I am almost done with SH 21. Just 2 more build days away. Would you take some time and build thing up to level 20 or should I plug away and get my Stronghold to 24 as quickly as possible. I am active in pretty much everything the game has to offer. My farms are at 19. My iron is at 16. My houses are at about 11. My highest forge is at 13. My iron storages are at 19. My food storages are mostly at 16.
What are the levels of your farms, mines and storages?
Stronghold itself is not a goal. It’s just a possibility to build higher levels of other useful buildings.
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I edited my original post with those numbers. 8 farms at 19, one building to 20. All iron stores at 19. My mines are at 16. Most of my food stores are at 16. My houses are at 11 and my highest forge is at 13.
Don’t be in such a hurry! The development should be uniform. Improve your heroes and troops. If you have enough resources to do this, then you don’t need a level 24 fortress right now.
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Sorry, didn’t see the updated post. With what you have I’d focus on maxing your buildings and on advanced buildings after that.
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Storages… get them at least to level 20.-
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Hi!
In order to be able to upgrade your Stronghold to lvl 24 ( that requires a lot of iron , 2500+…sorry I don’t remember the exact number) , your iron storages will need to be fully upgraded, included the advanced ones. I would recommend you to work on your storages ( food and iron) , mines and farms before upgrading your Stronghold to the next level.
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upgrade your farms and mines first. than upgrade training camps to 20
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I wouldn’t call myself a whale, but I have spent quite a bit of money. I’ve only been playing for 3.5 months and I have more 5 star heroes then I know what to do with. I have 3 purple, 3 yellow, 5 blue, 5 green, and 6 red…none of them complete as I have been working on a deeper bench of 4’s. I don’t plan on running TC 20, but I will probably build it eventually. As it is, regular leveling, troops and emblems have kept me not needing to store food anyways.
Upgrade your forge to be able to craft tornados or time stops.
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You can’t get to SH24 without Advanced Iron Storage. You need a LOT of iron to build it. You’re better off working on at least iron and food production and storage as you advance your SH.
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This.
Plus the amount of ham/iron you get from the chests is tied to your storage levels. Once I got my food storages up from 12 to 15, I definitely started getting more food from the monster/raid chests on average.
I’d try to get it to 16 so you can start crafting dragon attacks. You’ll want/need them for certain events and class quests. The last 4 levels you can wait on unless you really want those items.
Full disclosure: I just got to SH20 about a week ago, so still figuring things out for myself as well.
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Understood. I do realize that I will need to keep up with building some things (mostly iron storage) in order to get to SH 24. My question is on whether I should also build up some non-essential items. The main ones being houses and forges with food storage somewhat as well. I think I will step back and build things up a bit.
Houses allow you to store more recruits (and an Advanced House lets you actually generate them) before having to dump them into a TC. It’s handy having higher recruit storage for farming Atlantis Rises as you need to dump them out less often.
Forges let you craft items – how high you take a forge depends on how much you need the more advanced items.
I generally kept my farms and mines and storage level with the SH and houses not too far behind. Forges I leveled as I found I needed better items. Even now I don’t forge regularly as I’m always chronically low on iron from building and embleming.
Currently I have the Hunter’s Lodge at level 2, and Alchemy Lab untouched. Eventually I’ll level up the Lodge.
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Oddly, I always seem to be out of hams…even though they are at level 19. I typically rush build my next building when my iron is completely full. I like the idea of the advanced houses providing extra recruits eventually. I have over 1650k in iron as bundles from POV awards that are just waiting to be opened.
With this roster you only need training camps at level 11.
But.
The best source of 4* ascension items, and emblems, for 5* heroes is 14* titans.
You should seriously consider looking for group of affiliated alliances, so you can work your way up to the alliance fighting 14* titans. Once you find the group, a lot of your level 12+ buildings will depend on their play style.
Do you need harpoons to get titan parts?
Mines for battle items?
Forge 17 to get more 3* ascension items, and emblems, for alliance war 4* heroes?
Your alliance will also refine your play style. Once they know your play style, they are the best source of advice about your base.
Once you have enough 5* heroes, Empires becomes about emblems, 3* / 4* ascension items, and kits/ backpacks.
4* Heroes are the backbone of Empires. Forge level 17 is the backbone of class quests. 14* titans are the backbone of loot. But money is the backbone of 5* Heroes.
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Eventually I would take one training camp to 12, so you can bank ham, and take one forge to at least 19. I took mine to twenty, only because I thought PoV might make me craft a miracle scroll. As far as you storages, the game forces you to upgrade them fully to move forward, and mines and farms are very important, as well as your watchtower.
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The main reasons to get sh up to 24 are
- unlock and additional advanced farm, food, and iron storage
- anticipate and prepare for sh 25, which will unlock the hero academy
It looks like you don’t have any advanced buildings built yet, so the first point won’thelp you at all. You almost certainly don’t have enough food storage or iron storage to build or research anything at the HA yet either, rendering 2 unnecessary for you also. Remember also that increased sh level also increases you food cost to reroll raid matches! It’s not trivial as you raid in higher leagues and need to stack to win raids.
Before considering further sh upgrades, you should at least have upgraded as many buildings into level 1 advanced buildings as possible (except possibly hunter’s lodge, that can wait). If you log in frequently and have completed s1 then I’d push iron storages and your watchtower as your highest priorities - the watchtower produces almost 2 farms and mines worth of resources at L20 with s1 finished and you can collect resources from it while it upgrades. After that, if you have vip then push a tc to 20 along with all of your farms. Do mines as you run low on iron. Then I’d move on to a single house along with food storages. Last, do a forge while you work on adv iron storages and your adv house. When advanced storages/production buildings are available convert them (again, except hunter’s lodge - items are too expensive and must be expensively researched first). You don’t need more than one forge 20 or house 20 - my houses are adv L10 and 11, 10, 9. My forges are 20, 12, 11 (under a hunter’s lodge) and 9 (under my barracks). Rushing a forge 20 isn’t great because forging items is an iron sink and will delay your progress on other buildings (esp with vip) - the forge was the 2nd last building i maxed (food storages were last)
Tl;dr recommend going watchtower>iron storages>tc20+farms>1 house+food storage>adv house+forge. Convert to advanced production/storage asap when available. Mines whenever iron is short.
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I have 4 training camps. Usually I run TC 11. I will run TC 2 depending on backpacks and if I am heavy on food or if I want to push one hero to be done quicker, I might try TC 19 for a bit to get a lot of feeders quickly. My alliance was able to take down 8* titans, but we lost a great player and are kinda struggling with 7’s. I would love to be able to attempt a 14 star titan, but I would need to spend some time in a training alliance. I like the alliance I’m in (the leader is a personal friend of 25+ years), so I don’t really wish to change.
I have 3 rainbow teams of 3 stars and almost done with 3 rainbow teams of 4 stars. I am going to try to get a rainbow team of 5 stars afterwards (need 1 dart and 2 tabards to complete the whole set). Then I will work on another set of 3’s and 4’s.
Summarized version:
Mines, then training camps, then food storage, then Hunter’s Lodge, then iron storages, then stronghold level 23, then Advanced House. No reason to rush for level 24 stronghold until level 25 is released with the Hero Academy.
The long lecture that I actually wrote first:
If it were me, I’d max out those mines ASAP. That’ll permanently increase the rate you can level everything else, especially if you go VIP and use two builders at once. The sooner you max those, the sooner you max everything else.
Next priority would be training camps. I have one level 20 camp and three at level 11 for 2-hour heroes. I really like that setup, and I don’t think I’ll feel a need to level them again until I have a colossal supply of level 60 4* heroes for wars. Then I won’t need so many little trainer guys, and I’ll be grasping for more 5* chances because I’ll have nothing else to do.
I also recommend at least a level 1 Hunter’s Lodge because I love my harpoons. 
Oh, and if you get all your food storages to level 20, you’d still need an advanced one just to research harpoons.
Then I’d get a level 23 stronghold (which will require, I think, taking all your iron storages to level 20 and then two advanced storages to level 4 & 5). I’d get this for the Advanced House, which I’m currently leveling right now.
I don’t care about stronghold level 24. It unlocks a couple storage upgrades (which you’ll already have a massive ton of by then) and another advanced farm slot. I still have 7 of my 9 farms at level 10. Personally, food’s not an issue for me. Don’t see what the big deal is there. 
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