Swordland Showdown is a bi-weekly event, and always happens on a Sunday. There are 3 stages involved, the voting phase where your members can register their preferred time slots, the sign up phase, alliance members have 2 days to battle request for the legion and its corresponding time slot, or abstain from the legion that they are unable to participate in.

While both legions can be set at the same time, it makes sense to split them across 2 different time slots to accommodate more players overall. 

Legion 1 should be given priority for your strongest/most active players, as the result of legion 1 affects the rewards for all members in the alliance, and since 40 cannot participate, this can be a crucial income for resources.

[PRO TIP: there is a limit of 30 participants per legion, the 10 substitutes for each legion can only join if there are people who didn’t show up ie. less than 30 entered. Specifically, after 3 minutes substitutes can take up the missing slots until all 30 spots are used up, so first come first served!]

 

Matchmaking is based on several factors, such as time slot, power level of members and number of members. Your average power strength is based on the 20 strongest applicants, and your “ranking” is determined by this power strength (Supreme, Master, Platinum and Gold). As rewards scale up with higher ranks, strong legions with high power players are recommended! Consecutive winning/losing will also play a role! Always be prepared for a challenge 

-If you leave the alliance before the end of sign up phase, and the phase ends, you will no longer be able to join the event. If you leave after the sign up phase, but rejoin before the start of the event you can still participate as if you never left.

 

Swordland Map

The field consists of 2 spawn areas, structures for points, structures for bonuses, and mines.

Spawn Areas:
The only time in the game where you cannot be attacked, but can attack, is the safe zone. When you enter the battlefield after the event starts, you will be spawned in your safe zone. 

You will be unable to attack enemies in their safe zone, whilst being able to be attacked when you are not in your safe zone, leverage this!

 

Point Structures:

From highest to lowest, the Swordshrine, Sanctum and then Abbeys are the highest sources of points when controlled. Occupation takes time, and after controlling the structure, you will accrue points over time, both personal and alliance. 50% of the alliance points gained will be shown on the building, these can be stolen.

When a building changes control, the 50% points “stored” in the building will be dropped as packages, you want to retrieve these before the enemy does, as they can swing the tide of the game. Likewise, if you see an enemy building with a large stock of points stored up, attacking this building and then picking up the dropped points can propel your alliance/personal score a lot!

There are undercellars that are akin to simple gathering, you will gain personal and alliance points from these, and may contest/be contested. In terms of value, they’re not as good but are generally ignored or forgotten, so they’re a safe route for points!

A note of warning, while the swordshrine offers the most points per minute in the event, it is initially locked, and is exposed to constant mercenary attacks when controlled. Be prepared to heal/reinforce!

 

Bonus Structures:

They provide a lot less points than the other structures, but give additional effects as follows;

Bell Tower – Reduces occupation time for controlling buildings, this will help in capturing/recapturing buildings

Mercenary – Similar to the mercenary assaults on the Swordshrine, you can launch attacks on a building, coordinate with attackers to capture buildings more easily

Reformation – Controlling this will give all your troops a buff! 

Stables – Reduce free teleport cooldown, critical for maneuvering across the battlefield and collecting points/attacking structures/castles 

*Once you enter a building, a 3 minute countdown starts for his full control, before that you will not make any points, if you are the first to control the building after 3 minutes then you get first control bonus points, if your alliance controls the bell tower then this “capture time” is reduced by half. Once you control a building, half of the points gathered by it will accumulate on top of the building for everyone to see. Those points belong to your alliance but if an enemy enters the buildings, all those points are removed from your total alliance points and are scattered on the ground for anyone to pick them up !

Mechanics

-There are first control rewards, spreading out and occupying as many buildings as possible is highly incentivized and recommended! Remember that a building is only considered as controlled after the timer finishes! Leverage the Bell Tower for faster occupation

-You are awarded free healing speedups as well as march speed boosts over time, use them at will!

–A good offense is a good defense. Reinforce each other with appropriate defensive heroes such as Howard, Gordon, Saul, Hilde, etc. Helping your comrades resist attackers and forcing them to use up resources/troops is a great strategy

-Don’t be afraid to run! There are always bigger fish in the sea, instead of losing resources/troops to them, teleport away or empty your castle -> If you send all your troops out, and get hit hard enough (ie. your castle’s health burns down to 0), you will return back to spawn. There is no loss/consequence for this! Stay in spawn if you can’t defend against enemy attacks, and join structures/rallies from spawn using speedups!

-First control is important, and once you control a building that gathered a lot of points, keep an eye on it because the enemy will try to steal those points, and you should do the same.

 

-You get a free teleporter every 10 mins (if your alliance controls royal stable then it’s 5 mins) and if you want to teleport between free tp, you will need to use advance teleport and the cost is gonna increase by 1 every time you teleport before you get a new free tp, so don’t be scared to pay 1 advance teleport between every free teleport but be careful with more.

 

-We get free 25 % march speed threw-out the event and only for the event with a cap at 10, it takes 1 min. for 1 x 25% march speedup to accumulate, so don’t be scared to use them. 

 

-To avoid injury if you get attacked by a stronger opponent, quickly deploy your troops outside of your town by occupying empty space near your city or teleport away or recall your top 3 heroes if they are enough to defend.

 

-No batch healing, only healing speed ups, there is some free 1h healing speed up slowly given up by the event but if your speed ups can’t keep up, tap on the scoreboard on top and click on « leave battlefield » this will instantly heal all of your troop but you need to wait 12 mins to come back.

 

-Troops cant die and hopsital cant get full during the event and all troop will heal each time you leave the battlefield (and when event ends) so dont be too scared and dont use heal speed up near the end

 

-The damage taken by the guard station are highly increased, if gems are not used to put out the fire, only 10/20 seconds are enough to force teleport a city to base. 

 

-Ask for a stronger player reinforcement, if you teleport and he doesn’t, his garrisoned troop in your city will stay with you !

 

– You don’t always have to teleport next to a building, you are an easy target there, you can stay in the safe zone or unseen between buildings and abuse the free march speed ups !

 

-Try spying a lot before attacking and use a lot more 1 min rally.

 

-Check the « favorite » pin tab at the bottom of your screen because R4 will tag the map to help you. 

 

-Substitute stay sharp, you will enter after 3 mins or when someone leaves

 

-Buy counter recon 2h for only 400 gems to prevent spying and feel free to use any buff and debuff to be stronger. Use all 20% buff if possible.

 

– Near the end of the battle don’t sleep on undercellars, they can bring up to 20/40k points total.

 

-Learn how to manipulate garrison joiner : The 4 people under the garrison bonus leader (not the person on top of the list) but the person strongest person giving his statistic to the rally, these 4 people will be the 4 joiners of the defensive rally if their skill is maxed, if you aren’t satisfied with these heroes and want another in the rally, put the ones you don’t like in garrison leaders, each time you appoint a new garrison leader the previous one goes at the bottom of the list, finish with the real garrison leader and the 4 joiner under will be the one you didn’t throw at the bottom.

 

-Learn the best troop ratio, Rally/garrison hero, and PvP joiner : 

 

Best offensive rally hero composition if maxed : 

Best defensive rally/garrison hero composition if maxed :

 

Troop ratio :
50/20/30 most of the time except with Alcar Margot Saul where you use 60/40/00.

 

PvP hero joiner : 1/2 Hilde (amane gen 1) / 1/2  Saul / Chenko both in offense and defense

 

People seem to think that there is a difference between offense and defense, that defense should have more infantry, than 60/40/00 works all the time in defense, that defense should have defensive joiners like gordon… This is not true, defense and offense are exactly the same, kills get calculated simultaneously at the end of each mini round of a battle which means neither side has an advantage and would need to “tank more”. The only difference is the scenario in which the hero’s widget will activate. That’s why most top heroes of offense and defense are just the latest hero with a matching type of widget. 60 40 00 works very well with margot and alcar because their skills are particularly oriented  toward cavalry and infantry, in gen 4 with this composition you give to 100% of your garrison the base statistic of gen 4 (instead of having archers with base statistic of gen 3 yaeger) and you take great hero’s skills from Saul.
For joiners since different skills affects multiply in the damage formula, both heroes with skills that are composed of 2 affects are S tier, chenko adds lethality which they don’t give making it the perfect trio.
For solo attack the best heroes are the highest generation you have (if decently invested).

 

Strategy

 

There are a lot of possible strategies, it’s possible to teleport with everyone in the middle to prepare for the swordshrine opening in 15 minutes and open rally on most buildings on the map from the middle while being able to defend each other. Another could be to let very strong players rally most buildings while staying in the safe zone to not risk a city attack. One last could be for everyone to attack their players the first 10 minutes to weaken the enemy, then focus on buildings.
I will tell you about the most common strategy but you should know that the best strategy is to coordinate and communicate with your alliance !

 

For this strategy you need to identify 3 types of players :
1) The attacker is very active and knows how to fight, has a lot of teleport and good offensive capability, he will teleport next to a group of enemies to attack weaker joiners or the building itself if poorly reinforced, they can be flexible and help their team-mates too.
2) The defender, they are your strongest players, they are the garrison leader of all your important buildings and need to know how to play with their different march, they can do city attacks too and reinforce their joiners around.
3) The joiners, they follow their assigned defenders and garrison buildings they are assigned to, they keep their top 3 heroes inside to defend themself or attack someone if necessary. Them or the attack will teleport to gather scattered points on the ground after a building switches side, they can also take care of undercellars.

 

Split the defender into 3 teams and assign them 5 to 8 joiners, attackers don’t have groups.
– Team 1 will teleport next to the sanctuary on your side and control it
– Team 2 (strongest player) will teleport next to the opposite sanctuary on the enemy’s side and control it
– Team 3 will teleport and focus the stables or bell tower

The goal for each team is to try to keep the control of their building (mostly sanctum) and only 1 abbey total. With 2 sanctum and 1 abbey you generate more points than the opponent before the swordshrine opens. If keeping their sanctuary is too hard then try to get 1 or 2 extra abbeys instead.

 

Once the middle opened, gauge the situation, you could take the control of a couple more buildings because the enemy teleported and left them weakened before coming to take the middle. Then it’s mostly a game of who doesn’t lose the points gathered on top of their buildings and if they do, who teleports around to gather the scattered points.

 

 

BONUS :

Here is a city attack guide because swordland is the place where this scenario occurs the most :

(all the data used are relevant once your server is TG5 but you can  adapt if your server is younger)

 

Attacking someone’s city is like solo attacking against a full garrison in a building, it’s 100 000 troops against 1 000 000, but there are some ways to win !

 

1) Gauge the enemy : 

 

-Check there Town Center level :

• Under TG1 : Late
• Between TG1 and TG2 : Free to play /low spender
• Between TG3 and TG4 : Low spender / mid spender
• TG5 : Mostly whale

 

-Check their power : 

Someone’s power is mostly defined by their number of troops, free to play/low spender will have around 50 M power without troop, mid spender around 80M and whale around 110-130 M. One soldier is around 100 power, once you know their TG level you can have a rough idea of their number of troops.

 

Example : 

TG1 (free to play) and 130 M total power 

130 – 50 = 80 M power in troop

80 000 000 / 100 = 800 000 troops 

 

If you solo attack him it will be 130 000 troops versus 800 000 (you might win for reasons I will detail later).

 

Knowing this can help you track how much injured an enemy has, if a TG3 had 180 M power and now has 80 M power, you know he only has around 20 to 30 M power of troops left = 200 000 / 300 000 troops left only.

 

2) Track their strongest march/team (most important)

 

– 60% of your strength comes from your top 3 heroes and their GEARS. Most people only have 3 good heroes and one set of gear, so their second march and more will be easier to defeat.

WHICH MEANS, if you see an opponent attacking someone else OR starting a rally (the hero you started rally with don’t defend anymore) OR being the garrison leader in a building, he is very VULNERABLE.

 

– Track your opponents’ movement, if they reinforce a friend + attack + garrison in a building, that means they have 3 marches outside = 130 000 x 3 soldiers currently not defending their city (and no good hero). During swordland when a whale is in every building, their city is very WEAK, even if it’s a whale.

– Unless he is being reinforced. (Tips : If the enemy has counter recon, start a rally on them and open the rally to see how much people are reinforcing him then cancel the rally).

 

– Do not send your main march too far unless you have a strong second march defending or a friend

-Do not spam attack with all your marches unless the person has less than 100 000 troops left, only your main march will do some damage, the other marches will suicide.

-10% or 20% buff (bought with gems) make massive difference in strength during battle, it doesn’t add 20% but multiplies (if you had 500% attack it becomes 600% not 520%)

 

– Even if you have your top 3 heroes and 1 000 000 troops inside, a very powerful whale might still beat you but it’s rare, just teleport away !

– Even if you lose an attack, you can consider it a success if you injured more than 80 000 troops ! Keep attacking, each attack will be easier since he has less and less troops. Same if you defend : less than 80k injured is good.