Paying It Forward

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!