Fighting Styles:

Hello.

This doesn't apply to the rigid structure of some kingdoms, but you're welcome to share your past glories.
My question of curiosity is how do you differentiate yourself from the pack?

I'm usually running an attacker and prefer using speed and durability through cleric with rax and relay taps. I try tricks like releasing thieves to cause bounces. Though I obey chaining I like targeting nw zones. I don't prefer orc, but had significant results running one once as an adoption.

I've seen some cool t/m stylists, so I'd like to hear about those as well.

Thank you for your time.

lol, releasing thieves to cause a bounce, nice one

I run faeries.

What do you mean by targeting nw zones???

faetacker is the best tacker.

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Originally Posted by tetley

What do you mean by targeting nw zones???

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Let's say the enemy has 4 heavy attackers and 1 dedicated mystic in a nw ranging from 130 to 160k. In most cases this would be considered lightweight coverage of a nw area or zone.

There are factors that dictate the value of a zone. If the zone includes enemies that can break your tops. If the zone is integral to enemy chains overpopulating our heavies. If the zone puts a number of our t/ms in max conquest or trad range.

Most of the wars I see posted run linear or ladder chains with no attention to breaking the enemies ability to do the same. Thus top wars degenerate to cow wars with predictable core outcome. This is one reason Elit can beat kingdoms with numerical advantage and reputable activity. Press the nw button on kingdom pages and witness the difference after initial waving. In the ill fated AMA vs CR(age 60)wave you would've seen all of CRs elves forced to the bottom, while AMA had elves concentrated center nw. Elves boast 50% losses defense and thus are ideal if built correctly for maintaining a nw zone.

Are you talking about from a leadership or personal standpoint? I take what you are saying to mean you like to create a gap between bigger attackers and smaller attackers so it's harder to run chains. But it's kind of difficult to do on your own, even with 8 hour attack times.

I'll also point out that one problem with hitting people over and over again who are in your nw range (which I figure you must to do attack that particular zone) that your gains are rather large and you become a fat land farm.

What is "relay taps." You stagger your attacks so you do two every 4 hours or something instead of four every 8?

The thread is about personal style and I addressed rigid kingdom strats wouldn't find value here. This depends on the freedom granted in the kingdom you call home.

That said, I can only convey so much in relation to using good judgement in nw gap supremacy. If I get land fat it's usually from ops. I had a successful run last age with an elf cleric. The incredible durability surpassed my experience with undead which I think is evident by the ops resistance and flip-flop to 50% defense losses. The kingdom leadership was sympathetic to my offensive limits so I would log on at break and see a msg with target defense post nm/ns. :-) But I found myself in familiar territory, pulling HA down to be chained below. The elf durability made max exchanges fall in my favor with my choice of buildings. I was incapable of offensive spells for being a new build so this was an experimental clinic in pure durability.

Relay taps are something I started using at the end of age 54. Previously I had played avian tac and was in love with the furious pace. I did my best to maintain 25% rax. The game there was to be the fastest to trad if faced by another avian tac. I equated these exchanges as WW1 aerial dogfights. I was asked to build undead cleric in Tapout which I reluctantly did. My goal was to ape the avian speed I enjoyed. The beauty of the undead cleric is obviously the offensive sustain, but I incorporated hospitals. Most think this naive and wasteful. What I saw was a growing offense. As my offense grew I was able to break up my taps and in fact faced avian tac eoa. I won't try to defend my use of hospitals on undead cleric other than reminding the skeptics that unlike TG, hospitals work both for offense and defense. I think from here you can see the evolution to nw gap targeting.

I've spent enough time in uniform core to be disenchanted with gaming that way. I started the thread for others to share their styles if they wish. Do you have style?

Releasing thieves in war just to cause bounces? That seems REAL dumb.

I play Elf a/t/m nowadays. Most fun combo. Never boring and always something to do. I used to only play Ork.

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Originally Posted by Billah

Releasing thieves in war just to cause bounces? That seems REAL dumb.

I play Elf a/t/m nowadays. Most fun combo. Never boring and always something to do. I used to only play Ork.

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It's not dumb if you're going to overpop and lose the thieves anyway. It has led to people bouncing me a couple of times.

u must b fighting some super noobs then... cause if u release thiefs to bounce attack then by god it must b a lot of thieves and u had it happen at a large size... and ok if u bounce on person by doing that lekely its at a small size so next person just sends very little extra... sounds pretty dumb to me... u dont have other peeps 2 aid u for bounce??

Depends. In my sector activity is hit or miss. Sometimes I'll load up on tpa for multifaceted benefit. First, it works better. Second it protects soldiers from common ops/sabotage that I can use for credits. Third, if need be gives me a bolstering on defense if released with more tricks. - Yeah it's dumb, but it's resource.

And....critics? Do you have a style? - All I'm saying is here I am. I've played big, I've played small. I've been in it.

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Originally Posted by madi

u must b fighting some super noobs then... cause if u release thiefs to bounce attack then by god it must b a lot of thieves and u had it happen at a large size... and ok if u bounce on person by doing that lekely its at a small size so next person just sends very little extra... sounds pretty dumb to me... u dont have other peeps 2 aid u for bounce??

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the point was that if i'm going to lose thieves anyway, i might as well release some and risk the possibility of getting ns'd afterwards.

ghettos have so many issues with intel it's not even funny. it's weird, in the ages before public intel storage tools, with most of the game being noob, people didn't do the nonsensical garbage with intel that they do now. i don't know when people suddenly became idiotic about intel, but it's been happening since age 53 at the least.

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Originally Posted by madi

u must b fighting some super noobs then... cause if u release thiefs to bounce attack then by god it must b a lot of thieves and u had it happen at a large size... and ok if u bounce on person by doing that lekely its at a small size so next person just sends very little extra... sounds pretty dumb to me... u dont have other peeps 2 aid u for bounce??

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The average player probably sends around 101% to break a target, so it's very easy to release 500 thieves into soldiers and add about 600 points to your defense. Sometimes that's enough. Not always, but if you're suddenly finding a lot of hits in your news, it doesn't hurt to try it. If it doesn't work, or you don't keep getting hit, you can send the soldiers out as aid or even retrain if you're able. When you lose substantial land, thieves are usually the first unit to go anyways.

i remember the last time i released thieves during a chain, i had soldier aid on top of that to facilitate soldier bounces. swapped the soldier ball(s) with the other chain target and got a fairly ridiculous bouncerate from them, i think there was at least 7 fails in that lot.

of course this is usually preventable by taking intel the smart way instead of the nub way, and sending slightly over the normal amount when a target is online. i released thieves more for the slight def boost and because they would have to be aided out later anyway. the bounces were just a nice bonus.

Trying to get a bounce is overemphasized related to the suff I'm trying to do in war. In no way am I trying to strut a level of superiority; this is about signature moves that may or may not make a difference. Obviously I'm not worried about sharing my battle habits; there isn't room in structured kingdoms to freestyle till wars end. Those are the only scenarios we would likely meet in battle.

Cool story @ noobium. Tadpole does banners @ madi, and I asked. You have style you're not sharing @ Billah.

I'm funny about oow hits and challenges in general. I'm all about retal, but very rarely hit oow unless instructed by wave. War against equal to superior opponents is fun. I didn't realize my timid nature oow until I experienced lulls in action in higher charting kingdoms. I'm completely disenchanted with bottom feeding. Recently I've switched focus to theater control builds.

I'd like to see someone's take on a high-powered HA style. I don't run them. With age comes a desire to help other guys have fun. Thus, theater control.

My style is to just pump my prov to as high of a tpa/wpa/opa/dpa as possible and then I lay a/t/m with army in/out. OOW i usually hit anon but I never hit anon in war.

strat, you didn't actually tell me what relay taps were exactly :P And now a new term. Wtf is theater control?

In terms of halflings, I would say a fairly typical tactic would be to wait until targets in range have sent out during war. Then you can break them with just offspecs, or tiny bit of elites if necessary. In a dream world, you could run high rax and beat them home.

btw, kingdoms have different fighting styles, not just players. You yourself talk about targeting nw zones - to be done correctly doesn't it take more than one person? you mention an interesting strategy of AMA's but wouldn't that fall into the category of rigid kingdom structure?

Maybe someone's personal flair involves leadership :P

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Originally Posted by tetley

btw, kingdoms have different fighting styles, not just players. You yourself talk about targeting nw zones - to be done correctly doesn't it take more than one person? you mention an interesting strategy of AMA's but wouldn't that fall into the category of rigid kingdom structure?

Maybe someone's personal flair involves leadership :P

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Yes and yes. If we look at AMA we usually have to look at BB and whomever they may arrange an alliance with. Elit has said he and flogger don't agree on kingdom builds. So if you widen magnification you can see the kingdoms(plural) strengths work off of each other. Was it 59 you guys crowned with avian core(?); but the point is that your core complimented floggers dwarf core and Elit ran a 3 race balance that made Hostile a horrible place to be. Look at the Pew2 setup this age. They don't have to be an ally for Elit to maximize his kingdom build strat. He simply needs to have an intuition: pew2 = no gb + FPA.
So I'm not here to belittle kingdom strat, it's simply not the purpose of the thread. I'm under the impression that AMA operates at a level that the core has little reason to go renegade. in short, I think Elit builds his kingdom after observing the kingdoms he's unlikely to war. He understands how to process and package acres: last age with elf center and WH top.
All the while people were treating my interest in war spoils as Ralphie and his Red Rider.

i send 104.4 for attack that gauranteed attack....i usually send all my released specs to kill dragon if there is one, but if your chain target thieves are pointless other than intel so if you can bounce an attack why not. the more attacks they spend chaining you getting low gains the better. one of my favorite things about orc is reflect magic...theres nothing better than seeing that a t/m has cast meteor showers on themselves...i laugh every time...i have also had t/ms just stop oping me right after...

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Originally Posted by tetley

strat, you didn't actually tell me what relay taps were exactly :P And now a new term. Wtf is theater control?

In terms of halflings, I would say a fairly typical tactic would be to wait until targets in range have sent out during war. Then you can break them with just offspecs, or tiny bit of elites if necessary. In a dream world, you could run high rax and beat them home.

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Relay taps simply mean I break up my taps over a period of time rather than sending everything out in predictable Unique fashion. Once you get your troops out you no longer have any sitting at home unless you're called to hit a biggie.

Which brings up why(?)

Activity is obviously the fuel. Usually I'm breaking taps by 1-2 ambushes and 1-2 trad marches. One of our guys in The Wishmasters is currently at the apex of the design(but i havent shared this for kingdom reasons).It's exactly the same situation I had vs Legion while in HRS and Accra while in Incarnation.

1- One benefit is that you're not getting caught with your entire army home.
2- Target choice is more timely. You get to levy your incoming acres vs threat assessment.
3- I build during war and vary my times with mix of accelerated and standard to keep vital percentages fluid.
4- Acres come in at shorter intervals which results in lower losses if chained.
5- Vital to not just resisting chains but stalling as well.

In the busy SN it's not all that obvious what's going on. You selectively tap your range and ambush down rather than up. All you want is a gap while retaining defense. You can forfeit acres up because your goal is to be the catalyst for overpopulating enemies. Once the enemy bigs have ranged themselves you can now turn the crank. I run cleric to sit in a nw position. Thus my build isn't about being the biggest offense; that job is for orc warrior. My job is to keep our bigs big and our smalls well fed. By creating the nw gap it prevents our bigs from tumbling into release. This build is about acre and dspec retention along with a tactic that floats gains at a regular pulse.

Theater control is about being ready to tailor the kingdom situation for better performance. In organized kingdoms you have banks and what have you. I'm doing some of this now(theater control, not banking) but dwarf tac is much more ideal. I'm providing aid to particular HAs. I send a little gold, soldiers. I hit enemies to get them in max range for others. I gather zero loss intel so the heavies can retain as much tpa as possible. Again, I'm not trying to grow for glory, but to be in a nw range of benefit. I want to maintain a wpa as well to provide support prelude to attacks.
Banks aren't always on or they might have greater kingdom responsibility. Theater control is about making your sector better and would compliment gap/zone tactics if such existed. I address it in my Virtual Kingdom thread, but not specifically.

I guess theater requires a definition. Theater in Utopia for me, in this thread, is in reference to areas of defined action and objectives. That is: top, middle, bottom.
The top is typically trying to be UB and specialize in ops.
The middle is where the core war is decided.
The bottom is the area of chained or new wet behind the ear provinces.

Why don't you lead?

I'll say breaking up your armies has its merits but it makes it harder (obviously by definition) to do a bunch of damage all at once. Which can be relevant... I would say especially in the bottom "theater" :P

I think one thing a lot of kingdoms don't pay enough attention to is the bottom (I myself have improved in this recently.) After a couple days of war, control of the bottom can be as essential to long term victory as the middle.

Relevant story to both this post and this thread I guess: I play a human war hero. In our last war I got chained from around 800 to the ~250 acre range. We were facing Sanitarium running an absurdly-suicidey all-undead-core strat. As I went down I just released thieves and sent elites to the dragon so I never really was too overpopped.

The downside of this was that my NW sucked when I got to the bottom. In retrospect I probably released too much. But it turned out to not be so bad. I could easily break loads of undeads in the bottom for max gains, but it would have been pointless to do so since I was always breakable by the UDs with huge offence. Instead every cycle I four-tapped one of their smallest undeads on land def or close to it. My ****ty NW meant I was still hitting them in range but I wasn't grabbing that many acres I couldn't retain.

I was taking maybe 40-80 acres when I could have been taking 150+, but I was making a way bigger difference doing so. Coordinated with a few other provs, we were able to make people suffer a 2nd round of releases/desertions. Just having a global "max gain if chained" order (which I find typical in a lot of kingdoms) would never accomplish this, since nearly no one would pick a 130 acre target of their own volition.

You're pointing out something I noticed Simians did from a kingdom standpoint: paying attention to the bottom vs Monument a few ages ago. This is good math and sometimes I've wondered about a system of collapsing the enemy bottom while supporting your own.

In my case things don't always work out, so style is second to substance. I try to temper idealism with practical execution.
I've faced kingdoms that counter my every move or are pros at SN. My mind can't absorb all the information available from SN or I'd ape the practice. I do try to convey the beauty of our enemies strategies so that players gifted with clarity of interpreting can try. The queen of Incarnation was gifted in this way along with Pak.

Pak was a brilliant bottom player that advanced my understanding of chained evolution. He became even more dangerous when chained. This mirrors some of what you are explaining in bottom gains navigation. He played avian sage as I've mentioned him in these forums before.

The reason I don't try to lead is that I've never been able to cross the road between being a 'feel' player and speaking the language of the mathematically biased players. I'm very right brain/left-handed so I think in shapes, and artsy-fartsy ways that don't translate well. Even my build strats are pretty numbers not exact percentages. I usually site AMA as an example because when they execute a move I can see it clearly on kingdom pages. My intuition tells me somebody in AMA has crossed the road I haven't.

My outlet for leadership endeavors is in the Virtual Kingdom thread I write in Roleplaying. Part is idealism and I'm careful to point out the thread is a reference template. Fun is the core reasoning, not charting. But I do feel some players lost in the ranks of warkaday waving and dictated strats could find a better game experience by choosing practical freedom. it's not to attract players who are happy in rigid kingdom doctrine.

The Virtual Kingdom is a practice in balance based on a 3 kingdom merge. The idealism comes from utilizing a strat that is zero core. In practical terms, the kingdom is comprised of 3 of each personality and 3 of each race. This results in 24 players divided into 3 divisions. Each division has one of each race and personality. These division function independently of each other and each division is comprised of players from the 3 major Utopian time zones: European, Asian and American.
I base the divisions on real game merge offers I've seen in Recruiting. Thus the Virtual Kingdom has basis in real game potential. I reserve a 25th position that is a practical monarch. The monarch chooses a persona/race combination not yet represented in the 3 divisions.

While the Virtual strat is dictated it is heavily influenced by player input. One reference being the 3 avians:not seen as practical mathematically I have seen do well as in Noobies Don't Bite. Every ability and shortcoming will be found in the Virtual Kingdom.

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Originally Posted by tetley

Why don't you lead?

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strato has lots of knowledge, but likes doing his own thing... he could b in lots of top kd's, and the best part about him is he is always just trying to better himself in the aspects of the game and the game as a whole...

Thank you madi. I'm humbled

Gosh, just reading this thread I know who you are, Strat (Occult) from Age 59. Your style of writing is so unique lol

I'm an old-new player (played 10 years ago, re-started last year), so have lots to learn from a tactics POV. At my current kd, we are (usually) excellent at deep chains and focusing FB/NS targets etc. But I find that beyond that, we lack the vision or strategic planning to go further. When we win wars it is because of pure attacking power, but if war drags longer, we generally just end up in a massive acre-exchanging contest at mid to low NW zones. I feel like we can do better.

There is something I always wanted to learn: province pumping. How and when. By pumping I refer to soldiers and gc, unless there is something else that can be done
1) How to choose who to pump - a chained HA to get him out of chained zone? A mid-range HA to maintain him at that NW? A big HA to become UB or to take down enemy T/Ms? Or a A/T or A/M to become UB?
2) When should it be done? When the war degenerates into a crazy mess of acre exchanges at the 48 hr mark? Or at another time

I also like the idea of chaining Rogues (esp Halfers) in first 24 hrs of war, to 1) Overpop them so they have to release thieves 2) One less T/M in mid-high NW range to deal real damage to big guys. This rarely goes heeded in my kd though.

Forcing a nice NW gap in mid range instead of only focusing on chaining big guys is something I would like to see done too. Happened somewhere between our war with EWS last age where they took a long time to chain down an Orc Warrior on our side because we inadvertently hit down their mid-range attackers and their chains kept stalling. That was nice, but unfortunately we didnt actually plan that lol

Yeah, that was me. I'm usually trying to stay in the center nw area, but that's no excuse. I think I'm a fairly average player that's active. Being noticed feels good, but I do little things like aid when a guy is in need.
As I look back some of the best players I've seen were t/m, but Plaidovia had/has some great core players.
In HRS I thought piggy was a brilliant core attacker, but she normally played t/m.
In Arktic Fury it was Arktic Black who raised the bar on t/m. We had wonderful players in Zeus and Bandit, but Black brought organization and a pragmatic understanding of t/m roles. They all were in touch with depriving the enemy and aiding the kingdom at the heart of their style.

So t/m stylists you say?

Well my preference for a thief/mage machine is faery by far over their alternatives. Elf Mystics are pretty good in their niche, but Faeries have all the really useful bonuses and spells a t/m wants, and arguably the better army for pure t/m. My preferred personalities for this are Sage or Rogue, depending on what other provinces are in the kingdom - pair Sages if I have other sages, Rogues if I have other Rogues, or Sage if I'm have only a few slots and not enough Rogues to really make the personality work. WH is a nice choice too, but it implies playing an attack role to be at its best, as to the other playable faery personalities (basically anything but Merchant).

Kidnap is a really underrated op, really useful for the momentum it provides (exponential peasant growth, and depriving enemy of the same). Many times well-placed kidnap is better than nightstrike in the long term, unless fighting someone who can kidnap back or fireball efficiently.

A t/m that can sit on peasants is really annoying to deal with, since it forces population control on a province that will block a significant number of ops or conceding a lot of economic disadvantage. The only problem is getting to that point without being dead.

I do love our avians - I'd say our two current Avians are probably two of our smartest players in the KD

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Originally Posted by StratOcastle

While the Virtual strat is dictated it is heavily influenced by player input. One reference being the 3 avians:not seen as practical mathematically I have seen do well as in Noobies Don't Bite. Every ability and shortcoming will be found in the Virtual Kingdom.

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Originally Posted by Tash

I do love our avians - I'd say our two current Avians are probably two of our smartest players in the KD

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That's what the Virtual Kingdom template is about if others didn't understand. Witnessing Noobies Dont Bite avians first hand and their sterling execution is the alternative to traditional cores. Essentially nobody said 'you have to play avian'; these guys wanted to play avian and know how to use them.

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Originally Posted by Palem

I run faeries.

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not all the time silly guy. i played for you for a few ages and never was fae :-P

and if youre claiming you run faeries you dont cause youre retired, as far as i know :-P

My style is run UD with 25 dpa 250 opa. Kill everything in my path.

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Originally Posted by StratOcastle

You're pointing out something I noticed Simians did from a kingdom standpoint: paying attention to the bottom vs Monument a few ages ago. This is good math and sometimes I've wondered about a system of collapsing the enemy bottom while supporting your own.

In my case things don't always work out, so style is second to substance. I try to temper idealism with practical execution.
I've faced kingdoms that counter my every move or are pros at SN. My mind can't absorb all the information available from SN or I'd ape the practice. I do try to convey the beauty of our enemies strategies so that players gifted with clarity of interpreting can try. The queen of Incarnation was gifted in this way along with Pak.

Pak was a brilliant bottom player that advanced my understanding of chained evolution. He became even more dangerous when chained. This mirrors some of what you are explaining in bottom gains navigation. He played avian sage as I've mentioned him in these forums before.

The reason I don't try to lead is that I've never been able to cross the road between being a 'feel' player and speaking the language of the mathematically biased players. I'm very right brain/left-handed so I think in shapes, and artsy-fartsy ways that don't translate well. Even my build strats are pretty numbers not exact percentages. I usually site AMA as an example because when they execute a move I can see it clearly on kingdom pages. My intuition tells me somebody in AMA has crossed the road I haven't.

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pak is a noob... ;p... hes my slave.... yahhh..lol... hes good at handling chains, where u learn that pak??? ;p...

and i disagree on your reason for not leading... srry but no player can dominate every aspect of the game... leading do sent mean u have to control everything... most good kd's have multiple peeps that can b monarch or lead but each of them have there specialties... some are better at numbers, some better at strat and setup... some better directing orders for attacks... some better at directing ops... for one player to do all of those solo is a burden and how people get burnt out... Our kd has a council and during war one council member always on.. and can help direct but each has there own niche... and at end of war all leaders/ and individuals exhausted.... just cant do a one man show, unless have no job, no family, no life....

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Originally Posted by madi

pak is a noob... ;p... hes my slave.... yahhh..lol... hes good at handling chains, where u learn that pak??? ;p...

and i disagree on your reason for not leading... srry but no player can dominate every aspect of the game... leading do sent mean u have to control everything... most good kd's have multiple peeps that can b monarch or lead but each of them have there specialties... some are better at numbers, some better at strat and setup... some better directing orders for attacks... some better at directing ops... for one player to do all of those solo is a burden and how people get burnt out... Our kd has a council and during war one council member always on.. and can help direct but each has there own niche... and at end of war all leaders/ and individuals exhausted.... just cant do a one man show, unless have no job, no family, no life....

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There should always be that one person upon whom the responsibility of having the final decision rests. So in a way that person will have a hand in all things concerning, but I would agree with you that one person alone cannot dominate every aspect without aid.
In my mind, it serves to reduce liability to one person, so naturally they are clearly visible should an inquisition take place.
In saying that, being led by a council also has its merits, the glaringly obvious being that power is not limited to any given person and the monarch becomes more a glorified title than a position of power. The flip-side would be that if the council members were not of the same mind and purpose, disagreements will fester and breed ambition; ambition to oust your rivals so as to bring about one's seemingly superior vision and direction for the kingdom.

I'm sure there are some among us who revel in the challenge, as it were, of running a kingdom single handedly, but no doubt you would have to be highly organised and dedicated with no small amount of intelligence or absolutely green to the position.
The success of a kingdom ultimately comes down to the "class of government" in use and how it's members respond to that system.

In response to the threads topic, Intelligence gathering would be my answer. I suppose it's not exactly a style but nevertheless is a part of strategy I particularly enjoy.

Intel is something that is thoroughly underrated and underutilized by the bottom half of the game. Moreover, without such, every war you fight will be a mirror image of the last and a forecast of the future. Being acutely aware of the capabilities of your kingdom and how they compare to the enemy's, and being able to determine your opening gambit and subsequent manoeuvres as a result of intel gathering prior to hostilities, is a big factor in the eventual outcome of battle.

Actually yeah, intel gathering isn't just a style it's an art. Maybe up the charts it's commonplace, but in the lower tier there's a real charm to guys that can interpret intel.