This guide is meant for those people who have already mastered the basics of ranking and can reach the Marq/Dux rank without issues.
Let's start by going through how rating works.
As the FAQ says, rating is calculated like so:
The individual ranking is an addition of your xp/5, the square root of your gold and an amount for the strength of your army.
Now the xp and gold parts are all good and well, but what does the strength of your army mean?
Strength of army, or as I like to call it, army score, is calculated with a simple formula:
N*A*P, where:
N= Number (amount) of units
A= Authority of the unit
P= Points from the tier of the unit (Standard = 10, Veteran = 11, Master = 12, Elite = 13, Legendary = 14)
Assuming all the units are not of the same tier and same authority, you have to calculate the values separately.
Now this might not make sense at first, but let's go through a couple of examples.
Examples
Commander A: 150 000xp, 4m gold and an army consisting of 38 Legendary, 2 Veteran and 1 Standard Master Duellist.
So how is the rating calculated for commander A? Simply insert the numbers into the formula:
Rating from xp: 150 000/5 = 30 000 rating
Rating from gold: SQRT(4 000 000) = 2000 rating
Rating from the strength of the army = (38*137*14 + 2*121*11 + 1*105*10) = 76 596
If you dont know the authority of a veteran MD (121), you can calculate it from the authority of a standard one. Veteran units have 115% the authority of standards, which have 105. So 105*1,15 = 120,75 and you round up to 121. Same goes for master: 105*1,3= 136,5 and round up to 137 again.
Total rating of commander A: 30 000 + 2000 + 76 596 = 108 596
Commander B: 150 000xp, 4m gold and an army consisting of 39 Legendary and 2 Standard Master Duellists.
Obviously the xp and the gold give out the same amount of rating as for Commander A: 30 000 + 2000.
But the army composition is a bit different. If we do the math, we'll see why:
39*137*14 + 2*105*10 = 77 112.
So in total, Commander B gets a total rating of 30 000 + 2000 + 77 112 = 109 112 rating.
That is 516 rating more from the composition of the army. It's not a huge difference, but consider this:
you trade 1 Veteran for 1 Legendary and 1 Veteran for 1 Standard MD. Those 2 Std MDs will get injured more often, but the legendary compared to the veteran will get injured less often.
It is a trade off, but most likely a profitable one.
Authority
One thing you need to consider when optimizing your army is the authority cap. As it happens, both of these armies described above have the same exact authority of 5553, missing 7 points from the authority cap of a Marquess/Marchioness.
The same does not apply to every army however, and you should do the math before changing or promoting your army. To save you some trouble, I can tell you right here that the optimal amount of Champions is 42 Legendary + 1 Standard, bringing the total up to exactly 5560.
If you are a hardcore Excel guru or just have too much time on your hands, you might want to get for example 39 Legendary MDs and then some other T3 units to get exactly to the authority cap, but I have found that it probably isnt worth the trouble. Go and experiment.
Gold
If you know what SQRT (square root) means, you will by now be aware that the amount of gold required to gain more rating goes up exponentially.
What this means, is that there exists an optimal amount of gold to have on hand. It is very difficult to assert what that amount is, but I currently believe that amount to reside somewhere between 5m and 10m. This amount is obviously subject to constant change as units are buffed and nerfed all the time, which means that sometimes it is beneficial to have more gold on hand (when the units are crap and training hard) and sometimes it is better to have less gold (when units are good and training is easy).
This will obviously also mean that losing 5m gold when you have 25m cash only loses you about 530 points, but when you have 10m cash and you lose 5m, it loses you 930 points.
Math is funny, huh?
When the age is about to end, you should decide what is the optimal amount of gold to have and aim to keep that to get the optimal rating points. Funnily enough, at the time I am writing this guide I had just become 5th in the ranking in the age before this one and only by selling my merchant items. That is also a neat trick, that not everybody might expect, cause going up to 6m from (essentially) 0 gold is a lot faster way of gaining rating than training for the equivalent in xp (12-13k).
In conclusion
1. Calculate the optimal army composition
2. Remember to consider the authority cap
3. Find out the optimal amount of gold for rating
"Opinions are like assholes: Everybody has one"
So please do leave tell me if you disagree on any of the points I have made here: Especially on the optimal gold amount.
Feel free to come bug me about anything related to this guide or ranking in general, I am most likely happy to help.
Thank you.