As the Tavern portal require gem, it is safe to say HA won’t require gem. Because Tavern is instant and do not involve materials while HA require both time and materials.
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I have feeling that the HA will be a disapointment 
hope for a better Alchemy lab.
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I doubt this will be the case, as there’s no reason preventing them from charging gems on both.
However, I do hope that you are correct.
WARNING: Long post with only speculation (aka very little useful information), that may contain math errors. Waste your time reading it at your own discretion.
So, I was wondering about all the requirements to access the HA and the upgrades. Considering this should be an end game building and looking at previous ones we may end up with something really hard to get.
Now, let’s try to do some foreshadowing on what can the final cost amount to (I’ll try to calculate the time at the end):
First requirement, most likely is SH lvl 25. Atm we are stuck at SHlvl23 and you need 2.440k Iron and 10days 9 hours. Looking at previous SH we can say that:
-SHlvl24 may cost 2.590k and 11days 16hours
-SHlvl25 may cost 2.740k and 13days 1 hour
The max our iron storages can give us is 2.599k. SHlvl24 unlocks one more A.Iron Storage (an extra 152k iron space). Our max capacity for iron is now 2.751k
Now we can build the HA, I belive you will be able to convert one of your Training Camps into it so, 10seconds (Yay!), BUT I also belive the requirement for the conversion will be a lvl20 TC. As for Iron it’s irrelevant, as so far nothing cost more than SH upgrades (if compared on the same “tier”).
Now comes the HA upgrades, I’m pretty sure the 5* hero ones will be at the end (I say ones, as I also belive there may be an upgrade for each color). How much will be the cost for those last tiers?. If we take a look at the Hunter’s lodge and the Alchemy lab, we can get a rough idea of what is the dev’s new philosophy about it:
Hunter’s lodge starts at 2.771k and peaks at 2941k (So only 200ish added for 10 upgrades, meaning 30k average per tier). The time goes from 1day to 5days 12 hours (increments of 12 hour per tier).
The Alchemy lab starts at 2952k and peaks at 3127k (so only 180kish added for 10 upgrades, meaning 18k average per tier). The time increments are interesting in here, they are divided by tiers:
-First tier (upgrades 1 to 3) = 1day
-Second tier (upgrades 4 to 6) = 3 days
-Third tier (upgrades from 7 to 9) = 7 days
-Fourth tier (upgrade 10) = 14 days
(almost double from tier to tier)
Now, what everyone wants is probably something like the last upgrade from the Alchemy lab:
Transmute an EPIC Ascension Material into a different EPIC Ascension Material
So the minimun will be 3.127k food and 14days. But considering this is the newest building it will come with inflated requirements, as per usual. So we can argue that this will be the starting point.
I’m algo going to say that SHlvl24 will unlock 1 Advance Iron and 1 Advance Food storage and same thing for SHlvl25 (If we go by what has been done before, SHlvl25 should not let you build extra Advance Iron and Food buildings, so all this numbers may actually be lower).
So now we have an extra 368k food storage with those 2 new Advance Food storages (max capacity at 3.502k). How much will the tiers cost in the Ah then?:
-Tier1:
First upgrade 3.127k food
Second upgrade 3.157k food
Third upgrade 3.187k food
-Tier2:
4th upgrade 3.217k food
5th upgrade 3.247k food
6th upgrade 3.277k food
-Tier3:
7th upgrade 3.307k food
8th upgrade 3.337k food
9th upgrade 3.367k food
-Tier4:
10th upgrade 3.397k food
Basically 30k extra food each new upgrade. The time, here it gets tricky I don’t think they will start at 14days (last upgrade from Alchemy lab and “tier4”). They may copy the same time schedule so we have Tier1 (1day for each upgrade), Tier2 (3days), Tier3 (7days), Tier4 (14days). They may also keep the “tier division” idea but up the starting time to 2 days Tier1 (4days Tier2, 8days tier3 and 16days tier4).
And finally once you have done all that and want to try that new option from the last upgrade. You will still need RECRUITS. The Legendary option from TClvl20 asks for 100 recruits. How many will it ask, is hard to tell but the max capacity (if we belive that you will be able to build 4 Advance Houses (this means 124x4+30 = 526 recruits max). I’m guessing the amount requiered will be some number between Advance House number 3 and 4. So you will need to have anything from 502 to 526.
So doing ALL this how much time it takes for a non VIP player?. If the player doesnt miss a beat and starts building a new thing the moment it finishes, doing all this will take:
-SH from 1 to 25 = 67days 7h 11m
-Iron/Food storages have the same numbers = 56d 17h 30m 10sec (to upgrade from lvl1 normal to lvl10 Advance). X9 = 510d 13h 31m 30sec
-Houses = 15d 21h 36min (to upgrade from lvl1 normal to lvl10 Advance). X3 = 47d 20h 24min
-Training camp = 15d 20h 45min (I speculate that you will need 1 in order to convert a building into HA)
-HA upgrades (to get all the way to lvl 10) = if we go by the Alchemy lab times + “inflation”. We get something like this: 48hours + inflation (10 extra hours) = 58 hours
Hence, getting a HA running with the option to tinker with 5* will take you 612d 51min 30sec
Now there could be a lot of things that make this prediction worthless, first and most important is the concept of “FTP friendly”. Which is the whole concept for creating this AH, so maybe they put the AH requirements for building it and upgrading it at a much FTP friendly range (I mean, I doubt it). The whole FTP friendly mechanic may very well be the concept of not having to use diamonds for the options inside of it that lets you “manipulate” 5* heroes. Everything else will keep on track with cost inflation.
Anyways, this took me longer to write than I expected. It seemed faster while doing it in my mind.
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You don’t need to research all level of Hero Academy.
True, I’m just going by the idea that the last upgrade (the 10th one) will be the main reason to get AH. So I went with that for an estimate on the time it takes to reach it.
For all we know, the HA could only have 5 upgrades. And so on, with unknown variables. I’m just going by what we have already seen in the game, which is the safest way to make predictions imho.
The whole time frame calculated from my post can be also considered as a “worst case scenario”. Which it can only go down from it.
As a former Candy Crush player, that’s exactly what it is lmao
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Based on earlier information from Beta by @zephyr1 (if I recall correctly) .
SH24 costs is 2545k iron, and 11 days and 5 hours.
(Of course it can change)
So if all non-converted iron storages are no at level 20, then you need an advanced level 8 and adv. level 9.
I suspect a similar research cost for HA level1. So all food storage at level 20 + 1 adv level 8 and 9.
So 3074k
I hope we will see the exact numbers next week
The icon for conversion to HA is avaiable on Forge, Farm, Mine and TC, which are at level 6 or hiher at the moment.
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This is where I mentioned that:
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That’s interesting information, my SH24 prediction wasnt to far off. But most importantly I completly missed this gold nugget:
If it stays this way, we can take out 16days from my overall “worst case scenario” time schedule. Bringing it down to 594 days.
Is this correct? If so, I will leveled up my forge from 5 to level 6.
I think I will sacrifice my 4th TC20.
I will chase the remaining classic heroes I do not have yet:
Khagan
Lianna
Kadilen
Horghal
Justice
Quintus
From HA instead of TC20.
NB: most of them are just for collections 
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I see the (currently disabled) possibility of converting my 3rd forge to Hero Academy, which is at 6+ level.
@jinbatsu
Yes, it looks like this.
So it looks like maybe Forge level 5 will be enough or you will see another text (instead of More SH levels comming soon) when SH25 and HA will be released.
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Can the hero academy allows one to get the specific the hero the player want?
Nobody knows yet, except maybe the devs
Even then it’s not a sure thing 
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@gregschen is right, but I will be very surprised if you are able to choose a hero in HA. The game is so full of RNG that I don’t expect no RNG in HA.
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Once you get your Alchemy lab, to level 9, research level 9. It is the only useful thing in the Lab. It costs 150 gems, 12 rare items (boots/chainmail/scabbards/battle manuals +food. It takes a week and will give you 450 Alkashards and transmute your items into one of the other rare ascension items (orbs/tools etc), with 5% chance of epic ascension item (Darts etc).
Both my lab and lodge are @10. The lodge is fully researched, my lab is researched 1,2, and 9 (you can research any order)
Don’t waste food researching the lab except level 9. The gems you get from the VIP pass will cover the cost of running level 9 continuously.
Max the Lodge, as Time Freezes are very handy.
Since writing this, AL@9 is less gems, and much more Alkashards.
I have loaded my Lab@19 (was @9) to 140 days.
I have had plenty of good items, and the Combining of 1000 shards is handy for Emblems and I’ve had a few Poison Darts and Royal Tabards.
I also use the lower levels.
Today I will start my last research in the AL.
My HA is currently on its last level. I love the building of 2* heroes quickly.
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