1. Click Quest button
Daily Quest tab, Get reward
2. Build Cottage level 2
Speed it up
3. Build Inn
Speed it up
Click City
4. Build Farm
Speed it up
5. Build Sawmill
Speed it up
6. Build Quarry
Speed it up
7. Build Ironmine
Speed it up
Turn in quest
8. Build Sawmill level 2
Speed it up
9. Build 3 Cottages level 2
Speed it up
10. Build Rally Spot
Speed it up
11. Build Barracks
Speed it up
Turn in quest
12. Build Feasting Hall
Wait for it to complete
A good time is 3-5 minutes
The record is 0:01:29
At this point you should have about 200 Prestige, 7300 Food, 3950 Lumber, 5750 Stone, 7300 Iron -- pat yourself on the back!
While waiting
13. Do 10 push-ups because exercise is good for you!
14. Click Overview, Levy and choose Stone
15. Click Overview, Comforting and choose Praying
Turn in quest
16. Train 10 Workers in your Barracks
17. Click Overview and set the Production of all four resources to 100
Turn in quest
18. Click Overview and set the Tax Rate to 20%
Turn in quest
19. Click Overview and rename your city
Turn in quest
20. Click your portrait and change your flag
Turn in quest
21. Click the Wheel of Fortune (the roulette in the bottom-left corner), then Apply
Turn in quest
22. When Feasting Hall finishes
Turn in quest
23. Recruit hero from Inn
Turn in quest
24. Appoint him mayor in Feasting Hall
Turn in quest
Note: Check the Inn periodically - if a hero with at least 10 higher Politics is available, replace your current hero with him. Higher politics reduces construction time and increases resource production!
25. Build Marketplace
Turn in quest
26. Train 10 Warriors in your Barracks
27. Build Town Hall level 2
Turn in quest
28. Levy Lumber
Comfort with Disaster Relief
29. Build Embassy
Turn in quest
30. Build Academy
Turn in quest
31. Research Lumbering
32. Build Warehouse
Turn in quest
33. Research Agriculture
34. Build Ironmine level 2
Speed it up
35. Build Ironmine level 3
36. Build Forge
Speed it up
Turn in quest
37. Build Forge level 2
38. Research Military Science
39. Build Workshop
Turn in quest
40. Build Quarry level 2
Speed it up
Note: If you get stuck, Levy the missing resource
41. Build Walls
Turn in quest
42. Build Beacon Tower
Turn in quest
43. Build Beacon Tower level 2
Turn in quest
44. Build Beacon Tower level 3
Turn in quest
45. Build Town Hall level 3
Turn in quest
46. Build Walls level 2
Turn in quest
47. Click Gift icon in top-left corner
Claim Newbies Package and Package for Lords
Click My Items, Chest tab
Open both packages by clicking Detail, then Apply
At this point you should be a Lieutenant with about 1400 Prestige, 35000 Food, 15000 Lumber, 20000 Stone, 25000 Iron
48. Build Farm level 2
Speed it up
49. Build 6 Sawmill level 3
Speed it up
50. Build 3 Quarry level 3
Speed it up
Continue building up 10 Sawmill level 3 and 7 Quarry level 3
Build cottages to keep population from going red
51. Build Academy level 2 when resources allow
Turn in quest
52. Research Masonry
53. Build Barracks level 2
Turn in quest
54. Research Mining
55. Build Academy level 3
Turn in quest
56. Research Informatics
Speed it up
57. Research Military Tradition
58. Train 10 Scouts in your Barracks
59. Build Barracks level 3
Turn in quest
60. Train 10 Pikemen
At this point you should be a Knight with about 2100 Prestige, 40000 Food, 15000 Lumber, 7500 Stone, 10000 Iron
61. Build Marketplace level 2
Maximize all your production squares with Sawmills
Keep only one farm, one quarry and one ironmine
Always sell your lumber and buy the other resources (lumber is the most expensive resource)
It is the Walmart model of maximizing profit per square foot!
62. Start buying and selling resources
63. Create your second city
To see how, hover over the city icon in the bottom-right corner next to the Buy button
To conquer a Flat (where your new city will be), train an army of 200 warriors
Click Map and attack the closest level 1 or 2 Flat
In your second city
64. Build Rally Spot
Speed it up
65. Move your 250 workers back to your home city
Click Map
Select your home city
Click Reinforce
Send all workers home
66. When they return, go to your home city
Click Map
Select your new city
Click Transport
Select all your workers
Send equal amounts of lumber, stone and iron, resources your new city needs to grow
In your second city
67. Build Cottage level 2
Speed it up
68. Build Inn
Speed it up
69. Build Feasting Hall
70. Reinforce one high-politics hero from your home city to your new city
71. Maximize your production squares as before
72. Build Town Hall level 2
73. Build Academy
Without an Academy, you don't get the food and lumber science bonus
74. Build Academy level 2
Without an Academy level 2, you don't get the stone and iron bonus
75. Build Town Hall level 3
This opens up new resource squares
Click City and build on the new square
Friday 23 October 2009
How do I NPC farm?
What is NPC farming? It's where you use ballistas and transporters (and ONLY ballistas and transporters) to extract resources from NPC cities. Hopefully, your city has lots of NPCs nearby. If not, you can create them.
There are two steps to NPC farming. One is just raiding NPCs that exist near you. You can do this with ballistas, transporters, archery research and (later on) horseback riding research. You don't need an open city slot.
The second step is creating NPC cities right next to you to farm. This is more efficient, because ballistae and transporters move slowly. It does require you to have an open city slot.
If you can't do this yet, take the first step. You'll get tons of resources, which will help you advance, which will help you build more ballistas, which will help you take on higher-level NPC cities, which will help you advance ... and so on and so forth.
WHAT DO I NEED TO RAID NPC CITIES?
So far, it seems like you can raid up to NPC level 5 cities without losing any ballistas if you have the right configuration.
More or less, you need lots of ballistas, a high-level archery research (which you should be researching anyway, since it's the most important technology), a hero with good attack levels, and for level 5 NPCs horseback riding research.
NOTE: These are not exact, and even if they were, sometimes Evony patches change things. These are the configurations I have had 100% success with, meaning they should be safe for you, too. Other members, like ToRak1i, have had success with fewer ballistas. Your mileage may vary.
You also need enough transporters to carry home the loot. How many depends on how far your city is from the NPC. In general I use 280 transporters for level 4, 560 for level 5.
Level 1 NPC: 30 ballistas, archery 7 (215,000 resources)
Level 2 NPC: 50 ballistas, archery 7 (355,000 resources)
Level 3 NPC: 150 ballistas, archery 8 (1.2 million resources)
Level 4 NPC: 300 ballistas, archery 9 (2.26 million resources)
Level 5 NPC: 600 ballistas, archery 9, horseback riding 9 (4.6 million resources)
It is probably worthwhile to raid level 6 and above, but as of now we don't know how to do it without loss. Ditto for raiding with catapults -- just don't know how to do it.
So after you've raided a few NPCs, you're going to want a few handy to raid all the time -- and quickly, since these siege engines are slow.
HOW TO BUILD AN NPC FARM
1. Have an open city slot. You get this by advancing ranks in the game.
2. Take over a flat. Pick wisely -- you'll want to conquer a flat that is close to your city, and is the same level as the NPC you want to raid.
3. Select "build city." You need 250 workers and 10,000 of each resource to do this.
4. Abandon the city. (If you want to keep the workers, first build a rally spot and send them back to another city, otherwise they get abandoned with the new city.) To abandon the city, go to "Overview," the "Cities" tab, and click "abandon."
It'll create an NPC city that is the same level as the flat you conquered. In 8 hours, it'll be full of resources.
NPCs replenish every 8 hours and after every server reset, so you can farm the resources out of 'em with regularity. Get into a routine. Do it every day a few times.
Before you know it, you'll have all the resources you need, and medals too. Bam.
There are two steps to NPC farming. One is just raiding NPCs that exist near you. You can do this with ballistas, transporters, archery research and (later on) horseback riding research. You don't need an open city slot.
The second step is creating NPC cities right next to you to farm. This is more efficient, because ballistae and transporters move slowly. It does require you to have an open city slot.
If you can't do this yet, take the first step. You'll get tons of resources, which will help you advance, which will help you build more ballistas, which will help you take on higher-level NPC cities, which will help you advance ... and so on and so forth.
WHAT DO I NEED TO RAID NPC CITIES?
So far, it seems like you can raid up to NPC level 5 cities without losing any ballistas if you have the right configuration.
More or less, you need lots of ballistas, a high-level archery research (which you should be researching anyway, since it's the most important technology), a hero with good attack levels, and for level 5 NPCs horseback riding research.
NOTE: These are not exact, and even if they were, sometimes Evony patches change things. These are the configurations I have had 100% success with, meaning they should be safe for you, too. Other members, like ToRak1i, have had success with fewer ballistas. Your mileage may vary.
You also need enough transporters to carry home the loot. How many depends on how far your city is from the NPC. In general I use 280 transporters for level 4, 560 for level 5.
Level 1 NPC: 30 ballistas, archery 7 (215,000 resources)
Level 2 NPC: 50 ballistas, archery 7 (355,000 resources)
Level 3 NPC: 150 ballistas, archery 8 (1.2 million resources)
Level 4 NPC: 300 ballistas, archery 9 (2.26 million resources)
Level 5 NPC: 600 ballistas, archery 9, horseback riding 9 (4.6 million resources)
It is probably worthwhile to raid level 6 and above, but as of now we don't know how to do it without loss. Ditto for raiding with catapults -- just don't know how to do it.
So after you've raided a few NPCs, you're going to want a few handy to raid all the time -- and quickly, since these siege engines are slow.
HOW TO BUILD AN NPC FARM
1. Have an open city slot. You get this by advancing ranks in the game.
2. Take over a flat. Pick wisely -- you'll want to conquer a flat that is close to your city, and is the same level as the NPC you want to raid.
3. Select "build city." You need 250 workers and 10,000 of each resource to do this.
4. Abandon the city. (If you want to keep the workers, first build a rally spot and send them back to another city, otherwise they get abandoned with the new city.) To abandon the city, go to "Overview," the "Cities" tab, and click "abandon."
It'll create an NPC city that is the same level as the flat you conquered. In 8 hours, it'll be full of resources.
NPCs replenish every 8 hours and after every server reset, so you can farm the resources out of 'em with regularity. Get into a routine. Do it every day a few times.
Before you know it, you'll have all the resources you need, and medals too. Bam.
What's My Ideal Building Configuration?
The answer, like most answers in life, is "it depends." It depends on where you're at in the development stage. But I made some mistakes going through the building process, and I hope hearing about them is helpful for you.
STARTING OUT
My strategy when starting out was to establish a solid defense array first -- upgrade walls, max out wall defenses ASAP by building Archer Towers, traps, and a small amount of the other defense items.
The idea is, this helps me develop, which gives me a kick-ass resource stream. If I make myself a hard target to attack, I can develop in peace -- meaning I give myself the ability to build a big army because no one is attacking me. This has worked out well for me, although that might be less the defense strategy and more that I was fortunate to spawn in a peaceful area.
Generally I think the "defense first" approach is a good strategy for beginning players, though. There are so many soft targets around -- players that quit, or are inactive, or just haven't built defenses -- that even if a neighbor can whack you, why would they? They can either whack you and take some losses, or whack someone else and not. Easy call.
Then, I focused on resources. In retrospect, the mistakes I made involved building too many farms and WAY too few sawmills and slightly too few iron mines.
I thought I'd need to feed my big army I planned to build. I was right, I would -- but it's basically impossible to feed a big army by just using your resource fields, even if you fill all 9 valley slots with high-level lakes. You'll have to NPC farm, and when you do, food becomes a non-issue. At least with the current game patch.
Another mistake I made: leaving too few empty building spaces. I didn't leave myself enough flexibility to build what I needed as I was learning. I think I improved upon this with subsequent cities.
The thing is, your needs change. Just as you were really stoked to get 40,000 food from the wheel when you were level 1, and now you hate getting that food worse than the Devil, your building needs change. With a little foresight, you can plan for these.
For example, you need more barracks. No, really, you do. You might not need them now, so you don't necessarily have to build them until you have the resource stream to keep them humming with troops, but you should leave spots for them.
Specifically, right now we in Z2K need to build bigger armies and that means building more barracks. If you have a good resource stream, we can maximize productivity by keeping a bunch of barracks full of training troops at all times.
How many more? Well, again, that depends on where you're at. I'd say you need at least 3 once you're out of beginner's protection, and most of my cities now have at least 6.
There are two good reasons for this. First, you maximize troop production, and second, you maximize speed of production in a crisis. That is, you might not be able to keep all barracks stocked for six hours at a clip, but when you REALLY need those archers, 6 barracks make them 6 times faster than one.
THE ACADEMY IS YOUR FRIEND AND OTHER INTERMEDIATE THOUGHTS
When you start to have multiple cities, you have different needs.
For instance: Remember all that research that took like 180 hours? Well, you can apply it in every city you have. But you MUST have an academy that's high enough in EACH city. Handy trick: inside the academy, you can tell what level of each skill you have access to. The first number is how high you've researched it; the second number is how high the academy in that city will let you access.
So if you've spent a ton of time and resources on archery 9, get all your academies up to level 9 ASAP.
Oh, and your ass really needs an embassy. If you want help from other alliance members, anyway. You need to have that sucker at level 3 or better, and the "allow allied troops to garrison" box has to be checked.
Why? Say you're offline and get attacked. If that box isn't checked, we can't do anything to help you. We might be able to attack the attacker, but that's a) if we can find him, b) if we're in the area, c) if he's vulnerable (defenders get bonuses in combat), and d) it still might not work because another enemy might always attack you or the current opponent might attack from a different city.
Why level 3 or better? Because the level determines how many waves of support we can send. Let's say me, Seasnake, sunshinerinker, ToRak1i, Bostitch, LDMisha, and Medici can all send, oh, I dunno, 5000 cavalry each to help you.
If you're at level one, you get 5000 cavalry from one of us. If you're at level 7, you get 35,000 cavalry from everyone. That's a HUGE difference, and can make the difference between a city being taken or not.
You know what's sweet that I didn't think was super-necessary at first? A relief station. This is only when you start to get several cities and need to ship resources around a lot, or you are the resource maven who needs to re-supply alliance members.
It makes shipping resources so much faster, which is very handy for supplying a friend in need or for when you need to start your level 9 walls but ARGH I HAVE ALMOST ENOUGH STONE. The difference between it taking an hour to ship stone from another city and it taking 15 minutes could save you from heart disease due to stress.
Remember, though, after level 5 relief station you only get bonuses again at level 8 and 10. So getting to level 5 is a higher priority than advancing beyond that.
Again, a station is only helpful when you have several cities or need to help your far-flung friends -- but when that's the case, it's a godsend.
WHEN YOU'VE BUILT TOO MUCH
So I've spent far too many words telling you about things I think you need. But what DON'T you need?
Some buildings will always help you. You definitely need high-level barracks, academy, beacon tower, rally spot, academy and feasting hall. These help you build troops, access research spot enemies, and kick enemy ass, in that order.
But there are some buildings that once you're done with them, you can just dismantle them -- either with dynamite if you have that, or one level at a time if you don't. To dismantle, just click on the building, and click the little red circle/slash icon on the left.
These buildings include structures that help you get valuable stuff -- but after that lose their usefulness. You need a stable and a forge to do certain research, and a workshop to build walls. But unlike an academy, once you have met the requirements, they don't help you any more.
Once you have level 10 walls, for example, you don't need a workshop. It, like an old baseball trophy or that copy of A Brief History of Time you never read, is just taking up space. So knock that sucker down and build a barracks, or a cottage if you're having population issues, or a relief station if you didn't see why you needed one before (but don't knock down the stable until you've leveled up the relief station!).
This isn't an exact science, and I'm still learning a lot about it. Everything is situational and context-dependent. I'll just wrap it up there and hope some of this was helpful.
STARTING OUT
My strategy when starting out was to establish a solid defense array first -- upgrade walls, max out wall defenses ASAP by building Archer Towers, traps, and a small amount of the other defense items.
The idea is, this helps me develop, which gives me a kick-ass resource stream. If I make myself a hard target to attack, I can develop in peace -- meaning I give myself the ability to build a big army because no one is attacking me. This has worked out well for me, although that might be less the defense strategy and more that I was fortunate to spawn in a peaceful area.
Generally I think the "defense first" approach is a good strategy for beginning players, though. There are so many soft targets around -- players that quit, or are inactive, or just haven't built defenses -- that even if a neighbor can whack you, why would they? They can either whack you and take some losses, or whack someone else and not. Easy call.
Then, I focused on resources. In retrospect, the mistakes I made involved building too many farms and WAY too few sawmills and slightly too few iron mines.
I thought I'd need to feed my big army I planned to build. I was right, I would -- but it's basically impossible to feed a big army by just using your resource fields, even if you fill all 9 valley slots with high-level lakes. You'll have to NPC farm, and when you do, food becomes a non-issue. At least with the current game patch.
Another mistake I made: leaving too few empty building spaces. I didn't leave myself enough flexibility to build what I needed as I was learning. I think I improved upon this with subsequent cities.
The thing is, your needs change. Just as you were really stoked to get 40,000 food from the wheel when you were level 1, and now you hate getting that food worse than the Devil, your building needs change. With a little foresight, you can plan for these.
For example, you need more barracks. No, really, you do. You might not need them now, so you don't necessarily have to build them until you have the resource stream to keep them humming with troops, but you should leave spots for them.
Specifically, right now we in Z2K need to build bigger armies and that means building more barracks. If you have a good resource stream, we can maximize productivity by keeping a bunch of barracks full of training troops at all times.
How many more? Well, again, that depends on where you're at. I'd say you need at least 3 once you're out of beginner's protection, and most of my cities now have at least 6.
There are two good reasons for this. First, you maximize troop production, and second, you maximize speed of production in a crisis. That is, you might not be able to keep all barracks stocked for six hours at a clip, but when you REALLY need those archers, 6 barracks make them 6 times faster than one.
THE ACADEMY IS YOUR FRIEND AND OTHER INTERMEDIATE THOUGHTS
When you start to have multiple cities, you have different needs.
For instance: Remember all that research that took like 180 hours? Well, you can apply it in every city you have. But you MUST have an academy that's high enough in EACH city. Handy trick: inside the academy, you can tell what level of each skill you have access to. The first number is how high you've researched it; the second number is how high the academy in that city will let you access.
So if you've spent a ton of time and resources on archery 9, get all your academies up to level 9 ASAP.
Oh, and your ass really needs an embassy. If you want help from other alliance members, anyway. You need to have that sucker at level 3 or better, and the "allow allied troops to garrison" box has to be checked.
Why? Say you're offline and get attacked. If that box isn't checked, we can't do anything to help you. We might be able to attack the attacker, but that's a) if we can find him, b) if we're in the area, c) if he's vulnerable (defenders get bonuses in combat), and d) it still might not work because another enemy might always attack you or the current opponent might attack from a different city.
Why level 3 or better? Because the level determines how many waves of support we can send. Let's say me, Seasnake, sunshinerinker, ToRak1i, Bostitch, LDMisha, and Medici can all send, oh, I dunno, 5000 cavalry each to help you.
If you're at level one, you get 5000 cavalry from one of us. If you're at level 7, you get 35,000 cavalry from everyone. That's a HUGE difference, and can make the difference between a city being taken or not.
You know what's sweet that I didn't think was super-necessary at first? A relief station. This is only when you start to get several cities and need to ship resources around a lot, or you are the resource maven who needs to re-supply alliance members.
It makes shipping resources so much faster, which is very handy for supplying a friend in need or for when you need to start your level 9 walls but ARGH I HAVE ALMOST ENOUGH STONE. The difference between it taking an hour to ship stone from another city and it taking 15 minutes could save you from heart disease due to stress.
Remember, though, after level 5 relief station you only get bonuses again at level 8 and 10. So getting to level 5 is a higher priority than advancing beyond that.
Again, a station is only helpful when you have several cities or need to help your far-flung friends -- but when that's the case, it's a godsend.
WHEN YOU'VE BUILT TOO MUCH
So I've spent far too many words telling you about things I think you need. But what DON'T you need?
Some buildings will always help you. You definitely need high-level barracks, academy, beacon tower, rally spot, academy and feasting hall. These help you build troops, access research spot enemies, and kick enemy ass, in that order.
But there are some buildings that once you're done with them, you can just dismantle them -- either with dynamite if you have that, or one level at a time if you don't. To dismantle, just click on the building, and click the little red circle/slash icon on the left.
These buildings include structures that help you get valuable stuff -- but after that lose their usefulness. You need a stable and a forge to do certain research, and a workshop to build walls. But unlike an academy, once you have met the requirements, they don't help you any more.
Once you have level 10 walls, for example, you don't need a workshop. It, like an old baseball trophy or that copy of A Brief History of Time you never read, is just taking up space. So knock that sucker down and build a barracks, or a cottage if you're having population issues, or a relief station if you didn't see why you needed one before (but don't knock down the stable until you've leveled up the relief station!).
This isn't an exact science, and I'm still learning a lot about it. Everything is situational and context-dependent. I'll just wrap it up there and hope some of this was helpful.
IF YOU NEED RESOURCES
First, remember: You can build buildings, wall defenses, troops and do academy research at the same time. Make sure you do, to maximize the time we have to prepare.
Some might say, "yeah, but I don't have enough lumber/food/whatever to do all that." To you I say:
IF YOU NEED RESOURCES, ASK FOR THEM
It helps all of us when all of us are developing as fast as possible. If there is a limiting factor on your development -- i.e., you need gold to research archery -- get in chat and ask for those resources. Do not be shy.
That's the watchword: keep developing. Farm those NPCs. Fill up your barracks and production queues for defenses. Ask for help if you need it.
DEFENSES
Archer towers are the number one priority. Keep them building constantly. Do not stop until your wall is filled up with defenses.
Traps are a good secondary measure. They are quick, cheap to build and efficient. Build them. Don't worry about building any more of the other things.
BARRACKS
Keep your barracks producing AT ALL TIMES. Top priority should be archers, cavalry and warriors, in that order. Try to get production queues lined up 24 hours in advance if you can. Two reasons: first, if something comes up in your life you'll keep producing, and second, enemies can't loot resources you've spent already.
Archers are the most versatile unit for attack and defense. Warriors are a cheap meat shield. And cavalry can help you transport goods quickly or reinforce enemies. Get those.
EMBASSY
Upgrade your embassy. If it's not at 9, get it there fast.
The higher level the embassy is, the more waves of support we can send. This is also why you build cavalry -- to send help fast if needed. And make sure the "garrison allied troops" box is checked.
RESEARCH
If you do not have archery 10, GET IT NOW. This may be the most important defense technology.
MAKE FRIENDS WITH NEIGHBORS
We have lots of allies and are going to get more. If you see a blue flag near you, email them if you haven't (or even if you have). Tell them war is coming. Tell them you'll have their back, and that all of us in Tuscany are going to have to stand together. Ask for their support in return.
And don't be afraid to mail them when things hit the fan
Some might say, "yeah, but I don't have enough lumber/food/whatever to do all that." To you I say:
IF YOU NEED RESOURCES, ASK FOR THEM
It helps all of us when all of us are developing as fast as possible. If there is a limiting factor on your development -- i.e., you need gold to research archery -- get in chat and ask for those resources. Do not be shy.
That's the watchword: keep developing. Farm those NPCs. Fill up your barracks and production queues for defenses. Ask for help if you need it.
DEFENSES
Archer towers are the number one priority. Keep them building constantly. Do not stop until your wall is filled up with defenses.
Traps are a good secondary measure. They are quick, cheap to build and efficient. Build them. Don't worry about building any more of the other things.
BARRACKS
Keep your barracks producing AT ALL TIMES. Top priority should be archers, cavalry and warriors, in that order. Try to get production queues lined up 24 hours in advance if you can. Two reasons: first, if something comes up in your life you'll keep producing, and second, enemies can't loot resources you've spent already.
Archers are the most versatile unit for attack and defense. Warriors are a cheap meat shield. And cavalry can help you transport goods quickly or reinforce enemies. Get those.
EMBASSY
Upgrade your embassy. If it's not at 9, get it there fast.
The higher level the embassy is, the more waves of support we can send. This is also why you build cavalry -- to send help fast if needed. And make sure the "garrison allied troops" box is checked.
RESEARCH
If you do not have archery 10, GET IT NOW. This may be the most important defense technology.
MAKE FRIENDS WITH NEIGHBORS
We have lots of allies and are going to get more. If you see a blue flag near you, email them if you haven't (or even if you have). Tell them war is coming. Tell them you'll have their back, and that all of us in Tuscany are going to have to stand together. Ask for their support in return.
And don't be afraid to mail them when things hit the fan
The Tiny, Disposable City: How To Be Sneaky and Attack Faraway Enemies Without a Teleport.
Do you have lots of troops -- but are surrounded by pesky green flags instead of enticing red ones? Do you have a sweet attack plan, but no teleports to get into position?
Don't worry, my friend. You can implement this ninja/James Bond style forward attack city strategy. The strategy involves creating a disposable city with only the bare minimum buildings needed to launch an effective maximum attack wave.
The idea is to let you get into place quickly and without being noticed; to launch major attacks at high-value targets; and to not present them an enticing target in return, maximizing your gain and minimizing their potential gain.
In short: you move in, whack them, and bounce after they're whacked.
WHAT YOU NEED TO DO THIS
* An evening to take/build a city (takes a few hours)
* A city slot, ideally two (one to build your city with, another to take one of theirs)
* A friend/ally with lots of horses and some free time once your city is ready
* Helpful: a high-level rally station in one of your main troop cities (so you can keep reinforcing fast)
HOW YOU START
It's best if you can take an abandoned city in the area, so you don't have to spend as much time building. Sadly, these are often in short supply, especially cities in the ideal attack position.
The ideal attack position for me is as close as possible to the targets but just off the welcome screen, so your opponents don't see you when they first log in. In keeping up with the game, many players don't do standard map sweeps of the area every day. They just log in and go.
Be sneaky sneaky, and you can punish them for this. On the map, put your target in the center of the screen. Scroll just off the screen and find a city you can take (ideally) or a flat in good position (realistically), and get ready.
Take one if you can, but most likely you'll be buildin'.
So, you've found spot for your city. What then?
WHAT YOUR CITY NEEDS
This is a forward attack city. You ONLY want stuff that is going to help you launch attacks. You won't be building troops here (probably) – you'll be importing them in from elsewhere.
Your city is going to be a lean, mean, fighting machine that you can just launch attacks from and abandon without regret later. If it becomes something bigger, fine, but don't get attached to it.
Because of this, you can get by with bare-bones. You need:
* Academy at least 5, ideally 6 or higher. (A 6 academy gets you access to archery 10, which is the key technology. Get it higher if you can but it takes so long at high levels ...)
* Level 9 rally spot
* An Inn (so you can build a feasting hall)
* Feasting Hall as high as possible, but 5 or six will work. Remember hero count determines how many waves you can send.
* Beacon Tower as high as possible.
* Marketplace + Barracks (not required, although nice! Use the market to buy stuff you need during the fray, the barracks to reinforce)
* Other buildings ONLY insofar as you need them to build the aforementioned buildings
I might be leaving something out, but I don't think so. If I had more time, I'd do a “do this building, in this order” post, but this is going to be long enough anyway and I don't have time to do this now. Maybe later when I do this strategy again!
The point is, you only need buildings that'll help you attack. You need a 9 rally spot to send 90K troops. You need a feasting hall to send heroes out to fight. You need a high beacon tower to see when their attacks are coming, so you can send your transports away with resources RIGHT before they arrive. Etc.
Also: You need at least Academy 4 to get archery research at all, and the higher it is, the more research you access. Check in the academy – the number on the right tells you what level your research is operating at in that city. Use as much of it as you can. It helps your fighters.
WHAT YOUR CITY DOES NOT NEED
* A town hall higher than 3
* Any wall defenses
The idea is to surprise them and minimize their potential gain by attacking you. Keep your town hall level low, even if (and this is a big if) you have enough time to start upgrading walls. This keeps your city small and, even if they see you, should make you look as unassuming as possible.
Why no wall defenses? So they get NOTHING when they attack you. If you have defenses, they win honor by attacking you. You want them to get nothing.
I can bend on this point, because I understand peeps wanting their opponents to lose troops as a consequence of attacking.
But I think it's even more fun to watch them send 100K archers at me and get ... -4 loyalty in my city, a long march, and like 3 gold coins. I think that's hilarious.
WHAT YOU SHOULD SEND TO YOUR CITY WHEN READY
* Bigass breaker troops, lots of archers and warriors
* Transporters (to send resources away in)
* Horses? Maybe, esp if you have a lot and want to take a city.
* Scouts? Sure, why not?
This is why it helps to have a high relief station in your main cities. You can reinforce your forward attack city with troops faster.
Just be sure you have enough troops to hit 'em hard.
Another potentially hilarious thing is to load your city with scouts. Imagine if they scout you and can't get in.
They won't know what the hell is going on. You can get off a few extra attacks just while they're bewildered. And who knows, they might even be afraid to attack you! After all, 90K troops are coming from this city. If you couldn't scout it, wouldn't you be scared about what might be lurking?
BUT WHAT IF THEY SEE MY WEAK-ASS CITY AND ATTACK ME? WHAT DO I DO?
So they hit you. So what? If you keep the gate closed, they can't kill troops. If you don't build wall defenses, they can't get honor.
And, since you know you're going to be online, they can't steal your loot. Every time they send looters, you just send away all your resources in the transporters you've wisely kept on hand – recalling them after the attack hits – so they can't get your resources!
If you set up your comforting resource train well, they probably can't take the city either, unless a) there's lots of them online, b) they're well-organized, c) have lots of horses and d) either know this strategy or figure it out quickly.
ALL of those things have to be true in order for them to take the city. Plus, there's a strategy explained below that can prevent this from happening even if all those conditions are met. And even if they take the city, who cares? You were going to abandon it anyway.
You hit their core cities. They hit a throwaway town you don't give a shit about. So what do you care if they hit you? (You can also NPC the city right before the wave hits and own their troops, too, if you want. But it won't come to that.)
SO HOW DO I STOP THEM FROM TAKING MY CITY, AND HOW DO I KEEP ATTACKING?
That's where your friend comes in, chief.
So, they can't take your honor. You've got no wall defenses. They can't kill your troops. You've got the gate closed. They can't take your resources. You're on the stick with the transporters.
But they can take your loyalty. You need to guard against that. Here's how.
First, have a friend with tons of horses – say, at least 10K – who will be online at the same time.
Second, make sure you have enough gold in the city to pay your heroes. When you're ready to attack, set the tax rate to zero so you get 100% loyalty.
Third, unleash absolute fucking hell on them with attacks. You'll have the element of surprise, and they might be offline. If they are online, it's still cool.
A typical attack will kill loyalty by 4 points at a time until loyalty reaches 15. That means they need to hit you 21 times before loyalty even hits 15. With loyalty loss coming much slower under 15, that probably means another 30-35 attacks to take the city. At least!
That's a lot of damn attacks. Unless you are in a nest of tons of them, and they are all online, and they are well organized, and they see what you are doing, you probably won't face that many. Even if they have that capability, you still have the element of surprise, so time is on your side.
And all that isn't even taking into account comforting, which is key.
You can pray every 15 minutes. It increases loyalty by 25 every time.
To make sure they can't take it, have your friend set up to deliver you cavalry waves of food and/or gold once every 15 minutes. Take the stuff, immediately pray with it. They can't get it now.
Doing the math, this means they need to hit your city seven times every 15 minutes just to stop you from breaking even on loyalty. There's almost no way they can do this. Once you get down below 5 loyalty, if you do, it's even harder – nigh impossible, I'd wager.
Just keep hitting them until your troops run out. If your forces are stronger than theirs, it doesn't matter how strong their city is. As long as you can successfully break attack their city or cities, you're golden.
Obviously, stuff goes wrong. I'd be interested to hear peoples' experiences, and problems they could see.
In my experience, this is a fun, no-cost, and often very entertaining strategy. Watch their big bad level 10 cities fall to your weasely little thing that looks like it just got out of beginner's protection.
Don't worry, my friend. You can implement this ninja/James Bond style forward attack city strategy. The strategy involves creating a disposable city with only the bare minimum buildings needed to launch an effective maximum attack wave.
The idea is to let you get into place quickly and without being noticed; to launch major attacks at high-value targets; and to not present them an enticing target in return, maximizing your gain and minimizing their potential gain.
In short: you move in, whack them, and bounce after they're whacked.
WHAT YOU NEED TO DO THIS
* An evening to take/build a city (takes a few hours)
* A city slot, ideally two (one to build your city with, another to take one of theirs)
* A friend/ally with lots of horses and some free time once your city is ready
* Helpful: a high-level rally station in one of your main troop cities (so you can keep reinforcing fast)
HOW YOU START
It's best if you can take an abandoned city in the area, so you don't have to spend as much time building. Sadly, these are often in short supply, especially cities in the ideal attack position.
The ideal attack position for me is as close as possible to the targets but just off the welcome screen, so your opponents don't see you when they first log in. In keeping up with the game, many players don't do standard map sweeps of the area every day. They just log in and go.
Be sneaky sneaky, and you can punish them for this. On the map, put your target in the center of the screen. Scroll just off the screen and find a city you can take (ideally) or a flat in good position (realistically), and get ready.
Take one if you can, but most likely you'll be buildin'.
So, you've found spot for your city. What then?
WHAT YOUR CITY NEEDS
This is a forward attack city. You ONLY want stuff that is going to help you launch attacks. You won't be building troops here (probably) – you'll be importing them in from elsewhere.
Your city is going to be a lean, mean, fighting machine that you can just launch attacks from and abandon without regret later. If it becomes something bigger, fine, but don't get attached to it.
Because of this, you can get by with bare-bones. You need:
* Academy at least 5, ideally 6 or higher. (A 6 academy gets you access to archery 10, which is the key technology. Get it higher if you can but it takes so long at high levels ...)
* Level 9 rally spot
* An Inn (so you can build a feasting hall)
* Feasting Hall as high as possible, but 5 or six will work. Remember hero count determines how many waves you can send.
* Beacon Tower as high as possible.
* Marketplace + Barracks (not required, although nice! Use the market to buy stuff you need during the fray, the barracks to reinforce)
* Other buildings ONLY insofar as you need them to build the aforementioned buildings
I might be leaving something out, but I don't think so. If I had more time, I'd do a “do this building, in this order” post, but this is going to be long enough anyway and I don't have time to do this now. Maybe later when I do this strategy again!
The point is, you only need buildings that'll help you attack. You need a 9 rally spot to send 90K troops. You need a feasting hall to send heroes out to fight. You need a high beacon tower to see when their attacks are coming, so you can send your transports away with resources RIGHT before they arrive. Etc.
Also: You need at least Academy 4 to get archery research at all, and the higher it is, the more research you access. Check in the academy – the number on the right tells you what level your research is operating at in that city. Use as much of it as you can. It helps your fighters.
WHAT YOUR CITY DOES NOT NEED
* A town hall higher than 3
* Any wall defenses
The idea is to surprise them and minimize their potential gain by attacking you. Keep your town hall level low, even if (and this is a big if) you have enough time to start upgrading walls. This keeps your city small and, even if they see you, should make you look as unassuming as possible.
Why no wall defenses? So they get NOTHING when they attack you. If you have defenses, they win honor by attacking you. You want them to get nothing.
I can bend on this point, because I understand peeps wanting their opponents to lose troops as a consequence of attacking.
But I think it's even more fun to watch them send 100K archers at me and get ... -4 loyalty in my city, a long march, and like 3 gold coins. I think that's hilarious.
WHAT YOU SHOULD SEND TO YOUR CITY WHEN READY
* Bigass breaker troops, lots of archers and warriors
* Transporters (to send resources away in)
* Horses? Maybe, esp if you have a lot and want to take a city.
* Scouts? Sure, why not?
This is why it helps to have a high relief station in your main cities. You can reinforce your forward attack city with troops faster.
Just be sure you have enough troops to hit 'em hard.
Another potentially hilarious thing is to load your city with scouts. Imagine if they scout you and can't get in.
They won't know what the hell is going on. You can get off a few extra attacks just while they're bewildered. And who knows, they might even be afraid to attack you! After all, 90K troops are coming from this city. If you couldn't scout it, wouldn't you be scared about what might be lurking?
BUT WHAT IF THEY SEE MY WEAK-ASS CITY AND ATTACK ME? WHAT DO I DO?
So they hit you. So what? If you keep the gate closed, they can't kill troops. If you don't build wall defenses, they can't get honor.
And, since you know you're going to be online, they can't steal your loot. Every time they send looters, you just send away all your resources in the transporters you've wisely kept on hand – recalling them after the attack hits – so they can't get your resources!
If you set up your comforting resource train well, they probably can't take the city either, unless a) there's lots of them online, b) they're well-organized, c) have lots of horses and d) either know this strategy or figure it out quickly.
ALL of those things have to be true in order for them to take the city. Plus, there's a strategy explained below that can prevent this from happening even if all those conditions are met. And even if they take the city, who cares? You were going to abandon it anyway.
You hit their core cities. They hit a throwaway town you don't give a shit about. So what do you care if they hit you? (You can also NPC the city right before the wave hits and own their troops, too, if you want. But it won't come to that.)
SO HOW DO I STOP THEM FROM TAKING MY CITY, AND HOW DO I KEEP ATTACKING?
That's where your friend comes in, chief.
So, they can't take your honor. You've got no wall defenses. They can't kill your troops. You've got the gate closed. They can't take your resources. You're on the stick with the transporters.
But they can take your loyalty. You need to guard against that. Here's how.
First, have a friend with tons of horses – say, at least 10K – who will be online at the same time.
Second, make sure you have enough gold in the city to pay your heroes. When you're ready to attack, set the tax rate to zero so you get 100% loyalty.
Third, unleash absolute fucking hell on them with attacks. You'll have the element of surprise, and they might be offline. If they are online, it's still cool.
A typical attack will kill loyalty by 4 points at a time until loyalty reaches 15. That means they need to hit you 21 times before loyalty even hits 15. With loyalty loss coming much slower under 15, that probably means another 30-35 attacks to take the city. At least!
That's a lot of damn attacks. Unless you are in a nest of tons of them, and they are all online, and they are well organized, and they see what you are doing, you probably won't face that many. Even if they have that capability, you still have the element of surprise, so time is on your side.
And all that isn't even taking into account comforting, which is key.
You can pray every 15 minutes. It increases loyalty by 25 every time.
To make sure they can't take it, have your friend set up to deliver you cavalry waves of food and/or gold once every 15 minutes. Take the stuff, immediately pray with it. They can't get it now.
Doing the math, this means they need to hit your city seven times every 15 minutes just to stop you from breaking even on loyalty. There's almost no way they can do this. Once you get down below 5 loyalty, if you do, it's even harder – nigh impossible, I'd wager.
Just keep hitting them until your troops run out. If your forces are stronger than theirs, it doesn't matter how strong their city is. As long as you can successfully break attack their city or cities, you're golden.
Obviously, stuff goes wrong. I'd be interested to hear peoples' experiences, and problems they could see.
In my experience, this is a fun, no-cost, and often very entertaining strategy. Watch their big bad level 10 cities fall to your weasely little thing that looks like it just got out of beginner's protection.
Level 10 NPC Medal Farming & Capture
The point of this entry is to educate the user on attacking to obtain Justice and Nation medals to advance titles, and subsequently capture a lvl 10 NPC. The main advantages of obtaining this grand behemoth is to advance your techs with the lvl 10 construction within and furthermore be able to utilize the lvl 10 rally point inside.
With this in mind, any Michaelangelo's Scripts that you obtain should be used for 1 rally point (to more successfully take a lvl 10 NPC) and walls in your other cities. It is best to wait to get the NPC in order to have lvl 10 Inn, workshop, forge, stable, etc. After obtaining the lvl 10 NPC, it is recommended to demolish all remaining in your existing cities instances of these buildings, along with warehouses to make room for more barracks.
Things you will need before beginning the conquest...
Location:
be within 2 miles of a lvl 10 city (I did 3.2 miles and it was a nightmare)
feel free to take a lvl 10 flat and build your own...just wait 8 hrs since troop spawn is automatic, but resources will take time to build up...there's 19M food there, you're gonna need that to feed those troops (read on)
Time:
give yourself approx 2 hrs (this is a max)
make sure you won't be interrupted by a server update (you will have to start over immediately and will probably take total losses for anything that hits after!)
Items:
You will have to apply upgrades to minimize losses and increase the amount of troops to send. Be sure to have on hand...
1 War Ensign
1 Penicillin
1 Corselet
1 War Horn
Apply the penicillin, corselet and war horn before any attacks.
Heroes:
You should have some decent heroes available...at least 6 with attacks around 80 and above and 1 with over 100 atk.
Troops:
150K Archers, min. (I started with 170K, and kept building...but then again, I was far away)
150K Warriors, min. (I started with 175K)
Method:
So you wanna take on the Evony Behemoth...are you ready? Here's how it works.
Step 1 - Scout (I used 3K scouts) the city repeatedly until the NPC hero is at lvl 7 or below, this will help minimize losses.
Step 2 - Apply the corselet, penicillin and war horn
Step 3 - ATTACK! Use the war ensign on the first attack only. Max out with 124,720 archers and rainbow from worker to cataphract of 40 troops each. Use your 100+ atk hero for this job. You will receive about 2M experience points for your hero from this attack and high prestige...don't remember how much. This attack will wipe out the 400K warriors and most of the city's defenses. (a little less than a 9,000 archer loss) Note what time on the bottom right window of the attack screen the troops will arrive. (write it down and keep writing down the 6 min interval so you remember!)
Step 4 - This wave, and all subsequent waves, will be 25K warriors and 25K archers with whatever hero you want. No further applications of upgrades will be necessary from this point on.
For medal farming, I recommend hitting the city every 3 minutes. The NPC has a respawn of 40K troops and gains 3 loyalty points every 6 minutes. This will drop the loyalty by 3 every 6 minutes. With the 25K/25K troop method, you will receive a nation or justice medal on practically every attack with troops or defenses (which also respawn).
Keep doing this until you receive most of the justice medals you need. (you'll need 5 for Duke and 10 for Furstin, check to make sure you haven't already claimed the medal bonus for the medals after you receive the first one)
Step 5 - Cure the wounded after every attack hits in your rally point
Step 6 - Upgrade your heroes as they go! You're looking at between 250K to 500K exp per attack...
Step 7 - OK, you've been attacking for a little while now and you've got most of your justice medals...you've managed to get the NPC down to a loyalty of around 50-something and you're tired, cross-eyed from staring at attack reports and you just want to take this thing already.
The only difference is you start sending faster...as many times as you can within each 6 minute interval. Make sure you get a balance of hitting while other armies are returning...this will drop the loyalty very fast. The beauty of NPC conquering is that when you get the loy down to smaller digits, there is no waiting to time your attacks, just keep hitting and that 5 will become a 2 and after the 2 it will be yours...
BUT NOW THE WORK BEGINS!
You've conquered the behemoth...now what? What do I do with a city that has 37 lvl 10 farms and only 1 of each of the rest? Why are there 20 lvl 10 cottages and only 1 lvl 10 barracks? Crazy I know, and as painful as it is...its time to tear down.
Odds are you won't need a lot of money anymore except for those tasty lvl 10 researches you can complete now. Get a high intel hero in there ASAP. Start your first research as soon as you can.
Get transports and ballista over there and don't forget the lumber, stone and iron and get those defenses up PRONTO! You've worked too hard to have this taken away from you.
Comfort the city to get the loyalty back up.
Start tearing down cottages (I like a min of 12 barracks in my cities) so tear down 11 cottages and build up your barracks.
Set the tax rate at 20% or below to keep about 14K or more idle pop for troop queueing.
I haven't done anything with the farms yet because frankly, I needed that many. Don't forget to start getting valleys for this beast...I recommend high level lakes and swamps. 'Port in your resources from other cities.
I'm looking into farming lvl 8 NPCs for the other resources...this will be a separate post once I have figured it out...but eventually, resource fields may become entirely unnecessary!
With this in mind, any Michaelangelo's Scripts that you obtain should be used for 1 rally point (to more successfully take a lvl 10 NPC) and walls in your other cities. It is best to wait to get the NPC in order to have lvl 10 Inn, workshop, forge, stable, etc. After obtaining the lvl 10 NPC, it is recommended to demolish all remaining in your existing cities instances of these buildings, along with warehouses to make room for more barracks.
Things you will need before beginning the conquest...
Location:
be within 2 miles of a lvl 10 city (I did 3.2 miles and it was a nightmare)
feel free to take a lvl 10 flat and build your own...just wait 8 hrs since troop spawn is automatic, but resources will take time to build up...there's 19M food there, you're gonna need that to feed those troops (read on)
Time:
give yourself approx 2 hrs (this is a max)
make sure you won't be interrupted by a server update (you will have to start over immediately and will probably take total losses for anything that hits after!)
Items:
You will have to apply upgrades to minimize losses and increase the amount of troops to send. Be sure to have on hand...
1 War Ensign
1 Penicillin
1 Corselet
1 War Horn
Apply the penicillin, corselet and war horn before any attacks.
Heroes:
You should have some decent heroes available...at least 6 with attacks around 80 and above and 1 with over 100 atk.
Troops:
150K Archers, min. (I started with 170K, and kept building...but then again, I was far away)
150K Warriors, min. (I started with 175K)
Method:
So you wanna take on the Evony Behemoth...are you ready? Here's how it works.
Step 1 - Scout (I used 3K scouts) the city repeatedly until the NPC hero is at lvl 7 or below, this will help minimize losses.
Step 2 - Apply the corselet, penicillin and war horn
Step 3 - ATTACK! Use the war ensign on the first attack only. Max out with 124,720 archers and rainbow from worker to cataphract of 40 troops each. Use your 100+ atk hero for this job. You will receive about 2M experience points for your hero from this attack and high prestige...don't remember how much. This attack will wipe out the 400K warriors and most of the city's defenses. (a little less than a 9,000 archer loss) Note what time on the bottom right window of the attack screen the troops will arrive. (write it down and keep writing down the 6 min interval so you remember!)
Step 4 - This wave, and all subsequent waves, will be 25K warriors and 25K archers with whatever hero you want. No further applications of upgrades will be necessary from this point on.
For medal farming, I recommend hitting the city every 3 minutes. The NPC has a respawn of 40K troops and gains 3 loyalty points every 6 minutes. This will drop the loyalty by 3 every 6 minutes. With the 25K/25K troop method, you will receive a nation or justice medal on practically every attack with troops or defenses (which also respawn).
Keep doing this until you receive most of the justice medals you need. (you'll need 5 for Duke and 10 for Furstin, check to make sure you haven't already claimed the medal bonus for the medals after you receive the first one)
Step 5 - Cure the wounded after every attack hits in your rally point
Step 6 - Upgrade your heroes as they go! You're looking at between 250K to 500K exp per attack...
Step 7 - OK, you've been attacking for a little while now and you've got most of your justice medals...you've managed to get the NPC down to a loyalty of around 50-something and you're tired, cross-eyed from staring at attack reports and you just want to take this thing already.
The only difference is you start sending faster...as many times as you can within each 6 minute interval. Make sure you get a balance of hitting while other armies are returning...this will drop the loyalty very fast. The beauty of NPC conquering is that when you get the loy down to smaller digits, there is no waiting to time your attacks, just keep hitting and that 5 will become a 2 and after the 2 it will be yours...
BUT NOW THE WORK BEGINS!
You've conquered the behemoth...now what? What do I do with a city that has 37 lvl 10 farms and only 1 of each of the rest? Why are there 20 lvl 10 cottages and only 1 lvl 10 barracks? Crazy I know, and as painful as it is...its time to tear down.
Odds are you won't need a lot of money anymore except for those tasty lvl 10 researches you can complete now. Get a high intel hero in there ASAP. Start your first research as soon as you can.
Get transports and ballista over there and don't forget the lumber, stone and iron and get those defenses up PRONTO! You've worked too hard to have this taken away from you.
Comfort the city to get the loyalty back up.
Start tearing down cottages (I like a min of 12 barracks in my cities) so tear down 11 cottages and build up your barracks.
Set the tax rate at 20% or below to keep about 14K or more idle pop for troop queueing.
I haven't done anything with the farms yet because frankly, I needed that many. Don't forget to start getting valleys for this beast...I recommend high level lakes and swamps. 'Port in your resources from other cities.
I'm looking into farming lvl 8 NPCs for the other resources...this will be a separate post once I have figured it out...but eventually, resource fields may become entirely unnecessary!
The Kitchen Timer Loyalty Bomb Strategy So you're trying to take a city.
So you're trying to take a city. You send waves of break attacks, followed by waves of horse.
But your opponent is online. He closes the gates for the break attack, so you can't kill his troops, and opens the gates for your horse, so he can kill yours.
You, my friend, have been pwned. You suck at this game. Maybe you should try needlepoint, or cricket, or jai alai.
I'M KIDDING. This has happened to all of us, and has happened to me a lot.
This was before I learned the (drum roll please) ... KITCHEN TIMER LOYALTY BOMB STRATEGY! Yes, it sounds like a Japanese noise band. Roll with it.
WHY YOU SHOULD TIME WAVES TO HIT ALL AT ONCE
IF you have a big wave at 10 minutes and a small wave at 1, it's easy for an opponent who is online to beat you. They just leave the gates closed for the first attack, then open them for the second attack.
But! If you have all the attacks land within a second or two of each other, this is impossible. You give your opponent a choice: risk losing everything by opening the gates, or turtle up and let you loot him.
Best, if he does the latter, he loses about 36 loyalty, since 9 attacks hit at once taking 4 loyalty each.
If you have an opponent with 4 cities and only enough troops to open the gate in one or two, you can full-court press him. Send attacks at ALL of those cities. Then, set scouts to hit one minute prior to impact. You'll be able to see where all his troops are, and withdraw from there. He won't be able to stop you looting his other towns.
Sounds great, right? (Everybody say, "right!") But how do you do this, given the camp interface sucks in the rally spot?
The answer: the humble kitchen timer.
HOW TO DO THIS
STEP ONE: Have enough troops and heroes to send out 9 or 10 waves. One big wave of breakers, and other waves of either warriors or cavalry. Ideally warriors, because if something goes wrong it won't hurt to lose them, but sometimes you need the cavalry to get there faster.
STEP TWO: Go into the rally spot. Have your kitchen timer handy.
Dial up a target. See how long it takes to reach the target. Get ready to click "OK."
Now, set your countdown timer to the EXACT time the attack lands.
This gives you a handheld device that will tell you precisely when your breaker lands. Now, use the camp feature to have 8 or 9 waves of warriors or cavalry land 1 second behind the breaker.
Your opponent can't open the gates unless he can slaughter the breaker wave -- and if he can, you've got bigger problems.
As always, re-scout 1m before the attack hits to make sure he isn't reinforced. But this is a good way to whack the loyalty down fast, without the risk of losing troops.
But your opponent is online. He closes the gates for the break attack, so you can't kill his troops, and opens the gates for your horse, so he can kill yours.
You, my friend, have been pwned. You suck at this game. Maybe you should try needlepoint, or cricket, or jai alai.
I'M KIDDING. This has happened to all of us, and has happened to me a lot.
This was before I learned the (drum roll please) ... KITCHEN TIMER LOYALTY BOMB STRATEGY! Yes, it sounds like a Japanese noise band. Roll with it.
WHY YOU SHOULD TIME WAVES TO HIT ALL AT ONCE
IF you have a big wave at 10 minutes and a small wave at 1, it's easy for an opponent who is online to beat you. They just leave the gates closed for the first attack, then open them for the second attack.
But! If you have all the attacks land within a second or two of each other, this is impossible. You give your opponent a choice: risk losing everything by opening the gates, or turtle up and let you loot him.
Best, if he does the latter, he loses about 36 loyalty, since 9 attacks hit at once taking 4 loyalty each.
If you have an opponent with 4 cities and only enough troops to open the gate in one or two, you can full-court press him. Send attacks at ALL of those cities. Then, set scouts to hit one minute prior to impact. You'll be able to see where all his troops are, and withdraw from there. He won't be able to stop you looting his other towns.
Sounds great, right? (Everybody say, "right!") But how do you do this, given the camp interface sucks in the rally spot?
The answer: the humble kitchen timer.
HOW TO DO THIS
STEP ONE: Have enough troops and heroes to send out 9 or 10 waves. One big wave of breakers, and other waves of either warriors or cavalry. Ideally warriors, because if something goes wrong it won't hurt to lose them, but sometimes you need the cavalry to get there faster.
STEP TWO: Go into the rally spot. Have your kitchen timer handy.
Dial up a target. See how long it takes to reach the target. Get ready to click "OK."
Now, set your countdown timer to the EXACT time the attack lands.
This gives you a handheld device that will tell you precisely when your breaker lands. Now, use the camp feature to have 8 or 9 waves of warriors or cavalry land 1 second behind the breaker.
Your opponent can't open the gates unless he can slaughter the breaker wave -- and if he can, you've got bigger problems.
As always, re-scout 1m before the attack hits to make sure he isn't reinforced. But this is a good way to whack the loyalty down fast, without the risk of losing troops.
What to do if you're attacked.
PRE-ATTACK PREPARATION
1. Don't make yourself a target. Build wall defenses and armies. Keep your resources at work producing things -- if you've bought armies or defenses, they can't be stolen from you.
2. Build an Embassy in EVERY city and keep the box checked. Your embassy determines how many waves of supporting troops you can accept from allies. You have to check a box inside the embassy to garrison allied troops. CHECK THE BOX. Make sure your embassy is at least level 3, ideally higher, or the help we can provide is limited.
3. Should I open the gates in my Rally Spot? Maybe. Only if you a) have a really strong army and b) don't mind losing your army if attacked. The army will automatically fight once your city's loyalty drops to 5.
4. Build your beacon tower. The higher level it is, the better information you'll get about the attack that's coming. The dove will flash red on your reports button. That's how you know you're being attacked.
5. Know your neighbors. Find nearby Z2K members. Find allies. Write to them. Support them when they're in need, and they'll do the same for you.
WHEN I AM ATTACKED, WHAT DO I DO?
1. Alert the alliance immediately. Go to alliance chat. Ask for help. Mail your neighbors. Give them ALL the info you have.
2. Put your highest level attack hero in as mayor. This helps your troops fight.
3. Send resources away. Putting them up for sale at the market does not work. Sending resources to other cities in transporters or hiding them in valleys does work.
4. Spend resources you can't send away immediately. Put troops in queue or buy wall defenses.
5. Power up with bonuses. You may have items that increase your defense or offense. Remember them and apply them.
IT LOOKS REALLY BAD FOR ME. WHAT ARE MY OPTIONS?
You lose a city when loyalty gets to zero. This takes a long time and multiple attack waves. To boost your loyalty, lower your tax rate to zero. You can also do "comforting," as we'll see below. But there are other strategies too.
1. Use a "Truce" item if you have it. A truce only works for ONE of your cities, not all. It prevents you from being attacked (or attacking) for 12 hours. However, after that 12 hours has expired, you may not use another truce for another 12 hours. It enables you to have some breathing room to develop and get reinforcements from the alliance.
If you don't have a Truce:
2. You can keep trying to save the city by comforting (in the town hall). This may not deter a persistent enemy. You can also:
3. Teleport away. You should teleport to Tuscany if this is the case -- we can protect you there.
4. Abandon the city. Only do this if you have no other option, but it turns your city into an NPC and prevents the opponent from capturing it. You do this by going into "overview," into "cities," and clicking "abandon." Then you can build a new city elsewhere.
One other thing: if you're going to be away, let alliance members (and no one else!) know. Make sure someone can check your account and keep an eye on things for you.
1. Don't make yourself a target. Build wall defenses and armies. Keep your resources at work producing things -- if you've bought armies or defenses, they can't be stolen from you.
2. Build an Embassy in EVERY city and keep the box checked. Your embassy determines how many waves of supporting troops you can accept from allies. You have to check a box inside the embassy to garrison allied troops. CHECK THE BOX. Make sure your embassy is at least level 3, ideally higher, or the help we can provide is limited.
3. Should I open the gates in my Rally Spot? Maybe. Only if you a) have a really strong army and b) don't mind losing your army if attacked. The army will automatically fight once your city's loyalty drops to 5.
4. Build your beacon tower. The higher level it is, the better information you'll get about the attack that's coming. The dove will flash red on your reports button. That's how you know you're being attacked.
5. Know your neighbors. Find nearby Z2K members. Find allies. Write to them. Support them when they're in need, and they'll do the same for you.
WHEN I AM ATTACKED, WHAT DO I DO?
1. Alert the alliance immediately. Go to alliance chat. Ask for help. Mail your neighbors. Give them ALL the info you have.
2. Put your highest level attack hero in as mayor. This helps your troops fight.
3. Send resources away. Putting them up for sale at the market does not work. Sending resources to other cities in transporters or hiding them in valleys does work.
4. Spend resources you can't send away immediately. Put troops in queue or buy wall defenses.
5. Power up with bonuses. You may have items that increase your defense or offense. Remember them and apply them.
IT LOOKS REALLY BAD FOR ME. WHAT ARE MY OPTIONS?
You lose a city when loyalty gets to zero. This takes a long time and multiple attack waves. To boost your loyalty, lower your tax rate to zero. You can also do "comforting," as we'll see below. But there are other strategies too.
1. Use a "Truce" item if you have it. A truce only works for ONE of your cities, not all. It prevents you from being attacked (or attacking) for 12 hours. However, after that 12 hours has expired, you may not use another truce for another 12 hours. It enables you to have some breathing room to develop and get reinforcements from the alliance.
If you don't have a Truce:
2. You can keep trying to save the city by comforting (in the town hall). This may not deter a persistent enemy. You can also:
3. Teleport away. You should teleport to Tuscany if this is the case -- we can protect you there.
4. Abandon the city. Only do this if you have no other option, but it turns your city into an NPC and prevents the opponent from capturing it. You do this by going into "overview," into "cities," and clicking "abandon." Then you can build a new city elsewhere.
One other thing: if you're going to be away, let alliance members (and no one else!) know. Make sure someone can check your account and keep an eye on things for you.
Level 10 NPC Medal Farming & Capture
The point of this entry is to educate the user on attacking to obtain Justice and Nation medals to advance titles, and subsequently capture a lvl 10 NPC. The main advantages of obtaining this grand behemoth is to advance your techs with the lvl 10 construction within and furthermore be able to utilize the lvl 10 rally point inside.
With this in mind, any Michaelangelo's Scripts that you obtain should be used for 1 rally point (to more successfully take a lvl 10 NPC) and walls in your other cities. It is best to wait to get the NPC in order to have lvl 10 Inn, workshop, forge, stable, etc. After obtaining the lvl 10 NPC, it is recommended to demolish all remaining in your existing cities instances of these buildings, along with warehouses to make room for more barracks.
Things you will need before beginning the conquest...
Location:
be within 2 miles of a lvl 10 city (I did 3.2 miles and it was a nightmare)
feel free to take a lvl 10 flat and build your own...just wait 8 hrs since troop spawn is automatic, but resources will take time to build up...there's 19M food there, you're gonna need that to feed those troops (read on)
Time:
give yourself approx 2 hrs (this is a max)
make sure you won't be interrupted by a server update (you will have to start over immediately and will probably take total losses for anything that hits after!)
Items:
You will have to apply upgrades to minimize losses and increase the amount of troops to send. Be sure to have on hand...
1 War Ensign
1 Penicillin
1 Corselet
1 War Horn
Apply the penicillin, corselet and war horn before any attacks.
Heroes:
You should have some decent heroes available...at least 6 with attacks around 80 and above and 1 with over 100 atk.
Troops:
150K Archers, min. (I started with 170K, and kept building...but then again, I was far away)
150K Warriors, min. (I started with 175K)
Method:
So you wanna take on the Evony Behemoth...are you ready? Here's how it works.
Step 1 - Scout (I used 3K scouts) the city repeatedly until the NPC hero is at lvl 7 or below, this will help minimize losses.
Step 2 - Apply the corselet, penicillin and war horn
Step 3 - ATTACK! Use the war ensign on the first attack only. Max out with 124,720 archers and rainbow from worker to cataphract of 40 troops each. Use your 100+ atk hero for this job. You will receive about 2M experience points for your hero from this attack and high prestige...don't remember how much. This attack will wipe out the 400K warriors and most of the city's defenses. (a little less than a 9,000 archer loss) Note what time on the bottom right window of the attack screen the troops will arrive. (write it down and keep writing down the 6 min interval so you remember!)
Step 4 - This wave, and all subsequent waves, will be 25K warriors and 25K archers with whatever hero you want. No further applications of upgrades will be necessary from this point on.
For medal farming, I recommend hitting the city every 3 minutes. The NPC has a respawn of 40K troops and gains 3 loyalty points every 6 minutes. This will drop the loyalty by 3 every 6 minutes. With the 25K/25K troop method, you will receive a nation or justice medal on practically every attack with troops or defenses (which also respawn).
Keep doing this until you receive most of the justice medals you need. (you'll need 5 for Duke and 10 for Furstin, check to make sure you haven't already claimed the medal bonus for the medals after you receive the first one)
Step 5 - Cure the wounded after every attack hits in your rally point
Step 6 - Upgrade your heroes as they go! You're looking at between 250K to 500K exp per attack...
Step 7 - OK, you've been attacking for a little while now and you've got most of your justice medals...you've managed to get the NPC down to a loyalty of around 50-something and you're tired, cross-eyed from staring at attack reports and you just want to take this thing already.
The only difference is you start sending faster...as many times as you can within each 6 minute interval. Make sure you get a balance of hitting while other armies are returning...this will drop the loyalty very fast. The beauty of NPC conquering is that when you get the loy down to smaller digits, there is no waiting to time your attacks, just keep hitting and that 5 will become a 2 and after the 2 it will be yours...
BUT NOW THE WORK BEGINS!
You've conquered the behemoth...now what? What do I do with a city that has 37 lvl 10 farms and only 1 of each of the rest? Why are there 20 lvl 10 cottages and only 1 lvl 10 barracks? Crazy I know, and as painful as it is...its time to tear down.
Odds are you won't need a lot of money anymore except for those tasty lvl 10 researches you can complete now. Get a high intel hero in there ASAP. Start your first research as soon as you can.
Get transports and ballista over there and don't forget the lumber, stone and iron and get those defenses up PRONTO! You've worked too hard to have this taken away from you.
Comfort the city to get the loyalty back up.
Start tearing down cottages (I like a min of 12 barracks in my cities) so tear down 11 cottages and build up your barracks.
Set the tax rate at 20% or below to keep about 14K or more idle pop for troop queueing.
I haven't done anything with the farms yet because frankly, I needed that many. Don't forget to start getting valleys for this beast...I recommend high level lakes and swamps. 'Port in your resources from other cities.
I'm looking into farming lvl 8 NPCs for the other resources...this will be a separate post once I have figured it out...but eventually, resource fields may become entirely unnecessary!
With this in mind, any Michaelangelo's Scripts that you obtain should be used for 1 rally point (to more successfully take a lvl 10 NPC) and walls in your other cities. It is best to wait to get the NPC in order to have lvl 10 Inn, workshop, forge, stable, etc. After obtaining the lvl 10 NPC, it is recommended to demolish all remaining in your existing cities instances of these buildings, along with warehouses to make room for more barracks.
Things you will need before beginning the conquest...
Location:
be within 2 miles of a lvl 10 city (I did 3.2 miles and it was a nightmare)
feel free to take a lvl 10 flat and build your own...just wait 8 hrs since troop spawn is automatic, but resources will take time to build up...there's 19M food there, you're gonna need that to feed those troops (read on)
Time:
give yourself approx 2 hrs (this is a max)
make sure you won't be interrupted by a server update (you will have to start over immediately and will probably take total losses for anything that hits after!)
Items:
You will have to apply upgrades to minimize losses and increase the amount of troops to send. Be sure to have on hand...
1 War Ensign
1 Penicillin
1 Corselet
1 War Horn
Apply the penicillin, corselet and war horn before any attacks.
Heroes:
You should have some decent heroes available...at least 6 with attacks around 80 and above and 1 with over 100 atk.
Troops:
150K Archers, min. (I started with 170K, and kept building...but then again, I was far away)
150K Warriors, min. (I started with 175K)
Method:
So you wanna take on the Evony Behemoth...are you ready? Here's how it works.
Step 1 - Scout (I used 3K scouts) the city repeatedly until the NPC hero is at lvl 7 or below, this will help minimize losses.
Step 2 - Apply the corselet, penicillin and war horn
Step 3 - ATTACK! Use the war ensign on the first attack only. Max out with 124,720 archers and rainbow from worker to cataphract of 40 troops each. Use your 100+ atk hero for this job. You will receive about 2M experience points for your hero from this attack and high prestige...don't remember how much. This attack will wipe out the 400K warriors and most of the city's defenses. (a little less than a 9,000 archer loss) Note what time on the bottom right window of the attack screen the troops will arrive. (write it down and keep writing down the 6 min interval so you remember!)
Step 4 - This wave, and all subsequent waves, will be 25K warriors and 25K archers with whatever hero you want. No further applications of upgrades will be necessary from this point on.
For medal farming, I recommend hitting the city every 3 minutes. The NPC has a respawn of 40K troops and gains 3 loyalty points every 6 minutes. This will drop the loyalty by 3 every 6 minutes. With the 25K/25K troop method, you will receive a nation or justice medal on practically every attack with troops or defenses (which also respawn).
Keep doing this until you receive most of the justice medals you need. (you'll need 5 for Duke and 10 for Furstin, check to make sure you haven't already claimed the medal bonus for the medals after you receive the first one)
Step 5 - Cure the wounded after every attack hits in your rally point
Step 6 - Upgrade your heroes as they go! You're looking at between 250K to 500K exp per attack...
Step 7 - OK, you've been attacking for a little while now and you've got most of your justice medals...you've managed to get the NPC down to a loyalty of around 50-something and you're tired, cross-eyed from staring at attack reports and you just want to take this thing already.
The only difference is you start sending faster...as many times as you can within each 6 minute interval. Make sure you get a balance of hitting while other armies are returning...this will drop the loyalty very fast. The beauty of NPC conquering is that when you get the loy down to smaller digits, there is no waiting to time your attacks, just keep hitting and that 5 will become a 2 and after the 2 it will be yours...
BUT NOW THE WORK BEGINS!
You've conquered the behemoth...now what? What do I do with a city that has 37 lvl 10 farms and only 1 of each of the rest? Why are there 20 lvl 10 cottages and only 1 lvl 10 barracks? Crazy I know, and as painful as it is...its time to tear down.
Odds are you won't need a lot of money anymore except for those tasty lvl 10 researches you can complete now. Get a high intel hero in there ASAP. Start your first research as soon as you can.
Get transports and ballista over there and don't forget the lumber, stone and iron and get those defenses up PRONTO! You've worked too hard to have this taken away from you.
Comfort the city to get the loyalty back up.
Start tearing down cottages (I like a min of 12 barracks in my cities) so tear down 11 cottages and build up your barracks.
Set the tax rate at 20% or below to keep about 14K or more idle pop for troop queueing.
I haven't done anything with the farms yet because frankly, I needed that many. Don't forget to start getting valleys for this beast...I recommend high level lakes and swamps. 'Port in your resources from other cities.
I'm looking into farming lvl 8 NPCs for the other resources...this will be a separate post once I have figured it out...but eventually, resource fields may become entirely unnecessary!
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