Roles

Aether Kingdoms is a team game that requires players in an empire to collaborate in order to win. The most effective way to do so is to choose a role that adapts to a specific playstyle and that can bring progress to their own empire.

Regardless, playing a specific role can offer short and long-term goals during the length of a server.

The following list is a simple suggestion to standard roles that can be followed. Players should talk with each other in order to make some adjustments based on server progression.

Defender

The defender's role aims at building an impenetrable force against attackers. The primary goal is to colonize the center of the map and train as many defensive units as possible.

Progression

After one month: aim at an army of 2.000 Spearmen, 2.000 Longbows, 500 Lancers. One town and one village producing wood, stone and iron, one village surrounded by food field. At least one of these should be in the middle, ideally two.

When landmarks and monuments spawn: aim to settle the next village near one landmark or monument. Coordinate with other defenders.

Research goals: aim for early Crop Rotation to support more troops, then go for Food Preservation.

Late game setup: one city to train Crossbows and one city to train Halberdiers. Lancers can be skipped or trained in smaller amount. Keep a small army of 1.000 Cavalry Archers and 1.000 Knights to farm offensive events. A good proportion of defenses is 2 Halberdiers, 2 Crossbows, 1 Lancer, can be also pushed to 3:3:1 or 4:4:1

Scouter

The scouter's role is responsible for scouting other players and eventually hiding offenders hammers (army). Scouts should be quickly sent when a player requires intel to attack another player, or when an attack is incoming to know if the enemy already sent out the real army or nobles.

This is why it is useful to have two or three scouts, so that others can react if someone is offline. The focus is mainly scouts + defensive troops, with more focus on defenses the more scouters are playing in an empire.

Advanced techniques include scouting nearby enemies when an attack is incoming, to know if they will join the attack with additional nobles. It is also important to regularly scout close towns to understand where an enemy keeps an army. Sending two scout attacks in close succession (the second landing 10 seconds after the first) can reveal intel on how quick food is depleting, to know if an army is hidden in a settlement.

Progression

After one month: aim at an army of 1.000 Spearmen, 2.000 Longbows, 500 scouts. One town and one village producing wood, stone and iron, one village surrounded by food field. Settlements should be distant 10-20 tiles each in order to cover more space in an empire and be able to reach critical objectives and enemies with scouts faster.

When landmarks and monuments spawn: every taken objective should have 30 scouts at least to detect any enemy scouting attempt. 100-200 is a better number to also avoid revealing info on the landmark against smaller scout attempts. 500-1000 is a realistic amount to keep on monuments, that can also get higher for critical monuments closer to enemy territory.

Research goals: aim for early Crop Rotation to support more troops, then go for extra resources.

Late game setup: one city to train Crossbows and one city to train Scouts. Other towns and cities can be used to train Spearmen, Lancers, Longbows and Halbarders. Keep a small army of 1.000 Cavalry Archers and 1.000 Knights to farm offensive events.

Attacker

The attacker aims at building the biggest army they can, in order to break any enemy force at objectives.

Note that the role requires high activity as to farm as much as possible and keep the army alive even with high negative amount of food/hr.

Operations attacker

The operations attacker takes active part in offensive operations (also called ops). An operations attacker often moves towards the center. Since they will be active with their army, they are advised to build their account around converting food into resources, rebuilding armies quickly and having enough culture to conquer.

Progression is fastest when investing a lot into army and conquering good towns and cities. As such, an operations attacker focuses more on the shorter term in considering which investments are worth it. After setting up a good basis, getting a stronger army now is more important than having it a month from now. Due to the risk of losing their army, operations attackers tend to have smaller armies than an endgame hammer.

Endgame hammer

The endgame hammer focuses on getting a single large army to clear out endgame objectives. An endgame hammer doesn't take active part in operations, instead focusing on building a large economy and setting up to create high quality units. The challenge for an endgame hammer is to build out as large a Kingdom and economy as possible before shifting fully into army production. Why do this? Because a single large army has more impact than two armies half, maybe even three quarters, its size.

An endgame hammer will often end up hiding offensive armies in objectives to benefit from the 50% consumption bonus, although they'll need to dodge attacks to not hurt their army count. This allows them to gather a larger endgame force than their account can continually support, only needing to be fed in full when doing that one big attack.

Endgame hammers can also be developed by operations attackers who stop participation in operations during the midgame.

Progression

After one month: aim at an army of 1.000 Swordsmen, 2.000 Archers, 1.000 Horsemen. One town toward the center, other villages should include at least one surrounded by as much food as possible. This food village should be soon evolved to City to push food.

When landmarks and monuments spawn: the army should be quickly sent to conquer objectives. Coordinate with other attackers.

Research goals: aim for early Crop Rotation to support more troops, then go for Professional soldiers.

Late game setup: one Military district city to train Cavalry Archers and one military district city to train Knights. Another city or two towns should train Swordsmen.

Merchant

This is a play-style that is more chill and also focuses on the city building aspect. The player should still collaborate with the empire and hold defensive forces, as to not be the biggest target of the server without defenses.

When an attacker or defender loses army, the merchant should spend two or three days sending resources to them in order to quickly rebuild.

In addition, a merchant can offer to feed army from endgame hammers in their villages protected by defenses from the merchant. This helps keep troops valuable for the Empire safe from smaller attacks (also called ghosting).

Progression

After one month: aim at an army of 500 Spearmen, 500 Longbows and 500 Lancers. Two towns and one village producing wood, stone and iron. Towns should be on the outside of the spawn points, as to be safer from enemies.

When landmarks and monuments spawn: aim to settle the next village near monuments. This village should have a high level of the Marketplace in order to receive resources from other settlements through trade routes and quickly deliver resources to the monument. All resources should go to the monuments once they spawn and are conquered. This is essential for winning.

Research goals: aim for researches giving bonus resources, culture, science and production.

Late game setup: two cities with fields close to level 20 and far from enemy lines. One city closer to the center to help allies. Army should be oriented towards Lancers to quickly move around (keep a proportion of 1 Spearman, 1 Longbow, 1 Lancer). Keep up with 1/3 of the defenders armies (if the top defender has 30.000 in food consumption, try to keep 10.000 army).