Welcome to Three Kingdoms: The Shifters
Introduction
This guide presents a few tips for beginners or newbies to the game, hoping to guide you to what you should prioritize for the fastest progression in the game.Keep in mind that this is simply a guide, and different strategies will require different progressing tips.
As a start, you should decide what type of player you would like to be, i.e. to be the strongest warlord (focus on troop skills), be the richest trader (focus on trade yields), etc.
Your choice naturally determine your study path and resource expenditure, so keep that in mind.
This guide will aim to give tips on becoming a balanced player in the game.
Overall Tips
- Ask in the chat if you have any questions, the community has a lot of eager-to-help members
- Keep your like-o-meter with your neighbors as high as possible if they are active, since it affects the value of your trade goods with them
- If a neighbor isn't trading with you, lower their like-o-meter to 0 before attacking/looting them, since it will affect your repute. To lower the like-o-meter, cancel your trades and send them again to your neighbor
- Pioneer as quick and as many times as possible. Each town increases your chance of getting more resources, especially when trading, as well as increasing your town fame (each tavern you build will add fame to your town, which in turn will improve the quality of the visiting champions)
- When pioneering, do not pioneer to the same city twice. You can't trade with yourself, so you are reducing the amount of neighbors who you can trade with
- Before pioneering, ask in the chat if anyone has spots in a trade city. These cities tend to focus on having active members who trade a lot, allowing you to get more trades and silver in turn
- Before attempting to attack the palace in your city, scout the palace first to know what you are up against.
- Watch ads as much as you can from the chat menu. They are a great source of valuable rewards, such as resources, Sycees, special resources, etc.
Progression Tips
- The quests in the game provide knowledge on how the game's mechanics work, as well as giving abundant rewards in the form of resources, sycees, etc. Try to progress and complete quests as soon as possible.
- Add as much crew as possible, as they increase your resource yield (which in turn increases your trade goods' value)
- Never stop studying. Always use all of your study slots when possible. Studies start to take extremely long after a while (weeks-months)
- Increase your Build and Study Limits as soon as possible by buying them in the Special tab in the Store
Store Tips
- The "One-time-only" packages in the store are affordable and decent. I would recommend buying at least up to the 8th package early game, since it gives you an extra study limit. The packages are as follows:
- 5+ Star Champion @ $1.09
- Build Limit Permanently +1 @ $1.09
- 50 Sycees @ $1.09
- 6+ Star Champion @ $3.29
- Crew Limit Permanently +1 @ $1.09
- Peddlers Permanently +2 @ $3.29
- Visiting Champions +1 @ $1.09
- Study Limit Permanently +1 @ $3.29
- 7 Star Champion @ $10.99
- Don't underestimate the value of "Auto Trade". This will easily triple the silver you get from your trade post, since you don't have to log in to accept trades from your neighbors
- Save up to buy the Trade Pack in the Event tab, which includes Goods Yield +30%, Auto Trade, Silver Yield+ for a day, and 1 Bonus Trade Good. This is really worth it
- When buying an Event pack of singe buffs, extend these buffs by 30 days to get 30% off of the cost. For example, if you extend your Auto Trade (15 Sycees for 1 day) for 30 days, it will cost you 315 Sycees instead of 450 Sycees. This saves you 135 Sycees, which is quite a lot
- Save up to buy the items in the Special tab that increases your limits, especially the Build Limit and Study Limit items. I would recommend to buy the Build and Study Limit increases at least 2 times before spending your Sycees on anything else, since this will help you A LOT in the long term.
Building Tips
- When building or upgrading buildings, try to upgrade them as evenly as possible. You may of course give preferences to certain buildings (I would recommend to your tavern, market, and trade post). Each upgrade adds prosperity to your town, which is a prerequisite for certain buildings. If you focus on only upgrading a single building, it will be very difficult to get your prosperity high enough to build certain buildings, possibly adding delays to your overall progression.
- Your mansion and storage take quite a bit longer to upgrade than most of the other buildings that are available at the beginning. With that being said, try to upgrade them when you know you won't be able to log in for a while (i.e. when going to bed or before a long meeting)
- Try to assign champions to all of your buildings, keeping in mind that certain champions have skills specific to certain buildings.
- If you would like to become a rich trader:
- Upgrade your market as quick as possible. Your silver yield increases the value of your trade goods
- Upgrade your trade post as quick as possible to increase the amount of goods that you can trade with
- If you would like to become a strong warlord:
- Upgrade your barracks as quick as possible to unlock all troop tiers
- As soon as your barracks is level 10, start building and upgrading your arsenal as soon as possible to unlock all troop tiers
Study Tips
- As mentioned before, focus on studies required by the quests. They provide a great guideline on the priority of your studies
- If you would like to become a rich trader:
- Focus on studies in the Industry tab that increases your silver yield (i.e. "Accounting"), which increases the price of your trade goods, as well as studies directly affecting trade good prices and the amount of trade goods you receive (i.e. "Process Goods", "More Goods", "Faster Trading", etc.)
- Once again, remember that your silver yield affects the price increase in your trade goods
- Focus on studies in the Military tab that increases the attack/defense/speed of troops
- Upgrade "100-man Tactics" as fast as you can, as this increases the participants of every branch. This is probably the strongest study skill the increase your attack power, since it allows more troops to participate in battles
Champion Tips
- The higher level your tavern is, the better quality heroes will visit
- Aim to acquire champions with the most stars, as they are generally better than lower star champions
- Some heroes have legacies which might be transferable in the future, so if you see any legacies that seem very good, hire the champion and wait until you can transfer their legacies to better heroes
- Don't use your tavern re-roll tickets as you get them. Rather save up a couple of them, and buy the Champion Pack in the store to get the best out of your re-rolls
- Consider leveling a 1 star champion as high as you can, and use this champion as a trainer-champion. The amount of XP you acquire from attacking bandit camps is affected by the level of a champion. So if you have a level 40 champion and attack a bandit camp with that high level champion as the leader of a legion, together with a lower level hero, the low level hero will level up quicker.
- Remember that each champion is different, so aim to acquire a variety of them with certain specialties (some are better with war, trading, resource yields, speed, carrying capacity, etc.)
- Champions have different attributes that affect different things. Attributes with their effects are as follows:
- Control: Affects the damage of every branch when the champion is the commander
- Politics: Affects the yield of the town when managing a town
- Strength: Affects the damage of the champion, the infantry, and cavalry when the champion is the commander
- Dexterity: Affects the damage of archery, artillery, and special when the champion is the commander
- Intellect: Affects the damage of the artillery when commanding and the yield of the town when managing a town
- Charm: Affects the damage of the cavalry and artillery when commanding and the yield of the town when managing a town
- Vitality: Greatly affects the HP of the champion
- Luck: Affects the odds of getting better and more rewards from patrols and camp raids
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War Tips
- Keep in mind that only a certain amount of troops participate in a battle, depending on your past studies. This means that the attack power of 10 000 Militia is the same as the attack power of 1000 Militia (if your troops participating in a battle is 1000 for that branch).
- With the above in mind, try to ensure you always have more troops that the amount of troops participating in battle to maximize your attack power.
- Even though your troops participating in a battle is limited, keep in mind that troops die during battle. If the troop amount drops below the number of participating troops, your attack power will fall. So try to send enough troops to cover your losses during battle.
- Have a wide variety of troops when attacking, preferably you should have more than the amount of participating troops of each type to maximize your attack power.
Defense Tips
- Don't be scared with incoming attacks. If no one engages in war, then everyone will play the game as a "farming simulator". As soon as someone decides to start attacking, the victims will be tempted to quit the game because of their losses. Get used to war, that's a big portion of what this game is about. Heal your troops, revenge, and ask for help if needed.
- If you are fortunate enough to notice that someone is on their way to attack you, and you want to dodge the attack, you are in a very fortunate position. To minimize your losses, send all of your resources and troops away before the attacker reaches your city. The best way to do this:
- Send all of your porters/carriages (for carrying capacity), together with one of your slowest troops i.e. a trebuchet (to slow down the attack) and attack a bandit camp. Ensure that your troops won't be back until after the incoming attack has reached your city
- Send all of your remaining troops to support your nearest nice neighbor (maybe ask first) to minimize the food cost
Peddler Tips
- The Peddler items quality/quantity are determined by your progression in the quests (besides VIP points)
- Early game, the only value-for-Sycees thing to buy from the Peddler is VIP points (the price of 100 Sycees for 50 VIP points always stay constant, no matter your progression in the quests)
- Only buy resources and troops from the peddler if you really have to or you have maxed out the amount that the Peddler offers you (very far progression in main quests)
Ethics
- Do not spoil the game for others, be a team player in the chat and in the game itself
- Have mercy on someone begging you to stop attacking. These users usually have no plans to retaliate, and will probably quit the game if you continue. No player base = No more fun
- If you are in a trade city, ask ALL the active traders permission before taking a palace. This adds TAX and affects everyone's trades, so don't just assume the first one who can take it may do so
- The palace in your main city (containing your very first town) is fair game for everyone.
- If you would ever decide to quit the game, don't. If you still want to, at least have the decency of deserting your cities in active trade kingdoms to make spots open for others
- Apply the minimum TAX amount in a palace, unless you really want to make enemies with everyone there
- Help others out in the chat
Palace Tips
The amount of troops that you will encounter when attacking a palace depends on:- The distance of the city that you attack from to the city of the palace
- The amount of palaces you already occupy
To estimate (quite accurately) the amount of troops that you will encounter when you attack a palace, use the Palace Troops Calculator that we’ve made here.
Seeing that no one in the game has 2 palaces yet, the sheet is still a work in progress to calculate the troops if you already occupy more than 2 palaces.
Village Tips
- The higher your diplomacy studies, the more villages you can occupy. So if you want more villages, study diplomacy
- Villages can provide special resources (bamboo, salt, etc.) each day, so try to get a variety of the villages (NOT the wealthy villages, since they don't provide special resources)
- The following list is a list of village types with their special resource that they provide per day:
- Industrial Village - Bamboo
- Commercial Village - Ginseng
- Farming Village - Oil
- Mining Village - Salt
- Trading Village - Silk
- Wealthy Village - NONE
League Tips
- Try to join a league as soon as you are confident that you can be a valuable asset
- Leagues will require their members to donate special resources and silver to allow for upgrades, so be ready to sacrifice some resources for helping to build up the league
- A league can provide a great advantage in the game by providing companionship and buffs
- A league can build Grace buildings which will provide buffs to it's members. These buildings should first be built by the league, after which each member can buy a level of that building's buff using Loyalty
- Loyalty is gained by donating to a league. The best way to increase your loyalty is to donate Sycees to the guild
- Even though Sycees increase your loyalty the most, it doesn't help if the league doesn't have enough resources to build buildings that provide buffs. So focus on donating resources to the guild, and only donate Sycees when you need Loyalty for buying building upgrades for yourself
- A league can also activate Statues, which provide buffs to all it's members (without the members having to buy the buffs)
- These statues are very expensive to build, so the members should donate as much special resources as they can
- The statues can provide a variety of powerful buffs, like increase in study, building, and drill limits for all the members, increase of participants of certain troop branches, etc.
Have fun!
Nuki, Heroic Savior server
