General Skill Tree – A non-Guide

Seeing some of the conversations going on regarding the general skill tree and what to do about it, maybe the best advice is……. think for yourself.

To begin with, what do you want to achieve?

Do you want to run adventures faster?

Do you want to lower your troop losses? A lot? Like 25, 26, maybe even 28%??

Do you want your Elite Barracks troops to do max damage all the time?

Do you want to skill a Vet general to be more powerful than an unskilled major, thereby giving yourself a virtual stable of Major generals?

The skill tree opens up some serious possibilities. Giving in and shouting “help me Obiwan!!” or going for the first shiny thing you see may not be to your advantage, and may cost some serious gems retooling generals down the road.

Not saying any posted advice so far is wrong, just that, it may not be the best solution for you if you haven't really, really thought about it before committing those oh so time consuming and expensive to make (and even more expensive to refund) books.

So here's one thing to think about: Navigation Crash Course.

Oh YaY!!!! Woo Hoo!!!!! Fast gens can get to adventures 6 and ¾ minutes faster!!! Huzzah!!!!

One of those “shiny things” mentioned earlier maybe? Perhaps?

Let's say putting 3 books in this skill prevents you from fully developing your Vet gens to be at least as good as a nonskilled Major.

So on those attacks where only a Major can do a satisfactory job, you're waiting for him to come back before you can launch your next attack. How much time does this eat up? Can it be more than 6 and ¾ minutes? If instead of waiting (drumming your fingers on your desk and rolling your eyes), you can send a Vet gen where before only a Major would do, how much time can it save? Let's say you can do this multiple times in an adventure. Can that save more that 6 and ¾ minutes? Think about it.

Or let's look at Bounty Hunter, Lightning Slash and Master Planner……..

Bounty Hunter…. OOOHHH I can get star coins!!!!!!

Lightning Slash…… WoW!! My general gets a second attack!!! Well, it's last strike, but still…….

Master Planner……. Elite Barracks Troops do max damage…. Every. Single. Attack.

Hmmmm…… decisions, decisions.

I know many of you may not be in the mid/upper 50 levels yet and so this doesn't mean much right now. But when you do get there, giving all of your Elite Barracks troops what basically amounts to, “the magic sword of doom” is no small thing.

How about everybody's favorite skill to ignore pretty much completely….. Unstoppable Charge.

At first glance +3 dmg & 100% splash dmg ….. meh, not so smexy is it?

Alright, well here is where a Vet gen comes into serious play. But first, the necessary skills:

Unstoppable Charge 3 tomes, Garrison Annex 3 codex, Master Planner 1 codex.

Jog and First Aid 3 and 3 would be good as well. If you're making a serious attack general outta this Vet, then 3 tomes in Overrun, 2 in Battle Frenzy is a darn good idea too. Oops! 18 books used up only 3 left to go. What to do? Get to the adventure faster?? Get more XP?? Maybe add some in Confident Leader so if I use this Vet against a leader AND I'm blocking, the block will be safer?? Hmmm…..

OK, enough fooling around.

I'm going to site 5 camps in Beautiful Princess as examples of the power & time savings achievable with the Unstoppable Charge/Garrison Annex/Master Planner combination.

1st camp: 170 Sailor – 100 Petty Officer

Old attack: Major 270 Mounted Marksman - zero losses

New attack: Vet 265 Mounted Marksman – zero losses

Pretty straight forward. An unskilled Major needed 270 MM to cover the times they didn't do max dmg. I suppose you could have scaled it down by a few just to be cool and it would still work, but whatever. 270 worked every time.

OK, so let's say you only give your Vet Master Planner. In this case no problem. Because MM do splash dmg and because Petty Officers are only 70 HP they'll all go down – no losses. You could even do it with 240 MM in a skilled Vet.

2nd camp: 270 Cannon Master

Old attack: Major 270 Armoured Marksman – zero losses

New attack: Vet 265 Mounted Marksman – zero losses

But let's pick this apart a bit……..

Cannon Masters have 100 HP. OK, so a Vet with Master Planner causes MM to do 100 (max) dmg each time. But without Unstoppable Charge that only accounts for 265 Cannon masters, so it goes into a second round which means losses. No worky.

But then you add in that measly 3 points extra dmg from Unstoppable Charge, multiply by 265 and you get an extra 795 dmg combined with splash dmg. So bye bye Cannon masters with zero losses. And while your Vet is creaming these guys, your Major is off doing some serious slaughtering elsewhere.

OK, now the cool thing…… you can send the Vet with 265 MM at the 2nd camp and he'll get intercepted by the 1st one, kill them all and go on to the 2nd one.

Yes. You could also do this same intercept attack with a Major that has Master Planner and 270MM. But then you need him to come back (while you sit there waiting and wasting time) so you can attack the leaders. Pretty good time saver skilling the Vet. Seriously. Think about it.

The next 3 camps:

3rd camp: 150 Sailor – 120 Cannon Master

Old attack: Major 20 Mounted Swordsman–90 Armoured Marksman–160 Mounted Marksman [20MSw loss]

4th camp: 120 Sailor – 150 Petty Officers

Old attack: Vet 250 Mounted Marksman 0 losses

5th camp: 270 Cannon Master

Old attack: Major 270 Armoured Marksman 0 losses

New attack?? Vet 265 Mounted Marksman – attack camp 5, let 2 intercepts happen along the way, kill all 3 camps with no losses. What's your Major(s) doing in the meantime?? Kicking some serious booty elsewhere and saving some precious minutes.

Now this is just the tip of the iceberg. Already, I no longer send Majors to YWC. Between Anslem, Vargus and 2 Skilled Vets, it's in the bag.

Have started redoing my personal guides for the Evil Queen chain and my 2 attack Vets are saving some bow sacs along the way.

This doesn't even take into account the dmg that Knights can do with the Unstoppable Charge/Master Planner combo. Consistently dealing 73 splash dmg?? Think about it. This is a sleeper skill peoples.

Anyway…. What started as a non-guide has become a commercial for Unstoppable Charge/Master Planner, which maybe was my intention in the first place. Mwah ha ha ha!!!!

Hope you all are loving the skill tree and making it work the very best way you can for the way you play the game. I've managed to drop my losses consistently by 27 to 28%. No kidding around. Consistently. I can wait the extra 6 and ¾ minutes for fast generals to arrive to save that kind of barracks time.

Over -n- out. :cool: