Last updated: June 06, 2010 Volleying, the good, the bad, and the ugly: For each purchase, your hiring price increase 5%. Let call this the 5% money generated. This 5% split in 3 way. A ~3.3% was taxed on this new purchase, so you end up earning ~1.6 in profit. Out of the 3.3% tax, half of this portion (~1.6%) go to the ally. This is the amount you would make when someone buy you. However, this amount is being cap at 1 millions. So when your hiring price is around 70 millions, you only get 1 mill per purchase. This mean, the players that benefit from the volley are the players doing the volley. The money you earn from being volley slowly decrease as your price growth exponentially hence after about 500 millions, the money generated for player being volley is very insignificant per 100 millions spend. The only real benefit are the players that doing the volley and here is the fact: For the first 100 millions all three party earn roughly 1.5% profit for each purchase. It turned out, the player being volley earned ~30m, while other two player earn 15 millions each. This happen because for each purchase the player being volleyed earns 1.5% each way, so you end up earning close to ~30m. And 15m, 15m split for other two players From 100 millions to 200 millions, all three party make roughly equal amount of 15 millions each. From 200 millions to 300 millions, player being volley only make 8 millions, while other two players still making close to 15 millions in profits. From 300 millions to 400 millions, player being volley get 6 millions, other two players still make close to 15 millions profits. From 400 millions to 500 millions, player being volley get 5 millions, other two players still make close to 15 millions profits. From 500 millions to 600 millions, player being volley get ~3 millions, other two players still make close to 15 millions profits. so on and so on... So you can see, the player being volley does not benefit beyond the 200 millions hiring cost. So if you got volley up to billions, you won't benefit much after 500 millions mark. The real benefactor are the two bigger players volleying you. So next time when you ask someone to volley you, keep that in mind or when you are offered to be volleyed to billions...then you were ask for favor in return. Starting out the right way After you completed the demo, you should have 2 workshops, 1 Guild. Do not build anything else at this point. Ask someone to volley you up to 200 millions At this point you should have around 30 millions Go and search for an active player (or any player that you want to keep forever) that cost close to or below 1 million Ask someone to help volleying this player up to 30 millions, you keep. NOTE: Make sure you only ask one player, the more players involve the less profit you make. By this time, you should have some extra money left. It's time to think how you want to play. If you want to make money, do not build anything other than Forge building and you need to play nice. Forget about towers, they don't give you any plunders bonus. Make sure you have minimum of allies totalling cost = 500 x your max plunders If you have good friends or clan members that willing to help, following this method to make lots of cash before you start building anything else: Find any ally that cost below 1 million, have your friends volley the ally up 100 millions, they keep. Repeat step 1 until no one helping you any more , for each 100 millions volley you make about 15 millions, that add up. Allies plunders bonus are your friends: You need to invest a minimum amount in allies totaling at least 500 x your max plunders. The more you invested in allies the more money you can earn and this allow you to be at max allies plunder bonus at all time. In order to hit weaker player compared to you, you need a larger amount of allies to make up the allies plunders. There is a scaling factor apply when you hit a weaker player, but no body have figure it out the formula yet. For any money you earned, don't just buy a good ally; search for a very cheap active ally and volley your ally up. You make 1.5% profit for each purchase so it add up; You are not only help yourself but also helping the player you help volley. The benefit go three ways. Once your are at max allies plunders bonus, then you can start your ally picking, etc... DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT sell all your allies to upgrade. You make less than half (more like 1/3) the money without allies. Allies market price These are the current market price base on 200 samples in each bracket going through allies search list 100 mil allies bracket Best buy: 15k attk/def stats Good buy: 10k attk/def stats Ok/Average buy: 8k attk/def stats 200 mil allies bracket Best buy: 25k attk/def stats Good buy: 20k attk/def stats Ok/Average: 15k attk/def stats 300 mil allies bracket Best buy: 35k attk/def stats Good buy: 30k attk/def stats Ok/Average: 25k attk/def stats 500 mil allies bracket Best buy: 50k attk/def stats Good buy: 45k attk/def stats Ok/Average 40k attk/def stats 1 bil allies bracket Best buy: 90k attk/def stats, 2k spies Good buy: 80k attk/def stats, 2k spies Ok/Average: 70k attk/def stats, 2k spies Plunders vs Allies Bonus, how do I calculate them? Attack plunders = Current combined soldiers plunders x Scaling factor variation On average battle won, your attack plunders earned is max around ~80% of your current soldiers plunders Just let take 1 L3 Forge build as an example: How to find your current soldiers plunders? For example, A Level 3 Forge soldier would give 72 plunders. So each building you get 2000 soldiers max, so you got 144,000 plunders potential for each Forge when your troops are full. So if you have 1 Forge building with 2000 soldiers, your maximum attack plunders would be 144,000 however, you rarely get this value, so on average you get about 80% or around ~115,000 for the first hit if you hit opponent larger than you. For the second hit, depend on how much soldiers you lost, your plunders will be #soldiers remained x 72 x ~80%, so on... This formula also applies to spies build; for example, a L4 spy gives you 48 plunder, with 9000 spies, your potential plunders are 432,000 per L3 Guild. Use your first steal win with full spies to calculate your % potential (first steal won / spies buildings plunder cap). Your next successful steal win can be calculated = #spies remain x 48 x ~% potential, so on... On to the allies bonus. Because your total building plunders is 144,000, this is the cap your allies can bring in as allies bonus. The amount of allies plunders required is proportion to the scaling factor that earned from your soldiers attack (estimated). For example above, let say your make about 80% of your potential plunders, your allies can also bring in 80% potential plunders. So let's say you bough an ally for 10 mil, the ally plunder is 40,000 (or ~0.4%) multiple by 80% (battle earning potential), that give you 32,000 allies bonus earning. Now, that isn't much. Let play around with some math: Total allies required x ~0.4% x ~80% = 144,000 Total allies required = 144,000 / (~0.4% x ~80%) = 144,000 / 0.4% / 80% Total allies required = ~ 45,000,000 this is the minimum allies you need to invest when your target give you 80% potential plunders (you can invest all in 1 ally or buy multiple allies). Ok, so how do I calculate for any target? Total allies required = Max plunders value / 0.4% / ((First hit plunders earned when full troops) / (Attack troops max plunders)) or Total allies required = (Max plunders value) * 250 * (Attack troops max plunders) / (First hit plunders earned when full troops) NOTE: this value is an estimate, so there is some error due to random or other variables come to play; but it give you the closet value you can calculate for a given target. Also note, if you have Guild building, your Max plunders value > Attack troops max plunders; because Guild only count toward allies bonus but not attack plunders. It does make sense, you cannot bring allies to spies with you so spies give no allies bonus; in real world, do you really trust foreign spies? :lol: Links to more helpful resources: All-encompasing Guide To Ally Ownership - by tmh Plunder cap information Beginners FAQ Advanced Guide to Espionage - by blumpy Another Walkthrough Guide - by Iwillhuntudown
Re: Volleying, the good, the bad, and the ugly: FAIL you get 70% gold back when u drop an ally check it out in the help section
Re: Volleying, the good, the bad, and the ugly: FAIL? :shock: LOL! Now why would you want to drop an ally when your goal is to make money? Since we're at the topic, to clarify you get 70% refund on the original purchase price. So dropping an ally should not even be in the equation. However the bad & ugly of keep overprice allies are the risk of player give up and reset; now that is bad that you get 70% refund or you loose 30% of original price whichever way you like to look at. Say if you happen to volley someone to billions and you keep, his/her stat are terrible and this player give up and reset. Now that I would call this the ugly.
Re: Volleying, the good, the bad, and the ugly: Great thread Trex! I didn't find anything wrong with it, with maybe one exception--- one of the very last things, where you say that income with no allies is like a half or third of what it is with max plunder, that's not entirely accurate. It depends totally on your build. For someone with one forge and 24 level4 guilds, their income per hit is over $10m with max ally bonus, and less than a million with no allies, so a factor of more than 10 times, maybe even 20 times! The point is great though, and very important for people to understand, that the total cost of your allies is responsible for how much money you win on an attack, and most of the money you win comes from that ally bonus. One thing I *really* enjoyed seeing was your advice to use that first $50m of income to buy allies, not to buy lands and buildings. Great advice, I think. I have given that same advice to friends in BTILC clan when I was a member there, and I saw people do it and land complete very quickly. I think it is the best way to go, but most people won't do it, they'll spend their first $100m or so on buying lands and upgrading forges (and putting up towers, ugh!!!) and then hit the end of the free volley money and they'll wonder what to do next. If people start out with allies before buildings, and always work to keep max ally bonus, they will progress so much better. Hopefully everyone takes your advice! One thing you didn't mention, but I'm curious to know your thoughts... I recommend using the very first money from that initial volley to buy def and spydef pots. If you have $50m in an ally, and someone buys him away while you are asleep, those def pots and spydef pots are required to protect that money, no? If you have only the buildings from the tutorial, buying 15 of the $15,000 spy def pot and 15 of the $12,500 def pot will provide plenty of protection against the people who are the right size to attack or steal you. When I reset, I spent my first $50m on buying sets of the lowest 6 def pots and lowest 6 spydef pots (there were only 6 then) and my money was always safe, I never lost a battle or steal. Do you think it's important to get pots that early, or not until later? I tend to be over conservative sometimes. Great guide. Excellent point that people need to understand. Volleying at low prices, up to the hundreds of millions, benefits the person being vollied. But after $750m or whatever, the free money from being vollied is pretty much done. But volleying at $1b and above is a huge source of income for the people doing the volleying. Great guide! Cheers!
Re: Volleying, the good, the bad, and the ugly: Trex great thread. However u have enuf time to make a huge thread but not respond to my smart allec posts on ur wall im hurt. -IQ
Re: Volleying, the good, the bad, and the ugly: @tmh, yeah, the plunders with allies and without allies are huge. I'm just using example of attack build doing battle against similar stat and plunder strength. I still have a lots of thing need to write up regarding the scaling factor, etc... when your plunders are high and you try to attack very weak player, that scaling factor take a big dive like you said up to 20x factor. It would be interesting to find out how this was calculated. Have any one really max their plunder reward when hitting a player? For starting out, once you start out invest in allies, I wouldn't worry about def pots until you start to loose like 200+k per hit. Most of the new player that hit you either too weak or too strong to do any damage. Once you start getting about 10+ pieces of land, that is when you start investing in def pots as you have more players that try to hit you and you potentially loose large amount of money if someone buy out your allies. However, because of the current change in def pots usage, I won't mind spending some pots at the begining to deter some noobs; stack the first 3 (att def & spies def), at least 10 each. Then increase to adjust if you see more pp attacking you. Currently I do not want to give out advise yet, so I will keep that info as observation for now until I can collect exact info after I reset once again. My last reset went to fast so that I didn't recall much :lol:. I barely loose much money and I didn't start buying potions until I got about 15 pieces of land; and the overpriced allies do help keeping my money safe and I make no enemy so some random hit here and there weren't much of a problem. But if you are in war or have enemies, a different strategy need to be deploy of course. ps: I'll try to collect as much info as possible so the info may be link or clarify in the first two post And Thanks everyone for the support of course
Re: Volleying, the good, the bad, and the ugly: LOL!! now you got my attention... :lol: I try to stay low key dude, I try to keep my wall clean
Re: Volleying, the good, the bad, and the ugly: Great Guide Bro. But you didn't point out the main thing about volleys. Make sure that the allies you buy are active. That way, when you volley them to the price points you just mentioned, they would be able to do upgrades and/or buy allies. That way your allies would naturally sell off in the market without having to request people to buy them. Because we all hate whiner and we hate to buy expensive allies with low stats. I would also like to add that---When you volley people to these certain price points, it is also good to think about how much land they would be able to buy with the amount of money that ally just received. Around 500-600mil price piont is when people reach the 20-60 mil land buy, and that's when allies begin to slowly grow. *(but that does not apply to pros)* That's all. Good Job Trex. Best ally volley guide out here.
Re: Volleying, the good, the bad, and the ugly: @Santos, Good observation. I went back and bold the active key word . I agree I need to clarify why active allies is a good investment However, we haven't get to that part yet. Currently we want to build our plunder so active allies do not necessary be a good idea but very good for investment. You only need to worry about your allies after you max out your plunders. So What I usually do is keep a few inactive allies with overpriced just for allies plunders. And if you ask around I'm sure you will find a few big players that owned one or two expensive allies like in the billions with literally zero stats. For active allies volley, best price I find to volley up to is around 100 to 200 mil. It take about a week for these active players to grow and get bought off very quickly Also the risk of these players reset is minimum; I rather have say 5 active players with cost of 200mil each than 1 single ally cost 1 bil. The chance of the 1bil player reset is higher than the other low cost player ps: my evil plan is to invest in one single ally that I have control over (legally) that have zero stats... use this ally for maxing my plunders. If I ever go into war, I would not worry about this allies bought out at all, if they strip me... I have the options to reset this account lol, now that the ultimate revenge lol