Human

Humans are one of the playable races in Art of Conquest.

Human
Human is the default race for every player. This race has the most versatile units. When playing human, you are playing a game of rock paper scissors with them. Many of their unit’s counter other types of units but fare poorly against others. This means if you play human well you will almost always win but if you play poorly you will be met by crushing defeat after crushing defeat.

Spearmen
Spearmen Counters any large unit and giant unit.

Spearmen at silver tier or higher have a ranged stun spear toss which pushes foes back which is great to group enemies up for hero skills. they also have slightly longer melee range than swordsmen. they also have a decent scaling per rank. For these reasons, I find spearmen out preform swordsmen in every situation that isn't the gold swordsmen + virion ultimate skill combo.

Spearmen do very well against Cavalry, they are literally the best counter to Cavalry. They are also very strong against any unit that is size Large or Giant, such as scorpions or mechsuits.

Counters to spearmen

Dwarf Mech suits do decent against spearmen, but the spearmen also kill mechs quickly so it’s not a strong counter. any melee normal sized unit, such as dwarf engineers and Swordsmen

Research upgrades unlock for the spearmen at academy level 1
 * Tier 1: Fitness Training – increase the health of spearmen units by a flat amount. This research leads to Silver Spearmen.
 * Tier 2: Combat Training – increases the damage of spearmen units by a flat amount. This research leads to Savage Thrusts, this ability causes all attacks dealt by the spearmen units to make the enemy take an additional 30% damage from all sources. This ability is borderline overpowered.
 * Tier 3: Survival Training – provides a % of damage reduction to spearmen, this research is good it helps spearmen do their job as a frontline unit which they would sometimes fail to do so in the past. This research leads to Heightened Reflexes which gives spearmen a 10% dodge chance.
 * Tier 4: Basic Fitness Training – Bonus +% health, leads to Gold Swordsmen
 * Tier 5: Convalescence – same as swordsmen, reduced heal time. Also leads to the same garrison healing time bonus, except this time it is for spearmen.
 * Tier 6: Advanced Fitness Training – more +% health, leads to bloodlust same as swordsmen, provides a 30% damage bonus during morale.
 * Tier 7: Garrison Training – same as swordsmen provides a bonus to health and damage for the spearmen when they are on garrison duty.
 * Tier 8: Training Discipline -  same as swordsmen reduce the cost to produce spearmen, leads to brutal efficiency same as swordsmen where it reduces the mithril cost by 20%. Get this research.
 * Tier 9: Elite Combat Training – More +% damage, leads to +20% damage research, get this.
 * Tier 10: Advanced Convalescence – more reduced healing time, leads to the same reduced heal time for garrison troops for a total of 100% reduced heal time.
 * Tier 11: Lethality – Increase the critical strike chance of spearmen by +%, this research leads to Heavy Blows, which increases the critical strike damage of spearmen by 40% (spearmen will deal 40% more damage on a crit)
 * Tier 12: Elite Fitness Training – more heal +%, leads to Regroup same as swordsmen.

Swordsmen
Swordsmen are the frontline tanks of humans, they scale well compared to most units. This makes them great in the late game but I find them to be a poor frontline in the early game and they do a decent job in the mid game but until you get gold swordsmen they have a large weakness which is low morale. Once they start taking damage many of them will just run away and the line breaks your backline gets exposed. For this reason, Spearmen out preform them in almost every aspect until you pair Gold Swordsmen with Virion crusader resurrection skill. Swordsmen do gain a 35% damage reduction from ranged attacks when they get to silver tier but this does not include spell damage (mage units, like wizards or lich casters)

Swordsmen do well against: other normal sized units like dwarf miners and any physical damage ranged unit like archers.

Counters to Swordsmen: Dwarf Mech suits, Hero skills, Calvary, Spiders, Scorpions

Swordsmen don't really counter anything but do well against any ranged unit that don't do AoE damage.

Research upgrades for the swordsmen unlock at academy level 2
 * Tier 1: Fitness Training – Increases the health of swordsmen units by a flat amount. This research leads into unlocking Silver Swordsmen
 * Tier 2: Combat Training – Increases the damage of swordsmen units by a flat amount. This research leads into Reinforced shields which increases Silver and Gold swordsmen’s damage reduction from ranged attacks, this research is critical you should get it.
 * Tier 3: Advanced Survival Training – this research gives swordsmen a +% flat damage reduction. This research is amazing you should max it as best you can, it also leads into the Fast Reflexes research which gives Swordsmen a 10% bonus to dodging attacks.
 * Tier 4: Basic Fitness Training – this like the first research provides more health, except this time it provides a bonus +% health instead a flat amount. This research leads into unlock Gold Swordsmen.
 * Tier 5: Convalescence – This research reduces swordsmen time spent healing in the hospital by a %. This research is very important for the late game but for the early game and mid game you could maybe get away with skipping it and focusing on something else to provide you with a larger advantage in battle. This research also leads into the Garrison Recovery research which greatly reduces healing time for garrisoned swordsmen by 40%!
 * Tier 6: Advanced Fitness Training – second verse same as the first, more +% health, can’t complain about that. Strangely this research leads to Bloodlust, which increases swordsmen damage by 30% during morale boosts. Very powerful if you know how to start a good chain of morale.
 * Tier 7: Garrison Training – Increases health and attack by a +% when swordsman are on garrison duty. This research leads to Field Training: Grassland, which provides a huge 20% attack and health bonus to swordsmen when they are fielded on grassland battlefields.
 * Tier 8: Training Discipline – This research reduces the cost of producing swordsmen by a % this is very important mid and late game to have I would suggest you invest into this. This research leads to “Brutal Efficiency” which reduces the mithril cost of swordsmen by 20%, this is amazing considering mithril is very rare this research is very good.
 * Tier 9: Elite Combat Training – More +% damage can’t go wrong with that. This research leads to Weapons Research, which increases swordsmen attack by another 20%!! That is a huge increase.
 * Tier 10: Advanced Convalescence – same as the previous research by this name more reduced healing time very good for the late game. This research leads to Advanced Garrison Recovery which reduces heal time for garrison swordsmen by another 60% for a total of 100% reduced healing time.
 * Tier 11: Elite Survival Training – More damage % reduction, very powerful. Leads to lightning reflexes which gives swordsmen another 20% dodge for a total of 30%.
 * Tier 12: Elite Fitness Training – More +% health. Leads into the research “Regroup” which increases the troop size of swordsmen from 24 to 27. This research is nice and also terrible as it would mean your gold troop supply is now 27 instead of 24 which can create issues when trying to squeeze everything out of your very limited gold supply, that said it is a straight up buff to silvers.

Archers
Archers have no real strength in terms of countering units, they just deal high damage and are very fragile. They just do well against everything with their long range and strong attacks.

Archers are hard countered by Area of effect damage such as hero abilities or spiders. Calvary units or other flanking units such as goblin raiders do well against archers.

Research upgrades unlock at academy level 1 for the archer.
 * Tier 1: Fitness Training – Flat health increase per level of research, leads to silver archers.
 * Tier 2: Combat Training – Flat damage increase per level of research leads to Arm Strength, which increases the range of Silver and Gold Archers by 2
 * Tier 3: Advanced Agility Training – Increase the attack speed of archers by +%, this leads to Advanced Lethality, which increases archers chance to crit by 10%
 * Tier 4: Basic Fitness Training – Bonus +% health, leads to Gold Archers.
 * Tier 5: Convalescence – reduced heal time, leads to reduced heal time for garrison troops by 40%
 * Tier 6: Advanced Fitness Training – bonus +% health, leads to bloodlust, which provides a 30% damage boost during morale.
 * Tier 7: Garrison Training – bonus health and damage while on garrison duty. Leads to Grassland bonus (+20% health and damage while fighting on grassland battlefields)
 * Tier 8: Training Discipline: reduce cost to produce archers, this leads into research which reduces crystal cost to produce archers by 20%
 * Tier 9: Elite Combat Training: - increases attack rating by +%, leads to +20% damage research.
 * Tier 10: Advanced Convalescence – more reduced healing time, leads to even more reduced healing time for garrison troops.
 * Tier 11: Elite Agility Training – increase attack speed of archers by +%, leads to Elite Lethality, which increases archers critical strike chance by another 20% for a total of 30%
 * Tier 12:Elite Combat Training – more bonus +% health, leads to Regroup which increases the size of archer troops from 24 to 27.

Priests
Priests are a very important unit to the human army if you want to keep losses to a minimum, the low health of your frontline units makes it hard to beat others without major losses, priests can double your unit’s health via all their healing. Priests also provide any unit immunity to poison damage for a few seconds which greatly helps when fighting against spiders.

Priests counter undead units once they are Silver tier or higher, they gain an AoE spell that does high damage to all undead units, this is a very useful skill against Lich players.

Priests are very fragile and any unit can kill them easily but the Calvary charge and other burst damage is the best counter to priests.

Research for Priests is unlocked at academy level 3, you will likely be able to start researching for this unit before you even unlock this unit.
 * Tier 1: Fitness Training – Bonus +% health, leads to silver Priests.
 * Tier 2: Combat Training – Flat bonus to damage, leads to Smite, which adds a stun to the “Holy Blast” ability of the silver and gold priests. This is very powerful but will rarely be used outside of quests.
 * Tier 3: Restoration – Increase healing output by +%, leads to Detoxify, this research allows priests to remove poison effects from your units, this research is the most important research for priests, as it allows you to stand up against the lich unit known as the spider.
 * Tier 4: Basic Fitness Training – more +% health, leads to gold priests, gold priests are great as they have a target Mass Heal ability which works a lot like Vega’s heal ability but at a lower cost and is cast from a standard unit and not a hero.
 * Tier 5: Convalescence – reduced healing time always good, leads to reduced garrison healing time.
 * Tier 6: Advanced Fitness Training – more bonus +% health always good, leads to poison immunity, this research gives all units 7 seconds of immunity to poison when healed by “Mass Heal”
 * Tier 7: Garrison Training – increase health and damage while garrisoned. Leads to grassland training, +20% health and damage while fighting in grassland battlefields.
 * Tier 8: Training Discipline – Reduce cost to produce priests, leads to research that reduces the amount of crystal needed to produce priests by 20%
 * Tier 9: Elite Combat Training – more +% damage, I personally wish these damage bonus researches were bonus to healing but that is me. Leads to +20% damage research.
 * Tier 10: Advanced Convalescence – more reduced healing time, leads to even more garrison reduced healing time.
 * Tier 11: Advanced Restoration – increase healing output of priests by +%, leads to +20% attack speed research.
 * Tier 12: Elite Fitness training – more bonus +% health, leads to Regroup increasing the size of a troop of priests from 8 to 10.

Cavalry
This unit is a very powerful unit that can change the entire battle outcome by themselves. Depending on where you place them you can easily crush your enemy. Be careful of placing them too far forward as they may get ahead of your army and die before you can back them up.

Cavalry counter any unit that clumps up. Such as any human unit

Counters to Calvary: Spearmen, and Dwarf tanks

Research for Calvary unlocks at academy level 2.
 * Tier 1: Fitness Training – Flat bonus to health, leads to Silver Cavalry
 * Tier 2: Combat Training – Flat bonus to damage, leads to Thunderous Charge, which increases the damage dealt by the “charge” ability (does not state the increase)
 * Tier 3: Agility Training – Increase the attack speed by +%, leads to Lethality, which increases critical strike chance by 10%
 * Tier 4: Basic Fitness Training – Bonus +% health, leads to gold Cavalry.
 * Tier 5: Convalescence – reduce healing time, leads to greater reduced heal time for garrison troops.
 * Tier 6: Advanced Fitness Training – bonus +% health, leads into bloodlust, which provides a much-needed bonus attack damage of 30% for Cavalry during morale boost.
 * Tier 7: Garrison Training – Bonus health and damage while garrisoned, leads into grassland training, which provides +20% health and damage while battling on grasslands.
 * Tier 8: Training Discipline – Reduce production cost of cavalry, leads into brutal efficiency, which reduce the blood diamond cost to produce cavalry by 20%.
 * Tier 9: Elite Combat Training – Bonus +% damage, leads to +20% damage research.
 * Tier 10: Advanced Convalescence – more reduced healing, leads to more reduced garrison healing.
 * Tier 11: Survival Training – Research provides +% damage reduction to cavalry, leads to Heightened Reflexes, which gives 20% dodge chance.
 * Tier 12: Elite Fitness Training – More bonus +% health, leads to Regroup, which increases the troop size of Cavalry from 6 to 7

Catapults
The human siege weapon, it does exactly what you think it does. Use catapults when attacking other players castles to aid in killing defenders on the walls or just kill the walls itself.

Research upgrades for catapults unlock at academy level 3
 * Tier 1: Fitness training? (better make our catapults run that extra mile otherwise it will get fat.) – flat bonus health increase, leads to silver catapults.
 * Tier 2:  Combat Training - Flat damage bonus, leads to wall destruction, giving silver and gold catapults even more bonus damage against walls.
 * Tier 3: Advanced Survival Training – Reduces damage catapults take by a %, leads to siege plating which reduces damage taken from ranged attacks by 10%
 * Tier 4: Basic Fitness Training – bonus +% health, leads to gold catapults.
 * Tier 5: Advanced Lethality – Increases the critical strike chance of catapults by a %, leads to advanced agility training which increases catapults attack speed by 10%
 * Tier 6: Advanced Fitness Training – Bonus +% health, leads to advanced destruction, which further increases the damage of catapults against walls.
 * Tier 7: Reduce production time of catapults by a %, leads to grassland training, which gives +20% health and damage when fighting in grasslands
 * Tier 8: Training Discipline – reduces cost of producing catapults by a %, leads to research that reduces the cost of blood diamonds to produce catapults by 20%
 * Tier 9: Elite Combat Training – increase damage by a +%, leads to “Heavy Boulders” research which increases the attack damage of catapults by another 20%.
 * Tier 10: Elite Lethality – increases critical strike chance by +%, leads to Elite Agility Training which provides catapults with +20% attack speed.
 * Tier 11: Elite Survival Training – further reduces the damage taken by a %, leads to Reinforced siege plating which reduces ranged damage taken by another 20%
 * Tier 12: Elite Fitness Training – Even more +% health, leads into Honor Bombardment, which increases the honor gained when attacking cities…..this research is useless and you can skip it.

Angels
Are the human super unit, it provides massive healing support when fielded. Very power unit that can only be used 3 times a day. You can build only one super unit which is constructed in the Siege works, it also requires you be to a city leader to use one.

Research
The bread and butter of the human army is the Archer, you want to focus mostly on archers and then a second unit as your secondary unit, having a focused army makes you more powerful overall but does leave you open to some weaknesses depending on your setup.

If you plan on fighting a lot of Lich players you would want to focus on Calvary and Priests as your secondary research units after archer as you will need the tanky frontline Calvary provides and you will need the priest’s ability to stop poison damage.

Another good combo is archers and swordsmen, Swordsmen scale very well and when you have gold ones they do not break morale and fight to the death making them a very resilient frontline.

Besides these two main strategies for research you can honestly go any route you wish as every human unit has its place in an army and counters one set of units very well. If you play your cards right you should be able to dominate any battle with the proper army setup with human, so I suggest to anyone who is serious about playing as human for top level of play to read up on what counters what and how to build around your enemy. Gather as much information on a target before you attack to make your chance of winning that much higher.

Army Formations
There are many formations for the humans as they are a very situational race, I will list a few common setups, but there are many variations and I’m sure you will have fun discovering them as I have.

The frontline humans have three options, Swordsmen, Spearmen and Cavalry. Each unit has its advantage and disadvantage for being in the frontline.

The midline should consist of archers and priests to help support your frontline, while having more archers in the backline. You can also place Cavalry in the backline as they will reach the frontline around the time your spearmen stun wears off even if they start in the back.

A general-purpose army setup is 12-13 legions of units. Which consists of 4 legions of cavalry, 2 legions of spearmen, 1 legion of swordsmen, 2 legions of priests and 3-4 legions of archers. The reason the setup is 12 or 13 legions is due to whether you have Avalon as he can deploy 3 legions to the normal 2. The last one or two legions of archers go in the middle where there is space. This setup protects your flanks from incoming enemy cavalry charges while giving you a great setup for your own cavalry. The spear toss thrown by the spearmen will force the enemy wings to clump together and they will take massive damage from the charge. You will then probably get a morale boost and steamroll to victory.

To break a standard lich line, you need to use 6 cavalry units as your frontline and have 3 legions of archers and 2 legions of priests directly behind them. Then you can add either more archers or priests behind those up to you. The idea of this setup is to attempt to kill the scorpion frontline in the initial charge and break through quickly and kill the spiders before they kill you.

If you know you are going to be facing another human army that doesn’t use cavalry or a dwarf humanoid army use this setup. Have 4 legions of swordsmen as your frontline with 3 archers and 2 priests behind them the rest is up to you, this setup is very strong against armies that use a lot of small sized units like spearmen, swordsmen or dwarf miners. As the swordsmen scale very well and demolish any other unit its own size.

The deployment of the troops is simple you have the spearmen cover your right and left frontline while the swordsmen take front and center. Directly behind the spearmen place a legion of archers. Beside the archers place a legion of priests. Behind the archers’ place 2 legions of cavalry on each side

When besieging castles just add 3 catapults to your setup put them in the back one in the left and right corner and one in the center back. This allows them each to hit a different part of the walls and help kill the enemy wall troops quickly.