When its peace time there is no reason not to build T2 units all around. They have better stats and since you don't need them urgently on the battlefield, the extra production time doesn't matter. Of course if you expect a war right around the corner that's another matter, but generally speaking; when there's peace, build T2 units. The only exception I can think of is if you are levelling up your commanders attacking NPC's. If this is the case then you should use T1 units and build these once in a while to have as fodder against the NPC's. (AREA FOR DARK DISCUSSION: How many resources would be consumed destroying the same NPCs with T1 vs T2 troops?

If T2s are more efficient attackers, less will die, but what is the total cost in resources?). In illyriad, when it comes to war, defence = attacking and attack = defending. When you want to attack another player with siege encampments you aren't really attacking him. When your forces arrive outside his city they will occupy and defend. The defending player will then attack your siege encampment, trying to clear it before your siege engines finishes setting up and start bombarding his city.

The future home of my Illyriad Guides, and links to other useful Illyriad Community Links and Guides. Humble's Illyriad Guides: Civil Engineering – A beginners guide to city planning Table of Contents: The Plan: A point form summary of priorities as they evolve Buildings in a new city Research Plans Gathering for Gains. Independent Games Festival Judges 'Very in-depth. Different styles of play to suit different players. Large variety of troops, tactics and magic.

Thus your troops are defending when you're attacking and your troops are attacking when you are defending. When raiding towns, be it with diplos or with military units always remember that most people have runes to defend them. Send in your T1's first to be followed by your T2's. And remember that diplo T2's usually travel faster than their T1 counterparts.

So time it well. There is nothing more irritating than seeing 400 of your T2 thieves die for nothing when they hit a rune so send in your T1's first. If you're a gambler then see if you can't bring the rune down to 1 charge using T1's, followed by the T2's. This way the opponent has to wait longer before he can re-cast the rune. Calculating travel time is also important for setting up sieges. If the armies of the alliance arrives across several days instead of within a few hours, then the defender gets to pick of the troops in the siege camp bit by bit, instead of facing the total force.

And yes, overwhelming numbers means something in this game, so having as many troops as possible arrive within as short a time frame as possible is very much preferred. It also a good idea to clear the town of defending troops so they can't sally forth, again make sure you know what type of terrain the city is on and what type of units are in there before sending any troops, this is the only scenario where a good offensive commander can be used to support a siege. Its usually a good idea to wait until the city wall is down as well. Defending against a siege is tricky but as the armies tend to arrive pieces at a time you can try and set up a defensive army on the tile you would expect them to arrive at. If you have overwhelming numbers at the location at which the siege armies arrives you can take them out one at a time.

If you miss the spot they arrive at then nothing is lost, recall your army and use your best troops to clear the area and then set up your best defensive troops to defend that spot in case there are stragglers arriving. One of the most important weapons in Illyriad war are assassins.

They can kill the commanders in a city or on a square, not only does this remove the bonuses he provides, but if you kill of all of the commanders in a city that city will no longer be able to send out troops as you need a commander for that. You may think: 'so what, he'll just resurrect them' and you would be right, but high level commanders takes an awful lot of time, days and even weeks in fact, to resurrect. Killing of the commanders in a city or even in all of a players cities will cripple that player militarily as all of his troops would be standing completely still until at least one of his commanders are resurrected. As with all things in war you have to be prepared to sacrifice to win and in a game where sieges are among the first response you have to be prepared to loose a city, maybe more than one, to be able to win the war. To defend everything is to defend nothing, if you loose 1 city but take down three of the enemies then you are winning and in Illyriad, if you go all on the defensive you usually stay there and eventually loose. You have to take down more of his than he takes down of yours. Of course if you are able to defend your own while taking down his then do so, but you would need superiority in a big way to be able to do that.

So although we should always do our best to protect cities under siege, it should not be done at the expense of victory. Like with everything else, its a balancing act.

Illyriad cribs from the strategy game rulebook, but forgets to read the chapter on ‘fun’

Sometimes a game does nothing wrong, technically speaking, but still comes up wanting. MMO strategy game Illyriad is a prime example – everything from the game’s interface to its resource-building is standard free-to-play strategy game fare, none of it too intrusive. The only problem? It focuses so hard on playing it safe, it forgets to deliver something worth playing.

In a market where time has become a player’s chief resource, free-to-play games need to really grip the player from the very beginning. Keep them engrossed until they’ve spent too much effort to abandon their curated experience, and feel compelled to throw money at the screen to explore further.

Yet while Illyriad is set in a fantasy world, it had me daydreaming of something far more exciting. You begin with a single town, from which you need to research new technologies, construct useful buildings and build up your army. Once you’ve gotten settlers ready, you can scout the surrounding area, colonize new towns, and continue until your kingdom is the largest in the world. What should be a rich foundation for exploration is presented as a series of static screens and statistics bars.

That’s not to say there’s nothing to do. You’ve got eight basic resources types, which are used to complete anything and everything in the game, from construction to filling in research trees (whatever those are). As time progresses, you’ll unlock more builds, more troop types, more research options and more trading options.Trading is a big part of the social aspects of the game, as you can send out trading parties to give and take resources from other players. You can also, of course, attack other players (although you’ll need to build up a notable army to do this) and form alliances with other players.

All the elements of an acceptable experience are there, but I’m growing more and more weary of “acceptable experiences.” Illyriad is so very much your bog-standard free-to-play strategy game in a browser. At best, you can get some friends involved, allowing your social interactions to stave off the pay walls for a chunk of time. Like all titles inside the status, quo, however, you’re eventually forced to fork out real money to continue your game at a reasonable rate.

This sense of formulaic, profit-driven play is the underlying issue running throughout the veins of the entire game. The DNA of llyriad is so thinly veiled that it might as well be called Illyria-Ville. It’s all extremely bland and boring, from the visuals to the goals you’re looking to achieve… to the heaping amount of waiting around you have to do to unlock each new milestone.

Simply put, Illyriad Exit wounds sequel. doesn’t push the genre in any way, leading to a sense of deja-vu very, very quickly. With an injection of life or personality, it could potentially be an enjoyable experience, but as it is, the game comes across as having followed the rules of Strategy Game 101 to a tee, before hitting the snooze button on the alarm.