Suggested by the esteemed
smallest, I found a wonderful article on one of the gaming resources authored by
Wic (
www.heroes.by) dedicated to playing as Castle. I couldn't resist reposting it on our forum.
***
"For the topic of this article, I decided to take strategies for playing as Castle, as I have studied this town most thoroughly and played the most games with it in practices and tournaments. Plus, this town combines perhaps the greatest ease of mastery and ease of play compared to other towns, while still possessing enough strength to compete on equal terms against any other town.
Although objectively speaking, this town is not the strongest; there are some drawbacks that place it roughly in the middle of the preference ratings for most players.
Due to the aforementioned reasons, this town is popular; during pre-game town drafting, players aren't afraid to take it for themselves or give it to an opponent. In the autumn ladder season on heroes.by, Castle took 2nd place (out of 9 towns) in terms of number of games played and 5th place in win percentage.
Strategies for playing as Castle.This town is notable for its difficult build tree. Crusaders require a forge, horses need stables, monks need a guild, and one also wants to upgrade the archers on day 1. That is, while many other towns can put up 6-7 dwellings with a castle in the first week, Castle usually puts up no more than 4-5 dwellings, often including a stronghold.
But there are advantages. Firstly, starting breakthrough power: archers with a screen can accomplish a great deal even in the hands of a weak hero. Secondly, overall growth strength, which even when incomplete is often capable of standing equal to full growths of other towns. And thirdly, angels — one of the best level 7 units, who are built on the first week if resources are sufficient, or even with a castle (which, however, only makes sense on some fixes) given easy guards or abundant freebies.
If we consider fixes, Castle is good on maps of the following types:
1) Maps where there are enough resources to build angels.
2) Maps with a large number of difficult guards that must be broken through to build up.
3) Maps with native level 7 dwellings. Angels are power.
4) Maps with an abundance of random external same-type dwellings, strong external dwellings, and other objects from which it makes sense to take an army instead of building the home town, as success here depends not on growth strength but on starting army strength.
Correspondingly, it is poor:
1) On poor maps with a small number of resources
2) On maps with a shortage of wood, the need to buy a boat, etc.
3) On maps where angels almost, but not quite, fit. Here the gap with other races is the largest, as they can often slot in a 7th dwelling with a castle or stronghold, while Castle has to make do with horses and other small fry. Or respectively take a loan for angels, trading resources, delaying the moment of introducing growth into the game and thus losing tempo.
On random maps, as I said, Castle is, in my opinion, roughly in the middle of the town strength rating.
Heroes:The situation with heroes for Castle is similar to its build-up — there's often no one to lead a very good army; the hero pool overall is weaker than in many other towns, and often a hero from another town must be taken as the main.
This is especially critical on random maps because on fixes the starting hero is random, but on random they are chosen. And for Castle there are 3 main options:
1) Valeska (archer spec, leadership and archery) — the most common option; a striking stack of shooters is power, archery in skills complements it, and additional archer growth upon Valeska reaching level 7 is also not superfluous.
2) Turis (horse spec, leadership and tactics) — a more stable early-game and more powerful long-term option; at the start, she's good due to having tactics (which protects against morale, eases breaking through shooter guards, and on expert accelerates the hero using pokemon in a hidden stack), thicker screening of pokemon and griffins, and from the 2nd week, additional horse growth, extra speed, and HP for them kick in.
3) Caitlin (gold spec, wisdom and intelligence) — for aesthetes and those feeling nostalgic. In the times of Chaos League, it was Katya who was the standard starting hero for Castle due to starting with zero resources. In TE, gold specs were buffed; now as they level up, they bring in more and more dough, so even now Katya is sometimes taken as a starting hero (mostly for fun), despite the fact that modern tournaments start with 10k money. Naturally, a fighter is then taken as the main in the long run.
Most players now start with Valeska, however, I personally prefer Turis due to greater stability on heavy respawns and greater power later — a good fighter doesn't always come to the tavern, and Valya from a late-game perspective is not the most successful option.
Among other heroes, Sorcha (knight spec, leadership and offense) is not bad, sometimes Edrick (griffin spec, leadership and armor), that's pretty much all. And the list of heroes who are more promising than all these is quite large — most barbarians and swamp-dwellers, many demons, overlords, rangers.
Therefore, even when playing as Valya/Turis, it makes sense to switch to a reasonably decent fighter when they arrive in the tavern. This is because knights don't level up very well; compared to many other fighters, they less frequently get valuable skills like offense, armor, logistics, not to mention having such a low-utility skill as leadership from the start.
However, they have a high chance of becoming a Governor, so even when switching to another hero, it makes sense to level Valya/Turis/Sorcha/Edrick at least to level 7 for the additional growth and to see what skills they get. In one game, I gathered 3 potential Governors at once (though I only leveled one to 7, as bonuses do not stack).
On fixes with a random starting hero, you have to play with what you're given, but the benchmarks among fighters are roughly the same. True, on fixes it's quite convenient to play Castle as a mage — the starting army is strong enough, there are few problems breaking through, and then perhaps strong magic will arrive.
Build-up.The complexity of the build tree leads to a variety of options in this component and a strong dependence on the amount of resources obtained. Essentially, there are 4 main options:
1) Angels.The angel option is usually carried out on more or less rich fixed maps. On random, angels on the 1st week are a great rarity due to money, and 6 horses are no worse than 2 angels in terms of breaking into various banks.
The total cost of angels with a stronghold and archer upgrade is:
20 wood + 25 stone + 12 of each precious resource + 31500 coins
The main bottleneck is usually money, but you can sometimes miss out on resources too — if you took mines late (on fixes), didn't find the required resource in piles, have no external dwelling to build a market there, etc. But once angels are up, you can distribute them among own "noobs" and sharply accelerate the tempo of territory exploration, and they are extremely valuable in serious battles. Sometimes resources are slightly lacking and cannot be compensated by the bank; in this case, one can forgo the stronghold, put up a market, and trade for what's needed, even at extortionate prices.
A completely greedy option, possible on rare fixes with abundant free resources and easy guards — angels with a castle; in this case, archers are not upgraded on the first day. This will cost: 25 wood + 30 stone + 12 of each precious resource + 35500 coins.
I do not recommend using such a build order without prior thorough scouting of the map for its feasibility.
2) Horses.A more economical development option — building horses with a castle and archer upgrade. Total cost: 50 wood + 25 stone + 18500 coins.
The main problem is wood. On fixes with few piles of wood, no sea, and generally few resource piles, you can miss out on both horses and angels; on such maps, it's better to cross Castle off your list and try to give it to the opponent. On random, if there are 3 piles of wood at the sawmill, horses usually go up, but with one pile, none, or total unavailability of the sawmill, there is a serious risk of being left without horses, which is reason to consider a restart.
Essentially for random, horses with a castle on the first week is a good result, but it's not always achieved. Sometimes the castle doesn't go up, either due to money or resources, less often due to tempo. If poverty of the respawn was discovered in the first days of the week, it makes sense to put up a thousand. If in the last days, then griffins.
3) GriffinsIf resources/money are really tight and a restart is no longer an option, you need to build something very economical. That is, either monks or griffins.
Griffins with a castle and bastion will cost:
20 wood + 30 stone + 13500 coins, which for very little money gives a stack of 25 griffins on the 2nd week (and up to 35 considering those arriving with heroes), with an upgrade that replaces horses quite well. On random, I think this is the optimal option when wood is lacking.
Griffins with a bastion and stronghold will cost accordingly:
10 wood + 20 stone + 8500 coins. Mere crumbs; this build option is good for quickly taking a promising external dwelling or an AI town, which will take the main funds. In the remaining days, one can put up a thousand or a market.
With a castle, they will cost:
30 wood + 35 stone + 2 of each precious resource + 16500 coins. As seen, the price gap from horses is not large, noticeably more expensive than griffins, and the use of 9 monks is often less than that of 25 griffins. Therefore, this build order may be useful only in conditions of strict necessity to break through a strong squad of thick slow-movers, where remote fire power is more important than overall army strength.
4) Mix.However, there is also a hybrid option — monks with griffins and stronghold. This pleasure will cost:
20 wood + 30 stone + 2 of each precious resource + 12500 coins. Cheap and cheerful. On some fixes it might be quite decent, but on random, monks are generally little use.
However, all options without horses and angels are in my opinion not correct, so on fixes where events may force you to do so, it's better to cross Castle off your list, and on random restart if possible. Nevertheless, it is worth knowing these options; who knows what might happen in tournament games.
Specifically regarding monks — the unit is basically decent, but it's a shooter, which greatly narrows its area of applicability. The thing is, heavy battles for towns with an orientation toward shooters assume a scheme of closing those shooters in a corner with the bodies of thick contact units followed by kiting and shooting enemies.
With two shooter slots, doing this becomes difficult, often only possible with Tactics, and in various banks it's often completely impossible. And you can't take shooters in Utopia.
A similar picture emerges for other towns with two or three shooter units — Tower, Dungeon, Conflux, Barbarians. In particular, for Tower, it happens that mages aren't bought out at all, and if they are, they go to open a second front, and as ones for reducing spell cost. Conflux solves this problem by upgrading only one type of elemental (usually air), while the second remains a contact unit. As for Dungeon and Barbarians, they are more oriented toward contact units, so there the first shooter doesn't have priority in buyouts, and the second shooter is often bought out already for battles with the opponent.
As a result of all this, on random when playing as Castle, players often simply ignore monk external dwellings on the respawn, as they don't intend to build them, and fighting for and buying them means spending moves, money, and army (taking monks without horses with tactics is costly in losses). In my memory, I took them on the 1st week only once when I found 3 at once, but still didn't build them in the town.
However, on the 2nd week it is desirable to take monk external dwellings and build them in the town if possible — for the long term; they are often very useful in battles with the opponent.
General strategy of conducting a game.
It's clear that much here depends on the developing situation — layout, distance to the opponent, their state of affairs, and much more. Therefore, I will share some general considerations.
So, the starting army is bought and runs away from home to cultivate the territory.
With a good layout, horses are built on the 5th day; here you can open a second front with them and crusaders (and if lucky with heroes in the tavern, also ballista/tent) for deep cleaning of the territory — recovering money and resources that the starting army lacked tempo for. If another town's hero was appointed as the main, Turis should be sent to the second front — because of bonuses to horses, tactics, and it's also desirable to level her up.
In the end, a good starting army, generally rich respawns, and help from the second front usually allow for decent development on the 1st week. A natural desire to rush arises.
But — Castle essentially has nothing to storm towns with on the 2nd week. Of flyers, only griffins, which are rarely built on good respawns; archers are frail and die quickly under tower fire, enemy shooters, and magic.
In an open field it's easier; archers get a chance to show themselves, contact slots are also good, horses alone are worth a lot, but besides them and crusaders (whom it is desirable to upgrade before rushing), Castle essentially has nothing else. While many other towns are able to put out 3-4 good contact stacks.
Therefore, a rush is realistically justified only if you've quickly shaken loose a bunch of angels from cans. That is, I wouldn't seriously orient toward this strategy; it's purely based on the situation.
On the other hand, Castle has real late-game reinforcement — its own angels, and later archangels. Therefore, the most promising development option on the 2nd week besides cleaning cans and hives is collecting money and necessary resources for building angels.
Then on the 3rd week (and in separate cases even on the 2nd), having gathered a decent stack of angels, you can take one or two Utopias and use the same money to upgrade the angels. And then on the 3rd or 4th week, a truly strong army is assembled; besides archs, griffins and monks are added, which compensates for the initial incomplete set of slots. After all, Castle's full growth is perhaps the strongest among all towns, and upgrading canned angels helps.
So, roughly such a scenario of game development should be oriented toward by default. And further, as the game goes...
Starting army.Coming with heroes: 10-20 pokemon, 5-7 archers, and 3-4 griffins.
Exceptions:
Valeska (archer spec) — 3 slots of 4-5 archers each
Edrick (griffin spec) — pokemon + 2 slots of griffins
Total for Castle at the start under arms are usually 34-54 pokemon + 19-23 archers + 6-8 griffs.
Starting with Valeska: accordingly 24-34 pokemon + 26-31 archers + 3-4 griffs
The arrival of Edrick can spoil the combat qualities of the starting army, especially if Valeska is not there.
Battle tactics on the 1st week.As written above, I start exclusively as Turis, so battle schemes are mainly oriented toward her (or noobs with an army from her). But battle schemes for Valeska don't differ much, and in cases of notable differences, I will point them out.
It's clear that in a real game situations vary; it's impossible to describe everything, much is decided by the situation, so I will describe the most typical layouts and their resolution schemes; these are kind of reference points from which tactics for each specific battle can be composed.
1) Ordinary battles.Against stompers, the strategy in most cases is simple — archers in the corner, griffs and pokemon surround them, ones either run-lead monster stacks away or create a second defensive ring.
Popular formations on grass:
1) archers-1p1p-pokemon-1p-griffs-1p
2) 1p-griffs-1p-1p-1p-pokemon-archers
On other terrain types:
3) archers-1p-pokemon-1p-griffs-1p-1p
4) 1p-1p-griffs-1p-1p-pokemon-archers
There's no special difference in most cases, a matter of taste, although with the upper formation it's slightly more convenient to surround main troops with ones, as when traveling down, ones often get in each other's way. And against monsters with speed equal to griff/archer speed, it is sometimes useful for archers to move before griffs.
If few or no griffins are left, you need to divide pokemon stacks, for example: 1p–1p–1p–1p–pokemon–pokemon–archers. Such a formation against two-hex units (centaurs, wolves, cerberi, etc.), where 2 stacks protect archers from encroachments. Against one-hex ones, you have to either divide into 3 stacks or, better yet, barricade the third field with ones.
Against fast but frail monsters (butterflies, for example), you can arrange like this: archers–pokemon–griffs–1p–griffs–pokemon–archers. Thus, both corners are occupied by archers with a screen; this allows more effective use of excess firepower. And in case one of the archer squads is suddenly blocked from the start by a morale-boosted stack, the second will remove the block.
Against shooter guards, the formation is: archers in the 7th slot, pokemon in the 4th, griffs in the rest; can be evenly or not, in the latter case the main griffin stack doesn't just block but fights.
All griffs immediately fly forward hoping for morale, blocking shooters (and if they are strong, they block without attacking, staying in defense), meanwhile pokemon push forward, archers shoot. It is important to quickly bring pokemon into a direct line so that they are hit, not the archers. If you have a book, haste on someone is welcomed, stone skin on archers or pokemon (shield does not affect ranged attacks).
Sometimes it makes sense to tackle weak shooter guards (gremlins, halflings) without archers — griffs and pokemon will handle it anyway, and archers will definitely get chipped. And if you go with archers, you can divide them into 2 stacks — to use firepower more effectively (for example, if an archer stack deals much more damage than there are hits in a monster stack).
Archers stand below griffs so the latter move first, and archers then shoot those not blocked by griffs. Although if the guard's speed is same as archers, they should be put in the 1st stack — to hit first.
If griffs fly in on the first turn (expert tactics) and the guard's speed is less than archer speed, you need to push forward with tactics so they hit in a direct line.
With strong shooter guards and a knight-main, leadership is often preferable in leveling over a second skill — more chance for morale. Although for Turis, tactics are often more profitable — with expert tactics griffs fly in on the first turn.
With tactics there is one trick that allows strengthening its effect in some situations. The thing is, two-hex units when placed manually stand nose-first on the edge cell, but during automatic placement they stand rear-first on it. Therefore, if after placing griffs in position you press "A", and after computer placement Esc, they will be one cell closer to the opponent. With this trick on grass, griffs reach two-hex shooters (ice maidens, medusas) even with advanced tactics, and with expert they reach everything. This also allows suffering less from the battlefield terrain..."
To be continued...2) Taking crypts.3) Taking gnome-dwellings.4) Taking imp-dwellings.5) Taking medusa-dwellings.6) Taking naga-banks.7) Taking cans."
AmberSoler
