Beginners guide in 15 mins

This is an adapted beginner's guide from a post in SWOE forums - it provides basic advice
and valuable tips for new players....useful for players in the first 2 months of playing.
I've modified it based on my own experience. The disclaimer, of course, is that some players
may disagree or have different ideas, but in general this will help you build quickly and help
avoid many of the pitfalls I fell into as a novice.
Abbreviations
SWOE = Sword:War of Empires
PM = Personal Message

1.

Do not use Drachmas to buy or revive units until you know what youre doing.
This is the most important point - don't waste your money on what look like great Plarium
specials until you understand the game basics.

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7.

Make "friends" in the coalition as quickly as possible. This does not mean you are
besties. Friends in the coalition allow players to exchange resources and
agreements 24x faster than if you are not friends. Friends can also repair towers if
you are raided.
Another benefit of friends is that you can summon them as "heroes". These are
free troops, do not consume grain, and can be replaced every 24hrs if lost. The
more friends, the more heroes you can summon (depending on your city's
development status).
During the first weeks, save any Drachmas, Denarii, upgrade sketches or GPs
(glory points) until you have a better grasp as to where to invest these.
Follow the in-game tutorial (the quest button on left of screen) during the first
few weeks.
Grow your Acropolis along with your resource and storage buildings.
Always hide your troops in the Acropolis when you log off, or if you see a raid
coming (a red icon button bottom left of screen will show a raid incoming).
It should become a reflex action to always hide your troops in the Acropolis before you log off.
Either leave no troops or just hero (see pt 3 above). A hero will "activate" city defences. I leave 4
scouts + a hero at level 61....enough to deter a random scout but also activate city defences if
attacked.

8.
9.

Dont spend Drachmas on walls and towers until later in the game. City defences
become important as you progress, but are not critical in the first few weeks.
Dont play all events; pick those which fit your needs and objectives.
However, do participate in all coalition events. All coalition members are expected to
participate in these events as the whole coalition benefits - and all members get access to prize
packages - these can be found in the Market under the "misc" tab, then the "special tab". Check
these everyday as you receive free resources and troops!

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21.

Keep your troop strength at grain production levels. You will suffer shortages of
resources initially as you build your city and troops. Don't be afraid to ask for
resources help in the chat room. Plenty of experienced players sometimes have
excess resources that they will happily give you.
Check the Wheel of Fortune daily for deals one cannot refuse but make sure
you really need what is offered. Buying an item one doesnt require at a discount
is a waste of money. Look for deals that are 50% off or better. Try to get a deal
with an artisan.
Your very first investment of Drachmas should be a 2nd artisan
Make sure your artisans are NEVER idle. If you are going to use the credit card,
artisans are critical as they are needed to build things.
Always scout your opponent before committing troops to a raid or siege. This is a
good strategy early in the game. Remember scouts in a city do not die. This means
if you scout a city that has 5 scouts out and you send 5 scouts, you will lose your
scouts, the player being scouted will not.
Make sure you are CONSTANTLY updating agreements. Agreements allow you to
improve resources and troop strength. Your priority should be to get Temple of
Demeter (which reduces grain consumption). Agreements are made up from
articles - you get one per day from Plarium. Coalition members often have
extra/spare articles that they can send or trade with you.
Trade double articles at the market; and dont wait too long or you wont find
anyone willing to trade higher level against lower level ones. If youre stuck with
an article, consider donating it to a coalition member or send it to an officer for
redistribution.
Save your boosts, specials and dominion speed-ups for when you really need
them.
If in doubt what to build or upgrade, check the quests. (Button on left of screen)
Complete but do not cash in your Divine Quests whenever possible. (1) Its a good
place to stash resources securely and (2) they can be all cashed in when a
coalition event involving quests comes along.
Persian Positions (PP) - a never ending topic for discussion in forums and chat.
Suffice to say for this brief intro - never use troops you have not built yourself.
There is a reference at the end of these tips for info on PPs.
DO NOT RAID or SEIGE coalition friends or allies.
To determine whether a player is in a coalition that is a friend or ally of your coalition, go to the
city in world map view and click in the symbol of the player at the end of their name - a pop up
will show you that person's coalition and its status - look at the top right symbol - you will see
either balance scales, a pair of olive branches or a dove. Balance scales mean that collation has
no diplomatic status with the coalition , olive branches means the collation is at peace, and a
dove means they are allies.

22.

You can also check the Embassy to view the diplomatic states with other
Coalitions.

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If you raid/siege a member of a non-allied coalition expect to be attacked back.

It's useful to check opponents coalition regarding size, influence and especially
strong players in your immediate neighbourhood. A good rule of thumb - don't
raid a player more than 5 levels higher than you.
Sieges are the poor peoples raids, raids are most often the better tool. However,
do besiege empty cities as they provide some resources.
Never risk meaningful number of troops at Emporia, the returns are not
commensurate unless you are looking to score tourney points. In fact, many
experienced players never go near emporia, unless to lay a trap (i.e. filling an
emporia with a huge defence force).
Emporia are especially dangerous during tournaments , with players looking to gain
tournament points.

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Use the Contacts lists to create and update dossiers on your foes.
If sieged, dont panic. You will still be able to raid, siege and engage in all other
activities; the only downside is that the sieging player will leach some timber and
bronze off your production (25%). You can easily break a siege or have another
player help. Your coalition will usually come to your rescue in any case. Also see
the wiki at the end of this article.
When involved in a coalition challenge, check chat or rules of engagement and
orders. The hegemon will usually give the coalition directions and advice when a
challenge involves raiding other capitals or pantheons of other coalitions.
Never raid a Pantheon or Capital without checking in chat whether it is ok to do so, as this could
start a war.

29.

30.

When studying scrolls at the Academy, take the courses down the middle axis and
complete these only as far as is necessary to access the next course. This will later
allow you to access other study branches more quickly. Ideally, the best areas to
study initially are scout speed and training speed, and swordsmen and javelineer
training speed.
Remember to complete the divine quests. The longer ones offer up to 30k of
resources.
Completed divine quests can be left unclaimed until needed, but remember that each quest
category holds only 10 quests, therefore dont leave more than 5 quests unclaimed (per
category) so leaving room for new quests (unless you have dominion activated, in which case
you will be getting 7 or more new quests and should only store 3 completed quests).

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Logon daily in order to increase your dominion status and cash in on the Sparta
Allegiance prizes.
Early in the game, siege only inactive players and leave simply use one javelineer
as the besieging unit.
Attempt to build small, local alliances, especially with a stronger players in your
area, even if they are from non-allied coalitions. Most players are very
accommodating if you send the a PM asking for a truce/friendship. It is also a
good idea not to make enemies within a 5 mile radius of your city.

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35.

Upgrade your Infirmary. At level 13, the Infirmary will heal 30% of your troops
(but only those used in defence of your city). This is useful as you progress in the
game and start using troop building queues that run for days. It means if you get
raided, you can recover 30% of your lost troops for free.
Dont spend resources earned in events or elsewhere; leave them at the Market
where they are safe and will soon add up to a nice nest egg for when times get
rough. If you go to the Market, click on the "resources" tab - this will show you
resources that you can access instantly. See point 7 above - and how to acquire
free resources from coalition activities...these get stored in the market.
Dont forget to claim your reward packs as they expire within 3 days (Market > MIsc. > Special)

36.

Remember to mix and upgrade your elixirs in the Temple of Asclepius and activate
those which match your current game plan and troop types. Initially you will just
want light infantry elixir.
Do not upgrade elixirs above level IV until you have acquired a caduceus.

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Remember to upgrade the Agora, which will reduce building and upgrade times of
your artisan.
As a novice you will be nervous about leaving troops in building queues when you
are not logged on. Some players do not build troops if they are offline ever.
However, as you progress and learn the game, long building queues are the only
way to amass large armies. Hence the need for the upgraded infirmary (see point
32). Initially however, so you don't lose sleep wondering if you are being raided
and losing troops, just build troops while you are online.
Your chances of being raided are very low if you don't raid others - unprovoked raids are rare
when you are a member of a large coalition. But do expect to be spied on occasionally.

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Keep an eye out for bot-cities, you will recognize these by their generic names
such as 55kjd3ijand the city name will be a number with a # before it, eg
city#12345. These are undefended cities and offer good resource returns. Plarium
provides these cities to help players increase resources. Best returns come from
bot cities above level 60; however, there are bot cities at all lower levels.
As you progress and level up in SWOE, your need for resources will increase
exponentially. Once you reach level 55 or higher, think about relocating close to a
bot line (a line of cities that provide resources).
Ideally, locate within 10 - 20 miles of the bot line. You can relocate using Pool of Fidelity. Pools
of Fidelity are the other item worth thinking about to buy (see point 9 about in-game deals)

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If you need to stash excess resources, consider using ships. Create a

disadvantageous trade offer and leave your ships waiting in harbour (but dont be
too surprised if someone desperate takes the deal anyway :-).
Remember to pick up the daily offerings of resource in the carts outside the front
gate and the small boats in the harbour.
Check your progress in the Achievements lists, as there are many prizes to be had. This icon will
light up green when there are prizes you have earned. This icon is next to the message box at
the middle top of the screen.

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To move buildings, select edit mode (the arrow icon bottom right above
zoom), then click a building. All structures except default buildings (Acropolis,
Infantry Camp) and resource production buildings may be moved, walls, towers
and most decor also deleted. Click Save (bottom right) when finished.
Engage in chat often so that the coalition gets to know you. The COALITION
members can provide advice, support, resources, articles on SWOE and as well as
interesting chat on totally unrelated topics.
Important - you don't need to chat every time you logon, just join in occasionally. I play every
day but only chat maybe once a week if lucky, but I watch the chat simply to see what is going
on, and watch discussions among more experienced players -good way to learn strategies.

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From my own experience, I've found it useful to keep as notebook close to hand
whenever playing to jot down things (from chat ) that maybe be useful later, or so
I remember them for reference - that's how I could write this.
Join the SWOE forum -you'll find it under "Community" tab at the top of the
screen. Loads of useful info and discussions on SWOE and various issues,
strategies, game play.
SWOE is a numbers game. This means how much offense or defence needed or
used. Players refer to offensive and defensive strength. To work out your own
troops' offensive and defensive capabilities, go to the acropolis, click the recall
button, and then select whatever troops you are interested in, and look at the
bottom left of the screen. You will see the words: offense, defence and capacity.
This will tell you the offensive capability/defence capability and carrying capacity
(i.e. how much resources can be carried) by the selected troops. Click the cancel
button (i.e. the red cross at the top right of screen) to cancel doing anything with
the selected troops.

For more information, and in depth explanations of the game than I have provided can be
found at the websites below. I found the following websites indispensable (and I still use
them after 4 months of playing):
http://plarium.com/forum/en/sparta-war-of-empires/game-tutorials/
http://wiki.plarium.com/index.php?title=Sparta%3A_War_of_Empires_Wiki
http://plarium.com/en/strategy-games/sparta-war-of-empires/mmo-masters/calculation/
http://sparta.playtamin.com/sparta.html