Heavy Cavalry Noobs?

[DeletedUser2577]

[th]If anyone in the top 20 ODD (without tribal support) could tell me, how to maintain a top 20 account (in either points' rankings, ODA, and ODD rankings, this time) without HC for a couple of weeks, let me know, please.[/th]

Well, I am not a top-20 points player with a top-20 defense ranking today. Though on other games I've played, I've been a top player with the rank 1 defense score, and I rarely build heavy cavalry until I already have several villages under my control. I may be able to answer your question.

First: I would be interested in seeing how its possible for any player to survive an all-out offensive from a competent and competitive tribe in the first couple months, without support or negotiations.

Now, my answer to your question:
In my initial strategy for those games, the barracks is for defense and the stables is for offense. Of course, I build a few hundred axe here-and-there to kill the weak armies protecting good farm villages, but the majority of troops trained in the barracks are defensive. Workshop is for rams and catapults (building plenty of catapults!)
PS. catapults are not for defending.

When first capturing villages I hunt for people with poor defense (high-rankers with only axe and light cavalry, are preferable targets.) Majority of my villages in this stage are built barracks:defense & stablesffense. These I call my "tactical villages." Eventually they become purely-defensive villages; after the lcav have died from bashing. Of course I build a small portion of purely offensive villages, but the majority are tactical villages.

Eventually the transition is made to having a larger portion of purely offensive villages than before (but still having mostly tactical villages), and finally to only having specialized villages (off || def).

In this way, I have maintained a top 20 rank and #1 defense score with no tribal assistance. Would heavy cavalry make defense easier? Yes, but (in my experience) replacing lcav with hcav weakens offensive abilities too much.

 

[DeletedUser]

Attacker Units: 0 0 1000 0 1000 1000 160 0 0
Losses: 0 0 327 0 327 327 52 0 0

Defender Units: 0 0 3000 0 2000 0 0 0 0
Losses: 0 0 3000 0 2000 0 0 0 0

and reverse the scenario to your lc + axe defending gets smoked even worse.

so we have clarified. that we can both clear each others forces. providing thats the ratios's id go for cept u lost more in your clearance.

surly that says it all. fact wise.?

Yeah but in both senerio's the person defending is screwed as offense rebuilding takes a shorter amount of time than defense... And in both situations immediate catting can take place. Mind you the entire line of discussion was the basis of no tribal support. Which is ridiculous to begin with but what ever, it just shows that the defense buys you little when being back-timed.

 

[DeletedUser4753]

true. both situation offense wins on initial wave. but the difference is this.

the hc player will get cleared by the full off player. but out there in game how many people will play full off and be near u. pretty unlikely to be any. so in my neighborhood the chance of some opposition taking the form of a full off player is few and far between. where as the chances of the full off player encountering player playing any strat that gives a decent off is high (obviosly.)

what i'm saying is. only an offense of this size possessed by the full off player can clear the hc player. wheres as any decent offense can clear the full offense player.

so in summary. its surely better to be the hc player who has slim chance of anyone matching his defense and offense capabilities. than the all off player who can be cleared by any player with a decent offense.

 

[DeletedUser]

true. both situation offense wins on initial wave. but the difference is this.

the hc player will get cleared by the full off player. but out there in game how many people will play full off and be near u. pretty unlikely to be any. so in my neighborhood the chance of some opposition taking the form of a full off player is few and far between. where as the chances of the full off player encountering player playing any strat that gives a decent off is high (obviosly.)

what i'm saying is. only an offense of this size possessed by the full off player can clear the hc player. wheres as any decent offense can clear the full offense player.

so in summary. its surely better to be the hc player who has slim chance of anyone matching his defense and offense capabilities. than the all off player who can be cleared by any player with a decent offense.

But you forget the defense slows you down, its not so linear, I am not saying pure offense is the end all be all of what you should do, I personally don't use it. But do not ignore its advantages and refuse to see how to utilize to properly.

Building that hc army I gave you is very difficult, it requires massive amounts of iron, its not all so simple. If you are eliet with using pure offense you can out grow any real threats for back-timing, and if you have a threat that near you, you noble rush, or you use cat's and make them back time without rams, or better yet stagger cats at them so they cant back time at anything but lc speed. There are endless scenario's to go through, both strategies are viable, which is my point.

 

[DeletedUser]

Attacker    Units:    0    0    500    0    0    0    0    20    0         36.400    23.000    22.000    660
Losses:               0    0    500    0    0    0    0    20    0         36.400    23.000    22.000    660
Defender    Units:    0    0    0    0    1600    0    0    0    0         200.000    160.000    400.000    6.400
Losses:               0    0    0    0    184    0    0    0    0         23.000    18.400    46.000    736

Sorry to point out the obvious.

Are you seriously suggesting that at the stage where you have 1.6k Light Cavalry, your enemy only has 500 Axes and 20 Rams...?

 

[DeletedUser]

Hc strategy? Im using a different strategy with similar purpose:/

I mean that lc-rush are overrated, but i m not really for the hcstrategy either (its to slow, to long time until hc).

Get around 300-400 spears, 200-300 swords and 200ish axe, when your on your way to produce this, get scouts....Then aiming for lc after you have something like what i previusly said. It's incredible how many swords you can get from the remains of iron that you normaly cant use much of at all, and a wall to lvl 7-10 is also pretty much managable, you will normaly have more clay than other resources after producing (you will have lc when you are at ca 400-500p).

This strategy gives a strong defencive force early on, but is not lacking any growth becouse the spearcount and swords is enough to be eve with an lcrusher (It worked for me on w1 as an example), after this its all offencive (maybe 100 hc if you will later on...):3

The defence is not against an all ofencive attacker close to you, its just to backtime those..

Im sticking with hc rush if not my own way, many here are to ortodox in my opinion:|

 

[DeletedUser]

Are you seriously suggesting that at the stage where you have 1.6k Light Cavalry, your enemy only has 500 Axes and 20 Rams...?

Are you seriously suggesting that you jumped into a conversation without reading the preceding lines? The scenario was set by Thar not me. I just pointed out that he either flat out lied or was too lazy to look it up.

 

[DeletedUser]

Matt first off I'm not sure how you got your numbers.. 20 wall perhaps? Surely a full off player would not build 20 wall before getting a second village.. but anyhow I shall play your game.

Thar did not flat out lie, he said 50+ players, you only simulated one. Now just to humour you here is what would happen in this situation. Assuming 20 wall for defender and -25% luck for attacker with 200 axe 20 cats.

Attacks : LC left
0 : 1600
1 : 1567
2 : 1534
3 : 1501
4 : 1467
5 : 1433
6 : 1398
7 : 1363
8 : 1328
9 : 1292
10 : 1256
11 : 1219
12 : 1182
13 : 1144
14 : 1106
15 : 1067
16 : 1027
17 : 987
18 : 946
19 : 904
20 : 861
21 : 817
22 : 772
23 : 726
24 : 678
25 : 629
26 : 578
27 : 525
26 : 470
27 : 412
28 : 350 You start losing buildings here
29 : 284
30 : 212
31 : 130
32 : 33
33 : 0
34 : 0
35 : 0
36 : 0
37 : 0
38 : 0
39 : 0
40 : 0
41 : 0
42 : 0
43 : 0
44 : 0
45 : 0
46 : 0
47 : 0
48 : 0
49 : 0
50 : 0

Good game?

 

[DeletedUser]

Matt first off I'm not sure how you got your numbers.. 20 wall perhaps? Surely a full off player would not build 20 wall before getting a second village.. but anyhow I shall play your game.

Thar did not flat out lie, he said 50+ players, you only simulated one. Now just to humour you here is what would happen in this situation.

Attacks : LC left
0 : 1600
1 : 1567
2 : 1534
3 : 1501
4 : 1467
5 : 1433
6 : 1398
7 : 1363
8 : 1328
9 : 1292
10 : 1256
11 : 1219
12 : 1182
13 : 1144
14 : 1106
15 : 1067
16 : 1027
17 : 987
18 : 946
19 : 904
20 : 861
21 : 817
22 : 772
23 : 726
24 : 678
25 : 629
26 : 578
27 : 525
26 : 470
27 : 412
28 : 350 You start losing buildings here
29 : 284
30 : 212
31 : 130
32 : 33
33 : 0
34 : 0
35 : 0
36 : 0
37 : 0
38 : 0
39 : 0
40 : 0
41 : 0
42 : 0
43 : 0
44 : 0
45 : 0
46 : 0
47 : 0
48 : 0
49 : 0
50 : 0

Good game?

And the break down of hc is where? Btw I did it with a level 18 wall, because that is where I normally have my wall once I hit around 1200 points. But I do that because I do build defense. You also assumed there was 0 growth in the building of lc in his scenario they were 10-20 hours away from you.... Out of curiosity what level building were you catting?

 

[DeletedUser]

He said they were 10-20 hours away from you, not that the attacks were 10-20 hours apart, so growth of LC is irrelevant. We also have established that if Thar was the leader of your tribe a defenseless person would have no support, but someone with HC would, unless arranged earlier but I wont factor that in just to be nice. Will break down HC later.. missed a bit of farming

 

[DeletedUser]

I'll simplify something that I feel might not have received enough attention.

If a player with a good troop count backtimes another player with a good troop count, then unless the defender can dodge, chances are that the returning offense will be wiped out regardless of whether that returning offense is LC or HC based.

The only different being that attacker takes more damage, but thats off little comfort to the guy just had his O wiped out.

For my part I advocate a variation of HC strat that I developed a long time ago. But I do know many who disregard HC strat completely and are pretty great players. Krono5, Sacrefool and (i think) vpar2 being among them (im not absolutely certain on the vpar part, so don't hold me to it)

 

[DeletedUser]

He said they were 10-20 hours away from you, not that the attacks were 10-20 hours apart, so growth of LC is irrelevant. We also have established that if Thar was the leader of your tribe a defenseless person would have no support, but someone with HC would, unless arranged earlier but I wont factor that in just to be nice. Will break down HC later.. missed a bit of farming

You can also build 350 swords in the time that this is taking the troops to come for you level 19 rax. Btw this is one odd n00b family tribe that has 50 willing and capable members of sending these attacks timed, and even having cats, in these numbers. And in my tribe I would give them support? Do we really want to play that game? Its pointless, and what if its 30 attacks, and what if some hit they hit over 5 hours. And I have enough time to them build 400 sw then, and 90 more lc. And what if I have 150 cats myself. See my point, there is a plethora of reasons that you can defend against this attack.

 

[DeletedUser]

Ok I simulated in the same situation, and it turns out HC never lose enough to lose mroe than 2 troops per attack.. I assumed same farm space although I know that there will be less HC as you need 15 smithy first and so on, but I really don't want to go into that.

Anyhow so HC losses totalled 100, going from 1066 to 966. No buildings losses.

 

[DeletedUser]

Ok I simulated in the same situation, and it turns out HC never lose enough to lose mroe than 2 troops per attack.. I assumed same farm space although I know that there will be less HC as you need 15 smithy first and so on, but I really don't want to go into that.

Anyhow so HC losses totalled 100, going from 1066 to 966. No buildings losses.

By the time anyone has 1066 hc I would have 2400 lc and a second village:icon_confused: It takes 6.5 days at a level 17 stable producing nothing but hc to build that many. 6 days from now if whom ever just researched hc builds them non-stop from now till next week, they will have that total, I mean right now is the prefect example, by that time you will see more people with multiple villages.

 

[DeletedUser]

Not me I will still be a couple of days off, but you're right, I'm not rushing and I started a few days late soo..

I'm done with this arguement, it will only get tedious from here.

Laters Matt.

 

[DeletedUser]

I think I should clarify, and apologize for the misnomer that surviving "papercut attacks" was as easy as I showed, it was a misrepresentation on accident.

How ever my main issue with this argument is, and was this invention, the way it was presented, I disagree with pure offense in some regards too, but when you make a disingenuous argument to prove your point it is a problem. The situation is farm from realistic, and numerically I can find a million ways to prove any single way of doing things wrong.

But as with anything its more than the simplistic, its more than we can prove numerically, the old sang necessity is the mother of all invention is very true. If I were handed a pure offensive account when these attacks started, I am fairly certain they would not stop me. Not entirely, until you are in the situation there is only so much you can see. So much to miss, perhaps taking losses to buildings and staggering when you defend and when you dont would make a different? I dont know, but I would find out, maybe I would fail and let them hit but they would be pretty bad for the wear and the real damage I could come back from.

And the affirmative "l33t" players back down when that happens is false, I have been in much worse spots, and actually had real life issues; but I still did what I could while I was online, and did come back from them. I suppose that coupled with the way Thar talked down to me as though to just scilence the opposition got me slightly more insulting in my posts and rash than I would have liked how ever I feel as though I have, shown in the posts, strategies that are able to be used, and in game that I am not someone that should just be written off.

And in the process of doing that you rob the conversation of a true debate, by focusing in on this myopic issue did anyone truly learn anything? I doubt it, the situation is ridiculous. For the sake of it I could counter the situation by saying that the person should be more diplomatic, and not get into said situation. Its this presentation of a disingenuous argument for a real concern that is wrong. It gains nothing, it proves nothing.

 

[DeletedUser]

Maybe the morale is that to be a team player everyone should build a little defense, even if they don't need it themselves just so that if anyone in the tribe gets into the situation (up to 40x as likely as a single player) then support is possible, overall losses will be a lot less and each player can feel a lot safer.

Kinda stole that from Russki >.< to complete it I should say that a little defense wont hurt your offense production much at all when you think about it.

 

[DeletedUser]

Maybe the morale is that to be a team player everyone should build a little defense, even if they don't need it themselves just so that if anyone in the tribe gets into the situation (up to 40x as likely as a single player) then support is possible, overall losses will be a lot less and each player can feel a lot safer.

Kinda stole that from Russki >.< to complete it I should say that a little defense wont hurt your offense production much at all when you think about it.

Yeah I do build defense , but my point was when you make a false argument to prove that point it helps no-one. True knowledge comes from understanding not just knowing.

 

[DeletedUser]

Yeah I do build defense , but my point was when you make a false argument to prove that point it helps no-one. True knowledge comes from understanding not just knowing.

[th]Too true. You calculated one attack vs. your horses. HC in the first village needs a lot of ressources. Thus I for one have about 500-1000 (depends on my activity) LC before starting HC. Otherwise a constant production is very hard to achieve. I wouldn't try to calculate with 1000 HC in such early stages vs. the papercut attacks either. And the sitiuation with a wall 15+ for an all-off player also isn't realistic, whereas players with defensive build usually do build walls. This wasn't a matter of "my build versus your build", nor did your calculation prove anything of the mentioned situation. My argument was directed against the typical all-offense player. I nobled enough of them in the past and had the luck of few losses against a wall 5-10 at most in nobling stage.

(Mass) attacks from 10+ hours don't happen in early stages? Lucky you if you've never experienced it. May I ask if you are usually playing your pretty much known nick in all worlds you start? Or are you just using different nicks like in this world for example, which would make a massive difference in this case to see what I'm talking about. I tried it in one of my last worlds in .net. Starting with a new or unknown nick indeed makes a huge difference.

And I won't continue to show more flaws in your reflectoins like LC-heavy off-only player usually have small pits, they rely on the farming income more than the "average turtle". Letting their LC at home over hours and hours to defend against papercut attacks hinder them extremely much in keeping their queues alive and so on and so on.

Once more: Neither the all-offense, nor the HC strategy - or any other strategy is "perfect" under all circumstances. It all depends on your personal situation, activity and your neighbourhood. Adapting these factors and more is the key to success and divides the skilled players from the brainless-stict-to-guide-following players. Sadly the "all-offense strategy" is often published to be the best overall in all situations, which is simply not true. For example building a 1:4 ratio of spears:axes in the barracks and HC in stables will provide you with a more flexible build than the all-offense. Good enough to be prepared defensively and offensively.

Most of the best players out there are building some defenses at least to participate in tribal defensive power. I remember others like Vik/vpar2 to go all-offense in his first 10 villages. But that was an example of coordination, because two other players were all-defense and got their targets cleared by Vik and defended his villages in return. Such scenarios are the rare exceptions, but in this case the selfishness of the "the tribe will protect me somehown"-thinking, which most all-offense player follow, wasn't given. [/th]

 

[DeletedUser4748]

People are forgetting the fact that this game is built on tribes/support co-ordination.

If I had a full offensive village and I wiped a player out for a member I would hope they supported me in situations such as these.


And for the record I have no problems with H.C as my nukes normally consist of HC.
10 villages and 10 HC nukes = 10 strong offensive villages and enough HC to wiped out a few nukes.

Maybe we should look into HC nukes now ^^