I agree Arantor, I generally won't purchase anything below the 640 level unless I know it will be a while before I can log in again and I want to drain all my gold. I've found the purchase method a dream in terms of money saved on repairs.

The factor of 5 is for a trained soldier. If the weapon is used by an untrained soldier then it changes to a factor of 4. The weapons are distributed to trained soldiers first so as to maximise your SA or DA. I'm not sure about the contribution to SA/DA of 36 by a trained soldier without a weapon and 6 for an untrained. I do know that untrained guys contribute to both SA and DA by a certain amount, and so when you train one in say SA, you get will have a decrease in your DA. I didn't think that the difference was as great as 36 to 6 though.

I just trained a couple of guys up as an experiment...here's what happened:

Initial SA = 382,738
Initial DA = 497,215

After training 1 soldier in attack I got

SA = 382,740
DA = 497,205

After then training 1 soldier in defense I got

SA = 382,731
DA = 497,207

As you can see, the gain in either SA or DA was negligible compared to the loss in the other. The only real advantage I can see to training your guys up comes when you actually have weapons for them to use.
 

Hmmm, you're all doing a lot better than me!!  <_<

I can log in but can't do anything else... :blink:  

An assassination covert attack....interesting idea. Maybe they could allow you to assassinate spies as a means of reducing CA. I think you're right though, from feedback I've had a lot of people hate the covert side of this age altogether so I don't imagine they're going to want assassination as well.

Back at 15k now, will be working my way up over the next week or so til I can upgrade again.

I was having the same problem, but adopted the strategy mentioned by sirjohn and it worked brilliantly for me. If I sell out to upgrade, I just live on turn gold to buy weapons and make sure I log in more frequently to prevent myself becoming a target.

Wouldn't you know it...only a few days after I posted that, somebody decided to make a liar out of me and signed up under me as an Orc. I still don't know who it is, but I sent them a message strongly advising they change their race if they wish to have any kind of future in this Age.

Yeah, thanks guys. That's great.

10 mil in two days??!!!!  

I don't think I'd have that much in two weeks at the moment....

I'm experiencing the same kind of problems with the graphics down the side and at the top not loading properly, however the site has still been functional.

As for the eye symbol, that's just telling you that because of your browser security settings some cookies for the page could not be loaded. I've had that since the first time that I logged into the site, and it's never really caused me any grief (that I'm aware of).

Maybe try turning your internet cache off in your browser (for Internet Explorer go to Tools->Internet Options->General->Settings->Every visit to the page) and see whether that makes any difference.

Fortunately for me, I came into the age at a later stage and was able to learn from others experiences with sabotage. I'd put database errors way up the top, especially following the events of last week. I missed out on some good gold because of it.  <_<  

I'm not actually having any probs logging in to the site, (actually compared to a week ago it's all sweet) but I have been getting the problem with graphics on the side for nearly a day now.

True, but if it were that easy, would you really get as much out of the game??  

Especially considering that everybody else would be in the same boat and you would have no real advantage...

I wasn't a part of age 1, so I can't really comment about that but from what I've seen of this age it seems they have tried to get some semblance of balance.

If you didn't have to pay the seemingly large amounts of gold upgrade unit production, then everybody starting the game would have massive armies before they had the DA to protect their turn gold. While that could make things a bit more interesting for those on the prowl for gold, I think the way they've set it up forces people to think about different strategies and provides a number of options. That adds variability and brings a bit more depth to the game.

I'm fairly certain that you're correct about the random factor. I think it's pretty much similar for spy missions as well. There's always a chance that a spy will get caught, even if your CA is way higher than the guy you are spying on.

I have noticed though, that if I sab someone back to the stone ages and then attack them, even if they have a larger army than me I will get a smaller amount of their gold than if I sab them back far enough to just guarantee victory. So I think that your algorithm looks like it's probably along the right lines GandalfTheOld. I might have a bit more of a think about it and play around with the figures to see what I can figure out.

I now sab a couple of items, attack them and steal whatever I can, then sab them back to the stone age....nothing an Orc doesn't deserve really.

Just wondered whether anyone has worked out the algorithm for the amount of gold collected per attack turn (when you attack someone). I know that it is based partly on the ratio of army sizes, and I'm sure that it would also have to have something to do with the SA and DA ratio of the two armies but I haven't figured out exactly how it all fits together as yet.

Any ideas??