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Hi Friends,
I just wanna take a minute to thank you all for the nice feedback I got on the previous two chapters. By popular demand here's chapter 3.
This chapter is supposed to be about troops but I've got a few things I'd like to discuss instead. Hope it doesn’t disappoint. Also, this is directed mostly at new players so I tried to keep it to what I feel is a must know for all players.
CITY/RESOURCES
There was one thing that I forgot to mention in chapter two that I think is fairly important. Its about how you place your assets on the map. Many people place both their cities right next to each other surrounded by all of their wilds. Its like setting up an easter egg hunt and putting all of the eggs under one tree with a giant sign that says, “Here they are!”. Not such a great idea right?
Spread those eggs out! Scatter your wilds over the map so your enemy has to look hard to find them. Try to place them in places that don't have a lot of cities around them, especially around people that you can see as a future enemy. I usually tuck mine in the middle of a group of dome cities.
For your second city its all about the Goldilocks zone, you want to place it far enough away so people wont easily find it but close enough that your merchants can transfer resources quickly. I like mine about 1::30 away as the supply cart travels.
WAR
Lets take a moment to talk about war. War comprises of several different elements and I'll talk about two here, psychological and logistical. Logistical is simple, its all of the parts and pieces that come together to allow you to sustain a war. This ties in deeply with what we talked about in chapter two in regards to training speeds and resource production.
Once logistical war begins its not long, usually a matter of hours, before all wall defenses are destroyed. Now its a battle of troops in a game where both parties must decide to fight for the fight to happen. You can imagine that when both are trying to find an advantage actual fights rarely happen. In effect it makes it so you cant beat your enemy unless your enemy allows it. Seems silly right? This is where psychological war begins.
Psychological war is all about killing your enemies desire to be at war with you. Remember when I said 95% of people are passive? What happens when you put a passive person in a room with a bunch of extroverted alpha males? Their stress level increases greatly. Those that desire peace will be stressed under war. The longer the war, the more the stress. That’s what psychological war is all about. Keeping them in an ever present state of war until they start to get exhausted from it. You may also be stressed out but being a professional you'll keep your poker face until your enemy cracks. Also remember about personality, avoid enraging your enemy through global taunts. This will make their reserve to fight stronger and weaken the effect of your psychological warfare.
All's fair in love and war. The only rule in war is that there are no rules. Those that create rules for themselves only hinder their ability to effectively execute in war. If using gems will help you win then use them, if your enemy is planning a giant attack on you at 5pm, consider putting up a dove in your city. They wont know what to do. Send your enemy a message to see if they are on and attack when they aren’t. In the end nobody is gonna remember how you defeated them, just that you defeated them. I get messages all the time calling me a coward because I keep my troops hidden. Not only do all of those do it too but they would be stupid not to.
Now I'd like to introduce the strategy of taking your enemies wilds. I'm not sure if its like this on all servers but on our server it seems to have become taboo to attack a wild, even in times of war. Wilds directly support resource generation and therefor logistical war. Of course I'm going to attack them if for nothing more then that reason alone. Many will argue that it's just an unnecessary even trade since they will attack my wilds as well. That’s about as stupid as saying, “if both hockey teams pull their gollies both teams can score more points.” Ok, that wasn’t a very good analogy but hopefully you get my point.
Here's why I attack my enemies wilds. Its a cost free way to directly attack my enemy in psychological war. Your enemy will want wilds, but you wont let them have them. The longer this goes on the more they will tire of war. Its also a great way to attack their troops as it will cost them many to retake new wilds. Not to mention it feels like an easter egg hunt every time I get on and scan for all those precious red flags. Remember, its all about making a big difference between the care free life of peace and the chaotic stress of war. The greater that gap the more they will start to crave the days when their resources were full while sitting in 23rd place on the glorious fictional scoreboard of might.
That reminds me, resources. As we talked about, resources are not very valuable, but that doesn’t mean you should simply let your enemy take them from you. I recently made the big mistake of not caring so much that I let my enemy steal back tens of millions in resources from me. While this didn’t affect me at all it did affect them. It gave them something to hold as a victory. That said, if you're under attack send off your resources to someone you trust before the attack hits and avoid stockpiling them when possible. In an ideal world you should prevent your enemy from taking anything from you. This is of course a good example of “do as I say, not as I do.” I can be pretty lazy at times.
Finally you should never show any sort of distaste for war to your enemy. Never complain about things like wilds, attacks, or anything. It will only show that their efforts are succeeding.
As far as logistical war goes the rules are simple. You want to maximize the effectiveness of your troops. Only under extreme cases should you accept a 1 for 1 loss in troops. This is where the high level knights come in really handy. Anyone with a weaker knight becomes an easy kill.
BASIC TACTICS
Be aware of these three tactics.
One, imagine your alliance just got hit and someone just took your wilds. An attack of 5000 catapults is coming to your city. You can easily kill them by taking your troops off hide so you do it. Two seconds before the catapults hit a full wave of 100,000 t3 units instant attack you, destroying your entire army. What would you have learned?
Two, war broke out when you were sleeping. You wake up, all of your walls and wilds are gone, and some guy left you five messages about how much you suck in your mailbox. You noticed he attacked you but his overall might isnt that high so you in full nerd rage send and all out attack at his city. In dismay you watch your troops get eaten alive by a fully reinforced city. What would you learn there?
Three, you've been at war for a while now and you regularly hit an enemy city every day around the same time. He never defends and you've gotten a good amount of resources from him. Eventually you start just sending large numbers of wagons and a small troop escort with a lower level knight. One day they don’t come back. What would you learn?
Here are your lessons. Do not defend against few with many. Send the rest of your army away before the attack hits and defend with just enough to kill the small wave. Of course only do this when the likelihood of an instant attack is low.
Do not allow emotion to control you decisions. Always scout first. Don't attack if the attack doesn’t make sense, no matter how much you wish you could destroy someone its not worth losing your army. Be very careful about attacking those that are attacking you. It could be a bait, especially if they are making an effort to get your attention in mail too.
Don't be predictable. When an enemy knows where, when and how you'll strike it makes it easy for them to formulate a defense. Don't ever risk sending out a serious attack without using your powerful knights, that way at the very minimum you'll have a 1 for 1 trade. You'll never be on the losing side.
DEFENDING AGAINST PIRATES
I get complaints all day from random alliance we're not directly at war with. My policy is any alliance is fair game for farming. Here is my advice to help prevent you from becoming a target. Stop turning yourself into a good farm. Protect your resources with a storehouse. Don't build large numbers of walls, they are easily destroyed. If we're farming your alliance member that’s inactive, don’t make a big deal out of it, he's inactive. Don't unhide your troops or try to attack back, chance are you're weak and you'll just get destroyed. Make it so its not worth our time to hit you.
This concludes Chapter 3. I'm not sure what I'll write chapter 4 about, perhaps some you guys have suggestions.
Fair winds!
I just wanna take a minute to thank you all for the nice feedback I got on the previous two chapters. By popular demand here's chapter 3.
This chapter is supposed to be about troops but I've got a few things I'd like to discuss instead. Hope it doesn’t disappoint. Also, this is directed mostly at new players so I tried to keep it to what I feel is a must know for all players.
CITY/RESOURCES
There was one thing that I forgot to mention in chapter two that I think is fairly important. Its about how you place your assets on the map. Many people place both their cities right next to each other surrounded by all of their wilds. Its like setting up an easter egg hunt and putting all of the eggs under one tree with a giant sign that says, “Here they are!”. Not such a great idea right?
Spread those eggs out! Scatter your wilds over the map so your enemy has to look hard to find them. Try to place them in places that don't have a lot of cities around them, especially around people that you can see as a future enemy. I usually tuck mine in the middle of a group of dome cities.
For your second city its all about the Goldilocks zone, you want to place it far enough away so people wont easily find it but close enough that your merchants can transfer resources quickly. I like mine about 1::30 away as the supply cart travels.
WAR
Lets take a moment to talk about war. War comprises of several different elements and I'll talk about two here, psychological and logistical. Logistical is simple, its all of the parts and pieces that come together to allow you to sustain a war. This ties in deeply with what we talked about in chapter two in regards to training speeds and resource production.
Once logistical war begins its not long, usually a matter of hours, before all wall defenses are destroyed. Now its a battle of troops in a game where both parties must decide to fight for the fight to happen. You can imagine that when both are trying to find an advantage actual fights rarely happen. In effect it makes it so you cant beat your enemy unless your enemy allows it. Seems silly right? This is where psychological war begins.
Psychological war is all about killing your enemies desire to be at war with you. Remember when I said 95% of people are passive? What happens when you put a passive person in a room with a bunch of extroverted alpha males? Their stress level increases greatly. Those that desire peace will be stressed under war. The longer the war, the more the stress. That’s what psychological war is all about. Keeping them in an ever present state of war until they start to get exhausted from it. You may also be stressed out but being a professional you'll keep your poker face until your enemy cracks. Also remember about personality, avoid enraging your enemy through global taunts. This will make their reserve to fight stronger and weaken the effect of your psychological warfare.
All's fair in love and war. The only rule in war is that there are no rules. Those that create rules for themselves only hinder their ability to effectively execute in war. If using gems will help you win then use them, if your enemy is planning a giant attack on you at 5pm, consider putting up a dove in your city. They wont know what to do. Send your enemy a message to see if they are on and attack when they aren’t. In the end nobody is gonna remember how you defeated them, just that you defeated them. I get messages all the time calling me a coward because I keep my troops hidden. Not only do all of those do it too but they would be stupid not to.
Now I'd like to introduce the strategy of taking your enemies wilds. I'm not sure if its like this on all servers but on our server it seems to have become taboo to attack a wild, even in times of war. Wilds directly support resource generation and therefor logistical war. Of course I'm going to attack them if for nothing more then that reason alone. Many will argue that it's just an unnecessary even trade since they will attack my wilds as well. That’s about as stupid as saying, “if both hockey teams pull their gollies both teams can score more points.” Ok, that wasn’t a very good analogy but hopefully you get my point.
Here's why I attack my enemies wilds. Its a cost free way to directly attack my enemy in psychological war. Your enemy will want wilds, but you wont let them have them. The longer this goes on the more they will tire of war. Its also a great way to attack their troops as it will cost them many to retake new wilds. Not to mention it feels like an easter egg hunt every time I get on and scan for all those precious red flags. Remember, its all about making a big difference between the care free life of peace and the chaotic stress of war. The greater that gap the more they will start to crave the days when their resources were full while sitting in 23rd place on the glorious fictional scoreboard of might.
That reminds me, resources. As we talked about, resources are not very valuable, but that doesn’t mean you should simply let your enemy take them from you. I recently made the big mistake of not caring so much that I let my enemy steal back tens of millions in resources from me. While this didn’t affect me at all it did affect them. It gave them something to hold as a victory. That said, if you're under attack send off your resources to someone you trust before the attack hits and avoid stockpiling them when possible. In an ideal world you should prevent your enemy from taking anything from you. This is of course a good example of “do as I say, not as I do.” I can be pretty lazy at times.
Finally you should never show any sort of distaste for war to your enemy. Never complain about things like wilds, attacks, or anything. It will only show that their efforts are succeeding.
As far as logistical war goes the rules are simple. You want to maximize the effectiveness of your troops. Only under extreme cases should you accept a 1 for 1 loss in troops. This is where the high level knights come in really handy. Anyone with a weaker knight becomes an easy kill.
BASIC TACTICS
Be aware of these three tactics.
One, imagine your alliance just got hit and someone just took your wilds. An attack of 5000 catapults is coming to your city. You can easily kill them by taking your troops off hide so you do it. Two seconds before the catapults hit a full wave of 100,000 t3 units instant attack you, destroying your entire army. What would you have learned?
Two, war broke out when you were sleeping. You wake up, all of your walls and wilds are gone, and some guy left you five messages about how much you suck in your mailbox. You noticed he attacked you but his overall might isnt that high so you in full nerd rage send and all out attack at his city. In dismay you watch your troops get eaten alive by a fully reinforced city. What would you learn there?
Three, you've been at war for a while now and you regularly hit an enemy city every day around the same time. He never defends and you've gotten a good amount of resources from him. Eventually you start just sending large numbers of wagons and a small troop escort with a lower level knight. One day they don’t come back. What would you learn?
Here are your lessons. Do not defend against few with many. Send the rest of your army away before the attack hits and defend with just enough to kill the small wave. Of course only do this when the likelihood of an instant attack is low.
Do not allow emotion to control you decisions. Always scout first. Don't attack if the attack doesn’t make sense, no matter how much you wish you could destroy someone its not worth losing your army. Be very careful about attacking those that are attacking you. It could be a bait, especially if they are making an effort to get your attention in mail too.
Don't be predictable. When an enemy knows where, when and how you'll strike it makes it easy for them to formulate a defense. Don't ever risk sending out a serious attack without using your powerful knights, that way at the very minimum you'll have a 1 for 1 trade. You'll never be on the losing side.
DEFENDING AGAINST PIRATES
I get complaints all day from random alliance we're not directly at war with. My policy is any alliance is fair game for farming. Here is my advice to help prevent you from becoming a target. Stop turning yourself into a good farm. Protect your resources with a storehouse. Don't build large numbers of walls, they are easily destroyed. If we're farming your alliance member that’s inactive, don’t make a big deal out of it, he's inactive. Don't unhide your troops or try to attack back, chance are you're weak and you'll just get destroyed. Make it so its not worth our time to hit you.
This concludes Chapter 3. I'm not sure what I'll write chapter 4 about, perhaps some you guys have suggestions.
Fair winds!
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