Quick Question

[Blip]

I have never thought of this b/c i dont remember ever playing a race that had it. As an avian should i always keep townwatch up?

[CountryStyle]

no
if you get a succesfull attack on you, its like getting a massacre attack at the same time. if they GB you, its like getting masssive massacres (i am basing this in war and with Land grab attacks)
out of war, if you are waved for a war, it could cripple you before war even starts lol
best times to use it is after being attacked, to catch them offguard but many people will always attack taking tw in consideration.

main point, use it when you think you might make them fail an attack, dont use all the time, it would defeat the purpose
(i help to bring up abilities of players, if you war me, please try to defeat me muhahaha)

PS
tw is not calculated in som, so you need a cb to actually get the correct value to attack, im a gnome and i failed an attack based on only som

[CountryStyle]

one other thing
in most kingdomes we post our attacks, so from a posted attack we can guess if you have TW or not. so if you didnt have it in the first attack, many attackers would think you would not have it when they attack a few minutes to hrs later, hence the importance of putting it on after being attacked

[Luc]

Why is it bad to lose peasants when you lose land? It's only bad if you're already underpop. If you're not, you'll lose the peasants to overpopulation anyway, so they might as well contribute to your defense.

[CountryStyle]

First you lose more if its a massacre (not sure but i would venture to guess its so)
second GB protection is real strong these days so you wont lose alot of land but you will keep losing peasants
third in war you are attacking and getting attacked, so when you lose land you also have incoming land, and you need to quickly repopulate, but if you have TW and your drafting soldiers for army, as well as being FB or if you have ms or if you have your peasants stolen or any combination then it could positively destroy you. but if you are a province that doesnt have have any ops being done on them and you attack more than you are attacked and are able to put all self spells on, then, i see no problems using it 24/7

having 80% draft is a comon problem for active attackers in active kingdomes (many 90% hehe)

[CountryStyle]

Also i was stressing in firsts post, you are able to make people fail if you dont have it 24/7
making a kingdome fail attacks is a very good way of winning (we lost a war with a kingdome we were outhitting , because we failed 10% of attacks lol)
anyways, im sure there are other pros and cons, so its really up to you (everyone should do what they feel more comfortable with)

[TheRock]

16:00 <oyzar> http://forums.joltonline.com/showthr...Quick-Question argh this guy is so wrong :/
16:00 <oyzar> someone put him right please

To prove Oyzar is right, I will now apply some basic rules.

1. Having defense > Not having defense
2. Having more defense > Having less defense
3. Not getting hit > Getting hit

Talking Points:
- When you lose land, you lose peasants as they desert. Any land hits on you cause desertion, so peasants loss to TW are less peasants lost to desertion.
- The only situation where CountryStyle is remotely right, when you are being massacred, is still better for you since they need to send more offense to break you and must therefore leave less defense home. Concordantly, you hit them back harder.
- Town Watch is basically free defense. Did I not mention that?
- Having more defense for free is good.

In conclusion:
Anyone who tells you that giving up basically free defense is not someone you should listen to. Keep TW up as often as you can to keep yourself safer from getting hit for free.

My qualifications for giving this advice:
I lead the largest Avian kingdom in the world right now
I know oyzar

[Swagger]

And you like the smell of your own farts.

hehe

[CountryStyle]

You can see the difference quality in posts, from someone like TheRock and someone who actually cares about helping you, me

first what he said about
1. Having defense > Not having defense
2. Having more defense > Having less defense
3. Not getting hit > Getting hit
is wrong

1) its not only about having defense, its about having enough so that your not double hit by enemy provinces (if they suicide hit you it doesnt count)
2)having more defense than teamates will hurt them, you want people to hit you so you can take pressure off of them, also having high defense probably means low offense
3)its a team game, again you want to be hit, but you want to be getting more land than what your hit for, this is done through science, race bonus, buildings, magic, whatever else i didnt think of at moment.

having people fail an attack is much more important than having people send an extra 500 specs
like i said in previous post, if you are in a war and no one is targetting you with ops, please feel free to use it 24/7, but if you are an active player (or playing against active kingdomes) who is targetted alot, then you may want to use it only for making them miss attacks :)

im in an avian, DE, 2 gnome kingdome 2 wins 1 loss. we are keeping provinces in 1200 acre range, would love to play against an avian kingdome that keeps it on 24/7, after 2 days of attacks and a few Fb they would not have any more pops, did i mention i like to cast chastity on 3 provinces 3x a day? i love ms and storm too
Its also a good idea you talk to teamates, usually you have a few or at least one that can help ya find out whats better for ya

[Landro]

Last age my kingdom used a NM-wave strategy. When we chained Avians we always made sure to MV their TW (and we watched the combat results for any sign of it being recast). The reason is that we didn't want to kill their peasants. We wanted them overpopped and have their troops desert because that hurts a lot more in the long run. I've seen a province with poor activity lose more than 50% of his elites that way!

But it really depends on who you're fighting and what their strategy is. If your enemy is just doing random grabs for max gains and using spells and ops to keep your pop down, then it wouldn't be a good strat to use TW. If they're chaining hard and deep, then TW will prevent your troops and thieves from deserting.

[Luc]

1) its not only about having defense, its about having enough so that your not double hit by enemy provinces (if they suicide hit you it doesnt count)

No, it's about being able to hit more than your enemy. It's fine if they can double you, if you can tripple back. How is running less defense gonna increase your chances?

2)having more defense than teamates will hurt them, you want people to hit you so you can take pressure off of them, also having high defense probably means low offense

Eh? Are you aware that this leads to a circular argument that concludes that everyone should have 0 defense? You're not hurting your team mates by having bigger defense. They're taking the pressure of you, aren't they? Is that only a valid strategy if you're the one doing it? Also, your offense is not affected by TW, so why even mention that? Nobody said you should run a ****load of defense, just that if you have a source of extra defense, you should use it.

3)its a team game, again you want to be hit, but you want to be getting more land than what your hit for, this is done through science, race bonus, buildings, magic, whatever else i didnt think of at moment.

No. You want to be able to hit without getting hit back. Getting hit should never be your goal. By making it easier for enemies to hit you (by not using TW) you're actively making it harder for yourself to hit them back more. That's not team play, it's just being dumb.

having people fail an attack is much more important than having people send an extra 500 specs
like i said in previous post, if you are in a war and no one is targetting you with ops, please feel free to use it 24/7, but if you are an active player (or playing against active kingdomes) who is targetted alot, then you may want to use it only for making them miss attacks :)

And if they're smart at all, they can see if you have it on or not, and avoid a bounce. Also, if you don't cast it and aren't online when you get hit, you've helped them keep a higher defense at home.

im in an avian, DE, 2 gnome kingdome 2 wins 1 loss. we are keeping provinces in 1200 acre range, would love to play against an avian kingdome that keeps it on 24/7, after 2 days of attacks and a few Fb they would not have any more pops, did i mention i like to cast chastity on 3 provinces 3x a day? i love ms and storm too
Its also a good idea you talk to teamates, usually you have a few or at least one that can help ya find out whats better for ya

I.e. you max gain and try to ruin economy to win. While you're doing that, they would just take most of your land and withdraw before their economy starts becoming a problem. That is if they were to landdrop to 20% of their current size so they could actually war your kd.

You don't use TW if you're already underpop and in need of peasants, and you can also delay casting it for a couple of reasons, but most of the time it makes sense to have it cast. Avians are not suited for economy based strats. If they were, using TW would be a harder choice, but they're not.

[TheRock]

You can see the difference quality in posts, from someone like TheRock and someone who actually cares about helping you, me

first what he said about
1. Having defense > Not having defense
2. Having more defense > Having less defense
3. Not getting hit > Getting hit
is wrong

1) its not only about having defense, its about having enough so that your not double hit by enemy provinces (if they suicide hit you it doesnt count)
2)having more defense than teamates will hurt them, you want people to hit you so you can take pressure off of them, also having high defense probably means low offense
3)its a team game, again you want to be hit, but you want to be getting more land than what your hit for, this is done through science, race bonus, buildings, magic, whatever else i didnt think of at moment.

having people fail an attack is much more important than having people send an extra 500 specs
like i said in previous post, if you are in a war and no one is targetting you with ops, please feel free to use it 24/7, but if you are an active player (or playing against active kingdomes) who is targetted alot, then you may want to use it only for making them miss attacks :)

im in an avian, DE, 2 gnome kingdome 2 wins 1 loss. we are keeping provinces in 1200 acre range, would love to play against an avian kingdome that keeps it on 24/7, after 2 days of attacks and a few Fb they would not have any more pops, did i mention i like to cast chastity on 3 provinces 3x a day? i love ms and storm too
Its also a good idea you talk to teamates, usually you have a few or at least one that can help ya find out whats better for ya

I accept your challenge

We will keep TW up 24/7, as we did when we were randoming

You are not allowed to have TW up 24/7

I can't give you my location, so I'll just say we are currently third for land, second for NW, have a theme based on a major sporting event that took place in South Africa this past month and are members of an alliance whose name rhymes with Babsalom.

We only have 18 Avians, so it's not like I had no experience making builds and strategies for them. JK! Had to do it for about a month. We know them pretty well. 10 of the 25 biggest Avians in the world play in my kingdom, that's kinda cute! This whole paragraphs is kinda masterbatory though, so let's get away from the circle jerk and back to answering the problems at hand.

1 - It's always about having defense, saying otherwise is stupid. You even said so yourself - "it's not about having defense, it's about having defense so they can't double you". That's silly and stupid for like 10 reasons. You contradicted yourself in that sentence. On top of that, you specifically say it's about not being doubled. What if your enemy is on 120 opa, and TW only takes you from 40 to 45 dpa? Well, TW won't stop you from getting doubled - WHY EVEN CAST IT? Oh yeah, to not get tripled. Duh. So that's just silly. It's ALWAYS about having more defense.
2 - Oh my god I lost brain cells responding to this one, oyzar please save me. Let's make one thing clear. TOWN WATCH IS FREE DEFENSE. It doesn't decrease your offense AT ALL! If casting Town Watch is what makes you an all def whore, you were in bad shape anyways, because OH YEAH, Town Watch doesn't affect your offense AT ALL. It has NOTHING to do with offense. If you had 100 opa before TW, you're still gonna have it AFTER TW. Concordantly, this point is retarded.
3 - This is a very nice point. I agree with it. It has absolutely nothing to do with why you should cast Town Watch, but it's a nice point. This is a team game? Yes. You want to be hit? Not really, nobody WANTS to be hit, but you will be. You want to get more land than what you get hit for? Yes. The key point here? If any elite race (and most attackers use elites) has to send MORE elites to hit you because your defense is higher (maybe because you got free defense from a spell like TOWN WATCH, idk), you can hit them back harder, since, oh yeah, their elites are out and that means their defense is lower.

IN CONCLUSION
1. Free defense is good
2. Having more defense for free > having less defense
3. Town Watch does not affect your opa or dpa before Town Watch, so it will never be the difference between whether or not you're a def whore
4. If you are facing a kingdom that never ever ever takes intel and just listens to each other and makes hits based on 6 hours old intel, you are safe to keep it off sometimes. If you are facing people who are not functionally illiterate, this will not work.

I'd like to say CountrySide made some points that weren't totally stupid, but I haven't found them yet.

[elozop]

TW can be good and TW can be bad, i wouldnt say blind casting is advisable, but wouldnt rule it out in some situations either. If kd-wide town watch is in place then u can eat many ecos at the cost of crap all offence. Wouldn't consider it free defence, but would say it is very situational.

babsalom ftw

[TheRock]

TW can be good and TW can be bad, i wouldnt say blind casting is advisable, but wouldnt rule it out in some situations either. If kd-wide town watch is in place then u can eat many ecos at the cost of crap all offence. Wouldn't consider it free defence, but would say it is very situational.

babsalom ftw

Blind casting is not only advisable, it's encouraged.

TW is free defense. Your default should be to have it on, not off, and to remove it as needed instead of adding it as needed. Obviously, if a kingdom decided to FB and kidnap you for 3 days, you'd leave it off after that - to not do that would be retarded. ANY OTHER TIME, it is FREE DEFENSE that DOESN'T COST YOU OFFENSE.

I can't stress enough how important free things are. Minor Protection, Fertile Lands, Inspire Army, Quick Feet, Builder's Boon, Patriotism, Invisibility, Fountain of Knowledge, Town Watch - it's FREE STUFF. Always use them unless you have a good reason not to! (e.g. If your draft is off, Patriotism is useless.)

Take the free defense. Always.

[Saatana]

As Avian I prefer having TW on in war if im getting chained, yeah you might have about 1-2k peasants left after the chain but you have a insane army left when you don't lose all to overpop, after that its quad tap here I come and kidnap from fat enemy when youre land comes in.