The Virtual Kingdom of Age 89 ~ in GMT battle array!

[StratOcastle]

Zone

Zone is essentially max gains with wisdom. Individually I’ve used max gains in war to establish nw/acre buffer zones. Augmented by relay taps, I was able to stall chain attempts against my provinces in several wars.

To establish a zone, one has to be aware of their surroundings. The easiest way to explain this is how I established a relay tap zone in one war.

I received a number of hits from provinces above and below my nw. I used 2 generals on two different targets just below my nw range for traditional march. I used 2 generals to ambush two different targets just above my nw. The concept is to push the opponents below you out of nw max and to release the opponents above you out of nw max range while reducing their offense.

So what I was doing was collecting my acres from the opponents below me and in essence letting the opponents above my nw have those acres while reducing their offense. Since nw is still tied into acres, the larger opponents would range out and get fat where our t/ms could vulture. Many leaders misunderstand this symbiosis as these actions reduced big enemy offense, making them less a breakaway threat. Since my ambush armies were large for ambushes and returned home earlier than trad marches, I’d begin forming an offensive balance. At this point I’m doing 4 max gain relay trad marches against opponents below my nw and letting the larger opponents go since their range conflates poor gains. +/- to taste, or in my case, a level itinerary.

I always build. So when I have armies returning every 2.5 hours, not only does this reduce the amount of time I might lose troops to overpopulation but I’m building so I always have an influx of my zone strat vs raze. Once I’ve established a nw buffer the acres tend to self regulate, but I can run learn, massacre, raze or plunder on selected taps to bias my position. Thus, I prevent myself from getting fat while retaining an economy. Economy retention is important so the t/ms can more quickly establish unbreakability while I tend to the aid requirements of our chained.

Zone in the virtual kingdom is amplifying my behavior X5. You see, max gains can look exactly like a chain as each province pushes every opponent out of their max range. So let’s say my friend above my nw knocked the opponent into my max. Well damn it, that’s my enemies max range to, so I need to max that fella to get him out of mine. Wisdom enters the conversation when we need to help a kingdom mate move an enemy out of their max to curtail enemy chain/ops efficiency.

Max gains is all encompassing. Use your perception when doing max.

ASSAULT - Asian Division

Avian: war hero
Dark Elf: cleric
Dwarf: rogue
Human: war hero
Undead: raider

In this division we have quietly built a honor gains retention dam. If you perceive war hero honor retention to cleric troop retention and know the improvements to sabotage then smile because we understand each other. This is that reverse Plinko I’ve referred. The nice part is that the leakiest portion of this division causes plague.

I related my use of relay taps only to convey what a hyperactive is capable of. Most players simply won’t have the time to fully realize utopian capability. If you are a hyperactive then I urge you do so and that your leadership understands the strength of activity. We should never restrict the strengths individuals bring to the game. That’s why I spend some time in each virtual kingdom article to explain the use of rovers and campers and what race/personalities fit those strengths best.

Best Camper ~ dark elf: cleric

Reflect Magic is a camper staple. Fairly even offense/defense balanced elite is a camper stable. The ability to absorb hits at home is a camper staple. Cleric spells reinforce effective but shallow defenses.

Best Rover ~ avian: tactician

Avian tac is the apex hunter-killer. If you need help now the avian tac will be the emergency responder. They have low loss thief effect from accurate espionage and their speed allows them to use every type of march much more regularly than any other build. They are the faery of army versatility.

[StratOcastle]

Not Warring, Not Whoring

~ “Gain-twist” refers to a form of barrel rifling where the twist rate gets tighter over the length of the barrel. For example, a gain twist barrel might start with 1:12″ twist and finish with 1:8″ twist. ~

Being familiar with musical instruments and firearms, it occurred to me I hadn’t paid attention to many developments after the polymer craze in handguns and rifle stocks. I was familiar with matching bullet mass to rifling twist and the compromises. In musical instruments, particularly guitars, there was the concept of compound radius. I was happy to find that progress indeed had taken place. I began my search for compound rifling twist rates and bumped into the “gain twist” solution.

To say these things are improvements is a bit non sequitur. The improvement is in the option or the opportunity. This is my position on kingdom strats. I’m familiar with proper war and whoring strats. I’m not the mathematician to demonstrate it, but I know the essential elements. To say I know is not to say expert. I’m always impressed with Persian of Divinity and his depths of defensive literacy. Clearly, an intelligent leader with experience and integrity will no doubt understand complexities not apparent to a journeyman like myself.

What I do know is ghettos and the prevailing mentality. I think if you look at the virtual kingdom racial and personality strat, and look at the way it’s intended to attack, an outsider might only see a ghetto. What you won’t see as an outsider is the truncated divisional wave system, optimized through racial and personality matching, emphasizing micro.

I’ve been in both proper war and whoring kingdoms, mainly to see how they work. I can’t stay in either, partly because I’m miserably slow in war, and because I don’t like hitting down or remaining in formation. That said, I’ve always enjoyed success despite my slowness. It’s a characteristic I always liked about Marvin Hagler: he was generally slower than most of his top opponents, but he prevailed 90%. There are a lot of boxers who are only dangerous when they’re faster. Very, very few are dominant and slower. That was an influence for me to get my attacks right and to make impacts no matter where I played.

And like this virtual kingdoms intended doctrine, I would fight any kingdom, any province of any size at any time. Not with anger, but with curiosity and a willingness to learn rather than cower. A lot of anger emanates from fear. We might feel a rush, but let’s not make it negative. What I’ve learned in warring, whoring and kingdom hopping is how to engage about any enemy and get traction. Gain twist polygon rifling is to the compound radius stainless steel fretted guitar neck is to what the virtual kingdom is in utopia. It’s a hybrid if your good and a ghetto if you’re bad :)

[StratOcastle]

Assassinate Wizards & Massacre

A control lever in war I seldom see used until one side is clearly winning. Assassinate wizards is imperative vs hard to break enemies; we all know that. Oftentimes our rogues fall a bit silent when that unbreakability includes their stealth resistance. Thus, lack of communication is a greater threat than a province achieving unbreakability.

How do you combat unbreakability? I remind you that while we respect our enemies we are warring for the win. In this case the enemy core is a vast reservoir of zero sum resources as we are to them. When we can’t afford to spare taps to massacre enemies we should look to our rogues to assassinate wizards.

This kingdom like many will have an untapped potential based in mana and stealth. We find naive leaders command common provinces to fireball an enemy whilst squandering runes and blowing up their own wizards, compromising their precious defenses. Get those rogues working so the ratios are palatable. If you can’t break the enemy top then break the enemy bottom so they more readily yield resources.
This is particularly in the interest of faery rogues who boast the most prolific spell list yet don’t have the scientific backing to get them into play. I’m sure the intent of the build is to work against enemy tops, but enemy core control is reachable in the first day of war. What I haven’t said yet is the ability or inability of our rogues to break hardened enemies should be known before declare. If your not sure, do what is sure: dominate the enemy core in every facet of the game and turn them into a hapless fuel tank to combat the enemy top.

When I refer to divisions you’ll note I refer to objectives. Reaching objectives is critical in knowing where one stands in war. Getting close or having delays requires an evaluation of where and how we are losing the war. Brushing things off as longer than expected means you’re focus is off and reinforcing the need is being ignored. We can never fulfill all objectives, but we need to complete the qualitative objectives to realize victory.

Max gains doesn’t just encompass the mathematical quantity but the qualitative reliability of achievements.

There are Sun Tzu practitioners in utopia, but many are readers and not existentialists. This is best seen through my eyes as a practitioner of retal. I stopped randoming many ages ago and began to run my provinces on a chivalry basis. That is that I never attack first of my own volition. - Therefor, every enemy I’ve faced at random for several ages got to chose my province as a target based in their acquired knowledge of smart randoming. I would marvel at their utter efficiency. Most were higher in every category of offense, defense, tpa and sometimes even wpa.

Sun Tzu says you don’t attack your enemy in his strength. This like many sayings requires a bit of insight. You see, I never read Sun Tzu but I know you have. I’ve seen his popular quotes like commercials for “success”. I do attack strength because I realize what Sun Tzu really means. Despite the plethora of frontal logistics I faced I knew the ability to replenish those logistics was an iffy proposition. I would retaliate enemies that could counter 2-3 times more because I knew I could gas them. How could they resist making me pay for my foolishness and let the hostility meter stand in their way? Some could, but then I had the fuel tank. They would have to sit leaking gold and BE while I patiently cast explosions and greed.

Enemies saw my fat and relative inefficiency as weakness and cluelessness. And when I countered they really thought I was stupid. The thing is I’ve been in random exchanges with up to 5 kingdoms a day, gone straight into war and never had a hiccup. I’ve also been the recipient of enemy monarch messages asking me to stop. And I do stop because it was never about anger. It was the challenge of absorbing the hits from a clearly superior enemy and being victorious despite my compromising position.

If you’re wondering why I turned from Assassinate Wizards & Massacre to Sun Tzu it’s because the scenarios play into the same concepts of perceived invincibility. If you read Sun Tzu but never sensed the leap of existential logic then you will concede victory to enemies you can defeat. I never read Sun Tzu because I read his fundamentalist in enumerable random encounters.

[StratOcastle]

Two I Didn’t But Wanted To

One of the finest sub-core race/personality combinations I couldn’t fit in the virtual kingdom was the Dark Elf Tactician. Most of you will recall when orcs had reflect magic and took the role of tactician, enemy t/ms were alert to the ever present threat of squandering stealth or eating their own meteors. The beauty of the Dark Elf iteration is the economy of rune consumption and the ability to turtle make this a puzzling build to wreck without leaving lots of enemies uncovered. The turtling makes it difficult to land the number of taps necessary to achieve efficient chaining. Add to this the speed factor and we have a very sturdy all purpose attacker. Mages fury makes them viable fireball casters and they retain wizards racially and thieves through personality.

(A lot of players get locked into the logistic of specs without due consideration for vulnerabilities. When a race presents you with a balanced elite you should begin to appreciate resistances vs gains. Besides which, through happenstance of war you will become more efficient by reinforcing with specs. In essence, you become stronger in the correct way as the enemies resources become more scarce.)

Another build I couldn’t fit is far more common, and that’s Faery Mystic. If you’ve run faery and you cherish defense then you’re aware of the mana and rune consumption. Mystic addresses this and makes the faery shine in a way that no other race can. The population limits are a drawback, but I’ve shared kingdoms with many successful faery mystics in ages when the build was nerfed.