Greetings young Lordling or Lady!
My name is DuncanOH, and I would like to give you some direction at the onset of your journey. I am rather enjoying this game, and am excited about the tie in with a great book and HBO series. So, let's start you on your journey through Westeros!
- Disclaimer: I might be wrong about some of these things, so if you know a better method or tip, let me know in addition to updating the wiki.
Basics of the Game
To play the game, go to Kongregate, Facebook , or the developers page.
Keep in mind that the game wants you to play it connected to facebook, because it wants you to invite your friends to play with you during the game. Have no fear, if you don't want to connect things to facebook you can still have friends!
See the How to Add Friends in the Game Tutorial by the wonderful Razorgirl, and you can add me with this link! Who knows, once we are friends, you might even like me!
Prologue and Tutorial
Once you have an account hooked up, you need to choose a name, gender, and portrait. Gender DOES make a difference, but not a very big one, so choose away! An interesting note, if you do NOT choose a name or portrait, and instead close the window with x, the name will be your username, and the portrait a ring wraith-esque hooded figure. If you are into that, go for it.
You can turn the music and sound off by clicking the speaker icon in the top right. You can go full-screen with the button just to the left of it.
Go through the excellent tutorial and learn the ropes. The Alignment choices are as follows: new or old ways, cunning or truthful, family or realm. If you choose the three that you want, it can be fun to try and maximize the alignments by arriving at the extreme of one or the other. It is also an achievment, so if you are a completionist, you will want to try all of the alignment options throughout your reincarnations.
TIP: One thing that you need to realize at this point about Ascent is that, if you are actively playing and diligent, you can skip the last five minutes of almost any action for free, and you should do so. Hurry everything you can for free to maximize your efficiency of gaining resources and getting to the first reincarnation.
Deciding your Future
Now you need to make some decisions of import. First of all, how dedicated to the game do you plan to be? There is something called reincarnation that allows you to collect all five of the alliegance buildings, but it will take time. Without access to these buildings, you will miss out on many of the bonuses and items that benefit you. If you wish to reincarnate to gather all of the bonuses (i.e. are a serious player), choose the house you want to wind up as long term, and leave it for LAST. The houses, the most complimentary backgrounds, and the essential statistic are as follows:
- Baratheon: Hedge Knight The Direct Fighter (Battle stat)
- Greyjoy: Hedge Knight: The Indirect Fighter (Battle stat)
- Stark: Hedge Knight: The Helper (Battle stat)
- Targaryen: Fosterling or Whisperer: The Spymaster (Intrigue stat)
All in all, I think the Greyjoys wind up as the strongest because they get a speed increase to adventures, allowing them to farm rare resources and try for a Dragon the easiest. The Starks are very useful for those with lots of friends, the Baratheons are great for your first runthrough because they are so straightforward (just bash it with a hammer HARDER), the Lannisters are terrible people, and the Targaryans have a fun .
I recommend a new player to play Baratheon, then to reincarnate to Stark, Targaryen third, Lannister fourth, and Greyjoy last (so you have all of the buildings, but the adventure and PtP bonuses long-term). See my Reincarnation Guide for more advanced information about this process and how to speed it up.
Post-Prologue
Once you have decided who you want to be (Lannister- Merchant- Realm- New Ways- Cunning), and completed the prologue, you have a few objectives that, if you focus on these things, you will do well and quickly move up the power rankings:
- Get lots of silver
- Acquire and train 5-6 sworn swords
- Maximize your main stat
So let's examine how to do these things.
Get Lots of Silver
You have two ways of making silver. One is the passive gain from the counting house, so it will be a top priority to level this building up. The second is by sworn swords completing quests and adventures. The distant third way of making money is by selling things in the shop, but we will address that later.
Counting House
The Counting House generates some gold every hour, and (obviously) you want to maximize this. The more you upgrade it, the faster it will generate silver and the more it can store. In the prologue and the beginning of book 1, you will be rolling in the silver, so invest it wisely. Your priorities are to
- A) make sure you have enough storage in the counting house to not completely fill up during the times you are away (sleeping, working, all of those pesky distractions from Westerosi domination). You can do this by upgrading the stack of coins and bag of coins.
- B) maximize your passive income generation by upgrading the silver bars
- C) upgrade the Village Center so that you can produce all of the Resources
I know that C isn't silver, but those resources will become important as the quests get hard enough to force you to generate them yourself.
Quests and Adventures
A quest can generate anywhere between 50 and 250 silver in the early game. The ones you want are the "runs" of swordless quests (the ones that have a castle icon, for several quests in a row) because they take about 20 seconds to complete.
The ones that will hold you up are the ones that require a Sworn Sword to complete. This is why the next section is about sworn swords and how to maximize their efficacy. Essentially, complete quests as quickly as you can. When you have idle sworn swords, send them on Adventures. It doesn't generate a lot of silver, but it gives you one or two dozen silver, some experience, and might give you something you can sell for good money!
Selling things
Over the course of the game, you will get a lot of things. Some of these things are really valuable and you need to keep them for the bonuses, but many times, you already have much better things and what you just found on a quest or adventure is obsolete. In this case, just sell it in the shop!
- WARNING: Do not sell things you will need to combine into something else later on! Never sell a short-sword, because you build most every weapon out of it! Check the item out on this wiki before you sell it to make sure you won't need it later.
Acquire and Train Sworn Swords
Acquire Enough Sworn Swords
You are going to need 5-6 sworn swords, and fast. Do you see those really expensive, really amazing sworn swords? They aren't worth it yet. You can easily complete the first parts of the game with only Common and Uncommon sworn swords, but get them as fast as possible. Also, with these early-game Sworn Swords, don't voluntarily increase their specialty percentage: it isn't worth it until you have 200 of that statistic. Here are two sample line-ups for two different fealties:
- Eample: Baratheon
- Helpful (1st) sworn sword, all Battle, 1% in fighting
- Uncommon warrior "hero", all Battle, 1% specialty in fighting
- Common warrior "virtue to friends", all Battle, 1% specialty in aid
- A merchant "trade with friends", all Trade, 1% in barter
- A secret agent "defender", all Intrigue, 1% in spy
- (OPTIONAL) another warrior "backup hero", all Battle, 1% in fighter
- Example: Targaryen
- Helpful (1st) sworn sword, all Intrigue, 1% in spy
- Uncommon secret agent "hero", all Intrigue, 1% specialty in spy
- Common secret agent "defender", all Intrigue, 1% specialty in spy
- A merchant "trade with friends", all Trade, 1% in barter
- A warrior "virtue to friends", all Battle, 1% in aid
- (OPTIONAL) another agent "backup hero", all Intrigue, 1% in spy
What is my reasoning behind this? Your "hero" is your best sword, with the best equipment, who has the highest level of your main statistic, who can conquer the very difficult quests. Your "defender" keeps enemy spies at bay when necessary. Your "virtue to friends" is good at sending on aid missions to your friends to boost their performance. The reason for so many repeats of the fealty bonus is because these sworn swords will have very good statistics for higher level adventures, more success on side-quests, and when you have three story quests to solve all at once, you will be able to do them all at a high level of performance.
That should get you through most of the first few days of the game, and obviously once you get 200 of your main statistic, you will want a peerless sworn sword with maxed percentage of your fealty. However, until then, you can survive with the common and uncommon guys. Spend that money on upgrades instead.
Training a Sworn Sword
As previously stated, increasing the percentage for the specialty mission is not useful until you have 200 of the statistic. Why is it still important to choose that specialty correctly? Because at 100 of that statistic, you get an extra point, but also because if you have extra bonuses (from talents, boons, equipment), it can add to those and give you an extra point sometimes.
- Example: Your Character has a 16 battle statistic, your Sworn Sword has 9 Battle (bringing your Total to 25 Battle), and somehow you have a +3% to harass. If you have a specialty of 1% in Harass, your Total is now 26 instead of 25! Not a big deal, I know, but over the course of a week it might help you win one engagement you would have otherwise lost among your three sworn swords, so it's worth it to spend two seconds thinking about it.
Anyhow, in my experience, the best xp return rate comes from adventures. However, the rate of failure is rather high unless the adventure qualifies as easy, so stick to the highest level that still says it will be "easy".
When you are wounded, the failure rate seems to jump really high for everything except the level 3 adventure, End the Mudders' Poaching. Your best options are:
- Repeat that adventure until you heal
- Send the Sworn Sword on an aid or barter mission that will take longer to complete than they will to heal. By the time they get back, they are all better, and you made a friend happy in the meantime.
Maximize Your Main Statistic
Each house has their strengths. Baratheons get bonuses to fighting actions, so let's maximize that! You can maximize this bonus (thus speeding your progress through the game) by talents, equipment, building upgrades, and training your sworn swords.
Talents
When choosing talents, get your unique building the moment you are able, but other than that,
maximize your special mission type. Baratheon maxes attacking Fighting (Battle-Fight-Vicious, then Fealty-Baratheon-Fierce Conviction), Greyjoy maxes Harrass in the same way, as does Stark for Aid, Lannister for Swindle, and Targaryen for Spy.
There are a few points where it makes sense to save your talent point (the next good talent isn't yet available), and you should probably do so. Remember, when you reincarnate again, you can take your time, but let's get to that point ASAP.
Gear
Make sure your Lord or Lady is equipped to maximize their important statistic. Equip your best hand, body, and unit to your Lord or Lady so that it trickles down to your sworn swords. If you are Baratheon, work your way to that Broadsword quickly, and then get your Warhammer. +10 to battle for every Battle encounter is a great, great way to improve your success rates.
TIP: When creating a piece of gear you actually are going to use, put a red gem in it! Sometimes the results are really good! I once made a Tough Ladder of Brawls (+13 Battle instead of +3). That's a good boost!
For early gear that is good, don't discount adventures. The Swamp Cleaver is pretty easy to get, gives you +3 Battle, and there is also a chance of getting a +2 battle body slot with the Swamp Coat, all from the easiest adventure!
The random quests can also give you amazing equipment, like the Heirloom Pendant, which is in the Body slot and gives +0 +13 +13, or the Law of Masters Scroll which is in the hand slot and +0 +20 +0, +7% to swindle and Bribe while attacking. Imagine if you got both of these early in Volume 1 as a Lannister!
Choose one sworn sword to be your "hero", and make sure they have the second best equipment equipped to them. They will be the ones who will take your "hard" story quests (you know, the 100 defense ones that crop up out of nowhere in Volume 1 Chapter 3). Use boons on these hard quests.
The other things your buildings need to be producing en mass are Mead from the Godswood and Fresh-Baked Bread from the Sept. These are incredibly useful to power you through long story quests, and food items carry with you from reincarnation to reincarnation! That means you can amass several hundred bread and get through the story quests of your next reincarnation in two or three days instead of weeks!
In that line of reasoning, you should get married. And, you should daily do the thing that if all married people did daily, the divorce rate would plummet. Give each other bacon . It's like a free half-bread every day.
Buildings and Upgrades
To maximize your success, don't build anything that isn't necessary to the laser focus on your single statistic. If you are Lannister, don't even build the Shanty: you don't need to spend 900 silver to improve your intrigue. Spend that silver instead maximizing your trade.
You can round out your stats after you reincarnate enough times, but for now, you need to get your primary stat up to about 200. Likewise, if you are a Stark bannerman, don't even worry about that Treasury, because it doesn't give you Battle stats. Your top priority is to get your main statistic as high as possible so you can quickly reincarnate.