Level 3 research worlds

[Lordpimp1]

What are the best things to get to level 3 on certain worlds? And can you get everything to level 3?

[Atletico]

The best thing would be to specialise for different cities. For example city 1 specialises in berserkers lvl3/ram 3/ballista 3, depending on your strategy, and another city in guardians lvl 3 and something else.

That's how you take advantage of the farm capacity and the boost received in research lvls. You can't get everything to lvl3 in one city because of the 10 point research limitation and you can get all to lvl3 only if you spread them out to different cities.

[Lordpimp1]

What would you recommend for the first city?

[Gilictic]

Level 3 Lancers, Guards, and rams. Level 1 knight for farming.

[Lordpimp1]

Thanks for the input.

[Godric]

I would get knight, zerks and rams. It will have an academy and be an attack town for sure. Being in a decent guild is all the defense you need early on. You'll have a few lancers left over from initial stages but they will disappear over time - or use them as fakes. Then if you're cautious, make your second town defense - lancers, sentries and scouts.

Guards are a luxury you can make when you have a lot of cities and actually need fast mobile defense. You'll grow faster using knights exclusively early on.

[Kaleel]

@Godric: A note on defensive strategy in a 3-tiered research world. Per Orlor's post here: http://forum.playmesh.com/showthread.php?1082-Level-3/page3&highlight=troops+level, troops only maintain their tier-standing when they are stationed in a city with a forge that currently has that level of research available. This may or may not be advantageous to you per the following scenarios:

• GIVEN THE FOLLOWING:
  
  • City A's forge has researched LVL 3 Lancers & LVL 3 Sentries (everything else is LVL 0/unresearched). In this city, there are 3,000 Lancers and 1,000 Guardians.
  • City B's forge has researched LVL 1 Lancers & LVL 2 Sentries (everything else is LVL 0/unresearched). In this city, there are 300 Lancers and 500 Sentries

• Scenario #1 -- Troops are automatically downgraded.
  
  • City A sends 1,000 Lancers (LVL 3) & 1,000 Guardians (LVL 2) to support City B.
  • Upon arrival in City B: the 1,000 Lancers are downgraded to LVL 1 (because that's what City B's forge shows)
  • Upon arrival in City B: the 1,000 Guardians are downgraded to LVL 1 (LVL 0 is the same as LVL 1 in terms of bonus status).

• Scenario #2 -- Troops are automatically upgraded.
  
  • City B send all 300 Lancers (LVL 1) and 500 Sentries (LVL 2) to support City A.
  • Upon arrival in City A: the 300 Lancers are upgraded to LVL 3 (because that's what City A's forge shows)
  • Upon arrival in City A: the 500 Sentries are upgraded to LVL 3 (because that's what City A's forge shows)

Also keep in mind that when you downgrade a troop-type's research, then the existing troop populations are also downgraded:

• You research LVL 3 Guardians, then recruit 5,000 Guardians. You now have 5,000 (LVL 3) Guardians.
• You then decide to downgrade the research level of Guardians down to LVL 2 in order to reallocate research points to another troop type. Your 5,000 (LVL 3) Guardians are now also downgraded to LVL 2, despite the fact that you recruited them at LVL 3.

The reverse is also true. So I would recommend recruiting your troop population first and allocate research points after the fact (if you can afford to wait).

Hope this helps,
-Kaleel

[Brendone33]

I feel like troops reverting to the level of the research of the city they are supported to detracts from the game A LOT. It made sense to me that you could set up some cities with level 3 guards to rapidly reinforce yourself and allies but they won't be any more effective then whatever the other city has anyway, which doesn't seem right.

[Kaleel]

@Brendone33: I agree with your sentiment. Unfortunately, that's currently how things stand until the developers decide otherwise. I will admit that this revelation forced me to completely revamp my defensive strategy on 3-tiered research worlds, and not necessarily for the better.

One response was to to research LVL3 Guardians in all my cities and just send Guardians back and forth to support other cities. But if that's the end-game result, then it kinda makes the other infantry units superfluous (except in other extreme examples, which I won't discuss here for *ahem* strategic reasons. Gotta have my own secrets to success, afterall. :P).

-Kaleel