LMCG - Legendary Meta Community Guide

[MsMuffins]

Legendary Meta Community Guide

Updated 29/06/2021

First of all just want to make this quite clear, I am not a top player, my macro in comparison to some top players is not great. However I can still manage to do most legendary co-ops without a problem, of course some may take longer for me. But in any case, I have picked up strategies and in my experience of doing many legendaries, I think it would be best to put all useful information in one place for new players to find easily. I hope you find this guide useful!

Contents

1. Legendary Quest List
2. Community Economy Tips
3. Overall Unit Viability
4. Strategies/Unit compositions & Tier List
5. Crete
6. Meta Economy Advisors
7. Useful links (I recommend having a look at them)

Legendary Quest List

Classic


Argos:

1. Breaking Bandits
2. I know I’m losing you
3. Impossible Cataclysm
4. Rescue Me

Cyprus:

1. Tamiat Triple Time
2. The Renegade Escapade Grand Finale
3. Recapturing Soloi
4. Recapturing Paphos
5. Recapturing Marion

Northern Holds:

1. Beorix Returns

Crete:

1. Elite Meet (sleep) in crete
2. Even More Cretins on the Coast
3. Even More Rivals at the River
4. Even More Mercenaries at the Mount
5. Even More Invaders on the Island
6. Even More Plunderers on the Plateau
7. Even More Criminals at Kedros
8. Even More Bandits on the Bridge
9. Even More Scallywags on the Seas

(Highlight because they can only be started through the Crete Interface and are the only legendary quests which are like this)


Celeste

Athens:

1. A New Rebellion
2. End of theTraitors
3. Recapturing Efeso
4. Recapturing Myus
5. Recapturing Sardes
6. Recapturing Mileto
7. Legendary 1v1

Tarsos:

1. Holy man
2. Battle of Thymbra
3. Battle of Opis

Babylon:

1. Susa in Strife
2. More Mad medians in Mesopotamia
3. Euphrates in Disorder
4. Trouble at Tigris

Realms Of The World/Well of Urd:

1. Recapturing Alfheim
2. Recapturing Svartleheim
3. Recapturing Asgard
4. Recapturing Helheim
5. Recapturing Niflheim
6. Recapturing Muspelheim

Rhakotis:

1. Liberating Fayum Oasis
2. Liberating Memphis
3. Liberating the Lower Nile
4. Liberating the Village of Sais
5. Liberating Giza
6. Liberating Thebes
7. Liberating Dahshur
8. The Valley of Kings

Lodi:

1. Invasion of Cremona
2. Invasion of Nikaia
3. Invasion of Ouikos
4. Invasion of Dunum
5. Invasion of Verona
6. Invasion of Aegitna
7. Brennos Attacks

Rome:

1. Come Together
2. The Sea of Holes
3. Don't Let Me Down
4. Only a Northern Town
5. Battle of Allia
6. Fabii, You're a Rich Man
7. The Seige of Clusium
8. Invasion of Rome

(5 Star quests highlighted)









Community Economy Tips


More from PVE perspective, but some of these could be applied to PVP.


1) Hunting, Berries & Farms

• Huntables like deer gives fastest food gathering of all food resources, always prioritize first, Also shift click to quickly kill them all and place storehouse nearby for efficient gathering. Additionally to be even more efficient, space out villagers on each deer to avoid any collisions.
  
  
• Berries should only be taken after any huntables or fish, and optionally with the storehouse upgrade for quick and efficient gathering, Again TC or storehouse should be close by to minimize seconds lost on walking to and from berries.
  
  
• Farms is the final phase of food production, due to their high cost in wood, should only be used to boom in food & gold focused economies, wood & gold economies don't even need them. And in rare case like Babylon, gardens can give plenty of food so not many farms may be needed for say Lancer spam if at all.

2)Houses

• Houses are always needed for Pop Cap, and altogether will always need 24 houses for 1200 wood, if you don't have reduce cost gear on them already. But some people make the mistake of just chucking down houses randomly, in certain quests, houses can be handy as a sort of temporary wall, Although legendary units will go through houses like nothing, they can be used smartly as sort of choke-points, this is often seen more in PVP, but can be used well in PVE.

3)Storehouses

• Storehouses are quite important with their early upgrades and not only for effective placement for efficient gathering, but always remember for gold and stone, leave some space between storehouse and mine for villagers to mine, but not too much space.
  
  
• As for upgrades, Key early upgrade is definitely the wood, stone can be good for early defence and stone conservation, but if there is little early pressure then focusing on booming and buying minimal upgrades is the way to go.
  
  
• Also bare in mind this may depend on your economy style, food& gold focus more on food upgrades, wood& gold, just wood, in either case can get stone but can just as easily buy stone from markets when stone runs out.

4)Markets

• Markets are probably the most important part of your economy, it is imperative that you learn how to trade properly and efficiently. And yes this section is abit long, but it will benefit you greatly!
  
  
• In any leg quest you will need a market to trade resources, so putting them on a known ctrl+hotkey is basic and important macro.

• Additionally, a neat hotkey to know is Shift+Z while your about to place down a new market, this will give you a fairly accurate gold prediction of how much your caravans will currently get. This does now include gear/techs/advisors in its calculation.

• So keep in mind, solo will give base gold for caravans trade, co-op gives 1.5x!
  
  
• Distance between markets and town centers is a key part of trading, further away the more gold, however it will cap at 150, a common noob mistake is to put as far away as possible and think your fine as your getting 150 gold anyways. This is actually bad because 1 your caravans are travelling too far for 150 gold, 2 the final upgrade is useless in this case.

• So, you will want to aim for a sweet spot around 120-130 gold (co-op, if solo don't aim for this high.), this can change depending on gear, but the idea is that once you get the final upgrade in market on Age 4 you will get to 150 gold and your caravans will be travelling at a optimum distance, making yourself far more efficient than someone trading much further away for same amount of gold.

• Also Egypt caravans have a 0.72 Work rate debuff to their trade caravans, normally its 0.80 for all other civ's. Keep this in mind when trading as Egypt.

• Additionally you will want to keep your trade route as clean and clear as possible, never put a choke point for your caravans, this will slow them down to the point you wonder wheres your gold???, again you want to make your trade route as fast as possible so keeping it clear of buildings or wood is important.
  
  
• Furthermore going for 2 markets to pump out caravans is the best for starters, if you can go for more markets, (I usually do 6 markets these days with Nannus) only do so if you can keep up with resource cost of pumping out caravans on each market constantly, otherwise this is a waste of wood.
  
  
• Lastly Caravans will automatically go to market which gives max gold, you can use this to your advantage when building markets and may only need 1 market at desired location, the other could be built elsewhere to save space or perhaps pump out caravans closer to trading town center. Additionally when a market is destroyed, all caravans will reroute to another market, but if all markets or the TC your trading get destroyed, they will stop and need to be manually rerouted, and obviously need to build another TC/market depending on what was destroyed.
  
  
• P.S Also always try to get the trade discount upgrades on market as early as possible for minimal resource lost in trading.

• UPDATE - The era where Dumnorix advisor dominated Age 2 is over, now a strong contender and often better is Nannus, with his ability to deploy 4-5 cheap markets at a really low cost, giving you additional wood to spend on caravans and getting that early gold for trading, is really really strong, and not to mention in quests where you'd want docks for fishing, even more so stronger than Dumnorix. I'm hesitant to say that Nannus is always better than Dumnorix but hes definitely better in quests where you can build docks and markets.

• Extra Tip thanks to Frog, Quoting him:
  In terms of best-in-slot merchant gear, Merchant Log of the Nile takes the #1 spot, with Titan-Bound Gaff Stick being the second place, roughly 1% behind Merchant Log of the Nile. Pure %speed options fall far behind, with Light Camel Barding, the current best pure-speed merchant gear, being a full 10% behind Merchant Log of the Nile in terms of gold generation per second.
• Check out Kevsoft indepth explanation of caravans if you still want more info!

5)Town Centres

• Making town centers is a obvious and important part of your economy, pumping out more villagers = more resources = earlier boom = earlier push. So making more Town Centers to pump out villagers is a no brainer for most, but a mistake new players make is forgetting to build one straight away, most quests will give you enough wood and stone to build one straight away, in this case you will always want to, of course will also always want to get out a market as well.
  
  
• So Simply build Town centers as soon as you can, ideally get 3 TC's pumping out constant villagers to boom your economy really quickly. And keep an eye on food production, you want to sustain the production till you reach the desired amount of villagers, this can be hard when huntables run out and have to resort to berries or farms, but never forget your market is your friend.

6)Villager & Caravan Compositions

• It is important to how you play to keep in mind how many villagers and caravans you build, more caravans = more gold to buy upgrades through market, more villagers to give one particular resource, like food or wood for the economic styles.
  
  
• New players will rely on villagers more than caravans, advanced players will heavily rely upon markets through their macro skills. But generally in legendary quests, you will build as many villagers as what you need to get your economy going, its hard to pinpoint a specific guideline amount of each, as of course its different for each Civ, EG egypt caravans focused, and only really need villagers to build front line forts for elephant production.
  
  
• But my advice would be as you get faster and more efficient to slowly rely upon market and caravans more than villagers, and once you've mastered macro, find your own sweet spot for each civ in terms of villager & caravan compositions. Update - Additionally depending on what units you use, adjusting your villagers and caravans to keep pumping units is important, especially if you intend to do harder quests like five stars. Running out of resources is very dangerous and often fatal unless partner helps you. For example when using woads these are a spam intensive unit, if your economy can't sustain infinite woad spam, you will struggle.

• Advanced Tip, it is possible to rely purely on markets to trade all the gold into resources you need, however this requires a lot of macro-management and would not recommend at all to new players.

7)Resource Management

• Resource management is pretty simple but very effective for keeping your economy booming efficiently, quite simply you just need to keep a eye on your resources and make sure none of them are stockpiling too much, if say you have too much gold lying about, invest it through market to boost your economy that much quicker, eventually this will become habit and you should get faster and faster.

8)Economy Styles, food & gold, Wood & gold

• As I mentioned before your economic styles will heavily influence how your economy develops, food & gold economies like Norse (berserker), Celt (Woad or Champs), Babylon (Lancers), will each need much more food production to sustain the output of these units when pushing. From my experience, a good 20 on farms in late game is enough to deal sustain production however if you prefer to go through markets with minimal farms or none at all, this is also fine.
  
  
• Likewise Wood & gold will need much more wood production, Greek ( Gastaphetes), Persia (Bowmen), Egypt (Eles only need gold), the greek and persian example will need significant wood production to boost your economy fast enough and sustain the heavy wood cost of these ranged units, so can advise around 30-40 on wood.
  
  
• Egypt being so unique with only needing gold (khepri), the only civ of its kind to do this and so the easiest to sustain with mass caravans.

9)Early defense quests

• In the case of quests where you will get attacked early and simply not enough time to boom your economy, a focus on getting up walls/guard towers/fortresses depending on optionals will be important.
  
  
• However always keep your economy going at same time, of course keeping yourself and you partner alive is more important to actually beat the quest, BUT if you want to the beat the quest efficiently and in time, always keep your economy moving forward while you defend, so simply keep a balance of focus between economy and defenses.

10)Docks, fishing & Merchant Ships

• A often overlooked part of the game by new players, (AoE2 veterans will probably know this), but fishing is actually another fast source of food production, simply getting nearby fish with villagers or investing in a dock and couple fishing ships can give plenty of food for your economy.
  
  
• Just keep in mind, fishing boats are expensive, and most maps won't have much fish, or uncontested fish if enemy ships are patrolling/taking it already. So you should see how much fish you have and build your fishing ships accordingly, the only real exception to this rule is euphrates in disorder, with its utterly insane amount of fish.
  
  
• Merchant ships, generally the same rules that I mentioned earlier apply to merchants as well, keep them far away, keep the route clear.
  
  
• However Merchants ship are bigger than caravans and are really clunky, so it is even more important to keep their routes clear or otherwise if both you and your partner are using a tight merchant trade route, a traffic jam is only a matter of time.
  
  
• Additionally can build a couple docks each, and split production of merchant ships between each dock on each far side, this way could perhaps avoid traffic jams and keep merchant ships spaced apart.
• Update - Nannus for cheap fast docks, Finnbar for cheap fishing ships and efficient fishing, Perikles can also be good for faster merchant ships tho rarely use them.

So overview, Generic economic focuses is your town centres, your market/dock trade routes, storehouse upgrades, whatever build order you do on any civ or legendary quest, these 3 things are absolutely key to having a early efficient start, you should prioritise these on any quests and eventually develop your own build order through these key economic components. (Also always keep in mind key information about each x) )










Overall Unit Viability: (WIP)

• • Cavalry – These days most cav units are viable with specific advisors that buff them, some fall off on some quests for example egypt elephants can snipe unit production buildings very well and obliterate bases on say athens quests, but in rome they struggle to perform well. due to needing to defend vs constant pressure in clusium for example. All cav units that are good/viable: (no particular order to numbers)
  1. Babylon - Lancers, Lancers and cav archers very strong with advisor and lancers always have been S tier.
  2. Egypt - War Elephants, , viable, camels haven't tested, but even with advisor, have to test for viability. War elephants since nerf no longer the S++ tier powerhouse they were but can still do most leg quests with no issues.
  3. Greeks - Hippikons and Prodromos, both good with Apollo, viable, sarris haven't tested but dont think they work. Greek cav outshined by their ranged and hoplites but still quite viable.
  4. Celts - Horsemen and Carpentoms strong now with buffing advisors. Only strong with advisor, wouldn't ever run them without.
  5. Norse - Cav also very strong with buffing advisors, tho raiders haven't tested, but still weak. Again only strong with advisors.
  6. Persians - Cataphracts still viable I believe, can see Cav Archers being good, Asabra are a reasonably strong frontline.
  7. Rome - Gallic seems to be strongest but can run eques to different results, but Gallic with advisors very strong right now. Can add primus to help too. Decurions are also good for tanking but not for dps like gallics which you really need to push at times. Just beware that gallic without octavius spam slowly, in quests with high pressure, they get overwhelmed easily.

• • Infantry – As said with Cavalry, infantry are mostly the same, certain advisors can buff them to the point they can be viable to do any leg almost. Infantry are usually cheap but they have smaller health pools than cav so most likely you will have to spam them like crazy to push with infantry. This will need a strong economy to sustain the heavy costs of constant losses.
  1. Babylon - Babylons infantry is actually quite strong just not used as much due to their strong cav, Royal guards good efficient infantry, very good spears and zopyrus with sappers can be used. Shield bearers perhaps their weak link but can still tank. Thanks to DesArch's efforts, sappers are actually quite strong indeed when spammed en mass.
  2. Egypt - Egypt infantry is the cheapest and weakest infantry in the game no doubt but due to their new advisor, they have become so strong that they can push on clusium P1, the never ending fast spam of spears and axemen is overwhelming for even AI spam.
  3. Greeks - Greek infantry have always been somewhat strong, but now they are all viable in different quests, depends how you use them. Mainly hoplites as a strong firm meatshield for ranged or seige, Hypapists are actually better than hoplites as they do more damage as a frontline especially vs lots of infantry like roman legios.
  4. Celts - Infantry focused civilization, so best known for having very strong infantry, they've always been viable even before advisors buffed them further, though woads are not the beasts they used to be due to nerf, Woads are still very strong when used properly, however they are glass cannons, close by forwards bases to spam them out constantly is essential. Champions with druids is also very strong, and not to be underestimated, even long-swords when spammed on mass can do well.
  5. Norse - Also a infantry focused civ, their Berzerkers are insane and have always been insane, can do almost all leg quests without problem. But their ulf's are also strong and work well with berzerkers, mixing them up to counter whats comes is a good way to, for example ulf vs roman gallic. Harjars I'm unsure of, will need testing.
  6. Persians - Immortals, extremely strong especially with new advisors, are your go to unit for persian infantry with no contest. Though there isn't much contest anyway.
  7. Rome - Finally to the new romans, clearly the legionaries are one of their core strongest units with 2 unique upgrades on top of barracks/armory upgrades, and further helped by a Aquilifier and Primus. And buffed further with caesar, already very strong without, yet to get caesar but I'd imagine with him, can rip through all legendary quests with ease. They are the strongest late game Civ. And can add Centurion beasts into your legionaries ranks for extra damage and tankiness. Goes without saying with legionaries you should have atleast 1 aquila buffing your advancing legionaries at all times. Update - Do now have Caesar, he is king and legios with him are unstoppable.
  
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  • Ranged – Ranged are stronger these days with all the relevant advisors aswell, take abit more skill to use well, and cant deal with high pressure alone or will slowly push. Often very useful to use with a co-op partner tanking in front. But in general you want to have alot of range with whatever ranged unit your using and then full damage, bow of master hunter and grand viziers are essential.
  1. Babylon - Chariot Archers, best for babylon I'd say, build them right, spam them on mass, viable.
  2. Egypt - Elephant Archers, Chariot Archers, Elephant archers en mass also strong or afew eles to tank. Havent tested chariot archers but most likely viable like babylon counterparts.
  3. Greeks - Generally used to be the best ranged faction hands down, with gastra with greek fire, palis with timo, but with timos nerf and new advisors, tox having taking the place as best currently. Gastra still good but fall behind advisor buffed tox in my opinion.
  4. Celts - Archers with crit build and advisors would be your go to for celts, havent tested myself but seen it used and viable. Additionally carpentomss good, though usually used with horsemen, haven't tried them alone.
  5. Norse - Archers with correct build but quite possibly the worst civ for ranged currently. I think should be viable.
  6. Persians - With the unique persian ranged tech, persian ranged has stupid range, and so very strong, strong contender to greeks. Persian archers definitely viable.
  7. Romans - Have yet to test cretans this way, but could be nice with 1 aquilifier buffing them too. But similar to norse with perhaps the weakest ranged options.
  • Monks/priests - Keeping this brief as they all work the same pretty much though without a doubt come civ priests are far superior to others. Always use with mehrab.
    
    
  • Seige – Seige is generally useful on all civ's, its just a matter of how to work them into your comps, though with timos nerfs, palis are no longer the super ranged snipers they were. Also rams are generally not used, ranged seige is far more efficient.
  1. Babylon - Pali's your general go to for ranged seige, but their unique Seige towers I'm unsure of but rarely ever used.
     
  2. Egypt - Pali's and catapults, either for range or damage roles.
     
  3. Greeks - Pali's and ballistas both good for different roles again, palis for long range sniping and ballistas for pure damage to rip through units and buildings alike.
     
  4. Celts - Throwers good for ranged sniping.
     
  5. Norse - Throwers again good for ranged sniping, and only real option.
     
  6. Persians - Also have palis for ranged seige, but also have unique War Wagons, quite good with advisors but I haven't tested.
     
  7. Romans - Palis and onagers, similar to before, use for different roles, and also some people do use second option for range too, I just personally prefer damage, but ranged or pure damage onagers work.
  • As for solo’s, A mix of units is important, preferably a tanky unit and some form of dps, Or in some case both are 1 unit like eles. But 99% of the time I do co-op. I'd suggest checking the links I listed at bottom and find a solo youtube vid to learn from. I'd recommend Geese.
    
    
  • Additionally is the guard tower spam strategy, which in some quests can be very useful, a huge amount of Guard towers makes for equally huge DPS, this can simply hold off anything on its own except if AI get sneaky with their own long ranged siege. For example this strategy is great in Opis and Asgard to cut down units that go in a singular route. Also a good option for quests with age restrictions like memphis, but this is most seen in Crete.
    
    
    
  • Lastly Advisor units, now I don't really know how legit anything outside of greek advisors unit are for legendary, if someone could test each out would be great. Only other which could be good is perhaps the egyptian elephant advisor unit. But otherwise the greek heliopolis and soma are strong enough to hold their own in a nice tanky/dps combo. Tested in Classic leg Soloi and did manage to make time limit, but I was using my own Gastra & Palins as greek. So as a new player and struggling to gear up, grabbing these specific advisors which are fairly cheap in the global marketplace could get you into legendary quests quicker than usual. But only if your partner is ok with it, this is more meme builds and obselete. Only use for leveling to be honest.

Strategies/Unit compositions & Tier List (Updated)


Tier definition


S - Can quite frankly bulldoze through any legendary in the game except of course optionals which exclude them. Using a S tier composition for 5 star quests makes it significantly easier, but these advisors are especially expensive.


A - Still solid strong options for any legendary quest, however may require more skill or strategy to effectively do tougher Celeste quests


B - Can do Classics without issue, but might struggle with Celeste legendary quests


C - Anything I haven’t mentioned, these are quite frankly not viable to use in our current meta. Of Course some other units can be effective in given roles, but need serious gear and strategy to be viable or rely on alone to push. Also my guide is aimed at newer players, who should be aiming to go for the best and most accessible strategy).


Additionally keep in mind, in certain specific cases, some units will shine more than even S ranked units, for example Sardes, Priests are generally the way to go. So this tier list is a general guide but not absolute in every quest!


Also anything with for example S/A, means its borderline and can be stronger than its tier in certain quests as I said above.

Multiple Civilisation combos

1. Palin and priest A/S TIER (Seige & Wolololo)(Egypt,babylon,greek&persia)

Greek

1. Hypaspist + Tox - S+ TIER (Melee DPS & Ranged DPS) (Tisamenos and Alexander)
2. Hypaspist + Ballistas - S TIER (Melee DPS & Siege) (Tisamenos and Themistokles)
3. Hoplites + Ballista - S- TIER (Tank + Siege) (Leonidas and Themistokles)
4. Hippikons + Prodromos - A-S TIER (Melee DPS) (Apollonius)
5. Priests - A TIER (Wolololo) (Mehrab)
6. Toxotes/Gastra & Palin - A TIER (Ranged DPS) (Alexander/Timo)

Egypt

1. Infantry + Catapults - S TIER ( Melee DPS/Siege) (Sobek)
2. Elephants - S- TIER (Melee DPS/Tank) (Khepri or Hatshepsut)
3. Elephant Archers/Chariot Archers - A-S TIER (Ranged DPS) (Sekheth/Seth)
4. Priests - A TIER (Wolololo) (Mehrab and Sesostris)
5. Camels - B TIER (Melee/Ranged DPS) (Userhet)

Celt

1. Champion/Longswords + Druids - S TIER (Melee DPS)(Brennos or Vercingtorix/Acichorios)
2. Horsemen - S- TIER (Melee DPS) (Comontorios)
3. Woads - S- TIER (Melee DPS) (Brann)
4. Celt bowmen & Throwers - A TIER (Ranged DPS) (Ambiorix)

Druids should always be used as Celts (Damage buff/heal and rituals with augurs when possible)
Additionally Celt Swanships are very strong. Only below Roman Eneris.






Norse

1. Berserkers+Ulf+Wardogs - S+ TIER (Melee DPS/Tank) (Vemundr)
2. Horsemen - S TIER (Melee DPS) (Finnulfr)
3. Berserkers - A-S Tier (Melee DPS) (Theode)
4. Throwing Axeman/Harjar - B-A TIER (Melee DPS) (Havard and Beorix or Bjorn)

Persian

1. Immortals - S+ TIER (Melee/Ranged) (Rohham and Esfandiyar)
2. Bowmen + Spara shield - S TIER (Ranged DPS) (Kaveh)
3. Cataphracts + Mounted Archer - A-S TIER (Melee DPS / Ranged DPS) (Garsharp)
4. Priest - A+ TIER (Wololo)
5. War Wagons - A+ TIER (Ranged DPS) (Xerxes)

Babylon

1. Lancers + Mounted Archers - S+ TIER (Melee/Ranged DPS) (Nebuchadnezzar)
2. Chariot Archers - S TIER (Ranged DPS) (Sargon)
3. Priests - S TIER (Wololo)
4. Sapper Spam - A-S TIER (Melee DPS) (Zopyrus)
   
5. Royal Guards + Siege Towers (Melee DPS / Ranged DPS) - A-S TIER (Farzana and Amytis)
6. Royal Guards and Sappers - A-S TIER (Melee Dps/Seige) (Zu and Zopyrus)

Romans

1. Legionaries - S+ tier (Melee DPS) (Caesar)
2. Legionaries+Officers - S+ tier (Melee DPS) (Crassus)
3. Legionaries - S tier (Pompey)
4. Pontifex - S tier (Mehrab)
5. Gallic Horsemen and Eques - A/S tier (Pompey)
6. Gallic Horsemen - A tier (Mark Anthony)
7. Legionaries+Siege - A tier (Vitruvius)

As Romans you generally want to take advantage of their officers and strong healers, clinicus whenever possible. Also their Eneris ships are easily the strongest naval unit in the game buffed further by Attilus.



Crete Leaderboards
Crete leaderboards are a great way to earn a reasonable chunk of Empire points and other rewards every few months. The Crete leaderboard basically a regular seasonal competition to get the most score in the Crete Survival maps. There are various strategies to go for when doing this, but the most popular is no doubt mass guard tower spam and the most effective if you want to get a high score and go for the top of the leaderboard.


Meta Economy Advisors

Age 1

1. Zephyros and Philon are perhaps best 2 currently, they both have a strong impact across all the game, though Zephyros would perhaps have a more constant impact with villagers being able to get resource more efficiently all game. However Philon with quick buildings, quick towers, tc's age up buildings on egypt especially and most importantly fast forward bases to push quicker. So they're more or less neck and neck and perhaps comes down to personal preference.
2. Irene is still a decent pick, however she has no value whatsoever in late game once you've got all storehouse upgrades you need. Agathon is also a decent pick as he saves alot of food, however like irene he has no impact on late game, just early game boom.
3. Niche picks but can be very very good in certain quests/scenarios, Finnbar(Euphrates, Fabii), Leonorios (Northern town, Thebes), Weylin, (Weylin doesnt work in specific quest, hes better with specific advisors, for example Audun and Crassus)

Age 2

1. Nannus, Dumnorix and Zeno are your top 3 picks, they each buff your market and caravan trade in some way so you can kinda see how essential your markets are to your economy. Most people run 1 of these 3 as their age 2 advisor because booming fast is essential for harder legendary quests. Nannus I personally think is No.1, to be able to get so many markets down and fast means you can get to pumping out caravans very fast. And cheaper docks for quick finnbar or normal fishing ships, solving your food problem to further boom caravan production. Without a doubt hes no.1 on quests with good fishing possibilities. But on no fish maps, hard to say which is better. Dumnorix and Zeno are kind of similar, both affect caravans directly so either is fairly good.
2. Niche picks, Audun for Norse is incredibly strong right now, further improved with Weylin, hes really strong because you can quickly build all your houses straight away giving plenty of wood early on. Very useful to build buildings you need like tc's or markets and sustains caravan production. Socrates is good for greeks, if you can manage to boom fast with him, hes good. Diviciacus can also be nice for a plentiful source of food. And lastly Amunet for Egypt is also decent option if can't get a pricey Nannus.

Age 3

1. Age 3 picks are usually taken by military advisors in one form or another but some rare cases make them worth taking over them, Gerda buffs the babylon gardens food output, making them give you a endless source of food and reducing the amount of farms you need to sustain lancers or infantry. Which also increases the army size you can attack with. Tahmineh is also a rare pick that works very nicely with Zeno, giving you a good chunk of gold per caravan, works well with cataphract spam.

Age 4

1. Age 4 slot is usually taken up by a legendary advisor, but one such advisor buffs economy and that is Crassus, he already buffs your army significantly with a huge army and he gives a nice chunk of gold per second.

Please feel free to suggest anything else I have missed or challenge my ideas to discussion, I’d be very happy to change anything I’ve gotten wrong, ideal guide should have everyone's ideas. This is a community guide, not my own.



AoEO Gear by SystemGlitch - This is a fantastic handy link to look at unit stats, items and advisors. Also experiment with different builds!

Beginner guide to legendary Quests by Aaron Extra In-depth information for new people to read. I'd recommend reading this too and mine as he covers some points really well.

Very useful general information spreadsheets by Aryzel Covers Quest rewards,consumables,crafting materials,milestones,gear for all civs,common gear,maths/analysis on gearing. Alot of work has been put into this and its incredibly useful, really recommend having a look, I was thinking of making agear guide but he already done this and really well too.

Youtube and Twitch list by Rekiemone Covers PVP and PVE, if people want to have a look and find streamers or vids to watch, look here!

 

[Ardeshir]

Nice, this'll be real handy to have on hand. Good luck getting it fully fleshed out and with support from other runners with other viable strats or able to make more in depth comments. Can we get this stickied?

 

[Exclusive0r]

Wow thumbs up great idea
AS you are doing co op will be covering "Roles" ? i.e. deciding before hand who is building what .. just building your own line up without complementing yr partner or duplicating your partner .. well I think a team that knows what it is doing is a "well oiled machine"
Like A builds graphs / ballista (lwood) B builds Hyps Infantry (food) or A goes for early game B goes late .. Im sure you know what I mean it's just hard to describe .
Great Idea how can we help ??

 

[MsMuffins]

Yes in some quests for example tigris, roles will be needed, however for most parts as long as each person knows what to do, Roles are not necessary. Like for example paphos, both will need a start up method for first time, but once early game is done and economy is booming, rest is straightforward, but this will be covered in a video.

As for help, I'm thinking about how to do it, I realised I should be able to make my own videos, so I will do the main ones I've listed. But I would like to do a general guide on every legendary quest for every civ. So perhaps if someone doesn't mind, could pick a civ, and do a sort of noob friendly strategy on every quest on that civ. Then I will simply spectate&commentate to explain what they are doing. However on some maps, will simply be the same strategy no matter the civ. So we'll see for some eg breaking bandits.

And ardeshir, Pf2k stickied this ^_^

 

[MsMuffins]

Hi, Just a update to the LMCG, working on it again now, sorry for the delay, busy work and real life>.>

I have now added a contents, and the economy tips from another post, and a new tier list as a sort of FAQ answer to many questions. It is still a WIP, and if anyone thinks it should be changed please say so!, I've asked a few specific people already but community feedback would be appreciated.

Thanks Muffins x)

 

[rtsgamer]

Hi,

What about priest / pali combo?!

Most of the legs can be done solo with this combo...easy.

And when playing babylone --->babylone quests even more easier, cuz u will get geared units converted.

Same with persia --->athens quests.

What about crete legs?!
--->Even more cretins on coast etc.
(Not for newbies, but can be written down?!)

Another direction...
Play for the rewards ---> Crete Leaderboard

Greetz. And thx for ur nice wooooork

 

[MsMuffins]

Oh true good point with that combo, I mean monks alone generally strong, but to be precise people use most of these units in lots of different combos. If I list every single one, tier list will get quite long. But I will add as it is a S/A tier.

Good point, I will change persia&babylon priests to S/A tier aswell.

I think I didn't add the other crete legendaries for a specific reason(will investigate when I have time), but yes can be added anyways

Oh good point!, forgot about adding crete leaderboards. Definitely should be here.
Thanks for feedback!! x) Muffins^_^

 

[...ReignOfRagnarok]

A good beginner's guide. Nice work!

I especially appreciate what you said about Merchant Ships and each player in co-op building a dock at ALTERNATING ends of TWO shipping lanes (two-lane principle also applies to caravans).

I also like that you mentioned clearing trees AND buildings in the caravan lanes to improve trade efficiency. I would add that it is equally important to use your scout (or other unit) to clear the animals in caravan lanes, even if you do not intend to harvest food from them. I see so few players do this to improve lane speed.

 

[MsMuffins]

Now updated, feel free to have a look and see if you agree with lists, might add more here and there. Like Eco advisers quick ratings. age 1 and age 2 etc.

 

[MsMuffins]

Heads up, thanks to kevsoft himself, found out that 2x on caravan trade with any allies is actually wrong, it is 1.5x gold from solo!

Also added more to meta economy advisors.

 

[frogs.poison]

A bit more on caravans - I did roughly 2 hours of testing to try to understand their mechanics quite a bit better, and in the process, I found that Caravans, without any gear nor co-op bonus and just the universal A4 upgrade, provide slightly over 3 gold per second at their most optimal distance. I have also found out a large number of other matters regarding Caravans, as follows:

1 - You can use Shift-Z when placing down a market to get an extremely close approximation as to the amount of gold provided by any available TCs - It's mostly on spot, but occaisonally off by up to 3 gold, and is very handy for finding that "optimal" distance on any quest. You'll generally want to place it at somewhere between 127-132 gold
2 - This Shift-Z does NOT take into account +trade from gear, so you'll have to do those calculations yourself.
3 - Egyptians have nerfed caravans which provide less trade - roughly 20% less. Thus, in their case, the amount of gold shown by shift-Z is the exact amount they'll get with their A4 upgrade.
4 - If a Market is destroyed, but there are other markets available, caravans will reroute themselves to the best available market, with only caravans that had just reached a TC going AFK. This can be used if clearing trees or destroying enemy structures gives a more effective market placement without having to manually reroute all your caravans, only some of them.
5 - If the TC the caravans were trading with is destroyed, caravans will go AFK and have to be manually rerouted.
6 - Like in AoE2, what matters for trade is the direct distance of the market to the TC. Creating artificially longer paths via walls, buildings, or natural barriers will not increase the amount of gold generated by caravans.
7 - While the AI uses caravans, they currently do not trade in resources on quests.
8 - Due to the greatly increased gold generation of Caravans compared to Villagers resource generatino of any resource, it's actually more pop efficient to have Caravans responsible for 100% of your economy, especially in co-op, and simply trade for food, wood, or stone as needed.
9 - Before the Dumno nerf, Persia could get nearly 10 gold per second per caravan using Dumnorix A2, Tamineh A3, and Zeno A4 in co-op, or any mission with an allied TC.

Some speculation - I believe that Merchant Transports have the same scaling formula as caravans, meaning that if you can get their optimal distance, they could produce drastically more gold per second then even caravans do - Potentially as much as 4x with the A2 merchant ship advisor. If I ever test Merchant Transports, I will be sure to post my results here.

Also, on advisors - Amunet the Wise provides a flat +20% boost to all Priestess of Ra empowerment, rather then multiplying the baseline rate. This means that Amunet boosts Priestess of Ra's baseline empowerment from 10% to 30%, thus making Amunet the strongest A2 advisor for Egyptians, as long as you are willing to macro priestesses around. Being able to have 30+ resource drop-off on all villager resources is fun.

 

[Kevsoft]

In the next update the market preview will provide better values as it will take gear/advisor effects into account.

 

[t31os]

How do we get the market preview thing up again?

 

[Kevsoft]

shift-Z by default (keybind)

 

[MsMuffins]

A bit more on caravans - I did roughly 2 hours of testing to try to understand their mechanics quite a bit better, and in the process, I found that Caravans, without any gear nor co-op bonus and just the universal A4 upgrade, provide slightly over 3 gold per second at their most optimal distance. I have also found out a large number of other matters regarding Caravans, as follows:

1 - You can use Shift-Z when placing down a market to get an extremely close approximation as to the amount of gold provided by any available TCs - It's mostly on spot, but occaisonally off by up to 3 gold, and is very handy for finding that "optimal" distance on any quest. You'll generally want to place it at somewhere between 127-132 gold
2 - This Shift-Z does NOT take into account +trade from gear, so you'll have to do those calculations yourself.
3 - Egyptians have nerfed caravans which provide less trade - roughly 20% less. Thus, in their case, the amount of gold shown by shift-Z is the exact amount they'll get with their A4 upgrade.
4 - If a Market is destroyed, but there are other markets available, caravans will reroute themselves to the best available market, with only caravans that had just reached a TC going AFK. This can be used if clearing trees or destroying enemy structures gives a more effective market placement without having to manually reroute all your caravans, only some of them.
5 - If the TC the caravans were trading with is destroyed, caravans will go AFK and have to be manually rerouted.
6 - Like in AoE2, what matters for trade is the direct distance of the market to the TC. Creating artificially longer paths via walls, buildings, or natural barriers will not increase the amount of gold generated by caravans.
7 - While the AI uses caravans, they currently do not trade in resources on quests.
8 - Due to the greatly increased gold generation of Caravans compared to Villagers resource generatino of any resource, it's actually more pop efficient to have Caravans responsible for 100% of your economy, especially in co-op, and simply trade for food, wood, or stone as needed.
9 - Before the Dumno nerf, Persia could get nearly 10 gold per second per caravan using Dumnorix A2, Tamineh A3, and Zeno A4 in co-op, or any mission with an allied TC.

Some speculation - I believe that Merchant Transports have the same scaling formula as caravans, meaning that if you can get their optimal distance, they could produce drastically more gold per second then even caravans do - Potentially as much as 4x with the A2 merchant ship advisor. If I ever test Merchant Transports, I will be sure to post my results here.

Also, on advisors - Amunet the Wise provides a flat +20% boost to all Priestess of Ra empowerment, rather then multiplying the baseline rate. This means that Amunet boosts Priestess of Ra's baseline empowerment from 10% to 30%, thus making Amunet the strongest A2 advisor for Egyptians, as long as you are willing to macro priestesses around. Being able to have 30+ resource drop-off on all villager resources is fun.

That is very interesting and helpful thank you!, some of it I wasn't aware of myself, can I add some of it to my market section? Would be useful to add to my existing imarket/caravan tips. I do always appreciate your specific testing and getting into the pure maths on stats and numbers, not really my strength.

Yeh merchant transports produces far more gold than caravans when used well, just always a issue with them being so clunky and traffic jams, especially if both players do it. Euphrates being a key example, though can spread them out to mitigate it somewhat.

Oh I wasnt aware of Amunets change,that sounds very interesting indeed, though still hard to say if it trumps nannus, nannus value is incredible. I will certainly test it and see if it deserves that title. But the heal is also useful for late game so can see that potential there. Either way I'll add her as a extra pick for sure thanks!


Will this 127-132 gold be changed when kevsoft fixes the tool so i takes gear into account, or did you already take it into account?

Thanks for all the input again^^

 

[frogs.poison]

That is very interesting and helpful thank you!, some of it I wasn't aware of myself, can I add some of it to my market section? Would be useful to add to my existing imarket/caravan tips. I do always appreciate your specific testing and getting into the pure maths on stats and numbers, not really my strength.

Yeh merchant transports produces far more gold than caravans when used well, just always a issue with them being so clunky and traffic jams, especially if both players do it. Euphrates being a key example, though can spread them out to mitigate it somewhat.

Oh I wasnt aware of Amunets change,that sounds very interesting indeed, though still hard to say if it trumps nannus, nannus value is incredible. I will certainly test it and see if it deserves that title. But the heal is also useful for late game so can see that potential there. Either way I'll add her as a extra pick for sure thanks!


Will this 127-132 gold be changed when kevsoft fixes the tool so i takes gear into account, or did you already take it into account?

Thanks for all the input again^^

It's fine to add all the tips regarding caravans and merchant tranpots.

Kevsoft's upcoming change to the market preview wasn't taken into account when I wrote that post, looking forward to it myself!

On Amunet, while she isn't quite as powerful as Nannus in getting the caravan trade going, she's still powerful as you build those markets 20% faster and they train everything - both caravans and the market techs - 20% faster. Considering that she also helps all other aspects of the game in addition to markets, I would put her at a top contender for A2 for Egyptian if both Socrates and Audun are also strong contenders.

 

[frogs.poison]

So now that Kevsoft has revealed the caravan trading, I've done quite a bit of math with Caravans.

First - In map sizes larger then 1100 in one side (I don't think there is a single one so far), Caravans will NOT be worth using until you have exhausted all gold deposits, as their gold generation will be quite a bit behind that of villagers.

Second - In terms of best-in-slot merchant gear, Merchant Log of the Nile takes the #1 spot, with Titan-Bound Gaff Stick being the second place, roughly 1% behind Merchant Log of the Nile. Pure %speed options fall far behind, with Light Camel Barding, the current best pure-speed merchant gear, being a full 10% behind Merchant Log of the Nile in terms of gold generation per second.

Additionally, this is assuming the best distance for each gear setup - Speed gear becomes worse as Market's get placed closer to TCs.

Third - My testing to get the gold generation number was done on a standard skirmish map, which is quite a bit smaller then most PvE quests. Thus, caravan gold generation solo is closer to 2, 2.5 gold/second then it is to 3 gold/second, except on small PvE maps.

 

[MsMuffins]

So now that Kevsoft has revealed the caravan trading, I've done quite a bit of math with Caravans.

First - In map sizes larger then 1100 in one side (I don't think there is a single one so far), Caravans will NOT be worth using until you have exhausted all gold deposits, as their gold generation will be quite a bit behind that of villagers.

Second - In terms of best-in-slot merchant gear, Merchant Log of the Nile takes the #1 spot, with Titan-Bound Gaff Stick being the second place, roughly 1% behind Merchant Log of the Nile. Pure %speed options fall far behind, with Light Camel Barding, the current best pure-speed merchant gear, being a full 10% behind Merchant Log of the Nile in terms of gold generation per second.

Additionally, this is assuming the best distance for each gear setup - Speed gear becomes worse as Market's get placed closer to TCs.

Third - My testing to get the gold generation number was done on a standard skirmish map, which is quite a bit smaller then most PvE quests. Thus, caravan gold generation solo is closer to 2, 2.5 gold/second then it is to 3 gold/second, except on small PvE maps.

Quite interesting, yeh kevsofts market reveal on how it works on pure mechanical level was very useful to see.

Was surprised about bigger maps too, do actually feel like on bigger maps, feels abit slower, but I used to just chalk it up to being a big map and takes awhile to get around. But also affects eco! Interesting

Yeh speed gear for small distance makes alot of sense, like why would you want faster caravans when it gets barely any gold anyway. Makes little sense, whereas extra trade and movement speed gives more value to each caravan, and still not too slow.

Also I will update market section soon, when I get around to it. busy busy

 

[MsMuffins]

Market section is updated, its quite big now haha, thanks to Kevsoft's mechanical explanation and Froggy's extra analysis!