Page 1 of 4 123 ... LastLast
Results 1 to 15 of 52

Thread: Winning wars

Hybrid View

Previous Post Previous Post   Next Post Next Post
  1. #1
    Strategy Moderator
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Posts
    1,226

    Winning wars

    What are the best strategies for winning wars? Include your thoughts on setup/positioning strategy, fighting tactics, and methods of getting wars. What are optimal number of thief mages vs pure attackers and how do these ratios affect the outcomes?

  2. #2
    Needs to get out more
    Join Date
    Aug 2012
    Location
    Oh
    Posts
    8,976
    My position on this is not from a leader perspective but from being on the losing side of war.

    In my opinion the best setup for war is based in the classic AMA and the modified AMA/CR war array comprised of economy top provinces that can attack, higher mid shelf consisting of success rate based t/ms and finally a durable core.

    For war, I look at classic Freakstyle as the benchmark to break. We first have to understand the pincer and its remarkable strength. The strategy isn't to out pincer the pincer but to push the joints apart through mid nw/acre supremacy.

    The main tactic is nw/acre zone control backed with selective chaining and ever shifting micro through intel and initiative.

    So far...why?

    Because, independently, in several long wars from top to bottom I've employed such tactics. In other words, embodying the AMA fundamental, by controlling the center has resulted in my perpetual sustain or victory. Of all the unknown wave bosses out there, a friend of mine executed these pragmatic strategies in a war a number of ages ago.

    Mind you, I'm employing an attacker not a t/m as primary leverage at center. Conversely, at anytime I've been in war from an attacker top position, I've never surrendered top position from the opponent. Only by attacks from outside forces have I ever had a top attacker rendered to midrange. This is why I have confidence in the triangular echelon arrangement: I've done it myself in microcosm. I'm self regulating gains and I'm doing it without bots and no advanced com system. I point this out because if I'm not using a sim, bot, advanced com or deep math and facing kingdoms that do, it means you can do it to...and better.

    I've got a lot more to say but it's 1am.

    Quick Pointers:

    Chaining is a tactic not a strategy & there's cross chaining.

    Thieves are freaking important. SN is the least understood weapon.

    Top feeder kingdom builds should be implemented in any kingdom that stinks at diplo.

    Everybody needs to go to randoming school and take refreshers.

    Dwarves are important because they build faster than most avian tacs unique.

    Humans are important because the economy keeps giving you second chances.

    Don't run a bunch of crapola economy provinces and choose crappy dragons.

    Get'em is plan B because plan A never works. Trust 40 years of D&D experience.

    Wackamole is Get'em and equivilent to fighting a thousand orcs in a doorway.
    Last edited by StratOcastle; 15-11-2017 at 06:42.
    Quote Originally Posted by Bishop View Post
    Correct me then, instead of being a dick about it.
    love that thick mahogany back with no belly carve or anything...pure thick wood ! The thing ROCK is made of !
    ________
    Weed bowls

    http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=...+say&FORM=VDRE

  3. #3
    Forum Addict Bo To's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2014
    Posts
    1,229
    Several thoughts:

    - How do you war depends on at what stage of the age you war. In our oop war we fought against a KD which started Expedient ritual but we decided to go with Godspeed. They sent us ruby dragon(after ~30h of war) we sent gold drake(after ~15h of war). We lost. They had much better economy and were able to train a lot specs and they got 9 attackers above 30k off where we had only 4. Latter age I don't think that will be possible with the same rituals/drake(early age specs are worth more than elites).

    - Ratios of attackers/pure tms/hybrids depends a lot on: activity, age changes, personal abilities/preferences. After all it's a game - give people to play what they want :). Personally I prefer to play a pure t/m because it's much harder and you need a lot of patience to make a good one.

    - I think the best way to find a war is to be a 23/24 provs KD. You can war almost anyone in the 22-25 range.

    - Best strategy to win a war - secure UB, control enemy's peasants via ops/spells, deep chain high off attackers :).

    - Fighting tactics - sacrificing attackers in the middle of the war to massacre open t/m. I had one war where the enemy was winning early and at some point their faery and elf attacked and open themselves for massacres. We did 5 masses on them and turn the war around. We lost in land by around 10k but we won in NW. Another thing is to consider when you are strong - early war(first 48-50h), mid war(50-96h) or late(longer than 96h). How long war can you fight with your activity and setup etc.

  4. #4
    Regular
    Join Date
    Aug 2016
    Posts
    89
    Quote Originally Posted by AquaSeaFoam View Post
    What are the best strategies for winning wars? Include your thoughts on setup/positioning strategy, fighting tactics, and methods of getting wars. What are optimal number of thief mages vs pure attackers and how do these ratios affect the outcomes?
    I'm sure there'll be lots of debate and great contributions from everyone regarding strategy and set ups, and there'll be great information there from some of the best minds in the game.
    But, that said, I think this thread would be of great benefit to provinces and leaders just starting out or figuring out at a lower level, for which discussions on "controlling the middle" "breaking nw chains" and how the "optimal" t/m attacker split differs depending on setup opponent etc. might not be the most useful starting out.

    Just for the first page, though, I'd like to offer the following: (BTW Bo To's general advice "secure UB, control enemy's peasants via ops/spells, deep chain high off attackers" is excellent and yes is the basic template.

    On the ideal set up, I'd like to offer this as the bog-standard I think newer KDs trying to make a ghetto into a good KD should consider (for a 22 prov set up).

    2-3 Mystics (Elf, DE, Faery), 3-4 Rogues (Bocans/Halfers), 13-15 Orcs. Mystics and Rogues to be always 25% bigger than all of the attackers.

    This is not optimal or the best, and as I'm sure will be mentioned, this will be missing many key roles that get utilized in more advanced wars, and most of the most successful warring KDs won't actually run this.

    But, it's the best starter build in my opinion, to make the jump from ghetto to warring tier and to improve upon.

    This will give you access to magic ops, thief ops, and a solid but simple attacker core. So you can gain experience in using spells, using ops, chaining and surviving chains. Then, it's really just 1) use mystics to cast MS + fireball (rogues can fb too) for econ control, 2) Rogues to prop, GA, AW, NS to damage enemy mystics and/or tankier attackers, 3) Orcs to deep-chain enemy high off attackers, 4) Mystics/rogues to get and stay unbreakable and then keep everoyne else afloat with their economy.

    Then you learn and improve from there: for example for KD set up

    You'll also learn from kd set up, i.e. how many enemies you can cover with ms, how many fireballs you can do etc. with that 2-3 of mystics - how much damage you can do, and then you can use that experience to adjust up and down, same goes for rogues and attackers. Start with that template to learn what you can achieve, and then you can adjust - if you feel like you're comfortable completing chains with less attackers, but feel like you're missing econ control - add more mages. If you feel like you more than meet your magic requirements, but can't get needed ops out, add more rogues etc.

    You'll also learn more, imo, from experiencing enemy counters to that basic set up than you will just from reading about it. I.e. the first time you get your rogues massacred, or your mystics AWed, or your chained orcs starved for land by turtling enemies. This standard set up is NOT a perfect do-it-all set up that counters every enemy set up, but what it does do is give you a little bit of everything in your arsenal so you can learn to use it - but just as importantly, also has a little bit of every weakness so you can see counters in action.

    Once you get more comfortable, you can try swapping in some of those orcs for dwarves, and get experience using turtling attackers, or swap in some hybrids and learn about the relative tradeoffs.

    But if anyone reading this is a newer monarch of a newer KD looking to improve their game, I recommend first getting your KD to conform to that base, then tweak as you gain experience =)

    *I know, everyone will probably laugh at this at being so elementary, but I do still see ghettoes where half the KD are t/ms, or have a bunch or orc mystics and elf warriors or a solitary rogue, or only one mystic - and NOT by design, so I think it's still valuable for this boring old set up to be up here for everyone to see.

  5. #5
    Regular
    Join Date
    Nov 2015
    Posts
    74
    join carnage

  6. #6
    Veteran
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Posts
    626
    I agree with Bo To and changeling. For most KDs, I wouldn't say what changeling said is basic in terms of actually pulling that off. There's no point having very complex plans if the basics aren't working.

    We could probably usefully add something about target selection. Choosing the right people to chain / op etc makes a big difference.

  7. #7
    Post Fiend
    Join Date
    Oct 2008
    Posts
    220
    I could probably ramble on for quite a bit, but this basically sums it up by BoTo:

    Best strategy to win a war - secure UB, control enemy's peasants via ops/spells, deep chain high off attackers :).

    --
    When I used to play in the warring tier, I'd always try and have my TMs at like 110-120% of kingdom average, with 2-3 attackers the same size and then a bunch of attackers a bit smaller. Generally I ran very TM-heavy kingdoms, and I think this is where most kingdoms drop the ball. I've been in wars where we got out-chained by a lot (Ruthless) and in wars where my attackers just got stomped and destroyed by the enemy.
    Last age we ran with 18 DE Mystics and 7 Faery Rogues (could be 19/6 or 17/8). Either way, we obviously aimed for very heavy TM-power. We werent able to effectively chain as we lacked the coordination for NM waves. We pretty much got stomped on the attacker-front, but we managed to secure like 6 faeries who were TM. As we managed to outgrow them (landlust) we could build economy + train offense on them. Our DEs all got massacred to bits (and I'm talking down to 0.2 raw wpa and stuff). In the end, because we had a long-term goal of building/outgrowing our Faeries and growing economy on those, we managed to secure the win.
    In other ages, we've gone with like 20 pure attackers, and just overpowered enemy kingdoms. In another age, we ran a bunch of tacticians and this allowed us to outpace the enemy. Eventually this led to us lapping the enemy in attacks, meaning we could hit just after their wave, and return before their wave. This gave us a 'free' round of massacres on the enemy TMs.

    To answer your question, there is no one strategy that beats them all. Generally, I'd say you want your TMs > their TMs. If your attackers get stomped, so be it. But by the time your attackers are down, the TMs should be out of range of enemy attackers. Once that happens, it's a very costly process to bring TMs down.
    Dont under-estimate the power of economy. And offense. Economy wins wars. Offense wins wars.

    The most important advise I can give you is to select something you want to be good at (short (48 hr), mid (48-96 hr) or long term (96hr+) warring, speed, economy, raw power, thievery, magic, difficult to chain, ..) and build a strategy around that. I've had a setup with 24/24 Halfling. I've had a setup built around orcs, around avians and tacticians. You are doomed to fail if you dont plan how to win. If you suck at TM-coordination, pick a bunch of races and personalities that are either very durable against enemy TMs, or able to quickly level the playing field by running a bunch of massacres at opening wave. If you hate doing NM-waves, dont build a setup that requires heavy chains to be effective, if you .....

    Oh, and activity. Activity wins wars too. Leadership activity is the most important there is. Be online to ask people to burn their stealth/mana. Message them when troops are about to return. Send them gc pre-tick 'just in case'. An active/good leader can almost single handedly win a war. I'd rather have 21 sheep and a leader than 25 'pros' who dont talk.

    I've also liked to war with less provinces against more provinces. This gives me a slightly bigger average province size vs less stealth/mana/attacks. It works really well to build your TMs out of enemy range. Numbers are definitely not always superior.
    Regards,

    NighT

  8. #8
    Regular
    Join Date
    Aug 2016
    Posts
    89
    Quote Originally Posted by NighT View Post
    I could probably ramble on for quite a bit, but this basically sums it up by BoTo:

    Best strategy to win a war - secure UB, control enemy's peasants via ops/spells, deep chain high off attackers :).

    --
    When I used to play in the warring tier, I'd always try and have my TMs at like 110-120% of kingdom average, with 2-3 attackers the same size and then a bunch of attackers a bit smaller. Generally I ran very TM-heavy kingdoms, and I think this is where most kingdoms drop the ball. I've been in wars where we got out-chained by a lot (Ruthless) and in wars where my attackers just got stomped and destroyed by the enemy.
    Last age we ran with 18 DE Mystics and 7 Faery Rogues (could be 19/6 or 17/8). Either way, we obviously aimed for very heavy TM-power. We werent able to effectively chain as we lacked the coordination for NM waves. We pretty much got stomped on the attacker-front, but we managed to secure like 6 faeries who were TM. As we managed to outgrow them (landlust) we could build economy + train offense on them. Our DEs all got massacred to bits (and I'm talking down to 0.2 raw wpa and stuff). In the end, because we had a long-term goal of building/outgrowing our Faeries and growing economy on those, we managed to secure the win.
    In other ages, we've gone with like 20 pure attackers, and just overpowered enemy kingdoms. In another age, we ran a bunch of tacticians and this allowed us to outpace the enemy. Eventually this led to us lapping the enemy in attacks, meaning we could hit just after their wave, and return before their wave. This gave us a 'free' round of massacres on the enemy TMs.

    To answer your question, there is no one strategy that beats them all. Generally, I'd say you want your TMs > their TMs. If your attackers get stomped, so be it. But by the time your attackers are down, the TMs should be out of range of enemy attackers. Once that happens, it's a very costly process to bring TMs down.
    Dont under-estimate the power of economy. And offense. Economy wins wars. Offense wins wars.

    The most important advise I can give you is to select something you want to be good at (short (48 hr), mid (48-96 hr) or long term (96hr+) warring, speed, economy, raw power, thievery, magic, difficult to chain, ..) and build a strategy around that. I've had a setup with 24/24 Halfling. I've had a setup built around orcs, around avians and tacticians. You are doomed to fail if you dont plan how to win. If you suck at TM-coordination, pick a bunch of races and personalities that are either very durable against enemy TMs, or able to quickly level the playing field by running a bunch of massacres at opening wave. If you hate doing NM-waves, dont build a setup that requires heavy chains to be effective, if you .....

    Oh, and activity. Activity wins wars too. Leadership activity is the most important there is. Be online to ask people to burn their stealth/mana. Message them when troops are about to return. Send them gc pre-tick 'just in case'. An active/good leader can almost single handedly win a war. I'd rather have 21 sheep and a leader than 25 'pros' who dont talk.

    I've also liked to war with less provinces against more provinces. This gives me a slightly bigger average province size vs less stealth/mana/attacks. It works really well to build your TMs out of enemy range. Numbers are definitely not always superior.
    Regards,

    NighT
    As the KD on the other side of that war NightT talked about (Just checked our records, and to let you know she's not exagerrated, we did min 20 massacres, max 32 - average around 25 massacres on each one of 18 DE Ms =P That's a loooott of massacres, and had them all dropped to like 2k off specs in offense max. and this was in mid-age), I'd just like to second everything NighT says =P

    Knowing your strengths, short, mid, long-term and having a plan for each, recognizing your enemy's strong point, and figuring out how to effectively counter or parlay your strengths to cover a weaker stage in the war is important.

    One thing I want to stress from NighT's post, and NighT's T/M core was masterful, is the importance of having highly skilled and active T/Ms. T/Ms are really underrated in terms of difficulty and importance, probably because they have a low barrier of entry but high skill cap.

    A bad inactive attacker will get destroyed of course, but past a minimum there's not that much more utility extra activity and experience can add to an attacker. An attacker has a higher minimum level of activity to be somewhat useful in a war, but gets capped out, where an attacker that can be online 20 hours a day and knows everything won't be that much more effective than someone who logs in just 3-4 times a day.

    T/Ms may appear to be more forgiving on the low end, i.e. you're unbreakable so no need to worry about logging in late, you can skip a chain, just log in once a day to get MS out, or some ops - and you'll meet your minimum and contribute to the war effort and won't get your prov destroyed. However, for a T/M there is far more increasing value if you are able to be super active and have lot's of experience and know what you're doing. So, don't underestimate T/Ms and try to develop a solid core of experienced T/Ms who can be flexible and active.

    Developing a solid attacker base that can follow orders, chain, and be chained, and that'll get you from ghetto to warring tier. After that though, it's developing a solid T/M base that'll move you further up.

  9. #9
    Enthusiast
    Join Date
    Feb 2017
    Posts
    319
    Once you play this game long enough you realize there are 100 different ways to play and win. It's about execution and team Work most of the time. Some keys to winning, avoid scum bag kingdoms, build unbreakables and most importantly play as a team. One or two solo players can lose a war for you. Like I tell my guys a bad plan with everyone working together is better then a good plan with only 50% working together. ;)

  10. #10
    Strategy Moderator
    Join Date
    Jan 2012
    Posts
    4,201
    Threads been up long enough i figure i got some free time to comment :D

    Quote Originally Posted by NighT View Post
    Best strategy to win a war - secure UB, control enemy's peasants via ops/spells, deep chain high off attackers :).
    This.... I might tweak the wording to Secure safe provs, control enemy econ, remove enemy offense as a more general wording. Nights wordings is more in line with the classsic freakstyle setup that doesnt take as much skill to run, just ALOT of skill to determine racial makeup/mix compared to normal kds. To that end
    Quote Originally Posted by Coldhearted View Post
    you realize there are 100 different ways to play and win.
    are a TON of different setups able to do this, but every war comes down to ---safe provs, better econ, enemy lossing offense compared to your def.

    Getting back to this
    Quote Originally Posted by MeIkor View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by AquaSeaFoam View Post
    What are the best strategies for winning wars? Include your thoughts on setup/positioning strategy, fighting tactics, and methods of getting wars. What are optimal number of thief mages vs pure attackers and how do these ratios affect the outcomes?
    I think this is a very valueable topic. It would be great, if we could come back to this question. Bo To, Changeling, and NighT added some great ideas and insight. I would be happy to read more of this kind.
    i'll summarize my thoughts.

    i personally cant really judge these types of questions beyond the t/m v pure attacker #'s because they all boil down to which setup is able to "Secure safe provs, control enemy econ, remove enemy offense" better. Oftentimes science/honor/size alone can determine this better than anything else :|

    As for the attacker v t/m #'s what it boils down to me is either
    1.you use a few t/m setup (typically more hybrid focused) where you can simply overwhelm the enemy with your attackers and out econ quick (keeping your own safe)
    -here you simply ignor the enemy t/m's because you know u can outpump the damage they do and start massacring them if they have more than you can deal with in nw range before "winning"
    -The number of t/m's and hybrids you run is 100% based on how many you need to "Speed up" chaining/training via say nm/ns/prop.....and how "Safe" your acres/econ are once you grow
    2.You run a heavy t/m setup where u grind out a win.
    -here you need to be able to deal with the enemy t/m's using your own t/m's via ops AND be able to completely remove the enemy attackers as a threat
    -Here its more important remove ALL enemy econ than to build your own additional econ. over time low training and high military losses add up and u start pulling ahead.
    Last edited by Persain; 20-11-2017 at 18:07.

  11. #11
    Needs to get out more
    Join Date
    Aug 2012
    Location
    Oh
    Posts
    8,976
    One very simple strategy is to make sure every enemy province is breakable by means of wpa, tpa or marching. Often I'll find apparent enemy UBs ignored. The point is that an enemy broken by one means can be made breakable by all three.

    I'm calling attackers that clear zones as "running interference". Your killers and t/m breakers are generally open to enemy attacks so I'm addressing the roving large economy provinces as interference types.

    In The Virtual Kingdom I break the kingdom into divisions to simplify communication and cut down on wave drag. This is directed at less experienced kingdoms that don't understand the counter measures enemies may use to derail kingdom timed waves.

    I'll emphasize that some tactics that kingdoms avoid are pure hearsay. For instance, NM is fine as an individual use barrage. You don't need to NM wave. You can use NM to achieve extra taps to place an enemy province in max gains for an attacker who might be ripe for chaining. As an individual elf cleric I would NM/NS an enemy and offer him up to one of our attackers while I attack another to compress a like nw enemy. This was done in Jerks so we were warring enemies of some reputable might. I learned this tactic from a ghetto mute who handled himself with barely any communication in kingdom. He was reportedly a grumpy old man and acted the part the few times he expressed himself in kingdom chat.
    Quote Originally Posted by Bishop View Post
    Correct me then, instead of being a dick about it.
    love that thick mahogany back with no belly carve or anything...pure thick wood ! The thing ROCK is made of !
    ________
    Weed bowls

    http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=...+say&FORM=VDRE

  12. #12
    Regular
    Join Date
    Mar 2017
    Posts
    54
    Quote Originally Posted by StratOcastle View Post
    [...] I'll emphasize that some tactics that kingdoms avoid are pure hearsay. For instance, NM is fine as an individual use barrage. You don't need to NM wave. You can use NM to achieve extra taps to place an enemy province in max gains for an attacker who might be ripe for chaining. [...]
    Usually runes and mana give you a lot of different options to handle a situation. If you want to do something that is not only beneficial but a very strong choice, you need to compare your action with a very good alternative. This is very hard to see as a single province. You might do a strong tactical decision by NM an attacker a few times, but on the other hand you might lose on the strategic front, where your king needed you for example to ET enemy thieves or fireball an enemy UB province. IMO these kind of tactics are not usually avoided because of hearsay, but because they are inefficient or dont fit very well into the long term strategy. Using these king of tactics often is an invitation for selfish people to act like a maverick instead of a teamplay.
    Everybody makes mistakes, leadership does most mistakes, because there are people who actually need to make decisions all the time. In my experience its better for the kingdom and outcome of a war to follow a bad decision as a team than to make a lot of good decisions alone.

  13. #13
    Enthusiast
    Join Date
    May 2016
    Posts
    384
    Quote Originally Posted by MeIkor View Post
    Usually runes and mana give you a lot of different options to handle a situation. If you want to do something that is not only beneficial but a very strong choice, you need to compare your action with a very good alternative. This is very hard to see as a single province. You might do a strong tactical decision by NM an attacker a few times, but on the other hand you might lose on the strategic front, where your king needed you for example to ET enemy thieves or fireball an enemy UB province. IMO these kind of tactics are not usually avoided because of hearsay, but because they are inefficient or dont fit very well into the long term strategy. Using these king of tactics often is an invitation for selfish people to act like a maverick instead of a teamplay.
    Everybody makes mistakes, leadership does most mistakes, because there are people who actually need to make decisions all the time. In my experience its better for the kingdom and outcome of a war to follow a bad decision as a team than to make a lot of good decisions alone.
    This has ups and downs. Maverick style players can inflict a lot of damage, achieve some very tactical things on their own. If you have 90% of the team following strategy, following orders, things like ET shouldn't be so lacking. Sometimes however your maverick has split armies hitting max gains while your chains are starving for land, and sitting at max mana. I think it's rare to need 100% to pull off your strategy, if you plan around it. You aren't fighting below 100%.

  14. #14
    Veteran
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Posts
    626
    Quote Originally Posted by Bananamancer2000 View Post
    I think it's rare to need 100% to pull off your strategy, if you plan around it. You aren't fighting below 100%.
    If you plan around it, that is true as a good leader in that situation would adopt an achievable strategy based on the resources they have (ie the people who will follow the strategy). However if you give that leader another 10% resources, they could adopt a better strategy. So I am firmly of the view that you are indeed fighting below 100%. Perhaps above 90% (if you have 10% maverick), but nonetheless below 100%.

  15. #15
    Post Fiend
    Join Date
    Mar 2011
    Location
    Ya Mother's House
    Posts
    265
    Quote Originally Posted by StratOcastle View Post
    One very simple strategy is to make sure every enemy province is breakable by means of wpa, tpa or marching. Often I'll find apparent enemy UBs ignored. The point is that an enemy broken by one means can be made breakable by all three.

    I'm calling attackers that clear zones as "running interference". Your killers and t/m breakers are generally open to enemy attacks so I'm addressing the roving large economy provinces as interference types.

    In The Virtual Kingdom I break the kingdom into divisions to simplify communication and cut down on wave drag. This is directed at less experienced kingdoms that don't understand the counter measures enemies may use to derail kingdom timed waves.

    I'll emphasize that some tactics that kingdoms avoid are pure hearsay. For instance, NM is fine as an individual use barrage. You don't need to NM wave. You can use NM to achieve extra taps to place an enemy province in max gains for an attacker who might be ripe for chaining. As an individual elf cleric I would NM/NS an enemy and offer him up to one of our attackers while I attack another to compress a like nw enemy. This was done in Jerks so we were warring enemies of some reputable might. I learned this tactic from a ghetto mute who handled himself with barely any communication in kingdom. He was reportedly a grumpy old man and acted the part the few times he expressed himself in kingdom chat.


    We should play together. We think alot alike, you just word it way better.

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •