Understanding Combat(Advanced Concepts. Skilling Generals)
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One of the question I am regularly asked is what's the correct way to skill my generals? It seems a fair question so why is it so difficult to answer.
The main reason is that your needs as a player from your generals will change with your level. As you develop your island and have access to greater amounts of resources after developing your production chains, the loss of a few extra units becomes more acceptable if you can increase the speed of your adventuring which in turn increases your XP you can gain within the same period of time. Skills you may have ignored before such as Jog and Navigation now become desirable on all of your generals and you stop using any general that doesn't have it.
You cannot take all of the skills available so you need to pick and choose. Certain skills will come up time and again whereas other skills you'll rarely use.
Speaking broadly, the skills on the left side of the table directly affect combat either by reducing the effectiveness of the enemy, or increasing the effectiveness of certain units in combat and the skills on the right are more passive in the way they affect your general more outside of combat with only a single exception which reduces a combat round but doesn't directly affect damage being Confident Leader.
So let's dive a bit deeper into each skill on the left. Any skill in green has potential issues. Those in black are more useful.
Note: No general used as a blocker should have any of the skills on the left as it may affect blocks and force you to have to sim. In some cases blocking with this general will become impossible rendering it useless and costing you either gems or books to reset it. You've been warned.
Rapid Fire - Affects Bowman by increasing their damage. With no other skills it's not particularly useful for most adventures with Nusala and Loner benefiting most from it.
Juggernaut - Useful for Premium Generals and Suiciders as it increases the damage of your General and adds splash to their skills if they don't already have it
Sniper Training - Affects Longbowmen and Marksmen. Two of the least used units in the guides. I suggest looking elsewhere to place your valuable books.
Overrun - Decreases the health(HP) of enemy bosses making them easier to kill. Premium generals which are likely to attack leader camps will benefit most from this skill. Suiciders won't be alive long enough to benefit from it. Don't forget that YGG is often used as an attacking general and will benefit from this skill despite being used as a suicider quite regularly.
Unstoppable Charge - This skill increases damage from your first strike (swift) units by 3 and also gives them splash. Cavalry and Knights benefit from it most as neither has splash naturally. While Mounted Marksman also benefits an additional 3 damage isn't great and MMM already have splash naturally. A useful skill for generals that regularly use swift units such as Boris.
Battle Frenzy - This skill increases the damage what's left of your army is doing after each combat round. Premium Generals with the exception of GG, YGG and Anslem are likely to benefit least from the skill as generally speaking their battles finish far too quickly for the skill to even kick in. Anslem and YGG with their lower troop numbers are likely to see far more rounds far more often.
Cleave - This skill only affects Elite Soldiers and instead of increasing it's defense which might have made it useful, it increases their attack which isn't what defense units are supposed to be for. Why this skill is even considered being worth codexes reveals just how little the developers understand the game's dynamics.
Weekly Maintenance - This skill affects your heavy units by increasing their damage. Both Cannons and Besiegers benefit from it. Unfortunately Garrison Annex is also available at this level meaning that this skill will rarely justify getting 3 codexes. The Generals that benefit from it the most are those with very large armies such as OGG and MG.
Lightning Slash - Generals with small armies and high damage benefit most from this skill. YGG and Anslem spring to mind. For other Premium Generals the next skill is far better.
Master Planner - Almost always the best skill available. Adding 10% accuracy to your general and their troops is huge. Elite soldiers, cannons and all elite units from Swordsman to Besiegers will have 100% accuracy meaning they always do their maximum damage in combat.
Now for the right side aka the more passive skills. Unlike the left combat skills, there isn't really any one of them I'd call useless, but I will say on Premium Generals with the exception of Garrison Annex which increases the number of troops a general can have, any book placed on the right side reduces that General's maximum damage. The more books there is on the right side, potentially the less useful that general becomes. Once you understand that concept, things gets easier.
First Aid - Useful skill. In single unit suicides having just one manuscript here will stop that unit from ever dying regardless of how often it's defeated in battle. It will always be resurrected after the battle is over even if the battle was lost. It's the key to how zero loss adventures are designed.
Jog - For higher level players, this skill becomes critical especially as maps become larger with more distance to cover.
Hostile Takeover - Useful in as much as it generates Mercenary Recruits. Once you have access to Elite Troops, this skill becomes less useful, but still worth considering.
Navigation Crash Course - At higher levels this skill will become critical on all of your generals. Generals without it will tend to get left home.
Fast Learner - Boris, Mary and Tremblebeard are better choices if you want an XP boost. I wouldn't recommend it as there's only a limited amount of books available especially by this level and quite a few choices. As it is, if you're using Jog x 3 Navi x 3 Juggernaut x 3 Overrun x 3 and at least 1 book in First Aid, you've already used 13 of your max 21 books. Assuming you will be grabbing Garrison Annex and say Master Planner, that's another 4 for a total of 17, so just 4 left. With Unstoppable Charge and Battle Frenzy still without books... You get the drift.
Just a Flesh Wound - Arguably the least useful skill on the right side. Once a battle is finished all of your generals spring back to life anyway, so it's iffy if this skill will even see use as adventures rarely last long enough for it to be a thing.
Garrison Annex - Up to an additional 15 troops for your generals. Even OGG approves. This one is basically a no brainer to take, but it does limit you as you're only allowed 6 codexes in any General.
Confident Leader - There's an adventure here and there where this skill might be useful, but it's rare. If an attack is that time critical i suggest you use GG as she has it naturally. If there was ever an update allowing more books into a general, I might consider using it then. Until that happens, not so much.
Bounty Hunter - A great skill in a bad spot. With three other better skills available to you generating star coins just doesn't make a deal of sense.
1-Up - A great skill for your suiciders. Nusala and YGG benefit greatly from this skill.
In conclusion feel free to totally ignore what I've outlined here. Perhaps you insist on having fast learner on all of your generals even if it does slow them down. Or maybe you like generating lots of recruits. maybe you only want books in first aid on certain generals. As I said at the start, there's no wrong way to skill a general, but there's some skills you should seriously consider the long term consequences of before adding it to one.
Happy Settling
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Originally Posted by Lenaburg
