Peak - Brain Training Mobile Application

It is indeed a consequence as well as a proof of advancing technology that we now have easy means to not just train ourselves physically, but mentally too. Human brain is a piece of art, its complexity has yet not been understood completely and might not get revealed for another few decades - such a wonder it is.

One of the mobile applications which has gained a lot of popularity since its launch is Peak - Brain Training app. I won't do much talking about it and straight away suggest you to download the app and start using it for a first hand experience. And yes, let some lazy and passive neurons start shooting.

But wait, don't just go empty-handed, use this link to get a one week pro version free subscription. This will obviously give a week's free subscription to me as well - one of the reasons why this blog post exits, but yes it will also let you get a taste of its scope of training your brain to a greater extent.

Once you get your hands on this, try Elevate - Brain Training app as well. This is another wonderful app solving the same purpose and offering even more variety to your daily workouts.
No, no more referrals now. :-D

Happy Training and Happy Gaming!

Cheers!

Age of Warring Empires - Magic Tower - Tips and Tricks

Magic Tower is one of the major parts of the game and by far the only method (as of July 2014) for training heroes in battle mode.
Ever gave a thought of simplifying the tower for best of your needs?
Here are some tricks for getting things done in an efficient manner with regard to tower, where needs meet their ends quickly:

• Experience Run:
  
  • Each stage in tower is comprised of 10 sub-stages. 
  • Always do the last sub-stage of any stage, for example, 1-10, 15-10 etc.
  • Reason is very simple: Hero experience, which is always maximum at the last sub-stage and will always be higher than the first sub-stage of next stage, that is, Hero experience from 10-10 would be greater than what you would get from 11-1. 
  • For example, even though you are capable of doing 11-1, it is recommended to do 10-10.

• Prestige Run:
  
  • If the only thing you are concerned with is prestige (which is not a usual case, but sometimes you feel the need for it), then you are supposed to do the highest level you are capable of. 
  • Prestige reward rises with every stage and sub-stage.

• Crafting Material:
  
  • This is what helps you in upgrading your weapons, armour and accessories. 
  • Game is designed in such a way that it won't be always easy to get to that particular stage from where you need to extract the required upgrade item. 
  • So, most of the times you will have to buff up with all kinds of military bonuses along with the leadership card and head straight to the minimum sub-stage of required Magic Tower stage, for example, 11-1 for iron ore and 14-1 for ruby etc.
  • If you are capable of doing the last sub-stage out their, then it would be an additional Prestige and Hero Exp, but it can come at the cost of reduced "Stars" after completion. 
  • "Stars" decide the amount of material you will get. Minimum 1-2 Star fetch you single item and the subsequent reward contains a pack of three such items along with other Energy and Copper Coins reward. 
  • Stars depend on the troop loss you had and the number of steps you took to reach the final skull inside the instance. Better you perform or longer you go better the item reward.
• Resources:
  
  • There is a huge amount of resources that you can get from the Magic Tower, which increases with every stage of tower. 
  • This amount due to latest change in Tower is usually high enough that you might even need to get extra food for making troops, that is, the amount of troops lost in a single run of tower can be rebuilt using the reward food.
  • Also, always make use of your Medical Centre for regenerating troops (except catapults), because it is cheaper to revive troops through donation of food than to make them directly from barracks.

• Double-Experience Event:
  
  • This is the high time for training your heroes. 
  • Do not forget to wear a double-experience card so that you get triple experience from the tower. 
  • If you have VIP card, it will further add to the exp. 
  • And remember you have to do only the last sub-stage of your highest tower stages, even if it is needed to buff up completely.
  
  

• Minimum Steps:
  
  • This is the most important step for which the blog post was written. 
  • Each instance of the tower is based on some random instance generation algorithm, but it repeats its instances and one learns them while training on and on in tower. 
  • I have posted some instances here below which take a minimum of 7 steps up to 9 steps to complete. What you all have to do is keep switching between two stages of tower unless you get the desired one as shown below.
  • The clear cut benefit is that, by doing tower this way, you gain Prestige and Crafting Material at a very fast pace, which is not possible during usual random grinding of instances.
    
    
  
  
  

• Version 2.3.22: 
  
  • Now this is where key to this business is. 
  • If you find trouble in recognizing the instance, its better to install an older version of this game, which you can easily find on internet. 
  • In this version, Magic Tower shows where the boss is, so it is easy to identify the instance and reach the boss straight.

Check out this link to see how sometimes its needed to spam tap to get into the right instance which is unique and small.

Perhaps, most of the stuff you people who have been playing for long now already knew about. Hope some part of it helped some class of players, at least the new ones, for whom otherwise it takes long to figure out all these things by themselves.

PS: The Game stuff keeps on changing with time, this post had been written as per then current status of game as in July 2014.

Happy Gaming! Cheers!

How to get free gold in game, Read this - Age of Warring Empires - Free Gold
How to deal with the Dragon Event, Read this - Age of Warring Empires - Dragon Event  

Review: GREedge - Online GRE Coaching

GREedge is one of the many online GRE preparation academies. I chose this because one of my friends suggested me, as in my case it would not have made much difference even if it were some other coaching institute. But I would certainly like to write a review of this institute so that others may find it easy to compare.



1. Course Material: This is one of the major aspects to look for, so we will take this first. For this I assume that the reader is aware of GRE pattern as of 2013. The paper contains three main sections:

1. Quantitative Reasoning: This is relatively easier than other sections. One only needs to brush up the concepts he/she had learned during secondary studies. GREedge has a good amount of material for this section. They cover almost all the related concepts and have a nice variety of questions under each category of this section. The questions in actual exam would be less difficult than what are there in the mock tests provided by them. This makes it easier to score in the actual exam. But, I did find some questions that required too much time to solve and shouldn't really come under Quantitative Reasoning section, nor are they asked in GRE exam.
2. Verbal Reasoning: This section is what decides your score on a larger scale. Reading Comprehensions (RCs) provided by GREedge are good enough covering a wide range of topics and varying lengths of paragraphs along with proper relevant questions. The art of attacking each and every type of questions for RCs is also very well taught through their ppts and videos. But they still need to add more to this as RCs need more effort.
   
   For the Text Completion and Sentence Equivalence, I realised that there was some difference in what they had and what was actually there in the GRE exam. SE is still match worthy but TC is what they really need to improve upon.
   
   The word lists in their learning tracker are still underpopulated. They also provide with a pdf and online database of words, but need to add more into the learning tracker itself as it is a crucial part of preparation.
3. Analytical Writing: This part is covered well by GREedge. A pretty good amount of essays are available for practice and feedback along with proper strategies for getting better scores.

2.  Student Facilitator & Adviser: This is a facility provided in form of two mentors that they appoint one each for Verbal and Quant section. The  SFAs keep a track of your progress and keep providing you the adequate feedback regarding your mistakes. You can discuss with them on phone or through email if you face any issue. They also keep you motivated and dedicated towards your studies.

3. Learning Tracker: This is the interface from where you access your online source of preparation. This is in beta stage as of now and needs improvement.

4. Webinars; They keep organising webinars on various topics related to 'how to prepare some particular topics', education loans, right time to apply, pitfalls in entire process of application, and a hell lot of other useful tips.

5. Time Management: This is something that they helped in properly maintaining. This is also necessary for your preparation to go well.

On a scale of 10, I would rate 6 for this institute. I managed to get a score of 325/340 in a preparation period of two months studying for average 4 hours a day.
Other famous sources for GRE preparation are like Jamboree, magoosh, wordpandit, CL, etc. Reader can look for some reviews of these to decide which one to join.

PS: Please read other online GREedge reviews as well, the number of people dissatisfied with GREedge services is no less. One of the links to such complaints is there in the comments below.

For any doubts, use comments below.