Catena

Learn Your Way Around
Before you read up on strategy, learn your way around the game. Have a look at the FAQ and check out the controls and map section on this wiki, and see where you are.

Might
Might is a combined number of points for troops and buildings. All Buildings and Troops give a certain amount of might. Increasing your might allows you to gain levels and improve your Title.

City Building
First steps to building a city are easy. In your first city, follow the quests the game gives you, and your city will be built up how it should be, with all the buildings you need. You can easily get by with just 7 or 8 cottages. Thus when you're building your first city, it will probably look a little like this: and as soon as possible, you want to start your second city.
 * Castle
 * Wall
 * 7 Cottages
 * 12 Barracks
 * Tavern
 * Knight's Hall
 * Embassy
 * Alchemy Lab
 * Rally Point
 * Watchtower
 * Blacksmith
 * Workshop
 * Stable
 * Relief Station
 * Market
 * Storehouse

Second City
When you want your second city, you will need your second city deed. For a Second City Deed you need to have 10 FB friends that play Kingdoms of Camelot.

After that is done, you need to conquer a plain. Once you have conquered the plain and you own it, click on the beige + sign next to your castles. Now you can build a city there.

There are a few things you need to take in consideration when picking a spot for building your new city, such as:

It might be a good idea to place your Second City a little away from your first city, just across the border in another province for a few reasons. First thing you want to do in your second city is building up your alchemy lab, so you can research in both cities at the same time. This will really speed up your way to power.
 * Travel time between your cities for defense purposes and the exchange of resources.
 * Travel time between your new city and allies' cities.
 * Proximity to potentially hostile cities.
 * In case of war, the enemy can't see both your cities straight away.
 * You will have access to two markets in your marketplaces.
 * If you build it too far away you will have a hard time transporting Resources and Troops between your cities until the later upgrades of the Relief Station.

Later Stages
Of course, there will be the point where you are done building and researching. Now it's time to rebuild some of your city. Most importantly: You want more barracks! So what buildings can go? Here is my idea on that: This will get you up to about 15 or 16 barracks, which really speeds up your training time for your army.
 * Storehouse: How many times have you been attacked? How many resources have you lost? Ask yourself this question and most of the times people realize they really don't need the storehouse. A level 9 storehouse with level 9 shrinking powder protects 1.71 million of each of your resources. When you have been attacked, the alliance can easily supply you a tenfold of these resources.
 * Marketplace: Again: Do you use it? Buying resources is, again, not really necessary for this alliance can supply it for you. The only reason to keep the marketplace is to make some money. But money is not that important, except for research (with which you're probably done by now) and knight upkeep.
 * Alchemy Lab: Are you done researching? Why keep it? Keep 1 alchemy lab in a city, so if you stumble across a Divine Inspiration, you can get quite a few researches to level 10!
 * Tavern: The tavern makes your people happier, so you can have a higher tax-rate. But there are much easier ways to get money, so this one can go as well.

3rd, 4th and 5th City
At the time you can get your 3rd and 4th city, most of your building and researching in your first 2 cities should be done. You want to build these cities effective. I build them this way: There are a few discussion points in here. Some people also leave out the Watchtower in this city. These cities are mainly used for building troops quick and resources will be transported to the 1st or 2nd city. So they don't care if they're being attacked. Then there are people who do not want an embassy in there. Once again, that is a choice you make according to the flow of your resources, army and war.
 * Castle
 * Wall
 * 7 Cottages
 * 16 Barracks
 * Knight's Hall
 * Rally Point
 * Watchtower
 * Blacksmith
 * Workshop
 * Stable
 * Relief Station
 * Embassy

Army
Now army is expensive and costs a lot of food upkeep. Therefore, you need a LOT of farms around your castles. The rest of the resources you can raid from inactive, unaligned players next to you.

What Army To Build
A lot of army to build, but not all are usefull.
 * Supply Troops: They are usefull at the start, when transporting resources between you first two cities. When you can build Supply Wagons, the Supply Troops become obsolete.
 * Militia: Militia are only usefull as 'meatshield.' Keep a few of them around for taking out traps in wildernesses and castles, but don't build much of these.
 * Scouts: And army can not survive without scouts. In large amounts, they make it hard for enemies to scout your castle, and for you, they are usefull to scout the enemy. Only problem with these is that with an attack on your castle, these are the first troops to die. Luckily, they're cheap and quick to rebuild.
 * Pikemen: Good against regular cavalry, not so good against anything else. Don't build them.
 * Swordsmen: About the only type of troop that stands a chance against archers. So, a few in defence, but not too much.
 * Archer: This should be the majority of your army. Their range is awesome, and you use them for attacks on barbarian camps and wildernesses. Awesome Troops!
 * Cavalry: Very fast and decent load, and therefore nice for quick transport, and raiding low level barb camps.
 * Heavy Cavalry: Don't build them too soon. But when your economy and food income is up and running, these are awesome attack units. Speed and Power are unchallenged.
 * Supply Wagons: Really important to have a lot around. faster and more load then the supply troops.
 * Ballistae: They have the largest range of all regular troops., and are an advanced version of the Archer. Very high in upkeep, and therefor almost impossible to have a lot around.
 * Battering Rams: Don't even bother.
 * Catapults: Don't even bother

Starting Player
A starting player (Level 1 to 35) should focus on:
 * 1) Supply Troops
 * 2) Scouts
 * 3) Archers

Mid Level Player
A mid-level player (level 36 to 55) should focus on:
 * 1) Scouts
 * 2) Archers
 * 3) Supply Wagons

High Level Player
A high-level player (level 55+) should focus on:
 * 1) Scouts
 * 2) Archers
 * 3) Supply Wagons
 * 4) Heavy Cavalry ór Ballistae

Getting Your Resources
Your first task is to fill up your wilderness slots. The amount of wildernesses you can control depends on the level of your castle. Make sure you own the maximum amount of wildernesses at any given time, since these are crucial for your success.

All Wildernesses give a bonus to resource income.

Note that the effectiveness of your troops in battle is determined by the level of your knight and your levels in fletching, metal alloys, poisoned edge and healing potions. It is no longer possible to conquer a Wilderness without any losses.

Here is a basic chart that indicates the properties of different levels:

The best way to conquer wildernesses is by sending two waves of attack. First one to kill the traps, then one to conquer the plain.

Note that the effectiveness of your troops in battle is determined by the level of your knight and your levels in fletching, metal alloys, poisoned edge and healing potions. In this overview I have researched at the level of fletching AT LEAST as high as the level of wilderness

Attacking Inactive Players
Inactive players around you can be noticed by their might. Take a piece of paper, note the coordinates and the points of the player located there. Wait around a week, then check that castle again. If the might of the players don't change, chances are they have quit and you have gained a valuable farm which will provide you with all types of resources.

Barbarian Camps
There are ten levels of Barbarian Camps and the higher the level the more heavily fortified the camp. Higher levels of Barbarian Camp require a larger army to defeat, however the loot that you will be able to plunder is also much greater. As you advance in the game, raiding barbarian camps will become a valuable means of procuring food for your growing army. It can be difficult to maintain supply needs through farming alone.

Your level in the technologies of fletching, metal alloys, poisoned edge and healing potions as well as your knight's combat skill will affect the performance of your troops in battle. You can raise your level in the different available technologies by going to the Alchemy Lab and getting your alchemists to research the relevant technology. The table below shows the number of troops used to successfully attack barbarian camps, incurring zero causalities, and their technology levels at the time.

There are two dominant strategies for attacking Barbarian Camps: Attack using archers and supply wagons - you need fewer troops to attack, but you are slowed down by the supply wagons because archers cannot carry all of the loot Attack using cavalry - you need more troops to attack, but this is faster because the cavalry can carry all of the loot by themselves

Barbarian Camp Attacks
Don't attack any barb camp over level 7. YOU WILL LOSE!

Knights
Knights can be assigned to specific roles in which they are able to boost specific functions of your city. They are also needed to lead your troops into battle.

Appointing Knights
When you click on your Knights Hall you will be able to appoint your own knights. Each role can be filled by only one knight but can be re-assigned at any given time without any costs.

Once you have appointed a knight you will see the following window under the "My Knights" tab. Your knights will gain a set amount of experience on an hourly basis depending on the level of your Knights Hall.

Here is an explanation of what you see:
 * Unassigned Skill Points: You can use these points to raise your knights;
 * Politics: Needed if your knight is assigned the role of "Foreman".
 * Combat: Needed if your knight is assigned the role of "Marshal" or is one of the knights leading the troops.
 * Intelligence: Needed if your knight is assigned the role of "Alchemystic".
 * Resourcefulness: Needed if your knight is assigned the role of "Steward".
 * Current Role: Can be either a role or if idle can be used to lead your troops into battle.
 * Increase XP: You can use items to boost the experience of your knight;
 * Boost: You can boost your skills by using items temporarily for 7 days:
 * Assign Skill: You can assign the unassigned skill points you have by clicking here.
 * Assign Role: If your Knight is idle, you can assign them a role here, you can also re-assign and un-assign roles in this tab.
 * Dismiss: You can remove the selected knight from your active knights. Doing this will result in the loss of all experience gained and you will no more have to pay the salary of this knight.

Roles

 * Foreman: The Politics score of your Foreman increases the construction speed of your buildings by 1% for every 2 points of Politics.
 * Marshall: The Combat score of your Marshal increases the training speed of your troops by 1% for every 2 points of Combat.
 * Alchemystic: The Intelligence score of your Alchemystic increases the speed of your research by 1% for every 2 points of Intelligence.
 * Steward: The Resourcefulness score of your Steward increases the production of resources by 1% for every 1 point of Resourcefulness.

Wall Defences
Defensive Units are built from the Wall. Each unit uses one or more spaces, either Wall Defense spaces, or Field Defense spaces. The level of the wall determines how many spaces are available for defensive units. The total number of spaces provided by the wall is split evenly between Wall Defense and Field Defense. (e.g. a Level 9 wall provides 45000 Defensive Unit spaces, split into 22500 Wall Defense spaces and 22500 Field Defense spaces.)

Unlike Troops, Defensive Units do not consume food, nor do they contribute to the total might of the City.

Defensive Units will ALWAYS defend your city, even if the army is hiding in sanctuary.

Caltrops

 * The purpose of Caltrops is to slow the attackers at maximum range while the army and other defenses attack them at range.
 * Caltrops do very little damage; they rarely kill troops alone.
 * Caltrops are completely ignored by Cavalry, Supply Wagons, and Siege Engines: they move right past.
 * Caltrops should be used with Archers and other range troops defending your city, or with wall-mounted crossbows.
 * Caltrops are the cheapest and most efficient field defense unit for might-building.

Spiked Barriers

 * Spiked Barriers stop both types of Cavalry, Siege Engines, and Supply Wagons until they are destroyed.
 * Spiked Barriers do some damage and can easily wipe out Supply Wagons if they are ignored.
 * Spiked Barriers are completely ignored by infantry troops: they move right past.
 * Like Caltrops, Spiked Barriers work best when holding enemy attackers at range for your other troops and defenses.

Traps

 * Traps are single-use defenses - they will be destroyed when they attack enemy troops.
 * Traps do a lot of damage, nearly guaranteeing that the attackers will take some losses.
 * Traps are very ineffecient against smart or high-level attackers. Traps are not worth the cost of the units they destroy, and a smart attacker will send in militia to trigger your traps.

Wall-Mounted Crossbows

 * Crossbows are very effective defensive units and have a longer range and can do much more damage than Archers.
 * Crossbows work very well with Caltrops and Spiked Barriers to hold the enemy at their long range.
 * Crossbows have shorter range than Ballista and Catapults, so they are susceptible to attacks from these units.
 * Crossbows are the most cost- and space-effective wall defense unit for might-building.

Defensive Trebuchets

 * Trebuchets will only attack Siege Engines and will completely ignore all other units, including supply wagons.
 * Trebuchets have an enormous range and very high damage, virtually guaranteeing that it will destroy an enemy siege engine before it can get into range.
 * Trebuchets are single-use defenses: they will be destroyed when they fire upon an enemy Siege Engine.

Offensive Strategy
As you all probably have noticed, in this game, the defender has the upper hand: there is a limit on the size of the attacking army, whereas there is no limit on how many troops could defend. And sending waves is nonsensical; as someone on the Caliburn Domain once put it: "it's like being attacked by one million angry ants. Normally, you'd be overwhelmed by the numbers and not stand a chance; however, in Kingdoms of Camelot, some crazy little man decided that it'd be better if the one million angry ants were divided so only ten ants could attack at a time." Now, c'mon, even the weakest among us can stand up to 10 ants. So, some strategy for the attacker is needed here.

Cleaner Waves
The bane of any good attacker's existence are the wall defenses: crossbows, spikes, caltrops, traps, trebuchets; no one likes these. So, you have to know how to get around them.

Notice: these tips are optimal only when you are attacking a player who is in sanctuary and is trying to hide from you. If they are on defend, well, prepare accordingly. You will have to take more casualties than these tips entail.

Traps
Traps are the hardest to get around. Simply put, the only way to clean out traps these days is to send in the meatshields (militiamen and the likes). In case your enemy only has Traps but nothing else you may send in Battering Rams with a ratio of 1:10 to take out these and win the battle. This means if your enemy has 100 Traps, you can send in 11 Rams and win the battle with one remaining Ram.

Caltrops
You can clear Caltrops without losses easily by sending in three times as many Militiamen. Keep in mind that if there are Traps present, you will have to sum these up with the Caltrops and use the same tactic.

Spikes
For spiked barriers, you'll have to do one of three things: 1) send in no cavalry, carts, or siege weapons in a first wave. 2) send in the cavalry to take out the spikes if you believe you can loot a LOT from this guy and need carts, or you need to get siege weapons in. 3) If there are no crossbows, spikes are rather simple to take out. 10 cavs take out 1000 spikes without losses.

Crossbows
So, you want to take those crossbows out? Well, Crossbows are nasty little things. Because of their range being better then that of archers, Archers vs. Crossbows is about 3:1. 3 archers will die per defeated crossbow. Cavalry vs. Crossbows is about 1:1. So still a lot of losses The trick here is called Battering Rams. 1 ram will take out 1000 crossbows. If someone has 5000 crossbows and you send 1000 rams, you defeat all the crossbows WITHOUT losses.

Trebuchets
Now, defensive trebuchets are a lovely creation, and here's why: they are very powerful, extremely long range with a good defense to back them up, but send in the right mixture of troops, and they're obsolete. Through varying battles, I have found that trebuchets with an army in sanctuary and limited crossbows die proportionally at a rate of 7:1 when fought with rams (meaning, 7 trebuchets are required to kill one ram). I have also seen them get, of course, closer to 1:2 with a good defense, so be smart.

If you don't use Siege Engines at all, you can safely ignore trebuchets. They will only attack those units. Other units will walk right past them unmolested. 200 rams takes out around 1200 trebs

Taxes Etc.
One of the resources that is different from all the others is gold. Gold is not used for buildings and troops. The three things gold is used for is: Research and marketplace speak for themselves. Knights in your knights hall cost more as they level up.
 * Research
 * Marketplace Transactions
 * Knight Upkeep

There are at least five methods in Kingdoms of Camelot to add gold to your gold supply. These methods can be combined in multiple different ways -- The basic methods are:
 * Conquering barbarian camps or other players
 * Selling excess supplies on the market
 * Winning quests
 * Taxing your population -- increasing the population or the tax rate
 * Using the "increase gold" option at the castle

I think 1 to 3 speak for themselves, so I will try and explain 4 and 5.

One way to gain gold is from taxing your population. Of course the higher your taxes are the less happy your people are. Not only that but as people become less happy they start to move away. Fewer people means fewer taxes. So, the question quickly becomes how much should you tax your people to get as much gold as possible. Additionally, what happens if I need to have a certain number of “idle” workers? After all, you need to have some people left over that you can turn into troops. To start with lets look at the interaction between happiness, population and maximum population.

Population
First of all: Population. You have max population, current population, Labor Force and idle population.

When you have trained 6075 archers you will see you cannot train any more and your idle population is gone. Don't worry, they will come back. It takes around 2 hours for new people to come to the city and refill your idle population.
 * Maximum Population is the amount of people that can live in your city. A level 9 cottage houses 4,500 people, so with 8 cottages at level 9 you'll have a maximum population of 36.000
 * Current Population is Maximum Population * (Happiness)/100. So happiness determines how many % your max population is filled. For example: if your Population Limit is 36.000 and you have a happiness of 80, then your Current population will be 80% of 36.000, ie 28.800.
 * Labor Force are the people working in your fields. With a fully to level 9 upgraded fields (with a level 9 castle) you will have a workforce of 16.650. With those 20% Taxes that leaves us with 12150 of:
 * Idle population. This population can be trained into army. They do pay taxes, just as your labor force. The amount of idle population is the amount of troops you can train in one batch. So if you look at archers: they cost 2 population. So you can train 12150/2=6075 archers in one go.

Taxes
So, taxing people has a good and a bad side. Taxes generate a steady income, but can really be hard on your population. For the nerds like me: a little bit of math:

[You can skip this if you like, it just explains the calculations made]

Happiness = 100 + tavern level – taxrate

Current Population = (Maximum population) * (Happiness)/100

The maximum income from taxes is well, to start with the money you get is calculated the following way

Money = (Tax Rate) * (Current Population)

Experimentally we discover that to get the maximum money for any given tax rate can be found using the following equation

Optimal Tax Rate = 50 + (Tavern Level) / 2

That means, that with a level 9 tavern, you get the most income from taxes at 55%. But a 55% taxrate will give you a happiness of 54. And a happiness of 54 gives you a current population of 19440. Your workforce will still be 16650 so your idle population will be 2790. That is not a lot of idle population to train in one go.

[Start reading here again]

So conclusion on taxrate is, is that it's not the best way to generate income. The best way to get a lot of income is:

Using "Increase Gold"
Another way to gain gold is to use the Increase Gold function found on the Overview page, which is accessed by clicking on your castle from the City view. Increase Gold does two things:

1.immediately adds 10 gold to your total for each member of your population 2.reduces your current happiness value by 20 Increase Gold may only be used once every 15 minutes.

The happiness will recover back to its stable value over time. It takes 2 hours to recover 20 points of happiness. Your population will drop slightly due to the reduced happiness, but it will also recover over time. In practice, by the time the happiness is back to normal, the population has recovered as well.

Crests
To get to your 3rd, 4th and 5th city, you will need crests. I will give you here the % chance of a crest dropping in a certain level wilderness. The type of Wilderness does not matter:

Where it says NED it means I don't have enough info yet to put in there.

Divine Inspirations
If you are lucky enough to get a Divine Inspiration by playing Merlin's Boxes, or simply by purchasing it with gems, you might be wondering what you should use it on to gain the maximum advantage from your purchase. Here are a few suggestions to help you along:

Castle
Upgrading your Castle to level 10 will give you the following advantages:
 * You will gain 3 more resource fields. This will be particularly useful in feeding your growing army (a common problem for high level players). Thus gaining 3 more lvl 9 farms is rather valuable
 * You may now control 1 more wilderness, bringing you up to a total of 10 vs. 9 with a level 9 Castle. Another nice way to boost your food production!
 * Your city will now appear white instead of gray both on the general map and in your city and field maps. Not much 'use' per se, but always a fun way to show off!

Alchemy Lab
Upgrading your Alchemy Lab will unlock the next level of research for all categories which can provide a great advantage!

Please bear in mind however that some research will require further level 10 upgrades (particularly Fertilizer, Logging, Stoneworking and Mining, will each require a level 10 resource field of the appropriate type: eg. lvl 10 Farm for lvl 10 Fertilizer).

Here is a list of the research you can do without any further Divine Inspiration purchases:
 * Eagle Eyes
 * Poisoned Edge
 * Featherweight Powder
 * Magical Mapping
 * Fletching
 * Healing Potions
 * Giant's Strength

Walls, Rally Point, Watchtower
After the main two (Castle and Alchemy Lab) your next priority depends largely on your playstyle.

Defensive Player
If you play defensively and tend to get attacked a lot you may wish to improve your wall (for an additional 1,000,000 durability and 10,000 extra defensive slots) and Watchtower

Offensive Player
If you love battling it out with other players you may wish to upgrade your Rally Point (to be able to send out up to 10 armies with 100,000 troops each.

What about the rest?
What you upgrade beyond this point is up to you. Resource fields, Blacksmith, Stable and Workshop will all open up extra research for you (provided your Alchemy Lab is already at level 10) so you may wish to consider them if you have the the Divine Inspirations to spare. Out of these, farms would be the obvious choice to further boost food production.

Some buildings however hardly seem worth upgrading:
 * Knights' Hall - 10 extra xp per hour is nice but it hardly makes a big difference unless you consider the benefits of your knight's gaining exp faster than your enemies. A lvl 10 Knight hall will help your knights catch up to people who started the game before you, and pull ahead of people who started playing after you. Your steward's skill lvl plays a major role in how many resources you can produce too. My cities are gaining about 1,000 food per skill point I assign my stewards. The faster you gain skill points the faster your resources will increase. Do we even know what the maximum skill lvl is for a knight? If it's high (like 1,000), imagine how large your food production could get after a year playing KoC? Perhaps the food shortage is just a temporary situation due to lack of playing time in a new game?
 * Embassy - You are unlikely to ever house 10 ally troops at any given moment
 * Market - 9 transactions should suffice for even the most addicted trader.
 * Tavern - 1 happiness is not really worth a Divine Inspiration
 * Relief Station - 0.5x speed increase doesn't make such a huge difference. Of course this actually depends on how often you reinforce allies or send troops and resources between your cities so you may find that it is a worthy improvement for you.
 * Barracks - The only advantage to getting your Barracks to level 10 is the ability to train catapults. However in order to do that you also need a lvl 10 Alchemy Lab and Workshop as well as having completed training lvl 10 Fletching and Geometry. Without further research it is hard to say if Catapults are worth all this effort though most claim that they are not.

Browsers
Read for info: Tips_from_the_Techies

To Be Added
For all of you, when I have the time, I will add more about
 * Attacking
 * Alliances
 * What troops to build
 * Cresthunting
 * Whatever you tell me you want added

How Do I Build Something?
You click on an empty spot in your city or fields and then build the building you want there

How do I join an alliance?
To join an alliance, first build an embassy, then apply for an alliance on the alliance page

How do I get that 'help with this building' in the alliance page?
When you build a building, click on Speed Up, use the Ask for Help and Share To Wall. Then your alliance will be able to click and help you.

Why can't I build/research ...?
If you can't build/research something, it means you don't meet all the requirements. Things in red are the requirements you don't meet.

Where can I build my wall?
Click on the wooden wall in your city overview. You can find it in the left bottom corner of your city.

How can I build army?
In order to train troops you need to have idle population. Troops can be trained in your barracks. Just click on your barracks, click on the military you want to train, enter an amount and wait until they're done.

How can I make my army defend my castle?
Click on your castle and click the 'Order troops to defend city' button.

How can I research?
All research can be done in your alchemy lab. Just build an Alchemy Lab, click on that, search for the research you want done, and start research.

How come my resources stopped increasing?
Each resource has a maximum Capacity. You can see your capacity by hovering your mouse over the resource values at the top of the screen. To increase your capacity, build/upgrade your resource buildings. For gold, increase your population by building more cottages or changing your tax rate.

Why can't I control any more wildernesses?
Each city can only control as many wildernesses as its Castle level. For example, a Level 5 Castle can only control a maximum of 5 wildernesses.

How do I build a stable?
A stable requires a Level 5 Farm. In general, buildings that are greyed out due to Requirements not being met, can still be clicked on and will show more details about the requirements.

I've built a 2nd city on top of my troops, how do I get them back?
To retrieve your troops, go back to your 1st city, click on the Rally Point building, then click on the Troop Movement tab and press "Recall".

Credits
On this page most of the info is written by myself and Greenmanofwow. Some is ripped from other pages on this wikia.

Well, that's it for now, please respond if you see mistakes or want something added.

With Kind Regards,

Lord Greenfield / Lord Cow_Tse_Tung / Lord Nevele

Nevele79 13:16, September 4, 2010 (UTC)

Ps. Anyone who wants to use this help page for their alliance is allowed to, but please give credits :-)