You guys are neat.

Quote from AsePlayer

DK shop?

Ye :D
darkingdom.enjin.com/shop

Quote from empiresma

Ye :D
darkingdom.enjin.com/shop

Why would anyone want to buy awards?

Quote from AsePlayer

Why would anyone want to buy awards?

well it's cool and it make the players active and they will be fond of tournaments to get the points to buy awards .

Quote from empiresma

well it's cool and it make the players active and they will be fond of tournaments to get the points to buy awards .

ok gl with that I guess

Quote from Azure

You guys are neat.

Hey, thanks.

So I have some questions, specifically about the Order Empire. I've learned a lot from these boards, but there are still a few holes I want to patch up.

-When should I put my first Miner on mana? Since the miner upgrades are so powerful and you need to get them early, but it throttles your early gold gain, esp if you lose tower. Is it as early as the first miner you build, or after you have 4 on gold, or what?
-Is is a viable strategy, on small maps, to put both miners on mana and rush a 15s spear? You win the spear vs Sword/Archer battle for a while, but it puts you back a SHITTON in your economy.
-Are Albowtrosses even used? I've literally never seen one in play.
-When should I transition from Swordwrath to Speartons? I get it can depend on the size of the map, but I have a hard time telling when.
-How do Giants work? They feel like they're supposed to take over the Speartons late-game as the frontline tanks, but unless I hard micro them they're gonna stay in the very back, and even once I get them to the front, they're so sparse they can just walk right past them, unlike speartons. If only Order had Chaos giants...
-Is mass Ragesword a viable strat, and if so in what timeframe can it see use? It would need to be after you can research and get Rage, but before Spearton era, I'd think.
-How many Merics should I have per unit? And how many merics should I have per Giant?
-I minersplit at the beginning but the new miners keep taking a breather after returning from the castle? Don't the new miners follow the old one's lead?
-When should I go for the tower spawn tech? It seems to be almost essential for both scouting and adding an extra Giant to your 80 pop army one you push in, but the giant upgrade costs so much, and you'd probably want that money/time elsewhere.

One more general question: Everything I do in-game, from macro to micro to chatting and clicking anything in general, is delayed by roughly a half-second to a full second. Is this just a part of the game, or is my rig not handling it?

Quote from Talenheim

-When should I put my first Miner on mana? Since the miner upgrades are so powerful and you need to get them early, but it throttles your early gold gain, esp if you lose tower. Is it as early as the first miner you build, or after you have 4 on gold, or what?

I believe the ideal time to put a miner on mana is when you have 5-7 miners on gold (correct me if I'm wrong others)

Quote from Talenheim

-Is is a viable strategy, on small maps, to put both miners on mana and rush a 15s spear? You win the spear vs Sword/Archer battle for a while, but it puts you back a SHITTON in your economy.

Never do a spearton start, if the opponent just makes swords or castle archers you can't do anything without archers backing the spearton up.

Quote from Talenheim

-Are Albowtrosses even used? I've literally never seen one in play.

No, they aren't that viable right now.

Quote from Talenheim

-When should I transition from Swordwrath to Speartons? I get it can depend on the size of the map, but I have a hard time telling when.

Depends on which empire you are facing. Against order you want to stop relatively quickly and focus more on archers, chaos might be the same but getting a few more swords to deal with an early dead is justified and you don't really want to get a spearton against ele until late game. (Again, correct me if I'm wrong)

Quote from Talenheim

-How do Giants work? They feel like they're supposed to take over the Speartons late-game as the frontline tanks, but unless I hard micro them they're gonna stay in the very back, and even once I get them to the front, they're so sparse they can just walk right past them, unlike speartons. If only Order had Chaos giants...

The giants are really just meant to be a meat shield, just pop them in the front. In the case of people rushing right past it, a magikill electric wall or two would shut down the presumable spearton mass you speak of. In general, a magikill, 2+ merics, and archers are a good thing to accompany your giant.

Quote from Talenheim

-Is mass Ragesword a viable strat, and if so in what timeframe can it see use? It would need to be after you can research and get Rage, but before Spearton era, I'd think.

Not really viable unless you catch your opponent off guard, and even then it isn't too great.

Quote from Talenheim

-How many Merics should I have per unit? And how many merics should I have per Giant?

I would say don't pass 3-4. Make sure they are desynced with their healing as well. It maximizes their healing potential (like one is healing while the other is about to start healing)

Quote from Talenheim

-I minersplit at the beginning but the new miners keep taking a breather after returning from the castle? Don't the new miners follow the old one's lead?

You need to direct your miners to mine. If they are taking a breather late game and not moving after 5 seconds it's because all your gold mines are full.

Quote from Talenheim

-When should I go for the tower spawn tech? It seems to be almost essential for both scouting and adding an extra Giant to your 80 pop army one you push in, but the giant upgrade costs so much, and you'd probably want that money/time elsewhere.

When you have an advantage. You don't want to research it only to be pushed off tower. It isn't really "essential" until later in the game, but it is a nice advantage to have if you can swing it. Tower Spawn 2 is only for late games going past 15 minutes usually. (hence the expenses, you have cash to spare with 80 pop)

Quote from Talenheim

One more general question: Everything I do in-game, from macro to micro to chatting and clicking anything in general, is delayed by roughly a half-second to a full second. Is this just a part of the game, or is my rig not handling it?

It might be your rig not handling it or your opponent. If one lags you both lag.

Thanks for the answers, just going to follow up on a few things.

-Giants: My issue is mostly that they can just waltz past the giants straight onto my magikill(s) before they can spellcast, then my merics, then my archers, and leave the giants for last, since they're no longer meatshielding for anyone and therefore overall weaker and easy to take out. I could go ahead and start garrisoning when I realize what's happening, but that still gives the opp the advantage. I have this issue with Speartons to some extent, as well. Probably my fault for assuming bodyblocking is a thing in this game?
-Minersplit: From what I heard, once you split your first 2 miners, as well as the first 2 you make, miners will start following them and not lollygagging after spawning/visiting castle. Am I wrong in this regard, and need to do it for every single miner I make?
-Lag: Weird, I tend to think I have a strong rig (Intel Core i7-4790K Processor, Radeon R9 390 Graphics), and it still does it even at Low settings and the screen minimized to its fullest. Maybe something else going on?

Also: When do I start transitioning into the Giant/Meric/Magikill Order Deathball, from the spearton/archidon time period? Once I have my economy fully stabilized?

shadowgunz is back c:

I would also add that most of the advice Aseplayer is giving you is not absolute rules you must follow. Ultimately you are playing another player and if you see that they're weak with some aspect of the game you generally want to exploit that. If they perform really badly with archer micro you can go for 'sub optimal' heavy archer strats to exploit that, and if they are far too lax with pressure on you you can eco up 'prematurely' and then deathball them or at least spear/archer swarm far more easily than if you don't take advantage.

Stick Empires syncs frame rate between the players and server. It's probably not you, it's probably the latency and the other person using IE 6 on a toaster or maybe at their school. This design undoubtedly solved a lot of otherwise problematic networking stuff but it does create a very sub optimal experience playing.

As for Waltzing, you need to read your opponent. If their units don't look like they've been targeted at your Giant you select your Magikill and start to throw down a spell over it before you see them run past your Giant, because by then it would be too late.

Quote from Talenheim

-Giants: My issue is mostly that they can just waltz past the giants straight onto my magikill(s) before they can spellcast, then my merics, then my archers, and leave the giants for last, since they're no longer meatshielding for anyone and therefore overall weaker and easy to take out. I could go ahead and start garrisoning when I realize what's happening, but that still gives the opp the advantage. I have this issue with Speartons to some extent, as well. Probably my fault for assuming bodyblocking is a thing in this game?

Do you know the hotkeys? That would help in this situation quite a bit. ctrl + the queue number of a unit will select all of that unit. All spells/abilities are controlled with Q W and E. Since electric wall is your third slot, you would want to point your mouse at your magikill, do ctrl + 5 and press E and then click your mouse. You will have to spam it (which should be easy once you get the hang of it) because each time you cast a spell with more than one magikill selected only one magikill does the casting. Your secondary option for spell casting would either be poison their archers or blast the spears, don't try to poison them. Electric wall absolutely tears through speartons, so you should be able to deal with them quickly!

Quote from Talenheim

-Minersplit: From what I heard, once you split your first 2 miners, as well as the first 2 you make, miners will start following them and not lollygagging after spawning/visiting castle. Am I wrong in this regard, and need to do it for every single miner I make?

You must direct every miner you make to either mine or pray (then they take care of themselves), however they will auto mine after 5 seconds of standing there. Once the gold mines are maxed with miners they will just stand, however. Either put them on mana or sacrifice for more population space at that point.

Quote from Talenheim

-Lag: Weird, I tend to think I have a strong rig (Intel Core i7-4790K Processor, Radeon R9 390 Graphics), and it still does it even at Low settings and the screen minimized to its fullest. Maybe something else going on?

It's most likely your opponent if you are at a lower rating. Generally people's internet and PC are better the higher you go in rating. Generally ~1600 rating and below is unreliable for a smooth game.

Quote from Talenheim

Also: When do I start transitioning into the Giant/Meric/Magikill Order Deathball, from the spearton/archidon time period? Once I have my economy fully stabilized?

Well generally you deathball once plan A of archer spam doesn't work. I can't say too too much on deathball since that isn't my forte, but if your opponent is stalling/ you are turtling is when you want to do it. No point in making archers at the 16+ minute mark obviously. If you have spare resources I recommend sacrificing some miners (not too many) and some archers (not all at once) to start getting those essential late game units to transition into deathball.

Quote from Skeletonxf

I would also add that most of the advice Aseplayer is giving you is not absolute rules you must follow.

This ^
You can do it however you'd like as long as you keep the basic principles in mind.

Quote from empiresma

shadowgunz is back c:

Is this a joke? Every single thing you post is DK content lol

Just let the guy enjoy his moments.