Long term Rat-strat

[Peace Alliance]

Rats are probably pretty excited about their spot at the top of the scores this early in reg.

However, experience tells us that once we're 4 or 5 runs in, the leaderer's always take the top. But there are some things rats can start doing now that will help them hold the top of the scores for long.

Trade
Start selling things on the Market. This is a great way to store your troops, and is also the best way in the game to make money. If your troops are selling often and for a good price you can make more money then a Marten!

Also I always love finding trade partners. If you know a leaderer who wants to buy a defense, or needs an offensive army for his/her run, organize trades between yourselves. If you avoid the market you'll also be avoiding the 25% market tax! Also it's a good way to make allies.


Defense
Rats (Lizards and weasels too) are great for defense. We all know you'll be easily broken with leaders, but making leader players waste their leaders taking your land will slow them down, and give you an edge.

It's hard to go completely unbroken, but putting up a modest defense will often let you start your next run with slightly more land then most.

It's also possible to put up a modest defense against leaders. Try building 20% huts and using capture to get a good chunk of leaders. Then go to Troop Training and set it to 100% leaders.

Always have your defenses raised. It's too easy to break you with leaders, you want to minimize the damage they can do.


Land Scraping
By far the biggest advantage indiers have over leader players is the ability to scrape more land. The more land you have the faster you can make troops. Target as many land targets as you can find, and have at 'em!


Move to the Northlands
In the Northlands you'll produce more troops. Also be sure to recall raiders at the end of your run, that way your opponents have to prep theirs to attack you.


Work with allies
Aid away your troops mid-run to save on resources.

Run back-to-back with allies to scrape the most land


Bashing opponents
A great way to stay on top is to keep others on the bottom. If somebody has networth consisting mostly of troops, there's nothing more painful then a bunch of standard strikes killing off their entire army. Or you could target their strongest troop and go for that. It kills off the enemies troops but is costly so use it wisely. It also makes people very angry.

You can also try using Sack, Capture and other special attacks. These will weaken your enemy. Even if you don't need leaders, often capture helps take leaders out of the game.

[Firetooth]

Nicely written, though pretty common knowledge. I always forget to move to northlands though haha.

[White Ninja Beaver]

This should help me out a lot as a new player, though my Brother will be helping me a lot!  :-*

[Gorak]

indy can be very versatile, you just tweek for the circumstance
one thing I like to do when solo, is run agriculture in the green aswell

but private trading with ally is by far, the best thing an indy can do

[Firetooth]

Who is your bro, or beaver one?

Meh I used to have food green when I indied (still do at begining of the rounds) but I find it far more profitable just to buy it.

[Shadow]

I tend to run without farms unless I am defending, and even then it is usually way more profitable to trade troops for the food I need. If you aren't defending, make skiffs and you can buy the food you need from mercs with your extra cash since skiffs make so much cash and eat so little food.

[White Ninja Beaver]

Who is your bro, or beaver one?

Pippin, he showed me to this place because I won't stop nagging him!

[Firetooth]

Tell Pippin to change his sig or face the consequences :P

I always mass skiffs if solo, they make slightly more net up at the end of the day (I mean as opposed to 100% rats in same turns etc).
And peace that isn't best team indy strat, it's better to aid every 40-50 turns depending on how much upkeep.

[Gorak]

my main indy strat is a little different then most, as I will actually use troop casualties to control expenses. Meaning, I like to break power units, so that when I take land, I also destroy a lot of net, while still making net myself.

This is the essence of my indy/basher strat

quiet netting as indy got boring for me about 4 years ago, when I proved at Valhall that I could hold top spot as an indy (held it for 3 straight weeks, most of that time with more then double the net of second)
since then, net doesn't matter so much.

if I'm solo, I'm bashing the hell outta someone, if I'm clanned, then it's a whole new ball game, and I'm aiding everything away, since I don't care about my rank, only the good of the clan
but I still tend to bash

[Peace Alliance]

Skiffs make MUCH more net, actually.

And Shadow is right, it's always more profitable to sell troops for food. When I solo I will buy food from mercs. But it's even better when you get allies who will sell you food for troops, 'cause then you can make rats and stuff and have a deal defense.

When I go as Hidden Fox I almost always set up ongoing trades with people where i give them food and they give me troops for my NW. Took my weeks of yelling at david to get him to buy my food instead of building farms. Farms are a waste of land that could be built into barracks.


Oh gorak you remind me of another good strat for staying on top thanks, i'll add in the basher strat

[Shadow]

bashing is a lot o fun hen you combine it with defensive indy - if you can hold your land for a run or two you end up making so many troops that you can break anyone in their power unit easily without denting your own army, and that makes you defense even better since you are ruining everyone else's army as you go.

[Gorak]

one of the defensive things I do (now I'm gone and giving all my secrets away)
is when I bash another indies power unit, I always rotate my production
indies can't spy me, so they assume I broke them with my power unit, and will not retaliate with the same unit since they think they can't break it, but meanwhile, I've sold them to produce another.

I don't really leave holes either, I want you to take casualties when taking my land, same reason I build huts, I want the leaderers to pay for my land aswell

and I still like my agri in the green for the most part, it only takes about 1200 farms, when I'm on 100k land, that's nothing, it goes negative after my land is taken, but I built up enough to hold out till I've scraped up land again. That way I can sell the minimum number of troops.

it's not so much a net thing, it's more just one less thing to have to think about

[Firetooth]

my main indy strat is a little different then most, as I will actually use troop casualties to control expenses. Meaning, I like to break power units, so that when I take land, I also destroy a lot of net, while still making net myself.

This is the essence of my indy/basher strat

quiet netting as indy got boring for me about 4 years ago, when I proved at Valhall that I could hold top spot as an indy (held it for 3 straight weeks, most of that time with more then double the net of second)
since then, net doesn't matter so much.

if I'm solo, I'm bashing the [haties] outta someone, if I'm clanned, then it's a whole new ball game, and I'm aiding everything away, since I don't care about my rank, only the good of the clan
but I still tend to bash

I do that occasionally soloing, I'm not sure if it adds much though.

And peace yes I mean at the end of the run in ratio I make more net on 100% skiffs then on 100% rats if I use same amount of turns, when the net should be about equal. I know skiffs are worth 6 times more lol.

[Shadow]

Nah, net output for all troop types is identical

you get 6 times more rats then skiffs per turn per barracks, but skiffs are worth 6 times more net than rats, so you get the same output. The same for all the other troops - if you have identical conditoins, you will get identical net output for all 4 troop types. The reason skiffs generally give more net is because they are way easier to upkeep than rats and you can go for longer times with bigger amounts since they sell so high.

[CobyCopper]

Just my tip; stoats are of course a better troop type. You have 5OP/3DP of course and food consumption, while higher, is not anywhere as bad as rat or as bad as the poor-OP weasel.