AGE 88 - Yr0 Stories - THE KINGDOM OF TEMPLARS

I awoke from my slumber under a fallen tree cloistered by rocks, horses, my head rose just to see the hoofs of horses jumping over my sleeping spot. Two, four, ten, twenty, twenty five riders all on heavy horses nearly trampled under foot. I followed the tracks left by their horses and eventually as night fell I saw smoke and met them at their encampment. As I approached swords were drawn, but as I am a creature of the night they had expected to see me and they welcomed me to their fire and food. They told me stories of their great victories and wars to come, as we laughed they draped me in a banner standard and all agreed that it was meant for me. A wild wolf has no home and by daybreak I was gone again.

1) What is your kingdom and your position?
Monarch for 8:4. We are casual warring kd, consist of multiple groups of RL friends merged over 2-3 ages. Most players played >10 years ago and came back just recently (yes, we are 'that' old!) . We also change Monarch from time to time simply just because no one wants to be one 😂. In this Kingdom, we value the friendship built overtime. Winning or losing is one matter, the most important thing is having fun playing together.

2) How did you find your last war? (arranged or wave)
We were waved by another 25-man kd oop but couldn't declare because we have 2 randoms whose activity is unknown. So we killed 1 and got an agreed war with 23-man kd.

3) Who was your opponent and why did you pick them?
We warred 8:8. To be honest it was a simple choice being OOP, it was best fit and take the first offer and acceptance.
But I will say, it was a bloody good war. We had a lot of fun and it was a tough run all the way through, both sides through a lot of punches and I think the real reason we got the advantage was our early push on econ control.

4) When you run your wars, is it micro managed waves or do you have a preset plan?
It’s a bit of both. We discuss targets against our war plan. But when it comes to wave time, its very much a micro managed wave. We try to target max damage with each wave, so there is a fair bit of micro strat change as the wave pans out. We’ve got a great team who are very flexible and that makes each wave much easier.

5) How did you feel about your attacker choices?
Too early to say, but I think its an effective set up for us. We’re testing out a new strat this age and while it looks great on paper, we’ll see at eoa!

6) Did your TM choices compliment the attackers well this age?
I believe they will. I would love more mages, but the trade off is less attackers and not sure that’s or strength.

7) What was the biggest issue your attackers faced?
Being significantly under pop on quite a few of our attackers once 8:8 started going for our pezzies. Meant they had a dwindling mil, coupled with taking multiple dragons!

8) What was the biggest issue your TMs faced?
Nothing really… OOP war is different, the only real issue was a lack of runes, but 8:8 did a great job in supplying our additional resource requirements to make use of our mana in the end  Last age our T/M got chained a lot and I do expect the same again this age, so that will be our challenge, but nothing we can’t make good use of!

9) What approach did you use on your waves? did it work?
Now we’re talking trade secrets! Lol… look, essentially its about maximum damage, so its about an overall strat that includes use of dragons and best use of off. The most important element for us is to maintain our econ and keep a healthy mil. For that war, yeah it did work well.

10) How did you seal the deal?
We took away their econ. Acres were being swapped roughly evenly, but in the end it came down to who was to start suffering the fastest and have econ control made sure they couldn’t sustain a drawn out war. They did pump a lot of dragons at us though, so they were able to push us and keep the mil breakdown evenly match.

11) Any honorable mentions to your kingdom mates who went above and beyond?
We work as a team, and everyone is super active and responds to all requests really quick, so for that, I say the team gets the honourable mention! My War Planner does deserve a mention though, he spends a lot of time trawling through intel and running the wars.

12) Is there anything you would change about the 'WAR' experience in Utopia?
It's difficult to find war when every kd has different numbers of provinces. Any way to entice kds to fill up to 25, regardless of ghetto, noobs or serious kds? More war for everyone.

Remove the daily activity bonus gc in war. Payout timing gives advantage to players from certain time zone

Longer age, so kds can have more casual war, instead of packing intense serious war in limited duration. Too intense for casual kd.

13) Any final thoughts?
Shoutout to:
Muzan of Age 87: "Come at me bro!" (STAB corona BATS)
Ethan: "Stop eating so much" (FLOW the WOLF)
Kai, Yap of Age 87: "CB! We will miss your CB-ness" (SLAP my kingdom PALS)
Shibby of Age 86: "You're still in our history, come join us!" (LIVE no EVIL)

Veritas vos liberabit TEMPLARS! Enjoy Age 88!