Trunk's Shadowmere Strategy
Shadowmere Strategy
By Trunks
This strategy “guide” is being written as a sort of newbie bible. Experienced players may learn a little, but most of them will learn nothing. I am going to try to make this as simple as possible, but Shadowmere is a very deep game with many different strategies that can be used, so parts of this will get complex. I suggest re-reading through it a few times. I don’t care about copyright or any crap like that; this guide is meant to help newbies grasp the game better, not for an ego trip.
Suggestions
First thing one needs to consider is race. As a newbie, the optimal races to learn with are Wood Elves, Gnomes, and Ogres, in my opinion of course. Personally I would start with Wood Elves. They are a very versatile race. Some even say they are the best race in the game, although you rarely see them in the top ranks because they are a bit mundane. They can be very exciting to play once you get them to a certain point though. Gnomes are an excellent race because of their food production, which allows a player to gain a nice amount of gold very quickly through selling it on the Open Market. Ogres are very powerful; bloodlust is a great special. Their fighters make switching from offense to defense very easy, and are also very marketable.
My suggestion is go with wood elves. It never hurts to start more than one kingdom though; the more practice you get the better.
Basic Information
Lets review troop types and what they do.
Fighters: This troop is average offense and defense. In bloodlust they are very effective, and are a great choice to buy while you’re getting on your feet due to their offensive/defensive versatility. They also serve another function, and that is they defend against summoning magic. For instance, if someone were to cast the spell summon dragons on you, having fighters on hand would weaken the effect of the spell. In the top ranks most people keep them on hand for that reason only.
Rangers: Rangers are very useful to certain races. Each race has what is called a search modifier, which determines the effectiveness of rangers while they explore. For some races, rangers can find incredible amounts of food, land, other kingdoms, and various things in the unknown. Wood elves have good rangers at 400% base, and an excellent search modifier, which makes them very useful for the race. Rangers attack almost as well as fighters, but do not defend very well. However, keeping them on hand will help protect your kingdom against looting, provided you have the guard towers to man.
Clerics: The best defensive troop. As such, every race should attempt to have as many on hand as possible when setting up for defense. Everyone should keep 300%+ clerics on hand for a few reasons. First, they are good defense. Second, anything under 300% is very hard to resell. Always try to keep marketable goods on hand, if you’re selling anything else make sure you sell dirt-cheap. Clerics also defend against nature magic, similar to fighters defending against summon magic. Clerics have virtually no offensive power, so don’t waste barrack space with them while you attack.
Archers: The best offensive troop. As such, every race should attempt to use as many as possible while attacking. Try to keep 400%+ archers on hand to sell on the OM, as anything else sells slowly. Archers have a couple defensive qualities but should not be used for defense until you reach a high score range. They defend against summon magic and bombardment attacks.
Thieves: You only want to use these if you’re going to steal from someone. The more you have, the more gold you can steal. Thieves have virtually no offensive or defensive qualities, though they help defend against looting some. Not really worth keeping on hand. Thieves also help spy on an enemy, and opposite to looting, the less the better.
Assassins: Like thieves, only use these for certain operations. Assassination is fairly useful in higher ranges, and is a good tactic to scare someone from messing with you. They defend against assassination.
Laborers: Pretty simple. They build, and the more you have, the more pieces of a building type you can build per turn. They also man war machines, 5 labs per war machine.
Scholars: These guys study. The more the better.
Here is a comparison of troops and their offensive/defensive qualities, keep in mind this is merely a comparison, and not a concrete number.
Troop Type Attack/Defend
Fighters 10/10
Rangers 8/4
Archers 20/1
Clerics 1/20
Thieves 3/3
Assassins (do not count as defensive or offensive military)
Ok, that covers all of the troop types. There isn’t really anything more to say on the subject, though obviously the higher % the troop, the more effective it is at whatever it does. Let’s move on to equipment.
Equipment
There are only three types of equipment; weapons, armor, and war machines. All of them are very very important.
Weapons: Weapons are used for attacking only. Clerics should not be using weapons at all. When you are attacking, make sure you don’t have any clerics on hand, because they will use a portion of your weapons, which will weaken your attack strength. Fighters use them well, but archers are the best choice. Optimal offensive would be all archers with weapons. To answer a question that many have, they do NOT have ANY defensive qualities, no matter the troop type that is using them, so don’t take them into account while defending. Obviously, the higher the % of the weapon, the more effective it is.
Armor: Used for defense only. Archers WILL use them while defending, so try not to keep any archers on hand if you have a limited amount of armor. Fighters will use armor decently, but equipping clerics with armor is your best bet.
War Machines: War machines are probably the most useful item in the game. At high enough %, they can be more effective than archers or clerics. War machines add extra power to bombardment, but pack an incredible offensive punch. HOWEVER, and this is important, it takes 5 laborers to man 1 war machine. This means that until you get war machines at a % that is more effective than 5 archers, you should stick with archers. Also keep in mind that weapons and armor may make actual troops defend better depending on the %. I would not start investing in war machines until you can afford ones that are at least 3000% quality. War machines also defend against bombardment attacks. Comparing them to archers and clerics, they attack at about 30 (archers 20), and defend at about 10 (clerics 20).
Let’s move on to buildings.
Buildings
Land is the MOST important part of the game. It affects how many troops you can house and feed, it affects your income, and most importantly, it affects how well you study. Optimizing your land for max performance is necessary for success. Understanding the way buildings work is integral to optimizing your land.
Farms: These produce food and house a very small amount of population. I am not sure of the exact amount. You need population, i.e. peasants, for your farms to produce food. The population from farms is not enough; you need villages to maximize food production. One farm takes up 10 land, and the amount of food produced is dependant on race. For example, a properly populated farm for a wood elf will produce 2000 food per farm.
Villages: As mentioned above, you need villages to get food production. That is not all they can do though. They also make other buildings function properly, well two actually, coliseums and market places. One village is 15 pieces and will house 2500 population. Note that the more population you have, the more gold you produce, but the more food you will consume. Finding a balance between farms and villages is necessary and dependant on race. For example, Orcs have terrible food production (650 food per farm), thus you will want as low a population as possible (most of the time) so that you can feed more troops. Alternatively, Gnomes, which produce 5000 food per farm, should aim to have a higher population than Orcs so they can make more gold and still feed tons of troops. Find your balance for maximum functionality.
Granaries: These only have one function, and that is to store food. One complete granary is 5 land and will store 10000 food. Again, take your race into account. Vampires for instance depend on cannibalism for food, which means that they attack other kingdoms and the troops and population they kill provide food. Thus, it is extremely important for a vampire not to waste food, so you will want a lot of granaries. The same can be said for wolves and even trolls. Other races will find them less useful.
Barracks: Very very important. Barracks house troops. Without the appropriate amount of barracks, troops will leave, and once they leave, they are gone forever. Always make sure you have enough to house your army. 1 complete barrack is 2 land and houses 1000 troops. They also store a small amount of food and w/a (weapons and armor), though I am not sure of the numbers.
Outposts: These are important defensive buildings. One complete outpost is 2 land and will give 600 troops double defense. The advantages are obvious. When attacking, if you are low on barracks or other buildings, you should tear these down and convert them into the buildings you need because they do not affect offense at all. Also take note that they serve no other purpose than defense.
Guard Towers: One of the less important buildings, but they are somewhat useful. Manned guard towers will catch thieves and provide defense against covert attacks like looting and assassination. Supposedly they provide some defensive power but take that with a grain of salt. You should keep a small amount of these on hand so that you can catch enough thieves/assassins so you can get the location of the looting/assassinating kingdom. Other than that they have no uses. One guard tower is 2 land.
Schools: One of the most important buildings in the game. Schools are used to help studying as you might guess. The more you have, the better you will study. Can’t say much more than that, but remember when you study to tear down buildings that aren’t doing anything and convert them into schools. A complete school is 5 land.
Armories: These store weapons, armor, and war machines to prevent them from rusting away. One complete armory takes up 5 land, stores 5000 w/a, and 1000 war machines. They also protect some of your equipment from looting. Again I am not sure of the exact numbers, but I am fairly sure that 1 armory protects 2.5k w/a and 250 war machines.
Vaults: These used to be completely useless, but now can be very important, especially in low score ranges. 1 complete vault takes up 5 land and will protect 1 million gold from looting.
Cathedrals: A pretty useless building later on in the game. Early on, their main purpose is to maintain a decent morale. With 1 complete cathedral (25 land), you should be able to maintain a morale of 123%, which is just enough to keep your population from leaving. They also provide a small boost in mana production, but that is insignificant compared to castles. Once you get either a coliseum or castle built you should tear down all your cathedrals.
Smithies: These raise your build rate. One full smithy is 15 land. Small amounts of smithies do little, and personally I only use them when building a castle. Races with poor food and build rates, such as vampires, will find them very useful though.
Market Places: These buildings are EXTREMELY important early in the game, especially your first set of turns. Your first objective should be to build one, although remember you will need population to get maximum use. One full market place requires 30 land, and 60 land in villages to function optimally. They provide an income boost of roughly 40000 gold per turn, which is a fairly significant amount of gold early on. Eventually you should tear these down, normally around the time you get to 1000% economy study, in which case the land is better allocated with farms and villages. However, races with poor food production, such as vampires and orcs, will always find a use for them.
Training Fields: Blah. These still stink. They only work well if you have multiple ones and can only train a small amount of troops, and that costs turns. Forget about these until they get fixed. One training field takes 50 land.
Coliseums: These, like market places, are important early on but become less useful as you gain more land and study. They provide a significant gold and morale boost if populated properly, though I have no idea of the numbers. Once you get a castle and a decent economy study get rid of them.
Castles: Absolutely the most important building in the game. Castles do everything, but they are hard and expensive to build. NEVER build a castle with ANY race until you have at LEAST 2000 land. One castle requires 500 land. They provide a huge morale boost, they count as smithies, 200 land in barracks, and 250 land in schools. They provide a huge mana production boost, and will allow 50000 troops to defend four times as well as they normally would. I would build one once you get 500 land in outposts. Simply tear down the outposts and build the castle.
That should do it for buildings. I’ll go more in depth on optimizing land for attacking, defending, and studying later on, but those are the basics. On to the Open Market, the bane of Fubar’s existence, hehe.
The OM
The OM, or Open Market, is probably the most important tool in the game. You use the Open Market to sell your marketable goods for profit, or even to trade for other items, which in turn gives you the gold to buy goods that other races produce better than you do. Economic stability is what this game is all about. In other words, gold=power.
Let’s use the wood elf again for an example. The most marketable thing a wood elf can sell are rangers, which they hire at 400% (actually, food is the most marketable item in the game, which woodies produce a lot of, but later on the amount of gold you gain from selling food becomes insignificant). Now a wood elf hires these at 250 gold per troop. How much you sell them for should be dependant on the state of the market, and in some cases, the market pricing restrictions. You can sell anything at quadruple value or 1/4th value, but those are the extremes. Most of the time you should sell at roughly 1.5x the hire price, but as previously mentioned, you should sell according to the state of the market. In other words, if people are selling 400% rangers at 700 gold a piece, you’ll either want to sell at 700 gold a piece yourself, or if you want the trades bought quickly, you’d go a bit lower, say to 600 gold a pop. Now that is fairly expensive. Normally troops go for the following rates, and I’m using batch amounts and optimal selling %’s in these estimates, so do your math accordingly:
10000 400% archers for 3500000 gold
10000 600% fighers for 5000000 gold
10000 300% clerics for 3500000 gold
10000 400% rangers for 5000000 gold
10000 250% thieves for 3000000 gold
10000 400% assassins for 5000000 gold
Normally high % weapons/armor and war machines go for minimum price, unless the market is extremely scarce. Now those are the most marketable percentages for troops, and the amount you should charge should vary according to the market. You may want to sell for even less than that, you may want to sell for more. Don’t always go cheap if the troops you need to buy are expensive. However, remember that the more OM transactions you make, the more often you are making a profit. This means that quick turnovers are very important, so try to sell cheap as often as possible, and make transactions as often as possible. The amount of gold you make may surprise you.
Since archers and clerics are the respectively the best attacking and defending troop types, it is wise to trade directly for them when you are low on gold. For instance, say I just went on an attack run, and I have 10k archers to sell. If I have very little gold to hire an adequate defense, I would make the following OM transaction:
10000 400% archers for 10000 300% clerics
These trades always get bought quickly, so don’t be afraid to make use of them when you need to.
Basic Info Pt. II
Morale: Morale has an effect on a few things. First, it affects the rate at which your population returns to your kingdom, whether it was hired away or left for one reason or another. If your morale drops too low, or if you set your tax rate too high too early, your population will become disenchanted and leave. This can have a devastating effect if you do not know what to do.
Ways to keep morale high:
A) Keep a low tax rate. Most races can always have a tax rate of at least 35% right off the bat. Any higher and you are putting your population at risk until you have met certain requirements. First thing to make sure of is that you have at least one full cathedral (25 land). This should keep your morale at a steady 123% and should allow you to raise your tax rate to at least 35%. The only race I have tried where it must be kept lower are Minotaurs. You can change your tax rate by going to the options screen.
B) Build morale-boosting buildings, i.e. build castles, coliseums, and cathedrals. Once your morale gets to about 150% you should always set your tax rate at 50%.
C) Maintain a good win/loss record. If you don’t have the morale-boosting buildings you can still set your tax rate to 50% once you have 10 more wins than losses.
Things that change morale:
A) Tax rate, as previously mentioned.
B) Aphrodisia. You can learn this spell at any time simply by studying illusion/mind magic for one turn. This spell will boost your morale to a safe level, although it won’t necessarily stay there if you have not met one or more of the above requirements.
C) Fear/summon rodents/summon animals/various nature spells. These spells can have a devastating effect if you cannot dispel them or if your morale is not high enough to begin with. Also beware of interacting with goblins as that will automatically cast an undispellable fear on you. Just be prepared.
As I mentioned earlier, if your morale is not high enough and your population is gone, it’s either going to come back very slowly or not at all. Be very careful when hiring troops from your own population. Unless you have a high morale, hiring more than half of your population can put you in a very bad situation. Remember, without population, you don’t produce food, make gold, or mana. Make sure you always keep some on hand.
One more thing that morale affects is battle results and random losses. A random loss is where you may greatly over power your enemy, but still lose because it was either an unlucky attack or because your morale was not high enough compared to your opponent’s, thus the likelihood of a random increases. That should do it for morale.
Warfare
You’ll be going to the warfare screen quite often. Here is an explanation of each attack type, and when and why you should use them.
Spying: I put this first because in my opinion, spying is essential to launching a successful military attack, loot, or assassination. Some races spy very well, others may not. For more information on the individual races and their strengths/weaknesses, visit http://www.smcompendium.f2s.com/ for more information. This current reset spying is a bit harder, and your best bet on getting a spy report is to cast the spell Scrying. There’s more info on the spell at that website as well. A spy report will tell you a good bit of information about a kingdom. It tells you how much gold they have, how much land and what kinds of buildings, number of troops, w/a/war machines, and even their economy. Gathering this information and using it to your advantage is key. If you do not think that you can breach the enemies defenses, you may want to consider other options….
Bombardment: This is a type of attack that is not meant to take land, but rather to destroy buildings and kill troops to weaken the enemy. Destroying buildings will “open up” land, which basically means the land is still there, it just isn’t built on. That also makes it easier for you to take. Bombardment attacks can be strengthened by having as many archers and war machines on hand as possible. They can cause a maximum of 20% damage.
Looting: Sometimes you may want their gold, sometimes you may want their equipment. A spy report will tell you all. Keep in mind the information on armories and vaults, and use it to determine whether or not you can loot a target. Sometimes you may want to take their armor to weaken their defenses, sometimes you’ll want their weapons to weaken their retaliation. You can also steal war machines, food, scrolls, and maps (but don’t steal those, it’s rather pointless). Stealing food from a vampire is an idea *evil laugh*.
Assassination: Assassination is not very useful in lower ranges, and quite frankly I suggest you simply ignore it unless you have that magic teleport button. By the time you get to a range where assassination is worth it, you will know enough about the game to where you don’t need to be told. If you really must try, the more assassins and the higher the % the better.
Spells: Pertaining to warfare, offensive spells are very important. Spells like flood and summon dragons are a great way to level your enemy before you storm in with the troops. Other spells, such as toxic wasteland and acid rain, are better used as duration spells, which are spells that your enemy has to suffer through for multiple turns. I really don’t suggest using any offensive spells other than flood and dragons unless you are a magically inclined race like sprites or leprechauns. More information on spells and what they do can be found at the above linked website.
Military Attack: Now this is what it’s all about. This is the ONLY way to take land from someone. It is the most important button you will ever push in this game. To attack, load up on archers, weapons, and war machines. Bloodlust if you are an Orc or Ogre, and get yourself some land. If you don’t take land, you should either consider giving up your attacks or attempting to weaken your enemy using the above methods. Be careful who/what you attack though, because retaliation…
Retaliation
Understanding the way retaliation works is also key to success. “Retals” are precious, and you need to use them smartly. Unfortunately there are many people who are still not fully aware of how retaliation works. Here goes…
First let me explain the concept of abuse. Assuming you have not been attacked within the last 24 hours, any kingdom within mutiny range can attack you a total of ten times before you are “abused.” Once you are abused, no further attacks are allowed on your kingdom until 24 hours after the last attack. By ten attacks, that does not mean ten military attacks. You have spell abuse slots and military abuse slots. In other words, within 24 hours, your kingdom can be hit with 5 offensive spells and 5 military attacks, which also include looting, assassination, and bombardment. For example:
Kingdom A casts 5 floods on kingdom B, now kingdom B is spell abused.
Kingdom A then loots kingdom B twice (two military slots)
Kingdom A assassinates kingdom B once (one military slot)
Kingdom A bombards kingdom B once (one military slot)
Kingdom A military attacks kingdom B once (one military slot), now kingdom B is military abused.
No more attacks can be launched on kingdom B for 24 hours.
Now, kingdom B is allowed 10 retaliations on kingdom A. Retals do NOT count toward the attacking kingdoms abuse though, nor does the retaliating kingdom have to worry about mutiny. So if kingdom B wanted to, he could take his 10 retals on kingdom A, and even hit him 10 more times (5 spells, 5 military) if he pleased, assuming kingdom A has not been attacked by anyone else. However this may not be the wisest choice for kingdom B because of a horrible little system called retals on retals.
Let’s say that kingdom B decides to take his retals plus an extra 10 attacks on kingdom A. This will give kingdom A TWENTY retals. PLUS, kingdom A can STILL hit kingdom B another 10 times if kingdom B is unabused. So that is a total of 30 attacks. Theoretically this could go on and on until there are hundreds of retals to take, but of course you only get 48 turns a day so there would be eventual limits. It’s really not that confusing. If you’re confused, read through this again and again until you understand, because it is very important. Use your retals wisely.