3 Years plus...

Ok guys im struggling...Coming up to 3 years now and i am active every day for some time unless i am away on holiday..
Level 45, and i feel i have been treading water for the last 2 years, i log on..refil, search and replace spent mines fields etc... the new weekly event is almost impossible as it requires all my resourses which then leaves me short but has the much needed xp i need to open up more map at some point... ... i only aquire granite from searches so i am not plentyful,. Best troops i have are elite soldiers , only because i bought swords as i cant get enought titanium as yet.. these soldiers were all wiped out during there first outing, so i buy crossbows in the trade area and use those as my best troops... I can only do adventures that have a difficulty no higher than 5 or i lose all troops...I do the daily quest everyday unless i just cant for whatever reason, i have upgraded quite alot of my island as far as i can alot fully, most to lvl 5 but am now out of grout... and im running out of energy for the game..
I played this game back in the 90,s very successfully on the game cd.. i did play this version online a time before but quit at around lvl 20 or so due to just not getting anywhere.. I dont want to quit but im out of ideas and am in need of something.. a light at the end of the tunnel... a new map.. something !! Im told a new part opens up around level 55 or 60 but at this rate that will be in around another 10 years..
Any help/advice much appreciated.

from what you say about your adventuring, you are losing what are very expensive troops, which you should not be. You should only be killing recruits and bows, maybe occasionally some militia. Are you using adventure guides?
You should be focused at your lvl on making bronzeswords and bows, iron and steel swords somewhat less. Once you make some elites and crossbowmen these should never be killed and so you only need to 'pay' once to make them.
you will then be able to get granite and titanium from adventure loot

these guides are easy to follow: settlersonlinewiki.eu/en/adventures

Yes, sounds like you are wasting money on weapons for crossbow men and elite soldiers, which you are then killing off in battles on a regular basis, when none of these troops should ideally be lost. Build bakeries, farms, windmills, bronze sword smiths and their support buildings, bowmakers, cutters etc.. get these and the support mines buffed.

See ‘theory of constraints’, it’s all about finding those bottlenecks that stop you getting what you need and fixing them by increasing capacity in those areas.

For adventures at your level, do nords, stealing from rich and black knights, moving onto valiant tailor when ready. These have good xp per troop losses. Use wiki guides as a basis, as Kit suggests, to get an idea of which troops to send, but by all means play around with adjusting troops from standard attacks.

Good luck!

Thanks guys ...so i should concentrate on adventures by using masses of recruits and bows rather than soldiers and crossbowmen ? sounds feasable.. my production of iron swords i will upgrade now too.. thanks for the info guys... i will report back.

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Originally Posted by Alfiethebull

Thanks guys ...so i should concentrate on adventures by using masses of recruits and bows rather than soldiers and crossbowmen ? sounds feasable.. my production of iron swords i will upgrade now too.. thanks for the info guys... i will report back.

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Yes and no.

You need soldiers, cavalry, elite soldiers and crossbowmen yes. But you should not be losing them in combat unless you did a mistake. You're losses should be recruits, and in the Tailor FTs also bows, 90% of the time (some attacks require militia).

Use blocking. It saves so much troops it's not even funny.

Just as an example of "value" of troops. The combat simualtors valuer recruits at 1, bows at 1.2, a soldier at 5 elite soldier and Xbows at 50. I other words, the general wisdom is it's better to lose 50 recruits to save 1 eltie soldier/Xbow. This stly eof play also means you need to have more generals inplay. But in 3 years should managed *some* event generals at least beyond taverns. These are key to reduce losses too.

Obviously you're not playing as "efficicently" as could be (time spent will matter a lot ofc). I mean I took me around 6 months to hit 45 and after 3.5 years of play am well on my way to 71. I've put a lot of manhours in.

Also don't try and do thew weekly challenge. That's a total trap for people without a hugely overflowing island economy. The tokes will be meaningless to you when you can much more easily upgrade with more buldings instead.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Alfiethebull

Thanks guys ...so i should concentrate on adventures by using masses of recruits and bows rather than soldiers and crossbowmen ? sounds feasable.. my production of iron swords i will upgrade now too.. thanks for the info guys... i will report back.

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You dont use masses of anything.

The general idea is you compose your army of certain group of units with high hitpoints that will soak the incoming damage from enemy units (since units are always attacked in particular order ) and a certain group of units with higher damage that will do most of the work killing enemy units.

Now the trick is, due to how combat mechanics works, at least until you get to higher levels and start using elite units, most of the incoming damage can be soaked by recruits as good as any other frontline units, regardless of how high the damage might be (meaning that even after you progress towards harder adventures your early game units do not become obsolete just because you unlock ones with higher stats).

That means that for very long time you can reduce the costs of you doing adventures by an order of magnitude by losing only cheap and easily replaceable recruits.

Another thing is that the algorithm that controls the outcome of the fight has been figured out years ago, and people are capable of calculating the result down to a single unit lost, meaning that you can know what army to send agaist particular enemy down to a single recruit, which means you can reduce the losses of the most expensive units down to zero (and its not "zero" in the context of a single adventure, if you dont make unnecessary mistakes you can actually never lose any of the high tier units, unless on purpose). All the necessary information has been compiled into numerous guides you can find on forums, that can navigate you through any adventure minimizing your losses.

Thanks once again everyone... i have

Champion Anslem
General Mary Christmas
Quartermass Clause
and 3 Generals.

Also

2 x Stone cold geologist
1 x iron willed geologist
1 x versed Geologist
2 x consientious geologists
3 x geologists

I do find titanium and granite which keeps me going.. Now you have the full picture..

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Originally Posted by SnowBlizz

Yes and no.

You need soldiers, cavalry, elite soldiers and crossbowmen yes. But you should not be losing them in combat unless you did a mistake. You're losses should be recruits, and in the Tailor FTs also bows, 90% of the time (some attacks require militia).

Use blocking. It saves so much troops it's not even funny.

Just as an example of "value" of troops. The combat simualtors valuer recruits at 1, bows at 1.2, a soldier at 5 elite soldier and Xbows at 50. I other words, the general wisdom is it's better to lose 50 recruits to save 1 eltie soldier/Xbow. This stly eof play also means you need to have more generals inplay. But in 3 years should managed *some* event generals at least beyond taverns. These are key to reduce losses too.

Obviously you're not playing as "efficicently" as could be (time spent will matter a lot ofc). I mean I took me around 6 months to hit 45 and after 3.5 years of play am well on my way to 71. I've put a lot of manhours in.

Also don't try and do thew weekly challenge. That's a total trap for people without a hugely overflowing island economy. The tokes will be meaningless to you when you can much more easily upgrade with more buldings instead.

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Dont know what blocking is ?

I was on a purposeful "go slow" when I started in late 2012, took me about a year & a half to get to 50, playing pirates as the granite drop was 50% & it was extremely rare back then. but 3 & a half years playing near everyday & only lev 45? Sounds like you need a new guild...

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Originally Posted by Alfiethebull

Dont know what blocking is ?

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Blocking means you "skip" camps by using the way combats are worked out to your advantage. This is what most guides will tell you since the results of combats are a known quantity within reasonable variance.

When you defeat a leader camp ina sector, the entirel sector will be cleared out. This means provided the positions are favourable you only need to destroy boss. With blocking you keep camps that would otherwise intercept you occupied, and sicne these combats are ongoing when boss is defeated you save those troops (unless mistakes occur).

In this way you get all the XP for an adv (usually), but with a fraction of units lost.

This is one of the major reasons to look at a guide when doing an adv.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SnowBlizz

Blocking means you "skip" camps by using the way combats are worked out to your advantage. This is what most guides will tell you since the results of combats are a known quantity within reasonable variance.

When you defeat a leader camp ina sector, the entirel sector will be cleared out. This means provided the positions are favourable you only need to destroy boss. With blocking you keep camps that would otherwise intercept you occupied, and sicne these combats are ongoing when boss is defeated you save those troops (unless mistakes occur).

In this way you get all the XP for an adv (usually), but with a fraction of units lost.

This is one of the major reasons to look at a guide when doing an adv.

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Thanks SnowBlizz, already im looking forward..

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SnowBlizz

When you defeat a leader camp ina sector, the entirel sector will be cleared out. This means provided the positions are favourable you only need to destroy boss. With blocking you keep camps that would otherwise intercept you occupied, and sicne these combats are ongoing when boss is defeated you save those troops (unless mistakes occur).

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One important thing to add to this : as you keep the surrounding camps occupied, you want the fight in those camps to continue as long as possible, longer than it takes the main army defeats the boss.

This means, outside of maybe few exceptions, you use tavern generals for blocking since for the same unit composition they fight the enemy twice as long.

Wiki has a guide to blocking here: http://settlersonlinewiki.eu/en/adve...w-make-blocks/

And there are a variety of adventure guides on Wiki also, using various combinations of troops and generals.

Get a guildie to take you on a Dark Priests and teach you to block - that first block is so forgiving you can fetch a coffee in between sending generals :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Alfiethebull

Thanks once again everyone... i have

Champion Anslem
General Mary Christmas
Quartermass Clause
and 3 General

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Try to get Nusala, very useful at your lvl. Lulu made some very great guides https://forum.thesettlersonline.com/...r-lower-levels

I'd like to chime in and raise a voice for Evil_J's adventure guides - so very easy to follow. No need to scroll up and down or anything confusing at all, just everything you need is in one big picture with notes and how to do things step-by-step (was as confused as you are when I started playing years ago and found that Evil_J's guides was the easiest to follow/learn).

You find them here - https://forum.thesettlersonline.net/...venture-Guides

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Alfiethebull

Ok guys im struggling...Coming up to 3 years now and i am active every day for some time unless i am away on holiday..
Level 45, and i feel i have been treading water for the last 2 years, i log on..refil, search and replace spent mines fields etc... the new weekly event is almost impossible as it requires all my resourses which then leaves me short but has the much needed xp i need to open up more map at some point... ... i only aquire granite from searches so i am not plentyful,. Best troops i have are elite soldiers , only because i bought swords as i cant get enought titanium as yet.. these soldiers were all wiped out during there first outing, so i buy crossbows in the trade area and use those as my best troops... I can only do adventures that have a difficulty no higher than 5 or i lose all troops...I do the daily quest everyday unless i just cant for whatever reason, i have upgraded quite alot of my island as far as i can alot fully, most to lvl 5 but am now out of grout... and im running out of energy for the game..
I played this game back in the 90,s very successfully on the game cd.. i did play this version online a time before but quit at around lvl 20 or so due to just not getting anywhere.. I dont want to quit but im out of ideas and am in need of something.. a light at the end of the tunnel... a new map.. something !! Im told a new part opens up around level 55 or 60 but at this rate that will be in around another 10 years..
Any help/advice much appreciated.

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If you have taken 3 years to reach level 45 I would like to congratulate you on your pure patience.

Are you in a guild? If not then you would benefit from joining one in order to get help and advice from others who play regularly. If the answer is yes then what have the officers and leaders been doing all this time? Seems you have had no advice re how to adventure etc etc which is the basic I would have expected.

I play on Newfoundland each day for a short time so feel free to send me a friend invite and I'll see if we can sort doing some adventures together so as to show you how to use guides, block etc.