After it becomes a little more complete I will edit it for the changes to FAF code and post a full version in this thread. For now that might help some of the new guys get the basics down.
For Non-FAF codes you can put images in clan news by using either img <src="imgurl"> or [*img]imageurl[/img*] minus the *'s.This guide is intended to help rookies become intermediate players. To become an advanced player you have to play it by ear so to speak. There is no one set way you can run every time to make you the best. As your needs/threats change an expert player needs to be able to tweak his strat a little bit one way or the other to compensate for what has been going on in the prom around him. For this reason I will not even attempt to post a guide to help players become the best. That comes from experience. Although running with a more experienced player definately speeds the process up a lot.
I. Introduction
A: Prologue
Prom is a text based, turn based online strategy game in which your goal is to achieve the highest networth. Above all, it is a wargame. If you get attacked, do not get mad about it. It's all part of the game. Diplomacy is often times key to success, do not neglect it.
B: Abberviations and Definitions
Will add more as I think of them.
BM: Black Market
BS: Blacksmiths
Corn: Cornacopia. Spell that produces grains.
CB: Crystal Ball. Spell that gives you the stats for another empire. Very useful.
Demo: Demolish buildings.
FA: Foreign Aid
FB: Fireball. Spell that kills 3% of an enemies forces. Usually only done in times of war.
Gobo: Goblin. Race now called Witch Hunters.
Gremmy: Gremlin. Race now called Daemonhunters.
GT: Guard Towers
Indy: Strat that uses BM sells to fund itself.
Indy up: Term used to describe the process of making troops.
MT: Mage Towers
MUF: Magic User Fight. Spell that attacks someone for land using wizards only.
Net: Networth
PCI: Per Capita Income
PM: Public Market
Shield: Spell shield. Spell that lowers damage from enemies spells.
STD: Standard attack. Attack that uses all 4 troop types. Usually only done in times of war.
TG: Open Time Gate. Spell that allows you to attack every era.
ToG: Tree of Gold. Spell that gives you cash.
Wizzies: Wizards
II. Buildings
A: Huts
Huts allow you to have more peasants. These should only be used if you are running a casher strat. (see strat section)
B: Markets
Markets do 3 things, first they allow you to fit more cash in your bank, they give you a little money per turn, and they also raise your PCI (per capita income). The amount your PCI is raised depends on the percentage of your land in markets. I.E. 3,000 markets on 10,000 land will raise your PCI much more than 3,000 markets on 20,000 land. Markets should only be used in a casher strat.
C: Keeps
Keeps do 3 things also. They lower troop upkeep, lower price of BM (black market), and increase the rate at which the BM refills. (see BM section) Keeps DO NOT affect BM refresh. Keeps do not lower upkeep enough to make a noticeable difference. The real strength of keeps lies in their ability to lower BM prices. Keeps will give you a maximum discount of 30% off BM price, and you get this max discount when at least 38% of your land is in keeps.
Keeps are necessary if you are trying to run a reseller strat (see strat section) or they are also sometimes used when an empire decides to buy up. 50 turns building keeps can save you 30% more so if you are planning on buying a lot of troops you might want to consider building some keeps right before.
D: Farms
Produce grains. Simple enough?
Used by all strats except mages and resellers.
E: Mage Towers
MT (mage towers) make both wizards and mana. They will produce wizards until you have at least 100 wizards per tower. If you ever have more than 175 wizards per tower then a percentage of your wizards will die every turn until you get back down to 175 per tower.
The less full your MT are the faster you gain wizards. If you have 40 wizards per tower you will gain wizards much faster than you will when you have 80 wizards per tower.
All strats need to have some MT. Bare minimum is enough to make you sufficient mana to cast spell shield and open time gate.
F: Blacksmiths
BS (blacksmiths) produce troops.
Indys build tons of these, occasionally someone running a different strat will build a few of these for a run.
G: Guard Towers
A favorite of new players, GT (guard towers) give you 500 defensive points each. It's not in the guide, but you need at least 100 footmen per GT or they will not be calculated in the defense when someone attacks you. Personally I find they are all but useless. I almost never build any.
III. Strats
This is probably the most helpful part of the guide for a new player.
A: Casher
One of the easiest strats to play, cashers rely on their tax income to make money. All troops are bought off PM or BM. Gnome (Eldar or Dark Eldar) has a nice market bonus so BM price isn't too terrible. It doesn't take long to run, and it's hard to screw up but it is not the most effective strategy out there.
What to do when running: Buy troops, grab land, build on it and spend the rest of your turns cashing. Simple enough.
Recommended Race: Gnome (Eldar or Dark Eldar)
Recommended Build
40% Huts
40% Markets
10% Farms
10% MT
Tax 40%
Tax I'm not sure what the best is for cashing on normal code. Try 40%, 50% and 60% to see what works best for you. For all other strats your tax rate should be 11%. The reason for this is simple, anything above 12% will keep you from getting 100% health.
B: Farmer
This is about as easy to run as cashing, yet is more powerful than cashing. Farmer strat is done the same as cashers, but instead of markets/huts you build farms. Money is made by selling your grains. Grains are sold on the PM preferrably, and the BM as a last resort. Mages buy their grains so a farmer usually does best when there are lots of mages.
Recommended Race: Gremlin (Daemonhunters)
What to do when running:
Buy troops, grab land, build farms and spend the rest of your run farming. When done sell as many grains as you can on PM. If money is tight just sell grains on the BM.
Recommended Build:
90% farms
10% MT
C: Indy
My favoite strat, indy can be a tricky strat to get down. Money issues can quickly wreck your empire if your not careful. Indys sell troops to fund their runs. Preferrably on the PM, but the BM will work as well. When you are learning to indy do yourself a favor and do not bother trying to build all 4 troop types at once. That will wipe out your cash faster than anything.
Build 100% of 1 troop type and when your almost out of cash sell all you can of that type and switch to something else. Do this as many times as you need to finish your run.
Expect to run out of cash when your learning how to play. A good way to help you get used to it is to build extra farms and sell the grains on the BM for a little extra running cash. This is not the most efficient method but it does make it a hell of a lot easier to learn the strat by doing it this way. Each run try to get a few more BS and less farms until your able to run by just keeping the grains in the green.
Recommended Race: I prefer Goblin (Witch Hunters)for newer players. They are the easiest indy race to play money-wise. The rest I would go with dwarf (Tau) next, then orc, and lastly trolls (Necrons).
What to do when running:
Grab land until your at low health, then build up land. Repeat this process until your runs is over. If building does not raise your health up much then just farm or cast spell shields to get your health up.
Recommended Build:
For someone new to the strat I'd go with
60% BS
5% MT
35% farms
Experienced players:
90% BS
3% MT
7% farms
D: Reseller
Resellers are gnomes (Eldar or Dark Eldar) that build keeps to get the maximum BM discount and buy troops on the BM and sell them on PM for a profit. Resellers do best when they play in a mage heavy prom. They tend to be underpowered in the beginning, but since they don't use turns they can eventually grow to be the most powerful strat in the game. Not all proms can support a reseller though.
The hardest part of playing gnome (Eldar or Dark Eldar) is getting yourself set up to start reselling. You cannot just come out of protection and start reselling and expect to do well. You need some capital to start. To do this, most people start with either cashing or maging and switch over to reselling after they have some good cash.
What to do when running:
After you have some good capital you want to make a wizard making run. Save some turns at the end of your run to demo some of your MTs and build keeps instead. Remember that your MTs can hold up to 175 wizards, so be careful when determining how much MT to demo. The more keeps you have the better, because it will refill your BM faster and allow you to buy more at once. You must have at least 38% keeps to get your maximum discount.
After you are set up you will no longer run turns, instead you will want to log on several times per day and buy troops on BM and sell them on PM.
Recommended Race: Gnome (Eldar or Dark Eldar)
Recommended Build: at least 38% keeps, rest MT
E: Maging
A mages biggest strength is their cash making ability. A mage's biggest weakness is grains. All grains must be bought off PM or cast corn (cornacopia) for them. Mages can do well under almost any circumstance. I will probably add a whole section dedicated to maging later but for now this is all you get
What to do when running:
If you are making mana and/or wizards:
CB (Crystal Ball, spell that scans your enemies stats) your enemies to find out what their weakness is, buy whatever troops you need and attack him. Attack to low health then build on land to get health back and attack some more. If building land does not raise your health enough cast spell shield or spend your turns cashing.
If you are making cash:
Cast ToG (Tree of Gold) for your entire turn run. Pay close attention to your grain. If there is some cheap grains on PM buy them, if not cast corn (cornacopia) to get your grains.
Recommended Race:
I prefer Drow(Tyranids) over Elf (Chaos). No other race comes close to those 2.
Recommended Build:
100% MT
If there are no cheap PM grains you may consider going 80% MT 20% farms while your making mana, but make sure your back at 100% MT at the end of your run.
IV. Common mistakes
Will try to add more as I think of them.
A: Trying to stay in the green on your resources. Balanced strats just don't work out too well, so just stick with whatever your races strength is.
B: People getting concerned over land. Land does absolutely nothing for you when you are not running, so don't get too worried over losing some.
C: Turn discipline. If it's a 500 turn server do not run with 350 turns. Wait until you have 500.
D: Low health. Never end your turns with low health. When attacking and defending health is used as a modifier so if you have 20% health, you only use 20% of your army for calculating your defense. What makes it even worse is you lose *A LOT* more troops when you are hit with low health than when you are at high health.
As a side note health is a modifier for resources gained from casting ToG and corn.
E: Guard Towers. GT are all but useless, don't bother building them. It's not the end of the world if someone takes your land, and for a few strats you actually WANT to lose a little land. Further explanations in the upcoming maging section.
F: Spell shields. Never leave your empire without spell shields. Your first cast is 12 hours, after that each cast adds 3 hours to your spell shield. I usually have a minimum of 100 hours in advance.
G: Not really a mistake, but many new people do not realize the stats for each troop changes in different eras. Look in the game guide under military units, then click on past, present, or future to see what they are in each era.
V. Eras
There are 3 different eras in prom, past present and future. Mages should be in the past for the mana bonus, indy's should be in the future for the indy bonus, and resellers should be in the present for the huge defensive advantage that tanks give them. This protects them from STD attacks.
A: Past
Past is where all empires start. It grants a 20% bonus to mana but it gives a 5% penalty to industry. Industry is the number of troops your blacksmiths produce. Pay close attention to what era your target is in, each era has its strengths and weaknesses so try to hit them in their weakest point. Mages should be in the past, indy's should be in the future
The unit stats for past troops are as follows:
Footmen offense =1 defense =2
Catapaults offense =3 defense =2
Zeppelins offense =7 defense =5
Galleons offense =7 defense =6
B: Present
You get no bonuses or penalties for being in the present. The principle advantage of being in the present is tanks. They have the best defensive value in the game. Some people stay in the future and use guerilla strike against people, I personally have never been a fan of guerilla strike so I don't do this much myself.
The unit stats for present troops are as follows:
Infantry offense =2 defense =1
Tanks offense =2 defense =6
Jets offense =5 defense =3
Battleships offense =6 defense =8
C: Future
Future grants you a 15% indy bonus, and it also gives you the best offensive unit in the game-juggernauts. Alot of farmers and cashers play in the future because the great offensive units allow them to grab land with fewer troops, and that increases their productivity. Magers and resellers should stay out of future in most cases.
The unit stats for future troops are as follows:
Cyborgs offense =1 defense =2
Juggernauts offense =5 defense =2
Hovercraft offense =6 defense =3
Battleships offense =7 defense =7
VI. Spell Casting.
If the spell is listed under "Magic Center" then it is considered a utility spell. If it is listed under "War Center" then it is considered an offensive spell. All spells take 2 turns to cast. Mana required is dependant upon 2 things, the land you have and the number of MT you have. Land is by far the biggest factor. For this reason many people do most of their spell casting after someone has taken some of their land.
A: Utility Spells
To be able to cast a utility spell you need to have a mage ratio high enough to be able to cast the spell. Mage ratio is your numer of wizards divided by your number of mage towers. If your mage ratio is not high enough the spell will fizzle and you will lose wizards, mana, and 2 turns. If you have 1,000 MT and 50,000 wizards your mage ratio will be 50. You will be able to cast Spell shield, Corn, and ToG. If you wanted to cast open time gate you would have to demolish some MT to boost your ratio. Then you could cast the spell and build your MT right back. It is important to remember that if you have 0 Mt you cannot cast any spells, regardless of how many wizards you have.
1: Spell Shield
Ratio to cast: 15
Casting spell shield will prevent 2/3 of the damage from any offensive spell cast against you (except MUF and CB). If you do not have any shield up your first cast will give you 12 hours of shield. Each subsequent cast will add 3 hours to the total. This is a very important spell, I would strongly recommend having a shield up a minimum of 100 hours in advance.
2: Tree of Gold
Ratio to cast: 30
Casting ToG will create money for you. This is a mages best friendThe cash gained from ToG is dependent on a few factors, your wizards (obviously the more the merrier), your health (50% health only gets you 50% of the cash), the percentage of land in MT (50% of your land in MT gives you 50% of the cash), and your networth. Lower networths receive bonuses while higher networths receive penalties. The amount gained will drop off when you pass 100k net, 500k net, 1 mil net, 10 mil net, and 100 mil net.
3: Cornacopia
Ratio to cast: 30
Casting corn will create grains for you. Grain gained is dependant on the exact same factors as ToG (see ToG section above). Results from casting corn is the exact same as if you had cast ToG and bought grain with the money you gained. For example if you gain $30 mil cash from ToG you could buy 1 million grains with that money. If you cast Corn you would gain 1 mil grains, so either way you end up with 1 mil grains. The advantage to casting corn is that it costs slightly less mana.
4: Open Time Gate
Ratio to cast: 75
90% of the time people fizzle a spell it's casting time gate. Casting time gate will allow you to attack people in any era, be attacked from people in any era, FA people in any era, and get FAed from people in any era. The first cast gives you 12 hours, subsequent casts add 3 hours to your time gate duration. I never cast this in advance.
5: Close Time Gate
Ratio to cast: 80
This will end your open time gate spell, regardless of how much time is left on it.
6: Advance to next era
Ratio to cast: 90
Casting this spell will take you from the past to the present or the present to the future. The effects are not reversible. In order to go to the present you must have used 500 turns, and to go to the future you must have used 1,000 turns. check the empire status screen to see how many turns you have used so far.
B: Offensive spells
Offensive spells lower your health by 2% per cast. Success with offensive spells is dependent on the ratio of wizards to land for you and your enemy. The actual formula is written in the game guide, but basically it is his ratio of wizards to his land compared to your ratio of your wizards over the average of both your lands.
If your opponent has 1,000,000 wizards on 10,000 land his ratio is 100. If you have 1,000,000 wizards on 6,000 land your ratio would be 125. (1,000,000 wizards divided by the average land of the attacker and defender, since one has 6,000 land and the other has 10,000 land the average is 8,000 land)
Now that we have each ratio, we takes the attackers ratio over the defenders ratio, so: 125/100=1.25
A ratio of 1.25 will allow you to succesfully cast CB, FB, and Storm. Anything beyond that and the spell will fizzle. these formulas are difficult enough as it is, so I ignored racial bonuses for ease of understanding. Don't forget to add those in if you are doing any calculations on your own.
1: Crystal Ball
Ratio to beat opponent by: 1
Crystal Ball shows you an empires stats. The stats shown are the stats you see on the main screen. Empire status is not shown. This is a very imprtant spell to cast. I scan all threats every run when I am maging. I usually message myself with the stats so I save them forever. Plus you get a nice time/date stamp from sending the message
2: Fireball
Ratio to beat opponent by: 1.15
Fireball is another often used spell. Fireball kills 3% of your enemies troops and wizards. If you are trying to steal cash from a mage but do not have enough wizards to do so, try casting FB to lower his wizards enough to allow you to steal his cash.
3: Storms
Ratio to beat opponent by: 1.21
Great for wasting someones resources, Storm destroys 9.12% of your enemy's food and 12.65% of their cash.
4: Lightning Strike:
Ratio to beat opponent by: 1.3
Destroys 3% of an enemies mana. Personally I rarely use this. I would rather wait until my opponent has spent turns using the mana then destroy whatever he made with it (usually cash).
5: Wrath of Demon
Ratio to beat opponent by: 1.7
Completely worthless, this spell destroys 3% of all building types as long as someone has at least 15 of that type. This spell is a waste of turns and mana.
6: Embezzlement
Ratio to beat opponent by: 1.75
What a wonderful, wonderful spell. This spell steals 10% - 15% of your enemy's cash and gives it to you. If you can cast this spell against a rival mage you can really change the balance of power in a game. Well, assuming he has been spending alot of time gaining cash.
7: Magic User Fight
Ratio to beat opponent by: 2.2
This attack takes land using wizards. It can be useful, but beware, it does kill a lot of your wizards.
VII. FAQ
Q: When I try to attack someone my generals refuse to attack. Why?
A: If your net is more than 10X your opponenents net, or less than 1/10th of your opponents net you will not be able to attack. If you are both in clans and your clan is set to war this number is increased to 25X.
Q: Every time I attack someone part of my army deserts me for attacking a weaker/stronger empire. Why?
A: If your net is more than 3X or less than 1/3rd of your opponents net you will suffer desertion with each attack. If it's an offensive spell only wizards will desert and if it is a regular attack only your troops will desert.
Q: I tried to FA a friend but it said he was out of my range. What is my FA range?
A: Greater than 2.5X your net and you will be unable to FA. There is no limit to how low of an empire you can FA.
Q: I want to cast advance to present or future but I don't have the option. Why?
A: In order to cast advance to present you need to have used a minimum of 500 turns. To go to the future you must have used at least 1,000 turns.
Q: Is there any way to go back to an earlier era?
A: No. Some proms do have the option, some do not. Unless it is as costly as polymorph it will be too easily abused.
Q: My health never gets to 100% no matter how many turns I spend farming/cashing etc... Why?
A: It sounds like your tax rate is set above 11%.
I'm tired of writing for now, will post more later.
Sections to add:
Black Market
Index
Maging
Clan play
Put the names of what each building turns to when you change eras.
Add recommended eras for each strat
FAQ
Roeorganize sections in a more logical manner
If anyone has any questions, comments, or criticisms please feel free to post them.
