Battleground Guide

The following guide has been prepared by Xestos, of Legacy!

QUICK OVERVIEW

Once you understand the underlying dynamics of battlegrounds, they are quite easy to master and you should be able to generally predict when you will and will not get a pay-out.  I say generally as there is always some degree of uncertainty with pay outs in battlegrounds but if you follow the strategies I have set out in this guide and play them safely then you should be able to pre-determine when you get a pay-out 99% of the time.  

There are a lot of misconceptions out there about battlegrounds and how to play them.  In most cases, the information presented is far from complete or even downright wrong.  Having said that I will profess that I do not know all the inner workings of battlegrounds; there are some things that I am still yet to discover or understand but I can at least give people the basic guidelines around how battlegrounds work so that they can be successful in completing them.  

As a quick summary, battleground pay-outs are based on the resource value of the troops lost since your last pay-out.  You have to load a certain amount of resource in before you can get a pay-out on a given battleground level.  I will go into this in more detail below and also some tricks on how to maximize the value of resources you inject into the battlegrounds, but first I need to cover some of the basics.

THE BASICS – DEFENSIVE BATTLEGROUNDS

With defensive battlegrounds, you can send one archer to the BG and it will tell you the troop composition.  

If you want to minimize losses on a defensive battleground (keeping losses to a minimum is not always needed and this will become clearer later as to why), you want to send the troop types that best counter the troops that Balur is attacking with.  

In the example below, you will see that Balur is attacking with mainly bestiary units.  Since you are defending this attack, you also want to send bestiary units as they will be most effective given their stats against offensive units of this type.


THE BASICS – OFFENSIVE BATTLEGROUNDS

With offensive battlegrounds, you need to do things a little differently to work out the troop composition.  When you send troops to an offensive battleground it does not give details on all the Balur troops you have to kill.  Instead it will only tell you what Balur troops you have killed.  You can use this information though to give you a rough idea of what the troop composition is in the battleground.  

In the offensive battleground below, you will see that the most troops I killed were bestiary units.  Therefore I do NOTwant to send bestiary units to this battleground if I want to minimize my losses as they will be least effective due to Balur having a high proportion on bestiary units on defense.  Instead I will need to send cavalry, infantry and occult units (ideally the troop type that I kill the least of when attacking).


So in summary with defensive battlegrounds you want to send the troop type that Balur has the most of while with offensive battlegrounds you want to send the troop type that Balur has the least amount of.  This only applies though where you want to keep troop losses to a minimum.

HOW TO CALCULATE WHEN YOU GET A "BANK" PAYOUT

Bank Pay-outs from battlegrounds are based on the resource cost of the troops you lost since your last pay-out.  By resource cost, I mean the resources it costs to build each troop.  Paladins for example take 100 gold, 150 food and 270 iron to produce – so they have a resource value of 520 per unit.  

Whether or not you will get a bank pay-out on your next battleground will depend on a number of factors including:

• What the resource value of your last pay out was,
• What the level of the battleground you last took a pay-out from was and also what the level, of your current battleground is, 
• The resource value of the troops you have killed off since your last pay-out i.e. your bank,
• Any residual bank you have from any prior pay-outs.

Let’s assume you are targeting a battleground at the same level as your last pay out.   As an example if you got 50 wyverns from your last pay out this is equal to 950,000 resources as the resource cost of one wyvern is 19,000 resources.  So as a general rule, you would need to kill off troops worth 950,000 in resources again before you get another pay-out at the same battleground level.

This assumes there is no residual bank from any prior pay-outs you have received.  As an example of the residual bank, let’s assume you did your very first battleground and you killed off troops worth 1,000,000 resources. However you received a pay-out worth only 800,000 resources. The battleground system therefore still owes you 200,000 resources.  This 200,000 of lost resources carries over to your next battleground pay-out i.e. you only need to kill off another 600,000 troops to get a pay-out at the same battleground level for your next pay-out.  

This needs to be used with a bit of caution though as at any point in time you will not know what your residual bank is.  Therefore it is best just to look at your prior 2-3 battleground results to gauge this. You can also look at the type of troops you are getting paid out with – see more on this below. 

If you are targeting a battleground at a higher level than your last battleground pay out level (e.g. your last pay out was from a level 30 while you are targeting a level 31 for pay-out this time round) then you will generally need to inject a further 7% on top of your last pay out (assuming no residual bank exists).  For example, if your pay-out from the level 30 was worth 10,000 resources, you will need to inject 10,700 resources to get your next pay-out as a general rule.

For each extra battleground level that you go higher, you should add on about 7% to your last pay-out.  For example, two levels higher than you last pay-out you need to add 14% and three levels higher you need to add 21%.  Do not do battlegrounds more than 5 levels higher than your last pay out as you will end up with mixed results. 

So you’re probably thinking how can I win from battlegrounds if I have to inject an increasing number of resources to get a pay-out from a higher level battleground.  The answer is by using your rune battlegrounds effectively.

RUNE BATTLEGROUNDS

Most people are aware that rune battlegrounds give poor pay-outs because the runes count towards your pay-out reward.  Therefore most people avoid them at all cost when taking a pay-out reward.  

I on the other-hand take nearly all of my rewards from rune battlegrounds.  So why would I do that when it gives such a terrible pay-out?  Well that’s exactly why I do it. It gives me a terrible pay-out so I do not need to re-inject as many resources back into my battlegrounds in order to get my next pay-out.

The benefit of this is that I can climb battleground levels really quickly and it does not cost me a lot of troops.  It also means that when I climb a level and I need to inject my 7% extra because I am going up one battleground level on my previous pay-out, the cost of doing this is reduced when compared to taking a pay-out from a non-rune battleground.

Rune battlegrounds will typically pay 25% of what a non-rune battlegrounds at the same level will pay.  So if I got a pay-out worth 400,000 resources on a non-rune battleground, I would need to inject 28,000 extra resources (7%) if I want to take a pay-out one level higher.  If it was a rune battleground (i.e. pay-out only 25% of the 400,000), then it would only cost me 7,000 resources (7%) to take a pay-out one level higher.

TAKING PAY-OUT FROM A NON-RUNE BATTLEGROUND

So once I have climbed several levels higher using the rune battlegrounds, I will then take a pay-out from a non-rune battleground (at the level just under my rune one) so I get the full reward but it will be at a battleground level much higher than if approached battlegrounds using the strategies most of us are accustomed to.  As it is at a higher level I will get a lot more troops in my pay-out – yes, negative food may become an issue.  The only downside of taking this reward from the non-rune battleground is you will likely have a lot of resources you need to re-inject before you get your next pay-out but at least you’ll have fun with all those extra troops you have in the meantime.

So how do I get a pay-out from a battleground which is one level less than my rune battleground.  It takes a bit of planning.  So let’s assume you want offense.  I find offensive battlegrounds generally give better offensive pay-outs while defensive battlegrounds give better defensive pay-outs.  

First off make sure both your defensive and offensive rune battlegrounds are at the same level.  If they are not at the same level then kill off a low level or yellow barred battleground to bring the levels of your rune BGs into line. For example, if you have a level 41 defense battleground as your rune battleground while your highest offense battleground is only level 35, then you are going to need to finish off a low level or yellow barred offensive battleground so it gives you a level 41 offense rune battleground as well.  You should preferably do this after you get a big pay-out as this reduces your risk of getting a pay-out on the low level/yellow barred battleground which you do not want to happen.  

So assuming you want offensive units from your pay-out and that both your offensive and defensive rune battlegrounds are the same level (let’s assume both level 41), you need to yellow bar a low level offense battleground. Make sure that you do not finish it.  You only want a few troops left in it.  

Once you have done this you can take out your level 41 defensive battleground.  You need to make sure you bank is high enough to trigger a pay-out from the level 41 defensive battleground as you definitely want one in order to ensure the next step goes smoothly.  If you do not get a pay-out I would start the process over if you want to play it safe (you can keep going but it is much more risky in terms of if you get a pay-out or not).  Once you get a pay-out from the level 41 defense battleground you will get a level 42 defensive battleground (you should also have a level 41 offense battleground at this stage).

Assuming you get a pay-out from the level 41 defensive battleground and hopefully you do not have any residual bank, you can go and take out the low level yellow barred offensive battleground.  You do not want a pay-out from this battleground either.  If you do I would start the process over if you want to play it safe and to ensure you get a big pay-out on your non-rune battleground.  Once this low level battleground is taken out this will also give you a level 42 offensive battleground and you 

will also have a level 41 non-rune offensive battleground which is what you will hit next to get your full pay-out.

Also you can determine your residual bank by the amount of troops you lost in getting your last pay-out and what reward you got.  If your last couple of pay-outs have been from rune battlegrounds you should not have much of a residual bank as generally what you pay into them you get back out with rune battlegrounds.  

RISK

If you are taking risks i.e. trying to take pay-outs when you may not have built up enough of a bank, it is important that you always have a back-up plan.  Try to have a couple of high level non-rune battlegrounds which you can take a pay-out from in case the first battleground does not pay-out.  

You do not want to be in the position where you have a large bank and no high level non-rune battlegrounds left.  This leaves you in the position of either having to hit a lower level yellow barred battleground which is not ideal as you do not want a pay-out from this or you have to take out your rune battleground and the pay-out from this may be much less than your resource bank at that point in time.

Also I try to always have a few defensive and offensive battlegrounds with only have a couple of troops in them so if need be I can finish them off with minimal losses (less like to create a pay-out as you do not kill off many troops).    If I finish them off a new battleground will populate (as long as I have not done too many that day) and it will likely be a high level battleground if I have none left other than my rune battlegrounds.

TYPE OF TROOPS FROM PAYOUTS

Each battleground level has a maximum amount of resources that it will pay out.  At the end of this guide I have attached a list of the maximum pay-out for each battleground level.  You may get the odd battleground which pays more than this but this gives you a general guide.  To date the biggest pay-out ever is about 12,000 Wyvern which is about 25 million offense (on facebook).

The higher your bank is the better the units you will get.  Units are typically paid out in the following order depending on how full your resource bank is.

Dragons/griffins

Wyverns/griffins

Necros/golems

Warlocks/demons

Therefore if you receive a pay-out for warlocks/demons you know your bank is really low (i.e. if you killed off a few resources less it is likely you would not have got a pay-out).

CALCULATING HOW MANY UNITS TO SEND TO A BATTLEGROUND

So now you know how to calculate your resource bank to ensure it is high enough to give you a pay-out when you want it.  The next thing you need to master is how many troops to send in so that you can finish off battlegrounds when you want to finish them off and you do not inadvertently create a pay-out from a battleground by finishing it off by accident.

Defensive BG's are easy as you can see the remaining troops.  For example, if you sent 10 demons to a battleground and the highest number of Balur troops were orcs and you killed 100 out of the 201, then there would only be 101 orcs left.  As 10 of your demons kills 100 orcs if you send 10 more demons there will only be 1 orc left in the battleground.  I do not push the limits with this so I tend to leave more than one in there on important battlegrounds but not too many.

With offensive battlegrounds, the only way you can calculate how many more Balur troops you need to kill is by keeping a record of how much XP you have taken from that battleground.  Each battleground will give you a set amount of XP depending on the level of that battleground.  Later on in this guide I have attached a list of the XP you need to get for each battleground level. It is only a rough guide so err of the side of caution when trying to get battlegrounds down to a low level of troops (i.e. leave Balur troops worth at least 50-200 XP in the battleground to ensure you do not finish it off by accident). Note this chart does not include the XP bonus you get from your obelisk of power so if 

you have used skulls runes for this you will need to adjust the XP numbers to account for this.

MYTHS (YOU CAN TEST THESE IF YOU LIKE)

• Resource bank disappears after a certain period of time.  
• Defense troops and offense troops operate under different banks.  

TROOPS TO BUILD FOR BATTLEGROUNDS

For most players, the most abundant resource they have is generally food and usually a lot of it just goes to waste.  Therefore we want to build troops which have a high food cost in proportion to total resource cost.  This is because food is the easiest resource to acquire and any food used in production of a troop which is subsequently killed in a battleground adds to your bank for your next battleground pay out. 

The troops we ideally want to be building for offensive battlegrounds are pathfinders, reavers and chimera (and necros if required).  See below 38.46% of the cost of producing a pathfinder is from food.  Compare this to pikemen where only 20% of their cost is from food.

For defensive battlegrounds you want to be building huntress, nomad, golems and griffins.

If you are raiding enough, then you may have enough resources to keep your production queues going 24/7.  If this is the case, then you will need to consider which troops take the shortest amount of time to build based on their resource value.  See below if you want to build troops which will give you the highest resource value in a given week (assuming production queues are going 24/7), then you are best to build pathfinders, reavers, golems and chimeras.  You can build just over 5 million in resource points a week (excludes bonuses from obelisk of power) building these four troops (this is without taking into account the obelisk of power).

FINAL POINTS

So this is what I have discovered to date (lets now forget the training and help I have had from one of the top battleground players on the server).  There are probably other strategies that you will know of that may work better than this or even supplement what I have taught here.  It would be good if we can share these with each so we can all learn to do better at battlegrounds.  For most of you though I hope what I have taught here will help you to become more successful at battlegrounds.  

Any questions ask me in game (Xestos).  I am happy to help .  Also I have developed my own battleground calculator which can help you to calculate your resource bank, pay-out and its will also monitor XP on offensive battlegrounds along with offensive/defensive gains/losses.  A copy of which may be found HERE

XP PER BATTLEGROUND LEVEL

Level	XP
1	14
2	15
3	20
4	24
5	29
6	33
7	45
8	57
9	63
10	72
11	90
12	107
13	121
14	138
15	154
16	167
17	194
18	209
19	227
20	259
21	275
22	290
23	320
24	368
25	395
26	412
27	454
28	475
29	510
30	575
30	575
30	575
31	617
32	645
33	725
34	749
35	768
36	787
37	857
38	886
39	971
40	1000
41	1063
42	1149
43	1167
44	1234
45	1291
46	1407
47	1441
48	1551
49	1587
50	1730
51	1792
52	1883
53	1905
54	2038
55	2177
56	2241
57	2348
58	2427
59	2530
60	2675
61	2730
62	2924
63	2959
64	3110
65	3276
66	3335
67	3538
68	3647
69	3850
70	4118
71	4254
72	4310
73	4497
74	4773
75	4846
76	5055
77	5115
78	5250
79	5368
80	5495

MAXIMUN RESOURCE PAY-OUTS PER LEVEL (YOU WILL GENERALLY ONLY GET 70-90% OF THIS SO DO NOT OVER-COOK YOUR RESOURCE BANK)

Level	Bank
15	200,000
16	350,000
17	450,000
18	540,000
19	600,000
20	805,000
21	925,000
22	950,000
23	1,150,000
24	1,500,000
25	1,655,000
26	1,720,000
27	1,925,000
28	1,825,000
29	2,000,000
30	2,725,000
31	3,000,000
32	3,300,000
33	3,500,000
34	3,900,000
35	4,600,000
36	5,100,000
37	5,400,000
38	6,500,000
39	7,100,000
40	7,300,000
41	8,300,000
42	8,700,000
43	9,000,000
44	9,500,000
45	10,100,000
46	10,700,000
47	11,500,000
48	12,200,000
49	14,500,000
50	15,100,000
51	16,200,000
52	17,000,000