Age 56 - Strength in Union - Crown Winners
AGE 56 - STRENGTH IN UNION
CROWN WINNERS
Kingdom #1 Land and #1 Networth
Kingdom: Sanctuary of Absalom
Total Land: 426,334 Acres
Total Networth: 95,721,747 Networth
Interviewee: Dorje
There are already a few shiny land and networth crowns in the display cabinets of Sanctuary of Absalom from ages past. They last won these crowns in age 47, and Sanctuary finished a consistent #2 in recent ages [53, 54, 55]. However, in age 56, the gold was theirs once again!
Congratulations on finishing #1 this age. How do you feel?
Obviously, we're happy to win #1 land and networth.
Last age you lost an early war to eventual crown winners Beastblood, but warred and grew your way all the way up to #2. Did your OOP go a little more to plan this age?
Last age, we had a very poor econ setup, which was not good early. We spent the first half of last age rebuilding after that loss, and had a good finish.
This age was better, it was clear from the start that the best setup was avian merchant; we threw on a few human merchants for econ support and a ton of faery rogues and a couple of mystics.
The first few days we spent whoring, but then got waved by a somewhat better econ setup (Simians, with their human sages). They were a fair bit more pumped than us but we took it to war immediately to take best advantage of the overpowered war/post-war bonuses, and ended up winning handily in a bit more than 3 days.
You didn't have any more wars after that. Was there any particular reason?
About a week after we warred Simians, we waved Warrior Princesses, that became a retal war which lasted about 4 days before we ceasefired.
After that there was no time when any kingdom was in declare range of us, so getting another war was hard. This was largely because of the broken explore formula, which we made use of all age to double up our largest provinces to bigger size almost for free. Since no kingdom we weren't allied with could do this, it meant we had total control of the top provinces all age, and with each new doubling (about one every 6 days) that domination grew.
Essentially since about week 6, nobody but us or Rage had a chance to crown and it was just a contest to see who could farm smaller kingdoms the best.
Yes let's talk about that moment when it was pretty much a lock between Sanctuary and Rage for the crown... When people realized this, there were a few in the community calling for a Rage vs. Sanc war to decide the crown instead of you guys just having a farm out race as it would be 'more interesting' and showcase your warring skills against each other. Did you and Rage discuss the possibility of doing it? Was it going to/will it ever happen?
We were told we?d be deleted for fake-warring if we warred each other, so, I doubt that would happen. Also, Rage had a strong early-age setup while we had a strong late-age setup, they were designed to complement each other so there was no point in the age where a head-to-head fight would be all that fair.
Beastblood engaged Rage several times throughout the age, going into hostilities significantly smaller than Rage each time. What did you think each time this happened? Were you at all worried a reckless Beastblood would be farmed out by Rage and cost you guys the crown?
First time, Pulse [Beastblood] was coming out of a war and Rage vultured them (you can't really vulture now the way you could ages ago, since an oow kd has a high draft level and fort protection, but it's still a disadvantage). Rage gained a fair bit that war, especially on their bigs.
Second round, Rage was just unprepared and Pulse waved them, but did it completely foolishly and yes, Rage farmed them a lot.
You see the way top growth works with the broken explore formula, any province under about 10k acres (it varies over the course of the age) can easily random up to 10k, but provinces above 10k are completely stagnant.
In their second war, Rage grew their big ~5 provinces (again, the ones they had doubled up) by about 25k acres total. Had they gotten to whore back they would have finished about 50k ahead of us at that point, since they had many provinces that could random and tons more acres locked up at the top than we did.
Third round, Sanc could have jumped in front and warred Pulse, honestly we probably could have but that time Pulse was a lot more prepared than any of the other times. So Rage warred them instead and Rage gained a little in that war, but not really very much.
Fourth round was right after that war, when Rage waved them right oow...which clearly did not work out for them as they needed to force war in time for war to end by eoa.
I'd have liked to do it Rage's way with all warring, but when you're always warring kingdoms 75% your size it's not all that fun and just creates a grudge on their end by being bottomfed on.
But in short, yes, I was very concerned Pulse would farm out to Rage (as they did during the second war) and hand Rage a crown
Are there any final comments or special thanks you'd like to give?
Not really.
Thanks for the interview Dorje, much appreciated.
Kingdom #1 Honor
Kingdom: Warseekers
Total Honor: 160996
Interviewee: cRs
Warseekers are an up and coming warring kingdom who had a very impressive age, spending approximately 3/4 of the age in war and kicking ass at it (most of which was against other top honor kingdoms) which led them to end the age with a whopping 160k honor.
Congratulations! How do you feel?
Happy and tired. :)
160k honor, that?s a lot! Approximately how many of the 13 weeks did you spend in war?
I hope I ain?t wrong but I think 9 or 10, all we do is war/use after end of war cf and 1-2 days of fortified - then wave/hostile/war.
Warseekers was relatively unknown until this age. How long have you been around? How long have you been leading the kingdom?
Well, I could say I formed Warseekers - I landed in a ghetto and a week after the king left for a better kingdom. I was chosen and took over - we had like 5 active players. :P At the end of age we merged with another kingdom and I was chosen to monarch again. We?ve been around since about age 50/51.
Did you aim for the honor crown specifically at the start of age?
We don?t start with a goal (better to reach some than expect them). We just want to war and have fun. After a long war in about week four which generated a lot of honor, we entered the top 10. After that of course we started to aim for high honor wars. This was our first age we didn?t intra-raze instead we chose to use massive exploring on our chained guys.
The event that put you on the map was your war with Silly Pink Ghetto Cats, which was a #1 vs #2 honor war. They had a huge reputation and you were the first kingdom to break their 25 war win steak, was that a proud moment?
Honestly I didn?t even know who SPGC was. We were at the end of our New Year war with Plaidovia when I got a message from them asking for a war - I was like ?ok let?s do it.? Then I talked with my co-monarch and few friends/people in the kd and told me about them and said that we will have no chance.For the sake of Snp (co-monarch) I tried to avoid the war with diplomacy but in the end there was nothing to do - they were the only one in range with good honor/25 prov and ready for war. So I just said - all or nothing.
And you won! You brought your A-game and defeated them to have a nice lead in the honor race.
We had a great start - which give us hope. Then they came back from it and honestly we even thought of surrendering. Slowly we pulled it to our side with our T/Ms.
You then found yourself in another high honor war vs Ex-Nihilo in the last quarter of the age. This war looked likely to decide the honor crown. After more than 2 weeks of back and forward warring, in the last few days of the war you gained huge amount of honor and withdrew to secure the honor crown. Can you tell us a little about the closing days of that war?
We jumped ourselves into the war unprepared for all or nothing (ww/honor crown). We didn?t expect Ex-Nihilo to fight back as they did-congratulations to them. After 1st day of the war, we saw we would lose our chance at either crown and started to get ourselves back to the reality.
The last few days were mainly for honor whoring, we pumped our T/Ms to the point to whore their T/Ms, and dropped our attackers networth by any means - basically played vs. their strategy (pumping their T/Ms with offence and their attackers with def/forts - they had all attackers on -2mil TB+). We went only for max gaining and hitting higher NW with honor.
Snp and I watched the rankings and made calculations for the past 48h or so. When we saw the ranks update [with a massive lead in our favour], we stopped hits again (we stopped them like 2-3 times - Sorry for those who woke up in the morning to attack and I told them not to), and we surrendered ahead in honor because we could never know what would happen in the last few hours of the age - better a secured honor crown than an endless/non-settled war.
Do you have any final comments or special thanks you?d like to give?
I just wanna thanks Snp (co-monarch) for being him, mbab (wiki-mbab :P) for making this kingdom possible. Also, everyone who plays or played with us and made the honor crown possible - once a Warseeker always a Warseeker :) We had a great age but we could have done better... hopefully this nice "story" won?t end here - beating SPGC will not grant us fame for too long. :)
Thanks for the interview cRs, much appreciated.
Kingdom #1 Most Warring
Kingdom: Band of Brothers
Wars win/loss: 7/7
War win ratio: 7.15
Interviewee: James
Band of Brothers stole the #1 spot in the final days of the age and were the only kingdom to win seven wars in Age 56. Also, for those of you who may not know, they had also finished #3 on the warring chart in Age 55 under the name Sherlock Holmes with a War Win Ratio of 6.37.
Well, first of all, I find it very interesting and impressive that you can lead the most warring kingdom through mostly a phone and don't use IRC.How do you keep your kingdom organised? [Interview was done by Gmail chat and James used his phone].
Well we use whatsapp on our phones so we are always in touch with each other.We use pimp to keep track of ops and our own provinces. Everything else is in whatsapp. Everyone in the kingdom is on whatsapp now.
Amazing. So, how do you feel about being the warringest kingdom?
We have been close before, but it feels so much better to get the top spot. We put in a lot of effort and everyone has some late night wake ups to make and attack. So getting the crown makes it more worthwhile.
For those that don't know you, how long has Band of Brothers been around? How long have you been leading them?
I have been with this kingdom for four ages. The kingdom has a strong core of players that have been around long before I came in. I have been the monarch on and off for three ages. I have been learning how to be successful in wars from our steward. He is our most active player and deserves much of the credit for our 7 war wins.
Is the WW crown a kingdom goal from the word go? I see you guys ran a 23 province kingdom, is this intentional to have more possible war targets, i.e. brave 20 prov kds, yet still compete with 25 prov kds?
We aim to war as much as possible and have the warring crown in target more than anything else. We started the age with 20 provinces and recruited a few as we were having trouble finding wars. So having an extra few gave us more options.
How did you find 7 wars? A lot of kingdoms hit a bit of a road block once they hit the 4/4 mark and other kingdoms avoid them. Do you usually wave kingdoms or message monarchs in range?
We had the same problem. We tried a lot of different things to find wars. We would be waving one kingdom at a time while sending pm's to everyone in our range with no more than 2-3 players than us. We often looked for bigger kingdoms. But it does get hard after you win a few wars. Also running high offense undeads seems to put some people off.
It wasn't just me looking, I had the whole kingdom monitoring when wars ended and kingdoms were due out of eowcf so that we could be first in line to get a war.
Did you win your wars relatively quickly? Who were some of your toughest wars this age?
This age we managed to win most of them in minimum time. Our toughest war this age was against Bravehearts. We also battled a kingdom with 2 massive banks (20k+ acres) which proved difficult due to the huge gains a bank can get doing a quad tap on our big guys and the massive amounts of aid they can send.
Would you like to make any final comments or give a special thanks?
I would like to thank my whole kingdom for their efforts. Even though I am the monarch, there are many people in the kingdom that make decisions while I'm unavailable. The biggest thanks goes to Feint. He is our steward. He can be very harsh to players not pulling their weight but is flawless in his planning of wars. I have learned a lot while I have been playing with him and will continue to do so.
Thank you for your time James, much appreciated.
Province #1 Land
Province: Hesus the 1337357
Total Land: 36804 Acres
Total Networth: 7,538,490 Networth
Interviewee: Hesus
Hesus the 1337357, the biggest human merchant from Rage of Absalom had an age of whoring, exploring, and warring, and finished up the largest province of Age 56.
Hi Hesus! Congratulations on finishing the largest province, how do you feel? Is this your first province crown?
Thanks, I feel fine about it because I like myself most of all people. It?s the first time I the won land crown. I have won the province networth crown before.
Do you often play a cow/banker role? How long have you been playing in Rage?
I play it more often yes, many times actually but not every age, I like to play regular provs too or T/M's or anything. I guess I just like variation. This was my first age in Rage.
Oh have you played before?
Long list :P but mainly in I played in Fratzia a long time.
Could you want to give a short summary on how your province so BIG?!
At first I explored, then I attacked, then I explored, then I attacked, then I explored, and then attacked, and diced.
Did you even suffer any hits in the age?
Yea I got hit once early age.
Oh no! One hit, what did you do? How did you recover?
I IGNORED HIM! His networth was too small to retal, had better targets.
Were you whoring army-in-out most of the age? Was your province "doubled up" at all?
Early age I was just grabbing land from around the server, got OOP at 900, I was in top 10 after 1 week or so with just grabbing. And yes, I doubled from 7k to 14k after the first war, in the end of war actually.
You should ask me why I was human merchant. I wanted to be avian merchant but they said I had to be human!! I would have been 60k if I was Avian!
Heh, okay. Why did they make you play human?
They wanted my gc. They can?t play themselves so they rely on me, hah!
You guys had several wars with Beastblood, were you gaining much land bottom feeding with min gains in those wars?
Yes, it?s too bad they withdrew at min time every time. I got like got like 1200-1500 acres / unique with quad tap, sometimes triple tap or so - they turtled a lot. :P
You were more than 11k acres bigger than the Sanctuary human (Hawk) who won the province networth crown. Why was it he was able to pump his province so much more than you end of age?
He got a lot of aid to do it, we were busy fighting Pulse [Beastblood] until eoa so they couldn?t aid as much as Sanctuary, but whatever really.
Your biggest competitor to the land crown was quite possibly outside of the Absalom alliance. Csarmi's province [Never is a long time] was roughly 5k acres behind you. Why did you guys let him grow so big, I assume there was some kind of a deal?
Yes there was some kinda deal but I don?t know about it. I wasn?t even sure in the last week if I was CF'd with him or not.
Were you worried at all that he might break the deal and do a sneaky suicide end of age war spoils attack on you and take the #1 land spot?
Well not after I found out we were cf'd in the last week. I talked with Csarmi in the last week, he didn?t seem like he was going to break the deal. If he still did, well then my judgement would have been bad, but it wasn?t. :P
Why would you make a deal with him when 13/15 of the top land provinces were Absalom and HoH and could easily farm him out?
I dunno mate, I said the same thing since I wanted to attack him. :P.
How did you feel about not being involved in the diplomatic side of these deals that potentially decided the fate of your ability to crown #1 land?
Well I?m sure my kingdom wouldn?t make a deal to let someone else win instead of me unless they did something retarded. I don?t mind not being a part of the diplomacy part.
Well, that's about all the questions I have. Do you have any final comments or special thanks?
No :P
Thanks for your time Hesus, much appreciated.
Province #1 Networth
Province: Hawk
Total Land: 25098 Acres
Total Networth: 8,526,597 Networth
Interviewee: Hawk
Hawk spent Age 56 as a big human merchant bank in Sanctuary of Absalom. Though he did not end the age the largest province, he did out-pump those bigger than him to end it with the most networth.
First of all congratulations, how do you feel about winning the province NW crown? Is this your first province crown?
Yes, it's actually my first time playing a non-core prov at all. I feel grateful to my kingdom for helping to accomplish this; the crown belongs more to them than it does to me.
What was your race/personality and role of your province this age?
We decided to run human/merchant for our bank provs, and the role of my province was to sit around and pump science apart from a small number of skirmishes.
What kind of skirmishes? You guys only had the one war; did you do much whoring with your prov out of war?
So yeah, we only had the one war with simians which was pretty early on in the age, over thanksgiving as I recall. We didn't really ever have the opportunity to whore our big provs up; I'm told there are faeries in our kingdom who did more attacking this age than I did.
The defining skirmish for us this age was against Warrior Princesses but I can't remember what they were calling themselves. We had to use a bunch of pool in order to set ourselves up to fight them and that basically defined our options in terms of growth for the rest of the age.
Did you enjoy playing a bank more than a core province?
Well I certainly enjoyed not having to random on avian attack times this age, and I had a lot of fun optimizing my income in various ways -- overall, I would say it was an enjoyable age for me.
You won the networth crown, but there were provinces more than 10k acres larger than you. How did you pull that off?
Well, towards the end of the age we knew we had a good chance at both kingdom land and NW crowns, so we focused primarily on trying to lock those up. As the age was coming to a close we saw that there was also a chance to make a play for the province NW crown.
Lots of math went into determining what would be required and organizing the necessary aid, and once we were sure we had the two kingdom crowns we focused on my province.
We started by aiding it up to just below desertion levels of overpop about 24hrs before we had to trainand I took aid every tick after that to keep my peasants dying off. I was also running almost 75% homes on my province to optimize population space. At the very end of the age when we were absolutely certain about the kingdom crowns I took a ton of soldier aid from the kingdom and was able to lock up the province crown as well.
Well you finished the age at 340 nw/acre. Pro pumping! How much aid did you receive in the final day?
Yes, it was pretty surprising; I did not think we would get that high.Back of the envelope math says I took about 350k soldiers in the last ~25 hours of the age and I was aided on the last tick, I believe somewhere around 1mil soldiers. Incidentally I finished the age on a positive TB as well
Any final comments or special thanks you'd like to make?
And final shout outs to Dorje, most significantly, who has been an absolute pleasure to know and play with all this time, as well as Maximouse who was a constant help. Naturally we Sanc folks have to thank Megas and Deana for everything they do, and Lightning for always having such pretty banners for us to use...really, all three crowns were won by the kingdom, and would have been impossible without everyone?s contribution.
Thank you for your time Hawk, much appreciated.
Province #1 Honor
Province: Metaclaus
Total Honor: 17176
Interviewee: Meta
Metaclaus spent most of the age as an unbreakable Elf/Mystic T/M in the honor crown winning kingdom Warseekers. He held the #1 honor spot for a long time. However in their final war of the age, Metaclaus was bounced-down and chained from an unbreakableprince to a 38 honor peasant at roughly 150 acres. Yet he finished the age at a whopping 17k honor.
Congratulations! How do you feel?
I feel great, especially since I just returned to utopia a few ages ago. I randomed into Warseekers with the new recruitment system. So from just starting to winning crown was just awesome.
What made you so successful at your U/B elf mystic role?
Our T/Ms were pretty straight forward T/M builds and with the support of a bank we could focus on wpa and tpa and less on economy,maybe that was the edge we needed.Overall, it was adaptation that gave us success, from ET?inghalfers two seconds after tick to fireballingfaeries, we tried to take every opening.
What was your modified wpa? How many WTs did you run to protect yourself from AW?
7raw wpa + 50% elf + 90% science + prince honor + mages fury.
7*1.5*1.2*1.9*1.33 = 31.8402?!?!
Yep :) I just cranked in as much as possible. I started the war with 20-25% wt's and had 6 raw tpa.
In your final age war, you were #1 honor and unbreakable, what was going through your head when they started bouncing you down?
Yes, look: Attacks Suffered ? 329. Times Defeated - 224.
I was happy they did so. :P No seriously I was. They had only one try to bounce a T/M down. And I am glad they picked me instead of our key halfer. Had they picked the halfer we would lose the war within the week. So from a tactical point I was happy. Personally, I thought I would never win the honor race.
Okay so now you were a tiny elf peasant, what did you do?
I was at 150 acre at lowest I think, they kept trying to kill me.I was assigned to take a specific undead down. He had razed all his acres and was untouchable for our attackers and T/Ms due to networth difference and had a tonne of honor because he was top-feeding. So we planned to drop my networth and top feed honor gains off him.
How much honor were you gaining/losing per unique trading with that undead?
About 1,5k -2k honor per attack because I top-fed. I could muster 2-3 attacks, so 4-6k per unique, and he was taking about 3k-4k per unique. But I had to explore too, meaning building acres thus increasing networth. So it?s like build acres, explore, and raze all acres attack. Cost us fortunes of gc but it was necessary. :) But to align me in that position cost me like 3-4 days while I just LL to keep them busy.
Well congrats, you definitely out honor whored that little undead in the end there.Are there any special thanks or comments you'd like to make?
Yeah, thanks to my kingdom for all the support I got. And letting me fight this insane micro sub-war. Snp for pms?ing 24/7. Maximo for being my herald (he announced my arrival and departure in IRC, made me feel like a real royalty). Thanks to Groover for being my partner in crime for most of the age. Thanks to cRs for his Batman strats and the will to take this kingdom to a higher level. Also thanks to Silly Cats for being so nicely mannered, you took us to a higher level too. Making us adapt to situations we would normally never encounter.
Thank you for your time Meta, much appreciated.
