indy

[meestir amayzing]

can anyone tell me how to start off as an indy?

[thomaskreisman]

Be a rat, sell your troops to get cash, buy max food then gather land (30k minimum) build 95% barracks and 5% huts, scout all but 2 turns then put your defenses at full alert and wait for full turns to do it all again.

[The Obliterator]

1% huts anything more is a waste.
Lizard is also a good indy although rat is the main one.
Attack until you run out of health then loot up to full health and keep on attacking aim to have the most land you can have by the time you finish attacking.
Usually you dont need to buy food just build around 5% huts and you will get food and a base networth too.
Set troop training to 85% of either stoats or skiffs and 5% in the others.
Raise defenses while you are healing as it will save turns that way.
Always end your run at 100% health.
Those are just a few tips but after a few runs you should get the hang of it.

[taekwondokid42]

Hmm, I guess here is a good place to debate all of the fine points of indy. After this round I will completely cook off all of my indy tips, but for now I'll keep the best ones a secret.

1% huts anything more is a waste.

First, huts is a matter of opinion. You only need 1 at a full ratio, but if someone attacks you, it might get lost. Too many is a waste of land that could go towards barracks, but having just a few more than other indies will give you the leader advantage. It is well worth 1 or 2 percent land to gain this advantage.

Usually you dont need to buy food just build around 5% huts and you will get food and a base networth too.

I think you meant 5% foragers. While foragers are nice, I see them as a waste of land. You can usually buy enough food from the mercs and other players. If you can't, go 100% skiffs and keep as little foragers as possible.

Attack until you run out of health then loot up to full health and keep on attacking aim to have the most land you can have by the time you finish attacking.

Actually, it's better to stay at a low health. Because, if you drop to 0, then spend 100 turns, that's 60+ turns you could've spent with more barracks, if you had just stayed at 40%. As long as you end at 100, staying low can be beneficial. Just recognize that you lose more troops if you have less health.

Set troop training to 85% of either stoats or skiffs and 5% in the others.

Once again, matter of opinion. If you are trying to be a pain, you can keep a more even percentage of everything. I prefer to go 100% skiffs, and only gather rats or weasels if I need to attack someone. (note, rats eat a ton, weasels less, and so on. And this is per-individual. The fact that you get more rats than stoats makes the food upkeep almost painful.)


Everything else I agree with. Here are some more tips from me:

1. Always sell troops while you have 30% camps.

2. Try not to keep too much money around. It will be stolen (jerks). I used to give it to lesser players who in return gave me lots of food, loyalty, and friendship.

3. Enough land is never enough land. As long as you are only losing a few troops (meaning <50k), feel free to attack. Depending on how many turns you have left, it may be beneficial to lose lots more. Unless you are at the beginning of a run, never attack if your troops are deserting.

[The Obliterator]

at the begining it it always good to attack even if your troops are deserting.

[taekwondokid42]

Only if you already sold them.

[The Obliterator]

Yes well except in unusual cases you would have already sold them

[taekwondokid42]

Ok, I'm ready to reveal some of my best secrets.

1. Build your camps at the end of your run. It only takes 24 turns. Demo for 10, build for 14. Demo 1 turn at a time, to maximize barracks use.
2. Spend all of your remaining money at the end of your run. Sure, you take it as a loss, but you gain NW and it's much better than watching it get stolen away.

That's all for now. I'll think of more later.

[Gorak]

there is no specific right way to run an indy
feel free to experiment with the suggestions and add your own ideas, come up with your own strategy

I run indy a lot different if I'm tagged then I do solo
and even then, I still run a fair bit different then most indy, yet I still do very well at it, a lot of the time, better then most people running traditional indy strats.

the most important thing you can learn, is to adapt your indy strat to different circumstances, something happens, you can change it up on the fly.

[Shadow]

I know 3 basic substrats to indy, and many different variations on each one of those. I'm sure there are more that I haven't explored yet. Indy can be used offensively, defensively, and possibly the most effective use of it is for team play. They are all very effective depending on your goal with the strat. Indy is by far the most versatile strat, and can recover from any beating at all in the right hands.

My suggestion is not to limit yourself to certain percentages of each building all the time - play by feel and alter buildings to suit the current game situation.

[Firetooth]

I always put training 100% skiffs as they take near to no food and are worth the most. Several people last round had all 4 and couldnt run because they were losing too much food.
Well, thats best for net anyway, if you're trying to lock, stock food first! Building foragers is a waste of net NEVER DO IT.

[CobyCopper]

I always put training 100% skiffs as they take near to no food and are worth the most. Several people last round had all 4 and couldnt run because they were losing too much food.
Well, thats best for net anyway, if you're trying to lock, stock food first! Building foragers is a waste of net NEVER DO IT.

No, not quite. But you are right that it's typically a waste. If there's no stock of food on the market in the first place, oftentimes there's not enough food on mercenaries either to feed skiffs adequately.

[Shadow]

Like I said, there is no hard and fast rule with indy - you have to adapt to ssuit the differnet circumstances. If ou can get away without foragers do it, but don't limit your runs on the assumption that you should never build foragers.

[Gorak]

one of my indy strats is a hybrid indy/farmer strat
and it has proven to be one of the most effective solo indy strats I have ever used
I never have to sell troops to buy food, plus I can sell food to subsidize my turn runs, further minimizing the number of troops I have to sell, as well as allowing me to run with much higher upkeep, which is crucial when running solo and looking for high net.

and only stacking skiffs isn't the best idea either
reason being, most indys here stack skiffs, and so, you're prolly going to get hit with skiffs, causing you to lose alot of net unnecessarily when someone land grabs from ya.

One micro-strat I frequently run with indy, is a dual stack, ie. I'll stack both stoats and skiffs, one for hitting, one for selling.
also gives me options for breaking big empires trying to stone wall, or gives me an alternative when someone breaks my power unit and devastates it's number, and reduces the drop in my net when someone breaks my power unit.

[taekwondokid42]

Or, you could just leave a troop hole with 0 rats. Then leave it in your notice.