When to Max Ages? What can be left behind?

[TrillVille]

I have maxed every age so far, almost out of EA 132 leauge silver 2ish. I started late last summer. My plan when going to IA is to stay there and max again because I heard that GA can be attacked by CWA, so I may as well be best be prepared. I would also have to consider if Space Age could attack AA.

I barely get attacked in EA, but when I do, it is in quick succession, then it goes silent. I'm making good rss, I have more than I need (a lot of battles peak 500k each right now, more with blessing).

I have a good idea of how to upgrade. Always check for the house first, then your mills and markets, library and armory, refinery, wells, factory(s) and airstrip. Keep the university going. Barracks, Fort, Camp. Get production lines busy then work on your Defense. Start with new productions and anything else caught behind the previous age.

One thing I never have time for is the dock, which is sad, but you need to take time with that too once you fill your museum with some artifacts.

With the University, you have Hiawatha and Mansa who need to go, but Moctezuma's 50% Farm and Caravan should be done ASAP. Then max the 3 in order for the NTG bonus as well, and pick what you want next knowing the time required. That's pretty simple.

I don't see much point in skipping anything unless it was a unit you did not use or you really didn't care about farms and caravans (they do attract raiders, but I make more than 1M gold a day free I just have to collect, that could be a few million later). Skipping defense is going to hurt when you get attacked constantly aiming for high priced mk upgrades.

Just some thoughts.

 

[oddin]

Don't ever Upgrade
Dock (beyond level 7)
farms
caravans
roads
vault
mortars (unit)
Tactical Helis
Transport

Upgrade with High Importance - Defence
Antitank
SAM
AA
bunkers
Tank depots
Towers

Upgrade with High Importance - Offence
Merc camp
airport
barracks
factories
alliance gate
embassy (for WW)

Upgrade with very low importance
Redoubt
Sniper towers
Garrisons
mortars
Supply trucks
Bombers

Important Units to upgrade up to Global age
tanks
cannons
footies

Important Units to upgrade up to CWA
APC
Bazookas
Attack Helis
HT
howitzers


Just my 2 cents

 

[No Angel]

I agree for everything, with a note that if you are not a top attacker in world wars, keep Bunker level low

 

[Bryan_k]

Interesting.. as I'm going through this very process in IA, though I'm further down the line now on upgrades. I actually did Redoubts and one Tank Depot first, then one Garrison, as that upgraded all 'defenders from the forest' and TC troops? Working through everything else now.

Why low priority on Bombers? Mine works extremely well, though is still a little fragile for my liking, even at Airship MK3. In conjunction with one fighter it has caused no end of havoc..

 

[Bryan_k]

You are a couple of months behind me I'm doing the same as your plan on IA - Will be maxed out before I got to GA. On the Uni front, I would consider completing Hiawatha and Mansa and a chunk of Moctezuma before going to IA, as once you upgrade you will not have the citizens to do much Uni research for some time (or slow the upgrade process) , as the upgrade times become steadily longer? I found it incredibly frustrating initially in IA due to the slow progress of upgrades. When you realise your cannon tower upgrades will take 3 citizens 40 days in total..

 

[pckrn]

When to max ages?
never.

in EA it's not much of an issue yet, but from IA and on, build times suddenly become much longer and it becomes very inefficient and ineffective to max everything.

for example, if you stay in industrial and upgrade 5 garrisons + 4 mortars + 3 redoubts that's about 500 worker-days.
in that same amount of worker-time you can go to global, build silo, upgrade museum, upgrade armory and 3 mills, upgrade oil refinery twice and airstrip, upgrade library twice, upgrade 4 caltrops and build 2 SAM's.
going with the second option you will be vastly more powerful on both offense and defense.

GA's being attacked by CWA?
there is nothing you can do to prepare against this by staying in a lower age longer.
a lvl 170 atomic has a much better chance of defending against cwa than a lvl 200 global.
but not being able to defend is just fine too.
this also ties into the misconception that skipping defense will hurt you.
if you can't defend, you get a peace treaty, and you don't get raided anymore. and you would have more powerful offense than someone who worked hard on their defense so you would have much better farming ability. so someone who skipped defense would have a much higher net income than someone who got their defense up to a level where no one is attacking them. you also earn crowns from defenses as bonus.

offense upgrades are always the top priority, and then comes upgrades that open up locked offense upgrades. and then, i would value xp per worker-day more than defense, to meet level caps.
i.e. global farms are higher priority than industrial mortars.

 

[Cannibals]

I’m waiting to go Global on two accounts until I see whether Nexon changes whether CWAs can still hit Globals once Space Age comes out. If they still can, I’m going to hang out in IA and max a bit more first.

 

[Bryan_k]

I can see your point, but are you not just moving the inevitable defence upgrades further down the line? After all you will have to do them at some point.. I would imagine EA defences on an AA base would not be amusing

I know it is not quite the same but I attack low GA bases - they are much easier than high IA as they tend to be rushed. I would imagine the same with a low AA vs high GA? tend to avoid Silos but have taken them on and won.

By level caps you mean the level requirements for each age? (I believe it is 130 for GA, 150 AA, 220 CWA?)

My current thinking is to get most IA stuff done then spend minimal time (just to upgrade troops, build Silo etc.) in GA before going up to AA, so it is similar to what you suggest in some ways. I'm already well past the AA level requirement..

 

[pckrn]

@bryan_k

moving defense upgrades further down the line is good because you have more workers then, and not much else to work on. i still have a lot of EA defenses on my CWA base in dynasty 1 and it is quite amusing to watch all the attackers die.

as for low AA vs high GA, i guess it would depend on what you have upgraded.. i should say low AA has higher potential defensive capabilities rather than saying theyre simply just better.

yes i do mean the level requirements for age advancement. the 220 cap for CWA is pretty high.

 

[yemen]

I didn't max any ages. Moved up ASAP every time I had the choice, including upgrading my roads to get the levels to go atomic in the first age rush event. Now in CWA, I am finally backfilling a lot of defenses, because offense is maxed and there is nothing else to do.

Without defenses, you get quick peace treaties. And the absolute best is as a global having a cold war age player attack you - they face a loot penalty, so you lose less resources from your resource buildings. Than with your age maxed offense, you can go get resources easily and effectively. You don't sit as high in the war rankings (defense counts for much more than offense) so you can be a very effective attacker for your level just based on firepower, while you develop your skills.

And when you do upgrade defenses, you can do it strategically. So you get one tank depot up to level for the forest defenders, and a bunker for the factory HT spawns, etc. The first one has a much bigger impact than subsequent upgrades of the same building type for troop producing buildings.

It is fun having strong defenses, I enjoy it now. But I enjoyed the entire path with the rushing, so it is just a choice for how you think you will have the most fun.

 

[NateTheGreat]

My approach has always been balanced. Keep upgrading my offense at all times and make sure I'm upgrading the strong defenses. Mortars used to be the absolute must when I was EA, IA, GA ages. But then I got to AA and it was all about anti-air, towers, SAMS, missile silo.

I got stuck in AA for a year and I realize now that I ham-strained myself by staying there too long and only upgrading defenses. I had my armory empty for a few months while trying to complete Amelia and not being able to feed general upgrades. I became bored during the time trying to max my sniper towers, walls, and traps. So becuase I was bored I rushed from lv 200 AA to lv 220 in 2 months and upgraded to CWA for the Winter of Ages event. I feel so much happier to be working on HT mk6, factory upgrades, and soon to be plane upgrades.

 

[TrillVille]

The problem is obviously upgrade times IA forward. Getting the resources is not much of an issue, even I get over 5k oil in EA if I cherry pick.



It's easy to hit the bases, getting your armory done and library, but I don't like to get attacked and lose too easily either. Defense takes a lot more time. So I can see why people move up sooner, because their armory has nothing to do.

Saying that, I enjoy the ages and I'm looking forward to moving to the next age, Industrial!

1. I'll need the house for 14 citizens
2. Level two mills for 6m to 7m
3. Upgrade Armory and Library and keep full
4. Stable, Anti Air, Sniper tower, new defenses to decent levels
5. Factory, Airstrip, Bunker, mk upgrades
6. Barracks
7. Fort and General to 10, Merc Camp

The rest falls in line but takes more time. Some other things like Museum for legendary could go earlier too.

 

[No Angel]

How about getting Speed Ups for 5 star victories? ​​​​​​You'll be more active to do battles, and while filling your storage, you're collecting Speed Ups to boost your upgrades. Things would be less boring and waiting time would be cut. Everyone will keep advancing.

 

[Manifesto]

There is no right or wrong answer, but there has been some good responses in this thread so far. You'll always want to prioritise offense over defense but things like maxing some stables/tank depots/garrisons (when you age up) is always a good idea, imo.
However, regardless of your defensive levels, a poorly designed base may not take advantage of max defenses. By contrast, a cleverly designed base, one that creates bottlenecks or spawns defenders well, will defend well regardless of defender levels.
As pckrn said, attacking will always gain you more than defending will lose. And that's the nature of this game.
Upgrade/prioritise what you bring to the fight. Anything else is to be done at your convenience.

ps: don't underestimate Redoubts. They age up very well.

 

[sileepuppee]

I would say that once you max the offensive power in every age than you can move up. Of course offense alone isn’t enough to reach that level req but it gets you close. Defense wise I agree that no matter how far you upgrade, if the base design is poor than you get attacked. It’s better to max all your offensive units and you at least. Being a completely maxed out industrial can get you around 180-190 as far as I’ve seen but that’s with maxing library research which is also pointless because much of that is useless. It all doesn’t matter when your getting destroyed by a maxed offensive 140 global player. Once of our best attackers on our side is lvl 158 aa (Brit for raising purposes) and he’s maxed offensively with maxed planes and currently working on Amelia. All barracks done, all armory units that are used are done (And yeah I wouldn’t upgrade units that you don’t actually use or plan to). Finishing last Cherokee coal to 7 with Aztec and mongol already maxed. Has 3 lvl 35 generals as well. With exception of atomic lvl silo and (2) lvl 3 bunkers which were only upgraded because of sales, everything on his base is industrial maxed. Only exceptions are garrisons which are lvl 1 except one being high lvl to help colleseum. Land mines and barb wires are lvl 6. Redoubts,sniper towers,ambush traps, are lvl 1 and yet the base defends pretty well against aa and cwa because it’s a maze layout. Not really rose valentine but kind of similar base because he needs to chop down more forest. He maxed univ research for towers, tank guns, mortars and tank defenders so there’s a ton of punch there that you can’t see there without having to have the high lvl. He’s currently taking out 220-230 aa and some cwa but only without arsenal. Eventually he will upgrade defenses but he said he would rather just toss all the people in univ as he has atomium.

It’s all about preference but I don’t prefer mindlessly upgrading all defense unless there’s a set design in mind. Defending feels good but crushing bases with your attacks is so much more satisfying. Defense will always catch up. And yeah I would prefer univ research over individual building upgrades since it benefits all rather than that specific one. Of course your base doesn’t look as intimidating but they’ll learn the hard way. I suppose if you’re a player that never goes to war or feels the need to than your goal is different. In war it’s a whole other monster and having a maxed industrial or global base means little when you can be attacked but a maxed out cwa.

 

[BeerMan]

Unless you are already CWA or wanting to spend a ton of money, there isn't much point in trying to become a "defender" at this stage in the game's life cycle. I would just max all offense and do enough defense to keep advancing.

 

[Cannibals]

Don’t underestimate the importance of defense in war. There is a reason why most of the attention during wars is on the tough bases on both sides.

 

[yemen]

But those bases are either years old, or have spent thousands of $. Those starting now are still better off getting their offense up, then working on defenses after they have a high age offense. Offense at least lets you have fun attacking, and hit above your war weight in war.

 

[Cannibals]

I used to 100% agree yemen, having pursued offense over (and sometimes exclusively) over defense. But over the past 6 months I have been enjoying my GP/EA alts where I’m maxing offense and defense before aging up. Those wars aren’t just CWA on CWA, and a max defense EA base has no problem holding off a max offense IA attacker.

 

[ThunderD]

So I’ve recently gone to atomic and I’m loving it btw. Game play becomes so much more fun. How I’ve got a hot tip for you guys that are still in global and are thinking about aging up.

Make sure you get every very possible oil upgrade done before going Atomic! Since the dominations bonuses have been introduced it is insanely easy to farm oil in global age in the lower medal ranges. Reason being that a lot of bases, because of the low level requirement to advance, rush to atomic age without getting a silo or upgrading most of the other defences. When you’re global age, 5 staring an atomic base will give you an additional 6000 oil as you know but when you go to atomic yourself they will only give 2400 as a bonus and the cwa bases are far to hard to take down, seeing as the level required to go To CWA is much higher and only the more serious players will get there. Especially when you’ve only just aged up!

Even if the base you’re attcking only has 2000 oil to steal, you will still get 8000 for 5 starting it!

My AA offensive upgrades are most of the way there and I’m having a lot of success with a variation of the attack heli strategy people have been posting about on here, however the oil farming is nowhere near as fast as when I was picking in those weak atomic bases while in global age.