Basic Walkthrough
1. Troops This is by far the most important thing that I have learned through other tribe members and players that I have found. Troops define the player, not points. It is extremely important to keep at least one defensive troop (spearmen or swordsmen) per village point in your towns. Also make sure to upgrade both spearmen and swordsmen to level 3 in every town you have. Just because you have a lot of points does not mean your strong, I just nobled a 5000 point village with only a few hundred units on defense. So if your sitting at 2500 points with a strong army you could easily take over a similar village. 2. Attacks Once your defensive situation is figured out you will want to start thinking about building up an army.. no you do not have an army yet, spearmen and swordsmen don't count (They are defensive.. not offensive). When you feel it is time to attack another player you will need axes and light cavalry. As many as you could build without sacrificing your defensive troop production. If the player has over 1000 points you will also want to build rams to take down that wall. To give you an idea of what you might need, a little over 200 level 1 rams will take down a level 20 wall to 0 (see section 5 for a more detailed approach). I wouldn't recommend using catapults unless the attack is purely to set a player back a little bit (retaliation maybe??). 3. Nobling Targets In terms of how to get/use a noble there are excellent posts found elsewhere and you should refer to them. However, I really think this is what separates players like ::insert random top 10 player here:: from the rest of the pack and something that I'm trying to emulate as well. You won't see him nobling small abandoned villages and building them up from there. It takes too much time! To build a village from scratch into a decent size village could take about 3 weeks. Now would you rather spend that extra day nobling a further village or get one quick and spend the next 3 weeks trying to build that village into something you could have already had? Easy answer to me. When picking targets points do matter. Since you want to build as few buildings as possible in your new town you can try to pick the one with the most points and the smallest tribe. It's a tough equilibrium and post on your tribal forums if you have any doubts. If you pick the right targets you could consistently gain 3k+ villages and never have to worry about building up your first academy ever again. 4. Managing Towns I'll be honest this is something that I still have a lot to learn but I will still share what I have read and heard works well. When you get past your 2nd town you will realize that you can only have so many troops per village. 24,000 may seem like a lot for a maximum population, but in reality it is not nearly enough. It becomes a problem when you are maintaining a good level of defensive troops and trying to maintain a decent attack army. If you try to have both a defensive and offensive army in each town you will run out of technologies and troops. What a lot of players have done is try to maintain 1 or 2 defensive towns per 1 offensive town. Now the definitions of what a "defensive" and "offensive" town are what I am still learning. From my understanding your "offensive" towns will have level 3 upgrades for spear, swords, axes, and light cavalry with 3 left for whatever and your "defensive" towns will have level 3 upgrades for spear, swords, scouts, and whatever else you feel like using resources on. Obviously you won't be producing as many defensive troops in your offensive village with the assumption that you will support it with the extra troops in you defensive village. I have no idea how many units of each to place in a offensive town and this will take a lot of trial and error on our parts. 4. Make Friends Alright tribal wars is not like Contra (the videogame), you can't just kill the whole world with one or two people. You will need friends along the way to provide support if/when times get rough. This is why sending out tribal invitations is extremely important if you are not in an established tribe and want your village to stay around for a while. Yes you can survive on your own for a while, but it's only a matter of time until a tribe sees you as a great "nobling target" and will go after you (Note: this is not the time to join a tribe... most people don't think highly of harboring a fugitive). If you feel that you can't possibly send out any more invites in your area, send a few more just to be safe. After doing that look around your area and try to find out who has some muscle and go to them and suggest pursuing diplomatic relations. However, be careful! If you get too many weaker allies in your area you will lose out on nobling some great towns in the future. Also if you are in an alliance be prepared to offer them every troop you have if you expect them to return the favor. Keep the number of alllies few, yet strong. Once all this is done there is not much that you can really do asides from sending out emails from time to time asking if any of your allies need help. This will ensure that when it comes time that you need help they will not get the impression that you are leaching off of them and they will also respond much sooner and forcefully. 5. Advanced attacking - Rams/Catapults This information was sent to me by a user that wishes to remain anonymous so people don't think he's nice I would like to thank him a lot because a lot of this I did not know Rams have 3 phases during the battle. 1) They reduce the defensive bonus given by the wall before the battle 2) They take part in the battle adding a massive 2 points per ram 3) The surviving rams damage the wall after the battle To completely wipe out the wall bonus and not cause unneeded damage to your troop levels or your soon to be new village you need to send (for a level20 wall) 219 level 1 rams 175 level 2 rams 157 level 3 rams Catapult Chart This shows how to use catapults in waves instead of a massive attack. If you do this it requires a lot less cats in the attacks. This assumes that there are no defenses and walls. ALWAYS send troops with cats. Even if its like 25 axes. Completely Destroy a Building ---------------------------------- Lvl 1 -> 2 catapults Lvl 2-> 6 catapults Lvl 3-> 10 catapults ---------------------------------- Min. Catapults To Use (Destroys one level) ---------------------------------- Lvl 1-3 -> 2 catapults Lvl 4-7 -> 3 catapults Lvl 8-11 -> 4 catapults Lvl 12-13 -> 5 catapults Lvl 14-16 -> 6 catapults Lvl 17 -> 7 catapults Lvl 18-19 -> 8 catapults Lvl 20 -> 9 catapults eg 1. It would take 10 cats to destroy lvl 3 in one attack. But if you use 3 attacks of 2 cats, it takes 6 cats eg 2.It will take 328 cats(level1)to completely destroy a level 20 building in one strike. Were as 3 separate attacks of 75 cats(level 1)will do the same thing. It is possible to bring a level 30 building to 0 using 94 cats in waves although this would be impossible against a semi decent player. There is no point destroying buildings if you plan to noble the village. They are just for dishing out punishment
1. Troops This is by far the most important thing that I have learned through other tribe members and players that I have found. Troops define the player, not points. It is extremely important to keep at least one defensive troop (spearmen or swordsmen) per village point in your towns. Also make sure to upgrade both spearmen and swordsmen to level 3 in every town you have. Just because you have a lot of points does not mean your strong, I just nobled a 5000 point village with only a few hundred units on defense. So if your sitting at 2500 points with a strong army you could easily take over a similar village. 2. Attacks Once your defensive situation is figured out you will want to start thinking about building up an army.. no you do not have an army yet, spearmen and swordsmen don't count (They are defensive.. not offensive). When you feel it is time to attack another player you will need axes and light cavalry. As many as you could build without sacrificing your defensive troop production. If the player has over 1000 points you will also want to build rams to take down that wall. To give you an idea of what you might need, a little over 200 level 1 rams will take down a level 20 wall to 0 (see section 5 for a more detailed approach). I wouldn't recommend using catapults unless the attack is purely to set a player back a little bit (retaliation maybe??). 3. Nobling Targets In terms of how to get/use a noble there are excellent posts found elsewhere and you should refer to them. However, I really think this is what separates players like ::insert random top 10 player here:: from the rest of the pack and something that I'm trying to emulate as well. You won't see him nobling small abandoned villages and building them up from there. It takes too much time! To build a village from scratch into a decent size village could take about 3 weeks. Now would you rather spend that extra day nobling a further village or get one quick and spend the next 3 weeks trying to build that village into something you could have already had? Easy answer to me. When picking targets points do matter. Since you want to build as few buildings as possible in your new town you can try to pick the one with the most points and the smallest tribe. It's a tough equilibrium and post on your tribal forums if you have any doubts. If you pick the right targets you could consistently gain 3k+ villages and never have to worry about building up your first academy ever again. 4. Managing Towns I'll be honest this is something that I still have a lot to learn but I will still share what I have read and heard works well. When you get past your 2nd town you will realize that you can only have so many troops per village. 24,000 may seem like a lot for a maximum population, but in reality it is not nearly enough. It becomes a problem when you are maintaining a good level of defensive troops and trying to maintain a decent attack army. If you try to have both a defensive and offensive army in each town you will run out of technologies and troops. What a lot of players have done is try to maintain 1 or 2 defensive towns per 1 offensive town. Now the definitions of what a "defensive" and "offensive" town are what I am still learning. From my understanding your "offensive" towns will have level 3 upgrades for spear, swords, axes, and light cavalry with 3 left for whatever and your "defensive" towns will have level 3 upgrades for spear, swords, scouts, and whatever else you feel like using resources on. Obviously you won't be producing as many defensive troops in your offensive village with the assumption that you will support it with the extra troops in you defensive village. I have no idea how many units of each to place in a offensive town and this will take a lot of trial and error on our parts. 4. Make Friends Alright tribal wars is not like Contra (the videogame), you can't just kill the whole world with one or two people. You will need friends along the way to provide support if/when times get rough. This is why sending out tribal invitations is extremely important if you are not in an established tribe and want your village to stay around for a while. Yes you can survive on your own for a while, but it's only a matter of time until a tribe sees you as a great "nobling target" and will go after you (Note: this is not the time to join a tribe... most people don't think highly of harboring a fugitive). If you feel that you can't possibly send out any more invites in your area, send a few more just to be safe. After doing that look around your area and try to find out who has some muscle and go to them and suggest pursuing diplomatic relations. However, be careful! If you get too many weaker allies in your area you will lose out on nobling some great towns in the future. Also if you are in an alliance be prepared to offer them every troop you have if you expect them to return the favor. Keep the number of alllies few, yet strong. Once all this is done there is not much that you can really do asides from sending out emails from time to time asking if any of your allies need help. This will ensure that when it comes time that you need help they will not get the impression that you are leaching off of them and they will also respond much sooner and forcefully. 5. Advanced attacking - Rams/Catapults This information was sent to me by a user that wishes to remain anonymous so people don't think he's nice I would like to thank him a lot because a lot of this I did not know Rams have 3 phases during the battle. 1) They reduce the defensive bonus given by the wall before the battle 2) They take part in the battle adding a massive 2 points per ram 3) The surviving rams damage the wall after the battle To completely wipe out the wall bonus and not cause unneeded damage to your troop levels or your soon to be new village you need to send (for a level20 wall) 219 level 1 rams 175 level 2 rams 157 level 3 rams Catapult Chart This shows how to use catapults in waves instead of a massive attack. If you do this it requires a lot less cats in the attacks. This assumes that there are no defenses and walls. ALWAYS send troops with cats. Even if its like 25 axes. Completely Destroy a Building ---------------------------------- Lvl 1 -> 2 catapults Lvl 2-> 6 catapults Lvl 3-> 10 catapults ---------------------------------- Min. Catapults To Use (Destroys one level) ---------------------------------- Lvl 1-3 -> 2 catapults Lvl 4-7 -> 3 catapults Lvl 8-11 -> 4 catapults Lvl 12-13 -> 5 catapults Lvl 14-16 -> 6 catapults Lvl 17 -> 7 catapults Lvl 18-19 -> 8 catapults Lvl 20 -> 9 catapults eg 1. It would take 10 cats to destroy lvl 3 in one attack. But if you use 3 attacks of 2 cats, it takes 6 cats eg 2.It will take 328 cats(level1)to completely destroy a level 20 building in one strike. Were as 3 separate attacks of 75 cats(level 1)will do the same thing. It is possible to bring a level 30 building to 0 using 94 cats in waves although this would be impossible against a semi decent player. There is no point destroying buildings if you plan to noble the village. They are just for dishing out punishment