Re: The Grand All-Encompassing Guide to KaW - 3.0 Allies Allies Plunder As you may have noticed, allies is what makes this game unique, and they are really important for success in this game. So now, I will explain more about allies plunder. When you attack someone, you have two different gold incomes. The first is labeled (on the victory screen) "plunder", and the other "allies bonus". The plunder is known as "troops plunder". This number depends on your total strength comparison between you and your target, and the number of soldiers you have. This is a small, and unreliable source of income. Spies also have this, known as spies plunder (and the gold fluctuates as the number of spies decrease). The second number is known as "allies plunder". This number goes up and down depending on the money you've invested in allies. If you have no allies, this number will be 0. If you have more money invested in allies, the number will go up. It doesn't matter the number of allies you have, just the total value of them. 10 1m allies produces the same result as 1 10m ally. This is a stable source of income because you will have the same ammount of allies whenever you attack anyone (you should maintain a similar level). Now, this allies plunder is capped by a plunder cap. The plunder cap is dependent on two things: your build, and your build compared to your opponent's build. First, higher tier buildings have a higher plunder cap. Towers give no plunder and have give no plunder cap (do not raise it). Guilds give the highest plunder cap. In addition, guilds are considered the "weakest", so in the strength comparison part, the plunder cap will rise again. Towers are considered the strongest, so towers are worst for plunder. The stronger you are, buildwise, compared to your opponent, the less you make. The "weaker" you are, the more you make. So essentially, hire allies for more money made per attack. Build guilds (although you will always need at least 1 troop building) makes more plunder. Allies Bonus Now, when you hire allies, they give a bonus to your real stats. What you see on other's profiles, is really their bonus to their owner (so you, if you hired them). This is directly related to their build, which is the principle source of strength, so most people call these "stats". As you learned in the Glossary, the allies bonus from each building is the troops * unit stats / 50. In the Glossary, it also lists the allies bonus from each building. Your bonus to allies (bonus to your owner, your stats) is in the middle of your profile. It's in green and the section lists your bonus to allies and bonus from allies. When you hire many strong allies, their bonuses add up to a lot. This strength is static; when you own those allies, those bonuses are the same. Obviously, you don't have allies hired away nonstop, and when they do you hire them back. As you learned in the Glossary, your building strength decreases as your troops decreases. Allies bonus stays the same as you hit an opponent. However, when you are still growing, do not worry about allies bonus. When you are build complete, start looking to increase your bonus from allies. At the moment, you should find allies with about 40 attack and def stats (total) per 1k of hire price. Also, try to use most of your ally spots. So if I have 400b, and 250 ally slots, I get allies around 2b, which means I'll use up all my 400b gold over 200 allies. This is because cheaper allies generally have better stat to price ratios. You want to leave some extra ally slots because it becomes a problem when you have extra gold (for example bought Chaos pack) but no ally slots. So, there are 3 types of ally styles (as an owner): 1. Plunder allies: these are allies you simply hire for plunder. You can have 1 big ally, or several small ones. I prefer having several allies as it is easier to sell for emergency reasons (not upgrading), and it would really such if your 1 plunder ally was reset for inactivity. 2. Strength allies: these are allies with good stats (for their price). You hire them to increase your overal strength from bonus from allies. This is useful in wars when you have to stay under 20% troops, but have your allies bonus to aid your strength (since your building strength is at 20%). 3. Chat allies: these are allies that you hire to chat with in ally chat. It's Bominator's favorite kind and you can make it your own personalised channel. Notes No ally is completely "yours". They can be hired away, and you can ask to keep him, but it's not like "you're not allowed to hire this ally". On the other hand, you can say that you'll farm the hirer if he hires your ally, but don't whine about it. When you drop an ally, the decrease 25% in value, and you get back 70% of what you paid. This is the same when an ally resets. This is to prevent people from volleying up alts for cash, then resetting them back for a full refund for the keeper. Allies increase 1.05% in value per hire. When your ally is hired, you get back 101.5% of what you paid (1.5% profit). Allies make 1.5% of their hire price when hired, but that is capped at 1 million. Transfering cash is making use of the 1.5% profit when an ally is hired to send cash. The first step is to volley a player 55 rounds (110 total hires) or more. The giver keeps, and drops the ally. Keep doing this until the keeper has lost as much cash as he wants to transfer. The reciever should end up with 99% of the cash the giver lost, if you did it right. So the cash has been "transfered". The starting price doesn't matter, but make sure it isn't too high so that you can't complete 55 rounds, or it isn't too low so that the proccess takes forever. To calculate a players value after a certain amount of hires, use the formula: current price * 1.05 ^ ammount of hires. Key Points Hire allies for more allies plunder (staple source of income) per attack (10 1m allies is the same as 1 10m ally). Allies plunder depends on the money you've invested in allies. Allies plunder cap depends on your build, and your building-strength comparison to your attack (so your plunder cap varies per target, unless they have the same build). Guilds are considered "weaker", therefore give a higher plunder cap. You need as much as your next land in allies for max plunder (reached your plunder cap). If your next land is 100m, you need 100m in allies. At 25 lands, you'll need about 5b. After exploring a new land, the first thing you should do is to save up in allies until you have as much in allies as your new next land cost. Even if you want to be a pure spy, start out as an attack or hansel build first (explained more in the Clans/Wars -> Spies section). Before you're land complete, don't worry about ally stats. After you've build completed, get allies with approximately 40 attack and defense (total) per 1k of hire price.
Re: The Grand All-Encompassing Guide to KaW - 3.0 Clans and Wars Clans Nowadays, clans are a big part of the game, and crucial for the player. Now, I will start off with this: Do not start a clan unless you are build complete. Why? Well think about it. If you aren't build complete, you suck for an owner. So your clan sucks. Any smart players (players who will be strong) and any strong players (players who are strong) have no reason to join your clan right? The only recruits are the brainless players. So then, in a month, you think "Gee! I waste 10 bucks for this crappy clan that never got anywhere!" So weak clans never grow. So I'll start off with picking a clan. First, go to the clan strength leaderboard (home tab -> leaders button -> clans button). Scroll through the top 50, and see which clan you like. Read their clan info. So find a clan you like, and note their subclan. It will usually say in their clan bio. Apply to their subclan! Those clans are strong, and will be able to help you and all, if you are willing to be loyal. Those strong clans usually have a subclan for recruits, and do not let strangers or weaklings into their main clan. Here, be loyal, and you will be taught in depth (although they would probably just point you back to this guide xD ), and be given help. So what if I want to start my clan? Well first off, are you build complete? As I explained above, weak clans never grow. So you must be a strong leader. Secondly, get ~2 good, and preferably strong or knowledgable friends to help run your clan. Ask some friends if they can help you start off. So now, you have 10 decent players, and you can start recruiting players. This does NOT mean spamming world chat or making a recruitment thread in the forums. This means making a clan bio in the forums explaining your ideals. This means looking at noobs or other players who look dedicated to the game, and wall the personally. Soon, you should have a decent member base, and your friends can go back. The rest is up to you . And quickly, back to clan joiners, do not join a clan based on hearing them in world chat, or a wall message that appears to have been copied and pasted. You want a clan you picked. Warring This is Kingdoms at WAR, so obviously don't cry over a fight. This ranges from farming, something I will cover, to strip wars. So I suppose there's three levels. Now, farming is hitting someone, excluding scouts (they barely hurt you and don't use pots), over 5 times a day, for two or more consecutive days. I will explain the origin. At the beginning of this game, it was truely war. People fought, but enjoyed the spirit. Then, OSFs appeared, and a 5 hit max rule per day was developed, to ensure everybody could get some easy gold. Today, hitting an osf over 5 times in a day is still automatically farming. However, in January, there was a big noob influx, and most of them became reliant of free gold and OSFs. They also adopted 5 hits max a day as farming for themselves, and that generation has grown to most of our population today. So let me clarify, farming is hitting someone, excluding scouts, over 5 times a day for 2 or more consecutive days! Nevertheless, you can still enforce a "5 hit rule" on your clan; if someone hits your clanmate 5 times, you retaliate! Just don't call it farming. You can retaliate for any sort of percieved agression (or no reason at all > ). So farming is like the most basic level of war. The most extreme level is a strip war. These wars are "unofficial", meaning there is no real system to determine a winner. In this occasion, the sides attempt to utterly destroy the other team. This is done by "stripping". This is hiring a target's allies, then stealing and hitting him until his gold is gone. Ideally, you wait until the target is asleep, hire all his allies quickly and have mercs and your clan, subclan, and allies steal until his gold is down. Stealing takes 0.08% of the gold the defender has out, and attacking takes 1% of the gold left out. However, if you attack someone until they have under 20% troops, they cannot be hit or stolen for 10 minutes. So if you got enough stealers, try to just steal (and hit twice every 5 minutes) until the gold is gone. This devastates players, and causes many people to quit. The goal is to decimate the enemy. Finally, there are the official wars. This is the two day plunder based system implemented into the game. Each side has an active roster (players can sit out if they wish), and the active players attack and steal each other, trying to earn more plunder for their side. The side with the most plunder after 48 hours wins. Simple right? Well there's more to it. First of all, when you hit an enemy, 20% of the gold you would normally make goes into a "war tax". This is stored in a budget, together from both sides. At the end of the war, it is distributed to the winners based on contribution. So the player on the winning team who earned the most plunder gets the largest share. That is why on the results page, it shows you've earned 1b plunder (as an example) but only got 0.5b rewards afterwards; since the final reward is from the 20% budget (overal you still got more gold). There is a lot of strategy for these wars. First of all, since the goal is to earn most plunder, you should have allies for allies plunder. Max plunder is the best, or close. You also want to not be hit, since when you are hit the opponent earns plunder. So stay under 20% troops as much as possible (this makes you "too weak" to attack). This also means that if you will be a weaker player, don't join the war. You will be a liability as you can be hit, but you won't be able to earn plunder since you are too weak to win against the enemy and/or you don't have allies to earn sufficient plunder. In addition, never join a war in advance. Since you can join a war halfway, but you can't leave a war without taking out your contributions, but leaving your blood. This means when you leave a war (leave the clan), the plunder you've earned is subtracted, but the plunder earned on you remains for the opponent. So anyways, lets say my war starts at 12:00pm. I finish school at 3:00pm. Instead of joining at 8:00am (war has been accepted), and getting hit as an "active" player from 12 to 3, I should just wait until I finish school, then start hitting the opponent. Always join starting from when you can be most active. So if I have a piano lesson from 3:30pm to 5:00pm, then I finish my piano, then join. In fact, it is great if you can join for the last 6 hours of a war, but stay under 20% troops for the whole 6 hours. Putting this together, you have a strategy like this: First, you send out your strongest players, who can withstand hits. They slowly grind, until the very end when all the rest of your players jump in and stay "too weak", and hit the enemy roster. Now there are some other things you should know in a war. First of all, the ideal war build is a hansel build, since the hansel build earns the most plunder. However, except for players on the alliance leaderboard, they don't have enough total attack or total defense to break enemy lines, or take hits. You end up becoming an easy target. So, since guilds give more plunder (key for war), get as many guilds as you can, without sacrificing attack and defense. Also, spies aren't very useful in a war, since spies earn minimal income. Pure spies can be hired and farmed for easy gold. Nevertheless, find 3 targets on the enemy roster with few guilds and no spy towers, and have your whole clan steal from them. Together, the steals will earn a bit more plunder. After hitting someone, post your results! So let's say I attacked majesty 5 times, and lost 5 times. I now have 10k troops, out of 30k. I say "1. majesty atk0/5np 10/30". "1." stands for majesty's rank; always include your target's rank! This is the easiest way for your clanmates to find your target to help pin him or whatever. The rank is followed by the target's name, which can be abbreviated since you've posted their rank. "atk" means you've attacked the target; post "spy" if you were spying. "0/5" is the number of successful hits out of total hits I got. "np" means "not pinned"; post "p" if you hit the guy until you got the "too weak" message. If you were stealing or scouting, you post pinned if they're down to 0 spies (they lost 0 spies on your last hit). Finally, "10/30" is the remaining troops/spies you have, in thousands. It's important to post this for your clan to plan. Whenever a target is not too weak to attack, it's important to hit them, as if you are fighting an experienced clan, they'll know to keep too weak most of the time. This also means, try to limit assasinating; as it pins the player but doesn't earn you plunder. Finally, keep track of "leakers". These are players who getting hit a ton earning your opponent plunder. Keep track of players' losses, and you may need to kick someone if they've been inactive and losing a lot of plunder. You can't say "well I think he may be active in the second 24 hours"; as I've explained, only join when you are ready to be active. Other terminology can be found in the Glossary. The final thing I want to mention is plunder wars. These are wars where one clan is just OSFs and the other clan farms them. This can be used to stimulate your members to grow. Simply post the open OSFs in the clan announcement. Spies Spies are a strange aspect in this game. Originally, they were made to compliment troops (assasinates and scouts), but people have adopted it into their gamestyle, evident as pure spies. Please note that spies will always be at a "disadvantage" since they were not the main point in the game. Nevertheless, pure spies bank in potions (usually the cheapest attack potion) and can be "invincible" since you can't hurt them. So what is this about? This section talks about spies in general, and pure spies. I'll start with the easier one. So spies have three options: scout, assasinate, and steal. You can have a max of 36 assasinates from full regen (per hour). Assasination kills opponent's troops, so as you learned from the Glossary, it makes their building strength weaker. Good to set up an attack. Assasination also kills some enemy spies, and uses pots. Scouting gives you the opponent's build, and your chance of winning if they don't have defense pots, and your chance of winning with the pots the have (this will not show if they have no defense pots). It doesn't show anything about their spies, except for their spy buildings. Scouting is good for pinning someone's spies, as scouting has a high success rate, uses up equal spies on both teams, and avoids pots (no pots used). Both parties also lose minimal spies. Stealing is a small source of income for spies. The spies plunder is based on your current number of spies, and your strength comparison to your opponent. The more spies, the more gold. The stronger you are, the less gold. The opponent loses 0.08% of the gold they have out when they are stolen from. Spying uses pots. Guilds give high allies plunder for troops because when you attack someone, the spies take all the loot. Well, this is the storyboard reason. Statistically, guilds are "weaker" than troop buildings, so if you remember from the Allies section, this increases your plunder cap. Guilds also naturally have a higher building plunder cap. That is why you should try to have as many guilds as possible, without putting a dent on your attack. This is shown in the hansel build; one troop building (usually an Aviary to maximize hits) and 23 guilds. This build earns the highest plunder. So a pure spy is a player with only guilds. There can be variations; such as OSFs and defense spies. OSFs are pure spies who leave gold out to be attacked. OSF stands for Open Spy Farm. 6 hits on these players in a day is automatically farming. Always read an OSFs wall before hitting; it will tell you their rules, including whether they are open or not. Hitting a closed OSF (including another clan's OSF) usually results in severe retaliation. For an OSF, bank in the cheapest attack or spy defense pot, and sell them quickly when people attack you. This maximizes the gold they make to the gold you lose. Defense spies are those who have some defense towers, to block off noobs, or whatever reason. As spies, you shouldn't leave gold out; always bank in the cheapest attack potion (or possibly the spy defense potion if you're an OSF). If you want to become a pure spy, land complete as an attack or hansel build first! Ideally, you start out as an attack build. At 100k attack, you start building guilds, and eventually switching to a hansel build. Once you've land completed, you simply have to tear down your troop building and replace it with a guild. Maxed out guilds cost about 1b each. Before converting, save an extra 10b in case you want to switch back afterwards, since spies earn really little gold. This is why pure spies aren't great in official wars; they earn little plunder, but can be vollied and attacked for high plunder for the enemy. However, in unofficial wars, such as stripping, they are great since they themselves can't be hurt, but can help strip players. This is where you hirer an enemy's allies, and steal away. Stealing takes 0.08% of the cash out, so if you can get a lot of stealers, this is good. Attacks take 1% of the gold out, but attacks are limited since defenders can be pinned. You can steal a target as long as they have cash out, or over 20% spies. For spies, "defender too weak" is when they don't have gold out, or they have under 20% spies. Pots Smoke pot when warring. Lol jkjk. Pots are items bought from the marketplace. They give stat bonuses, and as explained in the Glossary, stat bonuses add to your real stats, not your bonus to allies. For attacking pots, if you own some, there will be an option to use them when you click "attack" or "steal". You can only use one of each pot at a time, and this is the same for defending pots. However, defending pots have a more complicated proccess. So the server will calculate your pots from the weakest ones you own up (to the strongest ones). It will use the weakest and least ammount of pots to boost your stats when someone hits you, up until you have the best or closest to best chance of winning, 99%. So let's say you own defense pots 1, 3, 4, 7, and 8. Player A hits you, and even without pot boosts, you have a 99% of winning; no pots will be used. Lets say player B is stronger than player A, but not much. Without pots, you have an 80% chance of winning. With your first pot, you will have a 98% chance of winning. This isn't 99%, so it will use your second pot too. Now if majesty hits you, even with all pots you have a 10% chance of winning. All pots will still be used. Remember that the server will use pots from weakest up, so it won't use pots 1 and 8 in the situation described above. So how do I know what pots I need? Well, you only need attack pots in a war. In war, you aren't ment to made profit, so you will probably lose money using your attacking potions. So I'll talk about defending pots. When you start out, you shouldn't need any pots, attacking or defending. You shouldn't be in any wars too. From lands 10-20, get 50 of each defense pot (not spy defense pot), from pots 1 to 10. So at 12 lands, I'll have 50 of the first, second, and third defense pot. By land 20, I'll have 50 of each defense pot. At 20 lands, also buy 50 spy defense pots. By land 25, you should have 300 of each defending pot. So how many defending pots do I need when I'm build complete? Let's look at the official wars. Wars last 48 hours, so let's say you will be on for 24 hours, which is half of the time and minimum devotion. So for that 24 hours, I'll be staying "too weak" to attack; I'm safe. For the other 24 hours, I can be hit regularly. The most you can be hit each hour is 59 times; let's say 60. so 60 * 24 = 1440 hits if you're being hit nonstop. So you should have 1500 defending pots minimum at all times after you've build completed. While you can be stolen as long as you have gold out, or have spies, most likely you won't be stolen as much since spying gives low plunder. Pots give massive bonuses; only the top half of the alliance leaders have enough bonus from allies to overtake pots. So obvious, they are crucial in a war. Mercenaries Mercs were originally pure spies who would help with anything (such as stripping) for gold. Now, there are clans of mercs for hire. Generally, they will do anything for enough gold. Today, there are also attack build mercs, or hybrids. Essentially, a merc is a 3rd party player who helps with something, so it can be anyone. In the official wars, the sides may bring in non-clanmates to help in the war; these are called mercs. If you've agreed to not have mercs, don't break it just to win your war. People know who the good wars are, and it just looks stupid when you've brought in a merc to win a such a small war. Wars are won by both sides; a good war is where both sides fight honorably. Good clans are clans who fight honorably.