Njwmrb
05-13-2012, 12:37 PM
There are only two ways in this game to get an edge on your opponents;
1) Spending $
2) PvP
If you think you are going to get ahead by diligently upgrading your economy buildings and killing monsters you're going to be the same as everyone else on your rival list.
And for those of you that believe that camping will give you that edge here's a comparison for you. My friend and I began playing KA on the same day. ~22 days ago according to the data sheet using the vault upgrade times. He went the camping route while I decided to PvP. Here are our stats now; He is a lvl 10 with two lvl 9 silos and an IPH of 1100, attack of 1130, and def of 1301. We have the same number of allies at 50. I am a lvl 42 with an IPH of 3041, an attack of 3907, and a def of 5591. So if your goal is to be the best lvl 10 in the game, go ahead and camp. If you are a little more ambitious I recommend PvP. I have taken over 1 million $ of other peoples hard earned money and now you can be that jerk too :D
EDIT: These stats are as of May 13th.
For Lvl's 1-10:
First things first, Right when you start the game come out of the gates swinging. Every new player starts with 700ish gold and a vault of 150. Basically all I did from lvl 1-10 was attack people that hadn't spent that money yet, and then turned around and spent it on units so that the same would not happen to me. I would spend most of your money on units at this point, don't worry the economy will come. I cannot remember the exact units I used this early in the game but you want to be upgrading your Siege workshop to lvl 2 and your Magic academy to Lvl 4. This is an easy way to get a head of the game, and it's much easier to stay ahead of the competition than to get ahead of the competition.
For Lvl's 10-50:
What Units do I buy?
Now its time to develop your army, or technically armies. You're gonna want to make 2 armies, a defending army and an attacking army. This is an important part of the strategy and here's why; The two units you are going to want for your first two armies are going to be Battering Rams (A:8 D:1 $:110) and Illusionists (A:2 D:9 $:150). Now there is not a unit that is 8 attack and 9 defense but the Ballista is 7 attack and 9 defense and costs 270 gold so lets pretend a unit having 8 attack and 9 defense would cost about 300 gold. Now while attacking you are going to lose units, A LOT of units. But thats okay because you will be making a lot more than the units cost. Now when you lose these units you want to lose the battering rams that cost 110 gold, not the imaginary units costing 300 gold! That being said it is important to keep the armies seperate, you don't want your illusionists going into battle so if you cannot afford to stock your army full of Battering Rams yet buy Sorcerers (A:3 D:1 $:40) that way they will go into battle ahead of your illusionists, I remember early on cringing when I accidentally let an illusionist go into battle and they died, 150 gold is a lot of money early on in the game. Later on once you are a higher lvl and have more money the unit you are going to want to use for your defense army will be a Priest (A:6 D:17 $:540) a full army of priests and 99% of your rivals won't be able to touch you.
How many Allies should I have?
Another critical factor in PvP is your ally count. You want a low enough ally count that you don't lose too many units yet high enough to be able to take down most of the players on your rivals list. I generally kept my number of allies 5 or 10 above the Lvl of my character. This part is gonna kind of depend on you, your lvl, your army, and your income. Don't have 50 allies if you only have 30 battering rams, you want to have at least close to enough battering rams to fill your attacking army. Remember you need that edge on your opponent.
So now that you've got the right army and the right amount of allies what do I do with them?
While directly attacking opponents is where you make the big money, your bread and butter is going to be raiding. The reason is most people do not carry unvaulted gold at these levels. Well Njwmrb, what buildings do I raid? and why do you have such a weird name? Well reader let me tell you! When raiding you want the buildings output to average over 110 gold each hit in case you lose a battering ram each attack you still make a profit. Most of your money is going to come from Silos Lvl 2+ and Taverns Lvl 4+.
List of other less common profitable raid buildings:
Gold Mines
Inns
Leatherworkers Lvl 2+
Playhouses
Shipyards Lvl 2+.
-There are obviously others but none that I have actually come across such as Lenders and Manors. As for the name, it's my school ID and I use it as my username for everything.
Process of PvPing
Click on the rivals list, click on the first name regardless of how many allies he/she has, don't shy away just because their ally count is high. Check their profile first and look at 1) their defense and 2) their gold. Assume they have the same vault limit as you do and if their gold amount is a few thousand higher than your vault limit AND their defense is lower than your attack go ahead and test the waters with an attack. Based on the result of the attack decide if you want to do it again. Remember the amount you make off of each attack is going to drop considerably so stop attacking if it dips under $100. Now if they don't have a lot of gold (and most won't) scan their base for the buildings listed above with a red health bar on them. Keep the persons defense lvl in mind if you find a building to raid. Raids are generally WAY more successful than attacks. I kind of developed a 'rule of 600' this is unique to me and will vary from player to player depending on their stats, but if a player's defense was higher than 600 points lower than my attack then he would win at least one of the battles if I was attacking him and taking him for all he was worth. On the flip side a players defense could be 600 points higher than my attack and I could still successfully raid a building on his base. Again raids rarely fail, I have 1777 successful raids and only 36 failed raids. Once you get the hang of it the whole process of scanning a persons profile and base and moving on to the next will take less than 15 seconds (including the load time).
EDIT: These numbers are very outdated now but you get the general idea, raiding is easier than attacking and you have to get a feel for your limits of what battles you can and cannot win.
What about my economy?
This is the order of spending I recommend; Upgradings vault > attacking army > upgrading buildings > Land expansion > building buildings > defending army. Keep your attacking army a high priority because that is what gives you that edge against your opponents, you don't want to come across a really high lvl silo or someone with a lot of unvaulted cash just to realize that you can't defeat them. As for the defending army I have that pretty low on the priority list because this is really only important if you have unvaulted cash, and if you do...buy some defending units with it! If you are like me this will be almost always. And don't worry your economy will come. All the players that pride themselves on their economy buy only doing PvE and upgrading their economy buildings trying to get the highest IPH they can will not be able to compete with you. The reason is this; they simply will not make as much money as you. Who cares if they make $1000 more than you an hour if you can jump on and make 20k in 15 minutes of PvP? IPH is a very inaccurate representation of income that can be easily manipulated. A lvl 6 cottage has a higher IPH than a manor, which would you rather have? Now I'm not saying abandon economy completely, I'm saying that don't worry if your IPH is low at first because you will catch up. The reason you will catch up to these economy campers is because while their buildings may be upgraded, they can't afford the land expansion and cost of building all of the economy buildings available to them. I am lvl 43 and have yet to come across another person with even a lender, and I'm sitting here with manors.
Strategy changes for Lvl 50+:
Time to go max allies. Buy Siege Towers for your attacking army and high priests for your defending army. Your attacking army needs to be a high spending priority, it's going to be expensive to outfit your army but it will be well worth it. Abandon raiding. At this point with such a high ally count and expensive casualties I wouldn't waste my time scanning a base, The only buildings that would be worth it are very high lvled silos and manors. Directly attacking is the only thing you should bother with and it will yield very big prizes. As long as your attack is significantly higher than a players defense I would go ahead and give anyone carrying over 30k a test attack... I have come across many, many players in that range that don't bother to vault. The best part is every now and then you will come across a player saving up for a manor and when you do, make him pay. I recommend having at least lvl 20 stamina to take full advantage of these poor souls. Things to keep in mind are to make sure your attacking army are all 12+ attack before purchasing high priests, you don't want them going into battle. If you don't want to wait for a full army of siege towers to start buying high priests then fill the rest of the slots with imps. Now go out and reek havoc. I'll continue to update this guide as I explore more strategies.
OTHER TIPS
*When in the 1-50 lvl range gather as many pending ally requests as possible. That way when you come across someone with a large amount of money and a high defense you can accept those requests to raise your stats high enough to take him down.
*Use your news feed, not only your rivals list. If a good player attacks you, after a few days of upgrading your army he can become a profitable target. Those are the players that tend to carry large amounts of cash.
*When attacking someone you get 10% of their unvaulted gold but Ttere is a cap of 9900 when attacking someone. Keep this in mind because it may influence a decision. For example I came across someone with 2 mill (some glitch) and I was considering selling my manors to strengthen my army so I could attack her, without a cap I would have been earning 200k+ per win but with the cap this was not worth it.
* Don't blindly attack people, this is just lazy and reckless. Look at the players profile to see if you can win and if the attack is worth it
*If someone attacks you and wins don't hit the "revenge" button. Players tend to have higher def scores than attack scores. This being said if their attack was higher than your attack then your attack is probably going to be considerably lower than their defense.
* F I had another thought...will come back to this one.
In the end everything comes down to having an edge on your opponents, if your army is stronger then their money is your money. Remember, when it comes to PVP you are competing against the people on your rivals list. Don't worry about the stats of higher lvls and people with hundreds of more allies than you.
1) Spending $
2) PvP
If you think you are going to get ahead by diligently upgrading your economy buildings and killing monsters you're going to be the same as everyone else on your rival list.
And for those of you that believe that camping will give you that edge here's a comparison for you. My friend and I began playing KA on the same day. ~22 days ago according to the data sheet using the vault upgrade times. He went the camping route while I decided to PvP. Here are our stats now; He is a lvl 10 with two lvl 9 silos and an IPH of 1100, attack of 1130, and def of 1301. We have the same number of allies at 50. I am a lvl 42 with an IPH of 3041, an attack of 3907, and a def of 5591. So if your goal is to be the best lvl 10 in the game, go ahead and camp. If you are a little more ambitious I recommend PvP. I have taken over 1 million $ of other peoples hard earned money and now you can be that jerk too :D
EDIT: These stats are as of May 13th.
For Lvl's 1-10:
First things first, Right when you start the game come out of the gates swinging. Every new player starts with 700ish gold and a vault of 150. Basically all I did from lvl 1-10 was attack people that hadn't spent that money yet, and then turned around and spent it on units so that the same would not happen to me. I would spend most of your money on units at this point, don't worry the economy will come. I cannot remember the exact units I used this early in the game but you want to be upgrading your Siege workshop to lvl 2 and your Magic academy to Lvl 4. This is an easy way to get a head of the game, and it's much easier to stay ahead of the competition than to get ahead of the competition.
For Lvl's 10-50:
What Units do I buy?
Now its time to develop your army, or technically armies. You're gonna want to make 2 armies, a defending army and an attacking army. This is an important part of the strategy and here's why; The two units you are going to want for your first two armies are going to be Battering Rams (A:8 D:1 $:110) and Illusionists (A:2 D:9 $:150). Now there is not a unit that is 8 attack and 9 defense but the Ballista is 7 attack and 9 defense and costs 270 gold so lets pretend a unit having 8 attack and 9 defense would cost about 300 gold. Now while attacking you are going to lose units, A LOT of units. But thats okay because you will be making a lot more than the units cost. Now when you lose these units you want to lose the battering rams that cost 110 gold, not the imaginary units costing 300 gold! That being said it is important to keep the armies seperate, you don't want your illusionists going into battle so if you cannot afford to stock your army full of Battering Rams yet buy Sorcerers (A:3 D:1 $:40) that way they will go into battle ahead of your illusionists, I remember early on cringing when I accidentally let an illusionist go into battle and they died, 150 gold is a lot of money early on in the game. Later on once you are a higher lvl and have more money the unit you are going to want to use for your defense army will be a Priest (A:6 D:17 $:540) a full army of priests and 99% of your rivals won't be able to touch you.
How many Allies should I have?
Another critical factor in PvP is your ally count. You want a low enough ally count that you don't lose too many units yet high enough to be able to take down most of the players on your rivals list. I generally kept my number of allies 5 or 10 above the Lvl of my character. This part is gonna kind of depend on you, your lvl, your army, and your income. Don't have 50 allies if you only have 30 battering rams, you want to have at least close to enough battering rams to fill your attacking army. Remember you need that edge on your opponent.
So now that you've got the right army and the right amount of allies what do I do with them?
While directly attacking opponents is where you make the big money, your bread and butter is going to be raiding. The reason is most people do not carry unvaulted gold at these levels. Well Njwmrb, what buildings do I raid? and why do you have such a weird name? Well reader let me tell you! When raiding you want the buildings output to average over 110 gold each hit in case you lose a battering ram each attack you still make a profit. Most of your money is going to come from Silos Lvl 2+ and Taverns Lvl 4+.
List of other less common profitable raid buildings:
Gold Mines
Inns
Leatherworkers Lvl 2+
Playhouses
Shipyards Lvl 2+.
-There are obviously others but none that I have actually come across such as Lenders and Manors. As for the name, it's my school ID and I use it as my username for everything.
Process of PvPing
Click on the rivals list, click on the first name regardless of how many allies he/she has, don't shy away just because their ally count is high. Check their profile first and look at 1) their defense and 2) their gold. Assume they have the same vault limit as you do and if their gold amount is a few thousand higher than your vault limit AND their defense is lower than your attack go ahead and test the waters with an attack. Based on the result of the attack decide if you want to do it again. Remember the amount you make off of each attack is going to drop considerably so stop attacking if it dips under $100. Now if they don't have a lot of gold (and most won't) scan their base for the buildings listed above with a red health bar on them. Keep the persons defense lvl in mind if you find a building to raid. Raids are generally WAY more successful than attacks. I kind of developed a 'rule of 600' this is unique to me and will vary from player to player depending on their stats, but if a player's defense was higher than 600 points lower than my attack then he would win at least one of the battles if I was attacking him and taking him for all he was worth. On the flip side a players defense could be 600 points higher than my attack and I could still successfully raid a building on his base. Again raids rarely fail, I have 1777 successful raids and only 36 failed raids. Once you get the hang of it the whole process of scanning a persons profile and base and moving on to the next will take less than 15 seconds (including the load time).
EDIT: These numbers are very outdated now but you get the general idea, raiding is easier than attacking and you have to get a feel for your limits of what battles you can and cannot win.
What about my economy?
This is the order of spending I recommend; Upgradings vault > attacking army > upgrading buildings > Land expansion > building buildings > defending army. Keep your attacking army a high priority because that is what gives you that edge against your opponents, you don't want to come across a really high lvl silo or someone with a lot of unvaulted cash just to realize that you can't defeat them. As for the defending army I have that pretty low on the priority list because this is really only important if you have unvaulted cash, and if you do...buy some defending units with it! If you are like me this will be almost always. And don't worry your economy will come. All the players that pride themselves on their economy buy only doing PvE and upgrading their economy buildings trying to get the highest IPH they can will not be able to compete with you. The reason is this; they simply will not make as much money as you. Who cares if they make $1000 more than you an hour if you can jump on and make 20k in 15 minutes of PvP? IPH is a very inaccurate representation of income that can be easily manipulated. A lvl 6 cottage has a higher IPH than a manor, which would you rather have? Now I'm not saying abandon economy completely, I'm saying that don't worry if your IPH is low at first because you will catch up. The reason you will catch up to these economy campers is because while their buildings may be upgraded, they can't afford the land expansion and cost of building all of the economy buildings available to them. I am lvl 43 and have yet to come across another person with even a lender, and I'm sitting here with manors.
Strategy changes for Lvl 50+:
Time to go max allies. Buy Siege Towers for your attacking army and high priests for your defending army. Your attacking army needs to be a high spending priority, it's going to be expensive to outfit your army but it will be well worth it. Abandon raiding. At this point with such a high ally count and expensive casualties I wouldn't waste my time scanning a base, The only buildings that would be worth it are very high lvled silos and manors. Directly attacking is the only thing you should bother with and it will yield very big prizes. As long as your attack is significantly higher than a players defense I would go ahead and give anyone carrying over 30k a test attack... I have come across many, many players in that range that don't bother to vault. The best part is every now and then you will come across a player saving up for a manor and when you do, make him pay. I recommend having at least lvl 20 stamina to take full advantage of these poor souls. Things to keep in mind are to make sure your attacking army are all 12+ attack before purchasing high priests, you don't want them going into battle. If you don't want to wait for a full army of siege towers to start buying high priests then fill the rest of the slots with imps. Now go out and reek havoc. I'll continue to update this guide as I explore more strategies.
OTHER TIPS
*When in the 1-50 lvl range gather as many pending ally requests as possible. That way when you come across someone with a large amount of money and a high defense you can accept those requests to raise your stats high enough to take him down.
*Use your news feed, not only your rivals list. If a good player attacks you, after a few days of upgrading your army he can become a profitable target. Those are the players that tend to carry large amounts of cash.
*When attacking someone you get 10% of their unvaulted gold but Ttere is a cap of 9900 when attacking someone. Keep this in mind because it may influence a decision. For example I came across someone with 2 mill (some glitch) and I was considering selling my manors to strengthen my army so I could attack her, without a cap I would have been earning 200k+ per win but with the cap this was not worth it.
* Don't blindly attack people, this is just lazy and reckless. Look at the players profile to see if you can win and if the attack is worth it
*If someone attacks you and wins don't hit the "revenge" button. Players tend to have higher def scores than attack scores. This being said if their attack was higher than your attack then your attack is probably going to be considerably lower than their defense.
* F I had another thought...will come back to this one.
In the end everything comes down to having an edge on your opponents, if your army is stronger then their money is your money. Remember, when it comes to PVP you are competing against the people on your rivals list. Don't worry about the stats of higher lvls and people with hundreds of more allies than you.