Xorn scouting reports

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The Kitchen Timer Loyalty Bomb Strategy

So you're trying to take a city. You send waves of break attacks, followed by waves of horse.

But your opponent is online. He closes the gates for the break attack, so you can't kill his troops, and opens the gates for your horse, so he can kill yours.

You, my friend, have been pwned. You suck at this game. Maybe you should try needlepoint, or cricket, or jai alai.

I'M KIDDING. This has happened to all of us, and has happened to me a lot.

This was before I learned the (drum roll please) ... KITCHEN TIMER LOYALTY BOMB STRATEGY! Yes, it sounds like a Japanese noise band. Roll with it.

WHY YOU SHOULD TIME WAVES TO HIT ALL AT ONCE

IF you have a big wave at 10 minutes and a small wave at 1, it's easy for an opponent who is online to beat you. They just leave the gates closed for the first attack, then open them for the second attack.

But! If you have all the attacks land within a second or two of each other, this is impossible. You give your opponent a choice: risk losing everything by opening the gates, or turtle up and let you loot him.

Best, if he does the latter, he loses about 36 loyalty, since 9 attacks hit at once taking 4 loyalty each.

If you have an opponent with 4 cities and only enough troops to open the gate in one or two, you can full-court press him. Send attacks at ALL of those cities. Then, set scouts to hit one minute prior to impact. You'll be able to see where all his troops are, and withdraw from there. He won't be able to stop you looting his other towns.

Sounds great, right? (Everybody say, "right!") But how do you do this, given the camp interface sucks in the rally spot?

The answer: the humble kitchen timer.

HOW TO DO THIS

STEP ONE: Have enough troops and heroes to send out 9 or 10 waves. One big wave of breakers, and other waves of either warriors or cavalry. Ideally warriors, because if something goes wrong it won't hurt to lose them, but sometimes you need the cavalry to get there faster.

STEP TWO: Go into the rally spot. Have your kitchen timer handy.

Dial up a target. See how long it takes to reach the target. Get ready to click "OK."

Now, set your countdown timer to the EXACT time the attack lands.

This gives you a handheld device that will tell you precisely when your breaker lands. Now, use the camp feature to have 8 or 9 waves of warriors or cavalry land 1 second behind the breaker.

Your opponent can't open the gates unless he can slaughter the breaker wave -- and if he can, you've got bigger problems.

As always, re-scout 1m before the attack hits to make sure he isn't reinforced. But this is a good way to whack the loyalty down fast, without the risk of losing troops.

Tempest

Hi folks,

Tempest has declared war on us. This mostly has to do with their de facto leader, Burtman, who kept attacking us. He also kept promising he'd stop.

Then, without mailing anyone for diplomacy, he declared war on us during the night. Weak sauce.

What follows are a list of Tempest coordinates, but let's not forget that this is first and foremost about Burtman. We have to be prepared to hit them hard, but try not to hit random members unless they've hit us first/reinforced Burtman. Check war reports for who has hit us.

Also: we're going to take all of Burtman's lakes. Even if you're a long way away, you can help by doing this with scout/hero attacks. There are good strategic reasons for this, including:

* If we're hitting him he has to choose either farming or counterattacking;

* If he has enough troops, he's far enough negative in food production that it will hurt, and he'll be forced to launch (or not have enough food to launch)

* If we can foul his bird with enough attacks, it will distract him and prevent him from playing optimally (that is, if we have 5 members attacking him here with multiple waves, and then a bunch from out of the area hitting all 60 of his valleys, what does he do first?)

* There's also the rebuild equity we steal from him. We all have a finite amount of time we can game. NPC farming takes time, and if he has to pick between that and retaking his lakes, it undermines his ability to play optimally. Finally,

* It will annoy the living shit out of him.

CITIES

Burtman
Capitol - 66,45
76,26
86,110

The rest
117.55
116.70
121.69
62,115
68,120
69,110
8, 119
8, 120
9, 120
275 416
53, 38
54, 37
59, 32
68, 36
121, 39
122, 38
123, 33
121,66
121,67
121,68
121,69
80/18
80/15
77/17
46-47 main
45-47
32-25
41-35
110,60
103,40
96,41
92,68
111,91
93,78
122,84

LAKES
77, 27
75, 30
74, 32
73, 32
72, 34
74, 50
66, 47
65, 50
62, 49
60, 51
58, 49
59, 47
59, 39
58, 40

Let's go get 'em. See me for instructions and orders. Y'all rock as always. Now cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war!

Inactivity rule

Being active is a big part of this game. We have had to make this rule because we had 15+ players yesterday that we expelled for not being active. All of these players had not logged in for over a month. That brought on the talks about this rule we are enforcing.
As much as it pains me to expel any member we must do what is best for the whole group.
So we will expel any member that has not logged in for 1 month.
We feel that after 1 month you have abandoned the game.
We understand that people have real life things going on that might prevent them being here for a length of time. If you feel that you are going to be inactive for whatever reason all you have to do is inform our host or either one of our vice hosts. And we will make an exception and extend that time period. But this is your responsibility as we have no way to get a hold of you outside of the game.

Some have expressed that they wish for us to take into consideration prestige into this rule. And amount of activity prior to absence. So this is what we will do.
1. If your prestige is higher than 200K we will extend that time period to 2 months.
2. If you were very active in our wars and helped out your team mates we will extend it to 2 months.

Please understand that we can not make any more exceptions as this game greatly depends on your participation.

Many of you will ask why we have decided to enforce this rule. So before you ask I will tell you.
1. You are not helping out yourself or the alliance by not being here.
2. We can not expect a member to reinforce you if they think you are gone and no longer playing the game. It would be essentially protecting a dead city
3. Things and relationships with other alliances changed daily. The information you knew 1 week ago can no longer be accurate. Leading to you attacking someone that is no longer allowed to be attacked. This causes the whole alliance to get back into a war.
4. Frankly if you are gone that long your city will starve leaving you with no troops in it. Leaving you unable to help or even defend your own city.
I can go on and on but these are the main reasons.

So how do you avoid being booted:
1. At least log in if you are unable to play this tells us that you are still here
2. Send us a note telling us you plan to be gone and eta if known on your return

The Tiny, Disposable City: How To Be Sneaky and Attack Faraway Enemies Without a Teleport

Do you have lots of troops -- but are surrounded by pesky green flags instead of enticing red ones? Do you have a sweet attack plan, but no teleports to get into position?

Don't worry, my friend. You can implement this ninja/James Bond style forward attack city strategy. The strategy involves creating a disposable city with only the bare minimum buildings needed to launch an effective maximum attack wave.

The idea is to let you get into place quickly and without being noticed; to launch major attacks at high-value targets; and to not present them an enticing target in return, maximizing your gain and minimizing their potential gain.

In short: you move in, whack them, and bounce after they're whacked.

WHAT YOU NEED TO DO THIS

• An evening to take/build a city (takes a few hours)

• A city slot, ideally two (one to build your city with, another to take one of theirs)

• A friend/ally with lots of horses and some free time once your city is ready

• Helpful: a high-level rally station in one of your main troop cities (so you can keep reinforcing fast)
  

HOW YOU START

It's best if you can take an abandoned city in the area, so you don't have to spend as much time building. Sadly, these are often in short supply, especially cities in the ideal attack position.

The ideal attack position for me is as close as possible to the targets but just off the welcome screen, so your opponents don't see you when they first log in. In keeping up with the game, many players don't do standard map sweeps of the area every day. They just log in and go.

Be sneaky sneaky, and you can punish them for this. On the map, put your target in the center of the screen. Scroll just off the screen and find a city you can take (ideally) or a flat in good position (realistically), and get ready.

Take one if you can, but most likely you'll be buildin'.

So, you've found spot for your city. What then?

WHAT YOUR CITY NEEDS

This is a forward attack city. You ONLY want stuff that is going to help you launch attacks. You won't be building troops here (probably) – you'll be importing them in from elsewhere.

Your city is going to be a lean, mean, fighting machine that you can just launch attacks from and abandon without regret later. If it becomes something bigger, fine, but don't get attached to it.

Because of this, you can get by with bare-bones. You need:

• Academy at least 5, ideally 6 or higher. (A 6 academy gets you access to archery 10, which is the key technology. Get it higher if you can but it takes so long at high levels ...)

• Level 9 rally spot

• An Inn (so you can build a feasting hall)
  
  
• Feasting Hall as high as possible, but 5 or six will work. Remember hero count determines how many waves you can send.
  
  
• Beacon Tower as high as possible.
  
  
• Marketplace + Barracks (not required, although nice! Use the market to buy stuff you need during the fray, the barracks to reinforce)
  
  
• Other buildings ONLY insofar as you need them to build the aforementioned buildings

I might be leaving something out, but I don't think so. If I had more time, I'd do a “do this building, in this order” post, but this is going to be long enough anyway and I don't have time to do this now. Maybe later when I do this strategy again!

The point is, you only need buildings that'll help you attack. You need a 9 rally spot to send 90K troops. You need a feasting hall to send heroes out to fight. You need a high beacon tower to see when their attacks are coming, so you can send your transports away with resources RIGHT before they arrive. Etc.

Also: You need at least Academy 4 to get archery research at all, and the higher it is, the more research you access. Check in the academy – the number on the right tells you what level your research is operating at in that city. Use as much of it as you can. It helps your fighters.

WHAT YOUR CITY DOES NOT NEED

• A town hall higher than 3
• Any wall defenses

The idea is to surprise them and minimize their potential gain by attacking you. Keep your town hall level low, even if (and this is a big if) you have enough time to start upgrading walls. This keeps your city small and, even if they see you, should make you look as unassuming as possible.

Why no wall defenses? So they get NOTHING when they attack you. If you have defenses, they win honor by attacking you. You want them to get nothing.

I can bend on this point, because I understand peeps wanting their opponents to lose troops as a consequence of attacking.

But I think it's even more fun to watch them send 100K archers at me and get ... -4 loyalty in my city, a long march, and like 3 gold coins. I think that's hilarious.

WHAT YOU SHOULD SEND TO YOUR CITY WHEN READY

• Bigass breaker troops, lots of archers and warriors
• Transporters (to send resources away in)
  
• Horses? Maybe, esp if you have a lot and want to take a city.
• Scouts? Sure, why not?

This is why it helps to have a high relief station in your main cities. You can reinforce your forward attack city with troops faster.

Just be sure you have enough troops to hit 'em hard.

Another potentially hilarious thing is to load your city with scouts. Imagine if they scout you and can't get in.

They won't know what the hell is going on. You can get off a few extra attacks just while they're bewildered. And who knows, they might even be afraid to attack you! After all, 90K troops are coming from this city. If you couldn't scout it, wouldn't you be scared about what might be lurking?

BUT WHAT IF THEY SEE MY WEAK-ASS CITY AND ATTACK ME? WHAT DO I DO?

So they hit you. So what? If you keep the gate closed, they can't kill troops. If you don't build wall defenses, they can't get honor.

And, since you know you're going to be online, they can't steal your loot. Every time they send looters, you just send away all your resources in the transporters you've wisely kept on hand – recalling them after the attack hits – so they can't get your resources!

If you set up your comforting resource train well, they probably can't take the city either, unless a) there's lots of them online, b) they're well-organized, c) have lots of horses and d) either know this strategy or figure it out quickly.

ALL of those things have to be true in order for them to take the city. Plus, there's a strategy explained below that can prevent this from happening even if all those conditions are met. And even if they take the city, who cares? You were going to abandon it anyway.

You hit their core cities. They hit a throwaway town you don't give a shit about. So what do you care if they hit you? (You can also NPC the city right before the wave hits and own their troops, too, if you want. But it won't come to that.)

SO HOW DO I STOP THEM FROM TAKING MY CITY, AND HOW DO I KEEP ATTACKING?

That's where your friend comes in, chief.

So, they can't take your honor. You've got no wall defenses. They can't kill your troops. You've got the gate closed. They can't take your resources. You're on the stick with the transporters.

But they can take your loyalty. You need to guard against that. Here's how.

First, have a friend with tons of horses – say, at least 10K – who will be online at the same time.

Second, make sure you have enough gold in the city to pay your heroes. When you're ready to attack, set the tax rate to zero so you get 100% loyalty.

Third, unleash absolute fucking hell on them with attacks. You'll have the element of surprise, and they might be offline. If they are online, it's still cool.

A typical attack will kill loyalty by 4 points at a time until loyalty reaches 15. That means they need to hit you 21 times before loyalty even hits 15. With loyalty loss coming much slower under 15, that probably means another 30-35 attacks to take the city. At least!

That's a lot of damn attacks. Unless you are in a nest of tons of them, and they are all online, and they are well organized, and they see what you are doing, you probably won't face that many. Even if they have that capability, you still have the element of surprise, so time is on your side.

And all that isn't even taking into account comforting, which is key.

You can pray every 15 minutes. It increases loyalty by 25 every time.

To make sure they can't take it, have your friend set up to deliver you cavalry waves of food and/or gold once every 15 minutes. Take the stuff, immediately pray with it. They can't get it now.

Doing the math, this means they need to hit your city seven times every 15 minutes just to stop you from breaking even on loyalty. There's almost no way they can do this. Once you get down below 5 loyalty, if you do, it's even harder – nigh impossible, I'd wager.

Just keep hitting them until your troops run out. If your forces are stronger than theirs, it doesn't matter how strong their city is. As long as you can successfully break attack their city or cities, you're golden.

Obviously, stuff goes wrong. I'd be interested to hear peoples' experiences, and problems they could see.

In my experience, this is a fun, no-cost, and often very entertaining strategy. Watch their big bad level 10 cities fall to your weasely little thing that looks like it just got out of beginner's protection.

Good times!

Level 10 NPC Medal Farming & Capture

The point of this entry is to educate the user on attacking to obtain Justice and Nation medals to advance titles, and subsequently capture a lvl 10 NPC. The main advantages of obtaining this grand behemoth is to advance your techs with the lvl 10 construction within and furthermore be able to utilize the lvl 10 rally point inside.

With this in mind, any Michaelangelo's Scripts that you obtain should be used for 1 rally point (to more successfully take a lvl 10 NPC) and walls in your other cities. It is best to wait to get the NPC in order to have lvl 10 Inn, workshop, forge, stable, etc. After obtaining the lvl 10 NPC, it is recommended to demolish all remaining in your existing cities instances of these buildings, along with warehouses to make room for more barracks.

Things you will need before beginning the conquest...

Location:
be within 2 miles of a lvl 10 city (I did 3.2 miles and it was a nightmare)
feel free to take a lvl 10 flat and build your own...just wait 8 hrs since troop spawn is automatic, but resources will take time to build up...there's 19M food there, you're gonna need that to feed those troops (read on)

Time:
give yourself approx 2 hrs (this is a max)
make sure you won't be interrupted by a server update (you will have to start over immediately and will probably take total losses for anything that hits after!)

Items:
You will have to apply upgrades to minimize losses and increase the amount of troops to send. Be sure to have on hand...

1 War Ensign
1 Penicillin
1 Corselet
1 War Horn

Apply the penicillin, corselet and war horn before any attacks.

Heroes:
You should have some decent heroes available...at least 6 with attacks around 80 and above and 1 with over 100 atk.

Troops:
150K Archers, min. (I started with 170K, and kept building...but then again, I was far away)
150K Warriors, min. (I started with 175K)

Method:
So you wanna take on the Evony Behemoth...are you ready? Here's how it works.

Step 1 - Scout (I used 3K scouts) the city repeatedly until the NPC hero is at lvl 7 or below, this will help minimize losses.

Step 2 - Apply the corselet, penicillin and war horn

Step 3 - ATTACK! Use the war ensign on the first attack only. Max out with 124,720 archers and rainbow from worker to cataphract of 40 troops each. Use your 100+ atk hero for this job. You will receive about 2M experience points for your hero from this attack and high prestige...don't remember how much. This attack will wipe out the 400K warriors and most of the city's defenses. (a little less than a 9,000 archer loss) Note what time on the bottom right window of the attack screen the troops will arrive. (write it down and keep writing down the 6 min interval so you remember!)

Step 4 - This wave, and all subsequent waves, will be 25K warriors and 25K archers with whatever hero you want. No further applications of upgrades will be necessary from this point on.

For medal farming, I recommend hitting the city every 3 minutes. The NPC has a respawn of 40K troops and gains 3 loyalty points every 6 minutes. This will drop the loyalty by 3 every 6 minutes. With the 25K/25K troop method, you will receive a nation or justice medal on practically every attack with troops or defenses (which also respawn).

Keep doing this until you receive most of the justice medals you need. (you'll need 5 for Duke and 10 for Furstin, check to make sure you haven't already claimed the medal bonus for the medals after you receive the first one)

Step 5 - Cure the wounded after every attack hits in your rally point

Step 6 - Upgrade your heroes as they go! You're looking at between 250K to 500K exp per attack...

Step 7 - OK, you've been attacking for a little while now and you've got most of your justice medals...you've managed to get the NPC down to a loyalty of around 50-something and you're tired, cross-eyed from staring at attack reports and you just want to take this thing already.

The only difference is you start sending faster...as many times as you can within each 6 minute interval. Make sure you get a balance of hitting while other armies are returning...this will drop the loyalty very fast. The beauty of NPC conquering is that when you get the loy down to smaller digits, there is no waiting to time your attacks, just keep hitting and that 5 will become a 2 and after the 2 it will be yours...

BUT NOW THE WORK BEGINS!

You've conquered the behemoth...now what? What do I do with a city that has 37 lvl 10 farms and only 1 of each of the rest? Why are there 20 lvl 10 cottages and only 1 lvl 10 barracks? Crazy I know, and as painful as it is...its time to tear down.

Odds are you won't need a lot of money anymore except for those tasty lvl 10 researches you can complete now. Get a high intel hero in there ASAP. Start your first research as soon as you can.

Get transports and ballista over there and don't forget the lumber, stone and iron and get those defenses up PRONTO! You've worked too hard to have this taken away from you.

Comfort the city to get the loyalty back up.

Start tearing down cottages (I like a min of 12 barracks in my cities) so tear down 11 cottages and build up your barracks.

Set the tax rate at 20% or below to keep about 14K or more idle pop for troop queueing.

I haven't done anything with the farms yet because frankly, I needed that many. Don't forget to start getting valleys for this beast...I recommend high level lakes and swamps. 'Port in your resources from other cities.

I'm looking into farming lvl 8 NPCs for the other resources...this will be a separate post once I have figured it out...but eventually, resource fields may become entirely unnecessary!

GOOD LUCK! and feel free to add or edit any information in here...as long as its better!

Le Medici
Z2K forever!

Welcome message for new members and rules of our alliance

First I would like to say WELCOME to our new members.
We are very happy that you have chosen to except our invite.
We do hope that you will soon feel at home with us.
We ask that if you need anything at all please ask in chat. If you ask you shall receive. This is the way that we grow and every member helps every member out in any way they can.
This also means that if you have extra resources and someone close to you ask if you can spare that resource please send them as much as you can.
Please follow the growth of your city post as much as possible. We have tried many ways and this seems to be the fastest way to get your city to the tops.

We want you to grow so we can grow. That is the purpose of this all.

Ok on to rules of the fight.
Please be careful who you choose to fight. You may see a small city next to you. Look at the Lord/Lady info. It will list 2 numbers. 1 will be the prestige the other will be honor. If eithier of those numbers are higher than yours please leave it alone. Also if you are under 200K prestige yourself please do not try to attack someone that is higher than 200K. You WILL loose and most likely they will counterattack you and wipe your defenses out. When you are stronger you may attack them. And yes this does also apply to a city that would be considered a baby city.

It is also advised that you ask in chat about the person and alliance you are considering attacking. Even though the flag might be gray we as a group might not care or might advise you to leave them alone. This has more to do with their alliance than anything else. They might be a member of an alliance that we really do not wish to start a war against. If you get a go on your request have at it. We do make decisions as a group and expect that you comunicate with us as we comunicate with you. If we do not know what you are doing or planning we can not adiquatly help you. We will back you up 100% if you inform us.

We feel that every member should have at least 1 city in Tuscany. So as soon as you get a teleport please tele over. This is where we are based and we can protect you the best. As for your other cities we want them wherever you have them that way you can help others near you and they can help you.

One thing that is important is to know your neighbors and your area. If war is declared and your neighbor is in that alliance you better know their strenght. And better yet have a good relationship with them. If you notice that within a few day you have tons of red flags which means they are hostil appear in your area that were not there before PLEASE let us know. This could very well mean that they are planing on attacking you. And we need to help you out. This is a very common stragety and we know it well.

This does not cover everthing so if you still have any questions please post them here or ask in chat. Please also remeber to keep your defenses up, build troops, and build, build, build. Have fun and know that you are a very important member here with Z2k. Without you we would not be here. Please remeber to ask for what is needed. If you do we will give it to you so you can build faster.

Once again WELCOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

DicknBox

As if the name alone weren't enough to make you want to take their cities, these turtles are now trying to organize an alliance against us. This will not stand.

I scouted as many as I can find, and they have lots of defenses, but not a lot of well-thought-out defenses. Here's all the coordinates, scouting reports and (in a few minutes) my notes:

355 461
battle19.evony.com/default.html?logfile/92/37/3c/53/92373c5349cdc83fa5452ba42897b438.xml


309 444 is easy:
battle19.evony.com/default.html?logfile/70/6a/26/dc/706a26dc6f89433c85ff2788a099fed4.xml

273 423
battle19.evony.com/default.html?logfile/35/0f/ad/b0/350fadb0a3d04bd8830d86c02305084d.xml

332 418
battle19.evony.com/default.html?logfile/08/8a/49/54/088a49540b565dd1dbae06b364b28ec2.xml

333 418
battle19.evony.com/default.html?logfile/c6/b7/c0/e1/c6b7c0e15742f0058cd902b0b77e3d3b.xml

312 384
battle19.evony.com/default.html?logfile/bf/c6/1d/43/bfc61d4312e14ee7572c4e7a289cbd02.xml

335 385
battle19.evony.com/default.html?logfile/f3/e6/5d/10/f3e65d106206c4d6dbe4db95a36f7cc6.xml

261 384
battle19.evony.com/default.html?logfile/d3/b6/c3/50/d3b6c35046e219c6b7d36477da63b83d.xml

272 424
battle19.evony.com/default.html?logfile/05/98/75/19/05987519db70a17615367c316aa76e1e.xml

Orders

I have received reliable and disturbing information. A big attack is coming against us.

We welcome the action and challenge, but we HAVE to be prepared. Here is what we need to do with the time we have.

First, remember: You can build buildings, wall defenses, troops and do academy research at the same time. Make sure you do, to maximize the time we have to prepare.

Some might say, "yeah, but I don't have enough lumber/food/whatever to do all that." To you I say:


IF YOU NEED RESOURCES, ASK FOR THEM

It helps all of us when all of us are developing as fast as possible. If there is a limiting factor on your development -- i.e., you need gold to research archery -- get in chat and ask for those resources. Do not be shy.

That's the watchword: keep developing. Farm those NPCs. Fill up your barracks and production queues for defenses. Ask for help if you need it.

DEFENSES

Archer towers are the number one priority. Keep them building constantly. Do not stop until your wall is filled up with defenses.

Traps are a good secondary measure. They are quick, cheap to build and efficient. Build them. Don't worry about building any more of the other things.


BARRACKS

Keep your barracks producing AT ALL TIMES. Top priority should be archers, cavalry and warriors, in that order. Try to get production queues lined up 24 hours in advance if you can. Two reasons: first, if something comes up in your life you'll keep producing, and second, enemies can't loot resources you've spent already.

Archers are the most versatile unit for attack and defense. Warriors are a cheap meat shield. And cavalry can help you transport goods quickly or reinforce enemies. Get those.



EMBASSY

Upgrade your embassy. If it's not at 9, get it there fast.

The higher level the embassy is, the more waves of support we can send. This is also why you build cavalry -- to send help fast if needed. And make sure the "garrison allied troops" box is checked.


RESEARCH

If you do not have archery 10, GET IT NOW. This may be the most important defense technology.


MAKE FRIENDS WITH NEIGHBORS

We have lots of allies and are going to get more. If you see a blue flag near you, email them if you haven't (or even if you have). Tell them war is coming. Tell them you'll have their back, and that all of us in Tuscany are going to have to stand together. Ask for their support in return.

And don't be afraid to mail them when things hit the fan.


IF THE WORST SHOULD HAPPEN

Here's what to do if attacked. You'll note one of the last resort things is "teleport out."

If you do, teleport to Tuscany, and try to get as close to 312, 479 as possible. That's where my main city is.

Good luck, thanks for your patience, and good hunting.

What's My Ideal Building Configuration?

First, I'll let y'all know that some other active Z2K players are going to be posting to this blog, too. Despite what the name implies, this is meant to be a place where we can all share strategy thoughts on the game to help newer players and get our own thoughts organized.

Hence, you might see posts from ToRak1i and/or sunshinerinker (who made a very useful list of enemy coordinates already). If you want to post, you can always mail me and ask to be added. The comments also work. Instead of Noone's Evony blog, I hope this starts to become Everyone's Evony Blog. Everyone from Z2K anyway.

That being said, a lot of folks ask me what their ideal building configuration should be like (i.e., how many of what building should I have?).

The answer, like most answers in life, is "it depends." It depends on where you're at in the development stage. But I made some mistakes going through the building process, and I hope hearing about them is helpful for you.

STARTING OUT

My strategy when starting out was to establish a solid defense array first -- upgrade walls, max out wall defenses ASAP by building Archer Towers, traps, and a small amount of the other defense items.

The idea is, this helps me develop, which gives me a kick-ass resource stream. If I make myself a hard target to attack, I can develop in peace -- meaning I give myself the ability to build a big army because no one is attacking me. This has worked out well for me, although that might be less the defense strategy and more that I was fortunate to spawn in a peaceful area.

Generally I think the "defense first" approach is a good strategy for beginning players, though. There are so many soft targets around -- players that quit, or are inactive, or just haven't built defenses -- that even if a neighbor can whack you, why would they? They can either whack you and take some losses, or whack someone else and not. Easy call.

Then, I focused on resources. In retrospect, the mistakes I made involved building too many farms and WAY too few sawmills and slightly too few iron mines.

I thought I'd need to feed my big army I planned to build. I was right, I would -- but it's basically impossible to feed a big army by just using your resource fields, even if you fill all 9 valley slots with high-level lakes. You'll have to NPC farm, and when you do, food becomes a non-issue. At least with the current game patch.

Another mistake I made: leaving too few empty building spaces. I didn't leave myself enough flexibility to build what I needed as I was learning. I think I improved upon this with subsequent cities.

The thing is, your needs change. Just as you were really stoked to get 40,000 food from the wheel when you were level 1, and now you hate getting that food worse than the Devil, your building needs change. With a little foresight, you can plan for these.

For example, you need more barracks. No, really, you do. You might not need them now, so you don't necessarily have to build them until you have the resource stream to keep them humming with troops, but you should leave spots for them.

Specifically, right now we in Z2K need to build bigger armies and that means building more barracks. If you have a good resource stream, we can maximize productivity by keeping a bunch of barracks full of training troops at all times.

How many more? Well, again, that depends on where you're at. I'd say you need at least 3 once you're out of beginner's protection, and most of my cities now have at least 6.

There are two good reasons for this. First, you maximize troop production, and second, you maximize speed of production in a crisis. That is, you might not be able to keep all barracks stocked for six hours at a clip, but when you REALLY need those archers, 6 barracks make them 6 times faster than one.

THE ACADEMY IS YOUR FRIEND AND OTHER INTERMEDIATE THOUGHTS

When you start to have multiple cities, you have different needs.

For instance: Remember all that research that took like 180 hours? Well, you can apply it in every city you have. But you MUST have an academy that's high enough in EACH city. Handy trick: inside the academy, you can tell what level of each skill you have access to. The first number is how high you've researched it; the second number is how high the academy in that city will let you access.

So if you've spent a ton of time and resources on archery 9, get all your academies up to level 9 ASAP.

Oh, and your ass really needs an embassy. If you want help from other alliance members, anyway. You need to have that sucker at level 3 or better, and the "allow allied troops to garrison" box has to be checked.

Why? Say you're offline and get attacked. If that box isn't checked, we can't do anything to help you. We might be able to attack the attacker, but that's a) if we can find him, b) if we're in the area, c) if he's vulnerable (defenders get bonuses in combat), and d) it still might not work because another enemy might always attack you or the current opponent might attack from a different city.

Why level 3 or better? Because the level determines how many waves of support we can send. Let's say me, Seasnake, sunshinerinker, ToRak1i, Bostitch, LDMisha, and Medici can all send, oh, I dunno, 5000 cavalry each to help you.

If you're at level one, you get 5000 cavalry from one of us. If you're at level 7, you get 35,000 cavalry from everyone. That's a HUGE difference, and can make the difference between a city being taken or not.

You know what's sweet that I didn't think was super-necessary at first? A relief station. This is only when you start to get several cities and need to ship resources around a lot, or you are the resource maven who needs to re-supply alliance members.

It makes shipping resources so much faster, which is very handy for supplying a friend in need or for when you need to start your level 9 walls but ARGH I HAVE ALMOST ENOUGH STONE. The difference between it taking an hour to ship stone from another city and it taking 15 minutes could save you from heart disease due to stress.

Remember, though, after level 5 relief station you only get bonuses again at level 8 and 10. So getting to level 5 is a higher priority than advancing beyond that.

Again, a station is only helpful when you have several cities or need to help your far-flung friends -- but when that's the case, it's a godsend.

WHEN YOU'VE BUILT TOO MUCH

So I've spent far too many words telling you about things I think you need. But what DON'T you need?

Some buildings will always help you. You definitely need high-level barracks, academy, beacon tower, rally spot, academy and feasting hall. These help you build troops, access research spot enemies, and kick enemy ass, in that order.

But there are some buildings that once you're done with them, you can just dismantle them -- either with dynamite if you have that, or one level at a time if you don't. To dismantle, just click on the building, and click the little red circle/slash icon on the left.

These buildings include structures that help you get valuable stuff -- but after that lose their usefulness. You need a stable and a forge to do certain research, and a workshop to build walls. But unlike an academy, once you have met the requirements, they don't help you any more.

Once you have level 10 walls, for example, you don't need a workshop. It, like an old baseball trophy or that copy of A Brief History of Time you never read, is just taking up space. So knock that sucker down and build a barracks, or a cottage if you're having population issues, or a relief station if you didn't see why you needed one before (but don't knock down the stable until you've leveled up the relief station!).

This isn't an exact science, and I'm still learning a lot about it. Everything is situational and context-dependent. I'll just wrap it up there and hope some of this was helpful.

coordinates of hostiles

coordinates of hostiles
I decided to write this blog because I got sick of trying to find the hostile that was attacking a city of our member while they are not online. This can get rather frustrating. Because if your embassy is low or full we can not reinforce you so what else are we to do to get them to stop. Unfortunately the attack reports do not show us where they are. But they do show who they are. So I ask that if you look around your area which you should do periodically anyways and you see that there is a hostile there and it is not on this list please let sunshinerinker know so that it can be added. Since this list is not complete and probularly never will be since players move alot please send any updates there as well. If you see that a player is being attacked look here to see if we have the attackers coordinates. By the way if you have not already done so please mail Noone YOUR coordinates as he is putting together a list of where our members are at. So this is the list we have so far:

Xorn:
Host: Hotrodz911 241,339 - 243,342 - 242,343 - 215,328
rohand II 195,274 - 193,275
foot 109,296 - 108,296 - 172,282
Kleung 107,295 - 210,304
Hekate 205,318 - 203,318 - 205,322 - 202,321 - 201,320 - 219,328
Riftmaster 164,347 - 163,348 - 162,353 - 160,352
Timelord 299,281 - 233,307 - 233,310 - 230,308
loganator 288,368
Penath 248,329 - 238,438 - 247,327
Dumpster 238,435 - 238,350 - 235,352 - 231, 349 - 235, 365
Dreadnought 241,351
Kilon 235,350
Caspious 232,360 - 232, 361 - 232, 369 - 229, 372
Azurel 160, 265 - 161, 265 - 159, 263
LegendLiu 205, 290 - 201, 282 - 210, 282
Cailyn 215, 278 - 223, 238 - 225, 236
Aiyanna 192,290
FrankRoss 235, 310
PinkyToedNija 221,320 - 220,320 - 220,319 - 218,321 - 217,321 - 217, 317
Radcliffe 191,334 - 177,350 - 182,349 - 179,351
Lord Bartman 178,361 - 178,362
Crownless 189,337
Fredbomb 195,330 - 184,342 - 184,341
Quark 165,347
Onilwyn 165,350 - 165,351
Rochelobe 233,246 - 235,248 - 237,249
*Foot (more) 177-354 - 177,359 - 177,353
Rustori 245,235
Li 226,370 - 225,370
Skyvorik 207,348 - 210,342 - 209,342
Caitlin Zero 213,344 - 214,344






Non allied we are after
NgaoNghe= (243,378),(256,353),(258,357)



Bey:
lovheim= 83,150
Tonka= 257,449
joeboy= 1) 79, 265 2) 64, 232 3) 62, 232 4) 65, 229
Ruggieri= 1) 93, 251 2) 2, 202 3) 0, 204
Lilibeth= 1) 98, 256 2) 99, 258
An Argonaut=1) 32, 353 2) 32, 354
Dragon23= 1) 60, 239
vel= 1) 18, 185 2) 20, 182 3) 21, 181 4) 21, 179 5) 18, 188 6) 17, 188 7) 22, 188
Starhunter= 1) 14, 184
Takisdarr= 1) 17, 171
Maark= 1) 15, 165 2) 16, 165
Minidante= 1) 354, 496
Buffalo= 1) 5, 242 2) 6, 242
Stikk= 1) 86, 191 2) 85, 189
Aelfwine= 1) 86, 202 2) 90, 211 3) 89, 208
Hagia Sophia= 1) 58, 198 2) 56, 192
jeffry= 1) 54, 188 2) 51, 194
Avalon2= 1) 51, 165
Avalon= 1) 49, 165
Kornholijo= 1) 24, 196
Lyra= 1) 71, 180 2) 71, 178
Von Smack= 1) 41, 188 2) 46, 192 3) 46, 190 4) 46, 189 5) 45, 189
vonbake= 1) 317, 152 2) 315, 153 3) 314, 153 4) 313, 152 5) 311, 150 6) 314,157
Orion Justice= 1) 314, 151 2) 313, 150 3) 316, 150
Buffalo= 1) 5,242 2) 6, 242
Undertaker= 22,284

Bey Acadmy

Jenovah= 1) 105, 259
Torqak= 1) 65, 316
Mansage=1) 33, 356 2) 31, 352
The One= 1) 31, 354 2) 31, 353
princess maya= 1) 59, 256 2)57, 257
Seeker= 1) 3, 248
Franton= 1) 93, 229 2) 93, 228
Ramlem= Officer 1) 60,195 this town is called Pixie, kill it 22, 198 26,629
Abba Moses= 1) 56, 193
Phant(Lord= Officer 1) 54, 177 36,864
Psappsha= 1) 20, 197
GregT100= 1) 42, 182
joddn= 1) 2, 204
Monodante= 1) 321, 451
urtle= 1) 88,251 2) 87,251
ronson= 1) 82,243 2) 81,243 3) 80,242 4) 79,241 5) 78,241
Iasus= 1) 10,237 2) 10,236
An Argonaut= 32,353 32,354
Cros= host, 169,568 75,151 82,153 81,155
DagasSiren= Vice host, 109,515 96,145 97,144
Vidacious= Presbyter, 62,819 82,153 82,151 81,151 81,150 87,152 82,150

DnB
Machine= 253, 447 255, 448
Affliction= 335, 385
MachineII= 312, 384
Obi-Won= 272, 424 273, 423

Gods Army

King Paolo= 1) 135, 423
Spcmonkey= 0,367 499,377
Seraf= 335, 20.
cutiepants= (253,347), (314, 319)
JohnScott= (295, 359)
Schnotty= (314, 317), (315, 317), (313, 319)
Dman 2000(238,408)
hassan(217,355)(218,354)
Salmander(71,110)


Method

aic2= 1) 374, 419
Cohbi= 1) 402, 429 2) 406, 429 3) 406, 427
Spritz= 2 of 4:(402,395),(402,401)
shp3ck= 2 of 2:(393,413),(391,414)
Arryko= 1 of 3:(396,417)
Mokok= 1 of 4:(405,399)
Sylvanas 1 of 4:(404,338)
ioana= (270, 385) (266,384)
GETY= 302, 397 302,395 300, 395
Aris (451,491),(452,494),(451,495)
Pit(Lord (496,400)
Kusok (422,398),(422,397),(422,400)
Manuael (419,402)
Tannis (420,404)



militia
mac1 1 of 1 dead:(404,384)
Wired 1 of 1:(423,376)
DamionDarkeyes 1 of 1:(442,358)
Bendis= 104, 306 386, 406
Areneth(493,494)
Prince Vlad(483,490)



UNSC

Ivanv78= 1) 349, 7 2)349, 5 3) 350, 6 4) 351, 5 5) 352, 5
LD: Ibelim= 498,364 497,364
Lyndaron= 42,297
de Polruan= 308, 388 306,385

FokJouOp

Hannibal= 1) 50, 325 2) 87, 387
Charlemagne= 1) 72, 399 2) 73, 403 3) 74, 402
Pug= 1) 71, 402 2) 73, 401
Pip= 1) 71, 403
wow2263= 1) 70, 407
Izeman= 1) 357, 494
CopKilla= 1) 379, 462
Lord warcraft= 1) 157, 493
The Regulator=1) 101, 387 2) 101, 388
LordBouBou= 1) 3,361 2) 2,360 3) 1,360
JACKy7= 83,468
Lord Mortec= 97,399 101,378 100,378 100,377 100,376 99,376 98,370

Chaos

Quinne= 1) 109, 243
Cyram= 1) 109, 237
LSDnXTC= 1) 17, 207
Fafmire= 1) 5, 211 2) 6, 209 3) 8, 208 4) 8, 210
Marty= 1) 112, 229
Tonic= 1) 104, 277 2) 103, 279
Tif= 1) 60, 242 2) 58, 241 3)56, 242
Astlyr= 1) 14, 181
Brutts= 1) 17, 175
Asta Rotinn= 1) 13, 175 2) 14, 170
Shadella= 1) 9, 170 2) 15, 167
L ydiaseng= 1) 12, 169
niagarafall= 1) 12, 168 2) 14, 168
buckbolus= 1) 12, 163 2) 13, 160
Lord James Stephens= 1) 68, 194
mathewisinl= 1) 85, 191 2) 83, 195
Mercilsse= 1) 87, 188 2) 87, 187 3) 86, 187
Boghi= 1) 93, 233 2) 93, 234 3) 92, 236
Rawr Rika= 1) 59, 200 2) 56, 195 3) 54, 195
bdtrain= 1) 55, 191 2) 54, 191
The Natural= 1) 56, 183 2) 55, 173 3) 55, 171
birdie= 1) 58, 174
Dvalin= 1) 29, 199 2) 29, 200 3) 28, 200
grim= 1) 26, 200
Roma(Lady)= 1) 21, 195
Salamander= 1) 35, 197
Ionus= 1) 43, 184 2) 43, 183 3) 43, 182
Dastrip= 1) 73, 181
Natman= 1) 77, 185 2) 77, 173 3) 75, 166
sladja= 1) 2,239 2) 2,238


MOTB
flimflan= 347, 466
daniel27= 296, 473 296, 472
Petris= (114, 67),
Tarant=(38, 71),
Rixis(58,19)
Latty(47,480)
Merlin29(37,477)(37,476)


Even though each members citys are listed and numbered that does not mean that they do not have more all that means is that we have not located them yet.
This list needs everyones cooperation so that it stays up to date. Please remember to send sunshinerinker mail if you have any changes to this list. Please also remember to mail Noone and let him know where you are located.

How do I NPC farm?

First, because I didn't have time to write any kind an introduction on the first blog post, let me say this briefly: this blog is designed for longer messages to Z2K members than we can get across in chat and email. We won't post private strategy items here unless we can password-protect them.

Mostly, we'll cover basic strategy items that our members should know about. Hopefully, intermediate players will be able to pick up some tricks too. If you see anything I've left out for one of these, definitely email me -- or if you're interested in posting on this blog, let me know that too.

That said, let's get on with NPC farming.

Every member of Z2K should have an NPC farm. It will help you raise resources and advance immeasurably. I can't say this strongly enough.

What is NPC farming? It's where you use ballistas and transporters (and ONLY ballistas and transporters) to extract resources from NPC cities. Hopefully, your city has lots of NPCs nearby. If not, you can create them.

There are two steps to NPC farming. One is just raiding NPCs that exist near you. You can do this with ballistas, transporters, archery research and (later on) horseback riding research. You don't need an open city slot.

The second step is creating NPC cities right next to you to farm. This is more efficient, because ballistae and transporters move slowly. It does require you to have an open city slot.

If you can't do this yet, take the first step. You'll get tons of resources, which will help you advance, which will help you build more ballistas, which will help you take on higher-level NPC cities, which will help you advance ... and so on and so forth.

WHAT DO I NEED TO RAID NPC CITIES?

So far, it seems like you can raid up to NPC level 5 cities without losing any ballistas if you have the right configuration.

More or less, you need lots of ballistas, a high-level archery research (which you should be researching anyway, since it's the most important technology), a hero with good attack levels, and for level 5 NPCs horseback riding research.

NOTE: These are not exact, and even if they were, sometimes Evony patches change things. These are the configurations I have had 100% success with, meaning they should be safe for you, too. Other members, like ToRak1i, have had success with fewer ballistas. Your mileage may vary.

You also need enough transporters to carry home the loot. How many depends on how far your city is from the NPC. In general I use 280 transporters for level 4, 560 for level 5.

Level 1 NPC: 30 ballistas, archery 7 (215,000 resources)
Level 2 NPC: 50 ballistas, archery 7 (355,000 resources)
Level 3 NPC: 150 ballistas, archery 8 (1.2 million resources)
Level 4 NPC: 300 ballistas, archery 9 (2.26 million resources)
Level 5 NPC: 600 ballistas, archery 9, horseback riding 9 (4.6 million resources)

It is probably worthwhile to raid level 6 and above, but as of now we don't know how to do it without loss. Ditto for raiding with catapults -- just don't know how to do it.

So after you've raided a few NPCs, you're going to want a few handy to raid all the time -- and quickly, since these siege engines are slow.

HOW TO BUILD AN NPC FARM

1. Have an open city slot. You get this by advancing ranks in the game.
2. Take over a flat. Pick wisely -- you'll want to conquer a flat that is close to your city, and is the same level as the NPC you want to raid.
3. Select "build city." You need 250 workers and 10,000 of each resource to do this.
4. Abandon the city. (If you want to keep the workers, first build a rally spot and send them back to another city, otherwise they get abandoned with the new city.) To abandon the city, go to "Overview," the "Cities" tab, and click "abandon."

It'll create an NPC city that is the same level as the flat you conquered. In 8 hours, it'll be full of resources.

NPCs replenish every 8 hours and after every server reset, so you can farm the resources out of 'em with regularity. Get into a routine. Do it every day a few times.

Before you know it, you'll have all the resources you need, and medals too. Bam.

What to do if you're attacked

PRE-ATTACK PREPARATION
1. Don't make yourself a target. Build wall defenses and armies. Keep your resources at work producing things -- if you've bought armies or defenses, they can't be stolen from you.

2. Build an Embassy in EVERY city and keep the box checked. Your embassy determines how many waves of supporting troops you can accept from allies. You have to check a box inside the embassy to garrison allied troops. CHECK THE BOX. Make sure your embassy is at least level 3, ideally higher, or the help we can provide is limited.

3. Should I open the gates in my Rally Spot? Maybe. Only if you a) have a really strong army and b) don't mind losing your army if attacked. The army will automatically fight once your city's loyalty drops to 5.

4. Build your beacon tower. The higher level it is, the better information you'll get about the attack that's coming. The dove will flash red on your reports button. That's how you know you're being attacked.

5. Know your neighbors. Find nearby Z2K members. Find allies. Write to them. Support them when they're in need, and they'll do the same for you.

WHEN I AM ATTACKED, WHAT DO I DO?

1. Alert the alliance immediately. Go to alliance chat. Ask for help. Mail your neighbors. Give them ALL the info you have.

2. Put your highest level attack hero in as mayor. This helps your troops fight.

3. Send resources away. Putting them up for sale at the market does not work. Sending resources to other cities in transporters or hiding them in valleys does work.

4. Spend resources you can't send away immediately. Put troops in queue or buy wall defenses.

5. Power up with bonuses. You may have items that increase your defense or offense. Remember them and apply them.

IT LOOKS REALLY BAD FOR ME. WHAT ARE MY OPTIONS?

You lose a city when loyalty gets to zero. This takes a long time and multiple attack waves. To boost your loyalty, lower your tax rate to zero. You can also do "comforting," as we'll see below. But there are other strategies too.

1. Use a "Truce" item if you have it. A truce only works for ONE of your cities, not all. It prevents you from being attacked (or attacking) for 12 hours. However, after that 12 hours has expired, you may not use another truce for another 12 hours. It enables you to have some breathing room to develop and get reinforcements from the alliance.

If you don't have a Truce:

2. You can keep trying to save the city by comforting (in the town hall). This may not deter a persistent enemy. You can also:

3. Teleport away. You should teleport to Tuscany if this is the case -- we can protect you there.

4. Abandon the city. Only do this if you have no other option, but it turns your city into an NPC and prevents the opponent from capturing it. You do this by going into "overview," into "cities," and clicking "abandon." Then you can build a new city elsewhere.

One other thing: if you're going to be away, let alliance members (and no one else!) know. Make sure someone can check your account and keep an eye on things for you.