Troops

You need troops in order to defend your Town against enemies, attack other Jarls, yield resources in resource locations, and send reinforcements.

There are five basic troop types:

• Melee
• Ranged
• Cavalry
• Killers
• Siege

In addition, there is a special type of troops in the game: scouts. Only scouts can get information in Jarls' Towns and resource locations, as well as defend your Town against other scouts. If you don't have these warriors when an enemy is conducting espionage, you will not receive an invasion report. Scouts only fight other scouts. They cannot fight against other types of troops.

Training troops

You can train your troops in the Barracks. The level and number of these buildings determine the number of warriors you can train simultaneously. If there is only one Barracks left in the Town or the Barracks has an active training process, it cannot be demolished.

To start training warriors, find the Troops tab in the Barracks. There are two types of training: instant (in exchange for Gold) and over time (in exchange for resources). You can reduce training duration by using special boosts, items, and speed-ups.

Troop characteristics

There are eight tiers of troops in total. The tier determines the basic stats of a warrior. Initially, you can train only tier I troops (all types except scouts). In order to train warriors of higher tiers, you need to learn the corresponding Knowledge.

In the Barracks, you can also get information about the warriors you already have. By hitting the pictures of certain warriors, you can view their characteristics: tier and troop type they belong to, their offense, health, and defense stats, cost of upkeep, training duration, speed, and capacity.

Offense refers to how many health and defense points a warrior takes from an opponent during an attack.

Defense refers to how many offense points a warrior can withstand before they start losing health.

Health refers to how many offense points a warrior can withstand before they die.

Warriors of each type have their own strengths and weaknesses. Taking this into consideration, you can form your troops in such a way that they will be the most effective against enemy troops.

To upgrade the stats of your warriors, you need to learn Knowledge in the Oracle, craft equipment in the Forge, develop Hero's and Shaman's Skills, use Town Skins and VIP status, boosts, Reputes, Aesir, and the Valkyries' Citadel.

Troop upkeep

All warriors consume Food. The higher the tier, the higher the amount necessary for the upkeep of the troops. The window that displays the stats for each warrior also shows how much Food that warrior needs.

In order to find out how much Food your army is consuming, go to the Statistics tab of the Palace and select Food.

Your Town can run out of Food. If that occurs, nothing will happen to your troops, but you won't be able to train new warriors in exchange for resources, nor will you be able to initiate any process that requires Food in the Town.

If you haven't run out of Food, but the Food stat on the resource panel has turned red, that means that your warriors are consuming more Food than the Town is producing. You will see a notification to that effect in the Barracks.

Dismissing troops

In the Shrine of Odin, you can dismiss troops. To do so, go to the "In the Town" tab and select the warriors you would like to get rid of. 

Every warrior trained in the Barracks brings Influence points — the number of points depends on the tier of the warriors. If you dismiss troops or lose them in battle, the Influence stat will decrease.

Mechanics for warriors returning after a battle

20% of warriors who died during a battle are automatically returned to the Town. These 20% are not displayed in reports.

However, in Competitions, when calculating points for the "Killing enemy warriors" Task, the 20% of warriors who return are counted.

Here's an example: let's say you send 1,000 Mercenaries to an enemy Town, and the battle ends in defeat. In this case, you will see the following data in the report: "Losses – 800/1,000."

This means that you actually lost 800 of the 1,000 warriors that you sent, since 200 of the fallen warriors (20%) automatically returned to your Town.

Meanwhile, your opponent will receive points for destroying 1,000 tier I warriors in the "Killing enemy warriors" Task.

Upgrading troops

The stats of all troop types can be upgraded in the Valkyries' Citadel. To build it, your Palace needs to be at least level 12. The Valkyries' Citadel cannot be demolished once it is built.

Increasing the Valkyries' Citadel's level gives access to warrior upgrades of higher tiers. In the building, you will find an upgrade tree for each troop type. In order to get detailed info on an upgrade, hit its icon.

You can upgrade troops over time in exchange for resources or instantly for Gold. If you decide to cancel the action after the upgrading process has started, the resources spent won't be returned.

The upgrade cost for all troop types starts at the same level. After the first upgrade (let's say, for example, that you chose melee troops), the cost for the other troop types (ranged, cavalry, killers, siege, and scouts) will increase to level 2.

When you upgrade a new troop type, the upgrade cost for the remaining troop types increases. E.g. you upgraded melee and choose to upgrade killers next. The upgrade cost for all other troop types (ranged, cavalry, siege troops, and scouts) increases to the third level. One more troop type will increase the cost to the fourth level, etc.

Think carefully about which troop type you should upgrade first — its upgrade cost will be substantially lower. The higher the cost level, the more Influence and Hero's and Shaman's experience you will receive when the upgrade process is completed.

The upgrade mechanic has some unique features.

• Troop upgrade is a unique process that doesn't depend on warrior training, construction, equipment crafting, or Knowledge learning.
• Free autocomplete, including the one from VIP status, doesn't apply to this process.
• Only one troop upgrade can be running at one time. The Second Craftsman and the Prophet don't affect the number of these processes.
• In order to reduce the time required to upgrade troops, you can use common boosts and also request help from your clanmates and allies.