Plunder War Update

Yay... test results were right... confirmation just in from majesty... kicking is dead, leaving is fine in hit and run plunder wars........

............................................. doesn't explain the war where we lost both though..... hmmmmmmm

Re-test Complete

Ok the retest is complete … and I want to shoot myself.  We have a different result.  Let me lay this out kinda like a science test… because that will please 123..lol

Methodology

• Each player hits or steals to make over 5m
• When all the hits and plunder are registered kick one player
• Wait until this change is registered and shows on war summary
• Another player leaves
• Wait until this change shows on the war summary
• Forfeit war

 

Results Summary

OK… there’s the summary of the test. Link to spreadsheet on google docs

If we were following the same pattern as the last war Chewy should have won about 2.5m… instead she’s won 6.2.  The awarded tax always seems to be a little over the individuals totals, so to get this figure the tax from Shadow must be included. 

Below is the last test



As you can see from this result the tax awarded would indicate that its only the tax from the two remaining players which has been awarded.

 

Analysis

The conclusion of this

• ugh this sux
• it is possible the dev’s have changed something in the background since the last test
• what is clear is that the tax from kicking does not stay
• as the results don’t match.. I guess I’m testing again… ugh
• There was a subtle difference in the timing of the end of the war last time, it was within 10 minutes of the player being kicked and leaving.

Steals

There were some weird things we noticed along the way as well, which we need to look into a bit more.


If you look at the figure for WOMO, the plunder is too low, it should have registered 15.4m… All the hits and steals are accounted for but the plunder is wrong and it’s a lot to be missing.  You will notice the plunder for the underworld is too high by 3.6k



This was after lady was kicked, she was the one who had done the steal and the tax is nearly spot on now, so the only conclusion to this is that there must be something strange going on with the steals



This was after shadow left, and the discrepancy with the underworlds plunder is still there indicating that there is something going on with the steals

 

Conclusion

Ok where does that leave us

• In need of vitamin alcohol
• In need of retest
• To complete a retest without steals
• It would appear that the constant in both of these tests is that kicking not only looses plunder but looses tax.  This would be in line with what one of the moderators told Scru was going to happen.
• it would appear that there is no clear answer about what happens to tax if people leave

Is Hit and Run Dead?

Ok.. so this is evidence that I’m a geek… and I’m firmly blaming No123 and Eric for outing me.


Why Are We Testing?

After the first double plunder war with Triumph, the Dark Moon OSF’s got all the war tax and we repeated the process at Triumph so they could get all the war tax.  Only something went very wrong.  Whilst we got all the tax we expected, the Triumph war was down on tax by possibly 200b.  And when you are a hard working OSF who needs to grow and re-pot, that is a lot of money.

Previous tests we did when rumours around plunder wars being dead proved that plunder wars were still alive and kicking.  However the results this time round are not so promising.

The picture is the spreadsheet from the last round of testing we did (I did, 123 told me what to do to replicate his findings) to find out what is going on with the war tax.  It strongly looks like if you both kick a player or they leave not only do they take their plunder but the also take the war tax.  On the left is the players and the hits/steals they made, on the right is their name, the total they made and then the outcome of the war.  For hit and run to be alive, Chewy should have received a lot more tax.  Clearly there is still a discrepancy in the figures, but it gives a very strong indication that hit and run is over.


What Might This Mean?

Now if this is true it could mean that

• “Hit and Run” plunder wars are dead, but clan plunder wars (stay and play) are fine as long as no one leaves.
• Any time someone leaves a plunder war they are taking from the OSF, both in terms of money and time, with no repayment from the tax.
• Plunder war revenue to start with will go down if we do not get outsiders to join and stay in the clan, so OSF’s will not grow as fast
• We need to stick to our stats entry to ensure we get the most tax possible
• I predict clans will become more protective over big players to ensure they can grow their own OSF
• Smaller players will be looking for places to go as clans will stop allowing them to join
• I guess some clans will bring in reprisals if people leave a plunder war to early
• We may see an increase in people hitting OSF out side of war

My guess is that this is all in preparation for the PVE (Player Verses Environment) update, when clan identity and clan strength will need exist in order to be able to do the quests.

I think that this is good for the clan as it causes us to grow a deeper sense of unity but we will need to consider

• how do we get players to join the clan
• how do we grow new players
• are there new ways to determine if someone becomes a clan member
• what happens if someone leaves the clan during a plunder war, are there reprisals?

Its interesting to me to see how something that is so relatively small in terms of changes creates all sorts of questions in my head.

What we will do is repeat the testing to confirm the outcome

Lessons Learnt from Chronos

This article needs to be read in conjunction with the last one.

Having been beaten by Chronos last weekend I was given the opportunity to fight with them to see what was going on behind the scenes on their side during war.  What was fascinating was for them this was a war where they had less active players and smaller sized players, so actually very similar to the situation we were in last war.  As we did, they started in the lead and slowly lost control of the plunder.

Active Players/Balancing Rosters

Something that they had changed since their war with us was to have a clan specifically dedicated to the war.  There was a sense that this really helped with the organisation and planning of the war, it meant they knew who was there and people were balanced against the opponents more easily.  Unfortunately several people who said they were going to join didn't.  This is something which has been talked about for Dark Moon, so I propose we create “Dark Moon Battlefields” to fight our wars in.

I didn't get to see the whole of the balancing of rosters as this happened in their pal group.  What  I did see was an interesting technique of balancing.  The top 10 attack players stats were added on both sides so see if this was even, this was repeated with the spies.  They then checked the mid range 11-20 then the smaller players to make sure there was an even balance through out the clan. 

Action

• create new clan
• review how we balance clan members

 

Leaks

interestingly when we knew about active war players who were not playing we handled it better.  We were actively trying to pin our own players, they kicked a couple of people without trying to pin, which probably cost them a billion or so.  I was also chatting to them about the folks we considered as leaks, and they said they genuinely hadn't found any leaks.

The good news is, when we communicate we do well with our leaks.  We have also had an offer from the guys at Triumph which we could consider, which is to let them know who is active, but a potential leak and they will hit out of war.  This is possibly something we could organise in house as well.

Action

• Either partner with a clan like Triumph to pin our leaks or have people who are not active in the war specifically tasked with this job.  If they are in cc they can see who needs pinning

 

Communication

Listening - In comparison to us, they are completely drama free. (we had too many voices giving instructions and people were not listening, and not following through with instructions.)  There were 5 clear voices who people listened to and followed. There was a sense that most people were communicating on cc but it was generally emotion free comments, it felt really calm in comparison.  There were only a couple of drama points when I was on and they were resolved really quickly.  Both of these were around when they realised that they were loosing and deciding what to do and whether to forfeit or not.

War shouting -  people shouted out who was hitting them as well as who they hit. This made up the bulk of the communication in cc.

War Admin - For much of the war they did not appear to have a war admin role, however when someone stepped into that role, the war became very co-ordinated (see strategy) and they did start to pull back briefly.  They only did this for an hour, I’m not fully sure why, but the person in that role was working very hard, and they were pinned for the whole time. This person was not only checking pin times, they created a spread sheet, they were also alerting the clan who the next people to pin were.  They were tracking leaks and identified several big problems.  It showed me how effective the war admin role can be.

Action

• Listen, listen, listen
• Identify 4-5 clear leaders
• shout out who  is hitting as well as who has hit you.
• Develop war admin role either active or not (will be much harder if active)

Strategy

I will probably get in trouble for saying this, but I think their war against us gave them a sense they could beat anyone, so initially there was a bit of planning, but not a huge amount.  However when the planning kicked in I saw the following strategies.

• Always keeping the opponents spies pinned, Key job at the beginning of the war, and then the smaller spies kept the huge spies pinned.  So I spent over half the war scout pinning a pure spy, 6.5 half times bigger than me, that got him really fed up but that's another story. Two of us alternated sitting on him half an hour each, then regen.
• They developed spread sheets on loses to seek out leaks
• They developed spreadsheets for pin times and seeing who was active.  They didn't use it in this way, but it could have been used to work out time zones
• Crystalling all together and then pinning top down
• identifying who the active players on the alternate side were and only hitting them as it was easier to make plunder and made the other side pinned so they couldn't win plunder
• Saving up spies for a spy attack, which at that point there were way less Chronos players, it again enabled the bigger players to be pinned.
• Hitting only 12-18 as the big players were too big to hit, but all together we could made the mid players leak
• Sending in the big spy to assa followed by attack players
• There was a lot of morale boosting by the biggest player.  I’ve already talked to Eric about him doing this and he has threatened to put on his cheerleading outfit with its short skirt and dancing around with pom poms.. this might actually be more scary and asks the question why does he have that outfit?

Action

• use some of these strategies in the future
• spend time with other war clans so that we can pick up more strategies

The really interesting thing at the beginning of the war for me was the sense that Chronos really weren’t that much different from us.  All they do better is listen and communicate more effectively.  They have a couple of tricks up their sleeve from their experience of war.  But we lost, as they did, because we were out gunned and out manned.

Planning For The Future

Ok… so lets look at what we did wrong first then come up with some solutions.

Poor Negotiation

Those of us who were there put our hands up and say we made a mistake.  If we had wanted to practice being smaller to fight a big opponent we should have worked this out before we went in, otherwise we should have asked for more players to stand down.  Bella had done some awesome work behind the scenes so we knew what we were going up against, it just somehow didn’t come off in our negotiations.  We will try our best to get it right next time, and we are sorry we got it wrong.

 

Poor Preparation

We ended up with too many inactive players who we thought were going to be active.  We need to co-ordinate this better.  There are a couple of options I know that have been mentioned so far

• Create a clan just for friendly war and if you are joining you have to be there 24 hours before declaration. There will be tax free opens during this time.
• That it is an opt in war system and that if you haven’t told a war admin you are going to go to war you are marked as inactive.  If you then join the war you will be kicked from the clan for the period of the war.

 

Strategy

There are lots of game plans out there, but the key strategy we were missing was around having war admin, squads and squad leads.

War Admin

We would need 2 war admin in different time zones.  There role is the following

• not to be an active player in the war
• watch cc to have a full picture of the war
• direct the squad leaders regarding targets they may have missed or how they can support other squads
• update ca with the time players are pinned
• keep track of the number of pots the opponents have, looking for weak targets
• Act as a leak checker, posting win/lost stats on players walls (although this may need to be delegated)

Squads

These are basically 4-5 man teams (or bigger).  We were talking about having 5 within the clan.  These teams contain a Hansel or pure spy, and attack players. They will have a lead and a second for when the lead is unavailable.  The squads will be build around size and if possible time zone, so that different size opponents can be targeted.

Squad Leaders

The squad lead directs their squad, keeping check on what is happening to their players.  The plan is that under direction of the squad lead, the Hansel goes in first assa the target.  The Hansel then say who is attacking them, as these are the people who are now weakened on the other side.  The Squad lead directs the attackers to pin this player using as few his from each player as possible.  Squad lead then directs a player to keep this person pinned.  Allow a bit of regen, and repeat

1. Hansels go in first
2. wait to see who attacks them
3. attackers attack
4. pin player (and keep pinned)
5. rinse and repeat

Ironically this is how we were working at the beginning of the war when there were only 6 of us playing, although it wasn’t planned… and apart from a leak we couldn't hold, we were actually up for the first two hours so it definitely works.

 

Communication

Hopefully the above will sort out some of the communication issues.  The key with this is to listen to your squad lead and the war admin.  Even if the instruction leaves you pinned or not making money, we all need to be working for the good of the team so instructions need to be followed.
Everyone has to shout out their hits or we have no idea if you are active.  It has been suggested if we know people are active and not shouting out that we kick them because they are a liability as we have no idea what is happening with them.

 

Leaks

• Please only join the war when your squad lead says ok.
• Let your squad lead know when you are not going to be on so you can be pinned
• War admin will be tracking losses and who is active to see if we have leaks
• if you are asked to pin someone who isn’t there, please keep doing it rather than forgetting.
• Invest in some allies for protection as well as max plunder

 

Their Strategy

With War Admin and Squad Leaders we will be able to track their strategy better, to work out who they are using for what and put some counter measures in place. 
Seriously, they worked in teams and it worked as above… and damn those scout bombs they sat on grel for 14 hours only letting her out of pin for 20 minutes the whole war, most of that time at 0 spies.  

 

Build

There may be things we need to consider regarding build and the amount of pots and crystals we have to enable us to be more effective. 
Also ally strength is probably one of the key solutions to some of these problems but I have never seen us talk about this in clan.  As we have only plunder warred before we have only concentrated on allies as max plunder.  In war they are so much more and are what keep you defended.  Its why majesty and gor-illa are such a force to be reckoned with

So these are these are the ideas which are bouncing around at the moment, please make comments below if I have captured this information wrongly or if you have ideas which will make this better
Thanx

Ugh We Lost... But We Did Stuff Well

Loosing badly sucks, but also being on the winning side when you beat someone so effectively sucks as well - been there done that. 
What we hope would be a fair even war didn't quite work out that way

The good news is guys that we did loadsa stuff right. Remember this was our first friendly war as a clan.

• We got their top 5 guys pinned at one point
• For the first 2 hours we were up on plunder
• People were really enthusiastic all the way through
• We all fought from pinned, which is so tough, and kept going
• We kept our integrity and didn’t merc
• I’ve been involved with other wars where the loosing clan has called for a cease fire within 4 hours, we didn’t
• We made over 9b which is awesome given their strength and size in comparison to us
• If we had beaten them when they were so much bigger than us, numbers and strength, they would have been way bigger noobs
• It was an awesome learning experience, both personally and as a clan, and we need to capture all that information
• We now know things we need to change, which we couldn’t have known before this.

It is fair to say that clans loose members after losing a war like this and people feel as if they want to leave. There can be a number of reasons and it is totally normal

Anger

• at our own clan for being rubbish
• at the other clan for doing so well
• at those organising the ceasefire if you wanted to continue
• that it was allowed to go on for so long
• for being pinned all the time
• for losing money in pots
• at other people for not listening

Guilt

• if you made a mistake which kept you pinned
• if you were someone who made losses

Frustration

• that there were leaks that we couldn’t stop
• that no one seemed to know what they were doing
• that you never want to have to go through that again because it was awful

To name but a few…

Let’s use all of this to make us stronger. We had a great de-brief afterwards and more information will be heading up onto this site soon about how to improve things. We don’t want to lose any of the clan, we want you to stay and learn and grow with us. We will become a fighting force to be reckoned with as well as an awesome clan which does plunder wars well.

Why Did We Loose?

Ok so we lost, but why… ultimately they made more plunder than we did, simples.
But why?

 

Poor Negotiation

We negotiated a deal which meant they had more stats but we had more hitters, then 29 of our expected hitters hadn’t joined by the time of forfeit. (I know some folks were on route but that doesn't explain everyone). Whilst its possible to win a war with that balance with our lack of experience of friendly war it was a bad decision to agree to that.

Strategy

Err… wot strategy.  We didn’t have a coherent game plan.  We had discussed a ‘Hail Mary’ plan where people join in waves with specific targets because of how our time zones in the clan are.  That didn’t happen, people joined individually and were pinned as soon as they arrived. 
We didn’t work together for much of the time, it was all very individual, which meant we didn’t have clear targets till much later in the war.
Our clan is one time zone heavy, we need to recruit in other time zones as we will always have a weakness if we are not careful.

Communication

Our communication sucked guys, really bad.  We had people giving instructions, which were only half followed.  People not listening to advice.  Everyone behaving as if they knew what they were doing and we didn’t.  We were not shouting out who we were hitting let alone who it us.  We had 4 people join the war without even talking in cc first to find out who to hit and then not talking at all.  When we started working as groups it began to work, but it was too late to make any real difference.

Leaks

We had a major problem with leaks, not just one person,

• some of this was due to time zones,
• some of this due to not keeping ourselves pinned when on,
• some of it is due to the fact that since the highlands up grade they haven't changed the pots so with out help you can not easily keep yourself pinned when you are not there
• some of it is about the fact that later in the war we had no idea who wasn’t there as we hadn’t been told so didn’t know to try and keep them pinned.
• we didn’t keep track of leaks effectively once more players joined,
• when when we found leaks we didn't keep them pinned

Their Strategy

We were being seriously scout bombed and did nothing to start with to challenge that threat.  They were clearly working in teams and we weren’t telling each other what they were doing. 

Build

There may be things we need to consider regarding build and the amount of pots and crystals we have to enable us to be more effective. 
Also ally strength is probably one of the key solutions to some of these problems but I have never seen us talk about this in clan.  As we have only plunder warred before we have only concentrated on allies as max plunder.  In war they are so much more and are what keep you defended.  Its why majesty and gor-illa are such a force to be reckoned with


So bottom line guys we got some things wrong, and there may be other things I’ve not put in here, please post comments to say what they are so I can update this.  However each of these problems has solutions.

Oh and just for your information, I don't plan to keep this post up forever, don't want our enemies in war to know how bad we sucked.

Ally Max Plunder

 

What is Ally Plunder?

When you attack another kingdom and win you will notice that you get money listed from 2 sources.  One is related to your build or troop numbers, the other the cost of the allies you have.  The figure related to your build reduces as your troop numbers decreases, so you earn less per win.  The figure from your allies is a static figure.  It therefore makes sense for this figure to be as high as possible so you make as much money as possible from each attack you make.

 

So What is Max Plunder?

In KaW originally the amount of money you could make from allies went up and up and up.  It caused all sorts of fun and battles over allies as the more expensive allies you owned the more money you would make.  An ally cap was introduced so that for your build you can earn a maximum amount of money from your allies.  If you are at Max Plunder you will be making the most of your build in terms of making money, so definitely something to have.

 

So How do You Know if You Are at Max Plunder?

1. Attack someone you know you can beat
2. Make a note of the plunder from allies figure
3. Purchase an ally which costs about 200,000
4. Attack the same person again, and look at the ally plunder figure
5. If the figure has gone up you were not at max plunder, and need to purchase more allies to make more money per hit.

It is true that at the beginning of the game trying to get to max plunder feels really hard as you just want to get buildings and increase your statistics.  The truth however is if you keep to max plunder you will grow quicker over all, definitely worth considering.

KaW Dictionary

OK so this isn't my work… it belongs to Dillybar and can be found here on the forums, thought it would be good to have it here too as part of the basics series

This is a small dictionary of slang terms that are often used in KaW. Hoping you'll enjoy, Dillybar.
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KaW Slang Terms

I'm going make all of these slang terms in alphabetical order, so if you have a certain term in mind you just have to scroll to the letter it starts with and find it there to find out what it means! If you find any other definitions I don't have please post them here and I'll edit them in.
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A

AC- Ally Chat.
Active- Playing the game at the time.
AL- Ally List.
Ally Plunder- The gold your allies give you in an attack.
Assa- To Assassinate someone.
Attk- Attack.
Av- War Aviary.
Admin- Clan ability that let's you change normal member's titles, clan announcement, kick/accept/reject members, challenge/accept/decline wars, and edit your clan information (See Clan).
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B

Ban- A Dev ability that stops you from being able to play (See Devs).
BC- LC with all fully upgraded buildings (See LC).
Beast- Beastiary.
Bil/B- Billion.
BL- Battle List.
Bldgs- Buildings.
Bots- Anything that plays the game for you (auto-clicker, etc). DO NOT USE BOTS, YOU WILL BE BANNED! (See Ban).
BTA- Bonus To Allies.
BUMP- Bring Up My Post (Forums only).
Bypassing- Avoiding the chat filter. You can get silenced for this (See Silence).
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C

CA- Clan Announcement.
Castle- A unique building, that can NOT be sold or upgraded.
Cath- War Cathedral.
CC- Clan Chat.
Circ- Summoning Circle.
Clan- An organized group of people (Also known as Alliance).
Closed- No hits allowed (For OSF's and OAF's).
Combined Stats- Your Attack and Defense added together and your Spy Attack and Spy Defense added together (See Stats).
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D

Def- Defense.
Devs- The people at AThinkingApe who made Kingdoms at War.
Dropping Pots- Selling one pot at a time to open for people(See Open, OSF, and Pots)
DTS- Defender Too Strong, which means you are too weak to attack that person.
DTW- Defender Too Weak, which means you are either too strong to attack that person, that person has no gold out, or that person is pinned (See Pin).
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E

Element/Elmnt- Circle of Elementals.
Empty- To be out of troops/spies.
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F

Farming- To hit 1 person over 5x daily (Definitions May Vary).
Found- Cursed Foundry.
FPW- PW that is forfeited so Plunder goes to OSF's (See PW, RPW, War Plunder, and OSF).
Full- To have all of your soldiers/spies.
Forums- A place with game information along with other things. This is found on the Kingdoms at War Home-Screen.
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G

Go- An order given to start doing something, such as hire or attack.
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H

HC- Health Crystal.
Hire- To buy someone as an ally.
Hit- To attack or steal from someone.
HTW- To attack someone until they are DTW (See DTW).
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I

IF- Inactive Farm (See Inactive Farm).
Inactive- Someone who's not on at the time or doesn't play anymore.
Inactive Farm- Someone who no longer plays who you can farm.
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J

Jam- To spam someone's news so that they are unable to see previous attacks, steals, etc.
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K

K- Thousand.
KaW- Kingdoms at War.
Keep- Owning an ally.
Kingdom- A person playing the game
OR
A person's lands and buildings.
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L

LB- Leader Board which contains the top 50 clans and people in several areas.
LC- Land Complete (All lands bought).
LCBC- Land Complete and Build Complete (See LC and BC).
Lurking- Being in a chat or forum but not talking (See Forums, AC, CC, and WC).
Lvl- Level (For Buildings).
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M

Mercs- Players brought in from outside a clan to war (See War).
Mil/M- Million.
Mods/Moderators- Players chosen by the Developers to moderate the game (See Devs).
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N

Naked- Having 0 allies and 0 gold.
Nob- Nobility Points.
NP- Not Pinned.
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O

OAF- Open Attack Farm (An attack build who allows free steals).
Old BC- BC with Tier 3 Buildings.
Open- Unlimited hits allowed (For OSF's and OAF's).
OSF- Open Secret Farm (A Pure Spy who allows free attacks).
Owner- Owning an ally
OR
Clan ability that let's you change anyone's title, clan announcement, kick/accept/reject members, challenge/accept/decline wars, set admins, disband your clan, and edit your clan information (See Clan).
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P

P- Pots.
Pal- Palringo, an app that allows private and group chat.
Permafarm- Someone who you permanently farm (See Farm).
Pi- Pinned.
Pin- To make a defender "Too Weak" (See DTW).
Plunder- The gold you earn from an attack.
PM- Private Message (Palringo Only).
Pots- Battle items from the Marketplace that increase your odds of winning.
Potting Up- Buying pots from the marketplace to prepare for a conflict (See Pots).
Pure Spy- Someone with just spy buildings.
PW- A war with OSFs on one side and attackers on the other. This war's only purpose is to make money. Considered by many not to be a "real" war (See War).
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Q

None right now, please post any suggestions here.
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R

Regen- To get more soldiers/spies.
RPW- PW that is forfeited so Plunder goes to OSF's (See PW, FPW, War Plunder, and OSF).
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S

Scout Bomb- To scout someone a lot.
Sit- To keep a Defender "Too Weak" (See DTW).
Silence- A Mod and Dev ability that stops players from being able to chat. First 2 silences on a player last 24 hours, the last silence is permanent (See Mod and Devs).
SOS- Stronghold of Shadow.
Stats- Your bonus to allies (On Profile).
Strip- To hire someone's allies and take their gold.
Strip Farm- Someone who you continuously strip and farm (See Strip and Farm).
Sub- Subterranean Factory.
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T

T1- A Workshop, Barracks, Stables, or Guild.
T2- A Forge, Beastiary, War Cathedral, or Stronghold of Shadows.
T3- A Subterranean Factory, War Aviary, or Summoning Circle.
T3 BC- BC with T3 Buildings (See T3 and BC).
T4- A Cursed Foundry, Circle of Elementals, or Titans Lair.
Tax- The amount of gold taken away in war (See War).
Titan- Titan's Lair.
ToS- The Terms of Service, which are basically just the rules of the game.
ToU- Another name for the ToS (See ToS).
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U

Unofficial War- Unofficial Wars are wars that are conducted outside of the official war system and do not go onto a clan's war history. These wars are often very violent and competitive (See War).
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V

Volley- Hiring 1 person back and forth (See Hire).
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W

WA- The announcement in World Chat.
War- A fight between two clans lasting for 48 hours. The winning clan receives the War Plunder (See War Plunder).
War Plunder- The gold the winning clan in war receives (See War).
War Roster- The members in both friendly and enemy clans that are active in war (See War).
WC- World Chat.
Work- Workshop.
WR- War Roster (See War Roster and War).
WT- The amount of time left in a war (See War).
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X

Xstal- Using a crystal from the oracle.
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Y

None right now, please post any suggestions here.
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Z

None right now, please post any suggestions here.
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Conclusion

This concludes The KaW Dictionary. I hope you have enjoyed it and will use it well. I'd like to give special thanks to all of my friends who helped me do this:

Conclave of Shadows: For helping me through the game and giving me support.

My Editing Team: D_J_, OutdoorToast, IamJ3acon, BlueDrag0n, DarkFalcon, and LadyRose.

How Does a Plunder War Work?

 

Why Plunder War?

There are a few reasons people run plunder wars, to grow their clan members is the one most people think of, but the main reason spies put so much time and effort into staying open, is to grow pure spies.

Pure spies have a number of functions

• to open as an osf
• to be deadly during a system wars, and often make the difference as to why one side wins
• to be deadly in unfriendly wars where they can strip farm easily as most players have little resistance to a big spy

 

How Does it Work?

• When you attack someone during a 48 hour (system) war, war tax is taken off you. 
• The tax is put into a pot and distributed to the winning side
• The hitters forfeit so that the tax goes to the osf’s, so that they can be paid to run the next war and so they can grow.
• The war tax is divided amongst the winning side in relationship to how much the have one through out the war.  When you hear people talking about setting steals, they are working out how to divide up the tax and making sure the right amount goes to each player

 

But we beat the osfs, why should they get the war tax?

• Firstly, they let you beat them
• they worked really hard to give you gold
• without the tax they can not run the next war

but mainly

Plunder wars are about helping pure spies grow

How Come OSF’s Have So Much Money?

 

Well, actually, we don’t. 

The way the game is loaded the amount of money you make depends on the size of your build and the size of the build of the player you are attacking.  If a big player attacks a small player, they make very little, kind of a punishment for being a bully.  The problem is the small player will loose more than the big player wins.

if a smaller player beats a bigger player the smaller player will win a larger amount.

When spies are open, even if they have a single coin available to be taken, the attacker can win up to say 42m. 

The reason osf’s work hard is to try and limit the amount of money you take.  To do this they only have 50-100m cash for you to take out at any one time, and try to keep their spies as close to 20% as they can.  Doing these two things keeps they amount they loose as low as possible.

The bigger the spy, the more you will make.  This is totally down to their build and your build and nothing to do with the amount of money you take off the spy.

Contact the Dev’s

The following is the dev’s e-mail… just so its easier to find

support@athinkingape.com

Obviously you can use the feedback button, although you only get a very limited number of characters.  I've never found it long enough.

Farming

Clans Definition of Farming

“hitting a player more than 5 times within a 24 hour period.  This includes steals assassinations an attacks on active players.”

Basic advice is usually is

• if you’re being farmed DO NOT farm back.
• Tell an admin
• Self pin. The goal of this is to stop the farmer from farming you not revenge as you can always get the gold back off the OSF. 
• Avoid threatening the farmer
• farmers often thrive off the attention they get and it is more likely to make then farm you more
• you give them a link back to you so it makes you easier to find when they want to farm you.
• if they are sneaky they can use your words to demonstrate harassment, especially if you bypass the filter on their wall you could get silenced
• Retaliation is normally done as a clan, hence telling an admin

And just as a thought clan members caught farming and not playing by clan rules may be kicked from the clan and farmed by the clan

 

 

Grel’s Thoughts

So I’ve been mulling the idea of farming since being strip farmed overnight.  Going to bed with 2b worth of allies for the clan to open me, waking up to find some one other than the clan had opened me.  Got me thinking… When is farming bad? Why is farming different to war? What exactly do we mean by farming.  I know I don’t like farmers, but what am I saying I don’t like?

 

So Where does the term farming come from?

Initially the concept of farming goes back to the origins of OSF … open secret farm (no I haven't got that wrong that’s what they were originally called).  These guys would allow people to attack them 5 times a day, which is the origin of the no more than 5 hits rule.   There would be hidden threads in the forums to say who was open, hence secret and there were enforcers who made sure this was stuck to.

 

So what is farming?

There seem to be a number of definitions out there, please correct me if I’m wrong.

• More than 5 hits in a day
• 1 scout and more than 5 hits in a day
• hitting another player consistently over a period of time, several times an hour to once a day.
• 5 or more hits on 2 consecutive days

So there is some kind of idea that its is about the number of hits, but also the prolonged nature of it. 

Its a war game, I expect to be hit, and I expect to retaliate, and do (oops not following the rules above).  As some clan members have found out when they have hit me outside of plunder war when I’m not open.  Hit me  5 times, I will hit back five times (or more *cough*), hit me more I will get my friends involved because you are going down. But that's war, and this is a war game. 

 

So why talk to an owner and admin if there are problems?

The consequence of the approach above is that there may be negotiations that need to happen to stop these attacks.  Having been a clan leader and had to try and smooth feathers I would prefer it if you talk to a clan leader because it makes their job easier… just saying.  Generally with new players a gentle word from someone much bigger than they are, saying its against the rules to hit a player more than 5 times, please join my clan to learn how to grow, is enough to solve the problem.  I’m not sure this is farming so much as us conditioning new players into how we want them to behave. 

Bigger players who are actively choosing not to follow the 5 hit convention, this is unlikely to work, but it’s always worth seeing if this will make a difference.  However the key about talking to an owner or admin is that it is likely that the clan will need to take action to resolve problems.  This is because the farmer knows about the farming conventions and chooses to play the game by different rules, they choose to get their enjoyment at the expense of others.

The other thought about talking to an owner/admin first before retaliation is that farming another clans player is often used as a tactic to initiate a non-system war.  So before things escalate it is worth everyone being on side to resolve problems.

 

So is it farming to find an easy target and consistently hit them, say 17 times spread out throughout a day?

I’ve been mulling this and yes it is.  I know that some people say that 24 hits, in one go is not farming,  it is simply a troop dump and part of war.  But the issue with the idea above is that you have found an easy mark and you are exploiting it just as you would do with another clans OSF over a period of time.  They are farming that individual for the profit they can reap.  If you are a spy to ensure you are not found out you are need to spy at full troops.  That takes planning and cunning… but again is that just war? Does it help the other person improve and change their build and strategy so they cant be exploited?  That for me is a key question in the idea of farming, exploiting another player.  I think it’s wise to have a build to make it hard for others to hit you, but consistent attacks over a period of time need to be revenged, need to be prevented and our clan members need to be protected from exploitation.

Having been farmed and farming others (pre dark moon, ask me I might tell you the story) the bit that gets me the most about farming is that it is intentional and planned and feels like bullying.  And for me that's the difference between being hit because this is a war game and being farmed.  Ignoring bullies doesn’t work, neither does giving them attention, what works is showing that you are stronger than them.

Please remember these last statements are my thoughts and do not necessarily represent the clans opinions

How To Make Money

You actually have several options, although currently plunder wars seem to be the most favoured.  When your osf is closed, try the following to make money.  The list below is not exhaustive, and I’m certainly not recommending all of them.  We are also awaiting the changes the developers are making for Player vs.. Environment as the suggestion is that this will make clans more money

• Ally trading
• Attacking off battle list
• Attacking inactives
• Being hired/vollied (although this is capped at a max of 1m)
• Buying allies off players who are in a friendly war as they are likely to buy them back straight away (there is a name for this, but forgotten it, and its not recommended)
• Farming other players (not recommended)
• Friendly wars (although the amount you loose in pots this is not true especially if your side looses and gets no tax)
• Hitting other clans osf’s outside of war (not recommended)
• Plunder wars
• Purchasing nobility points and exchanging them at the oracle
• Retaliation on farmers
• Stealing off battle list
• Stealing off inactives
• Quests
• Volleying
• Volley dropping money to another player
• When plunder wars go wrong and the attackers not the osfs get the money (I’ve been on the attacking side twice when this has happened)
• WC Opens

Build Calculator

A lot of the questions that get asked in the clan are about how much buildings cost, what is better and that sort of thing. 

I’m not going to tell you what type of kingdom you should build, that is completely up to you, but what I can do is give you a link to Stonefords Build Calculator, so you can beginning to work it out yourself. 

You will find it here in the forums.  In his post he links to the spreadsheet which you can use on line and the Google doc.