Is it rude to chain just before a tick?

[aach]

My Kd is just getting together to do chains and I can see that if you chain someone to over 35% just before a tick and then hit them again just after the tick they are locked into a downward spiral.

It just seems kind of mean, do people do that kind of thing?

[Topsy]

lol

[Tadpole]

Above comment won't encourage many new players of the game to seek further advice.

aach: No, its not rude. Had it only been more resource efficient people would (and have, and still do) kill provinces. Nothing rude about that, nor a chain. Part of the game. What matters is the kingdom, let go of any feelings towards your individual province.

[Topsy]

If you wanted to be helpful, you'd try to figure out what he means by "locked in a downward spiral" when at 35%, since he probably doesn't realize(or is trolling with his 1 post count) that you can just drop to below 115% and still hit out again. But i guess ill be "helpful" and add to your advice: its accepted behavior to get more defense than anyone on their side has in offense, use spells or ops to reduce other people's defense(see first accepted thing), cast drought if they are low in food, ambush if they are within an hour of being home, MV off the spells they worked hard to get on, and not bounce when hitting. However, i should mention here, that it is considered rude to use hostile actions towards a KD that says they are about to war you.

edit: for more death spiral super fun, starve before tick or make them not pay wages before tick. Then they can't send out if troops are coming home.

[Tadpole]

Deflecting Topsy? No need to diminish my attempts at being helpful, a wasted retort. The advice to let go of any feelings towards your own province and to focus solely on the kingdom is probably the best advice a less experience player can get.

[nooblet]

Chaining is pretty rude in general.

That said there isn't much tactical reason to hold armies until the end of tick, compared to what can happen if armies are left home. It's usually a case of waiting on intel or ops to run, and people needing to get their hits off at the last possible moment. It's not something that is done specifically to screw over the other guy.

[aach]

Right, I hadn't noticed attacks being organised for just before a tick so I was wondering if there were some protocols but I guess the danger of having your army at home to be attacked isn't worth any modest advantage.

you can just drop to below 115% and still hit out again.

I presume this is by turning forces into soldiers and then sending them in aid to a Kd mate.

So if you notice that someone's army is returning just before a tick (and if it isn't too inconvenient) you could aim to chain them just before their army gets back, they'd be unlikely to be able to release troops and aid them and then still attack before the tick, that is more NW loss in the form of dead elite troops, better yet they may have got half way through releasing defense troops doing most of your work for you (or does overpopulation kill troops in the order of least valuable first?). Someone could hit them again after the tick, with their (reduced) army likely to be home too, more net worth destroyed for no more effort.

[Topsy]

You need to know what chaining does, why you do it, and how to prevent it in order to udnerstand how to do it effectively. I made a really long couple posts on defending chains a week ago on the bottom of the thread here http://forums.utopia-game.com/showth...4#post15171574 check that out, and then think about "alright, so that's what you should do if i get chained, if i am chaining someone else how do i make them not able to do that."

It's all really situational. If it's an orc with low elite defense value, and you want to wait(normally not worth waiting) its best to just hit them with troops home. If you hit them right before, they just bring land home with their troops, build there buildings, are no longer overpopped, send out, and you didn't do much but get a few acres and kill a few dspecs. But again, its all about knowing what a chain does, and how you want to use it for your war plan. Want to just get rid of dspecs and get them out of top tier acre flow/want to make their nw out of range of unbreakbles? well, then if you chain them where they are overpopping for a long time, their dspecs will desert(there are ways around this, like getting soldiers aided, and others, but i ngeneral). Have great coordination and want to really hurt someone who has a big army and lots of peasents? chain them right before their troops get home(if they have few/none acres coming) and the peasents will force them to overpop, meaning that if they want to send their elites out(to keep them safe, get acres coming in)they have to release more troops than normal.

And as a note, your initial question is hilarious.

[nooblet]

Yeah, people can wait until the end of tick to make their hits, but there's not much reason for it.

Read Topsy's thread on things you can do when chained. Aside from that - if you have soldiers on hand to cover the desertions, only basic soldiers will leave, so if you expect a chain incoming, a good tactic is to draft at aggressive, and put up patriotism. Not only does this give you soldiers that will keep your useful troops safe, but the soldiers can be aided to allies who can use them as long as you're not nightstriked. It's far from foolproof, but chances are you want to be drafting a lot anyway. Birthrate boosters are helpful for getting more draftable peasants, so long as you're drafting heavily.

If you can't draft your own soldiers beforehand, you can ask your kingdom for soldier aid, taking into account the weight those extra soldiers have on desertions. It won't stop the chain, but it will delay the loss of defense until your armies get home. This can be expensive, but holding on to your defense can make deep chains really costly, and when your armies get back you can choose which troops to release. Also note that if most of your kingdom does what I describe above, your kingdom will usually have an abundance of soldiers for this task.

All of these can be done even when you're offline, and drafting yourself requires no special intervention whatsoever on your kingdom's part.

[goodz]

How close to tick you chain someone is not really important. It is more about how many hits in a short period of time. Ideally if you can chain someone with 0-low land incoming or army home your going to force them to release the most assuming they are at/near max peasant population.