Dynasty Origins: Conquest – Game Strategy for Beginners – Strategy for Strategist Zhou Yu

Zhou Yu is a mage that supports the use of Archers. With a line up of strong archers and sufficient guardians or infantry in the front line, it supports a simple strategy of whittling down enemy units whilr keeping their frontline at bay with sufficient defense.

Basic Formation

For illustration, by placing archers at the back and a line of guardians in front, this provides a simple line up that is effective against a basic setup of enemies. 

Variations

The line up can then be adjusted based on the units you have and based on the formation of the enemy. If the enemy formation covers 3 rows or guardians, with one row free, a guardian can be swapped out with light cavalry, that will help take down archers and supports at the back rows.

If the enemy formation uses heavy cavalry on one row, then the archers can be shifted behind guardians while the cavalry are positioned to take out supports and archers.

In certain scenarios where catapults are positioned to cover certain rows, it is preferable to concentrate units in rows that are not in the line of fire. 

Here is another example where units are placed to avoid the line of fire of catapults. Caution should be placed though if there are cavalry units in the enemy formation in the rows which are not occupied. These cavalry will have a free pass to your archers, so in such instances, it would be better for a basic formation with guardians covering every row to be adopted. 

There are also certain circumstances where a random formation like this would work. Where the enemy utilises AOE attacks as a premise of their formation, this sometimes works to counter that strategy.

Last but not least, it is not always easy to have good units suiting the strategy that you intend to have. You can make do with any units that is in your disposal to form a formation for arena or other battles and need not be confined to sticking to a group of guardians to make use of this strategy. 

Thanks for taking the time to read this!

Hello, I am a beginner in this game and just played 2 months ago, and this is the line up that I installed to play this very spectacular game.

From the picture above, I play more for the WU faction, from the strategic Zhou Yu who has the fire element to burn the opponent, it would be very useful for the 3 wu archers I placed including Gan Ning, Xiao Qiao and Sun Shangxiang. where it will trigger Zhou Yu's skill, namely the Archer Captain and a very strong fire shot. and why did I enter zhang he instead of taishi ci because the level of my taishi ci is still low compared to zhang he and zhang he is very effective with his skills that cause poison and the good effect of this poison can be stacked.

for other heroes I choose Da Qiao because of its very good healing effect when Da Qiao takes out the totem he is able to recover HP 2 heroes this effect is not maximized because my Da Qiao is still 4 stars.

for the front i chose liu bei, huang gai and sun jian starting from liu bei why i chose him as infantry because of his skill which is immortal when he dies will remain in the battlefield when there are allied units that are still alive this effect will prolong liu bei is alive because I have Da Qiao and Huang Gai as healers. and the reason why i chose huang gai and sun jian in the front row is also because for sun jian he will trigger the tiger general skill which is the main combo for the WU line up, and he is able to cause slow effects for opposing heroes and it's possible for my archer heroes to deal more damage and huang gai acts as a tanker and also a healer who will make this line up last longer on the battlefield. for the beasts I chose the ground ox which had the strongest defense among the three beasts. for the beasts I chose the ground ox which had the strongest defense among the three beasts.

now we go to the position of the hero on the top left I enter Gan Ning and Xiao Qiao who will act as damage dealers which when the battle is just running the two archers will get a buff from the unpredicttble relic thereby increasing its power by 2.5% to 3 enemies, and in front of sun jian when the fight starts will bring up a yellow turban army so that it will prolong the life of sun jian and he will give more debuffs.

and the most important of this strategy is that the cost is not so much and to get this free hero can be found in the recruit menu where we need our money and can compete with the high spanders

Before I close my explanation of the strategy I have I will show you the evidence that it will work very effectively against Zhuge Liang who made many players stop playing this game.

Wei, Shu, Wu, and Qun are rising up to either supplant the Han Dynasty or to retain it, the fate of the Three Kingdoms relies on the strategies you bring to Dynasty Origins: Conquest!

\"Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, 

while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.\"

With so many ways to make it to the top, it could be overwhelming to someone new to the game. Some people focus on one or two tactics without having a proper overall strategy in place. Only Recruiting characters, or focusing on Nine Prefecture quests, or ruling PvP events are some tactics people tend to focus on. These tactics can be extremely valuable in the hands of the right warlord, but not so effective without an overall strategy behind them.

Below are strategies you can employ to easily to climb the leaderboards and into the ranks of some of the greatest warriors in the game; as well as keep it fun and interesting to play daily! 

Each of these topic areas will identify specific areas of your city and the activities that contribute to advancing the story, recruiting heroes, understanding their potential, being active, and becoming the conqueror of the Three Kingdoms!

1.Quests and Advancing the Story

2.Recruiting Heroes and Champions

3.Understanding their Potential

4.Being Social

5.Becoming a Warrior Strategist!

1. QUESTS AND ADVANCING THE STORY

  One of the main things to do in your city are the NINE PREFECTURES quest and story missions. 

Here, you journey through the lands of the Three Kingdoms in CHAPTER MISSIONS by challenging heroes, testing your knowledge of Three Kingdoms trivia, or lay siege to castles all the while using the team of heroes you have been collecting. 

 This is one of the ways to receive experience quickly to level up and unlock more of your city. Almost anything you do in Dynasty Origins: Conquest will amount in some experience points, feats, or coins and you’ll see through the course of this guide that you should do them ALL to level up fast!

 You’ll soon unlock BATTLES which is more of a challenge and require more strategy in terms of troop and hero placement.  BATTLES and CHAPTER MISSIONS will mainly reward you with: Gear Materials, Feats, and Coins. Some BATTLES will reward you with Character Shards which can be used to unlock heroes or level up their stars.

By level 40, you’ll also have unlocked the following:

- CHIBI BATTLES – Like battles but with an added challenge of pre-determined “engines.” Rewards here include: Elixirs and Mystic Herbs.

- BATTLE OF YELLOW TURBANS – Like climbing a tower where troops get harder the higher you climb. Rewards include: Enhancement Books (for troops) and Troop Tokens (unlocks new troop types for heroes).

- INTERNAL AFFAIRS – Time-based activity. Rewards include: Coins and Gear Materials.

In addition to the NINE PREFECTURES, there are a lot of events going on in the world of Dynasty Origins: Conquest. In the screenshot below, you can see at least eight on the top section of the screen. In addition to the QUESTS option next to the NINE PREFECTURES.

 Fulfilling challenges and time-based quests will greatly reward you with feats and coins, rare characters, relics, or other enhancement items! Many of these missions do not require you to pay-to-win, but rewards for spending some real coin can be well worth the price!

These change often, so what you see may not be reflective of what you see. Some change daily or monthly which makes the game harder to put down.

2. RECRUITING HEROES AND CHAMPIONS

In the heart of your city is the RECRUIT building. Outside of buying or winning a hero from a challenge, this is the fastest way to gain shards or fully unlock a hero! 

There are two types of summoning of heroes. 

NORMAL RECRUIT

Usually one-star to two-star heroes here. Great for getting started. 

Later, once you’ve unlocked stronger heroes, you can gain individual shards of those heroes from the Normal Recruit screen. 

This will also summon gear materials needed for strengthening your hero as well.

  ELITE RECRUIT

A 10x pull will guarantee a three-star hero so it is best to save your Advanced Talent Orders for a 10 pull. 

You can also take a change and perform a single summon. You have a higher chance for SR and above heroes in Elite Recruits and / or their shards if you’ve already unlocked a hero.

PURCHASING HEROES

There are some awesome SSR heroes who are—or who start off as—purchase only. 

See, Huang Zhong, below and is a great archer character that pairs well with other Shu archers. 

COMPLETING MISSIONS

Whether it’s a NINE PREFECURE chapter mission, an event challenge, a Facebook or Discord activity, or a festival reward you can unlock some amazing characters Just. By. Playing. The. Game. Zhang He is shown below.

 Now that we have some heroes to work with, let’s find out how to turn them into warriors!

3. UNDERSTANDING THEIR POTENTIAL

The original Romance of the Three Kingdoms novel has over 1,000 characters, as of this writing, over 60 of those characters and heroes are in the game! Some events and missions in Dynasty Origins: Conquest are dependent on the stats of your hero and the others based on a combination of the hero and the soldiers/troops they command. 

Understanding your heroes is the first step in unlocking their potential in battle and in identifying which ones you want—by your side—when things turn ugly! It also helps you counteract the team set out by your opponent—when you can “scout” your enemy. 

We’ll outline two stat categories that all heroes have. 

The first of these categories affect these stats:

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• ATK: Attack - How hard you can hit.
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• HP: HP or Health Points - How much damage you can take.
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• ASPD: Attack Speed - How often you can get your attacks in.
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• DEF: Defense - How much you can take before you lose HP.
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These highly influence activities centered around the hero, but their troops also benefit, especially if the hero has a skill that applies the hero’s stats to their troops! Yes, I’m looking at you Zhang Jue!

The next stat category governs the following three stats:

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• STR: Strength; each point of strength increases STR DMG or strength damage by 1% and reduces strength damage by 0.4% for the hero and the soldiers. Higher strength deals/protects against melee damage.
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• INT: Intelligence; each point of intelligence increases INT DMG or intelligence damage by 1% and reduces intelligence damage by 0.4% for the hero and the soldiers. Higher intelligence deals/protects against more magic/missile damage.
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• LEA: Leadership; each point of leadership increases STR DMG reduction by 0.6% and reduces INT DMG by 0.6% for the hero and the soldiers. High leadership prevents STR and INT damage to your hero and troops.
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These stats increase the amount of DMG or damage they inflict or that they can reduce from a battle. So, what’s the difference between DMG (Damage) and ATK (attack) anyway? 

Here is a rough diagram of why these are different and important stats to understand:

Note: There are more game mechanics that impact these numbers, but this is a simplistic view to illustrate the how to view ATK, DEF, DMG, and HP stats.

When you STAR UP a hero, these two stat categories mentioned, get boosted. The hero’s TALENT SKILL gets stronger as well, making them even more formidable!

Next thing to note is that each hero has their own hero CLASS. This is where they really start to differ. These classes are:

 GUARDIANS 

These are heavily armored front-row shield-bearing melee fighters. They gain a shield equal to a percentage boost of their maximum HP. These characters can only be placed on the two front columns of the battle-grid. You’ll see these also called PADVISORS in the game on different screens.  

 INFANTRY 

These are also melee fighters who have balanced attack and defense and work with other melee troop types (Guardians and Infantry). Two or more melee troops together can increase the total attack by a percentage boost! Just like the Guardians, these characters can only be placed on the front two columns of the battle-grid.

 LIGHT CAVALRY 

They are fast troops that ride beasts or swift horses and can race past blank enemy slots to attack the backline first. When they attack support teams like Supports or Archers, the gain a Crit Rate percentage boost! These characters can be placed anywhere on the battle-grid but can sneak by enemy frontline troops if they are on the two rear columns of the battle-grid and there are no enemies on the same line. 

 HEAVY CAVALRY 

These are high first-strike-attack horse troop types can devastate front-line shields. Heavy Cavalry deal damage equal to a percentage boost when engaging in combat for the first time. This initial damage ignores the enemy’s defense! Like Light Cavalry, these characters can be placed anywhere on the battle-grid.

ARCHERS 

These are your missile/ballistic attack characters and are your main damage dealers. They deal higher damage the further away they are from their targets. Every 100 distances increase the archers total attack by a percentage boost. These characters can only be places on the two rear columns of the battle-grid. 

SUPPORTS 

These are your magic dealers. They can also boost your troops or weaken the enemy. Like archers since they are missile/ballistic troops. Since they are magic based, these characters take less spell damage from strategists by a percentage boost! These characters can only be places on the two rear columns of the battle-grid.

THESE PERCENTAGE STATS ARE AFFECTED BY THE TECH TRAITS FROM THE SOLDIER TAB

In addition to being in different CLASSES, each hero has their own TALENT SKILL and four SKILLS.

TALENT SKILLS are unique to that character and can make or break who you deploy and how you place them on the battlefield!

 TALENT SKILL EXAMPLE: 

Zhang Liao who has the “Unstoppable” Talent Skill which increases the ATK of all allies on the same lane by 50% when the battle begins for 12 seconds! 

Leveling up his stars you can see at four stars, he also boosts the allied units in the same row! Placing him on the right battle grid could boost your entire squad.

TALENT SKILLS are upgraded when the character raises their STAR LEVEL. This can be done by using character shards found from various missions around the game, and recruitment activities. 

SKILLS also make your character’s play-style unique. 

Some characters share the same SKILL and / or trigger these skills or skill-bonuses when paired with other characters who have the same SKILL. 

AFFINITY SKILL EXAMPLE:

Zhang Jue, Zhang Liang, Zhou Cang, and Liao Hua all have the “Yellow Heaven” skill. 

If deployed individually, they summon a Yellow Turban Guard every 20 seconds. 

If you have three of them in a battle formation, they will each summon Yellow Turban Guards when battle begins! 

SKILLS are unlocked by ADVANCING the character using GEAR MATERIAL (the character’s color rating – White, Green, Blue, Purple, Orange). GEAR MATERIALS can be found in PREFECTURE CHAPTER MISSIONS, BATTLE MISSIONS, REWARDS FOR EVENTS or through NORMAL RECRUITMENT.

Some skills are also triggered by having one or more characters on the battlefield of the same factions or families to which these heroes belong. The factions / families are Wei, Shu, Wu, and Qun. The NOTEBOOK tab on the city screen, is a great way to see which faction the character belongs, how they are related, and learn more about their backstories. 

Using DANQING PIGMENT will level up the characters in the NOTEBOOK. You have the option to level these up when you unlock a new character, as they STAR LEVEL up, or unlock their relationships will benefit ALL your heroes in your collection! 

That being said, let’s talk about all the ways you can boost your heroes’ stats without even touching the HERO TAB!

  HERO INDEX: Shows all the characters you’ve unlocked. Each character, their star level, and their rank (R, SR, SSR, SSR+) contributes to your overall Index Progress. Each level up of the Index Progress increases ALL HERO and ALL SOLDIER ATK by 2%! Each hero’s level index also boosts ALL HERO stats such as ATK, HP, and DMG%. On top of that, each character belongs to a family/faction which also boosts stats. 

As you also unlock EPIC PAIRINGS such as Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei in their Peach Garden Oath, you receive EPIC Index Progress. Making it easier to level up your Index and more of the storied background of these characters. All these boosts just by collecting heroes! Forget Pokémon, this is where you want to catch them all! 

SOLDIER TAB: When you unlock the Battle of the Yellow Turban missions, you will be able to collect Enhancement Books and Soldier Tokens. These are redeemed in the SOLDIER Tab on the city screen. This screen boosts the soldiers that your heroes command. Upgrading the unit type, the technology, and the unit traits can make your troops feared amidst the battlefield. 

  RELICS TAB: Relics are like having the Tri-force of Power! Like the HERO INDEX, you can collect relics such as weapons, seals, scripture, armor, or other Three Kingdom artifacts which can turn the tide of any battle! Individually, these relics increase stats, but the real power comes from collecting relic sets.

  ALLIANCE TECH: This section of your Alliance can help boost the strength of your hero and the soldiers/troops they command. You gain ALLIANCE POINTS by contributing to the growth of your alliance. These points can be redeemed, here, at the ALLIANCE TECH, to level up your team. 

Focusing on these things—as you can see here—can take 

your hero from peasant to champion, quickly!

Now, within the HERO tab itself, you can see the portraits of all the heroes you’ve collected. Arranged from strongest BR to weakest BR and grouped by the heroes you currently have deployed in your squad(s).  

We’ll talk strategy of SQUADS and prioritizing hero improvement, but since we’re discussing understanding hero potential, let’s dive into this HERO tab a little more with an example of one character we just got: Yu Jin.

We have already leveled him up to 11 of 45 (45 is my current level cap), changed out the troop type to the best troop type we have for his class (Elite Archers), leveled up his Captaincy, and advanced him to GREEN Quality. Doing so unlocked a new skill called SHARP BLADE. We won’t talk Elixir or Hero Spirits here since those come later in the game and can be random as to which spirits you find and which elixirs you discover. That said, these options are another area you’ll want to prioritize your main and secondary squad heroes!

Using FEATS, I can continue to level him up and this will increase his base stats of ATK and HP. These are his new stats after leveling him up to level 20.

Now that he’s leveled up, his troops can level up too. This is done under CAPTAINCY. Training troops requires COIN. Captaincy can be equal to or less than the hero’s level. It’s good practice to keep hero level and captaincy the same. While under CAPTAINCY, let’s just take a quick look at the stats of the soldiers under your Hero’s command. 

Like a hero, they also have ATK, HP, ASPD, DEF. Additionally, they have ATK Range and MSPD. 

ATK Range is the range in which the troops can begin initiating an attack. MSPD is Movement Speed which is different than Attack Speed. This refers to how fast the troops move on the battlefield. You can see here that these Elite Archers have a movement speed of 90 compared to Cavalry which have a movement speed of 200+. If you’ve unlocked traits for your troop type under the SOLDIER city tab, your troops may have a new skill or boost as seen here with the ELITE ARCHER TRAIT. 

ADVANCING increases the quality of your hero and mainly influences ATK and HP stats. It also unlocks hero SKILLS. Each piece of equipment increases stats. So even if you cannot create a matching set, a boost is a boost! Here, we’ve increased Yu Jin to BLUE Quality. His stats increased and we can unlock the Five Elite Generals skill.

STAR UP will increase the hero’s ATK and HP as you use shards to advance through the tree. Each star level will increase their STR, INT, and LEA stats as well as improve their TALENT SKILL. Let’s star up Yu Jin and see how this affects his stats. 

Notice how each stage of the star tree can increase a hero’s ARK and HP stats as they are activated.

These are the main areas you want to focus your daily goals on: 

1. Leveling and Captaincy to match your current level

2. Advancing your main Squad Characters 

3. Staring them up and unlocking their Skills! 

If you do these things in the HERO tab and focus on the boosts mentioned earlier without touching the HERO TAB, your heroes and troops will become beasts!

4. BEING SOCIAL

There are a handful of social and community-based activities in Dynasty Origins: Conquest and it is recommended that you take part in all of them—or at least the ones that are in-game—because “going at it alone” is not advised.

The ones that are not in-game are the Facebook site and the Discord channel. You can get to both from the PLAYER SETTINGS by tapping your Player Portrait from the city screen. 

There are also mission links to these news items from the city screen as new promotions, out-of-game games, and discussions happen. Taking advantage of reviewing game news in these channels helps keep abreast to new character launches, game codes, and other fun stuff. 

FRIENDS – It is recommended to add active and strong friends. 

1. You can send each other stamina daily (you can receive up to 60 stamina a day) 

2. Communicate and learn from each other via Chat.

3. Many of the Challenges and Chibi events, you can use heroes from your friends and alliance members as aid. 

Having strong friends can mean the difference between a loss or a close win.

ALLIANCE – Join an alliance that is active! As your alliance grows, so do the activities you can participate in and unlock more rewards you can win together. 

You can acquire coins via the SALARY section. The higher your position in the Alliance, the more coin you receive everyday.

The ALLIANCE ASSIST is where you can assign your own characters for assists to your Alliance members and Friends and find out which characters your Alliance and Friends are sharing! If your hero gets used, you acquire Coins too! 

THRONE HUNTER contain gameboard missions that your Alliance completes together. The goal is to conquer each Warlord faction within the week. You win coin, special character shards, and other resources here.

ALLIANCE TECH was discussed earlier and can give you added boosts to all your heroes and troops.

DEVELOPMENT tab is where you and your alliance members use coin or ingots to level up your alliance. They higher the level, the more assists you can use, the more members you can attract, the greater the tech boosts, and more coin you can receive!

World Warfare is a “capture and hold” game where your alliance and those of your server compete to hold strategic locations on the map to gain spirit energy. Spirit energy can be used to unlock spirit elements to further boost your hero’s stats.

This social section may seem short, but it cannot be understated how a connected alliance and strong friends can mean to success and expose you to more content from the developers who sneak in all sorts of goodies! 

At the same time, you can meet some very cool people who share a similar affinity to the Three Kingdoms lore and learn about other great games from the developers.

5. BECOMING A WARRIOR STRATEGIST

Now it’s time to take everything you’ve learned about your heroes and put it into practice on the battlefield. This is the part which sets Dynasty Origins: Conquest apart from many other strategy-based games. Just because someone has a higher TBR (Total Battle Rating), doesn’t mean you cannot beat them. This section will talk about how you can make this happen.

Sun Tzu is another ancient Chinese war strategist, and I’d like to use some of his tried and true methods of kicking butt here to talk about the art of warfare in Dynasty Origins: Conquest.

STRATEGY ONE: Employ the Tactics that Fit Your Game Style 

Simply put; everything we talked about up to this point, you should put into practice. 

Think about what kind of player you want to be. A Casual Gamer, a Leader of a Rebellious Alliance, or a Warlord whose goal is to make it to the top of the leaderboard! 

Take a step back and ensure that your overall strategy is defined so that you can focus on the aspects that make the game fun for you and align to your style of play. There are so many aspects that cater to all player types. Consider the following:

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• What kind of characters are you going to prioritize (Ranged or Melee or Cavalry?) 
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• How do you plan on participating in PvP or PvE events? 
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• Do you plan on adjusting your lineup for each attack or specific situations?
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• Do you auto-fight everything?
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• Do you enjoy good storytelling or the action-aspects of the game?
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Asking questions like these can help you develop a true competitive advantage that clearly differentiates you from the other players in the game and allow you to enjoy more rewards.

STRATEGY TWO: Know Yourself and Your Enemy

This lesson essentially focuses on understanding your strengths and weaknesses as well as those of your enemies.

Take a good assessment of the characters you have accumulated. You’ll want a handful of each class to be able to shift your battlefield strategy to overcome your enemies. 

Start by asking yourself these questions:

1. Are my strongest characters frontline (melee), cavalry (heavy or light) or backline (ranged)?

a. Guardians absorb damage and protect the back row, giving them time to deal damage. Their Shield allows them to take more punishment.

b. Infantry are important in a melee lineup in the front. In addition to dealing damage, they can also help Guardians take a beating.

c. Light Cavalry are excellent flank attackers. If you can open a hole in the enemy's front line, they can charge into the enemy's back row.

d. Heavy Cavalry units have powerful charge attacks which ignore DEF stats. This can disrupt enemy frontlines and throw them into chaos. 

e. Archers are your main damage dealers unless you prefer a combo of other troops.

f. Supports can both weaken enemies and strengthening your allied troops.

2. Where are my weak spots in my line up?

a. If your enemy is deploying a lot of cavalry, counter with a melee and support based team.

b. If they have mainly archers and support, counter with Cavalry and Guardians.

c. If you lack what can counter your enemy’s lineup, summon new heroes, or find ways to manipulate how the fighters engage on the battlefield. Example: Staggering how you set the frontline might increase the survivability of your frontline troops since the enemy may not get the melee boosts that come when two melee troops attack together.

3. Which characters pair well together and are there skills/talents that trigger if they are deployed together?

a. First, look at the Talents and Skills of your core team members. If they have Affinity-based skills, see if you have characters who qualify. Example: Liu Bei has the Han Dynasty skill which increases all Shu Units ATK stat by 10%. Knowing this, take a look at the Hero Index and see which Shu officers you’ve unlocked. Look at their skills and Talents; how do they pair with Liu Bei? Do they have other characters who are not Shu officers that pair well with them? Like Sun Shangxiang, she is from Wu but if Liu Bei is in the squad, her Harmony skill gets an added 10% boost. Now, we have an Infantry class and an Archer class hero. Continue to build from there.

4. Which character skills/talents work well together?

a. Like the note above, think also about how each hero’s skills trigger. Let’s look at Zhao Yun. His Fearless Hero Talent unleashes dragon strike (attacks an entire row of enemies in front of him). This also inflicts PIERCE which means enemies will take additional damage. On the same row or column, place Sun Jian who has the Shipwreck Talent Skill which does group DMG to the enemy on the first hit and inflicts Slow, NOW you have enemy units who are inflicted with Pierce, taking extra damage when Sun Jian’s troops smash into them, now they are Pierced and Slow. If you had an archer who had the Wu Archer Skill, this skill triggers a 20% crit bonus if the enemy is afflicted with Slow—which means almost instant death!

5. Which mage/strategist do I focus on for my lineup?

Your mage / strategist can turn the tide of a battle. There are 12 Mages—as of this writing—and each have their own strengths which can balance out the rest of your military strategies. Let’s take Zhou Yu, for example. He can make your Archer squad lethal assassins with his boost to Archers and Burn magics. He also has spells that Slow enemy units and increase the Crit rates of your troops. On the other end of the spectrum, you have Xun Yu who can keep your troops in the thick of a fight by healing and shielding your squad from damage. 

Unlike the skills of your heroes and troops, Mage / Strategist magic is controlled by YOU! (well, you can also have the AI automatically do the work, but it may not do exactly what you want when you want it).

6. What characters or class types are the most difficult for my team to overcome?

See item one in this section to get an idea of which troop types can typically overcome the other. While it is not a true 1:1 Rock, Paper, Scissors aspect of play, it is a good place to start if you find yourself hitting a wall. 

7. What characters are top players utilizing?

One of the best ways to learn how to become better, is to see what other people are using to win. Therefore it’s important to have a strong social presence with your friends or your alliance and/or be watchful of what heroes are being deployed when engaging in PVP events.

STRATEGY THREE: Deployment on the Battlefield

 In this quote Sun Tzu is referencing the terrain, or landscape that one faces in battle. I like to apply this to how characters are deployed on the battlefield. 

The best place to learn about character placement and which characters to use against a specific defense is the DRILL area of the city. 

Each of these missions do not cost stamina, nor does it penalize you for losing a match. 

You can literally play these over and over to try different strategies to win against varying odds. 

You will learn about Mage utilization, using light cavalry in the right situations, pairing characters up who have affinities with each other, and more! 

The lesson in the image below is choosing which characters to deploy together based on the enemy’s formation. 

The strategy guide and clues which the in-game strategist shares will help make you think. 

Some of the missions can be won with a multitude of options, as you clear one scroll to the next, there are instances where only one or two sets of placement or timing of a mage’s spell will ensure victory.

Another “safe” place to test out your knowledge of battle formations against a multitude of enemy formations is the Battle of the Yellow Turbans missions. Not only are these missions free (no stamina required) with each win you receive Enhancement books, and on special levels Troop Tokens. But my favorite part is studying the various troop formations the game throws at you. 

Looking at the enemy formations here, how would you counterattack their positions? Maybe adopt one of these battle formations for yourself on another game mode you’re stuck on. Or mix and match. The first formation—for example—has a Heavy Cavalry unit followed by two Light Cavalry units. This is a good way to punch a hole in an enemy’s shield defensive line so the Light Cavalry can defeat back line troop types (like in formation 5).

STRATEGY FOUR: Build Your Core and Diversify Your Squads

Early on, you will want to focus on a core eight (8) characters. This may also be the team you put in as a defense in the arena; but this will be the team to which all others should bow down! *ahem* As you attract new heroes, you will want to continue to adjust this squad; but this *is* your core squad. 

Later in the game, you will need to deploy a strong secondary team (Chibi Battles and World Warfare or other cross-server wars). Also, when conquering the TRIALS castles, your health does not replenish from fight-to-fight (if they die, they are out of the lineup until healed or Trials is reset). This means, you will need to have other squad line ups ready to deploy.

I like to approach this by looking at my core squad and find secondary or tertiary builds around them with other characters I have obtained. Or, if I just won a new character or purchased one from the store, build a squad around their strengths. You can figure this out by analyzing the skills and talents on the Hero or Hero Index screens, or when viewing the battlefield, there is an About Combining option which is reflective of which heroes you currently own.

As mentioned earlier, it is good to have a handful of each class to work with. You will come up against teams that are melee heavy, so counter with strong shields and a barrage from your archers. Or if they are range heavy, have light cavalry that can mop up the back row in an instant. 

My Core Squad is a balance of frontline defense and a ranged group that destroys anything in its way. I line up my frontline guys to match up with the enemy’s front line. Using the talent skills of Zhang Liao and Zhao Yun, my in-line ranged team gets a mega boost of ATK and the group they are attacking gets hit with PIERCE making their defense drop within the first crucial moments of the fight. Once their frontline is gone, my melee team does the rest. 

My Secondary Squad is similar but is focused on summoning other troops. Yellow Turbans and beasts. But—if the need arises—the characters I use here pair well with characters in my main team.

My Third Squad is built around breaking holes in the frontline—fast—and allowing light cavalry to do the rest. I use this team when mostly going against Guardian / Archer combos. These also work well for pincer attack formations (Top row and bottom row) to squeeze enemy formations in the middle.

My Fourth Squad I am working on is going to be tank-based. Healers in the back and one or two major damage dealers, but a hulking guardian frontline. 

Remember: You can mix and match hero lineups depending on the event or activity. 

STRATEGY FIVE: Timing is Everything

 A decision to act only is going to be successful if the action is appropriate for the situation presented. Having a quality strategy is very important but being able to recognize the moment to strike and execute various aspects of your strategy is what separates a good strategist from a great one.

I mentioned earlier how you might want to intentionally place heroes in a row so that their subsequent attacks stack on each other. This requires understanding of two things: 1. Their MSPD or movement speed of their troops and 2. How their skills are triggered. 

One aspect that isn’t commonly known is how troops types will engage with enemy units as they meet in the middle of the battlefield. Infantry and Guardians, for example, will make turn from going straight, to the first enemy unit they are in proximity to. Cavalry will continue to charge forward until they meet resistance. Supports and Archers will move forward only until they are within attack range. 

To understand how my heroes and troops work together, I will sometimes play some specific early Battles, or other Missions with 2 – 3 heroes deployed. I watch the battle unfold on the slowest speed so I can really analyze and adjust their position so they either attack in unison or consecutively. Doing this, you can home in on how much enemy—and how fast—enemy health is drained. After each fight, look at the summary screen to then see how long each hero survived, how much damage they were able to inflict, etc.

The next aspect of timing is all based on you as the controller of the Mage Spells. This takes practice and requires you to be attuned with what is occurring on the battlefield. Many missions, I will auto the mage spells most of the time until I hit a wall. Note: I manually operate my Mage during PvP battles, but I gain practice by manually operating the mage during key PvE missions.

When I do hit a wall, I will re-watch what happens during the battle and identify where my troops get stuck, the point where one of my main heroes dies, and what is the enemy units doing at those moments. With this in mind, I will pick the right mage for the situation and trigger their magical skills as they are needed by my squad or when the enemy is bunched up. (There are specific Drills that help you master this technique too!   

Fundamentally, victories come down to the correct thing(s) happening at the right time.

STRATEGY SIX Seize Opportunities to Advance

Simply put, success breeds success. With each win—if you are looking at the win with an eye for improvement—you will continue to see more rewards and opportunities come your way. 

The key is to be balanced and prepared to recognize and take advantage of the various opportunities that present themselves. Whether it is a special event, a limited time character or gifts, saving summons or other relic crafting till the daily “bonuses” are in play. 

The more you play, the more you win. See you at the top of the leaderboards!