The Captain is the most powerful combat unit in the game having excellent armor resistance to both melee and ranged damage while sustaining a powerful melee attack identical to that of a knight. Captains are needed to successfully capture or raze any human player’s village.
| Gold Cost | 1000 (+1000 per each new unit) |
| Rank Required | 12 (Alderman) |
| Unit Space | 1 |
| Weapons Required | None |
| Research Required | Level 1 – Military Level 1 – Leadership Level 1 – Captains |
The base price for your first captain is 1000; for each additional captain you purchase, the price increases by 1000. When you use a captain to purchase or capture a village, even if the capture is successful, that captain will become unavailable and the price increase for him will remain. However, if later your village is captured or razed, the price of your next captain will go down by 1000. On the other hand when your captain dies during a raze or any other common attack, the price for the next captain will revert to the previous cost incurred when purchasing that captain.
I’ll admit this may confuse new players so I will give some examples
- You capture your second village – the minimum cost for your captain will be 2000
- You capture your fifteenth village – the minimum cost for your next captain will be 15000
- You successfully raze your enemy, the price for your next captain will go down by 1000(Even though your won the raze the captain still dies, yeah I know, strange.)
- You fail a raze against your enemy – the price for your next captain will go down by 1000
Recruitment cards will not reduce the cost of recruiting Captains.
Captain Defense
The captain is the strongest unit you can use for defense and they are best placed in the keep if you are under a capture/raze attack. After maxing the Captain research you are allowed 5 captains per village allowing you to station 5 in your keep if you are under attack. Remember the AI is incapable of Razing or Capturing your villages therefore it can be a waste of gold to station 5 captains in each village during times of peace.
Captains cannot issue tactical orders from inside your castle, these tactical commands are for attacks only.
The Captain is the only melee unit which you can place on your castle walls and towers.
Captain Offense
The most popular use for captains is for razing or capturing new villages.
There are a total of 5 possible captain tactics each with different abilities you can choose from when setting up your attack.
- Delay – Delays all units within 5 tiles of the captain for however many seconds the delay is set for before during the attack setup
- Rallying Cry -Heals all units within 5 tiles of the captain after after a preset amount of has elapsed.
- Arrow Volley – Arrows fire from a corner of the map to the area surrounding the captain after a preset amount of time has elapsed.
- Battle Cry – Troops surrounding the captain deal more damage to enemy wall after a preset amount of time has elapsed.
- Catapult Volley – Catapults fire from a corner of the to the area surrounding the captain after a preset amount of time has elapsed.
If you can afford to use 2 captain waves, one for the raze and one for the clear you can do this set up:
- 5 captains (very little risk of losing them all) 90% pillage
- 3 archer volleys into the keep (5-10s delay) placed as far back as possible (aiming into the keep/front door) surrounded by Archers
- 1 Heal (25s delay) next to the rallying cry captain
- 1 Rallying cry (15-20s delay) surrounded by plenty of swordsman
(I still have to play with the timings a bit, but those have worked well for me)
- The archer volley clears the keep
- The swordsman eat up every last bit of moat http://youtu.be/FI7-QUsnQ_w
- The heal obviously keeps your stuff alive along with lowering the risk of losing the 2 captains that actually enter the castle.
This is meant to hit obviously after the main towers/walls are already down, empty the keep and clear out any moat. The raze army can hit right after this attack and it will walk right in, that wave can do the raze but I wouldn’t want to risk five captains on a full commit for almost any reason.
I have yet to find a viable use for catapult volley except for lone captain attacks on 1% pillages poking out all of the guardhouses.