My philosophy on leveling

Ok it seems to me that it's a popular belief to level your assembly slowly and then level all your techs and heroes evenyl until they reach the same level as the assembly. This is a bad idea...

The timing of the game when you level anything works on a curve, as you get closer to the max level of whatever it is you are leveling, the timer grows longer and longer. The only thing
that is an exception and you should keep max level is your training grounds, this is the key to leveling your heroes faster.

So if your max level is 50, lets just say hypothetically it takes you 1 day to get from 1-40, now it will probably take you another day to get from 40-45, and then a day to get from 45-47
and then a whole day for 48 and so on.

This is extremely counterproductive, this is why you want to keep max level much higher then the thing you are leveling, be it assembly, other buildings, technologies or hero levels.
If you are at a max level of 50 you probably want to go at most to level 40 before upgrading your assembly.

There are two ways to level effectively, one level your assembly as fast as possible keeping your training grounds at an equal level, and your academy somewhere close, ignore all else.
This is what i will call the blitz method.

By doing this the higher level you obtain the more everything increases and even though you sacrifice some levels/techs along the way, by
the time you get to a higher level, you can go back and level all the things you skipped a whole lot faster. At higher levels you get higher amounts of drachmas, laurels
prestige, experience and access to new technologies and buildings.

The second way is a bit more conservative and will help you out in certain areas. The idea is the same with one exception, you pause along the way, so say your max level is 50 and your
levels of your items are 40, you would then level to 60, save up your laurels as much as possible, get as much prestige as possible all the while leveling everything that you need. Once you obtain
your level 10 levels below your assembly, you then race up another 10 levels (even with a 10 level defect things can get quite slow, you may want to go for 15 or even 20 level differences)

This way if you happen to outlevel a lot of people you will have stockpiled some of those items that will be harder to come by until others approach the same level.

Key sides notes: Do not use renascance at 51. Ideally the higher you are the better before using it. Personally I waited until level 85 when I got my second training ground to begin
the renascance process. You will only hurt yourself if you do it to early and spend a week getting back to the level you were previously.

If at all possible stagger your heroes renascance levels. By this I mean renascance one setting it back to level 1, wait 12 hours or a day then renascnace the second one.
Rinse and repeat until you are on a cycle. This ensures that most of your heroes are high enough level to not completely gimp you when you want to do something.

Part 2.

How do you know your leveling too fast? or not fast enough? By battling the npc's, this is a self check in itself, if you can plow through the npc's at your level then it's time to move on.
When you get stuck on one, then you know you are lacking in a certain aspect.

The key when you hit this point is to analyze the situation, see exactly how you are being killed and then focus on that weak attribute. If you are currently stuck on a group of mages
in an npc formation, check your elemental resistance, then level it up a few times and try the fight again.

Do not just keep pummeling yourself against a brick wall without looking at why you are failing. You do not want to waste div needlessly.

When battling npc's levels are everything, if you seem to be just failing all around, level your heroes a few times and visit the fight again. In the mean time join Legion battles for more laurels
or try pvping some for prestige.

Again focus on your main techs when you are leveling, if your primary damage source are BM heroes, keep leveling Magic Penetration. It's pointless to level
Elemental penetration if your not using mages, this is just one situation, look at your situation individually to see what you need.