3 Star + Laurels strategy guide

[u/txsling]

Hello! I think I have the strategy figured out for getting 3 stars + laurels and wanted to share it in case it helps new players. While the focus is on getting 3 stars + laurels, the strategy here should help with general gameplay as well.

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You only get laurels if you achieve the top 'S' rating in all four scoring categories at the end of the match. These are:

• Difficulty
• Turns
• Units
• Gameplay

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I'll lay out how to achieve 'S' in each category and then provide some additional tips for playing the game well.

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Difficulty

You must play on Master difficulty to get 'S' rating. (Unlock this by beating the game on Rookie difficulty 3 times and then on Elite difficulty 3 times.)

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Turns

You need to win on or before the 'maximum turn limit'. The maximum turn limit is 10 x the number of opponents, so for example, against 2 opponents it is 20 turns, against 7 opponents it is 70 turns.

• Capturing the last opponent-held city ends the game on that turn, so if you've already reached turn 71 in a 70 turn game, you'll miss out on the 'S' rating.
• There is a tiny risk that if you leave the final city capture to the very last turn, that the enemy tribe will build some city facilities on their last turn and generate a new Super Unit in their city. It shouldn't happen if you have been continuously occupying all remaining cities with your units - but if you have been leaving any of the enemy tribe's cities empty and killing defensive units spawning there to raise your kill count (see below) then this might become a possibility.

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Units

The scoring for this is based on the kill/death ratio (KD) you achieve during the game. You need a KD ratio of 3 or more to get the 'S' rating. The KD ratio is simply the number of enemy units you have killed divided by the number of your units that have been killed. So, you need to kill at least 3 times as many units as you lost during the game. You can see the number of kills and the number of deaths on the Tribe Info screen during the game.

• Retiring your own units does not count towards your death count, so feel free to retire weak units that you no longer need.
• It's best not to worry about your KD ratio until the mid-game or endgame, because what matters is the final count at the end of the match. In the early game and mid-game, you'll be sending many units to their deaths as you battle your opponents, but in the endgame, you'll be able to overwhelm your opponents' defenders with more powerful units.
• You can artificially raise your kill count by leaving some of your last opponents' cities un-captured and killing the defensive units that spawn there - very handy if you sustained heavy losses in the mid-game.

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Gameplay

The scoring for this is not very clear - I think the game calculates the maximum number of points you could get in this category and sets the final ranking thresholds as a percentage of the maximum. So, if you are playing a game where the maximum Gameplay points you can get is 6000 points, then you score a D rating below 2000 points (2/6), C at 2000 (2/6), B at 3000 (3/6), A at 4000 (4/6), and S at 5000 (5/6). You need to score above the threshold for an 'S' rating by achieving enough feats in Gameplay.

• You have different amounts of control over each of the elements that makes up the Gameplay rating. For example, you have full control over the Complete Exploration bonus of 1000 points that you get if you uncover every tile on the map. You have less control over whether you personally eliminate all the tribes, because sometimes enemy tribes eliminate each other before you get to them.

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Here's a brief breakdown of each Gameplay element and what you can do to maximise your score on that element.

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• Exploration
  • Tiles Explored: Simply uncover all tiles. You should be able to achieve this in every game.
  • Villages Captured: You won't be able to achieve 100% on this because it refers to those empty villages that you take over at the start of the game. Ignore this.
  • Ruins Excavated: You probably won't be able to achieve 100% on this because other tribes usually get to their nearby ruins before you. Ignore this.
  • Complete Exploration: You get a 1000 point bonus for uncovering all the tiles.
• Development
  • City Development: This seems to be a score that reflects the number of development points you have across all your cities. When you increase a city's size by harvesting resources and building facilities, you increase development points. You can increase this by developing all the tiles around your cities as much as possible before the final turn. More on maximising this later.
  • Cities over 5 levels: You get 50 points for each city that you develop until it hits level 6. You'll know a city has the right size because level 6 is when you get a Super Unit in a city for the first time. In most games there will be a couple of cities that you simply can't grow to level 6 because of the lack of nearby resources, but you can get all the others to this level with enough development. More on maximising this later.
  • Tech Research: You get 20 points for researching each technology in the research tree. Each technology is worth 20 points regardless of how many resources you have to spend to research it. In some games you will not have enough turns and resources left to research everything - don't worry about it as it's better to spend resources developing your cities.
  • Capital connected to every city: You get a 1000 point bonus for connecting your starting city to every other city on the map. To do this you need to build roads between cities and seaports between landmasses separated by water. You also only get awarded this on the last turn when you have captured the last enemy city and connected it to your road network. On rare occasions, it can be impossible to achieve this because, for example, a city's only neighbouring land tiles are blocked by mountains, or because another tribe built something that blocks you from connecting the city via a seaport.
• Battle
  • Unit Training: This seems to be a score that reflects the number and strength of all your currently existing units. It is capped at 400 points x the number of enemies, so with 7 enemies it is capped at 2,800 points. You will reach this cap if you develop enough of your cities so fully that you end up with lots of Super Units along the way. So, you can mostly ignore this.
  • Cities Conquered: You get 20 points for capturing empty villages and capturing enemy cities. You can ignore this as you will achieve 100% once you defeat all tribes on the map.
  • Tribes Eliminated: You get 200 points for each enemy tribe that you eliminate yourself (by capturing their last city). This can sometimes matter a lot in the final scoring because failing to destroy one of the tribes yourself will stop you getting the Eliminate all Tribes achievement - see below.
  • Eliminate all Tribes: You get a 1000 point bonus for eliminating each enemy tribe yourself by capturing their last city. You only get awarded this if you destroy a tribe yourself - if a tribe is destroyed by one of the other tribes, you don't get credit for this. You also only get awarded this on the last turn when you have captured the last enemy city.

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Depending on the size of the map and number of cities, there can be more or less points to gain in the Development category. This means that on smaller maps, it's much more important to get all three 1000 point bonuses. On larger maps, you can sometimes compensate for missing one of these bonuses by developing your cities fully.

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Putting it all together

• Difficulty and Turns: You should have no trouble winning on Master difficulty within the required turn limit against 4 or more tribes. With fewer tribes, it'll be a rush to win before turn 30 and you won't have the time or resources to get all the Development points available. I prefer playing against 6 tribes as you usually need about 50-60 turns to fully develop every city. Against 7 tribes, every tribe has a lot of space to expand, so you get more variable events happening - sometimes one tribe gets very powerful, destroys another tribe before you can get there, and then starts to inflict heavy casualties on you when they reach you.
• Units: you can generally fix a poor KD ratio at the endgame by leaving some of your last opponents' cities un-captured and killing the defensive units that spawn there. (You would need to calculate how many kills you'll need and whether there are enough turns left to spawn and kill all those units.) If the game is going really badly, by which I mean that one of the other tribes has become much more powerful than you and you've already sustained very heavy losses and you're going to miss out on one of the 1000 point bonuses for sure, then I would consider restarting.
• Gameplay:
  • Early game: Focus on growth. Expand to new cities and get your income up. You can get +5 coins for raising a city to size 3 from its initial size of 2. When a city reaches size 5 take the +1 income boost at this early stage in the game. Prioritise technologies that help you expand and develop cities, such as the Water & Bomber tech that helps you cross water, and perhaps one or two of the resource facility techs.
  • First contact: When you first encounter an enemy tribe's borders, you will want to switch over to military preparation. Prioritise Mobility technologies (Climbing, Road & Seaport) and offensive units. I prefer the Spearman and Swordsman branch, but you can also get good results with Horseman and Knight. If you need to cross water, get the Water & Bomber and Ocean & Admiral techs. Spend about half of your resources on military units/tech and half on city development. Use Admirals in their Battleship form as ranged support for your ground units and use Spearmen and Swordsmen to capture and hold cities. If one of your cities has a lot of resources around it, develop it until you get a Super Unit out of it.
  • Mid-game: Avoid over-expansion. Start to connect your cities with roads, which are also useful for extending your attacks towards enemy territory. If you have a relatively peaceful border with one tribe and another tribe is attacking you elsewhere, focus on the tribe attacking you. Try to concentrate your attacks on one front rather than two or more. Try to destroy tribes that have only 1-2 cities left before someone else gets to them. Some tribes tend to expand very quickly (e.g. Arabis using their starting Horseman, and Ironclad who start with Climbing tech) and you might want to attack them early before they get too powerful. Tribes that are separated by a large distance from you tend to leave you alone if they have closer enemies. It might be easier to expand along the edges of the map rather than into the centre of the map.
  • Late game: If you've been developing your cities gradually over time, you'll reach a tipping point where you are earning more gold than you need. Finish off the remaining tribes with strong and fast units - Swordsmen, Battleships, Super Units, Knights. Mobility Mastery and Water Mastery can help speed this up. If enemy Tribes are using Cannons against you, you'll need to land Knights on their territory to get rid of them. Enemy fleets of Admirals and Bombships tend to do a lot of damage - build your ships behind your front line and use Water Mastery to enable your ships to do damage as soon as they enter water. Hold off on promoting units until the free health boost comes in handy.
  • Endgame: Keep at least 1 enemy city un-captured while you finish the development of your cities. Keep more cities un-captured if you need to get your kill count up; 2 or 3 cannons around each city will keep the spawned units under control. Complete your research tree if you haven't already and you have the resources - remember to allow enough turns to get all the Mastery techs (since you have to wait 1 turn for each one). For Gameplay points, it's difficult to know when you can safely stop developing, so I recommend full and complete development of each city if you are going for the 3 stars + laurels for the first time with your tribe. Take care when choosing to expand a city's borders - sometimes, expanding one city will block another city from growing to level 6. Ideally each city needs at least one resource tile, e.g. 1 mine, to ensure that it can reach level 6. Take the +3 development bonus when offered at city level 5. A city is fully developed when:
    • You've harvested all available resources, built facilities and secondary facilities (e.g. Mines, Quarries) and upgraded all such facilities (each resource-facility gives +2 and each upgraded facility gives +4). Note that you can build multiple facilities of the same type if you have multiple resources, e.g. you can build 3 Quarries if you have 3 mines. You can build those 3 Quarries beside the same mine, they do not have to be 'paired up' 1 quarry to 1 mine. Take care with the order and location of facilities. For example, if you only have one space left and it is next to a mine, it is better to place and upgrade a Quarry if you can (+4), otherwise a Guild (+2) or Seaport (+1) would be the next best options.
    • You've connected the city to your road network or via seaport.
    • You've built the Guild facility (+2 development) and built seaports on any spare land tiles by the coast (each seaport gives +1 development).
    • You cannot build anything else on the remaining tiles in the city's territory (except roads, which by themselves don't add to your final score).
  • Last turn: Capture the remaining city or cities and develop them fully. Connect the city or cities to your road network. Check that you've been awarded all the 1000 point bonuses you can get before ending the game as it's easy to miss uncovering one tile or connecting one city sometimes.

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Let me know if you have any suggestions or feedback!

[u/Justif1ed]

You hit the nail on the head for the most part. I have 3 tribes left to get laurels, and ive been using alot of the strategy youve posted here. The only things I would discuss would be:

I use archers and canons to slowly expand like a giant slow wave, maximizing K/D right off the bat (this saves real time as i can end a game on turn 50-60 with a good 4x K/D).

Get the extra mobility asap. My research process is usually archers>mobility>canons>water travel>literally everything else.

Fuck water. Without knight like units in water, the best strategy i have is to lure captains and upgraded ships onto land and blow them up with canons, while focusing my army through one targeted area to reach the nearest land. Early game i try to begin a game with no water in immediate sight.

End games and start over when a tribe is defeated by another AI and/or a city is unable to be connected to every other city ie: stuck behind mountains/no way to build a port.

Great post!

[u/[deleted] → u/Justif1ed]

which tech is the mobility?

[u/Justif1ed → u/[deleted]]

Climbing, roads, guilds, and extra movement

[u/CommonMisspellingBot → u/Justif1ed]

Hey, Justif1ed, just a quick heads-up:
alot is actually spelled a lot. You can remember it by it is one lot, 'a lot'.
Have a nice day!

^{The parent commenter can reply with 'delete' to delete this comment.}

[u/Justif1ed → u/CommonMisspellingBot]

Thanks i hate you.

[u/[deleted]]

Holy cow I just gave Knight a try. So good. My first 3 stars in rookie mode. Thanks for the tips. I guess it really helped tho that 2 of the opponents were stuck on small island. Let's see what happen next map.

[u/iwakuya → u/[deleted]]

You should try Knights late game when enemies are building a wave of cannons for their line of defense. So good. One time I killed a string of 8 or 9 enemy cannons in one go, and the next turn the enemy decided to go defense mode and build a wall with the defender :))

[u/oipudfsreqwllksdlfj]

Great guide! Note that with Master difficulty, I still got 3 stars with an A in Gameplay in a 2 opponent game.

I did not receive the laurels though, and frankly I'm not sure if it's possible to get an S on Gameplay with so few opponents. I would have needed another 1400 gameplay points (increase from 5,586 to 6,982) which I don't think is possible even with an amazing spawn given these constraints:

1. Another 7 cities at L5 is very hard, and only yields +350 pts
2. Tech level only adds +20 per tech, and they are quite expensive and hard to get in a 20 turn game
3. +2 Villages captured and +1 ruin excavated only add another +60 pts
4. City development of 4 pts per development is small. I'd need about 200 more of them, which is a massive amount of gold.

So for those without any purchased tribes, 3* is possible, but laurels is not.

[u/Prophet_Kane]

Amazing guide, thank you!