My beginners guide to getting started - By a beginner [New]

Right... First of all, a quick disclaimer, this guide based on my own personal experience and learnings. Do let me know if you have better suggestions and tips and I will amend and add to this guide. Hopefully I will learn from your feedback as well!

Thanks for reading!!!

I've started this game less then two weeks ago, and since then through the help of my super supportive clan, (CT - Heros and Chinese Triumph) I've learned lots and grown well. Now I want to share some of concepts I've learnt along the way to help other beginners to this game get beyond the first stage of growth.

Here's the typical stages for beginners and what to do:

:arrow: Stage 1: I'm RICH!!! Everyone loves me.

For most beginners, from the moment they build the first forge, chances are a hoard of rich players will come any repeatedly hire (volley) you. In no time at all, you will have anything between 20-30Million in your bank and you'll believe there's easy money in this game and everyone is great.

You will be inundated with requests to "build that forge", so take the advice.

:?: The solution
Focus your early efforts on building forges and upgrading. You should also consider selling the guild and tower to make room for more forges.
1. The reason you sell is because land very soon becomes super expensive.
2. The main source of income for you at this stage is from people hiring you.
3. Forges gives you great stats and great stats will encourage others to hire you more. The objective here is to increase your stats. That's the single most important factor in why others hire you. (plus the fact you are active)

:idea: Tip: What are stats?
Stats is the combined total of your Ally bonus. You should find it in your profile. Don't look at your Hire value or attack strength. Those numbers doesn't mean anything.

:arrow: Stage 2: Please hire me... Because I"m worth it!

Typically within a few days, you will find that you can't increase your stats any more because the next piece of land is so expensive. The key sticking point for many is exploring your 16th piece of land. The cost jumps from 20M to 60M! Which if you are only getting thousands from battles or quests, that becomes almost impossible.

At this stage, most go to World Chat (WC) and beg to be hired... "look at me, I've got 7 Level 3 forges,,, hire me and I'll build a shrine and worship you... etc" - I think everyone at some point has done that. Including myself. What you quickly find is that your value won't increase because you stats can't increase because you can't buy land. This does not work... don't spam up the WC boards with requests as it's a big waste time and speakers.

:?: Solution
The easiest route here is to join a supportive clan. Look for clans that focuses more on growing it's members then war. The key to the next step is to have OSF (Open Spy Farm) in your clan that essentially give you money when you attack.

You should have decent stats now (around 50K) which means most clans will let you join and provide you keep active, they will help you grow as well.

:idea: Tip:
If there isn't any OSF's available, look out for people in World Chat thanking others. If you see lots of thanks directly at one player, it's a good sign that the player is a OSF who's opened up to everyone.

A OSF is another player that doesn't have any defense stats so when they let you attack them (open), you get lots of money. These guys are very experienced players so make sure they have opened for you to hit. And always thank them for the privilege.

With a good open OSF, you can easily come away with a few million every time you use all your troops on an attack.

:arrow: Stage 3: A OSF is cool... but I NEED BILLIONS!

The next stage is perhaps the most interesting part of KAW, the trade of allies and plunder bonuses. Allies gives you plunder bonus and plunder bonus is what will eventually make you the billions needed to successfully build and explore all lands.

At this stage, you should consider taking time out of upgrading stats and invest all your funds in buying allies.

The ally trade is great because it helps everyone, buyer, seller and the ally all make money.

There are lots of ways of getting allies. Don't bother with allies in the World Chat shouting "hire me" - Nearly all of them are players with inflated costs and can't grow anymore.

Initially when you hire allies, don't worry about their stats. The stats of any ally does not have any impact on your plunder bonus at this stage. You should invest all your money in to buying allies and reinvesting when they are sold. If you have more then 1 Million to spend, break it up in to 500,000 allies so they sell quicker and you can reinvest faster.

On the other hand, if you have time and want some allies with good stats, here's my technique for getting active allies with good stats:

Solution: :?:
The best way to get started is to go for the grass roots of allies. Here's my method of finding good allies:
1. Search for allies at 20,000 mark
2. Hire any allies that has more then 2K in combined stats and has done more then 5 quests.
3. Ask for someone to volley that person up with you, (ideally do this with your clan or a friend - Don't announce in World Chat or the price will shoot up and you won't benefit)
4. Hire to as much as you have or 8 Million which ever is lower.
5. Through this process, you will find that either the ally will wall you and thank you for the effort, or they stay silent.
5 a: If they thank you or if their stats go up, keep hiring to 150 - 250M or as much as you have in the bank.
b: If they don't respond, you have a nice ally worth 8M that's great for plunder bonuses.

I have found using this strategy, more then 80% of allies I've hired tend to be active and highly valuable with great stats. By sticking to 8M for a ally with 2K stats, even if that ally isn't active, it will be taken off your hands soon making you a nice profit to do it again.

:idea: Tip:
- Keep in mind that if an ally is active and builds their price will be a minimum of 100M, from what I have seen, the average is around 300 -500M but goes up to the billions once they have over 50K in stats.
- This for most beginners buying allies, unless you have 300+ Million, it will be difficult to hold on to a good ally.
- I have also found that any ally, regardless of stat will be hired off you if the value is less then 1Million. So feel free to hire away allies just for their plunder bonuses.

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Coming next... Plunder Wars!

 

Re: My beginners guide to getting started - By a beginner

Of course... that's coming up next. It's essentially what you need to do to go from millions to billions.

 

Re: My beginners guide to getting started - By a beginner

What's an mod?

 

Err... I don't otherwise I won't be asking. :shock:

 

Right.. thanks!! I was going down the OSF / OAF acronym line of thought.

As for moderating the game, I couldn't care less. Like I said right at the start, this is what I have done and not designed to be rule book of what you should do.

Thanks.