Attacking Advice

Summary
- Safe hits: target is biggest attacker in KD, KD cannot retal you or anyone else in our KD, and is not an SK (even small SKs)
- Gains: Check NW range (85% - 120%), look for low nwpa (land) or high nwpa (science) or inactive (plunder) provinces.
- Gathering intel: make sure the target is worth hitting (compare TF info with KD page info) before getting CBs or SoMs.
- Take advantage of provinces with their armies out.
- Target finder: http://umunk.net and http://geert.utopiatemple.org/target.php

#1.1 Picking Targets - What To Hit and What Not To Hit
**1.1.1 Rules for "Safe" Targets
1. Always hit the biggest target in a kingdom. You can ignore someone bigger only if it's a T/M or Explorer (no/low offense).
2. Always scout EVERY possible threat in that KD (generally 1-2 biggest attackers)
3. Don't hit into KDs that we are NAP-ed with or in our declaration range. This often leads either to retal wars or real wars, and we want neither.
4. Never hit in kingdoms above 50% of our kingdom NW unless it is right out of protection, or unless we are totally huge and you are 100% sure they can't break anyone in our kingdom.
5. To make this even more clear; never hit kingdoms with several provinces that can retaliate for decent gains. Hitting a kingdom with a total of 15 big provinces and 10 small, that is 50% of our NW, is also very stupid, because those 15 big provinces can hit us back despite the KD's average NW being low.
6. Finally, never hit an SK, even if they are very small but with high honour for example. Just because they are small doesn't mean they are incompetent. Hitting an SK means putting pressure on the SK to stand up for itself and retaliate in order to preserve a reputation. A smaller KD letting a bigger one walk over them looks weak and defenseless whereas standing up to a bigger KD makes it look strong, and any good monarch will sacrifice a lot for that reputation.

These rules are all you need if you're around KD-average or bigger. Abide by these and you'll rarely get retaled. Skip any of them and you're very likely to get retaled. That's a fact, whether you choose to close your eyes to it or not. The lower the risk the better, overall it's best if we all make real safe hits and get away with them. Hit for 150A and get yourself or one of your kingdom mates retaliated for 200A would mean a net loss of 50A - Not good!


**1.1.2 Gains

Gains are based on networth, your own land, and your target's land, and also if the target has been hit recently.

How different your target's networth is compared to yours will determine how many acres/books/stuff you get. Staying within 20% either way of your own networth will yield decent gains. As you get larger there is more allowance for bottom feeding and you can hit down to 75% of your NW. For best gains, hit targets 115% of your networth.

Land gains are reported to be capped at 20% of your own land. I've had gains of 20-21.5% before, but that's negligible.

Land gains are also a percentage of your target's land; therefore a target with more land will yield more acres, and a target with less will yield less.

If a target has been hit recently, gains will be lessened. This has significant impact out of war, so stay away from anything that has been hit at all unless you have major problems finding targets. Never hit someone that's been "extremely" or "heavily" hit in the past month (it's shown on the CB).


**1.1.3 What's a Good Target? Summing Up

When attacking for land, an ideal target would be slightly larger than you in NW, and a lot larger in land (low nwpa). This will give the most amount of land gains. However, take into account his retaliatory power. Making a guaranteed safe hit for 100a is still better than making a hit for 200a and having 150a taken back in a retal. Looking for targets 90% of your NW will give decent gains (5+% of own size) and significantly lower chances that your prospective target can retal you. Also make sure that if you do hit orcs, you have the mana to NB the plague off if you catch it (for ~5 NBs at least).

Hitting for 5% of your size (10-20% bottom feed), twice a day, means a growth of over 10% a day. This means you double your size in a week, and YES IT IS DOABLE. One CAN draft/train that fast with our builds.

However, things are not always perfect, so with some skipped attacks and an occasional retal, I would say that taking two weeks to double your size is very easy to accomplish, and should be both done by - and expected of - everyone in the kd.


#1.2 Target-finding Methods

**1.2.1 Munk's TF

Usage is pretty much self-explanatory. Set the NW values to what corresponds to yours (85% - 115%). Set nwpa to something low if hitting for land. When looking for plunders, be sure to select "Sort by Inactive: Descending" to find provs that have been idle (according to Munk's database) for the longest. This means they will have accumulated large stacks of resources. Also remember to set target kingdom networth, just about half of our own.

Before CBing provinces, always check their KD page first to see if anything has changed. NW and land should be close or same as that listed in Munk's TF. If the acres or NW are lower then don't take the CB. If the NW/Acres are slighty higher or same it means he hasn't logged in and probably has money.

**1.2.2 Geert

Geert is a decent target finder/site (not as good as Munk but complementary in many cases). One of Geert's features is viewing province growth over time. If you see a sudden and recent negative growth that means the province has been hit recently (probably gb-prot, bad gains!). Thus, Geert is great for verifying that your target hasn't been hit within a few hours of time. Of course the target in question might of gotten hit after the province was updated in the database, but it's less likely if it doesn't show as hit in Geert. Attackers curves in geert looks like a stairway, since they only grow a big chunk when their land gets in. The more frequent the bumps in the graph gets, the more active the attacker is. Could possibly also be a dicer logging in once or twice a day. Hitting someone that has offense to break you back, and appears to be an active attacker in Geerts graphs, most likely means getting retaliated. Geert has a few more features, and you can find out more about the growth curve (i.e. how active the province is, which in some cases may tell of the likelyhood of getting retalled).

**1.2.3 Scanning Charts (Fast)
1.Open 3 windows, one for viewing KD pages, one for viewing island NW charts, and one for gathering intel.
To view island charts, right-click the "most powerful provinces on the island" link, and select "open in new window". Change the island number in the URL to see different islands.
2.Look for top provinces in KDs. The advantage of these charts over "target finders" is that you easily see the kd names, and can spot top provs within non-threatening kd´s within seconds.
3.When you find a potential target, go to kd page, see if they're in war, and also have our NAP list open on the side and just run a search (usually CTRL+F) on it for selected kd to see if it´s open for hunting.
4.Gather intel. CB for humans and DE(likely to have all elites home, so SoM is useless) and SoMs for races with offensive elites that have high defensive value. Look at the thread on SoMs to see how to calculate exact defense at home from SoMs.

If you're fast, it takes about half an hour to scout all 50 islands this way, but a target is generally found within 15-20 minutes. The most it can take is one hour, but that´s rare and then your mana/stealth will drop and you´ll have to lower your criteria and just go ahead and make a relatively small hit (happens maybe once a month, if you had a nice row of big grabs and are underdrafted/undertrained, in which case it is also a good idea to lay low for a day and catch up).

**1.2.4 Alternative Method: Waiting on Attackers

Look for attackers your size and hit them when they attack. You want low attack time for this, as you want your troops to be home before his. Do not expect to do this by randomly logging in and attacking at your decided time. You need to have a list of several such attackers, and check on them every few hours. Either SoM them, or better yet just write down their NWs and wait for a slight nw drop (attack troop loss // troops put to training), but not acre drop. In this case, you should also in many cases as possible make sure they can't break you back, even if their armies gets back before yours.


#1.3 Miscellaneous Info for Different Attacks

For all attacks, check if it is a SAFE HIT with GOOD GAINS (1.1.1, 1.1.2)

**1.3.1 Traditional Marches
Follow the guidelines above. Look for targets with low nwpa for more land. Take surveys to check for GS if you can!

**1.3.2 Plunders
Look for targets with a large resources stack (inactive provs have lots accumulated). Use the inactive finder in TFs, and check for low or no growth. Also check that it hasn't been hit. If you can't get a CB, try stealing to check if the target has resources, and then use SoM+SoM to find out defense at home.

**1.3.3 Learns
Provinces with high NWPA are more likely to have good science. Take a Survey of Science to check, then if they have a good report, take a Survey to check for Libraries (boosted effect per point, science is lower than the bonuses actually say) and Schools (lower gains). Take a CB first of all to check if it's a Sage and if you can break.

**1.3.4 Conquest
Don't do it. Relatively high losses, doesn't spread the plague, no elites trained, no spec credits, bad gains!

**1.3.5 Massacres
Only if ordered to do so, effective to make enemies udnerpop and/or reduce ops success. Peasent lost = 8-9% thief lost = 7-8% wizard lost = 4-5% . Destroyed 4-5% built up acres in war.

**1.3.5 Ambush
Ambushes are a little different from normal hits, this is what goes:
Elites defend with their defensive values
Specs defend with their offensive values
Soldiers have 1 def point
Horses don't count as defense for the army that you are ambushing (but they count if you send them on the ambush)
Army that you are ambushing fights at 80% strength
No modifiers (ME, fana, generals, anything) for either side are counted

Use SoM+SoM to find out the strength of the army you are ambushing and then calculate how much you need to send. Don't use Angel; or if you use Angel, remove ALL the modifiers.

Warsong vs ED

As AR seems to have determined to not report on anyone but a few select Kingdoms despite my repeated requests, I have determined to have a go at writing myself. Thus the following will be largely Warsong's side of the story, I play there and though I have talked with Shockwave, this will nonetheless be somewhat subjective.

March 12, YR8; YOUR MOMS BUTTON (4:3) withdraws from a 58 hour war with Warsong. The shell of what was once Spice had not realised who was waving them and declared, while Warsong had originally gone for TDA, who had gotten wind of the wave and fled to FW, which made us sad we had a good war with TDA last age, they are a good KD and respectable enemy. The improvised wave on 4:3 thus led to massive farming for Spice is not what it once was.

Total Attacks Made: 150
Total KD Uniques: 119
Total Attacks Suffered: 47
Total Enemy Uniques: 43

Elapsed time 58h
KD Attacks by mintime: 124
KD Uniques by mintime: 98
Enemy Attacks by mintime: 39
Enemy Uniques by mintime: 36

End result, Warsong gained app. 15k acres in 67 hours of Hostile and War.

We were thus fat and as we went OOW Dementia started vulturing. I had personally guaranteed the others it would not happen, for I had a friend in Dementia I trusted completely and was both angry and felt betrayed. Warsong hit back, but fat as we were, we knew we would gain nothing from a retal war as BIO too started sending a few hits our way as well (these were stopped when they learned we were in Hostile, then taken up again as we retalled, until we were even in land), bottom line was that we went to mintime FW with Dreamworks, left it for a few hours to random and put some more size and NW on us, then entered it again. Admitted, not the fairest of tactics, but we felt surrounded and beset by vulturing enemies. ED must have noticed this, for they sent four hits into our FW, taking us to Hostile. Looking at them and already preparing for a war against a good Gnome KD, we decided they would be a suitable target.

As Warsong left FW ready and looking for trouble, ED sent a CF proposal, obviously guessing our plans, which was again withdrawn the following hour as we launched two hits to make them send out. They obliged us, and we thus had our chain targets for the first wave as on May 24^th war was declared.

May 24, YR9: Relations: Relations: War began with Evil Dragons (8:36).

Immediately starting and almost completing a Saphire Dragon, the Bird was held in its cage till allowed to join its evil brethren on June 12^th.

From the start Warsong concentrated on semi-chaining a few provinces at a time, while ED with its much larger provinces attempted to bottomfeed safely and keep the ravening Orcs under 600k NW and 300K off while keeping their unbreakables so. Starting a Ruby Dragon on June 2^nd, Evil Dragons only completed it on July 10^th. Determining that we wanted no Evil Dragons loose on our lands, this Bird of havoc was destroyed in 72 minutes, while ED kept their little friend till the end.

As war progressed it was evident that Orcs are hard to defeat for Gnomes and that Warsong's activity was much higher than ED's, and though they kept us under 600k NW and largely under 300k off, stellar teamwork with the Thieves and Mages softening up the large Gnomes for the Land-hungry Orcish attackers, succeeded in taking the "unbreakable" provinces down one by one, while the Banks pumped massive aid to the most successful attackers and to the end these were able to chain anyone who sent out. The war lasted a total of 89 hours, much to our puzzlement as we had expected WD at mintime, but as Shockwave said, "we had much fun warring you guys and that is what Utopia is all about, getting pwn-ed by you was more fun than bottomfeeding on ghettos", so they kept on.

Much of Warsong's success in this war must be contributed to the 15%+ WT and 2+ TPA they entered war with, added to the Saphire Dragon this blunted the effectiveness of their Gnomish opponents, and the first NS/Riots run against 02 111wwwwwwwwwww000 (10:40) was only 27% successful, according to Shockwave this took their tpa down a lot, and even as we grew and thus had lower tpa and wt% they could not exploit it properly as 24 hours into the war anyone not chained was down to 1.5-2 tpa from fails.

In the end even masochists would not have liked the farming this war had turned into, and ED contacted us on Feb 11^th for a prolonged CF period and end of war, which we were only too happy to accept (despite longing to take George Michael Bluth down who had just opened himself to us), having gained 26000 acres overall in those 89 hours and almost all of us being extremely fat. And due to the fact that Warsong does not demean itself to asking for free waves if an enemy has been thoroughly and soundly defeated, ED was a fine opponent and we had no quarrel with them, in fact those of them we had contact with are quite nice and it was a pleasure to war them, we are just happy that they too had fun for we did.

War Summary from Warsong

** Summary **
&& Total Attacks Made: 182 (63,976 acres)
&& -- Traditional March: 172 (63,487 acres)
&& -- Conquest: 4 (489 acres)
&& -- Failed Attacks: 6 (3.3% failure)
!!! Total Attacks Suffered: 128 (37,472 acres)
!!! -- Traditional March: 103 (37,472 acres)
!!! -- Ambush: 16 (1,808 acres)
!!! -- Massacres: 4 (20,889 people)
!!! -- Failed Attacks: 5 (3.9% failure)
$$ Aid packets sent: 465

** This Kingdom (10:40) Gains/Losses **
Overall Gains: 26,504 acres.
1. +2,272 acres: 02 111wwwwwwwwwww000 (9/4)
2. +2,151 acres: 12 111wwww1000000000 (8/4)
3. +2,133 acres: 14 444444wwww0000000 (8/3)
4. +2,014 acres: 25 44444wwwwwww00000 (8/8)
5. +2,009 acres: 15 44444444wwww00000 (10/5)
6. +2,005 acres: 11 11wwww11000000000 (5/)
7. +1,869 acres: 05 wwww11110000wwww0 (8/5)
8. +1,854 acres: 21 4wwww44444444wwww (7/1)
9. +1,772 acres: 07 wwww1111000000000 (8/4)
10. +1,679 acres: 23 44wwww44444wwww00 (7/2)
11. +1,670 acres: 03 11ww111100000www0 (10/3)
12. +1,611 acres: 20 wwww444444444wwww (9/5)
13. +1,463 acres: 22 4wwww44444444www0 (7/5)
14. +1,217 acres: 13 4444wwww00000000 (10/5)
15. +1,167 acres: 17 wwww444444wwww000 (11/7)
16. +1,109 acres: 04 1www111100000www0 (7/)
17. +641 acres: 16 444444444wwww0000 (8/7)
18. +441 acres: 10 1wwww111000000000 (5/5)
19. +152 acres: 01 11111wwwwwww00000 (7/7)
20. -232 acres: 24 4444wwwwwwwwww000 (11/10)
21. -789 acres: 18 wwww4444444wwww00 (9/12)
22. -1,704 acres: 19 wwww44444444wwww0 (10/26)

** Enemy Kingdom (8:36) Gains/Losses **
Name: Evil Dragons (8:36)
Overall Losses: -26,504 acres.
Attacks: 128 made / 182 suffered
1. +921 acres: George Michael Bluth (7/3)
2. +886 acres: I c e (5/1)
3. +876 acres: Tobias Funke (7/3)
4. +405 acres: [anonymous province] (1/)
5. +248 acres: Lindsay Bluth Funke (5/5)
6. +48 acres: Mrs Featherbottom (2/2)
7. +17 acres: Malazan Empire (6/7)
8. -145 acres: J Walter Weatherman (6/8)
9. -184 acres: The Mastermind (2/5)
10. -955 acres: Helloh Anyong Bluth (7/8)
11. -1,038 acres: Bland Veal (9/16)
12. -1,306 acres: Kitty Sanchez (/2)
13. -1,662 acres: Remember Yesterday (11/12)
14. -1,735 acres: Tony Wonder (8/10)
15. -1,834 acres: Sweetest Lambie (8/11)
16. -1,852 acres: Starla (7/10)
17. -2,026 acres: Mort Meyers (/5)
18. -2,412 acres: Nurse Adelaide (2/7)
19. -2,582 acres: Bob Loblaw (4/10)
20. -2,797 acres: Wife of GOB (9/15)
21. -2,803 acres: Ex Draco (9/16)
22. -3,151 acres: Barry Zuckerkorn (8/12)
23. -3,423 acres: Trisha Thoon (5/14)

The point of this is that Warsong has had difficulties; I and others have struggled ceaselessly to resolve them and get the Kingdom back on its feet by creating a good team and team spirit. This war was not really that much of a challenge, but that is not the point, the point is that I sense in Warsong a spirit and dedication that I have not seen before. We have truly become a team, we are still not back to the Warsong of old, but leadership, tactic and planning, and activity as well as team spirit all soars to unprecedented heights. It was teamwork that won the war and took down "unbreakables" one by one, it was teamwork that killed the Bird of Prey in 72 minutes (let us go for less than 60 next time), and it is team spirit that makes me like playing in Warsong. I for one am proud to play on such a good team, and even more so to do my little part leading you.

Thanks to ED for the war and thanks to WARSONG for being a great team!