Friday, October 29, 2010

Lord of Ultima: LoU Flash City Planner - Bookmarked Links Broken for Chrome

For those using my city layouts, bookmarked links for the LoU Flash City Planner (http://www.lou-fcp.co.uk/map.php) are currently broken for Chrome. They still work for Internet Explorer and Firefox though. Hopefully, it will be fixed soon as Chrome seems the browser of choice for LoU (and other browser games).


  • Lord of Ultima is an online web browser based strategy game. More information can be found at my Lord of Ultima Coverage page.
  • If you wish to jump straight in, you can sign up at http://www.lordofultima.com/en/ref/2300431315.
  • As best described by the creators of the game:
    "Lord of Ultima is EA’s first game in the free Strategy MMO genre and is completely playable in a web browser. Developed by EA’s Phenomic studio, the game’s creator Volker Wertich (the genius behind strategy classics such as the Settlers) takes this genre to the next level. Lord of Ultima features deep strategic gameplay and multiple social features including an advanced trading system, alliance features, online chat, and forums. At launch it will be available in English and German language.

    Set in the legendary Ultima universe, the game takes you to the new world of Caledonia, formed from the remains of Sosaria which was shattered into countless islands. You start your journey with a humble village which you grow over time into a mighty and prosperous capital. On your path to glory you will have to expand your power by creating additional cities, exploring new continents and forging a vast empire. You must master the art of diplomacy and trade as well as the military activities of spying, plundering, attacking and sieging enemy cities to finally become the mighty and feared Lord of Ultima."

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Aloriah: Farming Black Dragons in Dry Steppes

I have now expanded to to the Dry Steppes, putting down my 3rd village. It has been relatively easy prior in the first two zones, but Dry Steppes is a bit of a challenge. Gates spawn and out come Black Dragons that basically try and kill your heroes/village. I lost a lot of troops as Black Dragons are resistant to physical and poison damage, your two primary damage sources.

This changed when I researched my Blacksmith building. One of the things that Blacksmiths do, is allow you to change the damage type of a particular unit. Thus, as soon as I could afford it, I changed the damage type of my Berserkers from physical to fire. Berserkers are ideal as Black Dragons do physical damage and Berserkers have physical resistance. This proved to be a rather clutch play as my Bersekers became a lot more effective against Black Dragons. There is a downside whereby the Sapphire Dragons in Tropical Islands become harder to kill as they have fire resistance but I regard that as a very small downside. Sapphire Dragons are not that hard to kill regardless.

Black Dragons are great to farm, as you get scenario points for killing them and sealing their gates. You can seal their gates with a 'Gate Anti-Seal' which drops from them. I have farmed so many that I have now improved my ranking to #7!

  • Aloriah is an online web browser based strategy game. More information can be found at my Aloriah Coverage page.
  • If you wish to jump straight in, you can sign up at http://www.aloriah.com/?ref=guzzer.
  • As best described by the creators of the game:
    "Aloriah is a free online web browser game based on mythologies of our time.
    Rule a civilization and experience epic events together with thousands of other players.
    • Play for free directly online through your internet browser
    • Expand villages, rally your armies and level your heroes
    • Explore the lands of Aloriah to find its mysteries
    • Journey on legendary quests together with your friends
    • Choose to worship the gods of good or evil"

Friday, October 22, 2010

Aloriah: Coverage Started

I started playing Aloriah a few weeks back. It is more on the side as my main game is currently Lord of Ultima. It is of a lot smaller scale then Lord of Ultima, so the amount of time for empire maintenance is tremendously less. Thus, it should not detract me from Lord of Ultima much. It is a lot more fun then "grindy". The game seems to be designed to not take a lot of time, but I can see the benefits of checking in a lot, as you can direct your armies better. What I like about it is that it has the concept of game rounds/scenarios which last a few months then reset, so things do not get stale. For the long term, achievement points (and their benefits) carry onto the next game round/scenario.

As best described by the creators of the game:
"Aloriah is a free online web browser game based on mythologies of our time.
Rule a civilization and experience epic events together with thousands of other players.
  • Play for free directly online through your internet browser
  • Expand villages, rally your armies and level your heroes
  • Explore the lands of Aloriah to find its mysteries
  • Journey on legendary quests together with your friends
  • Choose to worship the gods of good or evil"

    Further information can be found at:-

    If you decide to join, please do so via my personal reference link (http://www.aloriah.com/?ref=guzzer) so I can get some free Aloriah coins. :)

    Stuff to read to help you get started:
    Forum: http://www.aloriah.com/forum/ (The developers are very active on the forum which is great to see.)
    Guide: Ooykaas & Aernoud Strategy Guide (http://www.aloriah.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=1806)

    I play (as Guzzer) on the Midgard server. At present, I am just playing solo whilst I learn to play properly. However, amidst all the stumbling around, I have managed to be currently ranked at #10 out of 1477 players, so I am pretty happy with that.

    For anyone that joins and needs help, reply here with your question(s) or send me a "Chat" in-game.

    Sunday, October 17, 2010

    Lord of Ultima: Gold City Layout

    Here is my Gold City Layout which you can see in the LoU Flash City Planner.

    Gold Produced: 45,120 per hour

    There is no need to build any walls/towers, as once built, a gold city has no risk. There is nothing produced that can be plundered, nor would you castle it. You could of course build walls/towers if you want to maximize city score for epeen.

    I tend to build some gold cities at the start of the server to get my gold income going, but as my empire grows, and gold income starts to flow from raiding dungeons, I stop building them. Building a military city to raid dungeons is a lot more lucrative then building a gold city. I will be elaborate on that concept in a future post.

    • Lord of Ultima is an online web browser based strategy game. More information can be found at my Lord of Ultima Coverage page.
    • If you wish to jump straight in, you can sign up at http://www.lordofultima.com/en/ref/2300431315.
    • As best described by the creators of the game:
      "Lord of Ultima is EA’s first game in the free Strategy MMO genre and is completely playable in a web browser. Developed by EA’s Phenomic studio, the game’s creator Volker Wertich (the genius behind strategy classics such as the Settlers) takes this genre to the next level. Lord of Ultima features deep strategic gameplay and multiple social features including an advanced trading system, alliance features, online chat, and forums. At launch it will be available in English and German language.

      Set in the legendary Ultima universe, the game takes you to the new world of Caledonia, formed from the remains of Sosaria which was shattered into countless islands. You start your journey with a humble village which you grow over time into a mighty and prosperous capital. On your path to glory you will have to expand your power by creating additional cities, exploring new continents and forging a vast empire. You must master the art of diplomacy and trade as well as the military activities of spying, plundering, attacking and sieging enemy cities to finally become the mighty and feared Lord of Ultima."

    Tuesday, October 12, 2010

    Lord of Ultima: Berserker Military City Layout

    This starts my series of sample city layouts which I hope can provide you with some guidance on city layouts. In addition to the share string and stats, I will provide some insight into my design logic.

    Without further adieu, here is my Berserker Military City Layout which you can see in the LoU Flash City Planner.


    Max Units: 200,000
    Recruitment Speed: 3s
    Storage: 2,975,000 wood/stone/iron/food
    Food Produced: 24,588 per hour (will vary depending on your particular lake placement)
    Food Required: 50,000 per hour
    Food Deficit: 25,412 per hour (need to restock every 4.8 days)

    As you can see, this is not the biggest troop strength city or fastest training speed military city around. It is meant to be a balanced/functional city which you can roll out many of.

    As per my Food Management strategy, there are 3 food clusters. This allows you to let restock every 4 days. You can even go out on the weekend!

    There is a good amount of storage as when not attacking other players, this city can farm dungeons (mountains recommended). Berserker cities are perfect for mountain dungeons as they are susceptible to infantry and you can use the increased iron to restock your berserkers. This leads to high profit.

    The Moonglow Tower allows you to create moonstones within the city, and you can just ship out any excess resources via the 4 Marketplaces.

    If you look carefully, you will see a lone Hideout. This is for plunder defense. If for some reason whereby you cannot defend against a plunder that will take all your food, the Hideout will hold just enough food to prevent troop starvation before you ship in more/trigger an artifact.

    This design assumes you do not place the city on water and have continent control, so the city never gets damaged. That is why there are no cottages to help rebuild speed.

    For towers, I use:
    • Lookout Tower x2 to give 21 hours of attack advanced warning. I find 1 tower/11 hours is not enough.
    • Ballista Tower x22 as the most risk is someone catapulting your city. This is also useful if you do have to place your city on water due to lack of room.
    • Lord of Ultima is an online web browser based strategy game. More information can be found at my Lord of Ultima Coverage page.
    • If you wish to jump straight in, you can sign up at http://www.lordofultima.com/en/ref/2300431315.
    • As best described by the creators of the game:
      "Lord of Ultima is EA’s first game in the free Strategy MMO genre and is completely playable in a web browser. Developed by EA’s Phenomic studio, the game’s creator Volker Wertich (the genius behind strategy classics such as the Settlers) takes this genre to the next level. Lord of Ultima features deep strategic gameplay and multiple social features including an advanced trading system, alliance features, online chat, and forums. At launch it will be available in English and German language.

      Set in the legendary Ultima universe, the game takes you to the new world of Caledonia, formed from the remains of Sosaria which was shattered into countless islands. You start your journey with a humble village which you grow over time into a mighty and prosperous capital. On your path to glory you will have to expand your power by creating additional cities, exploring new continents and forging a vast empire. You must master the art of diplomacy and trade as well as the military activities of spying, plundering, attacking and sieging enemy cities to finally become the mighty and feared Lord of Ultima."

    Thursday, October 7, 2010

    Lord of Ultima: Food Management

    A big part of Lord of Ultima is food. If you do not feed those troops, they will unfortunately desert. You have two choices to make:

    • Make enough food within a city.
    • Ship in food as required, from a food city or warehouse city.
    The trade off is that if you build more mills/farms to make a city self sufficient, you sacrifice troop training speed/army size as you get to build fewer military buildings/barracks. So, the main question is, do you endeavor to make your military cities food positive?

    The resounding answer is yes! As the number of cities in your empire grows, you will find one of the big limiting factors in being successful in Lord of Ultima is time. Therefore, any strategy to reduce your city management time should be welcome. You do not want to be constantly shipping food around. This is within reason of course, as some troops eat so much, and in making those military cities food positive, you have to sacrifice too much.

    Here is what I do in practice:
    • All non-castled support military cities are food positive. This is generally easy to do with 2 x food clusters, assuming you have decent lake placement.
    • For castled military cities:-
      • Land based offensive forces such as knights, mages, etc: 3 x food clusters. This is not enough to make them food positive (no way in hell with knights!), but I do not want to sacrifice too much. I do want to put in some food production so as to give me some time between food shipments. If I want more troops, I just build more of such cities.
      • Naval based forces, ie, shipyards: I do not put any food production in at all, and just ship all food in. The reason being is that each of my shipyards are protected by a cluster of 4 other military cities. I cannot just build more shipyard cities as easily as knight cities, as I need to build the 4 other military support cities also. Therefore, in a shipyard, I do not want to sacrifice any troop training speed/army size.
      • Defensive forces such as rangers: 3 x food clusters. You will find you can get food positivity with such.
    NB: A food cluster is the classic mill and 4 farms deployment, around/next to lakes (when possible).

    • Lord of Ultima is an online web browser based strategy game. More information can be found at my Lord of Ultima Coverage page.
    • If you wish to jump straight in, you can sign up at http://www.lordofultima.com/en/ref/2300431315.
    • As best described by the creators of the game:
      "Lord of Ultima is EA’s first game in the free Strategy MMO genre and is completely playable in a web browser. Developed by EA’s Phenomic studio, the game’s creator Volker Wertich (the genius behind strategy classics such as the Settlers) takes this genre to the next level. Lord of Ultima features deep strategic gameplay and multiple social features including an advanced trading system, alliance features, online chat, and forums. At launch it will be available in English and German language.

      Set in the legendary Ultima universe, the game takes you to the new world of Caledonia, formed from the remains of Sosaria which was shattered into countless islands. You start your journey with a humble village which you grow over time into a mighty and prosperous capital. On your path to glory you will have to expand your power by creating additional cities, exploring new continents and forging a vast empire. You must master the art of diplomacy and trade as well as the military activities of spying, plundering, attacking and sieging enemy cities to finally become the mighty and feared Lord of Ultima."

    Monday, October 4, 2010

    Lord of Ultima: Importance of Boss Farming

    Bosses are random spawns such as Dragons, Hydras, Krakens, and Molochs. They drop loot and artifacts (if the boss is not more then one level below your title). When I started LoU, I used to get so excited about boss spawns and go after them madly. I was so obsessed with them, in that I went after ones 6 hours away. They used to be buggy then too, and half the time, the boss would despawn by time my army reached it. :(

    As the game proceeded and dungeons started to spawn, I stopped farming bosses and focused on dungeon farming, as dungeon farming is more lucrative in terms of gold/resources. This is because dungeon farming is regular (especially with a War Minister) whereas bosses are random.

    However, as I understood the game further, I realized it is very important to farm bosses, and to keep troops in reserve to catch boss spawns. The reason is the artifact drop. Artifacts are like power-ups, they can be used as a boost in a clutch play situation, for example:

    • Rapid recruiting needed defense during a siege.
    • Ensuring your support troops reach your besieged city before the next wave ticks.

    As you can see, a little extra gold/resources are not as helpful as artifacts in situations like the above mentioned.

    Full details about boss raids (including the number of troops you need to send) can be found in the LoU Wiki:
    http://www.lordofultima.com/en/wiki/view/bossraids

    An important point to mention is that level 8/9 bosses 'grey out' as soon as you attack them. Do not pull back your troops, your attack will go off fine. What it means is that only the first person can attack such a boss. Thus, it is even more important to tag that boss first, to prevent your enemies from gaining an advantage on you. Level 10 bosses are mentioned in the Wiki but I do not remember ever seeing one.

    By the way, as mentioned in my post about LoU Tools, you can find bosses rather quickly and easily, using LoU BoS, under the 'Dungeons Summary'.

    • Lord of Ultima is an online web browser based strategy game. More information can be found at my Lord of Ultima Coverage page.
    • If you wish to jump straight in, you can sign up at http://www.lordofultima.com/en/ref/2300431315.
    • As best described by the creators of the game:
      "Lord of Ultima is EA’s first game in the free Strategy MMO genre and is completely playable in a web browser. Developed by EA’s Phenomic studio, the game’s creator Volker Wertich (the genius behind strategy classics such as the Settlers) takes this genre to the next level. Lord of Ultima features deep strategic gameplay and multiple social features including an advanced trading system, alliance features, online chat, and forums. At launch it will be available in English and German language.

      Set in the legendary Ultima universe, the game takes you to the new world of Caledonia, formed from the remains of Sosaria which was shattered into countless islands. You start your journey with a humble village which you grow over time into a mighty and prosperous capital. On your path to glory you will have to expand your power by creating additional cities, exploring new continents and forging a vast empire. You must master the art of diplomacy and trade as well as the military activities of spying, plundering, attacking and sieging enemy cities to finally become the mighty and feared Lord of Ultima."

    Friday, October 1, 2010

    Lord of Ultima: Tools

    One of the first things to do when you start a new game, is to work out and start using the best tools that will make your life easier. These are tools that I use. I will not just paraphrase the features of each tool, you can already learn about their features by visiting the respective sites. What I will do, is describe the features that I use and how they benefit me. This gives you a realistic view rather then the cliched "OMG THIS TOOL IS SO GREAT". The tools will have features beyond what I describe for you to explore. I am just starting you off. End of the day, everyone will have what they like and dislike in a tool, and it is up to you to work that out.

    LoU BoS (http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/84343)

    This is what I consider the big daddy of the LoU tool world. It has a lot of great features. Unfortunately, it only works with Chrome or Firefox at present. However, it is so useful that it is worth changing your default browser for. I find Chrome works better for Lord of Ultima, so that is the browser I use.

    My favorite functions are:
    • Report Export 
      • There are many a time whereby you want to let others see your reports, eg, scout reports for planning, boasting about your battle wins, etc.
    • Combat Simulator
      • It is essential to see an estimated result of your attack before the real thing, so you can decide whether to send it or not.
      • You can load the parameters from your scout reports, attacking cities or defending cities, which makes this combat calculator superior, as it saves you time.
      • I also use the load "Defenders & Defences" option to:
        • See all the defenders assigned to a city being attacked (includes incoming support).
        • See if I have built the right towers and walls for a city.
    • Jump to coords/city
      • A fast way to get to the spot on the map you need to be at, as opposed to scrolling.
    • Summary
      • Military
        • Good way to find those Barons that always go missing!
      • Castles
        • Sort by "Food empty in" to see which of your castles need feeding.
      • Moonstones
        • One click to convert your resources to moonstones from all your defined moonstone cities.
      • Dungeons
        • Good way to work out which dungeons to raid.
        • Quick and easy way to find bosses (Dragons, etc) to raid also.
      • Unit Orders
        • After you have entered those hundreds of attack orders, this is a good place to check them through.
      • Incoming Attacks
        • Way better then the default attack screens. You can easily work out what is being attacked, so you can deploy defense as appropriate.

    This is what I use to plan my cities. What I particularly do is test all my farm/mill cluster placements, as they can vary depending on lake placement. You would be surprised to see how non-obvious combinations yield better production.



    LoU Flash City Planner (http://www.lou-fcp.co.uk/map.php)

    Web based city planner for those that prefer that.


    LoU Tweak (http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/80532)

    This gives me two main functionalities.
    • Hotkeys save your life. They make the game so much faster and easier! For example,
      • Click into a city, hit 'l' 16 times and it upgrades your 16 lowest level buildings! Voila!
    • City Layout Sharestring
      • You can generate sharestrings for the 2 above mentioned City Planners.
        • This saves you putting in all the resources of a new city before planning.
        • I also use it to get a better overview of a completed city, so I can easily check if I missed something.



    LoU Empire Overview (http://lou-tools.com)


    I used to use this tool a lot before LoU BoS came along. Nowadays, I find I do not have to use this at all. Unlike LoU BoS which is in-game, this is out-of-game, so you may prefer this for whatever reason instead.

    • Lord of Ultima is an online web browser based strategy game. More information can be found at my Lord of Ultima Coverage page.
    • If you wish to jump straight in, you can sign up at http://www.lordofultima.com/en/ref/2300431315.
    • As best described by the creators of the game:
      "Lord of Ultima is EA’s first game in the free Strategy MMO genre and is completely playable in a web browser. Developed by EA’s Phenomic studio, the game’s creator Volker Wertich (the genius behind strategy classics such as the Settlers) takes this genre to the next level. Lord of Ultima features deep strategic gameplay and multiple social features including an advanced trading system, alliance features, online chat, and forums. At launch it will be available in English and German language.

      Set in the legendary Ultima universe, the game takes you to the new world of Caledonia, formed from the remains of Sosaria which was shattered into countless islands. You start your journey with a humble village which you grow over time into a mighty and prosperous capital. On your path to glory you will have to expand your power by creating additional cities, exploring new continents and forging a vast empire. You must master the art of diplomacy and trade as well as the military activities of spying, plundering, attacking and sieging enemy cities to finally become the mighty and feared Lord of Ultima."