Note : This a post I wrote on the koram forum, I just wanted to share it with you.

After playing for awhile in the server 14 a merge with server came and that really wasn’t a good time for me since I was getting married about a week before the merge and was on my honeymoon during the merge.

Fearing losing it all I shared my account too some friend.

When the merge came I only logged to move my cities. My fate was then in the hand of my friends, thinking, since our server is older so we will squash them anyway.

When I came back online a week after the beginning of the war the top league (KokuryoElite) of server 20 and it’s sub league was waging war against us and we were in very bad shape.

My troops were decimated, one of my friend and sitter had to leave because he had to go on a business trip, and my other sitter switched to the other side. Behind in constant attack and after a few defeat our league was starting to lose ground and county.
I asked my aggressor to stop attacking me considering I missed the fight, they kindly accepted if I joined them. One told me this simple but funny message: "Ah you were a good farm, but considering the fact that I destroyed one of your city and lobbied another I think I’ve harm you enough.
I’m now member of the great KokyryoEliteII and I learned a lot about this experience.
In the defeat I’ve grew wiser and learned a lot about how the merge work and how to take advantage of it in the next merge.
Thank you for your time, let me know what you think.
My next post will be about the tactics and strategies I found during the merge.

Any of you have any funny story about your merge ?

I just noticed what the best feature of the TKO 2.6 upgrade is.

Look at the heroes screen : 

You can now upgrade directly from the left list and you see all your heroes that need to level up.

I LOVE that feature.

A little close up if you don’t see it :

So what is your favorite “new” feature of the version 2.6

There will be an upgrade to v2.6 on most server on the 22th of march, I think S1, S47 and S48 already got that upgrade.

There many nice feature to keep the game interesting even though I was king of losing interest since nothing was happening on my server.
If you want a detail review you can check this post on the Koram forum.

There a lot of nice thing there my favs are probably going to be the hermit house, the super field and the capital outpost.

The Hermit house:

 
Finally a way to get epic without paying,  you can recruit them in the hermit house and you have to do quest before recruiting them.
Note : You could get epic heroes by fighting epic guardian too but I think you already knew that…

Super field
There will be new field spawned around the map, 18f (like the item we talked about here) 17f and 16f. They are heavily guarded (min of 50k of troop there).
The number is really limited, and I think that suck because you will have a whole server fighting for them and I think that stink for the gold player who paid a boat load of money from the previous event to get a 18 farm fields city.

Capital outpost

(more in this post : TKO update Preview III:Capital Outpost )
This upgrade was almost necessary since the number of city is capped and not everyone was able to get those capital city.  There a forum post that explains well how it work.

There other bunch of nice stuff in this upgrade: new unit, better unit management, league features,  etc …
What did you like and what do you hate about this upgrade ?

Even I knew about the list before. Our leader in our league sent us the link today, I though you might be interested in it.

It’s the list of all one to three star heroes, their stats at lv 100 and their ability.

Here the link: https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=tKP0zj3wI93rSPPFbMfBDxw&hl=en#gid=0

It incomplete so if you have a hero that not there feel free to add it.

Since my wedding and honey moon I haven’t write a lot (only one post …)
but I’ve been trying some new games recently and played less of the others.

Clash of Kingdoms

I’ve started playing this in November in server 2, I’m greatly surprised by this game on many level.
First the game really focus on helping your kingdom, giving to the landmark, improving the cities, fighting other kingdom on the battlefield to grab other cities, which creates a dynamic much more fun than other MMORTS.
The draw back is if you have a bad premiers or if people are not involve enough in the kingdom you might think the game is going nowhere.
Another thing I really like is that they removed a bunch of stuff that annoying in MMORTS. Plundering, building new city … stuff that I found boring in other mmorts.
That game definitely deserve a reviews and probably a few guide, more to come in 2011.

Lord of Ultima

While the game is fun, I basically stopped playing.
Managing 30-40 cities is boring and take too much time.
Yeah the barrack take like only half-hour to build level 10 but for the 5 first level which takes 5 minutes to build you have to build them and wait. Yeah you can go to other city and to the same thing there but after cycling through your 40 cities 2 hrs you get bored pretty easily.
And another thing I liked in this game, that I realized was somewhat lame after I saw what other players do with it.
I am talking about the fact that if there no castle in your city it cannot be taken. So what happen, when a small league dominates a continent a bigger league want to enter the continent, it simply put city everywhere there free land on the continent but without building a castle then with they cram some city with troop, turn them into castle when they have enough troop and conquer all there small league castle.
The game is still fun though but not has much when I started playing, I’ll try to post some strategies and tips I found around the web later this year.

Grepolis

(a Ikariam clone)
I barely play (about a day or two), so here what I discovered about this game.
You start on a Island and you build you village like other MMO RTS. You can build boat to attack other island and there a special “resources” that the gods flavors.
I honestly even played that much (about a day or two) you can always check other sites review for more info.  There some features that seem nice, favors of the god, building ships and having only your island to worry at the beginning, but since most other game have either these feature to or better graphic I tend to try other game first. Maybe you’ll see something about this game later …

Mythopolis

I stopped playing the alpha test, basically because the game was the same has TKO not that a bad game it’s just I don’t have time to play like 6 games at the same time…

Tribal war

I’m currently playing a turtle there, sometime I’m a week without playing.
This one is pretty old school they something have new features but not on my server.
I’ll check if I can post a list of tips I found on the wed later.

Three Kingdoms Online

Still playing this one, after getting squash when we merged.
I’ve posted a few articles on koram forum and I probably will post a few things about the merge.
You can check my article here.

That all for today folk I hope you doing well and happy gaming for 2011 🙂

Koram have gone crazy, there now a new item (the Earth Seal) the turn a 15 farm field city in a 18 farm field city.

You’ve read it, 18 farm field ! That mean all the field of your city will be for food.

So what a 18 farm field city look like ?

Let’s do some math here :

level 20 farm = 4500/hr

Let compare the 15f vs a 18f (only 3 farmland more):

Base food output
4500 x 15farms = 67500/hr (excluding bonus)
4500 x 18farms = 81000/hr (excluding bonus)

Mill Bonus
67500 x 25%mill bonus = 16875 (15f)
81000 x 25%mill bonus = 20250 (18f)

16875 + 67500 = 84375/hr (15flag city total output excluding oasis and politic)
20250 + 81000 = 101250/hr (18flag city total output excluding oasis and politic)

Oasis
with the 3 50% oasis = 150%
67500 x 150% = 101250 (15f)
81000 x 150% = 121500(18f)

101250 + 84375 =  185625 (w/o politic) (15f)
121500 + 101250 = 222750 food/hr (almost 40k more than the 15 flag city field)

Wow 222750 of standard food output…

If we keep the idea of a old post from the art of war, with some gold you can have some thing real nice
(original post here : http://forum.koramgame.com/viewthread.php?tid=6839&extra=)

With emperor’s order (treasure bowl or token of rain), Cao cao, metal alchemy scroll and the level 10 league resource bonus you can boost you food output even more.
– emperor order provide 25% food bonus.
– Cao cao could provide another 30% food bonus because of his max 150 politic (base = 100 + 30 pol bonus generalissimo + 20 pol history of han) 
– Cao cao have a skill that increase food output by 25%
– league level 10 provide 10% bonus food output
– Metal Alchemy scroll give 5%

So  25% + 30% + 25% + 10% + 5% = 95% food bonus
222750 /hr x 95% = 211612.5/hr
222750 + 211612.5= 434362/hr

Note : that I don’t know if heroes can stack skill book with mid skill, if they can Cao Cao could have a farm skill to increase the food output even more.

Almost 450k of food per hours, with that and let say you go in the red by -150k you have a army of 600k soldier

Official news here

Note : you need to have like 10 three star epic hero to win the Earth Seal, so that mean a lot of gold …

Edit : Like Bazzz pointed out the bonus mid skill don’t stack so I modified the gold section.

Edit : Fixed the math wiht Morenzuul comment that the % bonus are always applied to your base output

Koram announced that they have baked a new game based on the Greek mythology named Mythopolis.

I started playing the game today and my first impression is :
Is Mythopolis a new game or just Three Kingdom online with new clothes ?

The same game really ?

Just when starting the game you get to chose your zodiac sign (equal region in TKO), your city (which is the equivalent of the kingdom)

If we break down each city with there TKO kingdom we got

Athen = Wei Sparta = Shu Troy = Wu

The units are the same it just that the name has changed.

Mytho

TKO

Oasis are the same except the unit defending are mystical creature instead of yellow turban

Building are the same there name have changed and the tech tree is a little different.

Mytho

TKO

The concept of placing your building is the same too. This list can goes on and on, it’s kind of normal since the game seem to be built on the same game engine. Let check what’s different for fun

New and Improved – Top things that have changed compared to TKO

1- New interface

Mythopolis arrive with a brand new interface, easier to manage, faster access to yours heroes and less cluttered than the one from TKO.

2- New quest section

There a brand new quest section and its much easier to understand than the one from tko,
Quest are grouped in category and each category you can complete a group of quest from that category, they are even bonus when you complete a certain group of quest that let you can give a gift to your facebook friend. More information on that on the Mythopolis forum : Quest System

3-New heroes management

Instead of having to go the the unintuitive left menu for hero quest, you directly access all quest and feature related to the hero directly via your hero menu.
So the training labyrinth (tower of trial), the zodiac (faction map), stadium (arena) , meet your hero (previously in the governor house in tko) are all the same place so you won`t forget anything about heroes, how many times did I forget to meet my heroes for the extra xp.

4- They made a little cleanup

The messengers are gone, I’m not sure if we should be happy about it but it give the casual player more chance against hardcore player.
There no more daily quest, quiz, book of heroes and faction quest. Which is good for those who can’t log everyday, The one I really happy about is that they removed the book of heroes, it was really annoying having to go to your governor house get the name and paste it in the quest section every hours.

5- Facebook

They made a huge facebook integration, quests that ask you to invite your friend for bonus, gift for your friend when you complete a group of quest and ask your friend for help to accelerate your construction.
While the concept is great, something I actually felt that I was harassing my friend, even facebook blocked the games because I was posting too much stuff with it.
More information on the forum: Facebook Special Interactive Function

Other thing they left out

There seem to be no King of the hill, no emperor road and no escort guardian.
They are probably replaced by something else that we have yet to discover.

MYTHOPOLIS might be pretty much a Three Kingdoms online clone with a greek setting, but the new and improved interface, the cleanup might make the game worth it and give a new experience.

Did I miss anything in the new section ?
So what are you though about the change ?

At some point you will want to maintain a larger army even have a negative output to have a army larger that you can hold.

1- Granary

Granary are essential to keep your extra food, specially when you plunder a lot those extra grain must go somewhere.

2- Satellite city  

Satellite cities are a great way to store you extra troop near you city specially those 9 and 15 food field. Store your troop there while your maxing your granary and get them back with you have to attack or defend your self.

3- County, state capital or Luo Yang

If you have a county, state capital or a member of your league has one, it can be a good place to store your unit and food, since they have a large food output and a lot of food storage space.

Plus your help your league by defending it.

4- Hide troop in other city

At some point in the game, those small city around you won’t be plundered at all, since you know their food output you can put that exact amount of troop in it.

For your information, Starting village usually have : 12 of food /hr (18/hr if you kill there starting hero)

5- Rank

Your rank increase your granary storage capacity, so do a lot of duel and scrimmage to get the items for the court quest.

Other tips for managing food from the koram forum

The Art of war – How to build a large army and support it.

How to build a main city on a 15 food field.

By the way, keep your gift voucher to upgrade high level ressource field (specialy if your shu or wu)

Managing your food supply is probably the most important thing you have to do in most war game.

These apply mostly to Three kingdom online since it’s the game I played the most but can probably be applied to travian to since both games are almost the same.

They two main thing to think about to manage your troop food

1- Maintaining a high food output

2- Storing your surplus & reducing your consumption without reducing your troop.

Today article is about what are the primaries source of food.

1- Farmland

Farmland are the primary source of food in the game so it’s very important to upgrade them.

Later in the game you can try to switch you main to spot that have more farmland that the average six farmland spot.

You can increase your output through oasis too, three +50% oasis double your farmland output (and almost triple it if you have a decent hero with the farm skill.)

More of that in my city placement guide and in one entry from the koram forum on how to build a great city.

2- Plunder

Aggressive player (called wolf) heavily depend on farming other city, this his essential to keep a healthy amount of food in your storage when your cities have a negative output.

At the end of beginner protection, your output is probably somewhere between 400 and 800 per hours, plundering completely a 0 pop population give you 800 of each resources in about 15 minute for a city besides you. That mean plundering a city give you 1 hours ahead of someone who don’t so those who plunder quickly get ahead of those who don’t.

At some point plundering will be your primary source of food (specially if your shu)

3- Trading

Since player usually get more food than the other resource from farming and that unit and building cost more of the other resources than food, food than to sell at 1.5 for 1 on the market. Than mean you can get 15000 food for the price of 10000 of the other resources. (note that note always the case, on server 14 most user I was farming were wei and I tend to get more iron than other resources so sometime I had hard time selling my iron for food, probably because the players on our server were in the same situations.)

When you’re not trading between your cities it can be a good idea to trade on the market your excess resources for food.

4- Heroes

Governor with high politic can increase significantly your resources output. You can add the farm skill to your heroes and increase you food output.

Epic heroes can have special unique skill that give them a better food output, like Pang Tong 25% food bonus, note that these bonus stack.

Finally they are items that can be equipped to your the heroes to increase your food output.

5- Other sources:  Item, tax, quest

There more way to get food most of them are already in my checklist

There are other item that worth mentioning that are not in the checklist :

• The tax license (uptained in the King of the hill event)
  Good old emperor order and dragon bowl (a extra 25%)
• Rotation order (Actually reduce your food consumption and is very expensive)
• Alchemy table (expensive, don’t increase food that much but last forever and you get your gold back)

More in part 2 – Storing your food and way to reduce your consumption

Link on this page :

The three kingdoms online checklist

I wrote awhile ago an article about oasis but I didn’t wrote about how to grab an oasis from another player because I never got the chance to try it.

I seem that it takes awhile before you can grab an oasis from another player not like they say in the forum thread.

When you attack an occupied oasis each time the loyalty of the oasis is reduced by somewhere between 0% and 35 % not 35% like they say in the forum thread.

It seems to depend on how many troops you’re using and if you have a hero or not.

My last wave had two heroes in it and they took the oasis, but I don’t think it’s really matter the just attack constantly and the oasis will be yours, after a while.

Note that the oasis does regain loyalty each hours so be swift with your attack.

Here some link for more info on oasis:

My oasis guide 

The oasis information in the beginner thread

And another thread with more info on the oasis