Warbook Strategy Guide

This guide has not been updated since 2007. If it's still good, it's still good; but there is a lot (can I stress this? A LOT) of information that isn't included because I quit Warbook a long, long time ago.

DISCLAIMER: I am not that great at Warbook. I played “properly” for about three weeks. I was once asked once by an Ally why my kingdom was doing so poorly compared to theirs. I explained to them that I much more enjoyed writing strategy guides than actually playing Warbook. I have played a Magician to level 11 and a Visionary to level 9; I am the leader of a tiny Alliance of friends – hopefully this will give you some idea of my experience. This guide is a collection my observations, experiences, guesses about how Warbook works, and information given to me by my wonderful friends.

DISCLAIMATIVE DISCLAIMER: The following guide is considered ADVICE ONLY. I accept no responsibility for you relying - or not relying - on the advice contained herein. In fact, I don’t know if “disclaimative” is even a word: I accept no responsibility for it not being one.

VERSION 2: This is the first complete revision of this guide. I’d been toying with the idea of overhauling the guide and giving it a really good tidy up, but I couldn’t find the motivation. Recently, a friend of mine pointed out that there were no numbers in my guide (that’s because I don’t like them, so there), and proceeded to provide me a large proportion of the numbers I was missing. Additionally, a number of things have changed or been added since the original version. So, tl; dr: Here’s the latest version of my Warbook guide.

THANKS TO: I would like to that the people who contributed to this strategy guide; however, in the interests of protecting their Warbook Hero identities, I will not refer to them by name. First of all, thank you to Lev, who not only went to all the trouble of recording various numbers involved in playing the game, but also very generously shared them with me. He also shared with me some of his own tips for success at Warbook, and encouraged me to write Version 2 (although he didn’t necessarily know that I was intending to almost completely re-write the whole thing). I also want to thank Jeej, whom I learnt many things from. It was Jeej’s enthusiasm for the game that kept me playing even after the initial novelty wore off. Jeej also gave me lots of pointers in the form of sharing observations just to be conversational. Thanks also to Lance Manthrob, who provided me with endless amusement over his name; but who also, as the newest member of my little Alliance, asked me plenty of questions that gave me ideas for things to put in this guide. Finally, thanks to Dark for some last minute research notes that rounded out this guide.

COMMENTS? SUBMISSIONS? If you have anything that you think should be in this guide, please make use of the comments box below to contact me.

What is Warbook?

In one very long hyphenated word? Warbook is a text-based-massively-multiplayer-online-real-time-strategy-facebook-application game (or TB-MMO-RTS-FA game for short perhaps?). It is almost entirely text based - your lands, possessions, and armies are represented by numbers and icons. It is not an RPG, but it can certainly act as a platform for role-playing if you enjoy that, and know people who do as well. I don’t recommend that you try RP’ing with strangers – you’ll look like a loon and people will be more likely to do the opposite of what you’re saying, just to be pricks.


1. HEROES

Your first step is picking a hero. This will be your representation in the Warbook universe and will dictate how successful certain strategies will be, so choose carefully.

1.1 Generals: The most balanced class in Warbook. Generals lose less elites when fighting; however, it is more expensive for them to both explore and build. At a guess, this would slow down the expansion of your kingdom, encouraging you to build large armies in comparison to the amount of land you have. The lowered elite casualties, and the fact that a General’s Elites have better stats, means that these kingdoms tend to be elite-heavy, with few or no pikemen or knights. If you’re playing a General, you should probably beware of recruiting too many soldiers too quickly, or you will not earn any income. It should also be noted that Generals have a low starting mana, and cannot cast alchemy.

Starting Stats: 3 Atk | 3 Def | 0 SP (spell power) | 10 Mana
Effects: -50% Elite casualties | +10% building and exploration costs
Elite Choice: Elite | 5 Atk | 5 Def | 1000gp each

1.2 Mogul: The main ability of the Mogul is that to make money. They are allowed to have more trade agreements than any other hero type, they earn more from their trade agreements, and it costs them less money to build their kingdom. The major advantage is that you can expand your kingdom and build your army faster than anyone else in the game; however, you will likely find yourself easy pickings to higher-level heroes unless you also know how to level quickly. My recommendation is that the Mogul is a good choice for experienced Warbook’ers who want to level quickly; or as support characters for Alliances.

Starting Stats: 1 Atk | 2 Def | 1 SP | 20 Mana
Effects: -10% building costs | 5 trade agreements | double bonus from trade agreements
Elite Choice: Legionnaire |3 Atk | 5 Def | 700gp each

1.3 Magicians: The spell casters of the Warbook world. They only truly come into their own at high levels, when they begin to be able to cast a large number of mana-intensive spells. Land grab and earthquake are devastating spells and make excellent retaliations. However, until such time as you can build up a good mana pool, you need to be a skilled strategist to build your kingdom, reinforce your army, and level your hero. They are a demanding hero to play, but (hopefully) the rewards are well worth it. Get into a good Alliance early on, and you’re laughing.

Starting stats: 1 Atk | 0 Def | 4 SP | 40 Mana
Effects: Double mana regeneration | +25% spell resist
Elite Choice: Wizard | 5 Atk | 3 Def | 700gp

1.4 Visionary: As the name does not suggest, Visionaries are the defensive masters of Warbook. They lose fewer troops when defending, and it costs them less money to explore free land. This means that they can make large kingdoms quickly, and their armies will bounce back easily from attack. Visionaries with a large defensive stat make excellent choices for slow players, or people who do not play very often.

Starting Stats: 0 Atk | 5 Def | 1 SP | 20 Mana
Effects: -25% casualties when defending | -25% exploration costs
Elite Choice: Defenders | 2 Atk | 8 Def | 700gp each

1.5 Warmonger: The Warmongers are truly built for war. They pay a meagre 50% to recruit troops and their elites have the highest attack stat of any troop type in the game. Their drawback is that there is a greater “random element” in their battles – this exhibits itself as “divine intervention” in battles; see 4.1 How Combat is Resolved for more information. Warmongers can quickly build massive armies for their kingdom size, even larger than generals. They are aimed at following a very aggressive strategy, and are well suited to confident players who know how and want to expand quickly. Build a lot of mines and forts right from the word go, and your kingdom will be nigh on unstoppable.

Starting Stats: 5 Atk | 0 Def | 1 SP | 20 Mana
Effects: -50% recruitment costs | “Divine Intervention” | Spell: bloodlust
Elite Choice: Berserkers | 8 Atk | 2 Def | 800gp each

1.6 New Hero Types

NEW HERO TYPE: AUTOMATOR
Atk 3 | Def 3 | SP 0 | Mana 10
Reduced elite upkeep cost
Elite “Machina” Atk 5 | Def 5 | 1000gp each

NEW HERO TYPE: NECROMANCER
Atk 2 | Def 2 | SP 2 | Mana 30
Spell: raise dead (25 mana), increased mana
Elite “Zombies” Atk 3 | Def 3 | 400gp each

NEW HERO TYPE: SLAYER
Atk 4 | Def 1 | SP 2 | Mana 20
Increased enemy casualties, Spell: bloodlust (40 Mana)
Elite “Assassins” Atk 6 | Def 2 | 400gp each

1.7 Statistics: Each hero has four statistics that influence the game.

Attack: A hero’s atk stat increases the force with which their troops can assault another kingdom.
Defense: A hero’s def stat increases your army’s ability to repel invaders.
Spell Power: Increases the effectiveness of your spells and increases the chance that you will overcome spell resistance.
Mana: Used to cast spells.


2. YOUR KINGDOM

Your kingdom consists of acreage on which you can build enhancements to support your kingdom. At the top of every screen, look for the small castle icon: this is the number of acres you currently own.

2.1 Building: While unimproved land will earn you a small amount of income every hour, the value in land is in what you can build on it.

Mines: The main source of income for kingdoms. Each mine you build will increase your kingdom’s hourly earnings.

Forts: Defensive emplacments to increase your army’s Defense stat. This bonus to your defense maxes out when 30% of your kingdom is forts. For this reason, it is only worthwhile to build approximately one-third of your kingdom as forts - that way you get the maximum benefit of your forts and still maintain your bonus if you fall under attack and lose a percentage of those forts.

Training Grounds: Increase your army’s Attack stat. Presumably, this works similarly to forts, with the same maximum.

Barracks: Reduces the recruitment cost of all troops. Barracks are essential to Warmongers, who can buy their troops for dirt-cheap already. If you choose to buy your Soldiers from a Warmonger Soldier Farm, you can spend minimal amounts on Barracks.

Amplifiers: Increase the effect of spells in the same manner as Spell Power.

Barriers: Increase your spell resistance, making it harder to cast spells against your kingdom.

2.2 Expanding Your Kingdom: Of the ways to expand your kingdom, the most common is to take it by force from another hero. Unless your opponent has nothing for you to steal, every time you attack/invade you will steal some of their land.

The second most common way is by exploring. Exploring costs money, and it is worked out at a percentage of your current kingdom size. This means that the larger your kingdom gets, the more expensive it is to continue exploring. This makes exploring fairly prohibitive at high levels.

The final way to obtain land is through spells. There are two spells: boundary shift and land grab. See 6. MAGIC for more on these spells.


3. YOUR ARMY

Remember that when you are “purchasing” Knight/Pikemen/elites that you are only upgrading existing soldiers; your army will not grow in size. This means that there is a hidden cost to purchasing these types because you will likely need or want to replace the rank and file troops that have now moved onto bigger and better things.

3.1 Basic Troops: Soldiers, Knights, and Pikemen are available to all Hero types. Their stats (attack, defense, recruitment cost, and upkeep) are listed below.

Soldier: 1 Atk | 1 Def | 100gp | 1gph (gold per hour)
Knight: 3 Atk | 1 Def | 300gp | 2gph
Pikeman: 1 Atk | 3 Def | 300gp | 2gph

3.2 Elite Troops: Elite troops are Hero-specific. Their stats are listed below.

Elite: 5 Atk | 5 Def | 1000gp | 3gph
Legionnaire: 3 Atk | 5 Def | 700gp | 3gph
Wizard: 5 Atk | 3 Def | 700gp | 3gph
Defenders: 2 Atk | 8 Def | 700gp | 3gph
Berserkers: 8 Atk | 2 Def | 800gp | 3gph

3.3 Value for Money: When purchasing troops, consider what you want them to do and how much it is going to cost your kingdom. For the most part, elite troops will fill the role of either Knights or Pikemen far more effectively at minimal additional cost in terms of recruiting and upkeep. Do not fall into the trap, however, of purchasing Wizards in place of Pikemen or Legionnaires instead of Knights. Despite the fact that they have the same def/atk stat as these lesser troops, the increased recruitment and upkeep is certainly not worth it. In the case of Defenders and Berserkers, save money wherever you can; do not purchase Pikemen (Visionaries) or Knights (Warmongers), but instead ensure that you have plenty of Soldiers as ablative armor instead. Finally, as a General, each Elite has the stats of a Knight and a Pikeman put together for less upkeep and the benefit of halved casualties. However, each of these Elites will cost more than that Knight and Pikeman put together. Aim to have an army strong on Soldiers and Elites, but be prepared to start with less troop choices.


4. ATTACKING and DEFENDING

The name of the game is Warbook, sooner or later you are going to find yourself in combat, be it on the giving or the receiving end.

4.1 How Combat is Resolved: Not having done much research into this, I can only give you a rough idea of the process of combat resolution. Combat is a function of the attackers attack stat versus the defenders defense stat.

Sum of atk of all attackers troops + Hero’s atk bonus + Training Ground bonus

- vs -

Sum of def of defenders army + Hero’s def bonus + Fort bonus

While normal combat may be as simple as the spoils goes to whoever of the two gets the highest number after these have been added up, Warmongers have an added random element in all battles. This means that instead of the normal results for a battle, you will instead see a message saying that due to Divine Intervention, against all odds, you have the won the battle.

4.2 Picking a Target: Unless you’re a Visionary with more forts than you can poke a stick at and enough pikemen to repopulate earth after the apocalypse, you are going to be doing a certain amount of attacking. At the start of your Warbook day, you should bolster your army and rebuild your lands after the night’s attacks. Unless you’re a Magician with a large amount of mana, don’t go overboard, you’ll need to save some money for later.

When looking for kingdoms to fight, use the search function to find kingdoms that are slightly larger than one third* your size. The search system will find the 15 kingdoms closest to your search parameters, starting with the lower number you entered. There is a bug in the system that if you search for a number ending in zero, the majority of the kingdoms in your search results will have considerably less acres than it says in the results list. Always search for numbers ending in 1-9.

*When attacking/spying on other kingdoms, a kingdom that is too large or too small will generate an error saying you can’t attack a kingdom either more then three times your size, or less than a third. However, at lower levels I have noticed that the error is twice/half instead. Considering reports on the forums of very high levels attacking people a mere quarter of their own acreage, it seems likely that the “range” of kingdoms that you can target increases with your level.

Try to avoid, if you can, attacking members of an alliance. They are easy to spot, the abbreviated name of the alliance appears in white nest to the hero’s name. It is possible to cough up that million gold you need to form the alliance on your own, but do you really want to take the risk that the person you just attacked is going to sic the rest of their alliance on you not just now, but for the next three weeks?

Consider your opponent’s level. A level 1 Warmonger might be easy to beat when you’re level 10, but you won’t get any experience. On the other hand, beating a level 10 when you’re level 1 is worth a lot more experience than Heroes your own level, the chances of you actually succeeding are remote.

Additionally, the Hero type you are facing is an important consideration. Visionaries start with a higher def stat than other Heroes, combined with the massive def on their elites it is generally safe to assume that they will have a higher defense than other Hero types. I’ve heard Warmongers complain that they are frequently the target of attacks, which surprises me. Between Divine Intervention and the sheer force with which they can retaliate (cheap troops + high atk stat on their Hero), to me, makes them less-than-ideal targets of aggression.

Despite the threat of magical retaliation, I find Magicians are the easiest targets. They have the second-lowest defense of the Hero types, and at lower-levels do not have the mana for spell-intensive responses. Beware, however, the Magicians with very high atk ratings who come round and pound you the old fashioned way instead. Generals and Moguls have moderate def ratings on thier elite troops, and are suitable choices if they do not have a high def stat and/or lots of forts.

4.3 Sending in the Troops: Pick fights that you can win without committing too many resources. Visionaries will cost you a lot of troops to overpower their elites and the hero’s defensive bonus. This is where Magicians really come into their own, with their mana pool they can afford to spy repeatedly on opponents. This is invaluable when deciding who to fight and how many troops to send in.

There’s no point in trying to face someone with 12,000 elites if you only have 5,000. And sending 10,000 Knights into battle against someone who actually only had a combined 5,000 troops is a complete waste. Remember that your casualties are based on a percentage of troops your send to the front - don’t send more than you need.

You should also take your opponents level into account. You get more experience for attacking someone who is a higher level than you, however they have the potential to be much harder to beat as they can have far better defense bonus. Remember that a higher level Visionary will have more defense than you have wenches in your kingdom, best to look for another target.

For people who don’t want to think about it too long: Roughly, you can send in Soldiers for Soldiers, Knights for Knights and Pikemen, and elites for elites, rounding up to the nearest five hundred or nearest thousand. For example, a kingdom with 1300 Soldiers, 2400 Knights, 2600 Pikemen, and 5300 elites can theoretically be overcome using 2000 Soldiers, 3-4000 Knights, and 5500 elites. It’s not a perfect system, but it makes for fast attacking.
A much better system for people who like to do the math: Using the values supplied in 3. YOUR ARMY, convert your opponent’s troops into a defense value, and deploy your troops to exceed that number. For example, 1300 Soldiers equals 1300 def, plus 2400 Knights equals 2400 def, 2600 Pikemen equals 7800 def, and the elites could be worth anywhere from 10600 to 42400 def.

4.3 On the Defensive: Assuming that you have the maximum 30% Forts, then the greatest variable in how well your kingdom can defend itself is in your defense ratio. To calculate your ratio, check your kingdom’s Defense score the Army page and divide that number by the number of acres in your kingdom. Depending on your preferred approach, defense ratios can range anywhere from 10:1 up to 50:1.

4.3 Sacking and Reduced Gains: After you attack a kingdom, you are returned to the “diplomacy” screen, allowing you to act again against that Hero. I previously advised against sacking kingdoms, however I’ve recently found out that you do now receive experience for each attack, so I’ve had to have a re-think on this strategy. Simply put, you can choose between reduced gains coupled with reduced losses, or taking the time to pick fresh targets to gain larger rewards at higher risk.


5. COMMUNICATION

The available communication between Warbook players is very limited. Through the “diplomacy” screen, you can send a message to another player, however messages will be truncated if there are too many characters. Additionally, you cannot use most forms of punctuation in the text boxes. All messages and notifications appear in the green information box at the top of the home screen. They all include a blue link to the player that sent or triggered them.

5.1 Searching: The Warbook interface does not include wildcard searches, so be sure that you have copied down important names exactly.


6. MAGIC

Magic is an essential part of Warbook even for non-Magicians.

6.1 Self-Spells: Of all the spells available to Heroes, two are cast on the Hero himself: alchemy and boundary shift. Alchemy produces gold in proportion to your kingdom’s income. Spell power increases the affect of alchemy by increasing the amount of money you will magic into existence. The base mana cost of alchemy is 20 mana, meaning that most kingdoms can cast it once one at a full mana pool. However, the cost to cast alchemy increases with the amount of mana you have.

. Mana pool | Cost to cast
30 | 20
80 | 24
100 | 30 .
110 | 33 .

Boundary shift is cast on your own kingdom and magically adds acres to your kingdom. Each cast of 60 mana increases the size of your kingdom by approximately 0.1-0.2%. This is one of the cheapest ways of acquiring land at high levels if you have the mana.

6.2 Scouting Spells: There are two spells used for scouting out other Heroes: spy and survey. Both cost a mere 2 mana each. Spying allows you to see how many of each troop choice a Hero has, and how much gold there is in their treasury. Survey lists the number of each type of improvement a Hero has built on their land.

At the very least, spy is an indispensable spell in that it allows you to choose your battles a little more carefully. While you can’t account for whatever stat bonuses they may have given their heroes, with the aid of spying you can be smart about how many soldiers you should send in to the fight. Knowing how many troops you face, you can tailor your attacking force to reduce costs, and send in the minimum number of troops you think you’ll need to break his defenses. Survey, while still useful, is not quite as essential to successful attacks.

6.3 Offensive Spells: There are three spells available to all Heroes for offensive casting: magic vortex, fireball, and earthquake. At 20 mana, magic vortex is possibly the most useless spell in Warbook. It drains half of a target Hero’s mana - a pointless exercise against the majority of non-Magicians, and Magicians regenerate their mana fast enough, and have a large enough mana pool that this spell isn’t very effective. Fireball (30 mana) destroys a percentage of a target hero’s troops, this seems to be approximately as effective as sending your own troops in, except that you suffer no casualties. However, you do not gain any land or gold either, only experience. Earthquake (40 mana) is basically the same as a fireball except that you destroy structures instead of troops. Again, you gain no land or gold, only experience, and you suffer no casualties.

6.4 Land Grab: This spell is only available to Magicians, and steals land out from other heroes. Land grab is an expensive spell at 100 mana, but in addition to proving a cheap way of increasing the size of your kingdom, it is an excellent retaliation spell. You steal from your opponent around 0.1-0.2% of their land, of which you add to your kingdom a random allotment of mines, forts, unimproved land, etc.

6.5 Mana: Each hour, a hero will regenerate 10% of their mana pool, with a minimum of 5. Magicians have double mana regeneration, regenerating 20% per hour with a minimum of 10. For most Heroes, 30 mana is ideal, this allows you to cast alchemy and up to five spies for each full recovery of your mana pool. Some players recommend increasing your mana pool to 80, at which point alchemy costs 24 mana to cast, but with a regeneration rate of eight points per hour you can cast alchemy every three hours (instead of four hours at a mana pool of 30).


7. ALLIES

The make allies screen in Warbook is designed to give you easy access to friends who play, and allow you to sign up to Alliances.

7.1 Alliances: Being part of an Alliance is always a good idea. It costs 1 million gold to form an Alliance, so you may want to pass the “hat” around your friends for contributions first, or charge a joining fee.

Leadership of an Alliance cannot be transferred, so if your leader leaves the Alliance, or destroys their kingdom to start again, the Alliance will vanish and you’ll have to poney up another million to reform. The Alliance leader is the only person who can see the member listing of an Alliance, so it honestly wouldn’t surprise me if there a people out there only finding out about new Alliance members because they see their own tag while hunting for kingdoms to invade.

The major benefit of Alliances is that it can help discourage people from attacking your kingdom - just the threat of potential allies waiting to rain havoc down upon their kingdom should they dare be so bold will help keep your attackers away (unless they’re part of an Alliance themselves, of course).

In theory, an Alliance offers you the benefit of strategic communication. However, the alliance interface does not really add much to the Warbook experience at the moment. There is a chat window at the bottom of the Alliance screen, allowing all Alliance members to send messages to all other members simultaneously, but to see any communication regarding the Alliance, you will have to go through several screens to reach the Alliance page.

Part of being in an Alliance is the Counter Policy. This is the dictate of the alliance leader regarding what constitutes an offence against your alliance, and what the expected response is to be. This can range anywhere from a single retaliation attack from a suitable Alliance member to the no aggro reset counter policy that was used by my own Alliance.

The no aggro reset counter policy was inspired by a line from the hilarious Onyxia does Wipe Club mp3 and flash animation. Basically, it assumes that when opponents attack allied kingdoms, they are generating aggro. If they don’t know how to manage their aggro, then there is no aggro reset (and the Alliance will perpetrate certain atrocities against them).

7.2 Aid: It is possible to send aid to other kingdoms in the form of Soldiers and gold. Every time you do so, you are taxed a minimum of 10%. No one know where this gold and Soldiers go, but beware that depending on the size difference between yourself and the receiving kingdom, you may end up losing 40% or more.


8. STRATEGIES

Below is a collection of observations I have made on how to build a solid kingdom.

8.1 The Early Levels: For your first few levels, try to split your money three ways over soldiers, forts, and mines. It is important in your first few levels to keep your kingdom as impenetrable as possible, while earning as much money as you can. It takes very little experience to level up the first few times, so let other people hand that experience to you by smashing themselves on your walls while you stay safe at home.

8.2 Know Your Strengths: And play to them. If you are a Visionary, this defense tactic will get you through most of the game, though not quickly. Visionaries should build armies heavy on Defenders with a full 30% complement of Forts and a few Barriers. Warmongers should build strong Soldier and Berserker armies; you should be able to rely on the strength of your troops and the ability to quickly and cheaply reinforce to retaliate against people who attack you. Generals should choose whether they want to play a defensive or offence game and follow either the Warmonger or Visionary strategy.

A Mogul’s elite troops are slightly biased towards defensive stats, so you would be best off with a Visionary-style strategy with these heroes, using your superior money-making skills to heavily reinforce your kingdom with forts and elites. A Magician’s elites are stronger attackers than they are defenders, however, at high levels your awesome magical abilities just might make you a lot of enemies, so building the basis of a strong defense now seems like a good idea.

8.3 At Higher Levels: Your strategy shouldn’t change much at higher levels - if what you’re doing is working for you there’s no need to change it. However, you will want to start building Barriers to defend you from high level Magicians.

The trouble with magic is that all of the forts and troops in the world won’t protect you when the fireballs come hailing down. Forts and pikemen are the key to covering your ass at low levels (when even Magicians have to level up the “dirty” way), and they are indispensable against invading forces. However, when the Magicians start getting to the point where they can cast multiple fireballs or earthquakes, then you start becoming vulnerable to magical attack. Barriers will help defend your kingdom from Magicians by blocking their attacks. From about level 6 or 7 upwards, make sure that you spend at least a little money on barriers so that by the time heavy magic attacks start coming around, you’re prepared.

8.4 Levelling Fast: I’m probably the last person you should ask for advice on how to level quickly in Warbook. However, I have read some bits and pieces researched by Dark.

The “More Money Than You Know What to do With” Fast Track Strategy: Log into your kingdom every few hours and cast alchemy every time is available. Keep doing this until your kingdom has 10 million + gold. Buy around 300000 Soldiers from your nearest Soldier Farm (and try not to look at how far in the negative your income has gone). Begin attacking with wild abandon until you have sent roughly half of those Soldiers to their deaths.
The “Impenetrable Fortress of Doooooom” Strategy: Admittedly, this isn’t a fast strategy, but it’s nice to know that I’m not the only person who thinks that 35% Forts, nothing but Defenders, and a “come and get me” attitude is one of the best ways to play a Visionary. It is possible to get your defense ratio up to around 50 : 1 using this tactic. Just don’t forget how long it will take you to level this way.

9. EARNING EXPERIENCE and LEVELLING UP

There are three ways to earn experience: conquering enemy lands, repelling invaders, and casting certain spells (fireball and earthquake if memory serves). Most of the time you will earn a single experience point; however successfully invading a kingdom larger than you, or repelling the attack of a kingdom larger than you is worth proportionately more xp.

When your hero levels up, you will get a message in your green communication box to let you know. You get 2 stat increases each level, click over to your hero’s page to spend them. How you spend these points will depend on what sort of strategy you are following.

For non-spell casters, choose whether you want to be aggressive or defensive. If you want to play aggressively, atk will be your primary stat and def will be your secondary stat; and vice-versa for defensive players. The guide below is flexible enough to cover almost all play-styles, while ensuring that none of your stats become too gimped. However, if you are a General, you will want to spend both stat points on mana to be able to cast alchemy at second level before trying the following outline.

2nd & 3rd Level » primary stat + mana
4th & 5th Level » primary stat + secondary stat

6th Level » primary stat + spell power

7th Level » 2 x primary stat
8th Level » primary stat + secondary stat
9th Level » primary stat + mana or spell power or secondary stat

then repeat 7-9

If you’re a Magician, or you simply want to follow a magic-heavy attack plan, then your focus will be a little different. Mana will be your primary stat, and your secondary stat will be shared between spell power and either atk or def (Magicians are skewed towards atk already, so choose if you want to pump that up or if you want to ramp up your defense instead).


10. EARNING MONEY

There are several ways to earn money in Warbook, some more successful than others. When you reach 10,000,000 gold pieces in your treasury, you will no longer be able to see the exact amount of gold you have. People spying on your kingdom, however, will still be able to see the exact amount.

10.1 Alchemy: The fastest way to make money is by casting alchemy. Alchemy is a good way of making fast money when you want to reinforce yourself quickly, or as a “bank” to draw on when you’re putting your kingdom to bed (see below) if you drained your kingdoms resources to ensure that you weren’t vulnerable to attack while busy invading other kingdoms.

10.2 Mines: This is the most basic form of earning your income. This is the only way to ensure that your kingdom is earning enough money every hour to pay for your troops.

10.3 Invading: Probably the second most common way to earn money is by pillaging your enemies coffers when you invade. Just as with land, you will gain a proportion of your opponents money every time you attack another kingdom.

10.4 Trade Agreements: Your Hero can manage trade agreements with up to three other Heroes simultaneously, unless you are a Mogul, in which case you can have 5. For every trade agreement in place, your kingdom will earn an extra 5% of their hourly income; again except for Moguls, who earn 10%. You should always have 3/5 trade agreements at all times, no one can argue with free money.

10.5 Soldier Whoring: This tactic works especially well for Warmongers as they can produce Soldiers very cheaply. It is possible to sell your kingdom’s Soldiers to other Heroes for up to 30 gold each.

10.6 Farm Accounts: The final way to make money is by having farm accounts. I’m not going to pass judgement on whether doing this is right or wrong, your morals - or lack thereof - aren’t my problem. By registering secondary email addresses on facebook, you can invite yourself to play Warbook and control multiple kingdoms at once. This way, you can send money from your farm accounts to your main account, making them more powerful than non-farming Heroes.

The biggest restriction on this is that you cannot send any aid to or from a kingdom that is smaller than 3000 acres, or has been in play for less than 2 hours. You also have to protect these kingdoms. Exploring up to 3000 acres and then funnelling 100% of your money into another kingdom is the fastest way to find yourself under repeated attack. It is vital that a farm account be fully self-sufficient before attempting to fund another account.


11. BEGINNING AGAIN

So, you’ve totally stuffed up your hero and want to try again? Fortunately, Warbook allows you to do exactly that. At the very bottom of the main page, click the Kingdom Options link and destroy your kingdom. However, before you do, find a friend you trust and ask for their help. Send your friend all of your gold and Soldiers and have them hold it for you while you destroy your kingdom and start again. Remember that you will lose 10-40% in “tax” each way, so make sure that the amount of gold you have is worthwhile transferring first.

However, as Jeej learnt the hard way, do not convert your excess gold to Soldiers. Try to keep the gold : Soldiers ratio as high as possible. Soldiers cost upkeep, and a 1,000 acre kingdom with 70,000 Soldiers* simply cannot afford to stay alive. Nothing bad will happen if you go into negative income, assuming that you don’t count having a negative income as a bad thing. However, it can be very hard to recover from losing income every hour.

*Not actual figures, but pretty damn close.


12. PUTTING YOUR KINGDOM TO BED

When you’re done for the “day” - i.e. before you log out of Warbook - you should put your kingdom to bed. The idea behind this is to leave your kingdom in a secure state

First of all, if you saved your mana for alchemy, you should cast that. Spend some money replenishing troops that have been lost from attacking. It’s nice to leave your troops on a round number - I did this just because I like round numbers - but Jeej pointed out to me that it is really obvious what has been happening to your kingdom while you where gone if the number had some nice fat zeroes at the end.

Expand your kingdom, and build on your unimproved land. Lev shared the following trick with me: Because it is near-impossible to search for an acreage ending in zero, try to ensure that your kingdom has a round number of acres at all times.

Spend your mana. Mana regenerates very quickly (especially if you you’re a Magician), and any time that your mana is full, you are essentially “losing” free mana. Using it whenever it is available means you will get the most value out of your mana.

I also like to drain my kingdom’s coffers each day. Lev doesn’t agree with me on this point, citing the fact that generally he doesn’t lose more than about an hour’s gold each day to attackers. However, this strategy works for me because: I can barely keep my kingdom in the black anyway. Between my general incompetence, and my favouritism of this strategy, I tend to run my kingdom on a very low income. I usually have as many troops as I can afford for what my kingdom earns.

At the very least, what I mean by this strategy (are you listening Lev?) is that whatever you do, don’t just leave large amounts of income lying about. At the height of my Alliance’s no aggro reset phase, we perpetrated what could only be described as a war crime against a player who attacked my kingdom three times over two days. Over the course of a week, we all took turns sacking the kingdom, sometimes up to six or eight times a day.

The player in question was not actually present for the majority of this, and their kingdom had built up a small repository of gold, only about 2-3 million at a time. However, by the time a kingdom reaches the point that it is no longer possible to capture resources you will still strip roughly 0.1% of their wealth every attack. This might not seem like much, but if you leave a couple of million lying around, remember that you are losing thousands of gold every time someone invades.


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Updated: 16 November
Version II: 30 October 2007
Previous Updates: 15 October, 8 October, 5 October
Posted: 4 October, 2007

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