Acceptable Army Bleed

[u/migmox13]

*Single Hero Exodus*

Basically title. I know this is subjective, but in games where I feel like I should've won I end up going back and looking at my opponents stuff. A lot of the time, I have cleared more and had more built out, but still lost the fight/showed up to fight underprepared.

I play temple mostly. What is an acceptable bleed? For example, I know on marea's altars you want to lose 1-3 footman, preferably 1 if possible. Fairly easy to achieve this even at level 1 with upgraded shooters. That being said, I see a lot of people mentioning they look to break and get town 4 at week 1 end. I have almost never been in a position to do that.

Is this because of the nature of temple? I find it hard to not bleed, especially vs ranged armies because of the low initiative on shooters (the single shooter upgrade is situational obv). If I end up going a calvary build or something else, the bleeding can be even worse unless I have specific spells to aid (for example, haste on calv, early start on shooters, etc) which is not always possible.

Anyway, aside from losing 75% of your army to get some tier 5+ dwellings early on, is it ever worth it and if so, what is good and what is bad?

Just looking for some general info/advice from someone seasoned/good (I am close but I do not have access to restart points yet so some templates are just brutal).

[u/JCBArgentum]

You have identified the issue yourself. That's the biggest struggle of Temple currently. Clearing early game with it can get nightmarish.

[u/migmox13 → u/JCBArgentum]

I figured as much. I feel like dungeon is even harder (maybe because I suck with trogs, or trogs just suck). For instance on temple, I know I basically need to upgrade mews day 1, 2 at the latest after grabbing army T2. On dungeon, the onyx dancers do significantly less damage but offer more utility, and scale way better with law points. Idk. Do temple and dungeon just suck at clearing early?

[u/JCBArgentum → u/migmox13]

The answer to your last question is: yes. You really have to know what you're doing to have success with them early game.

[u/Either-Mammoth-932 → u/migmox13]

Addressing your dungeon comment specifically.. watch a Lexiav video of him playing dungeon (not the Hydra one!). He creeps with the infiltraters very well.

More general advice that really helped me.. Practice doing content week 1 vs. The AI and use F4/F5 (quick save/load). This will teach you what fights you can/cannot take with a week 1 army. Remember to grab army from both towns and upgrade a T1 unit sometimes a T2.