Understanding Stacking

The Basics

To really undestand stacking, you must first understand some basic groundwork, and that's what this section is for. If you already know what stacks, stack multipliers, net power, dummy stacks, etc. are - then you can skip this first section and move on to the more advanced content below.

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What are Stacks?

"Stack" is a commonly used term to refer to a group of units, a stack could be anything from 1 Unicorn to 10,000 Unicorns. "Stacking" is a group of stacks, or the act of ordering these stacks. You can only have one stack of a type of unit in your actual army (ie - the army you see in the Status Report). We will cover the importance of the term 'actual army' later in the guide.
 
The size of the stack in relation to your total army size, can be seen in the Battle Report with the percents next to your unit name. These percents are determined by the following formula: (( Unit Power Rank * # of Units ) / Total Army Power ).
- Unit Power Rank: The "Power Rank" listed in the Encyclopedia.
- # of Units: The number of Units in the stack.
- Total Army Power: Sum of (Unit Power Rank * # of Units) of all stacks in your army.

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Why aren't my stacks listed by power?

Stacks in the Disband Screen are ordered by their position in battle rather than their actual net power. This is because in battle, different conditions cause certain units to move higher in a stacking, these are called "stack multipliers". Stack Multipliers are very important to succesful stacking in a strategic sense, and are one area a lot of people get confused. But to put it basically, there are 3 groups of units, each get a different multiplier.
- 1x Multiplier: Ranged Units, these units are ONLY the units that have the attack type "Ranged" listed in their PRIMARY ATTACK (listed as: "ATTACK TYPE" in the encyclopedia). EXTRA ATTACK TYPE does not effect a unit's stack multiplier (example: Lich is ranged, Unholy Reaver is not ranged)
- 1.5x Multiplier: Non-Ranged, Non-Flying units, these are units that do not have the ability FLYING and do not have the Primary Attack Type RANGED. (example: Sirene is Non-Ranged, Non-Flying, Djinni is Flying, Efreeti is ranged)
- 2.25x Multiplier: Flying units, these units are ONLY the units that have the ability FLYING, This overrides either of the other two multipliers. (example: Air Elemental is Flying, Mind Ripper is ranged)
 
These multipliers only apply to the units natural abilities, and are not effected by changed by the effects of items, spells, enchantments, heroes, etc. So yes, with the item Carpet of Flying you will still keep that 15% stack of Liches, behind that 10% stack of Djinni.

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Is there a limit on the number of stacks?

You can have as many stacks as there are units in the game (over 100), but only the 10 highest stacks by net power will enter combat (usually you can determine this just by looking at the percents, sometimes though you'll have stacks too close for the percents to differentiate - so then it's useful to be able to calculate - if stacks are exactly the same NP, the one that goes into battle is determined by their order in the unit database).

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Are there limits on the sizes of stacks?

A stack can be as small as 1 unit, or as large as 10,000,000 - or higher. Basically, no there are no limits to the size a stack can be, except for limits on your ability to summon/recruit/maintain them.

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How do I know which stacks I'll send as reinforcements?

Reinforcements are impacted by several factors in the game:
- Distance between allies (close allies will send higher stacks than distant allies).
- Duration of alliance (you send no reinforcements the first 24 hours, and it takes even longer for an alliance to 'mature' to where you'll reliably send higher stacks to a near ally).
- Net Power of stacks (you can only send stacks that are 3rd or lower in Net Power). Sample Stack: 30% Djinni/35% Lich/35% Efreeti - you would only send Djinni as reinforcements, even though they are listed as the top stack in your status report (this is because they are the 3rd in Net Power of the 3 stacks).
 
If you want to reliably send reinforcements to an ally, you should focus on having as many stacks as possible (within reason). Generally a good rule of thumb is that if an ally is near you they will take stacks 3-5, if further away they will tend to take 6-10 (based on Net Power).

Basic Terms

To understand stacking, you will need to understand some of the terms used in discussion of stacking, here are a list of the terms that I most commonly use.

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Types of Stacks

Different types of stacks serve different purposes - here are some terms:

Hitters & Soakers

Hitters and Soakers are two terms commonly applies to units in general. Hitters are units that can deal out significant damage - and are usually your key to dealing enough damage to win land on offense. Soakers are units that are good at taking damage, and are key in preventing damage to your more fragile units.
 
Some examples of 'Hitters': Horned Demon, Mind Ripper, Air Elemental, Titan, Earth Elemental, Treant (with Plant Growth), Chimera, Fire Elemental.
 
Some examples of 'Soakers': Archangel, Unicorn, Leviathan, Lich, Red Dragon, Treant (with Plant Growth).
 
Obviously you can't just grab one of these units, put it in your stack and have it perform 100% of the time, you have to think about who will be hitting you, what will be hitting you, and where these units strengths and weaknesses are. That however is a discussion for a color guide, not a stacking guide.

Fake Stacks

Fake stacks are small stacks designed solely to distract hits from your higher stacks. Fake stacks are typically 1 summon, or a very small stack, of expendable units. Fake stacks are most commonly used by mono-stackers and shallow stackers to help reduce the impact deep stackers have against them. Fake stacks can be comprised of any unit in the game, the key though is keeping the total net power of the stack small enough to not lose the battle for you, but large enough to distract the enemy stack. Usually you do not want the total % of all your fakes stacks added up to add up over 7% (lower is better, if you can get it below 3% and still have them be effective, all the better). The key is that you don't want the Loss to main stack + Loss of fake stacks to add up to over 10%, or it will cost you the battle usually. Fake stacks are commonly put under the misnomer of 'fodder stacks' - while they can serve the purpose of fodder, fakes are not there for the numbers, they are there solely to prevent hits on your main army.

Fatigue Stacks

Fatigue stacks are usually 3 initative, or higher, stacks, many times ranged to prevent counters from damaging them - although it is not a requirement (Sprites and FD for example make great 'suicidal fatigue stacks' that die when they fatigue an enemy stack). Fatiguing is the term of causing the opponent to suffer efficiency penalties by striking 1 stack multiple times (take my word on it for now, if you don't know Battle Mechanics). The size of the stack does not impact the amount of fatigue they cause - 1 Elvish magician can cause the same amount of fatigue as 20,000 Elvish Magicians - 20,000 however might actually kill something. The most commonly used units for fatigue are 3 initiative, small, ranged units - however there are some units that are great at fatigue that do not fit that mold, such as: Mind Ripper with its 3 init ranged primary, Efreeti with its 4 init ranged primary, Air Elemental with a 4 init ranged primary, and flying to boot, and then Sprite and Faerie Dragon both high initiative fliers *however they get hurt by counters*. Fatigue stacks aren't necessary to playing, but they are a very useful tool, and are the most common solution to filling up a full 10 stack army before a real deep stacking is feasible.

Fodder Stacks

Fodder stacks serve 1 purpose: Giving you enough units to gain maximum land on attacks. To gain maximum land on attacks you need to make sure you have enough units surviving after the attack to capture all the acres you want - the formula for sieges is (5 * Total Land of Target), the formula for regulars is (2.5 * Total Land of Target) - So against a 3000 land mage, you want 15,000 Units surviving after a siege to capture maximum land (100 Captured, 200 destroyed), or 7,500 surviving after a regular (50 Captured, 100 destroyed). Sometimes fodder stacks will serve other purposes (example: Knight Templar) while others are there simply for the fact you can get them in large numbers and will tend to still have enough left after battle for full land (example: Zombie). The key to remember - it's better to have a 95% win rate and get 90% of maximum land, than it is to have a 50% success rate and win 100% of the land - Fodder can cost you battles if it gets into bad matchups, or gives you so much power you can't do enough damage to win. After certain land totals you should consider switching to stacks where you don't explicitly need to keep a 'fodder' stack.

Dummy Stacks

Dummy stacks are temporary stacks in battle these include: Succubus from Dreams of Seduction, Shadow Monster from Mirage Monster, Capsule Monster from the item of the same name, Devil from Contract of the Soul, Squirrel from the Summoner Hero, and Illusionary versions of your own units from the Illusionist.

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Stacking Techniques

There are terms used for different types of stacking techniques, each has its own pros and cons, and should be considered based on the current status of the server you're playing on. And yes, multiple titles can apply to the same stacking.

Gimmick Stacking

Gimmick stacking is a term used for basically any explicit 'counter stack' that serves no other function except to counter a specific 'common stack'. Some examples would be:
- Mono-Sprite w/ Sleep, Mono-Sylph w/ Double Time, or Mono/Heavy Nix w/ Oil Flask (all 3 are designed as counters to Mono-Dominion Whites, but don't serve much purpose beyond that)
- Mono-Zombie w/ Flight (gimmick stack designed to help blacks recover from an intense CoS run - not 100% fool proof though).
- Vamp over Heavy Ranged blue (counter to the common DoS/Carpet using black).
 
Basically it is any stack that is designed for an extremely 'niche' purpose - and isn't truly feasible for any other purpose. Gimmick stacks are set apart by this lack of versitility.

All-Flying Stacking

All-Flying stacks are exactly what they sound like - stacks comprised entirely of units with the natural ability "FLYING". All-Flying stacks have several advantages over other stacking techniques - Non-Ranged, Non-Flying units cannot hit flying units (reduces damage you take), you do not suffer an accuracy penalty when sieging on offense (helps the damage you deal), and are fairly easy to defend with. Their disadvantages though are: Limited number of flying units keeps your flexibility to a minimum, no matter the color will rely heavily on other colors for units, and after a certain land tend to be very inefficient at dealing damage and resummoning after a run (most of the strong flying units are either too slow or too unreliable for summoning at higher land).
 
Example of an All-Flying Stacking:
Red Dragon 30%
Chimera 25%
Vampire 20%
Wraith 15%
Wyvern 3%
Griffon 3%
Pegasus 2%
Sprite 1%
Sylph .5%
Angel .5%

Ground Pounder Stacking

Ground Pounder stacks are almost the exact opposite of All-Flying stacks. Ground Pounder stacks tend to be heavy on non-ranged, non-flying units (although sometimes a ground pounder will incorporate a few strong ranged stacks). Basically ground pounders aim to win on the ground, or win with the use of a carpet. Ground Pounding stacks tend to be capable of dealing out massive punishment. And even though green is the best at this type of stacking (thanks mainly to Treants), the other colors can also amass fairly tough ground pounder stackings. An advantage of Ground Pounder stackings, is it's harder for an opponent to 'mix and match' their units to aim at a specific unit of yours - because ground units can be struck by ANY UNIT, usually enemy stacks will match up 1st stack to 1st stack, 2nd to 2nd, 3rd to 3rd, etc. letting you have more control over which of your stacks is being hit by which of your opponents stacks. (All-Flying are more prone to 'mix and match' attacks because of how units match up - this is covered later on).
 
Example of a Ground Pounder stacking:
Unholy Reaver 30%
Horned Demon 20%
Efreeti 15%
Lich 15%
Medusa 9%
Salamander 9%
Dark Elf Magician .5%
Psychic Wisp .5%
Dryad .5%
Orcish Archer .5%

Mono-Stacking & Mono-Stacking w/ Fakes/Fatigues/Fodder/etc.

Mono-Stacking is again, what it sounds like, a stacking that is comprised of 1 very powerful stack, sometimes alone, sometimes followed by 'fake stacks' or 'Fatigue Stacks' or 'Fodder Stacks' etc. - Mono Stacking is most commonly used in defensive situations (by placing a highly defensive unit as your mono-stack, an assignment to help it, and then sitting there 'turtled up' to defend), however it also has offensive uses, especially when it comes to bringing down opponents much stronger than you (a take-down technique is oversummoning on 1 ultimate beyond reason, and attacking a target - decimating their top stack, and making counters easier to take for your guildmates). Here are 2 examples of Mono Stackings:
 
Mono Stacking:
Dominion 100%
 
Mono Stacking w/ Fatigues:
Unicorn 99.1%
Efreeti .2%
Catapult .1%
Renegade Wizard .1%
Nymph .1%
Psychic Wisp .1%
Dryad .1%
Soul Speaker .1%
Archer .1%

Shallow Stacking

Shallow stacking is when you've got most of your power in your top stacks, usually limited to the top 2 to 4 stacks. Shallow Stacking is most common in the mid-ranks where deep stacking isn't feasible, and mono-stacking has too many weaknesses exposed. Shallow Stacking is also a good way to deal with opponents who start deep stacking too early (or who leave a weakness open to your shallow stack). Shallow Stacking can be a powerful tool for gaining land if you can control your units and matchups well enough to gain maximum land on attacks, while still packing enough offensive punch in your top stacks to deal the damage (harder than it looks - because you are more likely to run into soakers in the top stacks, and softer units in the lower stacks - and their lower stacks are usually intended to damage your higher stacks, fodder, or fakes).
 
Example of a shallow stacking:
Phoenix 21%
Treant 30%
Earth Elemental 24%
Mandrake 20%
Efreeti 3%
Nymph .5%
Dryad .5%
Elven Magician .5%
Druid .3%
Soul Speaker .2%

Deep Stacking

A deep stack is when someone stacks the majority of their power into 6 or more stacks. Deep stacking is useful against mono-stacking, and mono-stacking w/ fakes - this is because you can match a 'soaker' with your opponent's mono-stack, and then focus on dealing damage with your deeper stacks. Deep stacking is also the most versitile in allowing you to attack a wider variety of opponents by mixing strengths and weaknesses of units to deal with multiple threats. Deep Stacking tends to only be truly effective at higher land where the cost of summoning is more justified and feasibly attainable.
 
Example of a Deep Stack:
Archangel 9%
Unicorn 13%
Knight Templar 12%
Titan 12%
Spirit Warrior 11%
Medusa 8%
Werebear 8%
Mind Ripper 10%
High Priest 10%
Nymph 7%

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Combat

Combat is the focal point of any stacking you create and employ in your kingdom. Goals of stacks can be as varied as the people playing the game, but they tend to fall into 4 categories based on 'kill' and 'loss' goals. And to effectively create a stack that will fit your target 'kill' and 'loss' amounts requires knowledge of stack pairing and combat modifiers. You will notice that every option has an upside, and a downside.

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General Goals

The 'kill' and 'loss' categories are split into 4, here we will cover the 4 categories and how they are usually employed. The major issue is, when deciding what category you're aiming for, you have to think about what your opponents will be stacking - and then decide how best to deal with those. Most players alternate between 2-3 of these categories during a reset.

Offensive Glass

"High Loss & High Kill" is the setting for 'offensive glass' style stackings (also term for units that fit well into this playstyle). Offensive Glass commonly has 2 uses in gameplay - Quick Damaged status and Target Softening. In both cases you want to do as much damage as possible, and it's easier if you're softening and not caring about gaining land to merely focus on dealing that damage rather than absorbing any of it. While you don't completely ignore defense in this setup, you will tend to focus on amplifying your damage as high as possible in as many possibile situations. Control is important to the success of most of these stacks (meaning you NEED barriers).
 
Defensive Logic: Win by Dealing a higher % damage to attacker | Lose High % of NP to enter "Damaged" status quicker
Defensive Problem: Stacks easily "screwed up" | If unlucky, or improperly done, a player is very likely to lose land on the last attack before entering damaged
Offensive Logic: Deal as much damage as possible to target's key stacks to allow allies to deal more damage on their counter attacks
Offensive Problem: Many times will take more damage than you deal against a solid stack, and fail to gain land | sometimes has problems with lack of fodder

Solid Stacking

"Low Loss & High Kill" is the general target of a solid all-purpose stacking. Basically this is the generic goal of most players who prefer to keep their strategy simple and to the point. Bad part is this is often very difficult to actually pull off, and also leaves you open to more attacks (although people will rarely want to revisit a kingdom they do very little damage on, and take a big hit in return). Most difficult of the 4 stacking types to maintain and use, most beneficial on offense. This is also usually the target for people learning a color, or even learning the game, only later will you likely start to experiment with the different valued general stacking goals and their benefits. This is a general luke-warm, 'good strategy', stacking for people learning and veterans alike if they are undecisive as to what they are aiming for with their kingdom (is also the ideal 'attacking' type). Worth Noting: This is category is also often considered the preverbial 'perfect stack' that doesn't exist (but several can come 'close' in multiple cases)
 
Defensive Logic: Take very little damage, reducing chance of losing land | Deal high damage detering people from multiple visits
Defensive Problem: Oftentimes has exploitable weakpoints that it can't compensate for | Enters "Damaged" status slowly, more opportunities for exploited weakpoints
Offensive Logic: Deal more than 10% damage to opponent and take minimal losses while doing so | Key to long attack runs
Offensive Problem: Oftentimes reliant on item or spell getting through to actually maintain 'low loss & high kill'

Turtling

"Low Loss & Low Kill" is the principle of 'turtling'. It is commonly used by people who aren't doing attack runs (hard to convert over before attacking after a certain point), and with the exception of some black mages, are prone to pillaging usually due to this lack of attacking. Turtling is annoying at worst to other players, because you usually don't do enough damage to deter them from trying again (a lucky item or spell can usually mean the downfall of an unprepared 'turtle'). This is commonly used by gelders and explorers, very often below the 3.5k land explore limit, and is rarely more than 1 stack (and if so, it's usually 'fakes' and 'fatigue').
 
Defensive Logic: Take very little damage, to prevent land-loss
Defensive Problem: Doesn't deter people from trying to hit you again | Enters "Damaged" status slowly, allowing more attempts to break your shell
Offensive Logic: Deal just over 10% damage, and use quick-summoned fodder to gain land Offensive Problem: Usually doesn't work well, resulting in "insufficient damage" frequently, and requiring fodder resummon

Sacrificial

"High Loss & Low Kill" is the principle behind this, and is most often used by catfishers, or other players, desiring to drop land and power so they can get access at lower opponents easier. Basically get a bunch of 'junk' that is easy to kill, and put it in places where it won't do much damage (small ranged fodder, barracks units, or weaker simple units are ideal). There isn't much use for this beyond this little niche field. Sometimes people fall into this category with poor stacking techniques. The goal is to lose land, it defies Logic in terms of achieving the game's goals - so there really isn't any "Defensive" or "Offensive" Logic, you're intentionally aiming to fail at both of these areas.

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The Combat Formula

To use the formula to your advantage, you first have to know the formula, so here it is pasted from my FAQ (where you can view more information on this subject):
 
Damage = #ofattackers * AttackPower * Efficiency * Accuracy * Rand * (1-(avgres)) * OtherMultipliers
 
The fields of most interest to us in this formula for this section are:

1. ofattackers - The number of units in an enemy stack, affected by killing enemy units.
   

AttackPower - The Damage a single unit deals before modifiers, affected by a wide array of things in signifigant amounts (enchantments, heroes, items, spells)
Efficiency - A unit's "efficiency" mainly affected by fatigue, and select items/spells.
Accuracy - A unit's "accuracy" that is influenced by spells, items, and heroes mainly, a very good stat to modify.
(1-(avgres)) - A unit's 'average resistance' to an attack, modifiable by items and spells mainly.
 
We also add 1 additional field that we don't see in common discussion of the combat formula - Initiative - which basically determines the order the units attack in.
 
All 5 of the fields above are of interest because they are controllable aspects of combat, that affect the outcome of battle, and each have varying levels of value in 'modifying' depending on the situation. The next few subsections cover each of these aspects in detail and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of modifying that amount. The reason we focus solely on these modifiable aspects is to know how we can turn an otherwise 'losing battle' into a win through altering and modifying the battle environment to our whims through items, spells, heroes, and enchantments.

Number of Units

1. ofattackers is the shortened version of "Number of Attackers" (or "Number of Units"). And essentially indicates the quantity of units in the stack. This is the only modifiable aspect of battle, that can be modified non-battle (even enchantments only modify in-battle, enchantments have no effect on damage you deal when blocking a pillage for example). The way you modify this out of battle is simple - summon units. Oversummoning is your tool for positively affecting your "#ofattackers", there is no effect in-battle to increase your units for the sake of damage dealing. In-battle you can negatively affect your opponents' "#ofattackers" by killing their units before they use their attack. This is the most straightforward of the modifiers, and also the simplest to determine effects on.

Attack Power

There are 3 types of attack power: Primary (Attack Power), Counter (Counter Attack) and Secondary (Extra Attack Power). Primary Attack Power is easily modifiable by a wide array of effects, secondary attack power is unmodifiable by any effects, and Counter attack power is often ignored. We will ignore secondary Attack Power for now, since we cannot affect it (it will be addressed later), and ignore Counter attack power since it is usually minimal impact. Since we have isolated Primary Attack Power as our target modifier, we must focus on the ways and potency of its modification. In many cases an Attack Power Boost is a nice thing, raising your damage in a very straightforward fashion, although we must also consider the way the %increases improve the attack. It unfortunately is also the easiest to modify of the attack formula segments, and with the formula being a string of multipliers, we have to realize that modifying this may not always be the best choice. Lets take for example: SL 428 PG (+228% AP) Treefolk being hit by Drums of War (-10% AP) versus SL 428 PG (+228% AP) Treefolk being hit by Satchel of Mist (-10% Accuracy).
 
In the case of the Drums of War - Treants end up with +218% AP, 30% Accuracy, 100% Efficiency: 3.18 * .3 * 1 = .954
In the case of the Satchel of mist - Treants end up with +228% AP, 20% Accuracy, 100% Efficiency: 3.28 * .2 * 1 = .656
So as you can see, affecting Attack Power is not always the best choice, even though it can be extremely helpful. Always consider which attribute would make the greatest impact. Also remember - affecting AP only affects PRIMARY AP and COUNTER AP.

Efficiency

Efficiency is a value that affects the outcome of damage for both Primary and Secondary attacks. This is because it is a global modifier much like #ofattackers. Efficiency can be effected by spells and the actions of the unit. A unit suffers 'fatigue' when it does a primary attack, or attempts a counter attack (even if they have 0 counter. Efficiency is one of the best modifiers to change because it is terribly hard to raise, but easy to drag down. Candle is -10% Efficiency, and Stun is approximately -30% efficiency on ultimate servers for red, very little will actually raise efficiency making these negative effects extremely powerful in the fact that there is no countermeasure to them (besides resisting Stun, or blocking candle with barriers). Efficiency effects are very useful for defense, but not immensely useful for offense (being hard to boost, they aren't exactly exploitable to increase the damage you do)

Accuracy

Accuracy is one of the better aspects to modify USUALLY, because it's so hard to impact, and acts so greatly on the output of damage. Accuracy is global like Efficiency (able to impact both primary and secondary attacks), and is therefore invaluable to units reliant on their secondary attacks for damage. It is also ideal for impacting units with large AP boosts (such as Treefolk with Plant Growth). High Accuracy can multiply the effects of high damage, and Low Accuracy can almost nullify units reliant on high damage. Several things can modify accuracy positively and negatively in the game, and is therefore the middle-road between the 'hard to modify' Efficiency, and the 'easy to modify' attack power. Accuracy is oftentimes the most reliable defensive and offensive tool in the game to modify.

Resists

Resistances are to offensiveness, what efficiency is to defensiveness. Resistances though can both be increased and decreased effectively, it's just a matter of choosing which one to modify (you can only raise 1-2 resistances usually, while you can easily lower all enemy resistances). Stun and Candle again come into play in this area (much as efficiency) as the big workhorses. Resists are especially useful for lowering when encountering High-resist, low-life units (such as ultimates and many complex units), where as improving resistances has a greater impact on low-resist, high-life units (such as simples/averages/barracks). To give an example presented a lot:
 
90% Resist all unit, lower resistances just 10% and they take 2x the normal damage. (Example: 7 Red Dragons lost vs 14 Red Dragons lost)
0% resist all unit, raise resistance 50% and they take half the normal damage. (Example: 200,000 Zombies lost vs 100,000 Zombies lost)
 
Works both ways, but remember you can LOWER all or single resistances, but only raise single resistances.

Initiative

This determines the order your units attack in, if they attack at all. It can be anywhere in the range from 0 to 6. Several Spells/items, and 1 hero, affect initiative. If initiative is 0, the unit will NOT attack, if the initiative is 6 they will tend to go first (6 initiative units are created by "Ash of Invisibility" or "Invisibility", and on rare occassions by the +1 initiative of Double Time). If attacks have the same initiative they will 'randomly' choose which goes first (a 'weighted' random based on stack net power). Initiative effects impact both PRIMARY and SECONDARY initiative equally (example "Web of Spider Woman" will stop both the primary and secondary attack of treants by reducing both attacks to 0 initiative. However, "Web of Spider Woman" used against Chimera will only cause them to lose 1 initiative, making their primary 0 initiative, and their secondary 2 initiative.)

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Stack Pairing

 

More to be added later...