Picking your first mounted pair
In the Overview, I explain my thinking. This is a fairly long article, but contains a lot of useful background information if you want to understand how I arrived at these conclusions. If you just want to be told what to do, you can skip it and dive right in here.
For Free to Play Players:
You will need to double up with Roland as your main mounted general for both PvP and monsters. Give him the following Skill Books:
- Mounted Defense
- Mounted HP
- March Size
For Monster Assistant:
- You will want Li Jing
- Use the following skill books
- Mounted Attack against Monsters
- Mounted Defense against Monsters
- Mounted HP against Monsters
- Key your eyes open during events you can win generals for
- Poligenus
- Zhao Yun
- Sun Ce
- Laudon
- we are replacing Li Jing because combinations with him cannot use the
Mounted Attack skill book. If we replace him, you can reconfigure
your Roland to use the following:
- Mounted Attack
- Mounted Defense or Mounted HP (does not matter which)
- March Size
- Note that you may want one of these to be your PvP assistant instead of a PvM assistant. See below.
You could use Martinus for Monster Hunter instead of Roland, but Martinus is useless until you can give him a dragon. Since you won’t have two dragons until level 30, I dislike this approach. Roland is useful far sooner, and saves your (red) Celtic dragon for your ranged march. Also, pairs with Martinus tend to have low survivability, and thus high wounded if you take wounded at all. F2P players will be disproportionately disadvantaged by that.
For PvP Assistant:
- As a FTP or light spending player, I strongly recommend that Mounted not be your main PvP force, there are no good options for PvP in the FTP range.
- Keep your eyes open during events you can win generals for
- Maximilian I
- Laudon
- Zhao Yun
- Sun Ce
- If you win one of these Give them the following
skill books.
- March Speed
- Mounted March Speed
- Mounted Attack
For Light Spenders
Mounted against Monsters (PvM)
I recommend using periodic events like Advanced Journey until you get Aethelflaed. Do as many of these events as you can, you will need many copies of her. It will take you longer to fully ascend her, but it is worth it. She will be your Monster Hunter. She must have the following skill books:
- Mounted attack
- Mounted defense against Monsters
- Mounted hp against monsters
Spend enough to get Theodora, she is compatible with Aethelflaed (but not Roland), and they make a great pair for maximizing your returns on the monsters you hunt. You won’t be able to take on the absolute biggest monsters quite as fast, but it is still a highly respectable pair.
- March size
- luck
- either Mounted defense or mounted HP (does not strongly matter which)
As you spend more, you may want to deep dive into picking a more specialized monster hunting pair. Light spenders should pay attention to the explanation where I talk about survivability. You almost certainly do not want high numbers of wounded when the internal battle mechanics (which happen invisibly) include two or more rounds. If you do switch away from Theodora, you need the following five skill books across the two generals:
- Mounted Attack
- Mounted Attack Against Monsters
- March size
- Mounted HP Against Monsters
- Mounted Defense Against Monsters
Use one of
- Mounted Defense
- Mounted HP as the sixth book to reduce wounded, or Luck to increase double drops if you can afford more wounded. If your pair conflicts with one of the primary five, such as Aethelflaed and the Mounted Attack against Monsters book, replace that one with one of these two.
Do not pick a pair that conflicts with more than one of the primary five skill books.
If you do replace Theodora, use her to join rallies other alliance members run by configuring her with
- March Speed
- March Speed against Monsters
- Luck
Send her with a single troop, ideally paired with Nathanael Greene. This maximizes your double drop chances even better than Baibars, especially if you can get her fortune speciality to purple or even orange level.
Player versus Player (PvP)
For Mounted PvP, use Roland. There are a number of really fancy mounted generals available, however, mounted troops are not the best choice for PvP. You are better off using Roland here, and saving up for premium generals in other classes. See the advice given to FTP players, however, be sure to reconfigure your Roland to use the Mounted Attack skill book as soon as you stop using Li Jing.