The Stratagems - Officers Guide

Introduction:

Welcome to Col. Kustofan's Officer Guide. In this guide I will go through the wealth of experience I have gained through trial and error on collecting the best officers in the game, and utilizing them to their fullest advantage. Obviously you need a solid core of officers to maintain and lead your citizens and troops, and through this detailed Officer Guide, hopefully I will be able to make you stronger players through the proper collection, creation, improvement and utilization of the brave men and women you recruit to lead your troops to battle.

Roles of an Officer:

Your officers have many roles in the game, some active, some passive, but all important. I won't go into too much detail here, as I can cover more of the importance of your officers in the Stats and Attributes section of this guide. I will say this. You need a solid core of officers in every city to help your run the game smoothly and navigate the difficulties of advanced play later on. From your front-line Military leaders to your at home Mayors, every officer has a purpose in this game, and that purpose is strongly tied to their Primary Attribute. Each officer you pick up will be strong in one major Attribute (Politics, Military or Knowledge) and thus weak in the other two. When levelling an officer it is advisable not to deviate from that main stat with the earned Potential Points, as officers aren't build very well for multitasking and to put any of their potential points into an Attribute other than the main, just makes them weaker than they should be. A general guide to collection per city is as follows: 1 Military officer, 1 Knowledge officer, and the rest Politics officers. You can deviate from this course as you wish, but my explanation of why I suggest this, will be apparently further down in the guide. Late on you might want to change this up, for instance I have dumped most of my Military and Knowledge officers for more Politics officers as ransacking becomes increasingly important the higher the rank you are attempting to attain.

Recruitment:

Recruiting officers takes multiple forms. The most obvious being the Military Institute. In the beginning this will be your only reliable form of officer recruitment in the game. In order to access 4-Star level officers, you need to get this building up to level 5, which I recommend doing as quickly as possible. Although you will be stuck will 1 and 2 star officers in the beginning, you are shooting for 4-star officers, and when they're not available really good 3-star officers. As such a high level Military Institute is key. The officers in this building recycle every few minutes, so keep an eye on this building from time to time, and you will eventually find what you're looking for. The amount of time it takes to refresh the officer list (new officer shows on top and the bottom officer is kicked off) is related to your MI level, so get this up to 9 as quickly as possible. Another way to recycle the officers in your MI is to use an Admission Prospectus, which will erase all of the officers currently displayed and replace them. These are especially useful when the list is populated with only 1 and 2 Star officers.

Other forms of recruitment are Favour of God and capturing. The former is completely random and based open availability. If your city has an open officer slot, you may receive a “Volunteer”. By opening the Officer interface, you will have the option of either Accepting or Refusing them. For the most part volunteers are mediocre and not worth keeping, although in very rare instances you might get one worth keeping. The second set are captured officers. You get these from seizing and plundering NPC's and other players. This is also dependant on having an open officer slot in the city you are attacking from. In this case you will have the options of Accepting, Releasing and Executing these officers. In the case of the NPC officers, like the volunteers, these are generally mediocre officers. I prefer executing them, but there is no difference between releasing and executing so it's really up to what button you feel like pushing. However, in the case of other players, this is a great way to get your hands on solid officers as when you lower their loyalty to a certain point, you can steal their mayor. 

Attributes, Stats and Bonuses:

As mentioned above, there are 3 main officer types; Politics, Military and Knowledge. We will go through all three and discuss their main uses and strengths.

Politics: This officer is your bread and butter. Compared to the other two types, this is the officer you want in multiples. They have two main uses: Mayor and Ransacker. This is your go-to mayor. Although you will have occasion to appoint a Military or Knowledge officer in your mayor slot, 95% of the time, Politics is the stat that you want most in a great mayor. Your politics officer has 2 major bonuses in this capacity. 1) The higher their Politics score, the more the construction time of your buildings is decreased. Having a great Politics officer will show dividends, especially when you start constructing buildings that takes hours to complete. 2) The higher the Politics score, the higher your resource output will be, as your Politics score raises the mayor bonus on production.

Secondly, your Politics officer is also your go-to Ransacker. Ransacking is based on 3 main components, level of wild (swamp, basin, etc), length of ransacking time (always 24 hrs to max collection) and the officer's Politics level. From experience, I can tell you that the most important of these three components is the Politics score. The higher it is, the more jewelry you will collect from ransacking. This is important as you need to maintain steady ransacking in order to progress in the ranks.

Military: Say hello to your beat stick. Can't avoid this bad boy as this is a war game, and if you want to be successful, you need a strong Military officer. He has a few uses so we go through them in order of importance from least to best. Firstly, as a mayor: Your Military officer reduces training time of all units and defences. If you want quicker troops, appoint him as your mayor, train them, and then immediately go back to your Politics officer as you only need him in the position for the initialization of the training to get the reduced time bonus. The same goes for defences. Although you might not mind the build time of troops, he will save you hours of training on defences and should be utilized every time you que up more guns on your wall. Secondly, and this should go without saying, but this is a guide, he is your attacking officer. His Military score raises your Attack (10 points per 1 Military point), and your Attack score affects your bonus damage percentage. Considering the quickest way to raise your rank is off of NPC Cities and the backs of other players, having one very strong Military officer is key. Try your best to level one as quickly as possible, and the game will grow progressively easier. When watching your Military Institute, try your best to find a low level 4-Star Military officer, as the lower the level he starts at, the stronger he will be endgame, then his higher level counterparts. Although you can get as many of these as you wish, I wouldn't suggest more than one per city, as you need room for a lot of Politics officers, as mentioned above.

Knowledge: This guy is similar to your Military Officer in multiple respects. Like mentioned above, you want to find at least one level 4 Star Knowledge officer, and like the Military Officer, you want to level him up as high as possible. His score is extremely important for saving you a tonne of time in your overall improvement. The most important aspect of the Knowledge officer, is as a part-time mayor. Your Knowledge officer reduces the research times of new technologies, and when you get to the higher ones that requires days and even weeks of study to finish, the hours and hours that this guy can cut off on the learning time is huge. Never start researching a new technology without first appointing this guy as your mayor. And always use your best one. But like the Military officer, once you've started the tech, immediately go back to your Politics officer as mayor, as the Knowledge officer has no more immediate uses in the mayor's seat. His second use is up for contention among the elite players of the game. From a generic standpoint, he increases the defensive score of your troops. Like the Military officer, your Knowledge officer increases your Defense stat by 10 points per every 1 point of Knowledge. Although it stands to reason that this guy should be your go-to mayor when you are being attacked by another player, many of us have found, at least when you have a strong Military officer to use and a solidly build and manned wall, that the Military officer actually makes a better defending mayor as he can clean out more troops before they can get close enough for you to worry about your troops defense score. However, a really good Knowledge officer has an attacking use. When hitting NPC cities for officer experience and raising your rep, you always want to plunder first, and then seize. The plunder should be conducted by your Military officer as you can clean out the troops with no losses. However, your Military officer has no real bearing on a seize. You are going to lose troops on an NPC seize as you can't out-range their howitzers and Anti-Tank Guns, so in order to counter these losses, using a solid Knowledge officer is the key, as the stronger his Knowledge stat gets, the fewer losses you will take.

Retraining:

There is only one way to retrain an officer's stats and that is with a Reassignment Procedure. For every 10 levels, an officer will require an extra Reassignment Procedure in order to redistribute their stats. (ie: 1 for levels 1-9, 2 for levels 10-19, 3 for levels 20-29, etc) Obviously, as it takes additional Procedures the higher your officer get's in level, you want to use this on as low and officer as possible, in order to keep from spending an arm and a leg in diamonds to optimize them. Moreover, you only want to use these on 5-Star officers. Once you score a Star Badge (which we will get into) on a 4-Star officer, making him a 5-Star officer, all three of his stats will jump. Obviously there is no point in placing stats in anything but your main stat so a reassignment is necessary. This will give you around 20 free stat points removed from the lesser stats to place in the main stat and making him a stronger officer.

Officer XP, Levels and Stars:

Obviously you want to own stronger officers, and this is how you do it. There are multiple ways of gaining Officer XP and we will go through them all, although there is one efficient way of doing it, and then there are the passive ways. Passive XP is the constant XP granted to your mayors. As you construct buildings, train troops/defenses and learn new techs your mayor is granted a slow stream of passive XP. There are also books that can be purchased with diamonds or found in chests that increase Officer XP: Training Exercise (1000 XP), Historical Battle Records (10,000 XP) and the Compendium of WW2 Battles (100,000 XP).

However, the fastest way to level and officer's XP is use him to attack wilds, NPC's and players. As his required XP/Level rises continuously with each level, you want to get as much in a short period of time as possible. As a player who finished all 3 Elite officer missions (180 base stat) I can tell you the most reliable and efficient way to gain XP is off the backs of NPC City plunder/seizing, especially the higher levels as, for example, a level 9 City will grant your officer around 120k XP per plunder/seize.

Once you get the necessary experience to move your officer up a level, go to your officer interface and beside your officer level the button labelled “Upgrade” will be green. Click it and you will be allotted 1 point/level gained. Next your takes any potential points you have recieved and click the (+) next to the corresponding officer stat, and to finalize your decision, click the icon at the bottom labelled (Confirm Assignment). If for any reason you clicked the wrong stat to assign the point to, don't click the (Confirm Assignment) icon, just switch officers and go back, and the point will show back up in your Potential Points and you can assign it again.

There is no real reason to go into officer levels. It's pretty straightforward, the higher the level, the stronger they get. HOWEVER, when initially picking them up, the strongest officers possible will be low level 4-Star officers. Although you will see 4-Star officers in the higher level brackets often, the potential points that they can get will be greatly reduced versus their lower counterparts. So try to get them new. The only real bearing level has on officers, other than what I have just stated, is the success rate of Star Badges, which we are about to get into, and the Success rate of Training Manuals which we will get into later.

Stars: I've brought these up many times already, so hopefully you realize how important they are. The stronger the Star Level, the stronger the officer. What you want to get are low level 4-Star officers, but if you need to fill in spots, high level 4-Star officers, and 3-Star officers are OK to keep around until you find suitable replacements. As you may have notice, I make no mention of 5-Star officers, and this is why. There are only two ways to get your hands on a 5-Star officer. 1) Steal one from another player. 2) Make one yourself. Obviously the first option doesn't need explanation; if they have a 5-Star officer as a mayor, you lower his loyalty through multiple hits, and have an open officer slot in the city you are attacking from, you will capture him.

Most likely, the 5-Star officer you get will be the one you train yourself. In order to do this, you need a Star Badge. To be more honest, you will need multiple. The success percentage of the Star Badge is low. It's percentage is affected by two things. 1) current Star Level, the more stars and officer has, the lower it's chance of success, and 2) the lower the officer's level, the lower the percentage of success. However, using Star Badges on anything but 4-Star officers is a complete waste, so I would suggest collecting as many as you can get your hands on, and throw them all on the same 4-Star officer until you score a hit. You do this by clicking the (+) next to your Star Level and then continuously using Star Badges until you score a success. When you do, the stats on your officer will automatically increase, around 10 points a piece in his lesser two stats and far more in his main stat. This is the best way to get your hands on a strong officer. Once you score the 5th Star, don't level this officer anymore until you reassign his stats as mentioned above reassignment is more expensive the higher the officer level.

Officer Equipment:

I'm not going to get into this too much as Officer Equipment could make up a guide all on it's own if fleshed out in full detail. But here are the basics you need to know. There are three main types of officer equipment: Honour Equipment, Medallion Equipment (Based on Player Rank) and Non-Specific Equipment from Chests. The Honour Equipment is something you want to strive to get for your attacking officer, as the equipment is the most lopsided equipment for attacking stats (ex: Sergeant’s Sword +15 Military, +25 Attack). But more importantly, it incurs no durability damage and is unbound, so you can switch it to any officer you want at will so long as the officer wearing it is not dispatched. The second is the Medallion Equipment. You get these from collecting a set amount of Junior, Intermediate and Senior Honour Medallions (although Senior Medallions were supposed to drop from event fields which as of current, have been removed from the game) When you gather enough, go to the Elite Missions on the Missions Interface and go to Reward of Honour, where it will allow you to trade in Medallions for a gear chest of a certain rank. Each rank has a corresponding officer level so be wary of this when you choose your equipment as the officer you want to wear it may not have the sufficient level to do so. This gear also comes with set bonuses that will increase everything from troop damage percentage to officer stats and attributes, so keep an eye on these stats when choosing a piece of gear, as certain bonuses are better than others. For instance, the Battalion Gear bonuses are: 5 pieces- Rockets Attack 20%, 7 pieces- Fighters Attack 10%, 9 pieces Military +6. Best way to see if you like the bonuses without trading in for a gear chest first is to wait till you attain a new Commander Rank as this will give you the Epaulet of each corresponding gear set, and allow you to see what the bonuses are. The first two levels which can be bought with Junior Medallions (green pieces) are unbound, but still incur durability damage. Anything higher, that needs Immediate and Senior Medallions are bound to the officer wearing them, and need an Equipment Transfer to unbind them from said officer. The last of the three gear choices are Non-Specific Equipment that has no bonuses, and is pretty unimpressive compared to the first two types. Although, if you need a weapon for your officer, buying a weapon gear chest is the fastest way to do so.

The final piece of gear (Sort of) are the Weapon Collection missions. Each type of wild or city drops weapon pieces. If you collect a full set, you can exchange them in the Elite Missions for a completed weapon.

Officer Skills:

Officer skills are the difference between a great officer and an exceptional officer. You want to get the right skills for the right officer, starting with your Military officer followed by your Knowledge officers. Unfortunately there really aren't any solid skills for Politics officers at this juncture. In order to train a skill, you need a training manual. There are three specific manuals for ground, air and naval skills and the Tactical Training Manual which is a bit cheaper to acquire but has a chance of dropping any skill. There are 2 troop-type specific skills, one that increases damage and one that increases unit speed, for each type, the rest are randomly dropped from any of the 4 manuals.

Military: There may be some disagreement, but in my opinion, when setting up your super Military officers, there are only 3 skills worth getting. Relentless Assault, Obliteration and Four Finger Formation. RA is the best skill in the game...period. 90% bonus to your Attack Attribute is huge. No skill on any other officer for any other purpose is stronger than this, especially at level 5 when you get the bonus every round. I chose Obliteration and Four Finger Formation as my 2nd and 3rd skills, because as important as Navy are, the majority of your incursions are going to involve ground and air units, and they need the most benefit to their damage. Naval units are already vastly superior in damage to everything else, so use Obliteration and FFF to pick up the damage on your lesser units. Counterattack isn't a terrible skill to have, but the three I picked are the strongest, as the stronger your units are, especially ranged units like Rockets and SPG's, the less likely you will have to worry about units getting close enough for Counterattack to be used.

Knowledge: If you are going to put together a solid defending Knowledge officer, there are also three major skills to pick up. Iron Curtain, Counterattack and Endless Barrage. Obviously Iron Curtain is top as it is the Ying to Relentless Assault's Yang, adding 90% to your officer's defensive score. It also makes it useful on NPC City Seizes as it will lower your troop losses significantly when getting in range of their wall. The other two are more for using this officer as a defending mayor, giving your defensive guns 50% more range and Counterattack is more prevalent when they are closing on your wall. But to be honest, the best defense is a good offence and if you want a solid defending mayor, I would suggest creating a secondary Military officer with Relentless Assault, Counterattack and Endless Barrage, as this will do more damage to a players incoming assault than a solid Knowledge officer.

The only other Skill worth mentioning is Advanced Engineering, which is really the only solid mayor skill currently available. Using an officer with this skill as the mayor of the city you are attacking from will increase the amount of troops that get recycled in your Damaged Troop Camp, and reduce oil consumption by 30%. The latter is especially useful when dispatching planes and naval units as their oil usage can be prohibitive.

Finally, skills have level requirements too. As you level an officer, your skill levels with him to a maximum of level 5. Your skill will upgrade to level 2 at 21, level 3 at 41, level 4 at 61 and level 5 at 81. Obviously most of the skills aren't terribly amazing at any level but 5 so prioritize getting your skilled officers to level 81 as quickly as you can, especially your main attacking Military officer, as Relentless Assault gives the 90% bonus EVERY ROUND at level 5.

Miscellaneous:

There are other important features that should be talked about. The first is loyalty. In order to keep your officers, you need to keep them happy. There are three ways that an officer loses loyalty. 1) You attack and lose. 2) You are attacked and lose 3) You have insufficient gold to pay them. Every officer has a subsequent salary that needs to be covered and the stronger the officer is, the more they expect to get paid, so make sure that they do. Also, you can increase their loyalty in order to combat this problem. Recruited officers start with 70 loyalty, captured officers with less as you had to drop their loyalty in order to capture them. In order to raise their loyalty they are greedy and only accept cash and jewels. Using gold will increase their loyalty 5 points per usage, using jewelry will increase their loyalty a certain amount of points based on how rare the jewelry is, if you mouse over the jewelry it will tell you.

Secondly, there are books available that increase an officer's base stat either for 24hrs or a week depending on the book. These are useful if you are planning major offensives, especially during War Week.