Sharing your findings

[Shadow]

Everyone has had a little bit of time to play with 3.0 now, and while it's not done yet, some of the basic strategies and behaviours of the new dynamics are well established at this point. I would love to see people posting about what they found worked, what didn't, and generally sharing strategy advice. This is useful for new players to the dynamics, and it is also useful for me to gauge whether the stuff I am trying to implement is working as intended.

So: post your strategy guidelets. Some of them might end up in a revamped game guide (some day  ;)).

[Raggon]

Well, trying to be a farmer did not work.  At all.

[Shadow]

Yea, farming needs a boost. Expect that in May after my exams :)

[Rakefur]

Um...well I learned I suck at 3.0  :P

Please post strategies...it would be most helpful.

[The Obliterator]

You can pretty much force the old indy strategy to work for you. So this is one indy start i have found to work for me. It is more productive than the "build up defenses at the end" strat and often if you do it right you can render all their preparation void by blowing through their troops with ease. Mind you i have not tried many other strats so im not sure if it is the best.

So i attack for land and build up around 15% foragers (so that i don't have to buy food), 10% huts (so that i can used the different buffs) and the rest into barracks. With the food i know many people prefer not to build foragers but i like to as it helps save money. Also i have long been an advocate of putting up enough foragers to keep food income in the green. That way you can start to build up a base networth which can help you when you need to break those nasty land lockers (it keeps you in nw range). Also as a solo indy it gives you a way to get a top 10 position fairly easily.

One thing you must do though is continue attacking all the time. The only time you should be buffing or otherwise is when you are healing up to attack yet again.

When choosing what units to make i usually choose to go with weasels. Though i often switch to rats or stoats depending on what the demands are. I choose weasels because they eat more food than cash. With my forager setup this is ideal as it lets me make more while being able to field the cash for them as cash is almost always your biggest concern. Also weasels are quick to make and often are the easiest troop type to choose to break an opponent.

On selling to the market, when you have put troops up on the market you should always check the prices up there and aim to sell it for one less than the person who is selling them for the lowest as this will undoubtedly give you the highest most secure prices. And always check back to lower your prices to below the lowest person to ensure that your troops sell.

Oblit

[Pippin]

cheers for the strat oblit, detailed enough for me to do it without any prior knowledge to the beta :)

more strats please guys

[Shadow]

Here is the basic casher strategy that the bots use:

Start of run: sell army on pm except for an attacking army and merc sell the rest. Eco settings 50-50 at 20% tax, and attack for about 150 turns, building to heal. Build 20% huts, 80% markets. After attacking your workers should be pretty much filled up. Set tax to 43% and cash eco settings to 100% and use the cash income buff until about 100 turns remain (earn loyalty instead if you are out of loyalty). Demolish half your markets and build camps. Buy merc. Demolish camps and turn them into towers.

If public market is cheaper than mercs, skip the camps, and turn 60% of your markets into towers, and then buy a defending army from the private market.

[Pippin]

what sort of eco settings and tax should i be looking at using for a indy lizard strat based on oblits guide?

[Shadow]

It will depend a lot on your resource situation.

Lower tax means more workers which means more troops, so you want low tax (but always above 20% except to heal, below 20% you don't gain workers but you lose output). So if you have a lot of resources, use 20% tax and spread your eco settings toward food if you are running heavy on rats/weasels or toward cash if you are running stoats/skiffs.

If you are low on resources, up the tax rate to around 30%, which should give you a decent income without hurting your troop production too much. Set eco settings toward whichever resource is lower at the time.

[Pippin]

cheers for the info, does this mean an indy using public market and a % of foragers can continue to build net past any net cap that use to exist?

[Shadow]

with some artful play, the net cap is certainly a lot more flexible.

[The Obliterator]

Well sorta that is until someone steals it off you. :(

But i found that the net cap is now more limited for indies hence how all of the scores in turbo have been relativly below what they used to be.

[Pippin]

with regards to putting troops on the market, check the current prices as you will often find 2 or so sets of troops far below the other prices which will be bought out first. You dont have to match the lowest price but put it in the ball park under the majority, but above the lowest when possible.

also looking for a stoat martin stratergy mainly telling what to build and how to spend turns. and other stuff i guess ^^

[Shadow]

The opportunist strategy:

Oportunist strategies refer to a general class of strategies that I wanted to make work in 3.0 when I first started coding it: strategies that only work in specific game situations and depend entirely on the state of the game for success. 3.0 rewards quick adaptation to the state of the game much more than the old version, and you can really benefit by not thinking of yourself as being locked into a particular strategy. Here is a simple example, and I am sure there are lots more to be found:

This can be done with one person but works better with two. One person espies people who have lots of stuff on the market and finds one with low leaders. This person does a cashing run and buys them out. A few hours later, teammate 2 goes heavy leaders and robs it back. This is what I originally intended to do this round before getting shanghaied into trying to lock land.

[Ian2424]

Shadow, who is Snowy Fir? Is he Neo? Kilk? Who is he!?