Online attacking

[Xenocide]

 I have seen this topic come up over and over; some people claiming that online attacking is wrong.  I have pondered this for a while, and I cannot come to understand why that is.

If you want to succeed in this game, you need to attack up (attack people with more land).  When you attack them while they are online, there are many advantages.

1.  You can hit them while their towers are down.
2.  You might catch them with their health lower.
3.  Their armies might be low because of recent losses due to attacking.

Why anyone would want to wait until their target is at it's strongest defensive position before attacking doesn't sound strategically wise at all.

[Retto]

 It also has strong disadvantages. In regular attacking, the person you attack might get angry, but more probably will look realistically to replace their losses. In online attacking, the person you attack is usually angry, and will retaliate just at you.

I know that if I've got leaders, and someone online attacks me, they get three murders.

[Xenocide]

 Yes indeed.  It is quite possible that someone who is attacked online will automatically retailate, possibly harder than if they had had a chance to kinda get used to the idea.  But there are times when it is advantageous to do it.  Strategically it can be a idea.

To every strategy, their are drawbacks.  To online attacking, there are drawbacks, like with any other strategy.  The person you attack may turn towards you, and you two could just go back and forth.... and at the end of your turns, you may be no better off, or even weaker than when you started.  That is all part of the game.  Knowing which strategy to use when.

Especially if someone is so much stronger than you that you cannot beat them when they are offline, there is a much better chance that you can while they are online.

I remember in Turbo.  I was in first place, and had just spent 350 turns attacking and gathering together a lot of land.  I was about to build a bunch of towers when an account named Pirate Of Land (or something like that) attacked me.  In about 50 turns, he took all the land I had gathered in 350 turns.  Yet, if he has waited 2 minutes, I would have had a pile more towers, and he would not have been able to break me.  I remember thinking to myself, "That was a fantastic move."  I don't know if he was really smart, or really lucky, but he timed it perfect.  If he had waited, he would have failed.  But he attacked at the one and only time he could to beat me, after I had gathered a lot of land together.  I was very impressed.

[Retto]

 I remember talking to someone (I forget who...) a while ago, and someone attacked them while they were at low health (0%), one guerrilla and one frontal assault, killing all their significant troops. It set them back a toon.

Using a strategy of only having one type of troop, I've been attacked by people while I'm online, and I've sent them messages saying, "Look, I'm not building any defenses, but would you give me a minute or two to finish with my turns and get off?"

Online attacking in Exhibition games is an entirely different deal, too. Then, it isn't the ruin of your day if you spend 500 turns exchanging blows with someone else - you can get them back in just a few minutes.

[Nohcnonk]

 People that complain when you attack them while they are online... they can be really annoying.

[Retto]

 Hey, sometimes it helps. A guy was attacking me online yesterday, and I sent him a few messages, and after a little he realized he had mistaken me for someone else.

Later on he decided to help out in killing me, so it's probable that he was lying.

[Peace Alliance]

I have seen this topic come up over and over; some people claiming that online attacking is wrong.  I have pondered this for a while, and I cannot come to understand why that is.

If you want to succeed in this game, you need to attack up (attack people with more land).  When you attack them while they are online, there are many advantages.

1.  You can hit them while their towers are down.
2.  You might catch them with their health lower.
3.  Their armies might be low because of recent losses due to attacking.

Why anyone would want to wait until their target is at it's strongest defensive position before attacking doesn't sound strategically wise at all.

OMG you talk??  :o

Xen, attacking online is mean. And i mean, we all know i'm the meanest guy in RWL right? yet even I wouldn't online attack, and if you didn't notice that was a capital "i"!!

you can totally ruin a persons stratagy, you can totally ruin their leader ratio. and you can totally ruin yourself. An online battle rarely works out better for either warlord.

Attacking people above you in the rank also has some downsides. first, it makes the game land starved because if everyone attacks above them then its just the same amount of land rotating from person to person untill the best food-masser takes his food off storage 2 seconds before reset and all the pointless attacking was for nothing. Second, if the person is above you, chances are its because they are better then you... And if thats the case what are you doing attacking them while they are online?

I believe BAX has made it almost impossible NOT to be able to break through the defenses of any warlord you look at, so the online attacking option seems to have more downsides then up. Look at the offensive percentages of most of the top 20 warlords. They almost ALL have over 80 if not 90.

So anyways, online attacking has few advantages in BAX, the fact that it makes it quite easy to your opponent doesn't excuse the fact that it is quite easy in the first place.

:D  

[Nohcnonk]

 Evil, yes, but as long as they don't try to kill you, it can be very strategically helpful.

[Holby]

 Online attacking is not a great strategic move, it is a gamble whether their defenses are down enough and whether they will or will not retal.
Retaliating against being hit online is often unwise, as many players have it through their head that they gotta get their land back immediately, where sitting it out doesn't waste turns and may give an opportunity to attack them back once they're offline.
Online attacking is a low "tactic", as has been said and explained many times before. I would rather be broken and have lost twice the amount of land once my defenses were up, compared to being struck a few times online.
What honour is there in stealing someone's land when they're down?

[Xenocide]

 I don't see it as mean at all.

I think it is a strategy, like any other.  You are taking advantage of a weakness in your opponent.  It may have consequences, but it can also result in the attacker being much stronger.

It is a risk.  You might get smoked for it.  But this whole game is a risk.  You say you can ruin a persons economy; but is that wrong?  If they are your enemy (evident by you attacking them) and chances are, they will retaliate, why not make it harder for them.

I have spent much time at the top.  I am aware of how devistating being attacked while online is.  But it is all part of the game.  There is nothing wrong with it.  Strategically, it can be very useful and successful.

[Peace Alliance]

 I've spent just as much time at the top, xen. And as i explained earlier, the advantage gained by attacking your opponent who MIGHT have their defenses down, is all that great because in BAX its so easy to break people wven when they've had their defenses up.

[Nohcnonk]

 Not always easy to break people, I've needed aound 15 mil stoats many times to break others.  Not to mention that you would lose less troops if their defenses weren't only towers.

[Peace Alliance]

 yeah but were you using attacking stratagy planning? i doubt it.

So generally, your talking about being able to break people with less of a military loss... thats not too big of an advantage cinsidering all the downsides.

[Ereptor]

 Mean?  Heh.  All of my strategies have been called mean, evil, cruel and down right bad.  I think of them as strategies of war.  War is an all cost war.  Women, children, the innocent and the defenceless must suffer in order to further the cause.  

Killing someones account, attacking online, putting bounties, spreading propoganda is all part of war.  If you play differently then i consider you a weak opponet and an easy kill.  Live and learn peeps.

[Cindarin]

 I belive this has been said many times before:

This is Redwall Warlords.

Therefore attacking while someone is online is not considered mean, it should be considered playing the game the way it was meant to be played.  Attacking people whenever you feel like it.