (up to rank 7) the ‘cost’ is just 30k points in 48 hours. A single low level ritual can be worth 15k, so you have 2 days to gain the other 15k, easily done. At level 18 the same event, the same main reward costs over 1m points. It would take significant luck, preparation and or a lot of speed-ups to get even close to that number, especially as higher level rituals often take weeks or months to learn.

CASE IN POINT: Using the current ‘Great Unclean one’ event as a perfect example, at rank 7 the event requires 30,000 points (as above), at rank 8 the same event, with the same rewards requires 160,000 points (as below), more than 5x the amount. At every possible turn, the developers will look for ways to make progress and events more difficult, even impossible without digging deep into your credit and debit cards. DO NOT.

IGNORE THE INCESSANT ‘BUY NOW’ NAGGING!
As at every single point of the game you are prompted and urged to speed-up, to buy power-ups. And watch out for miss-clicks and the like, the game is all too ready to gobble down your assets!

DO NOT UPGRADE YOUR FORTRESS BEYOND LEVEL SEVEN !

Especially not until you understand the the insidious nature of this game and devious greed of the game’s owners. Do not be manipulated into spending money on this game!

*Part of this research is now levelling up two fortresses side by side, looking for the jump (in requirements) points. One is absolutely going from 17 to 18. Another critical one is going from rank 7 to rank 8. Get to rank 7 and stop, play at that level. There is a point in this game, fairly low, where, if you want to accrue warpstone, event rewards, warlords, etc, you do NOT want to pass. This is that point. Maybe later, power up, but first, hunker down at a low level and play the game to win!

*One thing I was aware of, but not just how devious it actually is, is the “upgrade to free” button – that is gradually replaced with pay warpstone to grade – which is replaced with, oh, you’ve run out of warpstone, how sad, would you like to BUY some? It basically relies on muscle memory and trained responses. The first 5 levels prompt you to use the right ‘warpstone’ button over the left ‘let the clock run, it’s free’ button. My son is helping me and despite me pointing this out, in detail, at one point he was going to on autopilot. That’s how it works. Devious as hell!

*Also, as I found with my own higher level fortress, you are constantly nudged towards fortress upgrades, and by level 18 you are 10 million power behind were you could/should be because there are so many rituals and they take an abominably long time to train. Pace this game, do not rush. Go at the speed of your rituals and marches, not the level of your fortress. Get to seven and farm events at that level.

Below is a video of my level 18 boosting my level 7 in a foe event. Timing is important, but basically the rewards you might struggle for a week to get at 20 you can get in a few minutes at level 7. If nothing else if will give you a deeper and better understanding of the game. I did this using Steam and Windows store version, but you can take it further (up to 5 accounts allowed) by using more phones or by using accounts in more email addresses in Windows (etc).

SNIPE IF YOU CAN
Whether a new or a high level player, you should take the time to scroll around the map looking for easy targets, Foes and Armies that someone has hit once and left, half-dead. Equally, fight in your own range and don’t leave targets for someone else to finish off.

As below, there’s no route-marker, here, so these are fair game and easy points, something you’ll really appreciate if you are taking your time to gain power and training.

HOARD EVERYTHING!

Alliance coins, warpstone, resource tokens, experience tokens, all of it. Especially if you are following my suggestion and staying at a low level. Used, it will push you forward, slowly, in drips and drags. Hoarded, until the right moment, it’s gold! Gold achievement anyway.

For instance, at low levels, the (Infernal) XP event requires 300,000 xp (700,000 xp at rank 18). 300k costs 9,000 warpstone (around £40 in bundles if bought), or 1.2 million alliance coins.

As I discovered to my cost, twice*, the Infernal resource event requires 2 million resources, or even 2 million iron, and cannot be gathered in that quality at low levels, probably not even on a rank 10 node with a couple of full marches. So, but can either buy the gold win for 2m warpstone, which can be worth it, generally (but not always(*)), or hoard resource tokens until you have 2m worth and when the even starts, gather what you can and in the last few minutes, ‘use’ tokens to make up the balance.

*(See also Chaos and Conquest cannot be trusted?)

1k of XP or 30k of stone won’t go farm if you need millions, but, like saving pennies, they start to mount up.

Watch for psychological warfare – on your wallet!

Here is part of the starter tutorial, it employs tactics like behavioural conditioning and muscle memory, bright colours, and attention grabbing, pulsing lights to trick you into spending your in-game currency. Until you run out, then it tries to sell you more – for ca$h. The pop-up and other in-game adverts use similar tricks, and more.

Watch for double-taps!

It is all too easy in this game to double-tap or worse, and there’s rarely warning. You are clicking and in a blink, that free is 4, 400, 4,000 warpstone and it will suck your account dry without a word. Ask support? Forget it. You will be told it was clear, you should have been paying attention. Rules are rules. Under the polite rebuff is the underlying message, all sales are final, no refunds, house always wins.

Similarly, if you have several hours of days and click one or two many times, losing a load of speed-ups, same story. Your loss is their gain.

Don’t be a monkey! Don’t be a fish!

Lots of expressions to sum this one up: “Monkey see, monkey do”, “reel ’em in”. Whatever analogy works for you. Warlords are the primary bait the developers use to gut your credit card.

Play smart!

Do not be lured into craving this or that warlord simply because it’s there!

Not saying don’t get it, not even saying don’t pay to get it, what I am saying is get it on your terms, not theirs!

Of course you want the Slambo, obviously you ‘need’ MEH. But NOW? And at any cost?

I have 4 epic warlords on my main account, one dropped from a chest after killing an army (yes, an epic). One I got easily at a low level, the other two where buggeringly hard to get and used up tonnes of resources, pots, power-ups. Never again. I’m on my third epic in a week on my low level account, reasonably effortessly. Because they want you to level up, because they make more money from you at higher levels.

My best advice, if you have a high level fortress: make a level 7 one, max it out, use that to farm warpstone, fulgarite and warlords, use the high level for resources and, if that’s your thing, pvp.

But, ‘obvs’, you want the epic for your main. I hear you. BUT now? With rituals, with might cost your £150? Or, how’s this for an option, carry on playing farming resources and armies, build up a large stock of stamina pots, wait for the same warlord to be offered again -= which it will be – but perhaps it will require resources, or Foes or Armies, something you can do more easily.

Big business – seeping down to game like this – have spent almost a hundred years and hundreds of millions of dollars fine tuning how you tempt YOU (and me) to impulse buy. Walk away, do the maths. Is this really the good deal they pretend – or just the same modle in a different colour with a higher price tag?

Remember as well, if you are going down the pay to win route, if you wait long enough, it will pop up in a bundle for £20 (or probably £50 for the legendary!), you don’t need to burn a tonne of speed-ups to “win” the warlord!

Related topics, see also:
BBC: How do supermarkets tempt you to spend more money?
“step into the meticulously managed marketing zone that is a supermarket, where millions have been invested into figuring out how to get you to buy more.”

Telegraph: Removing sweets from checkouts means shoppers half as likely to succumb to ‘pester power’
” “Pester power” sales fall by three-quarters when sweets and chocolates are removed from supermarket checkouts, a study by Cambridge University suggests. The research found that the removal of so-called “guilt lanes” from supermarkets was linked to a dramatic fall in the number which were bought on impulse.”

Wikipedia: Consumer Behaviour

Slow-arse levelling

I rushed into the game, which I deeply regret. Were this a normal normal, a PvE standalone, I’d start over, sod the sunk cost. But it’s not. I started over anyway.

Do not let this game consume you. It, and its avaricious creators probably care not one iota for you and, I suspect, see F2P gamers as a necessary evil at best, as leeches if they were being honest. It’s ironic that they developed an essentially parasitic game to bleed cash from gamers, and – I think – consider said gamers to be the parasites. The ‘whales’ with the deep pockets, them they adore!

There is method to my madness. For a start, apart from the odd sociopath, no-one will bother attacking a level 2 fortress because the rewards, in xp and resources, simply aren’t worth the march time, much less a teleport cost to a low level area.

(That said, you’ll still get arseholes that hit very low-level targets because it’s ‘fun‘. They are just cowards and bullies, and generally the first to wail if someone higher than them zeroes their fortress. These are the same type of giggling, gloating imbeciles that, in other pvp MMO’s, will farm level 1 players in a starter zone with a level 100+ character. No reward, just malicious cruelty. That developers are too lazy to stamp on or code out this behaviour is a poor reflection on their moral compass too. #JustSaying.

Basically, passively, you can earn coins etc almost fast at level 2 as at level 15, 22, or 30, yet, get 16x or more the value from them. And, once you start gaining champion levels and higher-tier rewards, your level 2 fortress becomes ever more interesting, because (also sloppy coding), champion level is not related to fortress level. Here’s what this means:

A level 40 champion or a tier 4 army is the province of a level 20+ (50m power) fortress. Events at this level are appropriately challenging. However, it is legitimately possible (simple in fact if your throw money at it) to have this power in a level 2 fortress. Killing 20+ lvl 6 Foes with a level 40 champion is hard work, ‘cos stamina. The level 2 equivalent is killing 32 level 2 foes, which is even harder. BUT, a level 40 champion in a level 2 fortress (with around 4,000 stamina and other bonuses) will blast through those level 2’s. For the same reward.

When I do decide to slowly level my fortress, it will be with a high-level champion and high-level prestige, which boosts everything else.

Day 1 (15th May, 2020), create new account.
Initially, around 350k resources, 100 warpstone.

Following training intro, moving to less populated servers and joining the best available alliance it stood at:
Level 2 fortress with:
3 warlords
around 365k of each resource
663 warpstone,
zero coins.
(All rituals learnt, all possible buildings).

Day 2
Fortress will remain at level 2 for now.
Champion: level 6
Prestige: level 2
Alliance coins: 62,500
Resources: around 750k
Warpstone: 1,757

Day 3

Champion: level 7
Prestige: level 2
Alliance coins: 111,000
Resources: around 800k
Warpstone: 1,887

Here are some of the event rewards I’m either awaiting, can easily get, or am considering. These, on a level 18 fortress, can be horrible.

This next one is awesome as it includes 200 t4 trolls to hammer level 1 armies with. More events like this will build up my army.

The Slambo event with a level two fortress. Do the maths!
Ignoring the resource cost, which adds up fast if you don’t farm it first.
200,000 required / 240 power per 60 Maraunders equals 834 lots.
834 x 30 minutes worth of power-ups
(or 834 x 72 warpstone = 60,048)
Plus 5,000,000 food, 1,251,000 lead, and 1,251,000 wood

ALWAYS DO THE MATHS!

As mentioned, by level 18 the same quest, for the same reward needs 3.75m power.
That 278 (x 540) t3 Ogres, of 13,500 power.
278 x 10.75 hours of power-ups
(Or 410,000 warpstone)
Plus 15m food, 37.5m stone, 11.26m lead, 11.26m wood, 15m iron.
Might cost you a few hundred quid mind.

Now think back to the start, where the guy – in one attack – lost 200 million power. This is the game!

The inferno challenge below (700k at level 18) demonstrates the “milk them daily” attitude of the game’s owners. The rewards look nice, but at level 2 they cost 9,000 warpstone (or 1.2 million alliance coin). If I went the ‘pay to win’ route, those 9,000 warpstone would cost me £41.74 as a one-time special offer. (The same one-time special offer goes up to £49.99 at later levels).

What is interesting, as below, is I miscalculated for an infernal resource event. I knew, sadly, I was short on warpstone for a guaranteed gold (2m RSS costs 3,000 warp), but I had stores, warp and can mine a level 6 node at (2x) 360k, so it was do-able. Close, but do-able. Except I forgot to check I had a teleport stone. I didn’t, and level 2 nodes are only 115k an hour for gathering. Net result, I was around 500k short. Gold would have given me an extra 2,000 warpstone and more. So close, and yet so far:

Won’t lie, I was tempted to give in an buy the extra I needed. This is the danger of the game and games like it. The lure, the allure of gold:

And there it is! Just the resources I need, plus some warp, and they’ll throw in a warlord, to sweeten the deal. Just sign over your soul, in blood and coin.

It’s only £5, and I’ll win!

As soon as you start giving a ‘pay to win’ game money to ‘win’ they have won, you have lost. The entire industry is geared to liberate you from your cash. That in their sole reason to exist. Their ethos.

You can argue the mortality and the legal differences, but pay to win and loot boxes can be addictive, they are akin to some smack dealer offering you or your kids a taster, to get you hooked. It is no coincidence that a growing number of countries are banning loot boxes. They should ban pay to win too, in my opinion.

Here’s were I put on one of my academic hats. Google this:

psychology internet gaming addiction +”pay to win”

You will get results such as:

Unfair play? Video games as exploitative monetized services: An examination of game patents from a consumer protection perspective
King et al., Computers in Human Behavior, Volume 101, December 2019, Pages 131-143

Highlights

• Video games are increasingly monetized with in-game purchasing options or ‘microtransactions’.
• Thirteen design patents and terms of use for in-game purchasing systems were examined.
• Patented game systems exploit behavioral tracking data to optimize purchasing offers.
• Some player-game dynamics may be viewed as an information asymmetry.
• In-game purchasing systems lack basic consumer guarantees and protections.

…

Discussion
This review has found that some major video game companies have developed unique technical systems designed to encourage repeat in-game purchases in ways that could be characterized as potentially unfair or exploitative.

…

Behavioral data are used to optimize the type and delivery of purchasing offers in order to incentivize players to make continuous in-game purchases within the context of a game service that can be continually updated and thus has uncertain and ever-changing long-term costs.

…

In contrast to games where the player may become more proficient with practice, these monetized video games appear to be capable of tracking various player metrics and adjusting their design in automated ways that elicit in-game purchasing. Systems that dynamically adjust in-game item prices and value based on individual player analytics (e.g., purchasing tendencies, available funds, item preferences, inventory), primarily implemented by developers to serve monetary goals (maximizing revenue) and which lack basic transparency to the player, may have the potential to exploit certain types of vulnerable players under certain conditions.

…gaming companies’ terms of use related to in-game purchases refer to these types of transactions as involving a limited, non-exclusive licence for content of no recognized monetary value, which may limit the consumer’s rights and guarantees related to these purchases. This suggests that, internationally, certain monetized games or game situations may have very few consumer protections, which could pose substantial financial risks for some players.

…

In addition, with the official inclusion of gaming disorder in the ICD-11 as of May 2019, it has become even more important for clinicians helping clients with problems related to gaming to understand the financial elements of some games. In-game purchasing is particularly relevant to the study of problematic gaming and gaming disorder, given that purchasing may be the user’s central motivation for playing; it may be engaged in repeatedly and in an uncontrolled way; and may generate significant distress and financial and interpersonal harms (Dreier et al., 2017, Paik et al., 2017).

…

This review’s observations of in-game purchasing systems suggest that, in some situations, a player who makes in-game purchases often does so at his or her own risk, with limited or no guarantees that this transaction will yield the desired outcome. These findings have implications for the study of problematic gamers, including individuals who may have gaming disorder, who tend to demonstrate strong decision-making biases related to gaming.

…

Another economic concept, termed entrapment (Brockner, Shaw, & Rubin, 1979) (i.e., the belief that one has invested too much to quit), may also explain why some players escalate their financial commitment to in-game purchases.

(Go get the idea ~ Ack)

Day 4
Now up to 5 warlords. Also gained 200 bile trolls.
Not as awesome at I’d hoped as it took 6 attacks to defeat a level 2 army, resulting in thousands of maraunders injured and hundreds killed. Still, the single fight took me from zero in silver in an army event. If also took me to bone in the week-long ‘Defeat greenskins’ challenge. If I had time I could easily get gold, even at level 2. But can’t forge at this level and I don’t have the time for such a grind. Need a lot more alliance coins, and higher-tier troops.

I can see this getting very verbose, so I’ll put it into tables next month

Fortress 2 power: 51,215
March size: 2,100
Champion: level 8
Prestige: level 3
Alliance coins: 102,000
Resources: 1.3m
Warpstone: 1,721

Day 5
Gained 250 tier III Forsaken of Khorne.
Having established there is no leap in event requirement at low levels I am powering up the fortress in stages. When there is a noticeable jump in difference, I’ll know.

Fortress rank 2
power, now 64,791

Fortress rank 3
power: 68,65 (all ritual learnt)
March size: 3,600 (march power 31,174)

Fortress rank 4 power: 80,305 (all ritual learnt)
March size: 5,100 (march power 37,150)

Day 6
Gained 250 tier IV Bile trolls and another warlord.
Crafted 4 pieces of core armour.
Reduced a rank 3 army to 21% in one hit. (366 t1 maraunders wounded).

Fortress rank 5 power: … (all ritual learnt)
March size: … (power …)

Fortress rank 6
power: 160,120 (only rank 5 fortress ritual learnt)
March size: 9,600 (march power: 63,100 with 8,500/9,600)

Champion: level 12
Prestige: level 4
Alliance coins: 282,000
Resources: 800k
Warpstone: 3,180

Day 7

Fortress: rank 6
Power: 265,740

March size: 10,100 (march power: 83,980)
Champion: rank 14
Prestige: rank 4
warp 3,826
Alliance coins: 314k

Fortress: rank 7, march size 13.1, march power 85k with 12k/13k infantry

STOP AT 7 and FARM, I DO NOT RECOMMEND TAKING YOUR FORTRESS BEYOND RANK 7.

Day 8

By day eight I am ready to walk away from this game forever. It, and it’s manipulative, stealthily moving targets, reveal the underhand nature of the game, whose whole purpose and raison d’être it to squeeze cash from mugs. Do not be a mug.

Without warning, fortress rank 8 causes a MASSIVE leap in the cost requirements of events. The game feels like a huge scam, a con trick! I was, admittedly, expecting this, because I’d already learnt not to trust this game. Still, in examining their methods, it starts to become unpalatable.

I decided to try to the great unclean one, at level 7 I needed 30,000 points. This is not possibly, there aren’t that many points to get, having trained to level 5, so I levelled to 8. As mentioned earlier, at 8 the same quest, with the same reward now requires 160,000 points. So I put the rituals into a spreadsheet, like you do. It’s a 48 hour event, I was up to 73 hours (OK, they do it to sell speed-ups, fine), but I was at 101,000 points and was left with about 20,000 across many rituals adding up to another couple of days. (Same event at level 18 requires 1.25m points. The cost to achieve rises significantly).

But hey, salvation is at hand, if I level to 10, March slot I awards 100,000 points. In the bag.

Just see, we have a probably. I thought that at 7, and at 8, you increased the requirement five-fold. And I started this new fortress because of the dirty trick you did increasing an event requirement from 1m to 3.75m when I moved from 17 to 18.

Take alliance help (1). Requires citadel 8, plus arcane knowledge. Maybe I can get that. But I see arcane knowledge needs citadel 9 – which is precisely how (in my opinion) they conned me last time, ‘cos one more level gave the last 100,000 points I needed. And they move the goalposts a few miles. It’s bad design, unless it’s intentional, which it clearly is. At every single point of this game, every sense in my body tells me that this game, these developers cannot be trusted. EVER.

I will see how it pans out tomorrow, then if, even burning the speed-ups I have, I can’t get the warlord at my level I will delete both my accounts and update this post accordingly.

Fortress rank 8 (partially levelled, no rituals
Power:

March size: 17,600 (march power: 109,280 with 13.6k/17/6 infantry)
Champion: rank 14
Prestige: rank 5

warp 3,8706
Alliance coins: 378k
Resources: 1.3m

Day 9
Attempting the Unclean One event today and tomorrow. I know I can do it, but I doubt I care enough to push that proverbial envelope.

‘Fool me once, shame or you, fool me twice, shame on me.’ These buggers are not playing me for a fool!

I also note, looking at troop march sizes, I now have a quarter of the troops I need at this level. This too is a problem. One they would be happy for you to solve by paying to speed-up the very slow troop building timers. I’d start over, camp at level 7 and stay there, but I find the nature of the game, the level of perceived deceit, trickery and manipulation by the developers sickening, nauseating. Who would want to play a game that game you feel disgusted with them, and with yourself for playing?

I managed it with a level 9 fortress, when I really needed to stay 7. Sick and tired of this game after 9 days.

Zones

Observation first, to go into an appropriate selection later. Events are a thing. Killing the appropriate Foes or Armies can give generous rewards. But there is a problem, a lie (or if you prefer ‘oversights’) by the developers that make this actually impossible, unless to get your fortress and training to a high level. A typical event, for instance the current Beastmen Foe event, wants you to KILL Foe. (Some give points for damage and more for a kill, some do not).

Rank 1 gives 10 points, rank 2 55, rank 3 110, and so forth up to 10.

The problem is there are no foes lower than rank 4. The game tells you there are, but they do not exist. And you need to level up your fortress to around 7 and train in rituals to be even able to hit a rank 4 Foe, doing about 10% damage, or less. The event is do-able, boosted, with a high-level friend, but otherwise, by the time (several hours) you have enough stamina to reduce it to 80% someone else will have killed it.

For instance, with the Beastmen event, the in-game guide tells you:

Defeat level 1 foes 10 points. There are no level one beastmen foes
Defeat level 2 foes 55 points. There are no level two beastmen foes
Defeat level 3 foes 150 points. There are no level three beastmen foes

Even level 4 foes, I can only take 40k off, cant kill without sniping or being boosted.

They tell you a new level fortress can participate, they cannot. The event guide is a lie. It is not possible at lower levels. Rather than make it clear, or even update the ‘full points info’, they deceive. You make players look for mobs that do not exist. This is not cool, or clever.

It does not improve my view of the developers or the company, which is sinking daily.

At this point I do not know if the game is worthy on any more of my time! My feeling is the company’s prime directive is “make all the money we can, however we can.” Not against that idea – as long as they consider the players. It feels to me like the players are the means to an end, of no more value than widgets on a production line, to be tallied up and sorted according to value. I have lost count of the number of examples of profits and cost saving being put far ahead of the players. This balance is missing. Activision and EA would be proud! That is not a good thing!

Chaos Wastes [1-6]

To be continued. Or not!

I haven’t decided, but I feel this game is not worthy!

I was prepared and willing to write an exhaustive guide for this game, but I no longer feel it deserves my time or attention. Or yours.

The game is a year old this month. Arguably they are doing well, but a closer look shows they are merging servers, assumably due to falling players numbers. Their reviews are mixed to negative and their financial records at companies house show a downturn, though the lockdown effect of Covid-19 may have given them a little breathing space. Don’t know, don’t care.

Perhaps that’s how the companies feels about me, I’m not spending hundreds of pounds a month on the game, I’m of no interest. But they are wrong. Notwithstanding how helpful my finished guide could have been, it’s not about ‘me’ me, but all the others.

As I commented to them last night in a final email, I’m taking the time and trouble to tell them my thought, other won’t. Just how many are they losing every week by this constant duplicity and manipulative? If the game followed a set or predicable pattern fair enough, but players do NOT like nasty surprises. They do not like being proverbially lead by the nose.

When, as I expect, I abandon the game tomorrow, will they notice? Will they care? Probably not, but they should. Their tricks to try and gouge money from me already deterred me from ‘paying to win’, not because I’m against doing so, but because I will not be conned into doing so.

But it’s not just me. When I go, and my alts go, their potential revenue goes. When I go, my son also leaves. My friends, who might has been persuaded to join us will instead be warned away from the game. And so on. So, losing me, they lose 5, 10 or more players and potential players. And for every 100, every 1,000 players, they lose as many again. Covid-19 began with one person. Things ripple. If they don’t care about me, they don’t care about you. Do you really want to play a game like this?

~ Ack