Troop Formations
There are 10 basic troop types that can be sent out to attack or reinforce, plus one that only defends your castle (the golems.) This will give a brief summary of each and then give some pointers on how to best set up your army for various situations.
Infantry: There are two types of infantry, the Orc Warriors and the (human) Swordsman. These are your main front line defense and attack troops. They each have a special passive ability (passive meaning that you don't have to do anything to make it work.) The Orc Warriors reduce damage from mages. This makes them essential when attacking any other army that might include mages (which is all of them except monsters.) The Swordsmen raises your army's HP when you are on the defending side. This does NOT mean that you should only send Orcs to attack and Humans to defend. These buffs are nice, but hardly the only factor. For example the tier 6 (T6) Orc Warrior has a battle power of 4.5 while the T7 Swordsman has a battle power of 5.5. This is a 18% difference in power. Since the Orc Warrior's attack bonus affects your whole army and continues in effect even after they are all removed from the battle field, sending 1 T6 Orc and the rest of your infantry as T7 Swordsmen, your whole battle power increases, and you still get the buff.
Cavalry: Again there are two types. Even-tier Dragon Riders and odd-tier Cavalry. In general these are not very useful in battle, but they are great for gathering and carrying loads of loot home from a battle, so if you are attacking a castle that won't be too much trouble, but has lots of loot, you might want to bring these guys along. These also have buffs when used in battle, but when a battle is played out, there is a (perhaps a flaw) in the way cavalry work that causes them to usually do more harm than good. The problem is this: if your cavalry die before the enemies cavalry, the enemy will charge straight at your mages which are behind those cavalry. If you send NONE AT ALL, the enemy's cavalry will instead move towards your infantry and fight them until one or the other dies. So theoretically, if you know the enemy has cavalry, and you can ensure that yours will be stronger than theirs, cavalry could be good, but most people just leave them home and send more infantry instead. If you opt to not use cavalry in battle, recruit exclusively T2 Dragon Riders to do all of the fetching and carrying for you.
Archers: This time, no orcs, just humans and elves. Elves have a bonus against infantry and humans have a bonus against mages, so you will want to include at least one of each of these in every army march you send and in every defense. You will also want to include at least one of each of these against monsters, but for a different reason.
Mages. Here is your main attack force. Elf mages have a bonus during defense and humans have a bonus against cavalry, but again the higher tier is the one you'll want the most of in any army, because it is all about how much damage they can deal and the tier is the largest determining factor.
Angels: These are promoted one tier at a time, so there is no such thing as even/odd tiered angels, the higher the tier, the better. Angels have the special ability of being able to target the back row. This can be a good thing, but it may not be better than adding more mages to the army. One should certainly be included when going up against a monster.
Beasts: This is a great addition to any army. Unfortunately your beast gets tired easily and may not always be able to participate, but you will want him along every chance you can get. These all have one special ability to begin with and then add one when they evolve. (After the second one, the abilities are passive and can be selected from those you've collected.) The Pegasus and the Panda work well together as a team once each has reached evolution level 2 and earned their second skill. The Pegasus gives a boost to the "back row" team (mages and archers) while the Panda gives a boost to the front row (infantry and cavalry) The Dragon can attack the back row directly which can also be a good skill to have against armies, but less useful against monsters.
Troop formations
You can use your drill grounds to preset army marches for specific purposes. You might want one for attacking armies, one for attacking monsters, etc. Some have a different one for reinforcing (generally those people who subscribe to the even tier/odd tier idea instead of going with the highest tier in all situations.) I also have a preset just for attacking my farms, because I want those to be tuned for highest load instead of power.
Here are some basic guidelines:
Attacking Armies: (Castles, Ruins, Elite Adventure, Elite War, etc.) About 20-25% infantry. Take as many of your highest tier and some of your second highest tier (one will do). and fill the rest with mages and at least one of each type of archer. If you don't have enough to fill your whole 75-80% back row, add angles. Bring your beast, of course. In a situation where your troops can't die, the zero cavalry policy is less important, but in nearly every case, you'll do better without them anyway.
Attacking Monsters: (Standard Monsters, Mutant Swarm, Lake Leviathan, etc.) Bump up your infantry to about 1/3 and the other 2/3 should be primarily mages, but fill in with archers and angels (in that order) as needed) Bring one of every troop type: 1 Cavalry, 1 Dragon Rider, and if you haven't already included them, one of each mage, archer and an angel. Bring your beast.
Reinforcing: This is really just a battle against an army with the only difference being that you will get the defensive buffs instead of the attack buffs. It doesn't change the formation you send. You still want the most battle power you can get and as much back row firepower. You can include Cavalry in your front line since your troops and those of your allies shouldn't be killed (as long as you are using your hospital and medic tents properly,) but if you have enough infantry, leave the Cavs at home.
Defending: Here you are at your own home base and you will get defensive buffs from your armies. The only real difference here is that you are not limited to how many troops you can field and you can include golems in your defense. Here you might want to use everything you have, or you might want to send troops away depending on the circumstance. If you are being attacked by a huge group of enemies and you don't have enough allies on to properly defend you, and you are out of shields, you might opt to sending out any troops that you don't want killed. (the ones who won't fit in your hospital will die.) So if you wish to do as much damage to the attackers as possible keep your "hospital limit" of troops at home to defend and send the rest out. Your choice of defenders should be similar to those above, again, cavalry are fine to include here.
The Undead King: This is a weekly event where you have the opportunity to attack a giant undead monster 10 times. This is basically a "monster' attack with a couple of notable exceptions: Your front row is not going to do you much good. The undead king is so powerful that he'll usually wipe out each troop type in one hit, so sending 1 is about as good as a bunch. If you have enough, you want basically all mages or all archers (if archer is selected as his nemesis) and NO (ZERO) angels.
Angels give you a significant de-buff against the undead king.
Happy Gaming!
Dweomr
