tmr83
commented
3 years ago For this if you want and will put them on the static site, I can proofread them and post the corrected English here.
Open tmr83 opened 3 years ago
tmr83
commented
3 years ago For this if you want and will put them on the static site, I can proofread them and post the corrected English here.
tmr83
commented
3 years ago I know this isn't finished, but I will try to finish it today or tomorrow if I have time. I want to make sure it is clear and effective, so I am tinkering with it and playing around. I will see about installing a capture program, and make a video. I am posting here to show the difference in writing from the original author on the wiki.
I mainly want to ask you if there is a style requirement for the static site. Also, I want to ask if there are requirements for crediting authors and editors of the wiki pages.
Catapult III Speed Run
The primary goal of this strategy is to quickly gain the technology for Catapult Mark III and to quickly build an army of them. This guide uses inns for population growth and employing skilled workers. This strategy is feasible even if you start with a small treasure but is slightly different according to a few settings such as starting population, income, amount of AI, and AI aggressiveness. Other than that, you should play the game as usual.
Basics:
If you begin the game with 40 peasants, you will be short a few peasants until the village grows. A basic empire needs:
So if you start with a natural resource nearby and intend to mine ore or import goods, play as usual, but staff the mine with only 2/3 miners that can keep up with a fully staffed factory. Also, if you set random kingdoms settings, reduce the amount of towers of science to 3 considering your reduced population.
How to start:
1) Set a tax on the village at 40 loyalty. 2) Train 1 construction worker and build 4/6 inns. 3) Train 9 researchers and build 3 or 4 towers of science. 4) Keep training researchers and fill them completely. 5) You will achieve Catapult Mark III circa 2 1/2 or 3 years.
While researching Catapults:
1) Hire manufacturers from the inns (60+ skill points). 2) Build war factories with high skilled manufacturers.
When you finish research on Catapult mark III,
1) Sell all the towers of science. 2) Build 4/6 war factories. 3) Begin mass production of Catapult Mark IIIs.
By circa year 4 and 1/2, you should have 2 forts full of Catapults or more depending on how many war factories you built.
Originally by Infectorpp on 7 June 2016 Adapted by Ra 2021
Original
With this strategy guide you will be able to win against CPU even at maximum difficulty level, it is possible to win within 6 years if you have only 1/2 foes or maybe a more realistic 10 years if you have more foes. It is also actually very effective in multiplayer, however a smart player can easily counter this strategy (just need to come with an army when you start building catapults). This strategy do not require any kind of cheating to beat CPU.
How to start:
When you finish research mark II of catapult
As long as King's fort is almost full:
At this point you are ready to attack another kingdom, or a frythan lair.
This strategy is feasible even if you start with Small trasure (you will almost touch 0 Gold coins everytime, so you have to be carefull to look at your wealth periodically to avoid buildings start to deteriorate).
CUSTOM POINT 1: Some times it is desirable to train a Worker, build a Inn and recruit a skilled general (remember Generals increase damage done by units). Also it may be desirable to build a Market and buy finished goods from other kingdoms in order to resell them to your village (you can gain almost 400 $ by spending 200$, also your village will grow population faster).
This strategy does not require workers at all, it is very possible you already win after just the 1st ever EarthQuake (even if natural events are "Frequent"). So since buildings will be damaged only once, there is no need to repair them (if you plan on reselling buildings, just do that before the earthquake because damaged buildings can't be selled but only demolished).
Also one strong point of this strategy is that it does not recruit peasants until phase 2 nor it trains workers (unless you do that with custom point) that also allows to gain 1/2 extra villagers compared to computer just by natural growth).
Of course, you can even do more factories and science towers if you start with a large treasure (in this case just be sure to have 2/3 inns so you can use them to recruit people that you will just send straight to Towers, Factories or villages), usually when the game run in so short tiems there's no risk for population starving, so it is ok if you have all of your citizen working in some building.
tmr83
commented
3 years ago This one had good English already. I only disagree with the coordinating conjunction use.
The Fire is Born Field Guide
The Fire is Born (Mayan: Siyah K'ak) was a famous warlord who conquered many Mayan cities and built a Mesoamerican empire in 4th century AD. Now he is here to teach you, so listen carefully, students!
How to Wage Battle
Fire is Born says, "Everyone fights to his last breath. So if he doesn't live, he doesn't fight."
In Seven Kingdoms, there is no penalty to damage based on life percentage. A soldier near death will deal the same damage as a completely healthy one, so concentrate your attack on one soldier at a time to quickly kill him. This is very effective with Berserker nations which can, with their Berserk attack, kill even a well trained soldier in seconds.
Archery nations can concentrate on one soldier no-matter-what. They don't have to charge him and can pick up any target in a large range. And when enemy units move at you, just pick that soldier and move with him, while enemy troops will be showered by arrows.
Fire is Born says, "Greenhorns will die easily but will club you like veterans."
Apart from a general's leadership bonus, your unit will only gain life and not more attack power. So greenhorns (green life bar) have the same normal attack like trained soldiers. The only bonus is Berserk attack for Berserker nations. Some nations, like the Normans, will get ranged attacks after a certain percentage of increased skill.
Fire is Born says, "If you want to lose a battle, forget about your general."
Generals are very important in Seven Kingdoms. Not only that they train you troops, but they command your troops even on the battlefield. If a general is near your troops, he will give your troops a bonus percentage to their attack. The percentage is derived from your general's leadership skill. 100 leadership (your king and very good generals) mean 100% bonus to damage, so your troops will deal twice as much damage as usual.
But generals are a good target. They fight like normal soldiers and are as strong as them, but the enemy will attack them very happily, so you have to guard him, protect him, and keep him in the back of the battlefield. If your general is ranged, that can be easy, but when your general is melee, it can be dangerous. So a combination of a ranged general and melee troops is good. This squad can be quite self-sufficient on the battlefield. On the other side, a combination of a melee general and ranged troops can lead to disaster.
Fire is Born says, "There are two main strategies of waging battle: kill greenhorns or kill the general."
Fire is Born is right. From previous lines, you could easily discover that yourself. If you kill a greenhorn, he will have a problem fighting if he's bleeding on the ground. That unit is easily removed from the battlefield. So facing a group of soldiers with different combat experiences, kill the weakest one, the one with least life.
But, if you facing group of experienced soldiers, and killing one would be quite long, kill the general first.
How to Wage War
Fire is Born says, "Concentration is the key to success, not only on the battlefield, but in war too."
Historically, it doesn't matter if the enemy is three times stronger than you. With proper concentration of your smaller army, you cold easily win. Same is in Seven Kingdoms. Killing enemies troops one by one or one squad after another by your three squads is better than face them at once. That means preparing for war by concentrating your lesser force near your enemies weak bases.
Fire is Born says, "If you can, attack their back."
It is not honorable but efficient. If you see the enemy or Kingdom which you want to see destroyed is fighting with another, and it's troops are on long battle line, bring your soldiers together and declare war on them. The kingdom will have a hard time fighting on both fronts of you. Strategically attack their units or bases while they're engaged in open combat. In desperation, the AI kingdom will bring its king to that battle. This presents a large opportunity to cause a civil panic in the enemy kingdom from his death.
Fire is Born says, "War machines don't betray you."
The best tactic to win a war is with war machines. If you have time, go for Cannons (ballista->ballista II->cannon). They are slower but have an area effect damage and that is, in large numbers, disastrous. But if you don't have time and the enemy is much stronger than your area and is aggressive towards you, go for Catapults. Catapult Mark III behaves much like a "cannon light," less damage but good area of effect damage.
The unicorn is the pinnacle of the war machine technology; however, what it lacks in area of effect damage, it makes up for with speed and single target damage. Each war machine will be good at a specific type of battle, so choose wisely.
By Colombo on 4 September 2009
tmr83
commented
3 years ago This one had just a few minor English mistakes.
Inn and Mercenary Strategy Guide
Seven Kingdoms is a great game because of its simple and yet still interesting economic system. Not only do you have to manufacture and sell goods, but the strength of your kingdom is directly dependent on your population, which man all your factories and forts. It is thus very important to be able to conserve it. Not losing soldiers during conflicts means that you don't need to replace them from your population, which means that they can breed, work in factories, and produce money and food.
In this guide, we will utilize inns and mercenaries to conserve your population. This will give you the opportunity to get enough forces in the early game, without having to draw it from your workpool and thus have stronger midgame (or reach the midgame faster) and subsequently destroy your unprepared opponents.
Note that this guide doesn't use the frythan baiting exploit.
Some terms:
Early game -- war machine technology is not available with mostly untrained soldiers (green, later yellow) and an undeveloped economy. This stage consistx of a race to grab mines and neutral villages to get economic stability. Early rushes are possible, especially for easily trainable archer nations (Persians, Chinese, Zulu) who can make three forts of archers and destroy several other kingdoms without serious loses.
Mid game -- War machine technology is available and war machines are present in small numbers. Veteran and trained soldiers are available in multiple forts. Developed economy with caravans of non-mining nations dotting landscape is present. Most high-nationality population villages are already taken. During war, nations try to cripple each other. The strongest point for AI.
Late game -- Time of superstates. War machine are present and plentiful. Every player has a huge war factory production with multiple high-population villages providing large amount of taxes as well. Economy might be a bit sensitive due to huge number of war machines, as those are produced in huge numbers so that any loss is easily replaceable. Players now fight almost exclusively with war machines. AI, although currently probably in one or two superstates, is in weakest position as it tries to replace its loses with huge number of untrained soldiers, which fall easily to war machines.Reasoning:
These stages of the game are based on the strength of war machines. You should always go for them and obtain them as soon as economically possible. While producing war machine can be costly, losing one does not cost you anything, and you can lose dozens of them without weakening your economy (unlike with soldiers, where each lost soldier is weakening your economy). Given their size and the ability of some weapons to do splash damage, this makes them slaughter untrained soldiers and tear even veterans apart, which are much harder to replace. This makes the stages of game easily recognizable. In the early stage, you are trying to research war machines and establish an economy; in mid game, you started your war machine production, and you are able to defend with them, but the workers are not yet trained enough and thus your war machine production is still relatively limited. In the later part of the game, your workers are trained, your economy further expanded as your people reproduce, and you probably build additional war machine factories.
Thus, while this is a general strategy to aim for, how will you get there is different matter altogether. And here comes mercenaries.
Mercenaries:
Mercenaries were always a bit underutilized in Seven Kingdoms. Seven Kingdoms II did a bit better, and a very effective strategy was to hire a lot of cheap soldiers from inns to man your forts. This was possible since Seven Kingdoms removed professions, and thus you could pick either a soldier or civilian instead of one of 6 (or so) professions. However, you can still hire cheap people and put them into forts! That is what we will do! Hire anyone below, lets say, 250 gold. If they are builders, turn them into peasant by settling village with them. I usually put two ranged soldiers as spies per fort (lesser chance of dying on battle, so look for those), if other cheap people are spies, I usually cancel it to save money (spies are more expensive to keep). Also, if you are looking for expanding your pool of generals, look for ranged ones (more survivability) or, as normally, someone who can win you some neutral villages.
Money money money...
You always need money. Taxes are not enough (keep them at 40, when you start fighting and there is high chance of killing civilians, start taxing higher, like 50 or even 70). To pay for upkeep for all your extensive soldier pools, and you need additional money to expand as well. Thus, you must obtain goods. If it is through direct control of a mine ($4 per good sold), taking out mined resources from the AI and refining it ($3 per good sold) or just buying goods directly from the AI ($2 per good sold) doesn't matter. What matter is to have a constant supply of goods into your largest population center (concentrate your population, it is easier to defend). This will not only produce you enough money to expand, but supplying people with goods will increase their growth as well. As for trade treaties, try to have only as little as you need. This means that if you own mine, you don't need any and you can safely hoard all the goods out of it. An alternative strategy might be to build more than one factory and through multiple trade treaties sell the goods as quickly as possible, making a lot of money through it. But I prefer a steady supply that can power my economy for a long time than a big buck now.
Strategy:
I usually play with 3 natural resources, low amount of highly resistant villages, and random kingdoms. This makes the game a bit harder with additional pressure on people and economy. If you play on any other setting, the strategy might be a little different.
The general aim is to get a sizeable fighting force to defend against the AI while going relatively quickly towards Catapult III. You can start making them since Catapult II, since it is its first truly effective variant. Maintaining a healthy economy is also important, especially if you didn't get the mine, and you don't want to get aggressive to obtain it.
At the start, look at natural resources you can obtain and immediately train and send a builder to get it. If you don't get it, try the following one and so on. If you don't get any, look at the highest concentration of natural resources and build a base nearby. This way you can transport huge amounts of goods from the enemy to your economy. To build a base, you need a market, fort, space for villages, and possibly a factory or mine. Build several towers of science nearby as well, but keep enough space for additional villages that can reach the same fort and market and space for war factories. Best way to transport large amount of people is to train them in certain profession. This costs some money but is by far fastest (and safest) way to transport people.
At the same time, look at neutral villages and your leaders. Send a builder and general to those villages. Build fa ort and inn or two next to each of the village. At any minute, when you have time, look at those inns and hire cheap people. Ranged nations have priority. It is very important to provide counterspies to protect your generals. Build inn near your starting base as well and look everywhere for a high-leadership general (from around leadership 50, you can start effectively claiming villages) that could gain you some unclaimed villages with high population or if you want to expand your general pool, some ranged general with high leadership to train soldiers quickly. When overall village resistance gets to values below 50, build towers of science next to it. Work and wage will lower resistance even further, but be aware; at any time when an AI builds a fort next to this village, try to claim it as soon as you can - even using force. You risk that AI will overtake this village, and your investment will go in vain.
When you build your new base, look at possible invasion routes and build inns there. Not only you can hire mercenaries from those inns, but they can also inform you early about an incoming enemy army, so you can react and meet it with arms.
So you have working economy, either by buying resources/goods from an enemy or by operating a mine yourself. You have a stable base, and you were able to capture some villages with your nationality (i.e., with your king) and moved the population from there to your main base. If you capture a new nationality, you can do three things depending on the amount of people: Move them to your main base and establish a new village close to your market (large amount of people); keep them in place and create a secondary base with as many war factories as possible (medium amount), or use them as soldiers (low amount). If you do that, I would suggest to train them as spies. That will make sure that none of those newly trained soldiers won't assassinate or worse, bribe your general.
By this stage you should have at least 3 forts full of soldiers in your main base and some forts around the map trying to capture villages. All filled with cheap mercenary soldiers from inns and good generals, those are able to defend you from enemy attacks. From this point, it is easy. Wait for catapult II or III, build 4-8 war factories at your main base and more at your secondary bases. Wait for enough catapults and wipe your enemies clean.
From this, a single villager seems to bring in 73 (40 autotax) to 36.5 (70 autotax) income per year. So any value bellow that would be no-brainer to hire as a mercenary and put into a village.
Following calculation:
Let tax (autotax, people) be a function of acquiring money from villagers. Discounting any accumulated advantage from villagers (growth, buying goods, working in factories) and discounting for the price of inns, we can calculate a difference in cost of drawing soldiers from village vs. mercenaries:
tax(50, 8) = 486.66 income per year
Mercenaries: 8*250 (but anywhere from 8*200 to 8*300)
First year: loss of -1513.333
Second year: loss again: -1026.667
Third year: still loss: -540
Fourth year: almost even: -53So in any point in game, if there is more than 4 years till the end, one should not hire from the population of peasants but from inns.
By Colombo
tmr83
commented
3 years ago For the tech speed run guide, I can write a couple more that focus on cannon and unicorn technology. I am adding to this one. I think I will have a general guide and have the three kinds of tech speed runs in it.
Tech Speed Run
Catapult III Cannon III Unicorn I
The primary goal of this strategy is to quickly gain the technology for Catapult Mark III and to quickly build an army of them. This guide uses inns for population growth and employing skilled workers, especially hiring generals for aggressive taking of independent towns and hoarding towers of science and war factories.
This strategy is feasible even if you start with a small treasure but is slightly different according to a few settings such as starting population, income, amount of AI, and AI aggressiveness. Other than that, you should play the game as usual. Note that this guide will be tested in a game with combat, so it is necessary to develop a regular army.
Settings:
If you begin the game with 40 peasants, you will be short a few peasants until the village grows. A basic empire needs:
2 in the mine. 8 in the factory. 8 soldiers. 1 or 2 construction workers.
So if you set random kingdoms and get a lot of mercenaries at the beginning, keep the one's that are useful and retrain the others. With a reduced population, either reduce the amount of towers of science by one or do not train a fort of soldiers.
For this setting, the difficulty isn't so much affected by the starting amount other than an initial hiring from inns. It is more important to use a market, so make sure you have trade treaties and import goods if you do not get a natural resource. But if you start with a natural resource nearby or intend to mine ore from a distance, play as usual, but staff the mine with only 2/3 miners that can keep up with a fully staffed factory.
This effects the chance of being attacked. It also effects how many years the game will be.
This setting is quite noticeable. Even the amount of natural resources affects AI aggressiveness. People like to play on the 200 level difficulty, so it is common to play against aggressive AI. You will be attacked, so ensure you have a strong military. At times, you will be attacked quite early.
How to start:
1) Set a tax on the village at 40 loyalty. 2) Train 1 construction worker and build 4/6 inns. 3) Train 9 researchers and build 3 or 4 towers of science. 4) Keep training researchers and fill them completely. 5) You will achieve Catapult Mark III circa 2 1/2 or 3 years.
While researching Catapults:
1) Hire manufacturers from the inns (60+ skill points). 2) Build war factories with high skilled manufacturers.
When you finish research on Catapult mark III,
1) Sell all the towers of science. 2) Build 4/6 war factories. 3) Begin mass production of Catapult Mark IIIs.
By circa year 4 and 1/2, you should have 2 forts full of Catapults or more depending on how many war factories you built.
Originally by Infectorpp on 7 June 2016 Adapted by Ra on 2021
tmr83
commented
3 years ago This one is a collection of tip/hints from Enlight. It will go well with the features page.
Tips on Economics
The key for generating money is to have enough people to make up a large tax base and to create a large demand for goods.
You can generate a good amount of cash even if you have no access to natural resources. You must, in this case, depend upon trade and tax. Since a nation can earn $2 per unit for importing goods to sell to its people, a nation can sustain a health economy even without possessing mines.
Occupying mines does not guarantee a good economy, as the cost of digging, running and guarding a mine is substantial.
A large surplus of goods in a market will do you no good. If you have such a surplus, either send it by caravan to other markets of yours or make trade treaties with other kingdoms so that they will send caravans to pick the goods up themselves. It is easier to make a trade treaty if you have a market with goods for sale.
Remember that villages have a population limitation of 60 people. If you have reached or are approaching this limit, recruit a peasant and settle a new village right next to the old. Then move half of the people from the old village to the new by right clicking on the pink arrows link until the villages are roughly equal in size. Your population will then continue to grow and thus increase your tax base and demand for goods.
Tips on Generals
Generals are critical to your success, as a General with 100% leadership will double the attacking ability of all the weapons and soldiers he commands as compared to troops that are without leadership.
Since there will be few Generals for hire in the later stage of the game, the key to building a powerful army is to raise a pool of potential leaders in the early stage of the game.
Since you do not know precisely which nationalities you are going to be ruling in the future, your prediction on that and your early training of Generals of the appropriate nationality will be very important to how strong you can be in the later stage of the game.
You may either bet on certain nationalities, try to train Generals of every nationality, or simply forget about it and stay with your starting nationality.
Hints on Fighting
As any good army would do, try to target an enemy's general at the beginning of a battle. Cutting down generals will deny the enemy troops leadership. Archers or Crossbowmen are great for this task as many of them can shoot at a single person.
Fighting in and around buildings may be to your advantage or disadvantage, depending on the situation. If you outnumber your foe it is better to fight in the open field as you can surround and destroy them with little loss. If you are outnumbered it will usually be better to have walls to your back instead of more enemy swords.
If your Fort is under attack and your forces inside are inadequate, make sure that the Stand Down Tile is enabled so that your troops will stay inside until reinforcements arrive.
Avoid fair fights whenever you can. Nine against one odds are much more favorable. If you are outnumbered, run away into the arms of a larger force. The enemy may follow you to their despair.
If you are unconcerned with your reputation, try slaughtering an enemy's civilians. This will deny him future recruits, food and tax money.
Execution
Execution may become a good idea at times when you suspect that one of your Generals is a spy.
Even if you don't suspect he is a spy, the execution of a General of the same nationality as a powerful and respected Kingdom may be a prudent decision. Hints on spotting spies
If you see a unit of yours doing something that you didn't order, he is most probably a spy.
Hints on Trade and Alliances
Use trade treaties as a tool to get an alliance.
When the AI decides to attack a nation, it will first consider whether or not it has trade with the nation and, if it does, the trade volume.
Attacking a nation with big trade amount will hurt its own economy, so it will probably keep the peace.
Hints on AI
Before an AI decides to declare war with a nation, it will first consider the total power of the enemies it has currently. It won't declare war if there are considerable threats from existing enemies.
Hints on your King
It would be wise to never send your King out without a well trained guard, as a troop of poorly trained enemy soldiers will still be enough to dispatch a single King. This is especially important early in the game as you will have nobody with high leadership skills to replace him. Hints on absorbing Independent Villages
A King will quickly bring an independent village of the same nationality into the Empire if he is stationed in a fort linked to that village.
Multi-National Independent Villages are often more trouble than they are worth. It is best to concentrate on villages with only one nationality.
Hints on Training
You will notice that in some of your forts some of your soldiers are learning their skills at a faster pace than others. It would be a good idea to send these soldiers to train under your King as they would make the best guard for him and they will increase their combat skills even faster. Later you can make use of these soldiers as a new crop of Generals.
Troops gain skills quite quickly when in combat, so as a part of their training it is a good idea to find a target to attack that that won't pose too much of a danger to them.
tmr83
commented
3 years ago I want to mention that I will be asking the authors for permission to edit and commit the guides.
Also, I purposely changed the Strategies header to be last. Maybe we can have a link to a strategies page. Currently, we have these articles on the wiki we can use:
And we also have old strategy guides I linked from external sources:
We can host Amarok's Strategy Guide because he gave us permission to use it.
Originally posted by @W-Damian in https://github.com/lennyhans/7kaa-static-site/issues/6#issuecomment-815041086