Recently I tuned into one of the regular (and highly excellent) Q/A sessions over at the BrotherW Gaming discord community, where the topic of the evening was a comparative take on Season One and Season Two of Reign of Chaos War (Rise of Empires: Ice and Fire). Being a regular member and moderator over there, I was lucky enough to catch up with the night’s guest host - CorCat, R5 of of [RoG] Alliance in State 343 - to grab his follow-up. After studying up his tips a bit, I thought to share them here for any other RoE gamer who is coming into Reign of Chaos war for their first time--and who needs as much help as I did!
Don’t have time to read and want to listen to the LIVE discussion first-hand? Watch the full livestream event below:
What did we learn from Season One of Reign of Chaos War?
Being new to the game myself, there was a ton that I wasn’t prepared for when it came to getting my grounding for RoC season one--some of which is covered in another article floating around here--but I think CorCat really summed it up best with the following points:
Top SIX Tips to Prep for RoC Season One: An R5’s Perspective
Before all else: participation wins wars. No matter what season you are entering into, participation will be key, so as an R5 it is important to build an alliance with a ton of people who are ready to fight at your set war time (reset, reset +8, or reset +16).
Get at least two hero legions (class legion and first legion) to at least 500 demolition power. You will need enough cavalry troops to fill both of these legions to path/ tile quickly.
Quick Tip: If you find yourself running out of courage medals, up your focus on legion and troop research trees, and don’t forget about zone commemoration research!
Black Dragon Shouts are integral. Make sure you always have a full stack of bolts and shouts prior to each war. Pump out as much crystal as possible to ensure you remain sustainable and prepped for war. (Need help getting more gold as a spending player? Check out this moment from a recent BrotherW Livestream).
If possible, participate in state cooperation efforts. This will benefit your whole team moving forward, regardless whether you are a NAP (non-aggression pact) protected player.
Keep track of when other teams in your bracket at at war. Click into the war info page within 24 hours of your own war, and take a few screen shots. Note who is under truce protection and who is not.
Stay organized and have a plan. Make sure your team knows what to expect, where they are going, and what role they will play in war. For instance, if you work directly in-game, you can use all-mails and R3/R2 rankings to determine who will be online for your next war. If you work offline, say through discord, you could set polls to your alliance team members to see who will be in attendance.
What can I do to plan for Reign of Chaos War, Season Two?
At the end of Season One, exhausted but proud of the team I’d grown with over the first season - [TTT] Alliance in State 341 - I was feeling pretty confident in my ability to take on Season Two of Reign of Chaos war. Then I heard about the destroyer shout and felt like a kid all over again.
Worried that I was going to be in way over my head for the next round of RoC war, and barely at C20, I was glad when CorCat moved into his analysis of how he’ll be planning for Reign of Chaos: Season Two.
Top FIVE Tips to Prep for RoC Season Two: An R5’s Perspective
Upgrade that Dragon Temple as much as possible, and if you can, do so on building day as it provides some of the best power increases, and will help you get your CoP gold chests for that day outside of strategy buildings. (For more information on how to get all nine of your CoP gold chests, watch this video from BWG).
As soon as you finish the prior season, make sure to start stockpiling stone, but do not donate any until the beginning of the next season, or until your R5 gives you the go-ahead. Stone is the ‘bunch o’ rocks’ item you can find in the Alliance Store. Donate to technology to gain points to buy rocks.
Continue to plan and discuss war protection and defense across alliances in your state if possible. Reach out to allies and begin discussions for how different alliances will cooperate during Season Two. Ideally, they will war at the opposite time to you, which will set them up to help block enemy paths/ bridges to your Alliance Centres.
Focus on hero development, research development to up your technology power, and help other members in your alliance make the push to Castle Level 22. Use and share your farms wisely to distribute needed resources to other team members, and work as a unified team to get stronger for the upcoming season of RoC war!
Get in the habit of sharing Dragon Shout Counts (how many dragon shouts each participating war member has) prior to war so that all members know what to expect and who to call upon in moments of high war pressure.
What else should I know going into RoC Season Two?
Honestly, this Q/A was completely jam-packed with intel from not just CorCat, but new and returning members of our BWG education community.
That being the case there was a ton of information thrown back and forth that could fall into any number of categories related to RoC Season Two. Stuff like how should I set up my alliance centre for the next season? Or, can I unlock more honour structures this season than last?
I would really recommend checking out the full video yourself, but here are some of the highlight facts that (again thanks to CorCat’s notes and review) I pulled from the stream:
Alliance Centre Placement
There is quite a bit you can do to set-up for success with alliance centre placement. Discuss amongst state leaders the best plan of action, or allow your leaders to do so. Decide which is best, a mega hive in one corner, or several hives spread out throughout the state. Come together to set-up an AC plan, and then communicate that to your members to that honour structures are not placed randomly. For non-leading players (R3s and below), wait until you receive these instructions before placing your honour structures. Use farms at C19+ to protect around the rings of your alliance centres (AC), with smaller farms and castles to help with AC2 protection. Remember that until enemies take Alliance Centre one, they may only place rally points in Zone One. Place AC2, 3, and 4 with that in mind. The farther they are away to begin, the easier time you’ll have defending.
Reset Specialization Points to Get Extra Buildings
You can unlock extra buildings for placement around your AC2, 3, and 4. Once you have placed your original buildings and are pleased with your production capacity, you can reset your specialization tree and move those points to another tree/ line. Those previous buildings will stay, and must be placed prior to reset.
Use Warm-up Week Wisely
Warm-up week is critical. Use it wisely, read your all-mails, listen in to Alliance Chat when possible, and touch base with one of your R4s or R5 if you are really confused about what’s going on. Get to higher level tiles as quickly as possible, and do your best to place your honour structures according to leader specifications. Continue to donate to alliance technology and buy stone for yourself and for the destroyer shouts needed during War Times. Make sure to keep track of the RoC tasks tab and complete those quickly to unlock more tile spots and to gain honour experience.
Clean, Clean, Clean
War is fraught with fighting and high intensity, but the reality is that most wars are won because of incredible tiling efforts made by home-teams in their own state. This means doing tile checks about 150kms to 200kms out from your Alliance Centres (all of them) when you log on, checking alliance markers set by team leads, and coordinating with the state to ensure that all purple tiles are cleaned, not just those from your own war. Setup cleaning teams within your alliance and hold your state allies accountable for tile cleaning after and pre-war. HOT TIP FROM CORCAT: Start cleaning from the top of their tile bridge down, not the other way around. This requires less distance closer to war, and helps you keep a closer eye on enemy purple tiles.
Plan your tile taking activities
When taking tiles, consider only taking farms and quarries for the building materials, maxxing your tiles with farms and quarries (even high-level empties). These will give you the materials needed to upgrade your coalition buildings, while also improving your ability to produce building materials.
Forget the military materials until you have upgraded your coalition buildings and frontline workshops. Remember to unlock your extra processing queues under the blue specialization tree prior to reset!
Remember the destroyer shout!
Don’t forget: the destroyer shout can be deployed anywhere within 300kms of from your AC1, but cannot be deployed within 18kms of your AC1. The guardian (conjurer of the destroyer shout) has five minutes to conjure this rally point, and may be attacked during this time with legions.
If enemy or offense cannot take out the guardian, best advice is to tile towards the spot where they are trying to shout so you can RoC shout castles when they drop in, and to slow down their tiling efforts. Keep in mind that it costs 100K stone to ‘buy’ a destroyer shout, and that you can only have three saved per war before you have to buy more. They take about 24 hours to produce, so they are not available straight away.
Whew! It's a lot to take in, and I know I will be going over this and some of the other tips I’ve gained from the Education videos hosted by BrotherW, and I encourage you to do the same whenever you get the chance. It’s easy enough to pop on YouTube in the background while you play, and it’s always worthwhile to learn.
Good luck this next season, thank you again to CorCat and BrotherW for their knowledge, and I hope to greet you all in war sometime soon!
--Krysos Kinmaster, Diplomat of [TTT] Alliance, State 341
Time Stamps:
0:00 - Start of Stream
0:09 - Topic Announcement and Housekeeping
0:52 - Q/A Check-in BEGINS
8:52 - Q/A Format introduction + Welcome to Special Guest CorCat of [RoG] Alliance!
13:04 - Guest Speaker INFO-SMASH begins: CorCat’s Review of Season One
14:23 - What CorCat learned from Season One of RoC
14:29 - The importance of 500 demolition power
15:01 - The importance of dragon shouts
15:26 - The importance of state cooperation
17:01 - The importance of having a plan and ensuring that the team knows the plan
18:03 - How CorCat is prepping for Season Two of RoC War
18:41 - The importance of gathering stone as you prep for Season Two
20:49 - Discuss mega-hive set-up with fellow state leaders
21:58 - How can I best help my alliance during prep for RoC Season Two?
22:43 - The importance of sharing new information about RoC Season Two Destroyer Shout 23:10 - What CorCat expects for Season Two RoC War
23:29 - The importance of C19 farms for AC1 defense
24:43 - The importance of unlocking extra honour structures with specialization points
25:16 - The importance of nailing warm-up week for RoC
25:09 - The importance of RoC Daily Tasks - complete these quickly!
26:31 - What are the most important tiles to take in RoC War?
27:18 - INFO-SMASH BONUS MATERIAL: Destroyer Shouts
28:08 - How long does it take to conjure the destroyer shout? (Five minutes)
28:32 - How much does it cost to buy a destroyer shout? How many can I have at once? 29:00 - How to gather strategic intelligence from the war information page
29:17 - INFO-SMASH SESSION ENDS and open Q/A Begins!
30:21 - How close can the destroyer shout be used to AC1?
32:49 - What are destroyer shouts used for?
34:34 - The true cost of being the guardian for your alliance
36:30 - How many destroyer shouts are available each war?
38:04 - Who can conjure a destroyer shout?
40:50 - What research do alliance Guardians need to complete for RoC Season Two?
45:23 - Can you RoC Dragon an Alliance Guardian while they are channeling a destroyer shout? (Yes)
48:08 - BrotherW Summary of CorCat INFO-SMASH
48:21 - The importance of alliance organization
52:42 - Breakroom Session BEGINS!
1:00:20 - Breakroom Session ENDS!
1:07:23 - Discord Search Function Shout-Out
1:09:33 - BrotherW motivational speech to TTT members as Season Two of RoC Approaches
1:13:17 - Can you get T9 troops if you are not C25?
1:19:28 - Do you need to max Zone Commemoration to get T9 troops?
1:19:59 - An alternative approach to zone commemoration research planning from Abhi/ DoctorWho
1:20:48 - What should my focus be once I complete 100% zone commemoration research?
1:22:19 - If I don’t have T9s, how can I affect the RoC war?
1:25:34 - How long does it take to get your castle to level C25?
1:25:07 - What does the Dragon Shout Temple do?
1:39:56 - BrotherW Podium: rss in = rss out
1:47:17 - How can a T7/ T6 troop player help in Season Two of RoC War?
1:55:13 - How do I push my demolition value over the top to 500 demo value? (3 heroes in class legion with maxed skill one and skill six)
2:03:23 - How many rare medals do you need to unlock hero skill six?
2:07:58 - How should I use my specialization points for Season Two of RoC?
2:16:50 - The importance of having a solid tile clean-up team for RoC War
2:29:37 - The importance of donating to alliance technology (all the perks!)
2:36:58 - Stream Close, BrotherW Community Love