Forum: empire-en

Board: [584] Players ask Players

Topic: [352240] Am I doing Foreign Castles wrong, is this normal, or what can I improve?

[-352240] Lord Jorah (US1) [US1] :: May 15, 2018, 6:04 a.m.

I get good results on nomads and samurai. Those are clearly different. For FC and BC events, I usually use a wave 1 sacrifice wave and fill in the rest of the waves adjusting for the sacrifice. If I don't think I can break both flanks, I'll go in only on one. I'm a level 70/18 but feel really underpowered. I'm working on my equipment but it's the best I can do right now. See the attached files that show the various aspects of this win. One thing I just noticed is that their castellan has strong melee and ranged bonus, so that sure didn't help. I did verify that the castle didn't change from when I did the first espionage and after I sent the attack. 
This isn't a really strong FC but I'm losing way to much. I don't know how to manage things bigger than this when this is the result I'm getting.
Any thoughts? 

[4951884] Kage (ASIA1) [ASIA1] :: May 15, 2018, 6:28 a.m.

Well the first problem i see from your spy raport is that you didn't spy it to 100% to see all the tools on the walls and solidiers.
Make sure you have 100% Accuracy of the espionage, when you spy a castle.
If you don't have enough spyes, upgrade your taverns, make sure you upgrade your stuff on reseach tower, you get some bonus spyes from there too, also hol(hall of legends)

I see that you have a good commander, with good courtyard.
If you're having problems with tools, and want to use less tools on attacking. Make sure you find a good target.
I mean with one side right or left of the wall defended.
Go the other flank, and front. You will lose less solidiers and tools by using this method.

A little example

I used the left flank and middle, since the fc has  def on the right flank. Btw sorry for the defense ) my attack solidiers were at bird
But you need good commanders with high cy, if you go full cy. Or you will lose tons of solidiers. And make sure you have at least 4 waves, or 5/6. 
Another way to attack the fl/bc castles is like 

If the bc/fl castles have such defense, you should use a dummy wave, so you don't use so many tools on your attacks.
Something like this. Use the first wave as a dummy or "kamikaze attack" so the defense tools of the defender will be used on the first wave.
On the 2nd wave use tools, 3/4/5/6 whatever you want/flags.
That's all you should know, but in time you will learn more, if you're not experienced. Make sure your attacks are in time, or the defense will change, and may be you will lose some solidiers )

[4951893] Peter John (US1) [US1] :: May 15, 2018, 7:11 a.m.

First of all, if you only give the summary of BR, no body will be able to help you. It's always the biggest mistake that ppl only care about summary page of BR. Do you expect other able to guess correctly exactly how you send your attack wave by wave?

Send the SS of each wave in detail, tools & soldiers. Also have you consider it might be the best result you can get? You don't always get 1:10 kill ratio on ever battle. But no one will know if you don't give out exactly how you attack wave by wave. It is big different in result whether you attack using horrors or plain old Vets.

[4951911] Gobygirl3 (US1) [None] :: May 15, 2018, 7:57 a.m.

It's difficult to comment in detail without reviewing the detail of your battle report.  Short answer:  To lose fewer troops, while only attacking those defending one wall (a flank), I'd send on all three flanks so you earn the 30% yard strength bonus. 

I've never tried sending an attack to the yard only as Muffins suggested, but with your yard strength it's certainly worth experimenting with that option.

I don't know why you're saying your comm. is underpowered to hit Foreigners and Crows with 89M 79R & 77yard, etc. - it's fine!

Because your goal is to conserve troops, then yes, 100% spy, only send 1 suicide troop on wave 1 of the defended flank to remove tools, then ensure you're correctly calculating the remaining wall & ranged tools you should send on wave 2 & on (taking into account the stats of both casts. as well of course), or in the spy you posted, just wall and moat tools.  Make sure you always win that one flank (and the yard obviously).

We don't usually kill all defenders on wave 2, so do you send tools on later waves until you've sent enough strength to kill all defenders? 
-------------------
I view Foreigners & Crows as glory-only events and seek to lose the most soldiers possible (esp. melee) to maximize total strength killed & thus glory, so I follow the second method Muffins outlined above:  I only attack against castles with troops on one flank, & send against that defended flank and on the undefended center.  All Foreigners only have one wave of tools, so I send a suicide wave on wave 1, but I send the full number of troops & no tools to increase the total killed (total glory). 

I don't bother sending moat tools; I'd rather lose more troops & send more flags when only melee defenders are on the flank.  I often reduce the strength of my comm. to lose more troops, but I ballpark calculate the total strength on both sides (both flank & yard, defending and my attackers sent w. both yard bonuses) to try to secure a *close* win or *close* loss, which I believe (but am not positive) maximizes the glory earned.  (Yes, we need a victory to earn season points but I usually don't care.) 

Sending on the center (to the yard) I again stuff wave 1 with etc., usually lower leveled troops that I'm glad to be rid of.  Wave 2 & 3, I send most powerful attackers of one or the other type (not both) and wave 4 is whatever type I need more of to ensure both types are cleared, or is empty if sending more will likely make the result a 'victory' rather than 'close victory'.

[4951926] Shares (AU1) [AU1] :: May 15, 2018, 8:28 a.m.

Gobygirl3 (US1) said:

To lose fewer troops, while only attacking those defending one wall (a flank), I'd send on all three flanks so you earn the 30% yard strength bonus.  I've never tried sending an attack to the yard only as Muffins suggested, but with your yard strength it's certainly worth experimenting with that option.
Because your goal is to conserve troops, then yes, 100% spy, 

my first instinct is that doesnt seem too bad a result..as someone above said your results may be the best result possible for your comm. 

but further on I wouldve also attacked 3 flks with extra attack on the left flk in wave 3..those are strong defs so 1 wave might not be enough..

the strategy of dodging the defds and going for the cy is higj risk as you will get slaughtered if the def changes.

[4952061] Lord Jorah (US1) [US1] :: May 15, 2018, 3:04 p.m.

Thanks for your help, guys, I'll study these posts for a while and see what I can extract and perhaps do some experiments. I have included the report for each wave for your reference, too, if you want to rethink anything based on that info. They refused to attach in order so just pay attention to that. 

[4952094] Lord Jorah (US1) [US1] :: May 15, 2018, 5:18 p.m.

Question: Someone made a comment about tools in later waves. If I've countered all of the bonuses in the sacrifice wave and wave 2, I don't need more tools for that, do I? For instance, consider a flank with 210  ranged bonus from 3 arrow slits and a total ranged bonus of 300. If I use a sacrifice wave to eliminate the 210 from the slits and then 90 worth of mantlets in the second wave, I do NOT need more mantlets in waves 3+, right?? I was sure that was right, but something someone said made me question it. 

[4952418] Batten (GB1) [GB1] :: May 15, 2018, 11:05 p.m.

I'm not 100% sure about the sacrifice wave.  But I only tool sufficently to enable me to wipe out troops on whichever wall they are on.  Often that is only one wave of tools in the first wave.  After that I use glory flags for every subsequent wave and wall that I don't need to win.  It's rare I go past the third wave these days.  I might be wrong as like you FI/BC are not strong events for me, I'm much better at Nomads and Sams were the PO related troop level differences have less impact.  I work on the basis the more horsetails I can use the more glory I'll get so I work on designing a strategy to do that for each castle.  

[4952430] Shares (AU1) [AU1] :: May 16, 2018, 1:29 a.m.

Lord Jorah (US1) said:

Question: Someone made a comment about tools in later waves. If I've countered all of the bonuses in the sacrifice wave and wave 2, I don't need more tools for that, do I? For instance, consider a flank with 210  ranged bonus from 3 arrow slits and a total ranged bonus of 300. If I use a sacrifice wave to eliminate the 210 from the slits and then 90 worth of mantlets in the second wave, I do NOT need more mantlets in waves 3+, right?? I was sure that was right, but something someone said made me question it. 

you are correct in that if you remove the tools sometimes as a result of your comm the effect of wall or gate may be effectively zero..eg I recently had a castle with 120 walls but that included 130 wall tool effect .When I deduct the effect the remaining  wall is 0 or less so no need to send tools..

also if on the second wave you break the wall then further tools are not needed HOWEVER if you dont break the wall you still need to send the same amount of tools sent on wave 2. 

btw in your example the net range effect is 90 and each mantlet is 5 so you only need to send 18 mantlets on wave 2 and any further waves if wall is not broken..

[4952492] Gobygirl3 (US1) [None] :: May 16, 2018, 8:32 a.m.

Lord Jorah (US1) said:

... I have included the report for each wave for your reference, too, if you want to rethink anything based on that info. ...

wave 1: You didn't send attackers on the defended left flank, so there was no reason to place a suicide troop there.
wave 2: You only sent on the undefended center and right, and 'won' those, so received a 0% bonus in the yard.
wave 4: You only sent a total of 192+74=266 attackers to meet & fight the 320 total defenders in the yard.

Issues seem to be that:

1.  You didn't send enough attackers.

2.  As another mentioned, likely you didn't send strong enough attackers (even with your impressive +77% yard strength bonus), to overcome the yard defense. 

3.  It's possible you didn't send the right proportion of attacker types.  (Post the troop detail of the yard fight if you'd like more opinion.)  While it's a pain to ballpark (and a big pain to closely calculate) the total melee strength of melee defenders vs. the total ranged strength from ranged defenders, it's important to ensure that you're sending enough attack strength of each type to most efficiently overcome the opposite defending strength (both for a victory & to lose the fewest troops). 

When defending you MATCH the oncoming type (ranged attackers incoming = you post ranged defenders), whereas when attacking, you send the OPPOSITE of the defending troop types (as here in your example, 100% melee defenders are on the left flank = you should send 100% ranged attackers on that wall.)

4.  Most don't send mixed waves of melee & ranged attackers on empty walls (to fall into the yard & fight there).  Try sending all one type, then the next wave the other, then the 4th wave a little of each as a clean up wave to the extent required to win. (Others may pipe in to explain this further; I still don't understand it, lol.)

5.  You didn't win three walls so you didn't get the 30% yard bonus.

To me at least, the goals of reaching the highest glory and the highest number of attacks with the fewest killed & using the fewest tools require different attack strategies.  But, regardless of which is your goal I would still have attacked the single, defended left flank here (plus the undefended center); you didn't even have to use any ranged tools to do so, just wall (and moat if you bother with those, but I would have sent more flags there).  So, wave 1 suicide, 2 & 3 wall tools with your strongest ranged attackers, & wave 4 more ranged as needed for clean up (based on your calculation of total defense strength you need to clear) to ensure you win that flank.

The game designers purposely keep the details of how to play well opaque, confusing and convoluted, so try not to despair. 

[4952496] Gobygirl3 (US1) [None] :: May 16, 2018, 9:06 a.m.

Lord Jorah (US1) said:

Question: Someone made a comment about tools in later waves. If I've countered all of the bonuses in the sacrifice wave and wave 2, I don't need more tools for that, do I? For instance, consider a flank with 210  ranged bonus from 3 arrow slits and a total ranged bonus of 300. If I use a sacrifice wave to eliminate the 210 from the slits and then 90 worth of mantlets in the second wave, I do NOT need more mantlets in waves 3+, right?? I was sure that was right, but something someone said made me question it. 

After the sacrifice wave 1, if you kill all defenders on wave 2, you don't need more tools on wave 3.  Problem is you often don't know if you're going to kill them all on wave 2, 3 or sometimes even wave 4.

After the strength bonus from TOOLS is wiped out by the sacrifice wave, no, tools do not reappear on later waves.  BUT you still have to wipe out the remaining strength of any defender on every later wave until they're killed.  The base strength of every defender is 100.  (So, you couldn't have 210 from three slits & a total ranged to clear of 300; the lowest the total could be is 310.)  Then you usually have a ranged strength bonus on the defending cast. to add as well.

On wave 2 (no tools are left on the wall) the remaining ranged strength is obviously not recalculated by the game at the top of the screen; apparently that would be too easy.  (Off point, those numbers aren't really percentages, which can't be added together in real life, but are in this game.)  So, you will have remaining ranged on wave 2 from:
100 ranged base troop strength
+ ? any ranged strength bonus on the defender's gear (say for this example, it's 90%)
= 190
So you have 190% ranged strength still to clear on wave 2 and beyond (until all defenders are killed).

[4952500] Gobygirl3 (US1) [None] :: May 16, 2018, 9:31 a.m.

Batten (GB1) said:

... I only tool sufficently to enable me to wipe out troops on whichever wall they are on.  Often that is only one wave of tools in the first wave.  After that I use glory flags for every subsequent wave and wall that I don't need to win. ...  I work on the basis the more horsetails I can use the more glory I'll get so I work on designing a strategy to do that for each castle.  

If instead on wave 1 you used a sacrifice wave, then you'd just send all horsetails there (instead of on wave 2).

Then on wave 2 you'd be able to send fewer tools (after deducting the strength of tools shown in the spy report that you cleared in wave 1).  And sometimes (if all melee defenders are on a wave 2 wall), you can only send wall tools plus more horsetails (ignoring moat tools).

Meaning, you would only save tools from using a sac. wave, you don't lose anything (such as being able to send fewer horsetails).
-------
Also, to send most horsetails, only attack castles with 1 defended wall of the 3.

[4952718] NogjrAdventurer (US1) [US1] :: May 17, 2018, 12:33 a.m.

the only tools you should ever be sending on a "sacrifice" wave should be glory flags or horsetails.  Otherwise you are just wasting them since you plan on intentionally losing that wave anyway

[4953327] mallowbunny (GB1) [None] :: May 19, 2018, 10:32 a.m.

You need to spy the castle at 100% to see exactly what they have on the walls and troops also if you need more spies upgrade your taverns or build them to get more spies also research can help. You can also get spies from the H.O.L (hall of legends).