Forward Going to come straight out of the gate with a simple but important note: Read ---> this<--- thread before you do ANYTHING else. This is a game ran by rules, rules that protect young children who have every right to a fun gaming atmosphere as you do. The filters are placed to shield the uncorrupted child mind from the filth that occupies some of the older players here. This thread contains a written collection of these rules as they are taken from the ToU and interpreted by our oldest (KaW age wise) moderator: Corinthian. Breaking these rules are grounds for removal of chat abilities, the mods DO reserve the right to do this. If you are "unfairly" silenced, email support@athinkingape.com with your reasons and possible proof to your innocence and the silence will be appealed and removed. If you are permanently silenced, wait one month after the silencing and send a sincere apology with intent to better yourself to support@athinkingape.com including: your username that you are talking about Kaw Devs also run FC Devs also run PIMD Devs also must manage feedback, updates, moderator communications, server maintinence, etc the apology some respect a "thank you" for helping me and you should be unsilenced again. This guide is not to do with silencing and/or the ToU at all, but it is a big issue around KaW and I want anyone who might read this guide to become more knowledgable not only with OSFs but with KaW in general, and that includes the rules to playing. We all know that the forums are for discussing strategies, talking about tips and tricks, active wars and current kaw affairs, but it's only possible with community cooperation. Take some time out to read this thread about the rules to forums before you take part in the discussions. It will help you to make a better call on what you can and can't say. It's never cool to cause disruptions and irritate the atmoshpere we all so much enjoy. You should also familiarize yourself with the ToU which you can find here. Thank you and now please procede to read and enjoy the osf learning experience from your friendly kawer Ghoomba. [sentimental letter]I'd like to mention to all who are reading for the first time, or who have read one or more times, that I'm back from a well deserved break from KaW. I put forth much effort into the research, writing, and formatting that all went into this guide and it's production. But, the progress I myself and the guide itself have made in both the past and the present, can only be attributed to the players who make use of my time to better their playing experience. I've been away but I'm back now (and Ghoomba again) and I am ready to start making this even better and possibly even coming out with a new guide entirely. If you have any ideas or suggestions for EITHER improvements to this guide or the creation of a new one by me, please don't hesitate to contact me. With much brotherly love, Ghoomba[/sentimental letter] *Feel free to skip through most of the next few paragraphs. They're just notes to myself and those interested on the progress the guide has been making. Updates and some notes from me to you before the learning begins. Just scroll ahead until you see the blue headliner that signals Section 1 unless you're interested in seeing some of the work that I've been putting into the guide. *NOTE*: This is the same as my old version of OSF guide; however, I've broken this one up into sections. This makes it easier to search, but also easier for me to edit as I don't have to look through a mass of text to find a specific part to edit. As you can see, I've been updating quite frequently and will continue to do so until I simply can't think of anything else to add in order to more fully explain my guide. As always, if you'd like to see anything added that will benefit the guide and it's completeness, PLEASE do not hesitate to tell me so that I can add it in as soon as I can. You can always reach me via wall post, feel free to follow me so we can private chat, or you can post it here on the thread as a post. *UPDATE*: Newest Update (Version 2.7 | 9/19/11) Contains: Added descriptions for what is contained within the guides wherever linked guides appear. Added sentimental letter to the community in the Forward section regarding the guide's past, present, and future. Pre-note in the beginning of Forward Section that outlines reasons for silencing and links the thread containing the rules of silencing. This was a BIG update. It took several hours to go through and do all of this on the entire guide. If you hadn't noticed, it's pretty long! *UPDATE*: Newest Update (Version 2.6 | 8/19/11) Contains: Stickied *UPDATE*: Update (Version 2.6 | 8/18/11) Contains: Added Forward Section to beginning of guide. *UPDATE*: Update (Version 2.5 | 8/17/11) Contains: Added link to guide on OAFs, OSF counterpart, in the last section. *UPDATE*: Update (Version 2.4 | 8/16/11) Contains: Added information (screenshots mostly) to Section 7. *UPDATE*: Update (Version 2.3 | 8/15/11) Contains: Added terms in Table of contents. *UPDATE*: Update (Version 2.2 | 8/14/11) Contains: Fixed spacing issues throughout thread. Added corrections for a few spelling and grammatical errors. *UPDATE*: Update (Version 2.1 | 8/11/11) Contains: Added seperations into guide to allow for easier editing. Added player profiles for all who are mentioned. Welcome to Ghoomba's guide to osf-ing! For those of you who don't know me, I am Ghoomba (previously: elite-ghoomba, Leo-EliteGhoomba, Noobius, Elite-PB, ghoomba, magicalpencils) and I was once an OSF for KaW Mafia Reborn. I was an OSF for about two months, which isn't a long time really, but I learned from the best. I worked from iPod 2nd generation version 3.1.2 on 8GB of memory, also known as, slow piece of junk. I didn’t use a computer and never botted or shared my account and remained open for almost 8 hours a day with school on most days; real dedication (and having minimal to no social life ). Something you’ll need a lot of if you want to succeed as an OSF. I put this guide together for all the players out there who want, To become an OSF Tips on OSF-ing To learn a little about what OSFs are and what they do/how they do it. Some Terms you’ll want to know before reading Hansel- A player who has all spy buildings (usually level four guilds) and one attack building. Hansel Open- When an OSF or OAF are currently allowing hits from players. This means they have gold out and are probably constantly putting out more. Keep hitting until otherwise stated. Drop- This is a term used by OSFs and OAFs when they’re selling pots. I am dropping pots = I am selling pots. OAF- Open Attack Farm. Same thing as an OSF except with all attack buildings or defense towers. OAFs are for players to unload spies. Unload- To fully empty out troops. DTW- Defender to weak. This means that the player is either too small for you, or has no gold out and is pure spy, or has less than 20% troops remaining. Pots- Combat enhancing items found in the marketplace bought with in game gold. For a more complete Dictionary by Moderator: CoS-Dillybar; A thread created by Dillybar that has a recording of every word that is special to KaW and what those words mean and where they would be used. Cos-Dillybar Table Of Contents What is an OSF, and what does it stand for? What is opening and how do OSFs do it? Tips for conserving money while bulk dropping. How do OSFs make money by giving it away? What are plunder wars and how do OSFs gain from them? Why do OSFs need to be pure spies? Why do attackers make more money from certain osfs? Converting to OSF
Ghoomba's guide to OSF-ing V2.2 (Newest Update 8/14/11) 1. What is an OSF, and what does it stand for? O = Open S = Secret* F = Farm *Original meaning OSF stood for Open SECRET farm back around the time of creation because you had to read the forums to know about them and considering the amount of players who read forums compared to those that played, they were relatively secret. No one told anyone because then you’d have more DTW. Would you tell someone your inactives? Certainly not. Nowadays, OSF stands for Open Spy Farm because, as we all know, OSFs are no secret, not even close to it. They are just pure spies, hence the Spy, who claim Open, hence open, and allow players to farm them, hence Farm. OSFs originated WAY back when in the starting out of KaW. A few players, namely, Corinthian and Mccc (the first osfs), starting allowing hits from players. They started up a program, like a business almost, of OSFs opening for an allowed five hits per player per day. They used attack builds to farm the people who broke the rule and betrayed the OSFs generosity (this is where the 5 hit courtesy rule we have today comes from by the way). For some more background information, please read: KAW history as remembered by Corinthian; Thread that contains a surprisingly accurate recount of all that Corinthian has seen and experienced over the course of his KaW life (relatively all of KaW itself). OSFs are pure spy builds, this is so all players can beat them. They open (will be explained later) and allow their clan members (sometimes the WC) to unload their troops on them [the OSF]. Most OSFs, who open to the WC, do so for advertising purposes. Open to WC often enough and sooner than you’d think, people will know your name. Join a plunder war and mention “player name pwar at blank clan” and loads will join to see an active OSF. As previously stated, most OSFs are as such for the large money to be made in Plunder Wars
Ghoomba's guide to OSF-ing V2.2 (Newest Update 8/14/11) 2. What is opening and how do OSFs do it? OSFs buy a large quantity of pots. Usually they buy the cheapest one available which is the first spy defense potion called: Mist of Confusion It costs 1,250k each pot. A OSF drops one pot at a time. This gives them 937 gold. A player continually attacks them taking the 937 gold while the OSF continually drops more pots putting out more money. This is a cheap method of staying "open”. If the OSF has no gold out, the attacker will get the message "Defender is Too Weak". This simply means that the OSF can't be hit because their "bank" is empty. OSFs can't be hit while empty because they have no troops to attack. OSFs can also buy the last spy defense pot called: Staff of Clarity (I have 0 of them =P) These cost 6m each. Dropping these yields a 4.5m money return. (.75 x 6m = 4.5M). Mostly, when osfs do this they drop large quantities of this pot at a time such as: 100, 450m 250, 1.125b or even 500, 2.25b This allows them to stay open without having to repeatedly sell pots. Because they have more money out at a time; however, they lose more per attack. Instead of losing 937 gold per attack, while dropping Mist of Confusions, they can lose 2m gold per attack selling Staff of Clarity. "Bulk Dropping" (dropping the 6m pot in bulk quantity) is not cost efficient and should only be used when you are constantly on to monitor your spies. You can reduce the amount people take per attack by keeping your spies at ~20-25%. To find what number of spies you’ll need to stay under or over, look at your max amount of spies and multiply by .20. Don’t go under that number or you’ll be DTW. NOTE: You can also try selling the highest leveled attack potion: Summon Undead These cost 12m and yield 9m gold after resale. These are good for mega drops as you can drop out 4.5b with 500 of these. Rarely used as they are extremely inefficient. However, bigger, perhaps HLLCBC OSFs can spare the extra gold needed to have an abundance of these. Opening on a computer is easier because you can click sell and then just keep clicking the spacebar and clicking the sell button. Most OSFs use a computer; however, some osfs, like myself, use(d) an iDevice. This puts you at a disadvantage because you must wait for the loading after you sell each pot[the loading times on iPods, older generations in particular, are substantially longer than that of the pc version]. This makes dropping pots painstakingly slow and you will likely get complaints from your attackers. Should you receive complaints, remind that unthankful punk who's giving him free money. If he or she continues to pester you, kick and or farm him for all he's worth. Good fun 3. Tips for conserving money while bulk dropping. Keeping your spies low while having out large amounts of money keeps it going down slower because the enemy has to use fewer troops to win. Less troops used = less plunder taken. You have to be careful not to go below 20% troops or you'll go DTW. Aim for 20-30% and find an OAF or a friend who is willing to let you keep wasting spies on him/her (or just keep spying/stealing some fool off the Battle List). (Disclaimer!: Farming off of the BL is a good way to ruin your Plunder warbecause the whiny noob will probably get his clan on your butt and keep you pinned, efficiently ending your plunder war. Also take note that there are some clans who purposely go around spying OSFs closed, it’s fun and may be annoying to you, but remember that it is a war game and they’re doing what the game was meant for while you aren’t).
Ghoomba's guide to OSF-ing V2.2 (Newest Update 8/14/11) 4. How do OSFs make money by giving it away? OSFs make money by joining in on Plunder Wars (commonly referred to as pwars or pws). You may have heard negative things about p wars. How they're ruining KaW and should be stopped. While it's true that they're to blame for a lot of KaW inflation and the softening of players, the recent update makes them more of a necessary evil. I'll allow you to formulate your own opinions about them though as this is not a debate thread. But I will say that the community is more to blame than are the pwars they regularly perform. Were players not to abuse them as much as they do, pwars wouldn’t be such a big problem. 5. What are plunder wars and how do OSFs gain from them? Plunder wars are when you have a war between two clans, much like a regular war. Except, on one side is the attacking side and on the other are the osf(s). On the attacking side are the players with attack builds (as in they have troop buildings) and on the OSF side are the, osfs. The osfs open for the attacking side, allowing them to farm them. Each attack during war has a war tax deducted from it and added to war tax plunder. As the war tax builds up over the course of the next 48 hours, the osfs will decide upon a suitable time to forfeit. When the time or tax target is reached, the attacking side forfeits to the OSF side. Why might they do this? In return for letting the attackers farm them for two days straight, the osfs get all the war tax that the attackers made during the war. Usually the osfs make more than the attackers! However, they usually don’t as a large portion of the profit goes to replenishing spent pots so they can do another plunder war. It's a long and tedious existence, filled with energy drinks, candy bars, and many restless nights. If you can handle it, the billions are well worth it (If you’re a hardcore enough gamer that is =P). To find how much tax you can expect to make as an OSF, multiply the amount of plunder being forfeited to you by .25 as you will get 25% of it (assuming you’re the only one taking tax). NOTE: When sharing tax with more than one OSF or OAF, the amount you get will be affected by how much you steal/attack and take. The 25% of tax will be divided amongst the active warrers and distributed accordingly. ALSO NOTE: In order for you to receive anything more than 1m gold, you MUST steal or attack someone and be victorious. If not, even though you’re active in war, you’ll receive only 1m gold; a pathetic waste of two days. 6. Why do OSFs need to be pure spies? ALL OSFs are purespies, BUT, not ALL purespies are OSFs. If osfs had troop buildings they would go DTW from falling below 20% troops after ~20 hits. This is why Hansels can't be OSFs. They would DTW rather quickly. Of course, you don’t need to be a pure spy and say “OPEN” to be attacked, but, you must be pure spy to remain OPEN. If you’re a Hansel build, you can open for a buddy but only one before you DTW. Not to say that Hansels can’t be OSFs at all. More of “One unload farms”. Hansels also make for nice targets in war, as they are basically OSFs that don’t DTW as easily.
Ghoomba's guide to OSF-ing V2.2 (Newest Update 8/14/11) 7. Why do attackers make more money from certain osfs? It's not the OSF that is different; it's all in the stats. The higher the osfs spy stats (highest being 3,183,040spy attack/3,183,040spy defense) are, the more money people make from hitting them. Here's an example of a maxed osf, HLLCBC (HighlandsLandCompleteBuildComplete) Here's the same image with the stats circled so you can clearly see the maxness, for the newer players who are maybe not as familiar with identifying stats. The player is Wenderful and she was a pretty common sight in world chat around the time I started playing. Very generous and nice person The osf's stats aren't the only thing that matters though. Also, if the opponent is smaller than the osf he makes a larger sum of gold because you must use more troops to win and so make more plunder also the fact that while attacking stronger players, your ally bonus increases and vice versa for smaller opponents. If the OSF or OAF is using pots and/or has allies, you’ll make even more gold from attacking them. OSFs should use spy attack and/or defense pots (non affective to attackers) and either 0 stat-ed allies or other pure spy allies. OAFs should use attack and/or defense pots (non affective to enemy spies) and either 0 stat-ed allies or other pure attack allies. You may or may not have heard of max ally plunder. When you hire allies they "aid" you in combat and make you a hefty sum of gold per hit. The amount of plunder you get is based on the allies hire price not their stats like some people think. The higher the amount of the allies and the more of them you have (up to a certain point of max plunder bonus from allies, based on what buildings you have) the more you’ll make from attacking enemies. Try to make sure that the attackers in your plunder war are all at max ally plunder bonus. Hansel builds are best, even though they have low stats, you should always welcome them to your plunder wars regardless of stats. While attack builds troops drop, so does their plunder per hit. Eventually, towards the bottom of their unloads, they’ll make nothing but ally plunder (remember to subtract war tax which is 20% of the total amount of gold made). Whereas Hansel builds make relatively the same amount of gold throughout their entire unload of 24-26 hits (dependant upon which attack building they have. 24 for attack building and defensive buildings, 25-26 for balanced buildings.) For more information about allies and their effects on game play read: Guide to Ally Ownership and Ally Plunder by Former moderator Tmh (Necrogenic); Guide that includes pretty much all you need to know as a player of KaW about allies and their efects on gameplay. Necrogenic Volleying formula and other information on allies by Trex; A guide that includes all information pertaining to the gains and losses in gold from trading (buying, selling allies for profit) allies. Trex
Ghoomba's guide to OSF-ing V2.2 (Newest Update 8/14/11) 8. Converting to OSF So you read all this and you really want to become a OSF don't you? You can begin your transformation by beginning the game as usual. People may tell you to build forges, DON’T! Forges don't provide any bonuses, only higher attack strength (which you won't need because you're playing Kingdoms at Plunder War, Whine, Cyber, and Forum Troll). Build Beastiaries (Tier 2 balanced buildings) instead. They offer an additional two hits per unload at the expense of 5 minutes more regeneration time(totaling one hour and five minutes). Or, build War Cathedrals (Tier 2 defensive buildings), these give you a 5% bonus to plunder earned during an attack. NEVER EVER! begin the game as a pure spy!!! You will make next to nothing and growing will take ages. Don't do it! Once you begin to get fairly big and have saved up a few billion gold and have at least 20 lands, you can begin to turn Hansel build. Hansel build is when you have all guilds or SOS and one attack building (not including your castle which you can't do anything with yet). As a Hansel, you won't be much good for anything except plunder wars having such low attack stats. It’s best to stay with all l4 guilds: (costing 977,025,000gold each. Level 1: 25,000gold Level 2: 2,500,000gold Level 3: 75,000,000gold Level 4: 900,000,000gold and make sure your attackers have max plunder. Level 4 guilds are the best choice for Hansels over Stronghold of Shadows because Level 4 guilds have higher plunder per building than do with level 1, 2, or 3 SOS. (You’ll make more per hit with 24 Lvl4 guilds and 1 attack building than with 24 Lvl3 SOS and 1 attack building. Continue with your mindless OSF hitting and fully land complete your kingdom with L4 guilds, don't worry about the Highlands (newest update only) just yet. Keep saving up and begin purchasing SOS (Stronghold of Shadows). Buy them one land at a time and upgrade straight to L3. When your spy stats get to around 550k/550k, people may actually want you to plunder war with them. Make sure you got the pots and the time and sell that attack building and replace it with a guild or just leave it blank for easy swapping back to Hansel. You may want to note that most plunder wars have OSFs into their millions (2m+/2m+) and many don’t need anymore because they want the tax to themselves, greedy bastards, I know. Try and find a smaller clan that will accept a smaller OSF and grow with them. It’ll take much longer to grow, but you’ll make some friends along the way, and in this game, friends are invaluable assets. Once you've attained full spy, just keep droning and dropping those pots for long hours and at the end of those 48 hours you'll be making billions. Good Luck and Have fun! Happy kawing THE END! As far as I can see from looking over it, I don't think I'm missing anything. Should you have any other questions regarding OSFing or OSFs, please feel free to ask in a post below or any of the provided links after this paragraph. Thank you for your time. I hope you enjoy it!
Ghoomba's guide to OSF-ing V2.2 (Newest Update 8/14/11) *NOTE* If you have need of any further assisstance about OSFs and or what they do, ask here on this thread or wall me, I'm on almost everyday for several hours. Any other questions can be directed to the questions thread linked below. Most questions are answered in the all encompassing guide linked below. More information on pure spies in general can be found in the espionage guide linked below. You can now also find a link to a guide on OAFs, the attack build equivalent to OSFs below. Hansel Conversion by MissMelon; While my guide covers the basics of conversion to and from hansel, this guide is dedicated entirely to hansel conversion and covers it in greater detail. Original OSF by mccc; Obvious reasons for inclusion. Second OSF by Corinthian; Obvious reasons for inclusion. Third OSF by Nyalith; Obvious reasons for inclusion. Questions Thread by Moderator: CoS-Dillybar (Dillybear <3); Here you can find almost any question that anyone has ever asked, if you're willing to search through thousands of posts to find it. All encompassing Guide to Almost all questions by Moderator: Abyssus (The_Memories_Of_Nobody); Same as with Raeki's guide below, this guide contains almost everything and is uber colorful. Some more information on Purespies by Mr.Goodkat; Same as next thread, this thread is all about spies and how they work, uses for them. Guide to Espionage by Blumpy; Simple reasons, OSFs are extensions of spies and this guide is all about spies. Guide to OAFs by IllIIlIIll-Grecian-IllIlllIlII; So people can know what OAFs are as well as OSFs. Historic Thread Safeguard Service by Sholron; This thread contains links to all great threads ever made over kaw's long history. KaW Grand Guide by, the man, Raeki; This guide literaly covers almost everything. With this guide around, you can literally delete all other guides because this one has it all. Ghoomba
Ghoomba's guide to OSF-ing V2.2 (Newest Update 8/14/11) Until this turns into a possible future exstension of my guide, I'll use it as a place to link other notable threads created by me. The ToU and YoU!; Demonstrates poor knowledgability about the ToU and the after-effects of that ignorance. Nobility drop rate from successful quest completions; The percent chance of recieving a nobility point after x number of question completions. Guide to being a noob; My "anti-guide" on how to be a noob, one of my first threads ever. Enough is Enough; The longest quitting thread in the history of KaW that I made a long time ago when I tried to walk away from everyone who I cared for, as you can see, I'm still here :L And here I'll place those threads that I really enojoy. Next EB; A thread made by AugustusCaesar about a possible new epic battle. The idea is amazing I hope more players support it so that it may have a chance of becoming a reality. President Shifter's Decree; Trashed IiIili_BlackHandShifter_ililil Scam your way forward; Probably the most epicly sneaky and evil play style ever successfully deployed. The forums are lacking in tits; Hilariously funny when you get the refrecences. Why Cows are better pets than cats; Also hilariously funny. Funniest kaw moment ever without a doubt; THE ALL-TIME greatest thing to ever happen on KaW Forums. The term "noob"; Trying to help the "newbs." Where's everyone gone?; Special Recognition has never felt so good.
Re: PLEASE DO NOT POST ON THIS Me to I actually posted after his third one but it said "Error" so I decided not to
Re: PLEASE DO NOT POST ON THIS It's one I already made, but i kepe up with it very often so im seperating it into sections to make editing easier.