The right attitude and mentality

Hi All,

First off, there's a load of great guides here already with lots of info and advice to tell you all you need to know. This isn't trying to be one of them

What this is about is what attitude you should have for the game, and that's something that ultimately comes down your personality and how you want to play the game anyway, so don't take this guide as anything more than a suggestion or a view to consider. But it might help you, especially if you find yourself as a new player on a mostly full server crowded out by war monsters who can squash you like an insect. It is possible to beat those guys, and you need to make full use of all the technical info that's here, but you also need the right attitude. OK, here goes.

How you need to think of the game is, consider it a massive zero sum game.

What's a zero sum game ? A zero sum game is one where, for every winner there is a loser. If you're winning, it means someone else is losing. And if you're losing, it means someone else is winning. There's no middle ground - and every decision you make is either helping you win or helping you lose. The winners equal and cancel out the losers - hence zero sum.

For example, if you do something as harmless as taking an oases, you've stopped someone else from taking it. So that helps you win and will result in someone else somewhere losing. Even if no one needs that oasis - why ? because you'll build with the resources, get prestige, climb up the ranks, take up someone else's spot and make them move down (relatively). So they lose, you win. Farming forts is more obvious. If you take the resources, it means no one else will be able to take them. And if someone does that to you - takes your oases, farms forts which you need, then he's not just helping himself win, he's helping you lose.

The classic strategy in a zero sum game is this: you have to do two things, and they might seem upside down but it does make sense:

1) Stop other people from winning
2) Stop yourself from losing

If you understand what that means, you can see that you can win even by AVOIDING combat altogether. If you want to bring someone down, take resources from forts he farms and take oases. Lock him down with a single cat if you think its a good move. If you're blocking his ability to win, then he's losing. Farm and take resources from inactives and forts, even if you don't need them - because you're stopping other people from getting them. Put them on the market if you don't need them.

And to stop yourself from losing - that goes hand in hand. Avoid combat unless you know you're going to win for sure. If someone attacks you with a monster army, send your troops hunting, make sure your cranny is maxed, the resource level is low. Then you're spending your time hunting and getting money, and he's wasting his time attacking you so you win, he loses, and in the long run you'll climb up ahead of him.

The game doesn't play out from battle to battle, it's how you plan as a whole that really counts.

Anyway, as usual, if anyone out there want to add/ improve/ criticise, you're welcome

You need details.

P.S. When you make a guide your expected to use "Technical Jargon" many people see this mandotory for a good guide to succed ^^

ok dbz, i can see where you're coming from, but like i said at the beginning, it's not a technical guide. Although every individual element of the game comes down to numbers - attacking, building, hunting and so on, what strategy you use doesn't come down to numbers, it comes down to how you understand the environment that you're in and all the other players in it, and what you're aiming to achieve.

Having said that, in strategy there probably is no more technical term than "zero sum game". The idea itself comes from the US military, i think (like most ideas do ): it was their strategy against the numerically superior Soviet Union. And it worked; the Soviets collapsed without the US firing a shot. And if you want to see it played out in real life, look at Afghanistan. But anyway, that's not relevant here..

Ok, well i'll try to give some alternative strategies, examples and some details to make it clearer.

You can build, get prestige, level up, attack people, lay traps, join an alliance, upgrade, use a calculator to work out the outcome of everything you do and decide what to do on that basis alone. OK, well that carries two big assumptions - that everyone else will play ball with you, and that you're in an environment which will always enable you to do what you want to do. So you decide to build the best and fastest army, and attack people to get prestige. Meanwhile, everyone already knows to send their armies hunting and not leave troops in. So your big army is going to sit there doing nothing and all you can do with it is farm noobs. It happens - it's happening on server 12 right now, people are stuck because there's nothing for them to do and they can't move up. So they drop out - and lose. The second assumption is just as bad. You might find yourself in a crowded area where there's too much competition for resources for you to be able to build, so what do you do then ? If you can't get resources, all the technical info in the world doesn't mean jack. Even if you're Albert Einstein, you ain't going to get far if all you can get is 800 stone a week from a dead account. You have to think of a better approach.

As a case study for that kind of strategy, when I joined as a noob (level 1) there was a guy who was level 11. He has that approach to the game - go by the numbers, build, farm, attack, day in day out (and he's online more than I am). Now he's level 12 and i'm level 14. I would say, you have to think a little bit more smartly about what you're doing than just using a calculator all the time.

Another strategy is to take all your cities far away in some corner of the map and build your way up without ever even having to say "boo" to another player. That fits with half a zero sum strategy - stop yourself from losing. No ones going to attack you if it takes 7 hours for their cats to reach you. Even if you were in a coma you'd have time to move your troops out. So you can build and build and starve and rebuild for weeks. But again, there is an assumption there, that other people aren't going to come up with a better strategy than you and beat you to the top.

There's a case study for that, too. There's a guy who built far away from anyone else and managed to get just outside the top 50 on server 12 without EVER fighting a battle with another player. But he's stuck there and can't go any further. Why ? He may be able to stop himself losing, but he can't do anything to stop anyone else winning, so he's only going to get so far compared to what other people can do.

Ok, how do you actually apply a strategy for yourself ? Well, that will be different for every person because what you do at any moment depends on what situation you're in. But the rules always remain the same - you do what you need to stop other people from winning and stop yourself from losing.

A case study for that. I got a new account, and one of my neighbours attacked me (he was also new and had about 10 cats). I used my free coins to build some cav, attacked his city, destroyed his army and now i'm farming him regularly. I'm not after prestige or resources from it - just I know if i don't stop him building up, he's going to come back and attack me again. So the idea is to stop him being able to win, because if he wins, I lose.

Having said all that, if I could list some specific details which universally apply, they would be: when you want to build a new city - if you're relatively weak, build it where no one will attack you. If you're in a strong position, build where you can attack other people. Attack other players for one of three reasons - to get prestige, to get resources, or to stop them building up. Farm inactives rather than forts, if you have a choice - let other people spend time fighting fort troops, and remember if you don't farm them, someone else will. Keep your army flexible, with a mix of all types, so you can respond to all situations. Aim to do things as efficiently as possible (eg use cav/ archers for forts instead of cats). Don't take risks - if you're out for prestige, pick battles (offensive or defensive) where you know you're going to win before you start. If you get attacked, make sure you still come out of it ahead of the game, even when you're attacked by a stronger army - hide troops and resources, build defenses so the other guy wastes his time. Don't be afraid to give up ground to a stronger player to let him exhaust himself, it's more important not getting into a fight which you'll lose. Don't pick unneccessary fights - don't attack your neighbour just because he's there, else one day he'll come back and get you (but you should attack him if there's a legitimate reason hehe).

There are lots of other tips and tricks on the forums which you can make use of when the time/ conditions are right. But whatever you do, keep in mind that if you're not winning then you're losing. So think properly about the outcome of your decisions. That's the most important detail.

OK, so some people may get it, some people may not, and some people may think it's a waste of time reading this !!!!

I bet if I read that reply.. it be a own..

I bet if I read that reply.. it be a own..

what that didn't make sense

I like your post New, but I have to disagree.

Haypi is not a zero sum game .. in fact, rather frustratingly, it is the opposite.

The game is measured on "prestige" ... your rank = your prestige. Since you are able to generate prestige, without interacting with another player, there is no zero sum to it. Each person is able to gain, without anyone else suffering a loss.

Ultimately the strategies you mark out are only effective when you are a low level player sparring with your neighbours. At higher levels, there is no loss in not being able to occupy oasis 324:323 .. you simply take 321:214 instead.

Even in battle, your gains don't necessarily equate to their losses, so there is a huge possibility of a pyrrhic battle / war.

Actually, given the non zero-sum nature of the game, the methods you have described are even more important, as you need to be able to slow their ability to make independent gains.

On server 13 we have top 10&20 players who have been on permanent refuse war since the beginning of the game. I don't know what you would call that .. but it's no zero sum

n.b. - you can't hide on the map and use distance as a defence .. for some odd reason cities sometimes fly across the map .. cities full of troops

there is no winner or loseer in this game. it depends on ur goal. u want to be rank 1 u keep killing to the top at the shortest time. but if u just want to lvl up only, u can build, starve and rebuild again. the only difference is the time u need to get to lvl20 and after that, only left ranking. but at that lvl, it is equal to all player, only difference is ur ranking and how much time u need to spend to sustain that ranking

Thanks for your comments guys, glad that the subject has opened up and I hope more people will write about different views on strategy. I would comment on your posts but i kind of guess the moderators will say "take this thread to the discussion forum"...

.... i know a strategy... but till i write it i kinda need more information

Jimmyjing has helped me alot and I beleve he is great for an expert and helps so many people so can some one please make him an expert.