Pumping Provs During War

[TravisRex]

I am interested in hearing some of your ideas about pumping provs during war? Best ways to do this? Should a kd ignore TB and do it anyway? Is it best to pump the small guys or bolster the provs with max off?

[cnt]

I can only think of three instance where this would be beneficial in my opinion:

1 - Give GC and/or soldiers in order to break a province (opening it up for others to attack)

2 - If someone is about to get hit, send em soldiers (if you guys were anticipating this and HAD that many soldiers around)

3 - Give soldiers to someone who is just about unbreakable, making them unbreakable. (and this really should be done before war)

And yes, by all means a KD should ignore TB tax in order to do any of these. Could be make or break.

[Pestilence]

I can only think of three instance where this would be beneficial in my opinion:

1 - Give GC and/or soldiers in order to break a province (opening it up for others to attack)

2 - If someone is about to get hit, send em soldiers (if you guys were anticipating this and HAD that many soldiers around)

3 - Give soldiers to someone who is just about unbreakable, making them unbreakable. (and this really should be done before war)

And yes, by all means a KD should ignore TB tax in order to do any of these. Could be make or break.

I agree with all 3. We had a lopsided war and the opponent was dragging it anyway so we started to fund attackers who were close to UB to make them UB.

[Bo To]

Pure attackers are hard to make UB. They don't have the potential to build good def(by design), their wpa and tpa are low at the beginning of the war so after few days it's even worse. The only time when you can consider making attackers UB is when you already took care of all enemy's t/ms by ops and can start considering conquest at which point you already won the war. Personally I consider aiding big attackers and trying to make them UB only if they are some defensive race(elf,human,dwarf - depending on the age). If they are high off attackers(orc, dryad, und) I won't attempt making them UB - most likely I will do what they are designed to do - make 1 huge hit and go at the bottom :).

On the other hand - it's good to pump deep chained provs after they have been destroyed(with a lot saved credits and low peasant amount). They won't have any def/tpa so pumping them(with min. 2-3k solds each prov and that is not easy to save) can help them a lot.

[TravisRex]

Thanks for the comments! Deep chained provs should always get that and more..but I have only seen talk about making attackers UB..take orc for instance..it is a waste of orc army to make them UB..what about pumping attackers for max off? Do you make them change build or have arms in war for that very reason? And also the TB question again..ignore it and just pump?

[Verminator]

Arms in war is an inefficient building that I'd rank well outside the top 5 most important buildings in war; there's simply too many more important buildings to worry about.

Trade balance should always be ignored if you are aiding a heavily chained province; most kingdoms chain provinces with high negative trade balances with the very reasoning in mind that you won't be able to help them with aid as effectively as you'd like. Prove them wrong and you'll thwart a good chunk of their efforts (deep chaining does take extra effort these days). Note that explore costs on a heavily chained province are tiny, even in war, so sending them a big fat bomb of soldiers and gold might get taxed, but it'll give them a nice dose of incoming land over the next 24 hours that the enemy won't know is coming in until it's too late. Don't let enemies dictate how you help your kingdom stay effective.

Making attackers UB takes a lot of resources, ones that I'd personally rather invest in supporting chained provinces at all costs. Chained provinces can be taken out of a war completely; fat provinces are rarely at risk of not being able to contribute consistently. Protect your at-risk provinces over all else. The thing about big fat attackers is that enemies like to "shell them out" with ops and spells. You can easily keep hitting with a fat attacker with little to no risk of losing that land, because the enemy would only be defeating its previous spell and op efforts by going after them. And if they do? Good, you now have an effective stable province on less land instead of a fat attacker that keeps having to hit down for lower impact.

Pumping offense in war is tricky, but possible. I'd rather an attacker just "sustain" his offense. Continuing to be effective at the same level is better than trying to jump up to the next level of impact, especially since the enemy will probably notice and take measures to defeat your pumping efforts. Stay consistent and sustain the offense you go in with and the enemy will not see red flags in your province that draw unneeded attention to it.

[StratOcastle]

I'll say it's a good reason to keep avians around. The act of pumping is less to achieve UB and more about creating multiple fronts the enemy has to plug. Avian pop bonus, constant growth threat and ability to alternate attack types make them hard to ignore. This can actually be done with about any fat attacker that finds itself in an open nw/land area that understands how things work.

It's rare to get an undead tac above the grain of the chain, but if you do they can raise havoc with plague spreading-elite reaping-low loss gains.

I've often found it's better to aid chained provinces a nominal but generous amount rather than trying to pump them to breakout. The exception is when facing a kingdom that is too focused on chain targets and loses track of former targets on the rebound. This is why I'm often spending my time teaching the concept of wackamole.

The thing to understand is that a relatively fat attacker that clears his zone doesn't have to focus on land, they just require incoming. Ive often positioned myself in that even after NM and NS runs accompanied by chain attempts I've stalled the chain. This is because I've not rendered my wpa/tpa to uselessness but I'm fat enough to absorb massive acre losses. Suffice to say I refuse aid in the interest of others who fight conventionally and require additional support.

[Uhm hoi]

I am interested in hearing some of your ideas about pumping provs during war? Best ways to do this? Should a kd ignore TB and do it anyway? Is it best to pump the small guys or bolster the provs with max off?

It's a very situational question. Greatly depends on your kd setup and what the situation looks like in a war.

But things we did in every war this age is aid around soldiers to train with credits, aid soldiers and gc to rogues so they can sustain at least 7rtpa through fails, aid soldiers to chained provinces to block desertions, aid soldiers to provinces that just got spied on to make attacks on those provinces bounce.

Besides that, if you're spending gc on a province and not a dragon, you better make it worth it, so usually only t/ms on the brink of reaching UB, pumping offense on t/m's so they can hit certain provinces without a chance of the off specs getting opped away or the province getting chained. (And yes, in our last war, we were aiding up our elves' offense so they could massacre opposing elves while staying unbreakable.)

[Kronnick]

Outside of sending gc to dragons, you only really pump two kinds of provs: The TMs that are almost Unbreakable, or the chained prov that has not been hit in a bit that has high credits, and high pop room.

[umajon911]

Outside of sending gc to dragons, you only really pump two kinds of provs: The TMs that are almost Unbreakable, or the chained prov that has not been hit in a bit that has high credits, and high pop room.

When it comes to chained provs, you a)hope he has saved his creds and not spent them and b) remember the chained prov can usually only max gain and not gain many creds once chained.

[Attero]

I think if you aid smaller beat up provinces a good practice is to train def as soon as the enemy has sent armies out and this way you have a chance to get a good chunk of dspecs trained up. Understand how the overpop formula works. I really like what Verminator and Uhm hoi said. Also, when pumping try to send 1gc/sold/bushel/rune to multiple provinces. Make the enemy work to find out who is getting the aid.