Experienced Monarchs – Strategy Continuity

[_greenie]

er... the only op(s) that should be used in conjunction with chaining are NS/NM
(and maybe riots/greed/PF/BG)

FB/kidnap completely defeat the point!

[waheed]

riot i think its not really necessary cuz that prov will end up with so few peasants

explosion tho is a good spell that goes with the chained prov. that way he pay a price if he wanna release sol and aid out, and his kd mates will pay a price when they aid him sol/gc to explore or runes to LL

[Lestat]

I mean the reason to NS/FB someone is so that you can bring their defense down enough to be chained. Once the attacks start the OP's stop.

[RAKIdaRHINO]

Mwahaha Zauper got killed. nubly :(

Releasing too much wiz/thieves is a rookie mistake imo. theres nothing you love as much as high tpa when youre getting those pes back, tehres nothing you love as much as high wpa when you ll land back.

like zauper said, all you really need is enough offense to hit their low def guys and enough def for them to waste hits on you.. i dont know whos been chained most in this thread, but when it comes to being chained i think i have a pretty solid record.. i can only remember perhaps 1-2 wars in all the years of utopia that i havent been chained, or at least where they have made some weak attempt of doing so. (Ok, perhaps i warred a complete ghetto once or twice too that hardly fought back, but those are hardly wars in first place..). But anyways, with that said i think a lot of people really have weird ideas about what you need and dont need to do as a chained prov.

of course it basically comes down to the war your in what you want to do and the amount of wiz/thief that you actually might want to get rid of, but far too often have i seen people totally disregard the benefit of strong wpa/tpa while bouncing back leading to them perhaps growing back up, but then being totally useless to themselves and their kds and practically just end up as land farms in the end..

oh and yeah vines you need to learn when youre clueless.. honestly :)

Lestat,
you dont want to FB the guy youre chaining, you want him at overpop, not underpop. FB has clear use in other cases though.

greenie
dont forget about aw in conjunction with NM.. sadly youre probably better off just doing NS though the way the game is today..

[mmultani03]

RAKIdaRHINO, can u please emphasize one that last comment about why you shouldnt FB someone your about to chain...when we NS someone and bring down their defense, dont we want to FB their pezzies as much as possible so that they can not over draft?

And if not FB, what do you recommend?

[Ishandra]

Trad Marches.

[gergnub]

mmultani03
If you FB his peasants before he is chained he wont overpop as easily from the chains meaning less troops will leave due to overpop (if he even gets overpopped). Them overdrafting isnt a problem as it will make them overpop even faster when they are chained. Unless ofc you let them train all those troops to thieves or whatever and arent anymore able to break them.. but then youre just too slow or inactive or whatever.

[mmultani03]

so in a war, we FB a chain targets and he doesnt get overpopped...so who is a good target to FB?

[Ishandra]

FB someone who is highly drafted, or someone with poor thieving and homes.

Basically anyone that is relying on a large income to support military, build incoming land, or is unable to kidnap back peasants.

The idea is to cripple their economy enough to make them landfat as they cant rebuild the troops you kill with MS/NS/Prop etc, so you can take their land a few days later.

[toast]

you DO NOT
FB, NS ,PF, BG, MS chain targets. everything there causes more troop or peasants loss which is counter productive against over population.


first off i don't think you quite understand what chaining is. the goal of chaining is to OVER POP them. once their population is over 115% of what their land is able to hold troops and peasants will start leaving due to no room.

if you FB while hitting
1) it gets progressively harder because their wpa increases wasting your mana.
2) your killing peasants so it makes it harder to achieve that >115% number.
3) if you fb while chaining all you achieve is a small prov with HUGE army and very little peasants, as long as he gets some gc aid to pay his troops he can retal back HARD.



FB+storms/greed/riots imo is for low income/high draft provs who are to large/havent gotten to yet like elves who can barely pay their army as it is. course if an elf is in your kd nw range to chain by all means do it.

FB is also good for gnomes, they wont be able to draft and after a couple days their insane losses will catch up to them.

[Ishandra]

Gnomes are tricky though as they usually run high homes to give them a reasonable BR and can generally kidnap back pop very very easily.

Depends on the gnome really ;)

[Jays]

Some great LOL moments held in this thread....

Warring and winning wars is easy. All it takes is activity and simple co-ordination.

Some basic rules (to aspiring monarchs)

1) KISS - Keep It Simple St**** ... Seriously, you gonna jam an orders thread with a million different orders/targets/groups etc.. Your players will either be confused, or too crosseyed to perform their duties.

2) Pick the right targets - Starting with the kd you choose to war (if this is a war you are seeking then 70-80% of your win comes with picking the right target) - Next pick the right targets within your target kingdom. Play to your strengths.

3) Don't spread your firepower - I've seen so many ideas/strategies/orders based on Group 1 target A. B. C. D. E - Group 2 target F. G. H. I. J. - Group 3 target K. L. M. N. O. and so on and so forth...

4) Don't allow kneejerk reactions - Many times I've played in kingdoms while takin a break and watched as the monarch changes his targets every few hours without effectively disabling the original targets.

Bear in mind these are some groundrules, open to interpretation, and simply based on my experience (7+ years) in this game. Warring changes dramatically from ghetto to skd level, land size and NW also changes things.

Some other suggestions I'd make are:

Pre-war massacres should ONLY be used to soften up your designated in-war NS target(s).

Once war starts, use massacres on your targets dangerous high TPA/WPA provs while NS'ing your pre-war massacre targets (attackers with low TPA).

Proper war gains only come into effect 16-18 hrs in, by which time you should have been able to do two full waves. Depending on your targets strengths, activity levels etc, I would either mix 50-50% massacres/semi-chains, or one full round of massacres on the targets high TPA/WPA provs, with a full chain round on your chosen chain target.

Meanwhile you should be NS'ing your pre-war massacred attackers, FB+Storms is extremely effective on Gnomes, if not high powered gnomes then your FB target should be high income provs.

If the NS targets have been active, they should be very fat by now and easy to chain down for large gains. If not, keep them for later once you've taken down their more dangerous attackers.

This set of tactics works every time against medium level kingdoms, with just decent activity from your kingdom you should be able to pull of alot of wins. Remember though that losing because of a lack of activity is nothing to be ashamed of... But if you get outsmarted and lose a war you should have won but lost because of poor tactics, then you have to re-assess your kds strengths and tailor your plans to fit into those strengths.

Warring against higher level kingdoms... thats an entirely different story.

[DHaran]

hmm Waheed I disagree about not using massacres during hostile. Massacres are great during hostile when attacking gnomes especially, even if you don't get the high tpa/wpa kill counts, the -pop race disadvantage hurts the economy of gnome before the war even starts. Get 5 or 6 massacres on a few gnomes and it will make a difference.

And coupled with greed and riots, massacres are good on any race IMO.

But waheed is right about not having a set strategy. You must develop the ability to adapt to what the enemy is doing at all times.

[insane33]

Dharan: now imagine if you hit 5 different gnomes once instead of massacring 1 gnome 5 times at hostile. Its a lot better, you can start war with acres in your pocket.

[DHaran]

Pre-War acres? No thank you. I prefer stronger wpa/tpa/dpa going into a war. Plus why would you want to INCREASE the tpa of a Gnome before a war even starts?

Nah, I like the massacres better.