Ouch, according to the record the last camp game I played was well over a year ago...I could have sworn it was only since last summer

Anyway, I've missed pretty much every major camp update since then, including the short lived double trouble period , and I'm only now reading about the massive January updates Req initiated; it's all quite a lot to take in, especially in the tech area.

You can now push your economy to unbelievable levels, something along the lines of +4 k gold per turn from techs alone and +75 of every resource (sans gems). That is just on the economic side, but I'll stick to that concern for now.

I'm all for economy over military in the early game, but these new techs require quite an investment in resources at the expense of everything else. It seems very much worth the risk, especially in gold production, but since you've been playing with these updates for a few months I'm wondering what your thoughts on them are. How much is too much early on, and how many of these techs are you actually able to exploit in a game situation?

Last Edited : Sunday, 24 April 2005 - 18:56

Blood, not all the updates are in effect. The most gold you can produce in a turn currently is 3750. Unless I have missed something, I have not seen either of the new techs that increase gold production.

Besides playing the campaign game isn't only about getting economy or military. You have to learn how to balance what you want, with what you need. Most players miss that because they think what they want, is what they need.

The only way I can tell you how to make that determination is by asking this question.

I want to get this "tech", is it what I need.

My example:
Clan 1 I'm being attacked by two players, due to a couple big mistakes I have to defend from my castle. I want to get advance training to produce more troops, but will have to wait a few more hours to do that. What I needed, and what I actually got was advance recruitment. By choosing advance recruitment I wasn't getting as many troops each round, but I was able to keep my current units alive and strong. I only lost two units once I started defending at my castle because of the choices I made.

Every situation is different and you have to weigh the pros and cons with each purchase. In a thread started by Vivache he says the top players plan the movement of their troops before they move them. What he doesn't say is that the top players plan their tech and upgrade purchases ahead of time to. This way they already have a solid start and are able to quickly adapt to the situation.

edit to correct the information

Last Edited : Sunday, 24 April 2005 - 21:42

Very true about the pre-planning, I used to know how to get advanced taxes by turn 5-6 myself , and I did catch Viva's player guide, which I found to be very thorough and valuable. I chose, and at the moment, still choose not to play that way, but I'm willing to accept the consequences of that

My main observation was the addition of the Government and Empire techs, both boosting gold by 1k (advanced taxes no longer says 1k bonus, but I assume that's what it still is). If it's true that these techs are about as useful as the elusive 'troop sheilding' tech we never could find, that's one thing, but if they are in the game I'm wondering what people have thought of them.

Also the resource techs are interesting. Other then the last one (which at 32 turn recoup seems to be a waste), they seem useful (although I can't recall exactly what the previous tech like that did and cost).