What is the effect of donating to Allied Supply Crates?

Question

In Dragon Age Origins, I've been recruiting factions and they now appear at my camp, along with Allied Supply Crates. I'm aware that you get XP for donating, but aside from that am wondering what the benefit is of donating and indeed how much I should be donating to each faction? Should I spend a while collecting materials for this, or am is as well simply skipping this?

Answer 1

Aside from the XP bonuses, the actual direct effect of donating to the allies isn't that clear. I wouldn't bother spending an excess amount of time collecting materials. Just throw whatever extras you have to them for the bonus xp, but going out of your way is unnecessary.

This page details a little more info on which items are specifically needed for each ally.

Answer 2

Donating Elfroots is the most efficient way to get XP because you can buy them so cheaply from the elvish camp. See the Dragon Age Wikia Page on Allied Supply Crates for more info.

Answer 3

I can't answer your question about what the benefit is, but I can tell you that I didn't donate a thing to any of the factions and still finished it with relatively no bother. So you can conclude it doesn't play much of a role.

Answer 4

It's only a way to get quick Xp so don't bother too much, just throw away your extra crap like useless novice runes (for the mages) and the elfroots (if you sided with the elves). For the human you can spend your money to buy Xp ;)

Answer 5

Yes, your units do upgrade somewhat but it doesn't do much unfortunately. It's also kind of weird because the men and the dwarves get better armor, but the elves and mages get better weapons, mages also get some new abilities.

I've played through the game countless times and the upgrades are as follows.

Redcliffe soldiers

1. Full set of silverite heavy chainmail. "Standardized"

2.Silverite Executioners Helm

3.Redcliffe knight shield.

They may get better armor, but their longswords are still iron. They're considered your 'offensive' infantry & do decent damage against lesser darkspawn but are put to shame by higher ranking darkspawn & ogres of any tier.

Dalish Elves

1. Dragonthorn dalish longbow

Unfortunately, you cant get the elves in ancient elven armor, they stay in the dalish leather no matter how much you donate, but their bows do upgrade all the way to tier 7 dragonthorn and they pack an OK punch. By OK I mean they have no problem against the grunts, but put em up against an alpha and they dont do very well at all. On average you'll see them doing 11-16 damage per hit against lesser darkspawn, against ogres that number goes down to about 4-7.

Dwarves

1. Full set of silverite dwarven massive armor and heavy dwarven helmet "standardized"

2. Dragonbone large metal round shield (targe)

3. higher chance for a legionnaire to replace a fallen dwarven soldier in battle, so far I've seen 3 on the field at once. "If you convinced kardol to join your army" legionaires are also top tier infantry because they actually have access to some 2 handed abilities like mighty blow and sunder armor.

These guys are an extremely defensive unit, they accel at holding off lesser darkspawn while you deal with bigger problems, like ogres and emissaries, they're equipped with iron dwarven maces so they dont do much damage, but they have massive defensive bonuses because of their massive armor and the matching set bonus, basically they're the best survivors in your army.

Mages

1.Silverite Magisters Staff "basic staff attack is the fire element"

2 Access to much more effective spells such as fireball and chain lightning.

3. mana regeneration increase

They wear apprentice robes no matter what you donate to them, but they get a massive upgrade on their staff which in return increases spell power damage, the basic staff attack hits in the mid 20's for damage and the addition of a couple powerful primal spells doesn't hurt at all. Unfortunately their health is pitiful and they have no way to defend themselves in melee combat besides the short range shock spell, the best way to describe them is GLASS CANNONS.

Golems "if you sided with branka"

1. Upgraded to Steel instead of Rock "it's basically CARIDINS model.

2. Lightning enchanted

3. Double strength & Constitution

They do massive damage" 48-60 "& have access to slam & Hurl But theres so few of them that you have to be careful where you use them, they can hold their own against all forms of darkspawn but are particularly weak against magic.

At the end of the day, it doesn't really do much. But in the final battle, the majority of your enemies are grunts that you can take out in one hit, so it doesn't really matter, if you use your army right, it will be effective no matter their equipment. One thing donating is good for tho is reaching the level cap before you're even halfway through the game.

PS. DONATING DOES NOT BOLSTER YOUR UNITS NUMBERS. MEN, ELVES & DWARVES are always 50 MAGES are always 12 GOLEMS are always 4 TEMPLARS are always 16 WEREWOLVES are always 16

I don't know the templar upgrades because I always side with the 1st Enchanter and get mages for my army. If I need a templar then I can use Alistair & werewolves ask for no resources & therefore cannot be upgraded.

I went out of my way trying to make my army better and in the end I was let down completely. Hope this helps someone so they don't waste their time on this project like I have.

I donated over 3100 gold to the men.

I donated 300 bundles of x99 deathroot, 300 bundles of x99 elfroot, 60 bundles of x99 deep mushroom & 20 bundles of x99 metal shard to the elves.

I donated every rune acquirable in the game to the mages "you cannot donate grandmaster tier"

I donated 30 bundles of x10 sapphire, 10 bundles of x10 malachite, 10 bundles of x10 amethyst & 20 bundles of x10 topaz to the dwarves.

Those massive numbers of donations should tell you how let down I was when I saw them in battle.

Information on the Amounts of exp you get for your donations can be found on the dragon age wiki under allied supply crates.

These upgrades are quite different on pc & potentially better.
Im writing this while only having knowledge of the game on ps3.

Answer 6

Definitely donate!! At the end it depends how many reinforcements you have to help during the final battle. I barely donated anything and I ended up fighting the archdemon alone and believe me...that is NOT fun!