Army planning
Read your battle reports: find the troops wasting your resources
Use attack order, casualties and rewards to improve a formation one change at a time.
By ClanOps · Updated
Start with the purpose of the battle
A win is not the only useful outcome. For an epic attack you may be measuring event progress or Experience; for a CP exchange you may care about Conquest Points per recovery cost. Write down the objective before judging the report.
The Journal records the battle sequence, remaining units and relevant rewards. Open the detailed entry rather than stopping at the victory or defeat banner.
Read these five things in order
| Check | Question to answer |
|---|---|
| Target and starting conditions | Was this the same enemy composition as the previous test? |
| Attack order | Which stacks struck before taking damage? |
| Troop contribution | Which units dealt useful damage, and which disappeared early? |
| Casualties and recovery | What is recoverable and what will it cost? |
| Goal progress | Did the rewards move you towards the objective you chose? |
A large reward from a much larger army is not proof of a more efficient formation. Compare the extra reward against the extra cost.
Allow for initiative
Higher initiative acts first; ties can produce a random first strike. This can change results even when your army is unchanged. One lucky report does not prove a new formation is better.
Compare several affordable attempts where practical. Record whether the enemy had already lost important stacks between your attacks. A weakened epic is a different test from a fresh one.
Look for a bonus mismatch
Read the traits of your troops and the enemy. Guardsmen, Specialists, engineers and different mercenaries have different target bonuses. A powerful unit with the wrong target bonus can contribute less than expected.
Check Captain, equipment and Artifact choices too. A forgotten gathering setup can make a troop formation look worse than it is. Use the Artifacts guide to check whether a bonus applies to the units doing the work.
Change one thing at a time
Keep the Captain and bonuses fixed while adjusting one stack. Then compare a similar target. If you change the Captain, Artifact, troop tiers and stack sizes together, you cannot tell which change helped.
Do not assume that every early casualty was wasted: a stack might have served a useful protective role. Ask whether its inclusion improved the whole march’s rewards and cost, not whether it survived.
Keep a small battle log
Record the date, target, troop tiers and counts, Captain, major bonuses, relevant reward and recovery bill. Add one sentence about what you changed. Save useful Journal entries and retain your own screenshots for longer-term comparisons.
The result should be a repeatable starting formation for your account, not a universal troop count for everyone. Recheck it after a substantial upgrade.
See CP exchanges, Ragnarök and revive or retrain.
Check current requirements in-game before committing troops or resources.