found this on the net somewhere
looks darn funny! :D
now lets see about the padlock and tunnel plugs... xD
Monday, October 4, 2010
RuneScape: Farming Guide 1-99 Best Methods (Part 2) by silentc0re (Gamep...
Hey guys, today i want to talk about the best RuneScape guides out there. I have found that the RuneScape Wiki page has been tremendously helpful, it literally has everything you ever wanted to know about RuneScape on it. they are written by players like you and me who plays runescape! so if you think you have a better report or whatsoever do contribute whenever you can
It also has a Grand Exchange price checker , and it also has a common trade index checker, right on the main page. If you use this, you can find the best times to buy and sell your items on RuneScape to maximize your profits.especially for fliipers Some of the content on this website includes:
* Achievement Diaries
* Activities
* Armour
* Bestiary
* Calculators
* Discontinued rare items
* Distractions and Diversions
* Dungeons
* Emotes
* Events
* Game controls
* Grand Exchange Market Watch
* Guides
* Guilds
* Locations
* Music
* Quests
* Skills
* Slang dictionary
* Upcoming updates
* Weapons
and even more than that. Here's the link: http://runescape.wikia.com/wiki/RuneScape_Wiki
Other great websites that are amazingly helpful are:
RuneHQ: http://www.runehq.com (highly useful)
Zybez: http://www.zybez.net
Tip.it: http://www.tip.it
and Sal's Realm of RuneScape: http://runescape.salmoneus.net/ (though not that updated)
I have used all of these websites to help me out with the game. whenever im stuck on a quest, need to know the location of something, need help with a treasure trail, or any other help i need i turn to these websites.
Another great way to get the edge in RuneScape is watching a skill guide. A skill guide is a video you can find online (usually Youtube) that explains in detail how to level up a specific skill, usually the guide explains exactly what you need to do to get from level 1 to 99. There are also other guides on various things, such as money making guides, mini-game guides, and even humorous guides like "how to pick up chicks in RuneScape". In my opinion the guy with the best guides, is silentc0re, his guides are the most detailed and informative. He also has many other cool videos about RuneScape on his channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/silentc0re
i recently just started the farming skill in RuneScape, but i had absolutely no idea how to do it, so i watched this guide by silentc0re to help me out:
It also has a Grand Exchange price checker , and it also has a common trade index checker, right on the main page. If you use this, you can find the best times to buy and sell your items on RuneScape to maximize your profits.especially for fliipers Some of the content on this website includes:
* Achievement Diaries
* Activities
* Armour
* Bestiary
* Calculators
* Discontinued rare items
* Distractions and Diversions
* Dungeons
* Emotes
* Events
* Game controls
* Grand Exchange Market Watch
* Guides
* Guilds
* Locations
* Music
* Quests
* Skills
* Slang dictionary
* Upcoming updates
* Weapons
and even more than that. Here's the link: http://runescape.wikia.com/wiki/RuneScape_Wiki
Other great websites that are amazingly helpful are:
RuneHQ: http://www.runehq.com (highly useful)
Zybez: http://www.zybez.net
Tip.it: http://www.tip.it
and Sal's Realm of RuneScape: http://runescape.salmoneus.net/ (though not that updated)
I have used all of these websites to help me out with the game. whenever im stuck on a quest, need to know the location of something, need help with a treasure trail, or any other help i need i turn to these websites.
Another great way to get the edge in RuneScape is watching a skill guide. A skill guide is a video you can find online (usually Youtube) that explains in detail how to level up a specific skill, usually the guide explains exactly what you need to do to get from level 1 to 99. There are also other guides on various things, such as money making guides, mini-game guides, and even humorous guides like "how to pick up chicks in RuneScape". In my opinion the guy with the best guides, is silentc0re, his guides are the most detailed and informative. He also has many other cool videos about RuneScape on his channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/silentc0re
i recently just started the farming skill in RuneScape, but i had absolutely no idea how to do it, so i watched this guide by silentc0re to help me out:
anyways his guide really helped me out, and in just two days i got to level 40. RuneScape guides are really helpful when you're stuck and don't know what to do. They have helped me out immensely and I'm sure they can help you guys out too.
Congress Announces Plan To Hide Nation's Porn From Future Generations
Now we know where to hide our Porn! :D
ROFL
Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard
Funny yet seem convincing!
Onion Network FTW!
1:09
"here at apple we like to think that we're givin customers features they dont even realise they want yet"
ROFL
ROFL
Justin Bieber facts
Well facts about justin beiber!
He was born March 1st, 1994 (15 years old). (source wikipedia)
His nicknames: J-Beebs, JB, Biebs, Bieber, Beebs
His mother name is Pattie
His father name is Jeremy Bieber
His dad plays guitar, and his mom sings.
His grandma was a great piano player.
His Dad remarried.
He is very protective for her lil sister.
He wants to buy a house for his mom when he has $1,000,000.
He is not into blink-blink.
He started dating when he was 13.
His first kiss was when he was 13.
His favorite TV show is smallville.
his favorite video game is nba 2k.
His favorite colors are blue and purple
His favorite food is spaghetti
He speaks fluent French
He is claustrophobic – fear of being in narrow or enclosed spaces, eg: closet, elevators
He perfers Macs over PCs
His favorite number is 6
His favorite music is R&B and Pop
His favorite artists; Usher, Michael Jackson, BoysIImen, Stevie Wonder.
His celebrity crush is Beyonce.
He likes vitamin water
His favorite drink is orange juice
He has a half sister named Jazmine & brother names jaxon
He is a lefty
He can play trumpet, guitar, piano, and drums
He likes captain crunch (with berries)
He can count to ten in German
He once asked out Rihanna and Alexa Chung (got rejected)
His two best friends are Ryan butler and Christian beadles
He once dated Caitlin Beadles (Christians Beadles sister)
His shoe size is 7 and a half
He likes sporty, active, nice, down to earth girls.
He likes sour patch kids
His most embarrassing moment is when he broke his foot on stage during a song (he stayed and finished the song, didn’t even miss a note! so proud
))
He grew up in Canada (Stratford Ontario)
He is signed by Usher. Justin Timberlake was reportedly in the running to sign Bieber.
His label is Island def jam.
He likes playing soccer.
His favorite slang word is “shawty”
He likes tacos
His favorite pie is apple
He likes to skateboard and is good at it
He loves Tim Hortons (very Canadian)
His best friends – Ryan butler & Chaz Somers
He likes blue eyes
He likes a good smile
His first CD came out in Novemeber 17th 2009
He got his first plaque at YTV’s The Next Star at Canadas wonderland
He would date anyone he falls in love with.
He is now pals with Taylor Swift
He plays four instruments; guitar, piano, drums and trumpet
He raised 150,000 lbs of food for food Bank, with the help of his fans.
He loves his fans!
copyright justinbieberzone.com
He was born March 1st, 1994 (15 years old). (source wikipedia)
His nicknames: J-Beebs, JB, Biebs, Bieber, Beebs
His mother name is Pattie
His father name is Jeremy Bieber
His dad plays guitar, and his mom sings.
His grandma was a great piano player.
His Dad remarried.
He is very protective for her lil sister.
He wants to buy a house for his mom when he has $1,000,000.
He is not into blink-blink.
He started dating when he was 13.
His first kiss was when he was 13.
His favorite TV show is smallville.
his favorite video game is nba 2k.
His favorite colors are blue and purple
His favorite food is spaghetti
He speaks fluent French
He is claustrophobic – fear of being in narrow or enclosed spaces, eg: closet, elevators
He perfers Macs over PCs
His favorite number is 6
His favorite music is R&B and Pop
His favorite artists; Usher, Michael Jackson, BoysIImen, Stevie Wonder.
His celebrity crush is Beyonce.
He likes vitamin water
His favorite drink is orange juice
He has a half sister named Jazmine & brother names jaxon
He is a lefty
He can play trumpet, guitar, piano, and drums
He likes captain crunch (with berries)
He can count to ten in German
He once asked out Rihanna and Alexa Chung (got rejected)
His two best friends are Ryan butler and Christian beadles
He once dated Caitlin Beadles (Christians Beadles sister)
His shoe size is 7 and a half
He likes sporty, active, nice, down to earth girls.
He likes sour patch kids
His most embarrassing moment is when he broke his foot on stage during a song (he stayed and finished the song, didn’t even miss a note! so proud
))He grew up in Canada (Stratford Ontario)
He is signed by Usher. Justin Timberlake was reportedly in the running to sign Bieber.
His label is Island def jam.
He likes playing soccer.
His favorite slang word is “shawty”
He likes tacos
His favorite pie is apple
He likes to skateboard and is good at it
He loves Tim Hortons (very Canadian)
His best friends – Ryan butler & Chaz Somers
He likes blue eyes
He likes a good smile
His first CD came out in Novemeber 17th 2009
He got his first plaque at YTV’s The Next Star at Canadas wonderland
He would date anyone he falls in love with.
He is now pals with Taylor Swift
He plays four instruments; guitar, piano, drums and trumpet
He raised 150,000 lbs of food for food Bank, with the help of his fans.
He loves his fans!
copyright justinbieberzone.com
►►►Ultimate Tribal Wars Guide!◄◄◄
The below is the lists for each different section (for compilation purpose only
Tribal wars Guide [10] Good Tribes
Good Tribes
Whether you’re looking for a tribe or trying to lead one yourself, you need to be able to identify what a "good" tribe is, and what qualities you should be looking for in it.
In a word: Activity
Nothing can happen without activity. If the members and especially the aristo aren't active you’re sunk. I don’t care if you have 100 of the best TW players to ever grace the game, you will have a failure of a tribe if they don’t log in. This may seem like a no brainer, but you would be surprised how many tribes have numerous yellow or even red players. I'm not just talking early world either, late in the game when players start becoming bored it becomes even more prominate. A million point account doesn't do your tribe any good if there isn't anybody at the helm to control it.
As a leader you need to recognize this and kick the offending members. Find a new active player who will fill the void. It may not be the best for the tribal rankings, but when it comes wartime you will be much stronger and much more capable. Further having active players will keep your internal forums more active and better maintain the attention of the players within a tribe. Dead forums will often translate into a dead tribe. Further this activity is necessary for further tribal needs like effective communication and ability to war.
Next thing that is key for a tribe is to make sure it's tactics and strategy matches your own play style. An active aggressive player isn't often going to be happy playing in a K tribe that recruits or merges its rivals rather than wars with them. Likewise a defensive player isn't often going to be very comfortable in a spread out aggressive "elite" tribe. This also includes such things as proximity of tribe members, coordination between players, and forum(in game and world) presence. As a player you need to find the sort of tribe you want to play in.
Also make sure your tribe's goal matches your own. If your in this game to have fun play in a tribe that will allow for that. If you’re in it to dominate and outlast the server, join a tribe with similar goals. There are many ways to "play" tribal wars successfully make sure your tribe works with the way you want to play. I'm not here to argue that one type of tribe is better than another. Just be sure that the type of tribe you join matches your playing style. If you don’t enjoy your tribe it’s going to be very difficult to enjoy the rest of the game. As a leader you need to recognize it and recruit the type of players that match your tribe's "style".
Next big thing for any tribe to do well is communication and along with that the community of the tribe. If tribe members don’t enjoy one another company they aren't going to stick around or be very willing to support and coordinate with one another. You want the desire to assist one another within the tribe to be a natural response because of a friendship within the game, not because the duke or war commander or whatever ordered it. Whether that communication occurs over igm, forums, IRC, msn, skype, or any other number of places doesn't matter. What does matter is that the tribes members get allow and want to see one another succeed. As an aristo there isn't a lot you can do about this. Either its there or its not. The only real influence you have is in recruiting the "right" players for your tribe and in arbitrating internal issues before they tear the tribe apart.
Continuing along, the aristocracy of a tribe can make or break a tribe just as easily as the member base can. Even quicker at times depending on the situation. There are several things to look for when determining the strength of the aristocracy.
First the aristocracy should be developed out of the leadership of the tribe, not the other way around. That is to say that just because you give a player "baron" status it doesn't make them a leader. It’s the respect the members have for said player and their willingness to follow that makes them a leader. Leadership leads to the aristocracy, the aristocracy doesn't make you a leader. That being said it also is common that there are several leaders within a tribe that don’t hold official rank yet are very involved in decision making and policy within the tribe. Often times these players are some of the best leaders in the tribe and can hold more "power" over the membership than even the duke.
Further the aristocracy should realize that they are there for the member’s benefit and that without said members they wouldn't have a tribe. Many a good player becomes a bad duke when they take the reins of a tribe and try to act supreme overlord. It seems somewhere they forget this is a game and those people playing the account are doing so for entertainment, not to further inflate some oversized ego. The leadership should listen to members concerns and not make selfish decisions in disregard for the membership of the tribe. All it leads to is alienation of your player base and in the end you will likely cause a split within the tribe. That isn't to say that you need to have a "democracy" within the tribe. In fact I have found that most democratic tribes have the worst leadership of all. They are slow to react and, without central leadership, often incapable of properly coordinating themselves.
The leadership needs to be strong, respected, and above all active. If the aristo isn't around can’t lead. And a tribe that isn't lead will inevitably fail. The leadership is there for a reason, being primarily, to coordinate and unify the tribe for developed goals. If any part of that is missing the leadership is failing for the tribe, and the tribe will in turn fail for the leadership.
In diplomacy a tribe shouldn't have more allies than it needs. While a long list of friends who will "fight" for you looks powerful it has very negative consequences that many don’t weight properly before they develop an alliance list. Further many tribes don’t consider the lasting ramifications of said alliances when they are first signed. What looked good 2 months ago can often change overtime.
First each and every of those "allies" is a war waiting to happen. Those allies are inevitably going to cause conflicts as they expand into outside tribes and eventually they are going to call on you to join them. You’re obligated through the agreement to back them up. Oftentimes it will be at one of the worst times, while you yourself are fighting your own wars of expansion. But in all but the rarest of circumstances of this scenario you’re looking at a situation where you just earned yourself a new enemy. If you refuse to enter the war then often you’re looking at even worse consequences in P&P and backlash from your former "allies".
Second every one of those "allies" is one more group of players you can’t expand into. Not that its always bad, but if you have prime targets in an allied tribe it isn't often your going to be allowed the opportunity to take them. This will in turn force you to attack less opportune targets. As a result proximity and relative power should be considered when making alliances. You need to pick tribes that will offer you more benefits as an ally than as a target. If you could easily take them over they are likely not a good ally and you better off putting those villages under more capable tribal affiliation, namely yours.
Next you need to make sure your allies get along, with each other and with you. A lot of damage is cause with relations when you are forced to pick between 2 allies because they went to war with each other. Few can play the "neutral" card and still be respected in the end. Further even if you and your allies don’t all get along its going to make coordinated efforts much more difficult and further inhibit the war effort. If you can’t count on support between your tribes because of political issues then they certainly aren't the right sort of allies.
Enemies are just as important as allies. You always want to have somebody your tribe is attacking. Idle time for a tribe is death. Players get bored and will leave, and in general you will see your tribe fall quickly into decline. You need to grow and attack to remain a top tribe. If your leadership is always waiting for others to try to take them on they will fail. Further a tribe that always grows through mergers and assimilating players they will rarely maintain a good member base that knows how to handle wartime situations. Because when you get down to the bottom of TW its war. In picking enemies you need to weigh several factors.
You want an enemy that’s near enough your tribe can attack easily. You don’t want to have to launch attacks halfway around the world. Further if they are near you they will offer more strategic territory that will assist the tribe in the future. A tribe with a single large core will have an advantage over tribes with many clusters. Further your tribe is going to lose interest if they are all blued in. The fighting is what makes the actual game fun.
You also need to weight the allies of the target and their forum presence. A tribe with more allies and a better forum presence will bring in more outside assistance. Likewise you need to evaluate your own allies and forum presence to make sure that you can handle your enemy. It’s not unknown in TW for a tribe to wipe out another in a war but to then be destroyed in the following months because of the targets allies and forum support.
Also you need to weight the skill of the players of the target tribe vs. your own. Understand that although a tribe may not have the points of a larger tribe their smaller tribe can often consist of much more skilled players. Never underestimate a tribe because of their member count or point total. Evaluate you target carefully. Nothing will destroy a tribe morale and forum presence like a large cocky ranked tribe loosing a war to a small elite tribe that knows how to handle itself.
Whether you’re looking for a tribe or trying to lead one yourself, you need to be able to identify what a "good" tribe is, and what qualities you should be looking for in it.
In a word: Activity
Nothing can happen without activity. If the members and especially the aristo aren't active you’re sunk. I don’t care if you have 100 of the best TW players to ever grace the game, you will have a failure of a tribe if they don’t log in. This may seem like a no brainer, but you would be surprised how many tribes have numerous yellow or even red players. I'm not just talking early world either, late in the game when players start becoming bored it becomes even more prominate. A million point account doesn't do your tribe any good if there isn't anybody at the helm to control it.
As a leader you need to recognize this and kick the offending members. Find a new active player who will fill the void. It may not be the best for the tribal rankings, but when it comes wartime you will be much stronger and much more capable. Further having active players will keep your internal forums more active and better maintain the attention of the players within a tribe. Dead forums will often translate into a dead tribe. Further this activity is necessary for further tribal needs like effective communication and ability to war.
Next thing that is key for a tribe is to make sure it's tactics and strategy matches your own play style. An active aggressive player isn't often going to be happy playing in a K tribe that recruits or merges its rivals rather than wars with them. Likewise a defensive player isn't often going to be very comfortable in a spread out aggressive "elite" tribe. This also includes such things as proximity of tribe members, coordination between players, and forum(in game and world) presence. As a player you need to find the sort of tribe you want to play in.
Also make sure your tribe's goal matches your own. If your in this game to have fun play in a tribe that will allow for that. If you’re in it to dominate and outlast the server, join a tribe with similar goals. There are many ways to "play" tribal wars successfully make sure your tribe works with the way you want to play. I'm not here to argue that one type of tribe is better than another. Just be sure that the type of tribe you join matches your playing style. If you don’t enjoy your tribe it’s going to be very difficult to enjoy the rest of the game. As a leader you need to recognize it and recruit the type of players that match your tribe's "style".
Next big thing for any tribe to do well is communication and along with that the community of the tribe. If tribe members don’t enjoy one another company they aren't going to stick around or be very willing to support and coordinate with one another. You want the desire to assist one another within the tribe to be a natural response because of a friendship within the game, not because the duke or war commander or whatever ordered it. Whether that communication occurs over igm, forums, IRC, msn, skype, or any other number of places doesn't matter. What does matter is that the tribes members get allow and want to see one another succeed. As an aristo there isn't a lot you can do about this. Either its there or its not. The only real influence you have is in recruiting the "right" players for your tribe and in arbitrating internal issues before they tear the tribe apart.
Continuing along, the aristocracy of a tribe can make or break a tribe just as easily as the member base can. Even quicker at times depending on the situation. There are several things to look for when determining the strength of the aristocracy.
First the aristocracy should be developed out of the leadership of the tribe, not the other way around. That is to say that just because you give a player "baron" status it doesn't make them a leader. It’s the respect the members have for said player and their willingness to follow that makes them a leader. Leadership leads to the aristocracy, the aristocracy doesn't make you a leader. That being said it also is common that there are several leaders within a tribe that don’t hold official rank yet are very involved in decision making and policy within the tribe. Often times these players are some of the best leaders in the tribe and can hold more "power" over the membership than even the duke.
Further the aristocracy should realize that they are there for the member’s benefit and that without said members they wouldn't have a tribe. Many a good player becomes a bad duke when they take the reins of a tribe and try to act supreme overlord. It seems somewhere they forget this is a game and those people playing the account are doing so for entertainment, not to further inflate some oversized ego. The leadership should listen to members concerns and not make selfish decisions in disregard for the membership of the tribe. All it leads to is alienation of your player base and in the end you will likely cause a split within the tribe. That isn't to say that you need to have a "democracy" within the tribe. In fact I have found that most democratic tribes have the worst leadership of all. They are slow to react and, without central leadership, often incapable of properly coordinating themselves.
The leadership needs to be strong, respected, and above all active. If the aristo isn't around can’t lead. And a tribe that isn't lead will inevitably fail. The leadership is there for a reason, being primarily, to coordinate and unify the tribe for developed goals. If any part of that is missing the leadership is failing for the tribe, and the tribe will in turn fail for the leadership.
In diplomacy a tribe shouldn't have more allies than it needs. While a long list of friends who will "fight" for you looks powerful it has very negative consequences that many don’t weight properly before they develop an alliance list. Further many tribes don’t consider the lasting ramifications of said alliances when they are first signed. What looked good 2 months ago can often change overtime.
First each and every of those "allies" is a war waiting to happen. Those allies are inevitably going to cause conflicts as they expand into outside tribes and eventually they are going to call on you to join them. You’re obligated through the agreement to back them up. Oftentimes it will be at one of the worst times, while you yourself are fighting your own wars of expansion. But in all but the rarest of circumstances of this scenario you’re looking at a situation where you just earned yourself a new enemy. If you refuse to enter the war then often you’re looking at even worse consequences in P&P and backlash from your former "allies".
Second every one of those "allies" is one more group of players you can’t expand into. Not that its always bad, but if you have prime targets in an allied tribe it isn't often your going to be allowed the opportunity to take them. This will in turn force you to attack less opportune targets. As a result proximity and relative power should be considered when making alliances. You need to pick tribes that will offer you more benefits as an ally than as a target. If you could easily take them over they are likely not a good ally and you better off putting those villages under more capable tribal affiliation, namely yours.
Next you need to make sure your allies get along, with each other and with you. A lot of damage is cause with relations when you are forced to pick between 2 allies because they went to war with each other. Few can play the "neutral" card and still be respected in the end. Further even if you and your allies don’t all get along its going to make coordinated efforts much more difficult and further inhibit the war effort. If you can’t count on support between your tribes because of political issues then they certainly aren't the right sort of allies.
Enemies are just as important as allies. You always want to have somebody your tribe is attacking. Idle time for a tribe is death. Players get bored and will leave, and in general you will see your tribe fall quickly into decline. You need to grow and attack to remain a top tribe. If your leadership is always waiting for others to try to take them on they will fail. Further a tribe that always grows through mergers and assimilating players they will rarely maintain a good member base that knows how to handle wartime situations. Because when you get down to the bottom of TW its war. In picking enemies you need to weigh several factors.
You want an enemy that’s near enough your tribe can attack easily. You don’t want to have to launch attacks halfway around the world. Further if they are near you they will offer more strategic territory that will assist the tribe in the future. A tribe with a single large core will have an advantage over tribes with many clusters. Further your tribe is going to lose interest if they are all blued in. The fighting is what makes the actual game fun.
You also need to weight the allies of the target and their forum presence. A tribe with more allies and a better forum presence will bring in more outside assistance. Likewise you need to evaluate your own allies and forum presence to make sure that you can handle your enemy. It’s not unknown in TW for a tribe to wipe out another in a war but to then be destroyed in the following months because of the targets allies and forum support.
Also you need to weight the skill of the players of the target tribe vs. your own. Understand that although a tribe may not have the points of a larger tribe their smaller tribe can often consist of much more skilled players. Never underestimate a tribe because of their member count or point total. Evaluate you target carefully. Nothing will destroy a tribe morale and forum presence like a large cocky ranked tribe loosing a war to a small elite tribe that knows how to handle itself.
Tribal wars Guide [9] Scouting
Scouting
First. You have one village with scouts. 3k in the first months will do, then try to increase it little by little. I never had more than 8k, but you can go as far as you want. this is for real scouting, against big villages, heavily supported or against offensive players that cover themselves with scouts as they are too exposed.
Second. Defensive scouts. depending on the position of your villages, you should protect them with 50 -400 scouts, maybe more for very exposed villages. it is true that you can send some from your scouting village(s)but there are some problems that show of with the increasing number of villages. You forget to send in some places, you get them killed and you again forget to resend and so on. But if you go to recruiting area and you do not see the scouts, and decide to build scouts in every village, you always know that you have to have them. Another problem is that you begin to drain your scouting villages making them less effective. When you attack with scouts, your losses depend on the discrepancy between the 2 amounts. The more-the merrier. And if you care so much about farm space, with defense it does not matter, you build a little more in a scouting village if you want to even the numbers.
Third and very important.
Scouts used as offense. In the attacking villages if you put something between 50 and 200 you will get bonus information that has great price for you, even if you win the combat: troops in transit, resource levels, resources in warehouse and so on. If you lose and they survive and they do a lot of times, you at least know what is left there. So, for attacking villages, scouts are a must to build in that village.
For defensive villages. There are many times when you build nobles there. You than also have bonus info. Again they must be sent with fakes. Again bonus info.
So. the main reason for scouts is gathering intelligence - something more valuable than troops and sometimes skill. So use them at their best.
Note: Bear in mind that much of this is written with old units in mind and the old scouting rules. With new scouting rules and the inability(without paladin) to see outside units and the fact that it allows for general dodges to effectively combat scouts it severely lowers the effectiveness of scouts.
First. You have one village with scouts. 3k in the first months will do, then try to increase it little by little. I never had more than 8k, but you can go as far as you want. this is for real scouting, against big villages, heavily supported or against offensive players that cover themselves with scouts as they are too exposed.
Second. Defensive scouts. depending on the position of your villages, you should protect them with 50 -400 scouts, maybe more for very exposed villages. it is true that you can send some from your scouting village(s)but there are some problems that show of with the increasing number of villages. You forget to send in some places, you get them killed and you again forget to resend and so on. But if you go to recruiting area and you do not see the scouts, and decide to build scouts in every village, you always know that you have to have them. Another problem is that you begin to drain your scouting villages making them less effective. When you attack with scouts, your losses depend on the discrepancy between the 2 amounts. The more-the merrier. And if you care so much about farm space, with defense it does not matter, you build a little more in a scouting village if you want to even the numbers.
Third and very important.
Scouts used as offense. In the attacking villages if you put something between 50 and 200 you will get bonus information that has great price for you, even if you win the combat: troops in transit, resource levels, resources in warehouse and so on. If you lose and they survive and they do a lot of times, you at least know what is left there. So, for attacking villages, scouts are a must to build in that village.
For defensive villages. There are many times when you build nobles there. You than also have bonus info. Again they must be sent with fakes. Again bonus info.
So. the main reason for scouts is gathering intelligence - something more valuable than troops and sometimes skill. So use them at their best.
Note: Bear in mind that much of this is written with old units in mind and the old scouting rules. With new scouting rules and the inability(without paladin) to see outside units and the fact that it allows for general dodges to effectively combat scouts it severely lowers the effectiveness of scouts.
Tribal wars Guide [8] Personal Alliances
Personal Alliances
Personal allies can be a very valuable tool in TW as well as a great way to pass the time. But how do you pick the right PA? How many? And how/when do you find them?
While there is no "right" way(nothing in TW has a "right" way sadly) there are a lot of pointers we can give as to the subject.
1) Don’t be in a hurry to get PA. And don’t accept just anybody as a PA. Like alliances between tribes it needs to be of mutual benefit and things take time to develop. A hasty PA agreement often times ends up in you supporting a weaker player. You really can’t get a good judge of a player until farming is well under way.
2) Don’t get too many PA. While there is no magic number, there is a real possibility of having too many. Like allies can block in a tribe and prevent expansion, too many PA can have the same effect. It’s much better to have 1-2 Personal allies that you know you can count on rather than 5-6 questionable ones. Quality over Quantity.
3) High points don’t mean s/he's good. Don’t be fooled. Your better off waiting to see if that "good" player really is good rather than just going with what looks good.
4) Get a PA you can work with and communicate effectively. This may cover login times, languages, strategies, or any number of issues. Bottom line a PA shouldn't be extra work.
5) When mailing your prospective PA(This really goes for mailing anybody) be respectful and try to make a good first impression. You only get one chance at a first impression, make it count.
For example in the applications I wasn't too concerned with content, or what your prior experiences were so much as how you communicated and whether or not you took the time to write intelligent mails. First impressions made up 50% of my decision as to who to bring in.
This includes:
capitalization -You know who you are
spelling and grammar (doesn’t have to be perfect, just good)
paragraphs -solid blocks of text are a strain to read, break it up
thought out responses - don’t just spew generic or copy/paste crap
RESPECT -->The best way to earn a player's respect is to return it in kind.
Personal allies can be a very valuable tool in TW as well as a great way to pass the time. But how do you pick the right PA? How many? And how/when do you find them?
While there is no "right" way(nothing in TW has a "right" way sadly) there are a lot of pointers we can give as to the subject.
1) Don’t be in a hurry to get PA. And don’t accept just anybody as a PA. Like alliances between tribes it needs to be of mutual benefit and things take time to develop. A hasty PA agreement often times ends up in you supporting a weaker player. You really can’t get a good judge of a player until farming is well under way.
2) Don’t get too many PA. While there is no magic number, there is a real possibility of having too many. Like allies can block in a tribe and prevent expansion, too many PA can have the same effect. It’s much better to have 1-2 Personal allies that you know you can count on rather than 5-6 questionable ones. Quality over Quantity.
3) High points don’t mean s/he's good. Don’t be fooled. Your better off waiting to see if that "good" player really is good rather than just going with what looks good.
4) Get a PA you can work with and communicate effectively. This may cover login times, languages, strategies, or any number of issues. Bottom line a PA shouldn't be extra work.
5) When mailing your prospective PA(This really goes for mailing anybody) be respectful and try to make a good first impression. You only get one chance at a first impression, make it count.
For example in the applications I wasn't too concerned with content, or what your prior experiences were so much as how you communicated and whether or not you took the time to write intelligent mails. First impressions made up 50% of my decision as to who to bring in.
This includes:
capitalization -You know who you are
spelling and grammar (doesn’t have to be perfect, just good)
paragraphs -solid blocks of text are a strain to read, break it up
thought out responses - don’t just spew generic or copy/paste crap
RESPECT -->The best way to earn a player's respect is to return it in kind.
Tribal wars Guide [7] Fakes
Fake Attacks
I know that some who are reading this may not yet have mastered timing an attack but once you get that down you will want to further your skill with fake attacks.
There are three basic kinds of fake attacks, used with different intentions.
Swarm: These fake attacks usually are made up of 5-250 scouts and 1 ram or cat. Since they move slowly they may be mistaken for an actual offensive attack. They may get info, usually they just all die.
Swarm Fakes are usually launched 1 or 4 from a village (4 may be mistaken for nobles from a larger 6000+pnt village ) by everyone one in the tribe from every village. They are launched 1-5 hours before a main assault begins.
Swarm Fakes main purpose is to confuse and overwhelm the opponent. What would you do if you had 10-500 incoming attacks from a tribe?
Decoy: These are fakes launched by people not involved in an assault but timed to land as if they were.
Decoys usually have the same makeup as Swarm Fakes (scouts and a ram/cat) but aren't launched before an attack randomly. These are precision timed and focused on large villages.
Decoy Fakes are launched on targets that have more than one large village to hopefully have the target spread his def troops too thin or defend the wrong village in an assault.
Fanged: By far the most advanced and evil fake. These fakes are launched to land close to immediately after a large scale attack. They are focused on villages that have already been hit by "nukes" or other clearing forces. These fakes are usually used on large scary targets that will take a while to defeat or in a large scale war when the target is member of an enemy tribe especially if you do not have enough nobles available to rim him.
Fanged Fakes usually consist of 25-100 scouts and 25 cats. They are sent in 1 or 4 after an offensive army to mimic nobles but instead demolish Farm Buildings.
This way troops that have been killed of the targets cannot be rebuilt quickly leaving the target vulnerable and unable to send help to his tribe mates.
Learn these well. They are the second most important thing, after timing, to winning against skilled opponents.
I know that some who are reading this may not yet have mastered timing an attack but once you get that down you will want to further your skill with fake attacks.
There are three basic kinds of fake attacks, used with different intentions.
Swarm: These fake attacks usually are made up of 5-250 scouts and 1 ram or cat. Since they move slowly they may be mistaken for an actual offensive attack. They may get info, usually they just all die.
Swarm Fakes are usually launched 1 or 4 from a village (4 may be mistaken for nobles from a larger 6000+pnt village ) by everyone one in the tribe from every village. They are launched 1-5 hours before a main assault begins.
Swarm Fakes main purpose is to confuse and overwhelm the opponent. What would you do if you had 10-500 incoming attacks from a tribe?
Decoy: These are fakes launched by people not involved in an assault but timed to land as if they were.
Decoys usually have the same makeup as Swarm Fakes (scouts and a ram/cat) but aren't launched before an attack randomly. These are precision timed and focused on large villages.
Decoy Fakes are launched on targets that have more than one large village to hopefully have the target spread his def troops too thin or defend the wrong village in an assault.
Fanged: By far the most advanced and evil fake. These fakes are launched to land close to immediately after a large scale attack. They are focused on villages that have already been hit by "nukes" or other clearing forces. These fakes are usually used on large scary targets that will take a while to defeat or in a large scale war when the target is member of an enemy tribe especially if you do not have enough nobles available to rim him.
Fanged Fakes usually consist of 25-100 scouts and 25 cats. They are sent in 1 or 4 after an offensive army to mimic nobles but instead demolish Farm Buildings.
This way troops that have been killed of the targets cannot be rebuilt quickly leaving the target vulnerable and unable to send help to his tribe mates.
Learn these well. They are the second most important thing, after timing, to winning against skilled opponents.
Tribal wars Guide [6] Openeye’s HC/Cat Strategy
Openeye’s HC/Cat Strategy
A few things you will need to understand to follow me.
1) First of all this strategy doesn't make the most mathematical sense. I'm sorry but what works on paper rarely works in real life. For those who think that it does, you really need more exposure in RL and TW. I don’t know of anybody who makes use of 20k axe armies and yet using the math it would seem to be the most effective strat.
2) This strategy doesn't work for people on the fence. It's largely an all or nothing deal simply because of teching limits. If your villages don’t have HC teched to 3 then you can’t send HC there to defend. You lose too many to remain effective and with LC in your offense you loose your ability to tech HC to 3. Also uniformity is simpler.
3) This strategy is originally Thar's(at least on .net) though I did modify it a bit mainly the catapults, as everybody does along the way.
4) If you can’t identify fakes and can’t effectively time/stack defenses you will fail at TW, but especially fail at this strategy.
5) This also works best when all your villages are named the same, simply compounds the confusion this strategy can put your enemy in.
6) Also considers what I remember of speeds of W4. Though it may change based on your world the ratios remain the same.
7) Obviously this is old units.
----------------------
My HC strat:
Grouped villages in 10 village tactical groups based on proximity(Largely just for organization and to maintain ratios). 6:3:1 Offense:Defense:Scouts
Offensive Village:
1250 HC
11500(ish) Axes
200 Rams
Defensive Village:
1250 HC
11500(ish) Spears
200 Cats
Scout Village:
5000 Scouts
8500(ish) Spears
200 Cats
Techwise:
Offensive: Sp:Sw:Axe:HC:Ram
Defensive/Scout: Sp:Sw:Scout:HC:Cat
First, thing I would like to point out now is that I employed this strategy even though my 100+ villages were all touching. This isn't just for spread players in fact it works even better for players who are condensed. The way this strategy beats others is not in power. Obviously, your average army is comparatively weaker to sp/sw & axe/lc players. What you win with is versatility, speed, agility, outsmarting, and disheartening your enemies.
Why is 1250 HC the magic number? Simply it’s a balance issue. It's easy to get carried away with the HC and since they are (statwise) weaker than their opposites(LC/Sw). You don’t want to swing too far one way simply because of a need to maintain balance. And though 10k/1250 HC isn't a balanced defense but by the time you figure in the villages with 1250 HC you can pull in from further out and from offensive villages you will find that your defense will be HC heavy as it is. Further given that axes compared to HC are much better on offence its better to give them the benefit and keep the balance swayed their way (more so than you would with LC).
[u]Defensive Strategy:[/b]
Since it’s easier for everybody to see the advantage on defense before offense I will start there. Sp/HC build nearly 3x faster, this alone is huge. In wartime you’re looking a rebuild in less than 2 weeks rather than over a month. Further since spears move nearly 2x as fast as swords(not really but in times of need it feels like it) and your support moves at the speed of the slowest unit you can move a lot more of your armies a lot further when needed to counter.
This becomes even more special when you log in and only find an hour or two before the first strike hits. In times when you can’t see the slowest unit because you logged in late this strategy really shines.
Example 1:
You log in to find attacks on one your villages, or on a newly nobled village that were incoming before you nobled. In both cases no way to identify the troops and only 2 hours until they hit.
With a sp/sw defense set you can only draw in full defense from villages within 2 fields of the target and spears from 3 fields away. Chances are you only have 1-2 D villages nearby(if you’re lucky and it’s near your cluster). So you can decide to call them in and expect heavy loses(especially in that newly nobled walless village) or wait it out and prepare a counter offensive. Not a lot of options and your right where you opponent wants you: losing a village, or losing a large number of troops.
Now with the HC strat you have a lot more options. In 2 hours you can have sp/HC from up to 3 fields away(nearly doubling the number of fields support can originate from) and draw HC from 7 or 8 fields away. This gives you 2-3defensive villages to draw full defenses from and, considering your offensive village HC are also fully capable of defending, likely 4-5 villages you can draw HC from. (Maybe more if you built in a compact cluster like I did.)
In two hours you talking about the difference of 20k/20k and 30k/10k HC Please do the math for me and tell me what defense will hold up better... You will suffer less loses, less wall damage, and further you will lose troops over 8 villages allowing you to rebuild your armies in 1/4 (or less) the time verses loosing in only 2 villages. Now you have 8 villages pumping new recruits from barracks and stable rather than rebuilding from 2 village barracks. Spread the loses; Spread the rebuild
This strategy really shines when your villages are close because of this situation that I illustrated. The closer you villages are the further the enemy armies have to march and the shorter your support takes. The defense works because it allows you to stack defense to minimize you loses while maximizing your enemy loses. You aren't looking to match kills with the enemy; rather you’re looking to kill 4 or 5 or more enemy troops for every casualty you take. In this aspect your troops will last through a lot more battles on defense than with the sp/sw strat.
Sometimes though you are just getting whooped. 1k+ incoming everywhere and all at once. Your sp/HC aren’t as powerful as sw/sp so how do you survive?
Example 2:
Worst fear is realized: Massive incoming, many enemies, and lots of nobles. Sure you have time to react, 24+ hours to impact, but what’s the use?
First don’t panic. Just get to marking the incoming. Over half of that crap is ram fakes, scouts, or armies without nobles. Pick out the nobles and likely nukes. (As any good player would do, right?) Most large operations of this nature have bad timing, maybe not on individual villages but between villages. The noble train on village "A" hits 5 hours after village "B", Village "C" & "D" 2 hours later ect ect. Guess what each of these is? A repetition of example 1. Sure it’s on the massive scale but it’s not undefendable.
Sometimes though you can't get enough defenses there in time, the walls are down, there timing is across several villages at once. Then what do you have? You have the best dodge defense available. Every village has a defense waiting to block a noble somewhere. And while you are playing kill the noble in sector A, sector B can be stacked up in 2 hours to kill a nuke or two and 2 hours later be moved to block a nuke elsewhere(Not only does support get there twice as fast it gets home to be redeployed 2x as fast).
I'm sorry but sp/sw can’t do this nearly as well. Your offenses in a sp/sw & axe/lc get launched off to either noble back lost villages(not that villages without troops are what you need in this situation) or go on suicide runs to piss off your aggressors(who if they are smart just dodge). HC on the other hand though it may not be able to hold on paper, with a dedicated player at the controls and sitters to remain vigilant you stand a real shot at holding out. Though admittedly there are some situations where you are going to die no matter what(In which case saving packages and running to the rim is always an option).
Eventually they slow down. After a week or two of intense fighting like that where you opponent gets no real headway they are bound to get a little discouraged. Further after a week or two you can likely have most if not all of your losses paid for and in the queues ready for deployment over the next week. (Provided you held strong)
And if you’re shattered, beaten, and destroyed then well you can still enjoy a lengthy game of "kill the noble." Ask Thar(Best timer ever, bar none), he held off MCD and w00t for 3 months dodging nobles. He could literally kill the nobles on a one second train(but I'm getting off topic). And no better troop can be found for such a situation as HC. They are faster and by having some in every village you give yourself multiple options in case you miss you timing window the first few attempts.
Offensive Strategy:
Obviously your offensive nukes are weakened not having LC. The comparison of HC to LC is comparable to the comparison of LC to Axes. Mathematically it would make the most sense to have all axe nukes. But because of time restraints we use LC, which in turn allows us more nukes because we can use and rebuild the nuke in less time than just to build a single axe nuke. Similarly HC give us the same option. By using HC instead of LC it allows us to get away with more offensive villages vs. defensive villages thus allowing us to put more nukes out to our disposal without sacrificing defense. Even with my 3:2 Offense:Defense villages I still have the defense better than a 1:1(by the numbers) closer to a 2:3(considering the stacking advantage) at my disposal. Further the added HC from the defensive villages and the cats(if used properly) more than make up for the disadvantage my nukes have.
This strategy allows for several different strategies to be employed so it can make the enemies life of timing your attacks much more difficult.
Example 3:
Straight forward clearing/nobles attacks as are 99% or real attacks.
Admittedly, this is where only disadvantage(I have found) rears its ugly head. You nukes aren't as strong as they could be. Solution: Send more nukes. You have more offensive villages now, so employ them. No need to hold anything back you've got the defense still in reserve (the defensive HC shouldn't be employed except as fakes, same with the cats).
The nobles can come from anywhere, defensive or offensive, and provided you don’t leave yourself completely undefended(which is a no-no no matter what strat, HC or Sw/LC, you employ) you shouldn't have any problems. In fact these situations allow you to use your offensive HC to quick support a newly nobled or newly to-be nobled village. Provided they have already identified your village "A" to be offensive they may pass it off as a fake support and discredit the entire train as fake(which has happened for me). Further, it gives your defensive villages nobling a little bite to there bark when 1k HC escort the noble making the dodge strategy a little more costly for your enemies(also happened).
Now on to some of a bit unorthodox strategies. What about the catapults? Many(99.999%) people stop using catapults after initial farming stages(if they use them at all) for anything except fakes. I believe this to be a mistake. If catapults were useful then they can be useful now. First you have a near inexhaustible supply of flak fakes(those annoying 100+ fakes with random times of landing just to confuse and overwhelm).
Second: Do you know what 4 waves of 200 cats can do to a cleared village? Bye bye HQ; Bye bye Farm. Do you know how long it takes to rebuild a maxed village when the farm and HQ are reduced to rumble? Over 3 months. When the farm is reduced to below the population level of the village they cant even start rebuild the wall or HQ until the farm is back to the positive. Not to mention troops. In less than 5 seconds you can turn a thriving troop producing village into a desolate wasteland good for only noble packages, killing your own troops, and farming/sending resources(unless you hit the markets and acads too).
Example 4:
Your going to take out player X, s/he's a pretty good fight equal points and village count. You want to make it as quick as possible but don’t really have any outside help. Outside of a bit of support you’re on your own.
You launch the initial attack, to him/her it looks like a pretty straight forward attack. Good timing, less than 5 second "noble trains" etc etc. The defense is moved to counter and everything goes as planned, right until the attacks hit. The "ram, ram, noble, noble, noble, noble" attacks turned out to be nothing but 2 rams and 4 nobles(costing you a whooping 4 packages). But the 6 ram attacks in a row that just looked like a train fake ended up being 2 nukes followed by 4 attacks of 50 HC and 200 cats. Or if you got real sneaky, you split those cats up even more into strikes of 50 cats; it looks even less realistically threatening. When was the last time the village with 10 incomings at ram speed was defended when you had others with noble speed incoming?
Likely there was nothing there to defend, sometime they even get lazy and left an offense in thinking it would have nothing to fear from fakes. In the initial wave, those losing several nobles and the packages and time associated with their rebuild, you walk away with no villages but managed to effectively destroy 5-20% of the villages fighting abilities(depending on how you used your cats). Remember the more waves you send the cats in the less you need in each wave. 200 in a wave does a decent job, but I prefer 50 cat waves. Now that even fight just became a lot more lopsided in your favor.
This offers a lot of advantages for you if executed properly. On the next wave of attacks s/he's going to be a lot more cautious of those ram fakes. You can use this to your advantage when you do come in with the real nobles as you can expect a lot less in terms of stacking. Not only that, but lucky you, you've got 30/30/30 farms(good use of those HC on defense) that can't spend resources to keep them away from you(supposing you were a bit short on packages, as I found myself often, this really helped speed the nobling process). Maybe you'll even get so lucky that they try to support the village to prevent you from farming it. No walls and no ability to make walls make it a great support trap, nice quick and easy way to kill off those pesky troops. It doesn't work real well on good players, but noobs hate to lose villages, and tribal support(especially noob tribes) is always likely. Further, its really disheartening to see your villages destroyed to the point of uselessness and can even in itself get them to give up the defense right then and there(happened several times).
Lastly and most importantly you have an effective means to combat morale because of point loss. Allow me to explain. They can’t get rid of those villages, unless somebody else was stupid enough to noble them. As such they are left stuck with the 8-9k points each of them adds to somebody’s score without any of the troops building benefits those points normally mean. Hence they stay inflated with false points, keeping them up higher in the morale ranges and preventing them from using the "turtle till you're too small to hurt" strategy. Used effectively, by saving those villages to be nobled last you have a real easy way to keep this guy in your range to continue to pick off his good villages at your leisure, which is another very disheartening realization when you are on the defense.
This is also a great means to stop pesky support or otherwise discourage others from assisting your soon to be annexed villages. You don’t support too much after getting hit in one or two villages this way, and in itself can really throw a question mark up for people to consider when they send out support or attacks against you.You can really slow down a semi coordinated tribe by simply adding the fact that your ram speed attacks have the potential for lethality.
Further it’s great because it’s a fire and forget weapon. Once a village is cleared and razed by the cats it’s really not a threat for a couple months. As such you can move on to other villages and continue to equalize the field or assert your dominance as needed. Lastly if you have a front that you really don’t want to expand by nobling but need a little security, just destroy all the villages on the border. No troop production no worries. Really good to create a no-man's land or force players around you to quit.
Economic advantages:
Although HC cost more than swords or LC, it’s almost all in iron, which is the easiest and cheapest resource to get on the markets. Clay gets eaten by the builders as does wood. And wood is always in short supply but iron, if you have a surplus its in iron. And it’s real easy to obtain additional iron on the market. Further the high iron cost does well to balance the high clay cost of buildings and the high wood cost of axes and spears, and when you’re storing packages its iron that always ends up in surplus so it’s nice to be able to have a stockpile in your maxed villages to help rebuild the armies on your border and newly acquired villages.
---------------
There you have it, my entire strategy. 4th ranked in W4 at one time(though it wasn't 100% committed too at the time) and took 100 villages and 1 million points in less than 5 months from scratch after being essentially rimmed following the 4th place. Sorry it’s so much a book, but it’s pretty involved and I wanted to lay it out explained well enough that both newbs and vets could understand. I don’t care about the n00bs, because they won’t read it anyhow. Thanks for taking the time to read and I hope I have enlighted a few of you into the world of HC. Also, many thanks for the many who credited me with the strategy. Though not all of its due to me, Thar deserves much more than me.
The most important reason to learn the HC strategy is that sooner or later you will be targeted in a war. Once that happens, you won't care about ratios and strategies. At that point the only thing that matters is how much defense per hour you can accumulate to replace your losses.
The absolute fastest you can build defense points is by building spears, HCs and cats all at once. As the war progresses, you are going to find yourself with lots of spears, HCs and cats, even if that wasn't your initial plan. This strategy teaches you how to use them effectively.
A few things you will need to understand to follow me.
1) First of all this strategy doesn't make the most mathematical sense. I'm sorry but what works on paper rarely works in real life. For those who think that it does, you really need more exposure in RL and TW. I don’t know of anybody who makes use of 20k axe armies and yet using the math it would seem to be the most effective strat.
2) This strategy doesn't work for people on the fence. It's largely an all or nothing deal simply because of teching limits. If your villages don’t have HC teched to 3 then you can’t send HC there to defend. You lose too many to remain effective and with LC in your offense you loose your ability to tech HC to 3. Also uniformity is simpler.
3) This strategy is originally Thar's(at least on .net) though I did modify it a bit mainly the catapults, as everybody does along the way.
4) If you can’t identify fakes and can’t effectively time/stack defenses you will fail at TW, but especially fail at this strategy.
5) This also works best when all your villages are named the same, simply compounds the confusion this strategy can put your enemy in.
6) Also considers what I remember of speeds of W4. Though it may change based on your world the ratios remain the same.
7) Obviously this is old units.
----------------------
My HC strat:
Grouped villages in 10 village tactical groups based on proximity(Largely just for organization and to maintain ratios). 6:3:1 Offense:Defense:Scouts
Offensive Village:
1250 HC
11500(ish) Axes
200 Rams
Defensive Village:
1250 HC
11500(ish) Spears
200 Cats
Scout Village:
5000 Scouts
8500(ish) Spears
200 Cats
Techwise:
Offensive: Sp:Sw:Axe:HC:Ram
Defensive/Scout: Sp:Sw:Scout:HC:Cat
First, thing I would like to point out now is that I employed this strategy even though my 100+ villages were all touching. This isn't just for spread players in fact it works even better for players who are condensed. The way this strategy beats others is not in power. Obviously, your average army is comparatively weaker to sp/sw & axe/lc players. What you win with is versatility, speed, agility, outsmarting, and disheartening your enemies.
Why is 1250 HC the magic number? Simply it’s a balance issue. It's easy to get carried away with the HC and since they are (statwise) weaker than their opposites(LC/Sw). You don’t want to swing too far one way simply because of a need to maintain balance. And though 10k/1250 HC isn't a balanced defense but by the time you figure in the villages with 1250 HC you can pull in from further out and from offensive villages you will find that your defense will be HC heavy as it is. Further given that axes compared to HC are much better on offence its better to give them the benefit and keep the balance swayed their way (more so than you would with LC).
[u]Defensive Strategy:[/b]
Since it’s easier for everybody to see the advantage on defense before offense I will start there. Sp/HC build nearly 3x faster, this alone is huge. In wartime you’re looking a rebuild in less than 2 weeks rather than over a month. Further since spears move nearly 2x as fast as swords(not really but in times of need it feels like it) and your support moves at the speed of the slowest unit you can move a lot more of your armies a lot further when needed to counter.
This becomes even more special when you log in and only find an hour or two before the first strike hits. In times when you can’t see the slowest unit because you logged in late this strategy really shines.
Example 1:
You log in to find attacks on one your villages, or on a newly nobled village that were incoming before you nobled. In both cases no way to identify the troops and only 2 hours until they hit.
With a sp/sw defense set you can only draw in full defense from villages within 2 fields of the target and spears from 3 fields away. Chances are you only have 1-2 D villages nearby(if you’re lucky and it’s near your cluster). So you can decide to call them in and expect heavy loses(especially in that newly nobled walless village) or wait it out and prepare a counter offensive. Not a lot of options and your right where you opponent wants you: losing a village, or losing a large number of troops.
Now with the HC strat you have a lot more options. In 2 hours you can have sp/HC from up to 3 fields away(nearly doubling the number of fields support can originate from) and draw HC from 7 or 8 fields away. This gives you 2-3defensive villages to draw full defenses from and, considering your offensive village HC are also fully capable of defending, likely 4-5 villages you can draw HC from. (Maybe more if you built in a compact cluster like I did.)
In two hours you talking about the difference of 20k/20k and 30k/10k HC Please do the math for me and tell me what defense will hold up better... You will suffer less loses, less wall damage, and further you will lose troops over 8 villages allowing you to rebuild your armies in 1/4 (or less) the time verses loosing in only 2 villages. Now you have 8 villages pumping new recruits from barracks and stable rather than rebuilding from 2 village barracks. Spread the loses; Spread the rebuild
This strategy really shines when your villages are close because of this situation that I illustrated. The closer you villages are the further the enemy armies have to march and the shorter your support takes. The defense works because it allows you to stack defense to minimize you loses while maximizing your enemy loses. You aren't looking to match kills with the enemy; rather you’re looking to kill 4 or 5 or more enemy troops for every casualty you take. In this aspect your troops will last through a lot more battles on defense than with the sp/sw strat.
Sometimes though you are just getting whooped. 1k+ incoming everywhere and all at once. Your sp/HC aren’t as powerful as sw/sp so how do you survive?
Example 2:
Worst fear is realized: Massive incoming, many enemies, and lots of nobles. Sure you have time to react, 24+ hours to impact, but what’s the use?
First don’t panic. Just get to marking the incoming. Over half of that crap is ram fakes, scouts, or armies without nobles. Pick out the nobles and likely nukes. (As any good player would do, right?) Most large operations of this nature have bad timing, maybe not on individual villages but between villages. The noble train on village "A" hits 5 hours after village "B", Village "C" & "D" 2 hours later ect ect. Guess what each of these is? A repetition of example 1. Sure it’s on the massive scale but it’s not undefendable.
Sometimes though you can't get enough defenses there in time, the walls are down, there timing is across several villages at once. Then what do you have? You have the best dodge defense available. Every village has a defense waiting to block a noble somewhere. And while you are playing kill the noble in sector A, sector B can be stacked up in 2 hours to kill a nuke or two and 2 hours later be moved to block a nuke elsewhere(Not only does support get there twice as fast it gets home to be redeployed 2x as fast).
I'm sorry but sp/sw can’t do this nearly as well. Your offenses in a sp/sw & axe/lc get launched off to either noble back lost villages(not that villages without troops are what you need in this situation) or go on suicide runs to piss off your aggressors(who if they are smart just dodge). HC on the other hand though it may not be able to hold on paper, with a dedicated player at the controls and sitters to remain vigilant you stand a real shot at holding out. Though admittedly there are some situations where you are going to die no matter what(In which case saving packages and running to the rim is always an option).
Eventually they slow down. After a week or two of intense fighting like that where you opponent gets no real headway they are bound to get a little discouraged. Further after a week or two you can likely have most if not all of your losses paid for and in the queues ready for deployment over the next week. (Provided you held strong)
And if you’re shattered, beaten, and destroyed then well you can still enjoy a lengthy game of "kill the noble." Ask Thar(Best timer ever, bar none), he held off MCD and w00t for 3 months dodging nobles. He could literally kill the nobles on a one second train(but I'm getting off topic). And no better troop can be found for such a situation as HC. They are faster and by having some in every village you give yourself multiple options in case you miss you timing window the first few attempts.
Offensive Strategy:
Obviously your offensive nukes are weakened not having LC. The comparison of HC to LC is comparable to the comparison of LC to Axes. Mathematically it would make the most sense to have all axe nukes. But because of time restraints we use LC, which in turn allows us more nukes because we can use and rebuild the nuke in less time than just to build a single axe nuke. Similarly HC give us the same option. By using HC instead of LC it allows us to get away with more offensive villages vs. defensive villages thus allowing us to put more nukes out to our disposal without sacrificing defense. Even with my 3:2 Offense:Defense villages I still have the defense better than a 1:1(by the numbers) closer to a 2:3(considering the stacking advantage) at my disposal. Further the added HC from the defensive villages and the cats(if used properly) more than make up for the disadvantage my nukes have.
This strategy allows for several different strategies to be employed so it can make the enemies life of timing your attacks much more difficult.
Example 3:
Straight forward clearing/nobles attacks as are 99% or real attacks.
Admittedly, this is where only disadvantage(I have found) rears its ugly head. You nukes aren't as strong as they could be. Solution: Send more nukes. You have more offensive villages now, so employ them. No need to hold anything back you've got the defense still in reserve (the defensive HC shouldn't be employed except as fakes, same with the cats).
The nobles can come from anywhere, defensive or offensive, and provided you don’t leave yourself completely undefended(which is a no-no no matter what strat, HC or Sw/LC, you employ) you shouldn't have any problems. In fact these situations allow you to use your offensive HC to quick support a newly nobled or newly to-be nobled village. Provided they have already identified your village "A" to be offensive they may pass it off as a fake support and discredit the entire train as fake(which has happened for me). Further, it gives your defensive villages nobling a little bite to there bark when 1k HC escort the noble making the dodge strategy a little more costly for your enemies(also happened).
Now on to some of a bit unorthodox strategies. What about the catapults? Many(99.999%) people stop using catapults after initial farming stages(if they use them at all) for anything except fakes. I believe this to be a mistake. If catapults were useful then they can be useful now. First you have a near inexhaustible supply of flak fakes(those annoying 100+ fakes with random times of landing just to confuse and overwhelm).
Second: Do you know what 4 waves of 200 cats can do to a cleared village? Bye bye HQ; Bye bye Farm. Do you know how long it takes to rebuild a maxed village when the farm and HQ are reduced to rumble? Over 3 months. When the farm is reduced to below the population level of the village they cant even start rebuild the wall or HQ until the farm is back to the positive. Not to mention troops. In less than 5 seconds you can turn a thriving troop producing village into a desolate wasteland good for only noble packages, killing your own troops, and farming/sending resources(unless you hit the markets and acads too).
Example 4:
Your going to take out player X, s/he's a pretty good fight equal points and village count. You want to make it as quick as possible but don’t really have any outside help. Outside of a bit of support you’re on your own.
You launch the initial attack, to him/her it looks like a pretty straight forward attack. Good timing, less than 5 second "noble trains" etc etc. The defense is moved to counter and everything goes as planned, right until the attacks hit. The "ram, ram, noble, noble, noble, noble" attacks turned out to be nothing but 2 rams and 4 nobles(costing you a whooping 4 packages). But the 6 ram attacks in a row that just looked like a train fake ended up being 2 nukes followed by 4 attacks of 50 HC and 200 cats. Or if you got real sneaky, you split those cats up even more into strikes of 50 cats; it looks even less realistically threatening. When was the last time the village with 10 incomings at ram speed was defended when you had others with noble speed incoming?
Likely there was nothing there to defend, sometime they even get lazy and left an offense in thinking it would have nothing to fear from fakes. In the initial wave, those losing several nobles and the packages and time associated with their rebuild, you walk away with no villages but managed to effectively destroy 5-20% of the villages fighting abilities(depending on how you used your cats). Remember the more waves you send the cats in the less you need in each wave. 200 in a wave does a decent job, but I prefer 50 cat waves. Now that even fight just became a lot more lopsided in your favor.
This offers a lot of advantages for you if executed properly. On the next wave of attacks s/he's going to be a lot more cautious of those ram fakes. You can use this to your advantage when you do come in with the real nobles as you can expect a lot less in terms of stacking. Not only that, but lucky you, you've got 30/30/30 farms(good use of those HC on defense) that can't spend resources to keep them away from you(supposing you were a bit short on packages, as I found myself often, this really helped speed the nobling process). Maybe you'll even get so lucky that they try to support the village to prevent you from farming it. No walls and no ability to make walls make it a great support trap, nice quick and easy way to kill off those pesky troops. It doesn't work real well on good players, but noobs hate to lose villages, and tribal support(especially noob tribes) is always likely. Further, its really disheartening to see your villages destroyed to the point of uselessness and can even in itself get them to give up the defense right then and there(happened several times).
Lastly and most importantly you have an effective means to combat morale because of point loss. Allow me to explain. They can’t get rid of those villages, unless somebody else was stupid enough to noble them. As such they are left stuck with the 8-9k points each of them adds to somebody’s score without any of the troops building benefits those points normally mean. Hence they stay inflated with false points, keeping them up higher in the morale ranges and preventing them from using the "turtle till you're too small to hurt" strategy. Used effectively, by saving those villages to be nobled last you have a real easy way to keep this guy in your range to continue to pick off his good villages at your leisure, which is another very disheartening realization when you are on the defense.
This is also a great means to stop pesky support or otherwise discourage others from assisting your soon to be annexed villages. You don’t support too much after getting hit in one or two villages this way, and in itself can really throw a question mark up for people to consider when they send out support or attacks against you.You can really slow down a semi coordinated tribe by simply adding the fact that your ram speed attacks have the potential for lethality.
Further it’s great because it’s a fire and forget weapon. Once a village is cleared and razed by the cats it’s really not a threat for a couple months. As such you can move on to other villages and continue to equalize the field or assert your dominance as needed. Lastly if you have a front that you really don’t want to expand by nobling but need a little security, just destroy all the villages on the border. No troop production no worries. Really good to create a no-man's land or force players around you to quit.
Economic advantages:
Although HC cost more than swords or LC, it’s almost all in iron, which is the easiest and cheapest resource to get on the markets. Clay gets eaten by the builders as does wood. And wood is always in short supply but iron, if you have a surplus its in iron. And it’s real easy to obtain additional iron on the market. Further the high iron cost does well to balance the high clay cost of buildings and the high wood cost of axes and spears, and when you’re storing packages its iron that always ends up in surplus so it’s nice to be able to have a stockpile in your maxed villages to help rebuild the armies on your border and newly acquired villages.
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There you have it, my entire strategy. 4th ranked in W4 at one time(though it wasn't 100% committed too at the time) and took 100 villages and 1 million points in less than 5 months from scratch after being essentially rimmed following the 4th place. Sorry it’s so much a book, but it’s pretty involved and I wanted to lay it out explained well enough that both newbs and vets could understand. I don’t care about the n00bs, because they won’t read it anyhow. Thanks for taking the time to read and I hope I have enlighted a few of you into the world of HC. Also, many thanks for the many who credited me with the strategy. Though not all of its due to me, Thar deserves much more than me.
The most important reason to learn the HC strategy is that sooner or later you will be targeted in a war. Once that happens, you won't care about ratios and strategies. At that point the only thing that matters is how much defense per hour you can accumulate to replace your losses.
The absolute fastest you can build defense points is by building spears, HCs and cats all at once. As the war progresses, you are going to find yourself with lots of spears, HCs and cats, even if that wasn't your initial plan. This strategy teaches you how to use them effectively.
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