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.