What Stacks Are From Groentje Stacking refers to the units you keep to defend and enlarge your kingdom. In Archmage you have a wide choice of units (depending on spell-level & magecolor mainly). To be a succesfull mage you should choose a balanced mix with all kinds of units. Their are three basic types of units: 1 Groundtroops (Melee attack) 2 Longdistance troops (Ranged attack) 3 Airforce (Flyers) (other attacks like Fire attack or Magic attack or Ice attack are all considered melee attacks). These troops come in different qualities, from the cheap basic units (Militia, Archers) up to very expensive Ultimate troops (Red Dragons, Phoenixes, Dominion, Ice/Air/Water elementals, Devils) You can find all specifications of each unit in the Encyclopedia, Book of Units. You can calculate the amount of power your troops are adding to your netpower using the 'Powerrank' from the Encyclopedia * number of troops. Example: Summoning 500 treants of power rank 423 add 500*423 = 211,500 to your Net Power This is where a spreadsheet becomes really handy - or you could use a webpage like: http://wotf.neslepax.net/calculator.htm It's your task as a managing mage to pick your units. You can choose a maximum of 10 different troops (if more different troops, some won't show up when defending or attacking). The units you picked for your country are called your STACKS. Some rules of thumb when designing your 'Stacking': - You should calculate the attackpower for every stack you have - If mainly attacking, use 5-7 stacks - If mainly defending, use 10 stacks - Try to keep your ultimate units 3-5th stack (you'll send your allies these troops...) - Try to keep advanced units like treants, mindflayers, archangels, unicorns, lich as 1-2th stack - Try to keep cheap mass units as 5-7th stack - Choose a mix of different attacktypes: some ranged, some melee, some flying - Choose a mix of different rescource type: some m.p. eating, some pop. eating, some geld eating - Calculate the order of the stacking, based on the calculated attackpower of each stack. You have to correct for the attack type (flying * 1.5, melee * 1, ranged * .666). This is because flyers have a surprise attack bonus against melee, and ranged are a bit behind the melee. - Calculate the percentages of total attackpower for each stack. Your first 4 stacks should be more or less equal in percentage. For example when running 8 stacks: 1th stack 18%_____5th stack 12% 2th stack 16%_____6th stack 10% 3th stack 15%_____7th stack 10% 4th stack 14%_____8th stack 5% To win a siege a mage has to damage you >10% of armypower - if you have many, equal stong stacks chances are high you'll loose with top stacks and win with lower stacks. Because of defense bonusses from forts and barriers, the defender has a good chance to block. This is where a spreadsheet becomes really handy - or you could still use a webpage like: http://www.algonet.se/~shiva/UE/staculator.htm - Your most important units should be easily summonable, to make it possible to recover fast. This means they have to be your own color, or a color you are not opposite of: Green: Green, White, Red not Blue or Black White: White, Green, Blue not Black or Red Blue: Blue, Black, White not Red or Green Red: Red, Black, Green, not White or Blue Black: Black, Red, Blue not White or Green - Pick an attackspell that fits your units (white - regenerating, green enlarge animal, plant growth, ....) Apart from straight summon spells, some other spells and Items can also be of benefit: Green Natures favour gives Treants, Nymphs and Dryads every turn White Gate gives Archangels or Angels or Unicorns or Knights (cheaper then summon) Black Black Sabbath gives skeletons and zombies Coffins give Black Ghouls or Wraith or Vamps or Liches Book of Golem Summoning, Horn of Walhalla Of course other players have Trial-and-Errored this out for you. You could keep a record of different stack types in every encounter you have... or just attack some top 10 guys during Armageddon to see what they were using, or read this forum and try to analyse the stacks used... Allies | Battle | Fun Strategy | Forum | Home