Utopia's learning channel

[Landro]

In the interest of helping people improve their Utopian experience I will be posting some articles on game mechanics. More articles will follow depending on response. The first article is about what to do when you get chained.

There's some confusion about what to do when you get chained, so I'll sum up some things you should know, do and don't. First of all, when I talk about getting chained, I mean wartime situations where you lose a very large portion of your land (75%+) in less than 12 hours.


Paying troops

Not paying troops lowers your ME but that's not a big deal as GBP will give you a boost. Not having paid your troops the HC before you attack will make your troops refuse to attack. The only critical moment when you HAVE to pay troops is the HC before you want to attack.


Overpop and releasing

http://wiki.utopia-game.com/index.ph...Overpopulation

DO NOT release troops unless you have too much pop to attack. Doing so will only lower your defense and invite deeper chaining and aggravate your troubles.

You can release a limited number of specs and thieves into soldiers to let the soldiers desert instead of other troops. This can be a good tactic to protect elites, specs and/or thieves from leaving. Having about 90% of the number of troops that deserted last HC as soldiers is a good guideline.

When you have overpopulation, it's important to lose peasants. (but not your last 500 or so) This is another reason not to release troops before you have to attack. Less troops released = more overpopulation = faster drop in peasants.

Wizards will never desert and convert to peasants when you release them. There is little reason to release them before end-of-war-CF unless your number of peasants drops below 500. Do stop wizard training.


Attacking

When your troops get back they bring land which increases your max pop. Building those acres will further increase max pop. LL and exploration can also be used to help. Use LL just before your army gets home (better wpa and lower rune cost). Exploring should be done as soon as you feel you have to because it takes time for that land to come in.


NEVER USE WS DURING WAR. EVER!

[Steel]

it is called #strategy

[Drop Dead Sexy (DDS)]

Undeads if they dont wanna hit annon... they have to use war spoils in war to keep elites safe.

[E_Boko]

if undead use WS in war they die. if they dont die then you are facing a noob kingdom.

[octobrev]

whats wrong with warspoils exactly? they cant chain everyone :/

[Landro]

@Steel, why don't you try tap dancing on a landmine.

@DDS, incoming land is what keeps your province alive during a chain.
Let's take a sample Undead province to illustrate.
1K acres
8K d-specs
2K o-specs
6K elites
2K thieves
1K wizards
6K peasants
76% drafted
You make a land grab for 150 acres
The enemy then chains you for 80% of your land

If you use WS, you will have 1150 acres when they chain you. After they chain you, you have 230 acres left. 230 * 25 = 5750. So you can house a population of 5750 people. If you have 15% more you can still attack. So in order to be able to attack you can have no more than 6612 people. If you want to keep your elites you have room left for only just over 600 other units. Considering that you cannot get rid of peasants or wizards whenever you want, you will likely be forced to release elites and send them out as soldier aid. Ouch!

If you didn't use WS, you will have 1K acres when they chain you which will leave you with only 200 acres. However, when your troops get back home they will bring 150 acres. After you order buildings for those acres, you will have room for 8750 people (350 * 25). With 15% overpop you can still attack while holding 10062 units. That is likely enough to save your elites with maybe a little room for some basic tpa and some minor defense.

[octobrev]

The both chained provs look pretty similar. Could you run some numbers on the position of the other 24 provs with and without WS?

[titanwraith]

but but but sancutary of absalom uses war spoils

[TommyB]

@Landro: Would you allow WS after you've been chained if pop > max pop ? What if you can make more than one attack and use WS on the last so that you have incoming acres and prevent losing more peasants ?

[Landro]

@Landro: Would you allow WS after you've been chained if pop > max pop ? What if you can make more than one attack and use WS on the last so that you have incoming acres and prevent losing more peasants ?

It's not a matter of me allowing it or not. I have nothing to say about how other people run their provinces. All I can do is offer advice and hope people follow it.

If you have been chained, then likely people will keep hitting you to keep you down. The moment when you need the acres the most is when you want to attack because your troops will refuse to attack if you have more than 115% of what your province can hold. So I would say the more incoming land, the better. If you are at 110% max pop then some of your peasants will leave each hour. At this point you will be depending on your kingdom for cash anyway so those peasants are pretty useless. Better let some of them go away and leave room for your troops. Just make sure you have a decent buffer to prevent getting PK'd by losing your last peasant. You can release wizards or soldier if you need some more peasants.

[Elurin]

As most things in uto, don't use advanced strats if you need to ask how they work. There are several instances when WS is applicable, but unless you figured these out for yourself Landro's advice is sound.

[Ethan]

In a sufficiently unorganized pair of kingdoms, a "second hit WS" might be the best play. It depends on the opposing kingdom not doing a good enough chain and/or post-chain containment however, so in a better kingdom I assume it will be punished correctly. It has use in this case when the initial chain wasn't deep enough to force you into releasing much, and mostly only pes have been lost. Since your kingdom is presumed to be unorganized enough to get you aid right on time, you need enough pes to pay your (still full size except for troops sent against dragon) army at least the 50%. Since the enemy kingdom is an even match, they often move on after the first attempt at the chain, only throwing a random double tap or the like your way. You need the buffer of your first big hit, but if you can throw out a second against a smaller target, the WS on the second might get you the "pop" you need to keep both your troops, *and your economy*, functioning.

Again - a good kingdom will make you pay for the opening of any WS. And it usually is a good idea to assume your opponent is competent, since you hope to win anyway if they aren't.

If my description above sounds like your typical chain experience... I've taken a "real" chain before. It feels different. You fairly instinctively understand that this isn't your typical plane "falling", it's more like having the engines screaming as you plunge straight down full power. It should be noted the one I took my kingdom surrendered in under 36 hours - we had to wait for min time. Nice opponent for taking the win and moving on. To stretch my analogy with a plane - using WS is like ripping the wings off the plane. Sure, you don't have the engines powering you down anymore... but you've got no way of staying up either. At least with engines still on you can maybe pull out of it.

[Darkz Azn]

but but but sancutary of absalom uses war spoils

yes ... our 3 faery WS all their hits ... to protect their leet .... odd ... we are avians ...

[Landro]

bump

[clarey]

I think you should change the 'NEVER USE WS DURING WAR' to 'never use ws when you're a chain target'. Makes it much more clear :p I get where you're coming from, because if you've been deep chained and your def is in the gutter, you want to have incoming land to act as a buffer for troop losses - but this is situational and depends on how quickly your troops return in relative to their wave/ hits.

Also, if soldiers aren't a scarce commodity (i.e. you have a soldier package in your kingdom), you can send them to the chained prov especially if it has incoming land soon - that way, spec/elite losses are minimized.