Strategy Guides/Small Army Duelist

Guide for the Small Army Duelist: Tips to stay small in Castle Age
By sfgiantsfanmike

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Demi Power ===

I’m going to assume you know the basics of Castle Age and go from there. I know one of the problems I ran across for Castle Age was that I felt I needed a big army to do well in the game. Eventually I found out differently.

To go the small route isn’t as easy and fast as getting 501 member army and hammering small armies that may be more potent member for member; however it is more streamlined and less resource intensive.

The way to go small is to go “duelist,” that is, you’re equipped general versus another players equipped general and all you best equipment. So what’s the trick to dueling then? Have the best general and equipment possible, not to mention your stats.

How to do so? Well for equipment all you really need to worry about is doing the Demi-powers. Those are located under the Oracle tab if you haven’t found them yet. The Demi’s offer elite level equipment to the player that chooses to go down their path. Sure, it starts a bit slow (a 2/1 sword from Ambrosia right off the bat? That’s weak…) but this is how you will acquire powerful items like the Sword of Redemption (50/30).

So, who to choose first? I suggest Azeron to get the aforementioned Sword of Redemption along with his other equipment (Blade of Vengence is one of the best Swords in the game) which is nice. It also ups your stamina for free, which costs 2 skill points versus the other stats 1 skill point, which will free up skill points to boost your stats.

Other contenders? Aurora is nice, though her stat boost isn’t as nice (Hit Points) as the others but her top end item is the Moon Fall Amulet (40/40), not to mention her Moon Fall Shield and Robes which have some nice stats. Ambrosia has some decent stuff but may not be worth the effort early (though she was who I choose initially for the free energy boost). The other two don’t offer good items but do offer you boosts to your two most important stats: Attack and defense.

To note: it is better to stick with one Demi than to jump around to the various demi’s depending on what stat you feel you need at that moment or what triffle of a gift they’re offering. If you’re just starting up it is tempting to jump around and collect all the early items that land evenly on the 100 points (100-600 all give out rewards), but that would waste 24 days (6 items to collect X the 4 Demi’s you’re not going to master at first). I would rather be on the day 30 gifts of 1 Demi than to have all those other items, for Azeron that would mean you’re 100 points away from acquiring the “Blade of Redemption,” a 17/15 item and 2nd or third best of it’s type versus having the Avenger Plate Mail, Tempest Crown and a bunch of other things of this nature.

Stat Point Allocation
So that brings us to stat allocation. For a dueler your attack and defense stats are both of the utmost importance. So should you master one at the expense of the other or be a jack of all trades? Well, both stats factor in when attacking or defending but the opposite stat (defense when attacking and attack when you are defending against an attack) takes a hit. If you play the middle ground you’ll always have a nice base line stat to help you out; however, it won’t help you against a specialist as they’ll over power you with one stat or the other.

My suggestion would be to “max” out attack as a small army duelist. Why attack when defense is a better strategy overall? Well, if you put a ton into defense and still have a small army you’ll get your head handed to you in invasions by people with big armies one way or the other and when you actively duel you’ll be taking a hit on your defense stat so you won’t use all of your stat points anyway. If someone were to duel you and lose while having a big army you can guess what coming next, right? But if you have attack really high you can then duel others and use all those stat points you pumped in there and over come all but the most hardened duelists.

Here’s my rough suggestion to put into each stat and how to build them:


 * Attack- You’ll want to build this on high… but after you get your energy. In the end this is your most important stat.


 * Defense- Don’t drop a single point here, it’s a waste since large armies will just overpower you anyway might as well have the best chance possible to overcome their dueling defense with a huge attack stat.


 * Hit Points- Not a point. Right now 100 is enough. Should only be raised through Aurora blessings.


 * Energy- Pump this first, strait to 100. Eventually you’ll want more than that but you can get those points “for free” through Ambrosia blessings.


 * Stamina- At first, as much as it hurts, you want to increase this only through Azeron, blessings. As for the total amount of points here? I’m at 50, getting roughly 22 from Azeron and 3 for free, making up ½ of my total stamina. That’s 50 stat points, or 10 levels, worth of points I poured in there. Makes it a breeze to keep battling people but is REALLY nice when I have a full bar and go dragon hunting!

Generals
Now we are down to generals. Well, in truth if you don’t get lucky with those first 20 favor points you’re choices now are pretty much limited to Vanquish, the Angel of Death. She’s nice, 15/14, but doesn’t hold up well against the Epic Generals headed up by Mephistopheles at 24/20. You’ll be at a bit of a disadvantage if all you have is Vanquish but the good news is that a 9/6 deficit isn’t all that big of a deal once you get a few levels under you as peoples stat arcs will differ. There is another general you can get without Favor Points (ie, waiting to gather them through your demi and dragons) and her name is Keira. Check her section out for more details.

Dragons
Dragons are a nice way for a small army to gain valuable loot, especially early on. As a duelist you’re focusing on getting at least some stamina and having good attack/defense so this is another step for you to take. Also to note each dragon type gives out a special item that can be put together via alchemy. The item is the “Helm of Dragon Power” and is a 30/30 helm, the best in the game. Getting one of these bad boys will do loads to give you a leg up on the competition.

Keira
Good ol’ Keira, the trash talkin’ guardian of Mephistopheles, is another good source of loot. Pretty much the same thing applies here to dragons *except* to complete her alchemy item, having her as a general, you have to be able to summon her yourself. To do this you need to obtain the “Orb of Keira” from doing the boss quest in the demon realm. You have a 50/50 shot at getting it, the flip of a coin so to speak, so it shouldn’t take too many tries BUT the quest requires 100 energy, so if you miss the first time you’ll probably have to wait for a) a level up b) getting up in the morning to try again.

If you’re struggling to get to the demon realm don’t hesitate to help out others with their Keira. You may be able to gobble up the other 5 dreadnought items through those so that when you finally do summon your own Keira hopefully you can get lucky enough to get her “soul” item and complete the alchemy. Keira is a 15/23 general and can keep up with even the epics from the treasure chests mainly due to her best in class defense as no other general comes within 3 defense points.

General Tips
So to be thorough, here are a few other pointers:


 * Buy land (available under the town tap) when you can. I have a income of 50+ million and it isn’t enough for my large army; however, if you get that high as a duelist you’ll be set for life. Get yourself up in the teens of millions and you’ll do great, especially if you start making Castle Age friends and start to find you have a decent size army you might want to equip with the best things.


 * Don’t buy anything if it seems WAY too expensive. I know when you first start up 10K sounds like a lot for a dagger but eventually you’ll be plunking down 5 million on a Phoenix and not batting an eye lash at the total.


 * Keep your generals and, in general, don’t sell extra equipment and soldiers. I can’t tell you how many millions I’ve wasted re-buying stuff after I’ve sold it…


 * Keep in mind that to do all your questing you will need an army size of 21. If you can’t get 21 real friends to join you in Castle Age there is a few ways to get around it. First would be to befriend someone met in game. Keira and the dragons are great for this as there is a chat box so that you can get a feel for a person. Sometimes you might run into the same person multiple time as you’re both fighting a friends dragon/Keira together. If you like them add them. Another is to add random people and unfriend them but I consider this a bit unsightly for my taste. If this is what you choose to do there’s nothing really all that wrong with it. Then there is buying them through the Oracle. Don’t buy early on as she will only offer you 1 army member for 20 points, wait until she starts offering three at higher levels, which a friend tells me happens around level thirty. Doing it this way is Favor Point intensive, though, as you would need 7 rounds (or 140 favor points) of this to fill out your party. This is only a last resort type of deal.

Here's a tip from E.L.:

I love dueling! woot! I can finally get back to it now that dragons are so popular. the annoying "this army is dead...no attacking ha ha" message has gone away.

Until the demi points pan out for you, visit the blacksmith and buy one of each of the best items available (weapon, shield, helmet, etc). Even without Azeron or favor points for generals, you can still do really well with just Vanquish, the blacksmith, and inflated attack points.

Check the battle rank of your opponents, you're pretty much going to want to avoid any General or Commander. They'll have been playing for awhile and probably won't have any weaknesses.

When buying land, never buy one. the price goes up after each purchase, so even though it will take longer at first, save up and buy ten at a time.