I've been taking hits from a few Keepers for quite a while (that's one thing that sucks in the Top 100). Since I don't have adequate defense, they regularly steal handfuls of gold. Like I've said many times before, I don't really care about the gold, since I can dig up gold MUCH faster than they can steal it.
The problem is one of them regularly uses Berserker level 8. Check out this battle report (I am defending):
This is not quite ordinary, but you get the picture. Twelve level 15 Black Riders attack, my twelve level 15 Black Riders defend. My Riders do LOUSY damage and his Riders to quite a bit. Normally, equal level creatures should NOT even come close to killing each other, but notice how dangerously close one of my Black Riders comes to dying.
Note: I currently am not receiving any combat bonuses for field coverage (coverage is obviously below 50%). Things that can help you defend against Berserker are:
- activate Burning Eye
- have adequate dungeon coverage (I recommend at least 75%)
- Make sure that your Training Room and Arena are upgraded as far as possible
- Train your defenders well
- With these combat bonuses, you may be able to win more battles and prevent attackers from stealing gold. If they can't steal anything, they may give up on you and attack somebody else
Casting a level 8 Berseker costs 2121 gold. Even if you manage to steal over 600 gold, the damage that you receive will probably cost close to 600 gold to heal (without the First Aid Kit premium). You may not earn much, but if you are able to kill one creature, that means your enemy just lost a lot more than 2121 gold.
- researching Berserker to high levels is expensive and time-consuming.
- casting Berserker at any level is expensive (compared to how much gold you will steal)
- The extra damage that you will do with Berseker is amazing.
So what's it going to be?
I am pretty sure that unless you are relatively low on the High Score List, you will NOT be able to turn a profit by casting Berserker and attacking. Even if you are low on the High Score List and you have good targets near you, you might not be able to turn a profit (there's still healing costs).
The damage that you can do to your enemies, however, will probably be worth it. High level Berserker spells are the first time that I have seen a squad of attackers come close to killing an equal-level defender. Any time that you can kill a level 10 creature or higher, is absolutely wonderful!
There isn't much to do tonight, so I'm going to talk a little about game theory in DignFight.
Just like chess, there's an opening, mid-game, and end game.
The opening in DignFight is difficult because:
- You probably don't know how to play the game and you might quit before it get's interesting
- The forums and websites are probably a little too complicated for you to understand
- When you look at the Top 50 players, you think it's impossible to get that high
Things to remember about the opening:
- Look around you when you first start, there are tons of other low-level Keepers
- The most important thing in the game is GOLD. It can be profitable to attack, but it is much easier to dig for gold
- Exploring is fun, recruit different kinds of creatures, research spells and traps, tinker doors and traps when you can
Once you get into the single-digit thousands (rank 9000 and higher) you're in the midgame (this number varies on different servers). The mid-game sucks because:
- You are going to run into Devilers, Dark Elves, and Black Riders here
- You will probably attack a Keeper and they will make it their goal in life to get revenge, even if they steal nothing and have to constantly heal their own creatures
The mid-game also rocks because:
- Now you understand most of the forum posts (and this blog)
- This is the area when you will find the richest Keepers with the worst defense
- If you take your time and train your creatures, you can build a strong army and stay low in the High Score List
The end-game is from about rank 300 and up. It can suck here because:
- All of the Keepers here are the same, you can't run from the bullies anymore
- To climb higher, you MUST deal with high-level Black Riders (lvl 12+)
- If you haven't trained your creatures to at least level 8, you're not going anywhere. Level 10+ is preferable, and a HIGH coverage helps too
- You need to wait forever for your creatures to level up (3 days or more)
- Black Riders will cost at least 10k gold to train without using any premiums
- Most Keepers don't attack much in the Top 100
The end-game is cool because:
- Being in the Top 100 of anything rocks!
- Other than that...I dunno
You're given 20 sapphires to begin with. Some of the bonuses are definitely worth it, but unless you intend to buy more sapphires, you had better spend them wisely.
Burning Eye: Only worth it if you've purchased additional sapphires. The +10 bonus in carrying is the only thing that I care about...naturally, I concentrate on digging and currently have level 10 Imps.
If you've purchased sapphires, keep Burning Eye active ALL the time.
Moldy First-Aid Kit: Only worth it if you've purchased additional sapphires. Saving half of your healing costs is awesome, BUT there are better things to spend your 20 sapphires on.
If you've purchased sapphires and if attacking is a prime part of your strategy, you will want this premium active at all times.
Home Training Made Easy: Very tempting premium. If you have a lot of training spots, this is the 2nd most valuable premium to use.
If you've purchased sapphires and you have 12 training spots, make sure that this is active each time you begin training a unit.
Ring of Flirtation: Only worthwhile if you're doing a LOT of recruiting. Grabbing 12 Dark Riders will only save you 5760 gold. Compare that to Home Training: 12 level 1 Dark Riders + Home Training premium = savings of 4320 gold (and twice that amount to train all 12 from level 2 to level 3).
Hammer of the Handyman: Here is the number 1 premium for most players. Save 5-10 sapphires until you are ready to upgrade your Arena to get Dark Riders. This will save you at least 1000 gold per upgrade AND with the discount, you don't have to sit around with your pile of gold for as long.
With a decent team of Imps, it will probably take you 2 weeks to move from a 4x4 Guard-room to 9x9.
Talisman of Greed: I've never used this one, it just doesn't look very useful. If anybody has a different opinion/experience on this one, let me know.
When you start out the game, defending may seem important. It's not.
Learn to live with attacks from a few Keepers. Let them steal what they want, just concentrate on digging (it's the safer, quicker way to a high score). Whatever you do, do NOT defend or attack with Imps. In one attack, this defender loses Imp #10 and #11. That's a loss of 2500 gold and 2750 gold for each Imp.
Even if the attacker lost 1 Goblin and an took 12 points of damage, 500 gold for a replacement Goblin and 90 gold for healing is a lot less than 5250 gold to replace 2 Imps.
If you choose to attack with Imps, you WILL harvest a lot of gold. BUT, it is only matter of time until you lose an Imp. I just hope that you learn your lesson before you lose a trained Imp.
Size matters when it comes to DignFight troops.
The biggest mistake that you can make is to believe that adding 1 or 2 wizards into a troop will make the troop stronger. The most expensive mistake that you can make is to believe that the other 10 creatures will protect your wizard(s).
Although Wizards are classified as Battle Supporters, notice also that Salamanders target priority is Blockers, then Battle Supporters. By the time you can afford Wizards, you cannot recruit any Blockers yet. This means that Salamanders will attack Wizards first.
Take a look at the screen capture. 2 Wizards, supporting a well-trained troop of Glowworms, Goblins, and Salamanders. By adding only 2 Wizards to his troop, the defender's Wizards takes ALL the damage from 12 Salamanders and loses 2400 gold in troops. Pretty painful. The attacker took about 450 gold in damage and didn't steal any gold, but who took the bigger loss?
I don't have numbers to back me up on this one yet, but it is the general opinion of the forums that digging for fields with more than 1 imp at a time is a waste.
We may never know why, but regardless of how many imps are in a dig team, the team can only excavate a maximum of 7 fields per 10 minute session. More imps does not seem to increase this.
Whether you have 1 imp or 12 imps, the chance of excavating only 1 field appears to be the same.
Don't excavate for fields until you are almost ready to use them. The more fields you have in your dungeon (whether they are used or not), the harder it is to defend.
- Only excavate fields when you are ready to use them (this helps your defense a little)
- excavate with a 1-imp team for only 10 minutes at a time
By far, the most effective way to gain points in DignFight is by excavating for gold with imps.
Attacking with imps is bad!! Although imps can carry much more than any other creature, if you lose 1 imp, that can set you back more than 3000 gold.
Even if you recruited an attack team of other units (devilers, wizards, etc), you have to make educated guesses to find the right opponent to attack and there is ALWAYS the risk of taking damage (which is very expensive to heal).
The best use of your time and money is to recruit a team of 12 imps for digging.
- always dig for only 10 minutes at a time. digging for 20 or 30 minutes at a time does not double or triple your "harvest"
- you will excavate less gold per 2 hours if you excavate with multiple teams of fewer imps (3 teams of 4 will bring back much less gold than 1 team of 12)
- upgrade as many imps as you can as fast as you can. the sooner they are upgraded, the sooner their carrying capacity is upgraded.