Before I start I have a strategy that was so rough I had to forfeit because it was moving so slowly, but against me:
I think my enemy started by either:
a) Having one miner pray and one miner mine.
b) Having both miners pray, and at 50 Mana, immediately moving to mining.
I'm going to assume that it is case a, simply because for this strategy it seems more effective.
S/he then, at 50 Mana, bought a Spearton, and when the miner finished, bought another miner, so there were then two miners and one prayer. When the prayer reached 50 again, s/he had the prayer start mining, and then sent out the first Spearton to attack my statue (I had developed three miners and a castle archer, so it managed to take down the Spearton after a little bit). Now because this took so long, there would be time to make a new Spearton, so when I just sent my miners out, hoorah! Another Spearton! So of course I had to go back, and let my castle archer kill the Spartan guy (cause come on, we all know it's a Spartan), and again, it did, and when I came out, there was another Spearton!
This could have gone on until I lost, because I had no income or strong defense!
So there you go, if you feel lucky and as if your opponent did not train a regular archer or sword guy, then go for it, but however, this is easily beaten by another strategy.
If you think you're dealing with an opponent that won't blitzkrieg you with a few swordy guys right away, try having both your miners pray until 200 Mana and send out a flying archer. Immediately have both miners mine and make a few miners/archers/sword guys/whatever suits your fancy. Right here you can choose to, a) play defensive and sit by the statue, b) play risky and take over the tower, or c) attack the statue.
If you go for a, which I think is the best idea personally, you should (here is where things go into my opinion and where, if you want to, you can always go for a different maneuver) play strong-defensive. Make a miner wall as soon as possible, with the flying archer there to stop any archers or sword guys that may rush you, and to protect the miner. Now make some archers and giants (while all this is going on, slowly add in more miners, and don't put in giants until you have a considerable number of archers), and when that's all done, work on swordgeeks. The idea here is to wait out the opponent until they attack, and when they do, obliterate their forces sitting behind the wall, and move onwards, with the swordiers acting as a temporary meat shield for the giants (they do best with a nice wall in front of them).
But you can also conquer the Obelisk, and should you do that, you have two more options (it's like a fractal! keeps branching out!), depending on the size of the field. If it is a large field, do whatever you want but make the tower strong, after all, the opponent can see the tower being taken over and might want to attack you. On the other hand, if you have a smaller field where, by standing at the control tower, the opponent can see your soldier type, make swordwraths. Obviously the enemy is going to make archers to combat the flying archer (hopefully not a flying archer to counter you, because they probably made swordwraths and miners and can't afford to send out an albowtross), so you need some quick, strong, manly-man fellas to take 'em out. When they do, immediately work on building a strong army at the control. It is up to you whether you make ghosts or not, but remember that if your opponent starts a sizable army in the time it takes you to get ghosts, they may be able to oust you from the tower.
If you're really offensive and want to damage their economy, you're taking some serious risks here. If they have made any castle archers you'll need to run away immediately, but if not, start by targeting all miners, so they don't have enough funds to make any castle archers. Then, begin attacking whatever ground troops they may have formed, and when they're all gone, start attacking the statue. If an archer comes out, don't sweat it. One flying archer can beat a regular archer easily, and your opponent surely won't have the funds necessary to create two archers. So then you win! However this tactic is extremely emphatic on luck; you'll have to decide for yourself whether you want to run the risk of sending out your only offensive so early, especially when you only have two miners and 50 gold (although you should be mining while you attack!). Note, though, that if you plan only to damage their economy, you may be doing yourself worse, because obviously your foe sees you as an offensive player and will start to make a quick defense, which usually means mining walls and castle archers. If you plan to get past that easily you'll have to sit around for a while and develop a strengthened army, and prepare for a nice attack or well-prepared defensive over at their castle.
Another strategy is an extremely defensive technique. It involves almost no movement past the second gold field whatsoever, until the veeeerry end. Begin by developing a castle archer and training another miner. (Note that this tactic is weak to the first strategy mentioned) When the first two miners deposit their gold, purchase another miner and a mining wall, and set both the newbies to mining. Then when one or two of them have finished, have one of the miners make a wall after the first gold field but a little bit before the second (so that your soldiers' default position is guarded by the stakes). Now work on making a few archers, developing your castle archers, and making giants (along with miners, obviously), in that order. If the opponent goes for the control tower, make at least one giant after the first few archers and upgrade it all the way, so that if they spawn ghosts, you'll have no trouble for a while dealing with the Speartons. Because ghosts are usually a distraction piece, focus on making three to four giants, and then finish up your archers, so that you can eliminate the ghosts quickly by stunning and killing them rapidly with rocks while the archidons train. Make sure to have a number of swordwrath on hand, because, as mentioned earlier, they are going to be your meat wall when you make an offensive at the end (in case there is some meat to be walling, although it is doubtful). Set them to standing in place and attacking those in range, so that they don't commit suicide too early on, especially if the enemy is spawning giant ghosts. Once you're all done with your entire army (aim for 6-8 sword men, 4-5 giants, and a vast number of archidons, although a meric or two wouldn't hurt), sit back, make a number of miner walls, and wait for an attack. At this point you can hoard your gold or spend it on passive earnings, miner hustle, fire arrows, or other fun upgrades. When the enemy does attack, select all of the ranged soldiers and have them target enemies. Make sure your giants are in front of your archers, because they are your meat shield during the attack, and when you have killed everyone, or they have retreated, go back to defending your statue. Garrison any giants that are seriously injured if you don't have merics on hand, and if there were any casualties, fill them back up with speed. At this point you may want to take over the control tower or sit back and relax at your statue. A major problem with immediately going forward and attacking is that you are going to be attacking on the enemy's soil, and typically, they will spawn a number of Speartons, Archidons, and Giants, which, in time, will ruin you. Be smart here!
So there you go, 3 uncouth, less-common strategies that may or may not work very well! I expect that you will be smart and alter them to each battle, should you actually use them.
Make sure as you play that:
1) You remember to continuously make miners until you have 8 or 9, while developing swordwraths, archidons ... whatever your current strategy calls for.
2) You are aware that shadowraths are a good idea, albeit expensive in the early stages of a game, for scouting to see what type of player you're dealing with (as in how they chose to spend their first 500, and what sort of soldiers they're developing).
3) You know that giants are not something to cower in the face of; even five giants can at most only deal with five players at once. Usually you'll see 1-3, and you can finish them off with a number of Speartons, or a combination of giants as meat shields and tons of archers (Speartons are strong and, in good enough numbers, can take down a number of giants when coupled with a few archers or even just a giant, however this is a costly technique).
4) If you are leading an offensive with giants and archers (which is a bad idea unless it's the end of the defensive strategy), if you are against a few giants, you should select all your ranged people and have them kill each giant one by one (which speeds up the process, and, because after every kill, the enemy deals a fraction of the previous damage, you take less damage), and then start wiping out everyone else.
5) If a Magikill comes along, kill it dead. That bastard could have some poison spell, and if it does, and you're leading an attack against a strong enemy, you may end up risking giants or, if you're lucky, swordwraths. If you plan on using a meric to heal them, you need some serious micromanagement skills (as stated somewhere else in the forums by some clever fellow) skills in a battle. And it's doubtful that you, a teenager sitting around munching on cheese balls while playing on the laptop for the fifth straight hour in a row on some pathetic strategy game that you have a 1300 ranking in, will have any micromanagement skills (that wasn't meant to be an insult; it was an exaggeration of the fact that we're probably all teens and kids who haven't had any experience with extremely close observation and management of forces).
6) You realize that if you're on the strong-defensive technique and the foes are running away, that if you chase them down, it would behoove you to sit on the control tower, because there is a chance that they will start making giants to counter you. It's especially useful to take the tower if they made ghosts earlier.
This is all I can think of atm, but if you have any ideas or if you can think of any serious problems with any strategies, tell me! I'd like to know!
