Cracking Legendary

[Senior Tactician]

With a fear kingdom, would you have 100% fear?

No fear kingdom has all the necessary fear companions for 100% fear.

[Senior Tactician]

Are we celebrating this? Just curious.

Actually this is sort of my extreme example of why fear needs to be capped.  However, since in many games more than half of all towns end up with legendary castles on them, fear isn't the only thing that needs to be capped. Granaries, ports, bazaars, hidden ore fertile fields, bounty all contribute to a map with literally dozens of legendary castles.  Differing kingdom levels of available fear is probably the number 1 thing that distinguishes a kingdoms endgame potential.  I'm guessing that wasn't intentional.

For instance, moral is capped at 160, there is no reason food production in any pc can't be capped at 20,000 for instance, gold at 40,000 perhaps.

[RELLGAR]

Are we celebrating this? Just curious.

Actually this is sort of my extreme example of why fear needs to be capped.  However, since in many games more than half of all towns end up with legendary castles on them, fear isn't the only thing that needs to be capped. Granaries, ports, bazaars, hidden ore fertile fields, bounty all contribute to a map with literally dozens of legendary castles.  Differing kingdom levels of available fear is probably the number 1 thing that distinguishes a kingdoms endgame potential.  I'm guessing that wasn't intentional.

For instance, moral is capped at 160, there is no reason food production in any pc can't be capped at 20,000 for instance, gold at 40,000 perhaps.

But why? What's the reason?

[Senior Tactician]

Are we celebrating this? Just curious.

Actually this is sort of my extreme example of why fear needs to be capped.  However, since in many games more than half of all towns end up with legendary castles on them, fear isn't the only thing that needs to be capped. Granaries, ports, bazaars, hidden ore fertile fields, bounty all contribute to a map with literally dozens of legendary castles.  Differing kingdom levels of available fear is probably the number 1 thing that distinguishes a kingdoms endgame potential.  I'm guessing that wasn't intentional.

For instance, moral is capped at 160, there is no reason food production in any pc can't be capped at 20,000 for instance, gold at 40,000 perhaps.

But why? What's the reason?

Balance.  Rangers, for example, will almost never be able to capture a legendary castle.  At endgame... practically all towns are legendary castles.  To balance the kingdoms more at endgame, legendary castles should be more rare, and more difficult for everyone to take, not just the fear-challenged.

[Lord Garth]

Congrats SR. Well done.

And enlightening. I didn't know you got the full 10% for a single Mammoth/ Specter brig. By my math you wiped out almost half the remainder with magic leaving your troops with only about 9k to contend with. On another note, you did with without artifacts. Your commander deserves a raise.

[Senior Tactician]

I'll venmo you a fair price. Nice work. pineneedle2020@gmail.com if you want to send me info to pay up.

Thanks man but I cant take your money, I'll toast you next time I tip one back

[uncledarkside2]

To new players, or even older ones, it may seem a daunting task to create an army capable of capturing a legendary castles without loosing most of your troops in the effort.  For, a group cannot long sustain losses in excess of 20% and continue to be the same effective fighting force.  Especially when many armies capable of cracking legendary require those troops to be veterans or elites, and every loss of those types is stinging.

Obviously, spells are going to be an important part of your arsenal against legendary, so I will cover them briefly as this will mostly be an article about troop types.  There are mostly just three spells you'll want to consider when taking on this effort: Fear, Valor, and Crack the sky.  While fear and valor at lower levels against smaller PCs may have little effect, they are critical against large PCs.  Crack the sky still stacks its fear effect with the fear spell, and both spells stack with the fear created by troop type, ruthless and siege engineers.  There were rumors that the fear effect may at some point in the future be capped at 35%... if that has become the case, you can pretty much disregard much of this article.

If your target has 200,000 value, crack the sky and a level 5 fear spell should bring that down to a nice and reasonable 100,000.  With additional fear from various sources, it will be even lower thus reducing by far the amount of damage your group will have to sustain to succeed in the effort.  However, the damage you will have to do to see yourself to the other side of those walls is not so easily dealt with.  Even if you have managed, for instance, to lower the Castles value to say 80,000 your damage output will be divided by 3.3 meaning you will still have to administer around 260,000 damage to bring it down. And that is where valor comes into play.

Best I can figure, your group value as stated on your turn sheet as "value vs PC" DOES include your moral and leadership bonus, but NOT any bonus for forged weapons, artifacts, troop rating (vet and elite) or troop special abilities.  So to calculate your troops BASE value, you will need to subtract out your leadership and moral bonuses.  So for instance if your group value vs PC is 150,000 and you have a Warlord and 125% moral, your groups base value is about 100,000.  This is the number you will modify by all your bonusses.

Now add up all your damage bonuses, including moral and leadership which you deducted previously. For instance:
Warlord +25%
Moral +25%
Valor Spell +25%
Forged Weapons +25%

Lets say that's it, your group value will be +100% of 100,000 or 200,000 vs PC.  Again, I do not know the program, this is the best I can figure.  I'm not going to get into forged armor, windstorm, shield or any other defensive bonuses in this article, but these do not help with damage output, only preventing you from retreating too soon.

If you are adept at math, you will see here where the value of veteran and elite troops is felt, as they increase your BASE value, not the bonuses. A veteran unit will be 125% of the value of a regular one, and an Elite unit will be 175% of that value.  This dramatically increases the attack value that all these bonuses will be applied to, and just as importantly, the amount of damage your group can absorb.  Again, to the best of my estimation.

So for instance a group of 10 regular paladins with no leaders and 100% moral might be 22,000 vs PC, whereas a group of veterans will be 27,500 and elites a whopping 38,500.  Now add a warlord and forged weapons: regular paladins 33,000... Elite paladins 57000+ vs PC.

That is, as far as I can tell, how things work and its definitely enough information to get you started on your own analysis.


Now, which kingdoms can most easily take legendary and what is the best way to go about building your army? Obviously, any kingdom that can cast crack the sky has a huge advantage, but I'll be looking mostly at available troop types for this analysis.  Any kingdom can hire Zamorans, so I will not mention those.  Two Zamoran regulars will give you a 10% moral boost.  Also, I think Westmen give 10% defense vs archer fire, which is most of what a PC does to you, but again, I think when castle values got so incredibly high, your groups defense value is no longer really a major concern.  Be advised thought, that kingdoms who don't have a lot of fear and valor may benefit from Westmen.

The troop types you will want to consider are the following:

Minotaur - Summon, limited to 5.  Two give a 15% moral boost.
Troll - Companion, veteran brigade required to recruit, limited to 3. Give +30% vs PC (can be thought of as moral)
Orcs - Companion, limited to 15.  Each brigade in addition to 4 gives a +5% moral bonus, capped at +15%.
Hill Giants - Companion, Elite brigade required to recruit, limited to 3. Two give a 10% fear effect.
Mammoths - Companion, Elite brigade required to recruit, limited to 3. One gives a 10% fear effect.
Specter (my favorite) - Summon, limited to 7.  Gives a 10% fear effect and specter brigades have +20% vs PC (flying)
Ghoul - Summon, limited to 5.  Gives a 10% fear effect.

So what is it you have access to?

AMAZONS - Mino at 6.  Hill Giants and Mammoths, build BIG and lots of elites, you'll likely never see crack the sky.

ANCIENT ONES - Minos at 5, ghouls at 6, also mammoths.  Crack the sky possible.  Not bad

ATLANTIANS - Minos at 6 and Hill Giants.  Build Biiig.

BLACK DRAGONS - Ruthless and fly, both inherent, so all you can do is build a massive army of elites.

CIMMERIANS - Ruthless, Mammoths and hill giants.  Minos at 6 which you probably won't see.  Think BIG army.

DARK ELVES - Orcs, minos, ghouls and specters.  Not bad.  Crack the sky possible, but above your range.

DEMON PRINCES - Same as DA plus ruthless, fairly easy, crack the sky possible.

DRUID - Crack the sky, Mammoths, Hill Giants, Mino at 3.  fairly easy.

DWARVES - Seige engineers (+10% fear vs PC, also war machines massive "vs PC" value and tactic "barrage") Mammoths and Hill Giants.... build it BIG.  You might not actually want war machines as they take up a slot and are limited to 5.  You still get the fear bonus.

ELVES -  Minos at 5, crack the sky possible.  Elven troops are second only to RD for value vs PC, but still.... build BIG...

GNOMES - Minos 5, specters 7 and Ghouls 6, seige engineers. Possible crack the sky. Not bad.

HALFLINGS - Mino at 6.... good luck.

ILLUSIONIST - Crack the sky, Mino 4, specters 6, ghouls 5.  Pretty easy.

LIZARD MEN - Ruthless, Mino 5, Specters 7, Ghouls 6.  Tough...  Magic cost is 11,000 so... maybe just forgo the summons and build it massive, lots of elites.

NECROMANCER - crack the sky, ruthless, mino, specter, ghouls, orcs, trolls... easy peasy.

NOMANDS - mino at 5... good luck.

PIRATES - mino at 6 and hill giants, tough job ahead.

RANGERS - minos at 5 and mammoths.  NO fear or crack the sky (other kingdoms may also suffer from this that I am unaware of)  Good luck, build it BIG.

RED DRAGONS - same as BL, lots of elites, build it big.

SACRED ORDER - minos at 6, seige engineers... BIG.. but you cant afford it.

SORCERER - Crack the sky, Specters 6, ghouls 5, orcs, trolls, hill giants.  Easy

TYRANT - ruthless, seige engineers, mino, orcs, trolls, hill giants, not bad.

UNDERWORLD - mino 5, specter 7, ghoul 6, hill giants, crack the sky possible, not bad.

Warlock - Crack the sky, mino 3, specter 5, ghoul 5, troll, orc, mammoth, hill Giant. Easy

And there you have it, if you're itching to take down the big walls, I have to admit it is pretty satisfying.

Mr. Tac, how many brigades of specters does it take to get to the center of a tootsie roll tootsie pop?
Or to at least instill fear on a pop?
Ghouls are two, correct?

[Senior Tactician]

Ghouls and hill giants you need 2x.  Specters and mammoths you only need one.

[PTRILEY]

FYI

Mammoth Cause Fear. (Trample if enemy retreats: 2x losses in retreat phase if 2+ mammoth brigades).

Spectres Have flight. If all brigades have Flight, group can move via Order #726 to fly. Cause fear, like all undead, immune to death magic.

Hill Giants Stalwart, so reduce any Fear effect against them by their % of group composition. Also cause Fear to enemy if 2+ Hill Giant brigades.

Ghouls If 2 or more Ghoul brigades, cause Fear to enemy groups (-10% morale for the battle), unless trait (Stalwart)