Clash of Queens - Forging Equipment
Introduction
A few days ago the equipment forging completely changed in Clash of Queens. The new materials were already introduced a while back, recently the gear set bonus suddenly disappeared, which was suddenly followed by any previously manufactured equipment disappearing. If like me you one day woke up and your Lord was naked, this guide should explain what happened and give some tips on manufacturing gear.
What Happened?
Instead of just adding on extra equipment and materials the game makers decided to remove the old materials and equipments and introduce a new system. A few days ago all previously forged equipment was disassembled and the old Cold Iron materials were replaced with new ones. For every material you got one material chest in your inventory, open all of these to gets the new materials.
New Equipment Setup
The setup of the new equipment actually does not seem much different. There are different levels (Lvl 1, 10, 20, 25, 30. 35, ...) and for each level for each of the currently available 6 equipment slots you can forge one piece of equipment. When you forge a piece of equipment you have a chance of getting it in one of four quality levels, green (60%), blue (25%), purple (10%) and gold (5%). The better quality level gives higher boosts.
New Materials
The new materials are Animal Skin, Titan's Bones, Emerald, Dragon's Teeth, Ironwood, Ruby and Linen.
Each material you get has an associated level with it, so in your inventory you find for example "LV. 30 Linen". The level of the materials you get corresponds to the level of equipment you can forge with it (with the exception that with Lvl 1 material you can make lvl 1 equipment (never do that!) and lvl 10 equipment. I expect there are no lvl 10 materials). During the exchange to the new equipment setup it seems the level of the material you receive is determined by your Lord level, e.g. if your lord is between level 30 and 34, you get level 30 materials, if between 35 and 39 you get level 35 materials. The materials you get afterwards all seem to be level 1.
Forging each equipment piece requires 10 of each of three different materials (less for Lvl 1 and 10), which depend on the type of equipment piece.
You have a chance of getting a material chests by resource gathering and killing monsters. Probably there are some other ways, but these are most common.
If you disassemble equipment you get some materials back, but of a higher (Lord) level. This means if you disassemble a Lv 30 equipment piece, you get some Lv 35 materials in return. If you disassemble lvl 1 you get lvl 1 materials back, and since you get less materials back than you spend, this is not smart to do. Use the lvl 1 materials to forge lvl 10 equipment and disassemble that.
Tips
Probably after the introduction of these new equipment setup you have lots of the same materials and you can forge a full set of equipment many times over. What I suggest is you first forge one of each equipment pieces. You look at which of the equipment pieces are green and one by one you forge another piece of the same equipment until it is better than green. Once all are better than green, you start the same for your blue to get them up to purple or yellow. If you still have materials left (or once enough new materials come in) you can even try to upgrade purple to gold). Once you have a better equipment for a certain slot, you disassemble the new one, which will already start helping you to accumalate some materials for when your Lord reaches the next level.
Once you used up this initial stash of materials things might turn out to be harder.
Note: below calculation is already no longer valid, it seems the system is still changing and currently there is a random amount of materials returned from disassembling, based on my experience mostly 4 for level 10 equipment, anywhere ranging from 4 to 10 for level 30 equipment, which will mean significant less Lvl 1 materials are necessary. I'll wait a couple of days before make a new proper analysis, checking whether things won't change again.
Based on what I have seen so far, you need 20 lvl 1 materials to forge a lvl 10 piece, which after disassembling gives you two Lvl 20 materials. Similarly 30 Lvl 20 materials can be used to get 3 Lvl 25 materials, 30 lvl 25 materials result in 3 lvl 30 materials, 30 lvl 30 materials in 3 lvl 35 materials. Each time a factor 10. So how many lvl 1 materials do you need to forge a lvl 35 piece? I would need 30 Lvl 35 Materials, and need to multiply this by then for each level jump, so 30x10x10x10x10, so 300,000. Which is likely not enough, because each time you get a chance of materials, so if you disassemple a Viking Combat Helmet, you might end up with 3 Ironwood, instead of one of each.
This might make it very hard to get higher level equipment, especially the higher quality level one, because for that you need to forge it multiple times. On a plus, even a lord level 10 equipment piece of gold quality level gives a higher boost than a green level 30 equipment boost, so as you accumulate materials and keep forging and disassembling even the lower lord level equipment pieces might be an improvement of what you already have.
Equipment Set Bonus
As far as I have been able to find out there are no equipment set bonusses anymore in the new equipment system. It is even the case you cannot see the boosts you will get of the equipment you are about to forge.
Data on this Website
I am still updating the data on this website, the new materials and equipment pieces and recipes are there. I am still updating the boosts as I forge more. Most of my stuff if Lvl 30, over time I will forge a lot below and add those boosts as well, and later boosts for higher lord level as well, but if you want to provide information already, just post in the comments and I'll make sure I update the website shortly.
Conclusion
I hope the above explains what happened, how the new equipment forging system is setup and some tips how to forge good equipment. If you have any questions or tips to share, let us know.
Old Gear Manufacturing Guide
Introduction
Forging some equipment for your Lord can give you useful boosts for both combat (like Infantry, Archer and Cavalry Attack) and development (like Building and Research Speedup).
How to Manufacture Gear
In the Blacksmith you can Forge equipment. For each of the six equipment slots there is a list of items for different levels. The equipment for the same slots give the same type of boosts, only higher for higher level equipment. When you forge equipment, it will be forged and equipped immediately.
How the Boosts Work
Your Lord needs to be equipped with gear for the corresponding boosts to work. When exactly the Lord should be equipped with the gear depends on the type of boost. For Research, Construction, Troop Training, Trap Building, the Lord should be equipped with the corresponding gear at the moment you start the activity. Afterwards you can change your Lord's gear. For combat, troop load, gathering boosts the Lord should be equipped with gear during the activity. Since for now for each equipment slot the higher level gear is better than lower level, there is currently no real reason to change equipment, you can just always were the highest level.
Finding Materials
So far there are only two materials, Cold Iron (Blue) and Cold Iron (Green) and you need a lot of them to make the higher level gear. There are no easy ways to get lots of them. When you kill monsters there is a chance the materials will drop, there are daily quests that have them as reward, and they can drop when you hit in the Tomb Raider dungeon.
Common Mistakes
It might be tempting to forge a level 1 equipment as soon as you have sufficient materials, but since you need to use the same type of materials for higher level equipment, it might be better to wait. Depending on how active you play and how long you are willing to wait for a complete set, I suggest either aiming for the lvl 10 or 20 set.
Conclusion
I hope the above gives you some guidelines how to forge, what to forge and how to find materials. If you have any questions or tips to share, let us know.
Contributed by: GamesGuide on July 12, 2016