dungeons

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Dungeons

Throughout the game there are dungeons, noticeable by a lit entrance on the side of mountain, hill, or forest. If the dungeon is available to raid it will appear open with a blue (mountain), red (hill), yellow (forest) glow coming out of the entrance. If the dungeon is abandoned (fully plundered), it will look as if the door has been sealed off. It is worth noting that pirate ships do not have a glow but when they are abandoned the image changes to a semi-destroyed pirate ship.

Finding

To locate a nearby dungeon, scroll around the regional map searching for a lit dungeon entrance. When one is found, note the coordinates so you can easily return later.

Raiding

Select the dungeon and you will get an option to “Send an army.” Select your desired amount of troops and send them off. How long it takes your army get there and return depends on how far away the dungeon is from your city, and the speed of the slowest unit in the army. Note that it takes your army an extra hour to prepare for the raid and an extra hour to unload upon return. This only applies to dungeon raids, not boss raids or other kinds of movement.

Dungeon Lifecycle

When dungeons first form, they are 0% complete. As they are looted (or maybe as time passes) the completion level rises until they are 100% complete and they fade into the background. The lifetime of a dungeon is typically days up to around two weeks.

Each type of dungeon (forest, hill, mountain, sea) has four levels of monsters that inhabit the dungeon. A 0% complete dungeon contains only first level monsters. So a 0% complete forest dungeon only contains spiders. As the dungeon ages, the number of first level monsters will tend to slowly increase, and then start to decrease. When the number of first level monsters starts to decrease, the second level monsters will make an appearance. (Maybe around 25% complete.) The number of second level monsters will grow and then shrink more rapidly than the first level monsters. When the number of second level monsters peaks, the first level monsters will stop showing up and 3rd level monsters will start showing up. (This may happen around 50% complete.) As before, when the number of 3rd level monsters peaks, the second level monsters will be replaced with 4th level monsters. (This may happen around 75% complete.) The number of 4th level monsters tends to increase only a little bit before the dungeon is complete.

The length of time it takes a dungeon to progress from 0% to 10% complete seems to be a lot longer than the time from 90% to 100% complete.

When you arrive at the dungeon a base number and level of monsters is chosen based on the level of the dungeon and the percent completeness of the dungeon. The number of monsters you will face is then adjusted randomly by around plus-or-minus 20%. The number of monsters that you face determines two things: how many of the attacking troops will die, and how much loot will be available for the raiding army to haul away.

Loot per foe

The maximal amount of loot you can gain from an encounter is calculated according to the amounts of monsters guarding the dungeon, not according to the amount of killed monsters. I’ve done some statistics on different levels dungeons and it seems amount of loot per foe is always the same for every monster type. Below is the table of loot per foe for each dungeon type and monster level.

Dungeon Type	Forest	Hill	Mountain	Sea
Monster level 1	25 (spider)	25 (skeleton)	30 (orc)	75 (pirate dhow)
Monster level 2	33 (thief)	33 (ghoul)	40 (troglodyte)	250 (pirate sloop)
Monster level 3	70 (centaur)	135(gargoyle)	120 (ettin)	650 (pirate frigate)
Monster level 4	290 (troll)	340 (daemon)	250 (minotaur)	1400 (pirate war galleon)

See also Unit Types

The total amount of loot (not including gold) is calculated the following way:
[Amount of monsters 1] * [loot per monster type] + [Amount of monsters 2] * [loot per monster type]

Damage Per Foe

The amount of damage a monster does depends on the type of attacker. The defense strength of the monster multiplied by the number of monsters divided by 10 is the amount of total damage a type of monster will do. Sum damage across monster types to get the total damage that will be done.

The amount of damage that the attacker can absorb is calculated by summing attack strength times number of units across the attacking unit types. Dividing the total damage the monsters can do by the total damage the attacking army can absorb gives the percentage of troops that will be lost. That percentage is applied to each unit type regardless of the attack strength of that unit type.

See Unit Types to understand how much damage each monster will do.

Loot Summary

What kind of loot and how much you get from a dungeon raid depends on several things:

- The level of the dungeon determines the maximum amount of loot the dungeon can start off with. You can get at most 150 max resources (lumber, stone, iron and food total) from a 0% complete level 1 dungeon. The level 2 cap for a 0% complete dungeon is at least 800 resources.

- Loot increases along with the percent completeness of the dungeon. An 80% complete dungeon can produce up to twice as many resources as a 0% complete dungeon. A 100% complete dungeon can produce up to three times as many resources as a 0% complete dungeon. A level 1 forest dungeon has 450 maximum loot at 100% complete.

- The actual amount you can get per run depends on how many foes you face. How many foes you kill, however, does_not_influence the loot.

- Different foes drop different amounts of loot. Spiders drop 25 each, orcs drop 30 each, thieves drop 33.

- How much you can even carry depends on your soldiers. To figure this out you can set up the following calculation:
Your units can carry maximum: (Number of units sent)*(Loot capacity per unit sent). E.g. 10 Berserkers(capacity 10) can carry maximum 100 resources total.

- In addition to resources, you will gain (X*loot) gold, where X is a set factor decided by the dungeon level. Gold does not weigh anything in this game.

- Dungeon raiding can produce more resources than a resource city can produce. 50K berserkers raiding a dungeon 2.5 hours away can produce nearly 100K resources (plus additional gold) every hour.

*Note that it is possible to randomly get a artifact from a raid.

How loot is divided between resource types depends on dungeon type:

Dungeon type	wood	stone	iron	food
Forest	40%	16%	24%	20%
Hill	20%	36%	24%	20%
Mountain	16.7%	10%	56.7%	16.7%
Sea	30%	15%	30%	25%

As the dungeon level increases so does the number of foes and the amount of available loot. The following table gives the approximate maximum number of foes and loot that will be found in a 0% complete dungeon. There actual amount of loot may vary quite a bit from one raid to the next. The maximum loot in a 100% complete dungeon can be up to three times higher than the values given here.

Dungeon level	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Max foes	10	40	117	444	1,183	2,181	4,687	8,351	14,162+	17,655+
Max loot per foe	30	30	30	30	40	25?	25?	31.75	25	25?
Max loot	320	>977	>2,000	>15,488	>30,000	>56,850	>117,175	>198,205	>356,970	>441,375
Gold/loot	200%	120%	80%	50%	35%	30%	28%	27%	26%	25%
Berserkers suggested	15	>98	>458	>1,549	>3,000	>5.5k-6.5k	>12k-14k	>19,821	>35,697	>60k

note: update/patch was performed in July2010 to increase gold amounts in higher level dungeons. Table is updated but some examples below may have old gold/loot % figures.

‘Berserkers suggested’ is the number of berserkers that would be needed to make sure you carry all the loot back home. Please note that dead units cannot carry loot back (obviously) so it’s good to send more than needed to make sure you actually carry all loot back.
Max loot per foe is determined by what kind of unit you face. They can drop anywhere from 25 to 1400 each, but most of the time they will drop 25-30 each.
See Unit types in dungeon

If you are sending troops other than berserkers, use the below ratio for a rough estimate of how many to send. This conversion is based on attack power, the parentheses are based on how many you need to carry the same amount of loot (roughly).

10 berserkers = 15(10) rangers
10 berserkers = 6(7) knights
10 berserkers = 7(20) mages
10 berserkers = 50(5) guardians
10 berserkers = 10(5) paladins
10 berserkers = 12(7) crossbow

Table for equivalent “attack power” ratios for other troop types:

Dungeon level	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Rangers suggested	22.5	147	687	2323.5	4500	8250-9750	18000-21000	29731.5	53545.5	90000
Knights suggested	9	58.8	274.8	929.4	1800	3300-3900	7200-8400	11892.6	21418.2	36000
Mages suggested	10.5	68.6	320.6	1084.3	2100	3850-4550	8400-9800	13874.7	24987.9	42000
Guardians suggested	75	490	2290	7745	15000	27500-32500	60000-70000	99105	178485	300000
Paladins suggested	15	98	458	1549	3000	5500-6500	12000-14000	19821	35697	60000
Crossbow suggested	18	117.6	549.6	1858.8	3600	6600-7800	14400-16800	23785.2	42836.4	72000

Dungeon Types

There exist four types of dungeons: Hill, Mountain, Forest and Sea. The monsters in these dungeons all have a vulnerability to a certain attack type, that is dependent on this dungeon type. This means that for each type, you will want a different army setup. For hills, the monsters are vulnerable to magic. For mountains, the monsters are vulnerable to foot soldiers. For forests, the monsters are vulnerable to cavalry. You will have fewer troop losses if you send the right kind of troops.

This also applies to Epic Creatures. These roam on the same land types as the dungeons spawn at, and follow the same vulnerability rules.

Type	Active Dungeon	Inactive Dungeon	Boss	Map Icon	Weakness
Forest			Dragon		Cavalry
Hill			Moloch		Magic
Mountain			Hydra		Infantry
Sea			Octopus		Artillery

Dungeon Attack Strategies

There are two basic kinds of strategies used to plunder dungeons: “fire and forget” and “micro-manage”. In the fire-and-forget strategy, you well send out a large attacking army and let it plunder until the dungeon is empty (or you need to recall the army for attacks on other players). In the micro-manage strategy, you will send out an army large enough to loot the dungeon for a few days, then recall the armies and send out slightly larger armies.

The fire-and-forget strategy requires relatively little of your management time; the micro-manage strategy acquires more resources. [This represents an opportunity for LoU to improve the war minister both to make it easier to send out multiple attacks on a single dungeon, and to automatically adjust the strength of the army over time.]

When deciding how large of an army to send out, you want to send out enough troops to haul away the expected amount of available loot, plus the number of troops that are expected to die in the attack. For berserkers, if you send enough troops to haul all the loot, you will typically lose around 1% of your army. Death rates will be much higher for mages and guardians who have a lower attack power.

When planning an attack, you will first estimate how much loot may be available. Provide an army sufficiently large to carry that much loot. Then increase the size of the army by 1% to 5% to account for deaths. If the amount of loot available is much higher than you expected, your army death rates will increase, and thus your profit will decrease, or maybe even become negative.

Remember that when sending a mixed army, say berserkers and guardians together, the sums of the attack damages are combined to decide the percentage of the army that should die. For example, if you send equal numbers of berserkers and guardians, the resulting army has an average attack strength much higher than a pure guardian army, and a loot carrying capacity much higher than a pure berserker army.

Paladins are fast (they are cavalry) and can carry a lot of loot. Thus they make good dungeon raiders. You tend to lose a higher percentage of troops, but this is made up for by the increased number of raids.

An army of pure guardians will suffer too many deaths to be worthwhile.

When planning an attack, look to see if any reports are available from previous raids by you or your alliance on the dungeon. The report can give you a good idea as to how much loot the dungeon is currently dropping and how many troops you should send to pick up that loot.

When learning how dungeons work, find a dungeon with a high percentage completeness that you or your alliance has been attacking for days, and look at every tenth or twentieth report.

Examples of Dungeon Raids

Raiding low-level dungeons is a nice way to rake in a little bit of extra resources, but the primary focus is to test the strength of your army. To see how your army fared against the vile dungeon dwellers, open the reports tab to see the run down of your recent battles.

At higher levels – level six and above – dungeons can provide a significant amount of resources. A castled city next to a high level dungeon can produce more resources per hour than even the best-designed resource city. For low-level dungeons, you won’t be able to set up enough attack commands to retrieve high volumes of resources. For high-level dungeons, a small number of attack commands can be lucrative. A level seven dungeon provides about 25k gold and a total of more than 100K resources.

Level 1 Dungeons

Various army sizes fight the good fight against a level 1 dungeon.

Example 1.1

Early Raid on Level 1 Mountain Dungeon

Attacker
Unit:	Berserker
Portrait:
Ordered:	10
Lost:	0
Survived:	10

Defender
Unit:	Orc
Portrait:
Ordered:	4
Lost:	1
Survived:	3

Resources looted:

Wood	Stone	Iron	Food
8	8	60	24

Example 1.2

Early Raid on Level 1 Mountain Dungeon
Slightly larger army engaging.

Attacker
Unit:	Berserker
Portrait:
Ordered:	27
Lost:	0
Survived:	27

Defender
Unit:	Orc
Portrait:
Ordered:	4
Lost:	2
Survived:	2

Resources looted:

Wood	Stone	Iron	Food
8	8	60	24

Notes: The slightly larger army killed more orcs, but the same amount of loot is taken home, because 4 orcs were initially present in both attacks.

Example 1.3

Early Raid on Level 1 Mountain Dungeon
Slightly larger army engaging.

Attacker
Unit:	Ranger	Berserker
Portrait:
Ordered:	1	49
Lost:	0	0
Survived:	1	49

Defender
Unit:	Orc
Portrait:
Ordered:	4
Lost:	2
Survived:	2

Resources looted:

Wood	Stone	Iron	Food
8	8	60	24

Notes: Same results, even with a bigger army.

Example 1.4

Early Raid on Level 1 Mountain Dungeon
Slightly larger army engaging.

Attacker
Unit:	Ranger	Berserker
Portrait:
Ordered:	11	54
Lost:	0	0
Survived:	11	54

Defender
Unit:	Orc
Portrait:
Ordered:	4
Lost:	3
Survived:	1

Resources looted:

Wood	Stone	Iron	Food
8	8	60	24

Level 2 Dungeon Raids

Example 2.1

Early Raid on Level 2 Hill Dungeon

Attacker
Unit:	Ranger	Berserker
Portrait:
Ordered:	11	75
Lost:	0	0
Survived:	11	75

Defender
Unit:	Skeleton
Portrait:
Ordered:	16
Lost:	6
Survived:	10

Resources looted:

Wood	Stone	Iron	Food
32	240	32	96

Notes: More bang for the buck!

Example 2.2

Raid on Level 2 Mountain Dungeon

Attacker
Unit:	Ranger	Templar	Berserker	Mage
Portrait:
Ordered:	11	50	83	33
Lost:	0	1	1	0
Survived:	11	49	82	33

Defender
Unit:	Orc
Portrait:
Ordered:	17
Lost:	8
Survived:	9

Resources looted:

Wood	Stone	Iron	Food
34	34	255	102

Level 3 Dungeon Raids

Example 3.1

Raid on Level 3 Forest Dungeon

Attacker
Unit:	Ranger	Templar	Berserker	Mage	Crossbowman
Portrait:
Ordered:	11	150	111	43	20
Lost:	0	1	1	0	0
Survived:	11	149	110	43	20

Defender
Unit:	Giant Spider
Portrait:
Ordered:	49
Lost:	21
Survived:	28

Resources looted:

Wood	Stone	Iron	Food
735	98	98	294

Notes: When mixing foot soldiers and men on horseback, the army will travel at the slowest speed of the group. This army was much more powerful than required.

Level 4 Dungeon Raids

Example 4.1

Raid on Level 4 Hill Dungeon

Attacker
Unit:	Ranger	Templar	Berserker	Mage	Crossbowman
Portrait:
Ordered:	11	149	110	43	20
Lost:	1	4	3	0	0
Survived:	10	145	107	43	20

Defender
Unit:	Skeleton
Portrait:
Ordered:	176
Lost:	36
Survived:	140

Resources looted:

Wood	Stone	Iron	Food
260	1941	258	776

Notes: Took quite a beating. The losses in men far outweigh the resources gained. Since skeletons drop 25 loot, 4400 loot was available for the taking. An army consisting of about 445 berserkers would have taken the available loot after suffering 5 deaths.

Example 4.2

Raid on Level 4 Hill Dungeon

Attacker
Unit:	Ranger	Templar	Berserker	Mage	Crossbowman
Portrait:
Ordered:	50	42	250	50	22
Lost:	2	1	7	1	0
Survived:	48	41	243	49	22

Defender
Unit:	Skeleton
Portrait:
Ordered:	287
Lost:	56
Survived:	231

Resources looted:

Wood	Stone	Iron	Food
321	2403	320	961

Notes: The dungeon brought many more skeletons to the fight. This army had a different distribution of Templars and Berserkers from Example 4.2 with different results as well.

Level 5 Dungeon Raids

Example 5.1

Raid on Level 5 Forest Dungeon

Attacker
Unit:	Crossbowman	Paladin	Knight
Portrait:
Ordered:	396	300	1200
Lost:	1	1	6
Survived:	395	299	1194

Defender
Unit:	Spider
Portrait:
Ordered:	1093
Lost:	509
Survived:	584

Resources looted:

Gold	Wood	Stone	Iron	Food
10930	13116	4372	4372	5465

Notes:

Surviving attackers total loot capacity	29.815
Total loot carried	27.325
Dropped loot each ordered defender	25
Gold percentage	40%

Level 6 Dungeon Raids

Example 6.1

Raid on Level 6 progress 0% Forest Dungeon

Attacker
Unit:	Berserkers
Portrait:
Ordered:	8.000
Lost:	69
Survived:	7.931

Defender
Unit:	Spider
Portrait:
Ordered:	2.181
Lost:	738
Survived:	1.443

Resources looted:

Gold	Wood	Stone	Iron	Food
16.358	26.172	8.724	8.724	10.905

Notes:

Surviving attackers total loot capacity	79.310
Total loot carried	54.525
Gold percentage	30%

Level 7 Dungeon Raids

Example 7.1

Raid on Level 7 Forest Dungeon

Attacker
Unit:	Berserkers
Portrait:
Ordered:	10.250
Lost:	150
Survived:	10.100

Defender
Unit:	Spider
Portrait:
Ordered:	4.687
Lost:	1.225
Survived:	3.462

Resources looted:

Gold	Wood	Stone	Iron	Food
22.220	48.480	16.160	16.160	20.200

Notes:

Surviving attackers total loot capacity	101.000
Total loot carried	101.000
Gold percentage	22%

Even with ten thousand troops in the fight, I would up leaving some resources behind; twelve thousand would have been required to take everything home.

Level 8 Dungeon Raids

Example 8.1

Raid on Level 8 Mountain Dungeon

Attacker
Unit:	Knights
Portrait:
Ordered:	15,000
Lost:	322
Survived:	14,678

Defender
Unit:	Orc	Troglodyte
Portrait:
Ordered:	5,374	5,183
Lost:	1,161	1,120
Survived:	4,213	4,063

Resources looted:

Gold	Wood	Stone	Iron	Food
59,446	34,630	34,630	110,085	40,823

Notes:

Surviving attackers total loot capacity	220,170
Total loot carried	220,170

Little over 140,000 loot was left behind because too few troops.

Level 9 Dungeon Raids

Example 9.1

Raid on Level 9 Forest Dungeon

Attacker
Unit:	Berserkers
Portrait:
Ordered:	35,000
Lost:	380
Survived:	34,620

Defender
Unit:	Spider
Portrait:
Ordered:	11,879
Lost:	3,605
Survived:	8,274

Resources looted:

Gold	Wood	Stone	Iron	Food
77,214	142,548	47,516	47,516	59,395

Notes:

Surviving attackers total loot capacity	346,200
Total loot carried	296,975
Gold percentage	26%

Level 10 Dungeon Raids

Example 10.1

Raid on Level 10 Forest Dungeon

Attacker
Unit:	Berserkers
Portrait:
Ordered:	50,000
Lost:	565
Survived:	49,435

Defender
Unit:	Spider
Portrait:
Ordered:	17,655
Lost:	5,253
Survived:	12,402

Resources looted:

Gold	Wood	Stone	Iron	Food
110,344	211,860	70,620	70,620	88,275

Notes:

Surviving attackers total loot capacity	494,350
Total loot carried	441,375
Gold percentage	25%

Example 10.2

Raid on Level 10 Sea Dungeon

Attacker
Unit:	War Galleon
Portrait:
Ordered:	369
Lost:	2
Survived:	367

Defender
Unit:	Pirate Dhow
Portrait:
Ordered:	6,074
Lost:	2,954
Survived:	3,120

Resources looted:

Gold	Wood	Stone	Iron	Food
115,406	115,406	115,406	115,406	115,406

Notes:

Surviving attackers total loot capacity	1,101,000
Total loot carried	461,624
Gold percentage	25%

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