b) Startup
The start-up phase is extremely important, in a quite short speed round (>6h). To succeed alone you have to start with offansive troops, and build LC/axe. What's important is to have most offansive troops of all the players, and be first to reach nobleman/nobletrain. There are sevral types of start (n1, n2, n3, n4). This guide will use a n1 start (56 points) as that's what I use to play. I don't have that many screenshots from rounds that cna be used, but I have a few, one from a speed championship match between .no and .id and a couple from a .net speed I played in february.
To use this guide the following is required:
- The winner of the round is the one with most points
- Premium Account
- Farm assistant
- That you have your full concentration ingame
- Fingers that can take som pressing of buttons on your keyboard.
- That you allways farm
Farm and warehouse is built after what you require. Remember to have a high enough warehouse, as you will get extremely much resources after a while due to farming. The resource pits we simply don't build.
When you start it's just to sit and build some buildings (make sure that the resource pits are lvl 1/constructed):
- HQ 2
- HQ 3
- Barracks 1
- 120 spearmen
It's important that you don't do anything else, than building spearmen and farming the closest barbs. By using farm assistant you attack the closest 4-5 barbs, to get them into FA, and you attack them with 30 or 50 spear. You farm with these spearmen and build
spear only untill you have 130 of them. Then you do this:
- HQ 3->10
- Barracks 1->5
- Smithy 1->5
- Stable 1->3
While doing this, farm! We need resourecs! Don't get axe or scouts, go directly to LC.
In this stage rank means nothing. When I played the .no vs .id match, I was rank 25 (out of 40) with 130 spear, and when I built those buildings and reached LC first I was rank 1 in one update. But again - rank does not matter, it's what you do next that matter.
Now you'll need fingers that can take some pressing of buttons. Because now it's time for LC whoring and farming! You should not build a single building except market (to lvl 4/5), farm and warehousew! You should build LC untill you have a constant queue in the stable for over 1 minute. And than you should have over 200 LC. Take 40 spear as the A-button in FA, and 5/10/15/20/25 LC as the B-button (depends on number of LCs), and farm! 120/3=40, that's why you should have 130 spear, as 1-2 often dies in each run due to wall ect. When you reach 250 LC you stop using those boring spearmen, and only farm with LCs. I can not express myself well enough about how important it is to farm and only build LCs. When playing the .net round shown pictures from later I was down to rank 100 when LC whoring. Also remember to increase the area of the map you farm. When reaching 500 LCs I usually farm all the barbs on the world. Again, this is something which varies from round to round. If those close to you are full of resources you don't need to travell even further for the same amount of resources.
When the queue in the stable is constant without any stops, you can start producing axe as it's important to have a nuke when your train is ready. Next you only upgrade stable and HQ, aswell as the warehouse and farm which will have to be build quite often. Usually I have farm as every secound of third building upgraded, and change between HQ and stable.
- HQ is built to build other buildings quickly, and you should build HQ to between 23 and 28. I usually go for 26. I have both chosen 20 and 30 before aswell, this because HQ level should be different from round to round.
- Stable is built to get quicker production of LCs. You build your stable to lvl 18. (You should also get your rax up to lvl 12.)
Here's a screenshot from the .no vs .id match
Now smithy is next, get it from 5->20, while building farm and workshop (when smithy is >lvl 9). Remember to get some rams. And farm like you've never farmed before. I usually have 10 pages in FA, sitting clicking constantly with upgrades and recruiting as my only break. Remember to still have constant queues!
Here's a screenshot from a .net speed startup, here you can see how the stable/HQ has a high lvl whilst building the last few upgrades to the smithy.
When you reach academy there are two different ways to play depending on what kind of academy there is.;
- There is goldcoins - In that case you farm so that you get a nobletrain, which should not take more than 2-3 minutes with the number of LCs you now should have. The next thing to do is to noble rank 2 (if it's not your friend or he/she has lots of friends you know have def to support him/her). Open 4 tabs in your browser with 50 LCs and 1 noble, then the village you're nobling, and than all your off troops minus 200 LC. Send the 4 nobles with the 200 lcs as a train, and time the nuke in front (>100 ms is enough on speed). Concratulations with a very nice new village, and to have the two biggest villages so far.
- There is packages - get academy lvl 3, and get 3 nobles. Find the biggest village which is not to far away from you. Send 3 nobles as a train with 50 LCs in each attack, and time your nuke in front. Expect to be backtimed and dodge this using your dodgescript (shown how to make in C). If you want some ODA aswell, backtime the backtime
Send 2 or 3 nobles again (usually 2 unless something really strange happends), and noble the village. Build academy lvl 2 in that village and noble rank 2 (unless he/she is your friend).
Further on it is so induvidual from round to round that I don't bother writing a guide on all the different scenarios. Here experience will make you a good speed player
