A strong army is a high tiered one, right? Wrong. A strong army is one with great buffs. With the right buffs (and debuffs), a T1 army can beat T15. This seems crazy right? Don’t worry, all shall be explained! Please bear in mind, this guide is geared towards PVP / PVE, but production buffs are a thing too 🙂 But since this is a war game and not Farmville, we shall focus on killing things.
Table of Contents
What is a Buff / Debuff?
Buffs are positive attributes that help your army. There are two types, flat and % based. For simplicity, I will talk about % based buffs for now, but continued reading to learn about flat. Buffs offer an increase to your troops abilities. For example, a T10 Cav has a base state of 3,320 attack. With a 20% buff, this becomes 3,984 attack. As you progress through the game, your buffs will increase, thus increasing your troops effectiveness. Top end players have buffs upwards of 2,000%. Therefore, a T10 cav has an attack of 66,400 – this is a massive difference from its base state! This type of buff is more effective on higher tier troops as it is a percentage of their base buffs, flat refines do not work that way – but more on that later!
Debuffs work the opposite of a buff. They reduce your opponents buffs! Debuffs have a maximum effect of 50% of your enemies buff. Examples of this can be found in the table below:
| Your Debuff: | Enemy Buff: | Effective Enemy Buff: |
| Cav Attack -300% | Cav Attack 1200% | 900% |
| Cav Attack -600% | Cav Attack 1200% | 600% |
| Cav Attack -1500% | Cav Attack 1200% | 600% |
This shows that more troops doesn’t necessarily mean you will win the battle – buffs and debuffs play a massive part!
Flat and % Based Buffs
As mentioned before, % based buffs multiply the base stats of a troop type – for more information on base stats, check out this guide here.
Flat buffs work a bit differently. Flat buffs are fixed numerical numbers, like +100. For example, the T10 Cav attack stats would go from 3,320 to 3,420. There are no flat debuffs. This is not effective on high level troops, as +100 increase to a T15 cav with 7,540 attack base stat is tiny, although a +100 to a T1 cav with 220 attack base stat is a lot bigger proportion!
Used in combination, % is derived from the base stats, with the flats then being added on. Examples below:
| Base Stat: | Flat Buff: | % Buff: | Effective Stat: |
| 1,000 | 0 | 100 | 2,000 |
| 1,000 | 100 | 0 | 1,100 |
| 1,000 | 100 | 100 | 2,100 |
Academy Research
In the Academy there is a research branch called Military and Advanced Military. Researching these branches will enable you to increase both flat and % buffs, as well as increase march size, march speed etc. I recommend maxing both these trees out before attempting to pvp! To research you will need gold and research stones. Gold can be gained from levying the keep, selling generals you don’t need, killing bosses (check out the guide on Vikings here), event rewards, or bought in packs.
Military Academy Research
The Military Academy, or MA for short, is a building that allows you to research further military technology. This building works differently from the Academy, and requires a lot more resources to research – although the buffs are also a lot better!
The MA is quite an advanced building, for building requirements check out this guide here.
The Impact of Generals
One of the sources of buffs and debuffs is generals. These work in various ways, their stats, equipment, dragon / beasts, speciality skill, specialities, ascending, and skill books.
These buffs are vital when attacking and defending, and often new players get caught out without a dg – always have a defense general equipped or else you won’t get to benefit from the buffs! For a guide out defense generals, check out this article here.
It is best to tailor your generals to each troop type. An ‘all rounder’ general will get decimated by a general with specifics buffs for a specific troop type. For example, say the enemy is cav heavy, you would attack with archers and therefore should use a ranged general. For the best generals for each troop type check out these links:
For further information check out this guide.
Equipment Buffs
Equipment buffs come from the equipment your attacking / defending general wears. This equipment offers both positive and negative buffs depending on its type (debuffs are unlocked at Forge level 33 with Achaemenidae gear).
Various equipment offers different buffs, I recommend having a look at the forge in game for a better understanding. This equipment can be refined, and have its star level increased, which will make it even stronger.
The best gear in the game (Civ Gear) offer incredible buffs and debuffs, which can then be refined for even better buffs! This gear is extremely hard to get as a free-to-play player, although if you have the desire to max out your credit card, then it will put you in good stead to destroying the competition.
I recommend not creating any equipment until you are at least k27, and can unlock Dragon gear. Anything below this is a waste of material.
For further information on equipment, check out this guide.
For further information on refining, check out this guide.
Sub Buffs
Sub buffs are in two parts – subordinate city buffs, and debuff gens.
Subordinate cities give certain buffs, but the best cultures for pvp are Japan (attack buff), Russia (defence buff), and Arabia (hospital capacity increase). Most players choose Japan subs for the attack buffs, however if you are big enough to “eat” attacks, then go for Russia. I would avoid Arab if possible, but its a good back up option if you can not get enough Japan / Russian subs. Russia and Arab subs work well in combination, as defenders tend to get wounded, and increasing hospital capacity will ensure that wounded doesn’t become dead due to overflow.
Subordinate cities can have generals assigned to them, these generals give positive buffs to the troops only in the sub cities, not your main army. As a result, they are not very effective at all as sub cities have very little troops. Although, generals with debuffs do effect your enemies main army. As a result you can assign debuff generals to all your subs to increase your debuffs. You can also equip these generals with debuff gear, to further increase the debuff given to your enemy. Debuff gens are key to mastering pvp, and should always be prioritised over generals that buff (because buffing 10k sub troops has a lot smaller impact than debuff your enemies army of millions).
For further information on subordinate cities, check out this guide.
For further information on debuff gens, check out this guide.
Monarch Buffs
For PVP, there are 4 main monarch items you should be concerned about. These items have the ability to buff attack, defense, hp, and the last one you can select between march speed and capacity. The majority of these buffs, also offer flat refines as well as percentage increases.
It is advised to create monarch gear combination pre-sets to adapt to the situation. For example, if you know your enemy is cav heavy, and you are going to send an archer attack, switch to a pre-set that gives archer buffs. Whether you choose march speed or march capacity is up to you. Personally I use march speed because I don’t have all the gems in the world to speed up marches, but capacity can give you that slight edge that may be the difference between victory or defeat.
For further information, check out this guide.
Talent Buffs
As you progress through the talent tree, you will be given the option to select talents that will affect your PVP buffs. This includes: sub city attack, enemy wounded to death rate, in city HP, death to survival rate, sub city HP, in city attack, sub city defense.
These boosts will allow you to increase your attack/defense/hp, as well as turn a percentage of your enemies wounded into dead, and turn some of your own dead into survived.
For further information, check out this guide.
VIP Buffs
As your VIP level increases (and is activated), you will begin to receive PVP buffs. These buffs include march size capacity, march slot, and troops defense. The higher your VIP level, the more buffs you unlock, and the great impact of the buffs.
For further information, check out this guide.
Art Treasure
Art Treasure, located in the art hall, offers a range of boosts – particularly for PVP. These boosts can be unlocked by completed the treasures activation requirements, and include: attack, defense, HP, march speed, and enemy attack debuff.
For further information, check out this guide.
Castle Decoration
Some castle, or Keep, decorations offer a range of buffs and debuffs. The requirements for getting these decorations is quite hard, and typically involves placing within All-Star Battlefield, Huns Invasion, or completing a Party Cake.
For further information, check out this guide.
Culture
Culture buffs work similarly to Subordinate city buffs. The culture of your keep determines the culture of your in-city subordinate city. This means that the culture you choose, has an impact on your sub and therefore the buff provided.
For further information, check out this guide.
Champion
The Champion, found in the Keep, offers “Champion Skills”. These skills are a ranged of buffs and debuffs which are unlocked as you increase the champions level.
For further information, check out this guide.
Temporary Buffs
There are temporary buffs that can be applied using items to give you an extra boost. These can be redeemed in your inventory, or through your keeps buffs. These include:
- Attack:
- 1 Hour Attack Increase – 10%
- Adv 1 Hour Attack Increase – 20%
- Super Attack Increase (10 min) – 50%
- Defense:
- 1 Hour Defense Increase – 10%
- Adv 1 Hour Defense Increase – 20%
- Super Defense Increase (10 min) – 50%
- HP:
- 1 Hour HP Increase – 10%
- Adv 1 Hour HP Increase – 20%
- Super HP Increase (10 min) – 50%
- March Size Capacity:
- Junior March Size Increase (1 Hour) – 50%
- Medium March Size Increase (1 Hour) – 100%
- Senior March Size Increase (1 Hour) – 200%
These buffs can be bought for gems, or won in events. There are also buffs specific to battlefield events.
Check your Buffs
There are two ways to check your current buffs:
- Click on your avatar top left, click on Details, then under the military tab you will find your buffs – note that these only include buffs from research, so this method is pretty useless but its always nice as a quick indicator after doing research how much / what you have improved.
- The best way to get a more holistic understanding of your buffs is through a PVP report. This will enable you to get a comprehensive breakdown of all your percentage buffs. A simple way to check this is to attack an empty keep (although your full range of debuffs may not show depending on their buffs). Another method is through BOC or BOG against a powerful opponent – this will allow you to see your full debuffs assuming your opponents buffs are strong enough.].
The Infamous T1 Trap Keep
So, you are probably curious as to why I said in the introduction about T1’s beating T15’s, and what does buffs have to do with this – let me introduce you to the T1 Trap Keep.
As we have previously discussed, % based buffs are pretty useless for low tier troops, however flat buffs can turn these low tier troops into a deadly killing machine! Equipping a DG with equipment that has been refined to have flat buffs can allow T1 to be as strong as T12! The benefit of this is that T1 are cheap to produce, and as such players are building “walls” of T1 – this means they are training hundreds of millions of them, with the equal power of T12!
The way battle mechanics works is that typically enemy troops will target your lower tier troops first (with the exception of T4 siege, but don’t worry about that). This allows for your higher tier troops to attack their high tier troops without being damaged, as all your damage is being taken by T1 (that have the same stats as T12). As a result, often it takes multiple attacks / rallies to clear a T1 trap keep – in which time they can port away, bubble, or be reinforced (think about changing DG to a % based gen if you are being reinforced with high tier troops). The downside of this is that it makes ghosting impossible, although if you have lots of high tier troops this won’t be possible anyway. I would avoid using siege as they cost gems to be repaired, most people opt for t1 cav although I have seen people use arch and ground as well – or a mixture of them all (but the more generalised it is, the less specific your buffs are, the weaker your troops are).
Unless players are experienced with fighting T1 trap keeps, they will quite often fall into the mistake of trying to solo you – which won’t end well for them. Enjoy!
For more information on battle mechanics and layers, check out this guide here.
Buff Simulator
To simulate the effect of different buffs, check out our simulator here.
Additional Notes
- Buffs in rallies do not stack – although debuffs do. Each participant’s buffs is limited to their troops.