Many people wonder what they should be doing to level up in the most efficient way and this question always comes up - "Should I be farming Dark Forces or Warhammers?". The answer is simple; it depends. If you are a middle level player with a commander level in the 40's through 60's you are likely looking for Tech plans to upgrade your buildings and troops. However if your commander level is in the 70's you are more likely hunting the General R&D to upgrade your Command Center which take a lot more plans (and gold) starting around level 74. That is where you will struggle up to and through level 80. Let's break this down.
VIT[]
The most precious resource you have is VIT, short for vitality. Other games call it energy, life, etc. Top War calls it VIT. With no modifications you gain 1 VIT point every 6 minutes, or 10 points an hour. So the first thing you want to do is make sure you have the hero Diana. Her special ability is to reduce the VIT cost of attacks against Dark Forces, Warhammers and Throbs by 2 VIT points. So a Warhammer will only cost you 8 VIT points to attack, and Dark Forces will only cost you 3 VIT. Diana cost $1US to purchase at the beginning of the game. Her ability never improves, so you don't need to update her, so in my opinion this makes her an absolute must buy, even for people who don't want to spend money on the game. Why is this important? Because we are going to break this down to resources per VIT point spent, and if you are not using Diana it will change the outcome of the formula.
Warhammers[]
When you attack a Warhammer, you select one that has a level range of 10 levels, for example Level 30 - 39. The Warhammer level you get depends on your commander level. If you are level 37, you fight a level 37 Warhammer. If you're level 52, you fight a level 39 Warhammer. You cannot fight a Warhammer higher than your current level range, meaning the Level 60 - 69 Warhammers are not available to you until you reach level 60. The Warhammer level also determines the rewards you receive. When you start a rally against a Level 70 Warhammer you get 294 Tech Chests and 84 R&D. When you join a rally against a Level 70 Warhammer you get 84 Tech Chests and 14 R&D. Since joining a rally does not cost any VIT you are limited to 50 Rewards per day. After those 50 you do not get any rewards, but can still claim the Common Gift in the Alliance Gift menu.
Therefore, when you Lead a rally against a Level 70 Warhammer with Diana as one of your heroes, you spend 8 VIT and receive 10.5 R&D / VIT and 36.75 Tech Plans / VIT. When you join a rally against a Level 70 Warhammer you get 14 R&D and 84 Tech Boxes for "free" if it's one of your first 50 rally joins of the day.
Dark Forces[]
Dark Forces come in three varieties. Dark Army, which gives Troop Plans, Dark Navy, which gives Merge Plans, and Dark Air Force which gives you Build Plans. Note that each attack only gives one Type of plan. For example the Dark Army will give a number of Navy Troop Plans for one attack and the next time may give Army Troop Plans. Each Troop also gives General R&D Plans. Like the Warhammers, how many you get depends on what level of Dark Force you attack. Dark forces will give you their level in Plans, and one half (rounded up) in General R&D Plans. So an attack on a Level 71 Dark Navy will yield 71 Merge Plans and 36 (35.5 rounded up) General R&D Plans. So know what type of plans you need before attacking the Dark Forces.
Making certain you are attacking one of the highest level Dark Forces troops you can is important in this calculation. I will be using a level 70 Dark Forces troop to align with the previous Warhammer example. Attacking a Level 70 Dark Navy troop with Diana as one of your heroes (for 3 VIT instead of 5) will give you 23.3 Merge plans / VIT and 11.6 General R&D Plans / VIT.
What do you need?[]
As noted previously, all of these calculations take into consideration using the hero Diana, and if you do not use Diana, the outcome will change. We are sticking with Level 70 troops for an even comparison.
Once you've decided what resource you need, then you can use the comparisons below to make your decision. Also, if you are looking for a particular type of plan then Dark Forces will probably be better for you as the Tech Boxes you receive from Warhammers will give a random distribution of Tech Plans, whereas Dark Forces you can at least narrow down to Troop/Merge/Build even if you don't get the exact type you wanted.
Tech Plans[]
Attacking a Level 70 Warhammer will give you 36.75 Tech Plans per VIT, whereas attacking a Level 70 Dark Force Troop will give you 23.3 Tech Plans. So Warhammers is clearly the winner here. If you need to level up your buildings, which is the majority of the first two thirds of the game, this is the route for you to take. Plus you'll get the additional Speed Up, Gold Box, or Tech Plan as an Alliance Common Gift and move your Alliance towards claiming the Alliance Treasure.
General R&D[]
Attacking a Level 70 Warhammer will give you 10.5 R&D per VIT, whereas attacking a Level 70 Dark Force Troop will give you 11.6 R&D per VIT. So Dark Forces is the winner here. You can also use Diana with the Attack 5 Times option and you also get her VIT discount five times, so instead of paying 25 VIT you only pay 15 VIT to attack five times. You may be able to attack 5 times individually in the same amount of time, but the convivence option is nice to have too.
Conclusion[]
I do need more data for lower levels to verify if, for example, a Level 35 Warhammer and a Level 35 Dark Troop give essentially the same amount of General R&D. There is going to be a break even point somewhere in the lower levels. However in my brief experience this question doesn't pop into most people's heads until around commander level 65 or 70. I'm going to add some tables to see if we can collect the data together and answer that question. (Moved reward tables to the Dark Forces page)