Saturday, February 26, 2011
How to be a newb and not a noob by Robert.Paulson
2. Be skeptical. There are alot of people in this game who say they know what they are doing or can offer guides on how to play. Anyone can say anything. But you need to ask yourself when you listen to these people talk whether what they are saying makes sense and if what they are saying offers plainly visible benefits for fighting. Overly complex explanations for why a seemingly bad idea is supposedly good idea usually means that it's a bad idea coming from a bad player.
3. Be humble. If you're new to this game, recognize this fact and don't expect to be some kind of out of the blue phenom. Best thing you can probably do is try to find yourself a mentor who DOES play well, and listen to what he says. When he says "offensive start is the way to go" don't give him any yeah-buts. I never understand why or how so many new players put worlds of faith into the bad teacher's plans eventually paying off, but so often seem to dismiss as wrong advice when it comes from good players.
4. Don't plan, try, or want to conquer the world. This kinda goes along with #3. On dozens of servers and about 100 worlds, some of them being open for several years, there has only been once where it's happened that a tribe has conquered the entire world. Focus on what's in front of you. Dominate your 15x15, make a good first conquer, things like that. In all honesty, new players should not view their first world as where they will accomplish very much. All you really need to do on this world to make it a success is learn, so that the next time you'll be even better.
5. Have a sense of urgency. This game proceeds slower than your typical computer game or video game, so alot of new players get sucked into thinking they have all the time in the world to eventually start making troops, or wait until later to worry about one day coming under attack. You need to learn how to start strong. And then you need to learn how to continue strong. Often bad players will offer you instructions where they talk about "eventually" this will be to your advantage. If it takes two months for a plan to pay off, you'll be dead before you get there.
6. Play other strategy games. There are two particularly I can recommend, being chess and poker. Both of those games are similar to tribalwars in certain ways. Chess is a war game with an assortment of pieces that have unique characteristics, where you have to learn when to attack, where to attack, and weigh sacrifices against rewards, all while developing and altering strategic and tactical conditions. In poker, you are playing against many people, all of which may be potential allies or enemies at different times, where you have to learn to read and gauge a person, while weighing how much an investment costs you, how much it will give you in return. These are skills that can go a long way in tribalwars. But the most important thing to understand about these three games is that chess and poker both have a fairly simple set of straightforward rules, but actually learning how to play and play well takes time and involvement. And the exact same thing is true for tribalwars.
7. When in doubt, TROOPS! In chess, everything happens from what you do with your pieces. In poker, everything happens from what you do with your chips. In tribalwars, everything happens from what you do with your troops. Your troops give you fighting strength, and you've probably already heard a million times that troops win wars, not points. But let's move beyond that worn out line. Troops give you resources. Troops indirectly give you points (through farming, which allows you to build your village). Troops give you dominance in your area even when you aren't attacking other people (from outfarming opponents, catting down barbs to protect them from being nobled by weak players or to at least make for poor villages when weak players noble them anyway). Troops bring you respect from others and can mean the difference between a strong tribe being willing to accept you as a member and teach you how to play, or being stuck with no other option than crappy tribes that are disorganized and lead you over a cliff by teaching you all the wrong things. Just remember that everything you are doing should be based on the goal of getting more troops, protecting your troops, or using your troops to your maximum gain. When someone offers you such and such guide, you should ask yourself "how will this give me the most possible troops?" If you can't find a good answer, then you shouldn't listen.
8. Be all that you can be. Sorry if it sounds trite to quote an old US Army motto. But noob tribes often neglect individual ability thinking that working together is enough by itself. Teamwork is important, very important as a matter of fact. But a team of very good players working together will always defeat a team of so-so players working together. You will never become a better player if you don't strive to be a better player.
Church Guide by Pulsar FTW
Church Info
Church Belief Radius:
Level 1: 4 fields in every direction
Level 2: 6 fields in every direction
Level 3: 8 fields in every direction
Church Cost Structure:
Level 1: 16.000 wood - 20.000 clay - 5.000 iron - 5.000 population
Level 2: 20.160 wood - 25.600 clay - 6.300 iron - 2.750 population(additional)
Level 3: 25.402 wood - 32.768 clay - 7.938 iron - 4.263 population(additional)
Church Build Time Factor:
Level 1 = 5:40:00
Level 2 = 6:48:00
Level 3 = 8:09:36
The actual build time is calculated by the following formula:
([build time factor] * 1.05^(-[level of the village headquarters])) / [world speed]
Church Point Values:
Level 1: 10 points
Level 2: 2 points
Level 3: 2 points
Church Build Requirements:
Level 5 Headquarters and whatever farm level required to hold the population.
Church Destruction:
Churches can be catapulted but they take significantly more catapults to drop a level than normal buildings.
It takes 400 catapults to destroy a lvl 1 church(Please confirm?)
167 to take lvl 2 to lvl 1(Please confirm?)
and 125 to take lvl 3 to lvl 2(Please confirm?)
Or 600 to take lvl 3 down completely. (Please confirm?)
This is with against a empty, wall-less village with 0% luck, no morale penalty and religious attackers (religion makes no difference to the defence of target buildings)
"When you noble a village the church 'flies away'" - Morthy
Church Effect:
All villages that are not contained within a church radius will have all troops' defensive and attack power reduced to 50%.
This means that you can attack outside your church's radius, as long as the attacking village is inside it.
Defending troops take the church effect of the village/person they are defending.
Exception:
There is an exception to the above setup/rules. The very first church that you start with will be a church that has a 6 field radius and is 10 points. This church cannot be upgraded at any point. In addition, the original church can't be damaged by catapults.
EDIT(s):
- Yes you can demolish your first church. However it would be a huge waste. As when you build it back, it will still just be the same 'first (non-upgradable) church'. You can only move it to another village if you have no other churches.
- If you lose your first church, you can rebuild it if you have no other churches.
- Churches only affect your own villages, not allies, not others. Only yours.
- This church is a different one to the one that built priests on the early German servers.
- Barbs/Bonus will not be affected by churches (I.E spiking villages)
- All calculations of religion will be done at landing time.
- Having religion/belief at two or more has no effect. It’s just to inform you that your village is under the effect of two churches, you receive no extra bonus for it.
- First churches take less than 15minutes to build at any level HQ. (Please confirm?)
Basics by jamm
Well, after playing this game for a couple of years I came back to play one last round, which was kind of disappointing, but I don't want to leave without give you guys some final advice.
I'll try to cover on the 7 most common mistakes from my point of view only, as nor I have time for a long guide and neither do I think anyone would read some douzen pages just to improve his gameplay, espacially cause some basics are pretty boring to the players that have been here for more than a couple of days...
First something about animals:
#1: Lambs and Wolves
#2: Turtles
#3: Rams
#4: Cheetahs and Horses
#5: Lions
#6: Ducks
#7: Symbionts
First above all: Forget the rankings for a moment. Points do fight in my point of view, but they are not important. If you play right points will come. If you play just to get a top spot in some ranking you have allready lost. Keep this in mind. It's the most important lesson you will ever get.
#1: Lambs and Wolves
Before you begin to play decide what you want to be, prey or hunter. The game is called tribalwars and it hints which 2 things make you successful in this game: Working together and Attacking. A lot of players start STW and all they ever do is build defense and build out there villages, never reaching a good position in the ranking. Sorry, but you'd be better of with a nice single player game and an additional chat program. If you want to play TW you better be ready to interact with other players: Attack others, defend against them, support friends and tribemates who are attacked. If you don't care about that at least I don't understand why you are playing this game at all.
Furthermore a lot of players herd together like lambs. Large tribes are formed, but when the wolves attack everyone is for himself and the lambs run around. If you form a tribe be sure you got a tribe where you really coordinate. Don't form a tribe just for the sake of having one. You might get a good ranked position which will attract even more players but as long as the tribe doesn't work together in offense and defense you will just fight and bitch around in your tribe. Nothing is more frustrating than being attacked and noone sends you help. So the morale in your ranks will drop and your tribe will fall apart.
Herding like lambs doesn't help against wolves.
#2: Turtles
When you start playing and at a certain point find that someone around you is growing faster than you, you have two options again. Either to fit in the role of the lamb once more or to try and do something against it. If you decide to go for all defense: you have allready lost, your downfall may come a little later, but it is inevitable. Offense builds faster in TW, is cheaper and you can farm with it effectivly, so being defensive will only save you if the bigger players targets are less defended than you are. But if you want to take your fate into your own hands this game will become real fun. Send a few scouts (depending on the style of the world 2-5) to each village around you. Yes, even the biggest ones. If someone around you is that much bigger he has probably bashed some targets and is getting resources from them now. Attack those too and get the resources yourself. if you find villages with low points (not the grey ones) but high wall that have no troops left, send defense and set up traps for the high point players (prefer spears when setting up traps, but never send only spears)
When you build defense never build one kind of defense only. Spears are the most effective defense in the beginning, but a defense consisting only of spears is extremly easy to destroy. Swords and archers are very effective considering use per farm space, but again, pure defenses are cracked easy.
Do build defense!! Building just scouts (the white wall) will help you against certain players (actually the bad ones), but if you have a good player near you, he might just attack you cause he just knows his offense is able to destroy everything. Furthermore you will need the defense of others to block attacks once someone decides he wants your village. Sure you could hope that you are the only one who is hiding without any real defense and in need the others who have defense will send you. Sorry, the others think the same way and thus you won't get defense. So, start making a difference and build defense. And start defending others that build defense, not those who claim doing so.
#3 Rams
Defense is good, defence behind a high wall is better. It will double your defensive rating, and depending on how much offense your opponent sends it may easily double or triple his losses and on the other hand your losses will be far less. Defending villages without a wall is far more difficult as you might imagine.
On the other hand the attacker has a way of lowering your bonus and the sad part is, about 95% of the players playing this game don't use it. Rams. Build them, for gods sake, please never attack a village that has troops and a wall without rams. It will not neglect the whole bonus a wall gives but most of it. The best number is (again depending on the settings between 153 and 219, usually 219). I do understand this is an odd number but if you play a little with the simulator you will find out why it is this and neither less nor more. And it might teach you to use the simulator, which is always important.
While we are at it: Look at the stats for your troops. Notice how low the attack rating for spears is? Never, ever attack with spears. They just aren't made for attacking. They are for farming in the very early game and for defending against cavalry, thats it. Don't send spears to accompany your nobles. It's clueless since they would just die against any kind of troops.
#4: Cheetahs and Horses
If you have to run for a long distance, will you want to sprint 50metres then be exhausted for a minute than run 50m again? Keep it steady. A lot of players build headquarters, stable, barracks and the workshop to a high level, which then has 2 benefits: they have more points and thus the ranking is better and they have the ability to produce more in less time. Sorry, you just fell for the biggest mistake you could ever make. If you haven't got the resources to keep that building producing all the time you just wasted resources which would have been better used producing something in that building. You have also gained points and thus helped your bigger neighbour having a better morale when he is attacking you. There is no problem with a queue that is long. I have a level 5 barracks, a level 3 stable and a level 2 workshop at least till I have 2000 points and still I always had the biggest armies on the servers I played.
#5: Lions
Hunt in packs, defend in packs. Playing alone will get you to a certain point and you might even get quite high in the rankings, but against any good tribe you will have no chance at all. The sad part is: everybody knows that and still there has been less than a handful temporary actions from tribes with excellent teamwork, let alone tribes who really do that. On the other hand about every single tribe in this game claims to have superb teamwork ;)
The problem is that in TW 99,9999% of the players are interested in their own rankings above all else. Superb teamwork is not possible if there is noone willing to sacrifice this interest. Period.
Most players may think that supporting each other makes them an excellent tribe. Actually thats far from the truth. It just shows their tribe is not totally pathetic. While we are at it: If you are in a tribe don't be the asshole who only builds offense, cause you can grow faster that way. you too will need defense eventually and since we know that defending alone is not possible you will have to contribute, too.
The usual thing you can observe is that high ranked players have a lot of kills and quite some offense (and problems with morale). Low ranked players fear attacks by high ranked players and hide behind their defense, till all the targets that have less defense than them are allready taken care of. Then it is their turn.
Lesson one: Morale bashers
Actually it is far more benefitial if the high ranked player had defense for him and the small guy and the small one was all offense. The smaller would be defended by the larger one pemanently and every village he attacks would be nobled by the big one.
Lesson two: Resources
It is quite easy for a big player to get a fixed amount of resources since he has multiple villages. the small guy has a hard time getting enough resources to build troops, coins, nobles, whatever. On the other hand it is so much harder for the big guy to gain points and very easy for the small one. So by supporting the small one with resources their combined points grow faster.
Lesson three: Defending
Offense is really really strong in this game. Still defense has one effect that makes it even stronger. It can be stacked, the more the better. Prepare for defending your tribe mates. Defense travels faster when sent with a paladin, so about everyone in your tribe can reach the village that is currently nobled. remember: the more the better. So the attacker has no problem to destroy small amounts of defense ten times, but the same amount at the same time is a hurdle he cannot take. So, coordinate your defense
Lesson four: Offense
Coordinate your offenses. Attack the same player in all his villages at once. No, do not send at the same time. Arrive at the same time. Even better arrive at multiple players villages at the same time and take them out at once so they have harder time defending themselves.
#6: Ducks
I guess I'll have to explain timing first. You see the server time in the lower right corner and you see the current lag right in front of it: page was generated in xxx milliseconds. At certain times this lag becomes higher but is still stable at other times it is not controlable and is between 9 and 20000 milliseconds. If it is like that forget timing. It's impossible. This doesn't happen too often though.
Everytime you send troops out you can click on the order and will find a time of arrival like this 21:43:56:443. the last three numbers are in grey and a little smaller.
So if you want to arrive with troops at the same time you will have to arrive in the same millisecond. you know the time your troops need from A to B so it's just a matter of preparation to calculate the time when you would have to send theoretically. Practically you still have a problem. From the moment you want to click till you click you have your reaction time, from the time you click till the click is transferred you have the lag (but we can test the current lag by just making any click in another window and get a good estimate) and finally that click needs to be transferred all over the world to that server somewhere in germany, which then has to execute it. good thing is there are just 3 things that influence this time and both are about the same everytime - your distance from the server, your computers ram and cpu and the browser you are using. the only way to find that is testing testing testing. click an attack every full minute and look at the order when it arrives. if you do this a couple of times you will find your computers lag. For me it was 1,45 seconds in average.
So now we know that we have to click for example 1,6 seconds before we calculated. Next we have to find a way to really click in the perfect moment. I count from 1 to 5 each second to get a feeling for 0,2 seconds. If you get a feeling for it and don't feel stupid talking to yourself any more you might even click on a early 2 or a late 3 to improve your timing even more.
So now that we know how to time we can not only attack in the same second but also send our defense out before the first attack hits and let it return before the other 4 are coming in, which is called ducking an attack. be careful though. there are some trick plays that destroy your rally point. think about it for a while and you might see the benefits. additionally ducking will make you loose your village, so if you are able to get at least about 4 times your current defense till your attacker returns it's well worth it.
#7 Symbionts
Please specialize your villages. you will need defense and you will need offense, which work together quite fine, but mixing both in one village is highly inefficient. Since a offense is stronger the more attack power it has you will want to maximize that by building a high amount of axes, lcav and rams (219, remember?) in it while keeping the farm slots wasted for stupid buidlings (hq 30 and market 25 is incredibly stupid) and for defensive troops (that have really low attack ratings anyway) low.
On the other hand you don't want your enemies to know where your offensive villages are so they should look the same as your defensive ones from the outside and you should a few (maybe 5 or 10) scouts in each village. Imagine someone sending 4 scouts to each of your villages while you are offline. he will be blocked in all your defensive villages that have scouts, but will see all easy targets. you can do that via support too, but at least I tend to forget so at a certain point in the game.
So if I still find any moron, that
builds only offense and no defense without telling it to his tribe in advance
attacks with spears
attack without rams
hides behind a white wall
has a mixed village with spears, axes and about everything in it
doesn't support his tribe mates
only builds defense and nothing else
I'll get you slus, and put a nole on you ;)
Survival Guide for Beginners by dr.obradovic
There is a bunch of so called "guides for beginners" on the forum and the wiki. They were all written by experienced players telling you all those "do's and don'ts". But, do they tell you all you need to know? My answer is - NO!
So, being beginner myself, with only two weeks of playing, I've decided to describe the first person experiences of an absolute beginner. After reading the whole story, someone could say I just had a bad luck, but I could happily just say that I had a great(!) luck, for learning this lesson so early. It could have easily happened that I survived for say 2 months or even more, my disappointment would be devastating. This way, I can live with two weeks of my life lost and decide on my own if I'm willing to try again and risk spending much more time on this game.
As every good beginner's guide starts, let's first give an example (the facts in my case).
The 14th day of my playing, I woke up in the morning and logged in, just to find out that late in that night there was an attack on my village. The good news was it was only a scout attack (the report marked with a blue circle). I was prepared to defend from scouts, I had a bunch of my own scouts sitting in the village, I knew that the attacker needed at least twice that number to obtain full information, I was relieved. Then I opened the report...
The attacker had sent 480 (yes, four hundred and eighty!) scouts. Ok, I thought, someone really strong attacked me, let me check who it was and from which village. What the...? This guy had only about 100 points more than me, his village was in my neighborhood, and the last shock was when I found that he joined the world the very same day as I did!
As naive as every beginner, my first thought was - something must be wrong here. Then I tried to rationalize the whole thing. Since I was quite satisfied with my own development for these 14 days (I had about 1200 points, resource structures at level 20, I was farming nearby villages, I had some nicely growing troops - 65 spears, 65 swords, 30 archers, 20 scouts, 60 lcav, my resources income was pretty steady to support further upgrades and recruitment of more army), I concluded that this guy couldn't be much much better than me, he is surely more experienced player, I thought, but he could not develop his village so much better than me. The final conclusion of mine was that he must have been a spy in his tribe whose only task was to produce vast numbers of scouts and spy on villages that show some development.
I was soooo wrong!
Later that day, the same player attacked again. I had about two hours to think of what should I do, how to prepare for this attack, what troops he was sending to me... I was a bit confused - if my thinking was right, he couldn't have much of regular troops, but why would he send scouts again? He saw my all of my troops, so he knew what he can expect. Should I risk and wait for the attack with my troops in the village? I decided to be careful, so I dodged the attack to avoid troops and resources losses.
Can any beginner guess with what forces he stroked? I couldn't guess!
Spear fighters (
Swordsmen (
Archers (): 599
Scouts (
Light cavalry (
Heavy cavalry (
Catapults (
Paladin (): 1
Omg! What the...!
Obviously, this guy was all but not a spy in his tribe. He did such an enormous development of his village for the same time and with about the same number of points. I laughed to my stupidity...
Look, there were catapults and heavy cavalry in his forces! Let's paste this forces into simulator. Total costs for these forces calculated by the simulator are:
Timber (
Clay (
Iron (
And what about the time needed to upgrade hq to 15, smithy to 15, stable to 10, farms to say 20, warehouse to 20, not to mention the resource structures, probably a decent wall, and the time needed to recruit all those troops but only after structure requirements have been met?
How is this possible? Was he cheating? Unfortunately, the answer is no, he was not cheating and this is quite possible. Anyway, the question remains - how?
Well, my fellow beginners, the answer is very simple - by playing 24/7... Do you like this answer? I certainly do not like it, but, sorry, it's the only answer... What you have to do to accomplish this is to start building troops and farm other villages like crazy from the very first MINUTE of joining a world! And, do not be foolish, do not waste resources and time for upgrading resource structures (like I did).
What happens if something similar like this happens to you? Well, in theory, there is not much that you can do. That attack smashed my wall from level 14 to level 3. I do not have enough resources (and time for playing) to build up an army that could defend my village from this guy. He already has enormous advantage in troops, and he will certainly not stop neither recruiting more troops nor attacking me nor farming other villages for more resources. He will be stronger with each new attack. The next time he attacks, he could just smash my farms and disable me from further development.
In practice, however, you can play some tricky games and wait for his mistake. If you are lucky enough and/or he is not smart enough, then you can hope he will make a mistake which could give you some advantage and a chance to overpower him. And don't be fooled by this encouragement, the odds are really too small. This would also require that you start playing 24/7 yourself, watch out for any incoming attacks and carefully plan in advance all your moves, and, of course, continue to constantly farm other villages.
If you cannot play 24/7, then you must prepare your village for an attack that might come while you are not playing. One way to do this is to send all your troops to a distant abandoned village and schedule their return to the time when you will be online again. This will save your troops from slaughtering. Also, spend all resources that you can on structures and new recruitments. He will kill all your newly recruited army if he attacks, but this is better than letting him take any resources from you. If your farms are smashed and you cannot do anything but upgrading farms, you can accept even the most non-favorable market offers just to get rid of an excess resources, but carefully choose delivery periods, so you can do this again! You can also put more than five farm upgrades in the queue and then cancel and add again repeatedly. The whole idea is to lower his pleasure as much as possible - if he does not kill any troops nor gets any resources, he will be just wasting his time on attacking you, maybe he will once realize that he has smarter things to do. ;)
Well, while I was writing this, my war with this guy continued... As if I had some Nostradamus genes, I predicted a lot of what could happen in the future, to the great satisfaction of mine!
The guy kept attacking constantly, I used the tactics explained above to minimize my losses. And I will restrain from judging his intelligence, but this was what happened so you can judge on your own!
His forces were a bit stronger with each attack, several hcav's and catapults were added to his forces each time. He was always coming to my village just to find no army of mine and no resources to collect. Once he hit my farms and put them down to level 3. I needed the whole day to rebuild them so I could continue my troops production.
One day, he attacked with catapults only. Why? Beat me!
The further development was quite interesting. He sent his forces again, but by checking the time they needed for arrival, I knew there were no catapults this time. I left small amount of troops in my village to give him an illusion that they are all newly produced units (a couple of swordsman and a couple of lcav). He landed with full force and killed my poor troops. I obviously accomplished what I was up to - he thought exactly what I wanted him to think!
As soon as he got report about this attack, without waiting for his troops to come back to his village, he sent his catapults immediately (again, I knew that by looking at the time of the arrival of his new attack). I knew that there could not be much of his troops to support his catapults in this attack, and I knew this was my last and only chance for confronting his catapults with my army.
Omg, that was a blow of the century, at least from my perspective.
This must have been very painful for him, lol. You can calculate on your own (in the simulator) how much resources this will cost him to rebuild (do not forget the time too). I put him down for at least a couple of days.
Of course, he is still much stronger than me (he still has his hcav about 200), I lost about 80% of my poor army in this battle, he will retaliate for sure, I do not have any chance against him in the near future (except if, counting on his brightness, hopefully he get into problems on some other side).
But, after all, this was a great moral victory for me, don't you think the same?
Finally, you can ask yourself - Why would you want to play a game like this and spend so much time with it?
Well, this is not much of a strategy game, if you ask me, you simply do not have enough information to create any decent strategy. This is just a mind-playing game with your opponents, with still so little information about their thinking. Playing cat-and-mouse games with your opponents could not be called strategy. The only question is who would give up first.
The worst aspect of this game is that it gives by far too much of advantage to players who can spend more time than you can. Not to mention that every time you go to sleep, in the morning while making your first coffee, you can find your village devastated! My tactics described above would not save your from nobling your village - if you leave your village undefended over night, you could easily find in the morning that you do not have your village anymore!
At the end, I will give you a short overview of what you ULTIMATELY MUST do to become a strong player on a world (in the order of importance):
1. Read all beginner's guides on the wiki and the forum. Consult the help all the time. Learn fast and do not implement anything you read if you are not sure (with your own brains) why exactly you should do that!
2. Play 24/7.
3. Recruit constantly.
4. Farm other villages constantly.
5. Avoid upgrading your resource structures too high in the early stage. There will be time for this, and the farming gains much much more resources.
6. Upgrade your structures with a plan! Do not be lead by for what you have resources at the moment or what troops you would like to have.
7. I'm not sure about the wall - rams and catapults still confuse me. I'm still a beginner, remember?
Good luck!
Friday, October 2, 2009
Want to add a Guide?
Hello Players!
If anyone is intrested in adding your guide here it would be deeply appreciated. Just Email me at boston_red_sox_111@hotmail.com with the guide and the author.
Thankyou very much!
Tribalwars Hints and Tips Team
The (almost) Complete TW Dictionary by Agent Incognito
As you have probably noticed, this is a dictionary of TW terms. As distinct from a guide. Use as a dictionary. Not advisable to read all in one sitting. Warned.
You will see that it is divided into 6 spoilers: acronyms, general/common usage, beginner, medium, advanced, and the complete list. If you should click on the complete list spoiler, you will become instantly aware of why I felt the need to break it up into smaller parts. These sections denote the type of terminology you will find contained within. Obviously the more experienced players won’t need to peruse the beginner section (except for lolz), and so on. The acronym/common/beginner spoilers are written with the ultra new player in mind, and worded accordingly.
All terms are currently accurate, to the best of my knowledge, and that of the players who proofread this prior to publication. If you feel there are any grievous mistakes, or terms that have been left out (and I’m sure there’s bound to be a few) by all means contact me through the public forum mail and let me know what the issue is and I’ll see what I can do to fix it. (This does not include complaints about terms being in what you may feel to be the wrong section. I’m quite accepting of the fact there’s unlikely to be 100% harmonious agreement - ever - on how this has been broken down. It ain’t changing, so don’t bother mailing me about it.)
Now, whilst I'm sure you're all capable of working this out for yourselves, it should be noted that any examples of tactics, when applied to a concept, do not cover the full extent of what one can do IG. All suggestions are written solely to assist with the understanding of a concept, by giving a concrete scenario. This is not a guide, it is a dictionary. (Or to put it another way, don't whinge at me about the fact your favourite use for X-concept isn't written here.)
Lastly, this could not have been possible without the invaluable help of several other players. In order of people I most notably harassed, I’d like to thank Jamm, Clur, CJ88P and Pervis. Whether they were helping to come up with forgotten terms, assisting with phrasing, proofreading, or just putting up with me whilst I complained about writing this, all input was and is appreciated.
Enjoy the read, all.
~ Agent Incognito.
COMPLETE LIST.
Description: I can guarantee you - it took even longer than it looks. Oh yes.
150ms rule: No 4 attacks from the same village may be sent within a 150 millisecond time frame.
24/7 Account: An account that is played 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Ordinarily done through multiple players logging into the one account.
7*7: The territory immediately surrounding one’s own village. This territory spans 7 tiny squares x 7 tiny squares. 7*7 is the usual map available to non premium players.
15*15: The wider territory surrounding one’s own village. This territory spans 15 tiny squares x 15 tiny squares. This is a map option available to premium players.
Abandoneds: Villages that were once owned by players, who have either quit or restarted.
Academy sharing: Nobling villages with academy 3 from a tribe mate, then producing nobles, then giving the villages back.
Academy tribe: A second tribe created by the ‘main’ tribe, into which newbs are often convinced to join on the premise they’ll be ‘taught’ how to play. In reality, these are typically associated with tribes that are more interested in points than troops, and once you reach a certain number of points, you will be allowed access to the main tribe. Generally scorned by the older TW community. Not to be confused with teaching tribes.
Account check: Carried out by tribe leaders periodically, this involves account sitting a player in order to see what their account is like (troop counts, building levels, tech levels, etc). This is a relatively commonplace requirement when applying to tribes.
(Account) Sitting: Allowing another player to take control of your account, through the Settings à Account Sitting process in game. This is most notably done in order to have someone look after your account whilst you’re away from TW. Many tribes maintain a rule explicitly stating their members may only be account sat by other tribe members. Aka the bane of many Australian players existences.
Act of war: Anything a player may do that causes an opposing tribe to declare war on the initial player’s tribe. Typical ‘acts of war’ include (but are not limited to): scouting players from opposing tribes, inviting players from other tribes, and attacking players from other tribes. For lesser Acts of War, see: http://forum.tribalwars.net/showthread.php?t=126340 (humour, newb, humour).
Activity check: Usually done in the form of a post in a tribe’s forums, leaders will ask for everyone to ‘sign in’ (respond) to their post, in order to make sure everyone is active. Another method is to send a circular mail to all tribe members.
Autofire mouse: Mouse that is used to send fast trains - often argued as cheating.
Backtime: An in-game technique in which Player A works out when Player B’s troops will return to Player B’s village after an attack. An attack is then arranged to hit Player B’s troops the instant they get back into the village. Typically this is conducted between two players - one player attacks, the second dodges, then backtime’s the first - although anyone can backtime a player provided they know when X’s troops return to the village.
Backup time: This is when the server does the backup and you get massive lags (4:45 server time).
Banned: When a player breaks the rules (typically the ‘no multi accounts’ rule) they are banned from the world and unable to play any more. It is against the rules to discuss bans in the public forums. Bans can be appealed by sending in a ticket.
Barb / Barbarian: Non-player villages already established in a world’s settings. These are good for farming early on, and many new players choice of a first noble target, as they don’t put up a fight.
BB-codes: Codes that help you change the appearance of your text, or insert links, images or quotes into a post.
Bonus villages: Particular to certain world settings, ‘bonuses’ are villages with special features, such as extra population, faster production times, more res’s produced, greater warehouse capacity, etc. They are part of a world from the beginning, and not owned by any players until they’re nobled.
Bookmarking: A farming technique where you copy the "resend same" link from the farm report to your bookmarks. By opening all bookmarks in a folder you can farm a huge number of villages within seconds - legally.
Bot check: A quick check that confirms a player is in fact a mere mortal, by requesting one clicks inside a broken circle. Aka ‘that thing that happens when Jamm tries to time attacks’, and ‘zomfg, why now, why?!’
BP (Beginner Protection ): The first few days after a player joins a world, during which no one can attack them. The length of BP time varies from world to world.
Bug: A ‘bug’ is another term for a glitch in the tw system.
Cats: Lazy term for catapults.
Cat Waves: As cats are more effective in small numbers it is better to send them in trains/‘waves’ than one huge attack. Lots of small cat-attacks sent in succession are known as cat waves.
Claims: Tribes will often have a section in their forums set aside for players to ‘claim’ future noble targets, to avoid two or more players trying to take the same village.
Clearing: Describes the act of killing all the troops in an opponents village. I.e. “I just cleared player X, so now would be a good time to noble him.”
Cluster (player): A group of villages owned by a player. Its preferable to have a tight cluster (villages close together) in order to make the villages easier to defend when under attack.
Cluster (tribe): A tribe with lots of players in close proximity to one another.
Crippling: This is the catapulting of crucial buildings in an opponent’s village, designed to slow down or halt their growth completely. Which buildings will vary depending on the stage of the game, and in-game circumstances.
Coordinates: The location of a village on the map. I.e. 475|724.
Co-Players: Two or more players playing the same account, most often from complimentary time zones, to ensure maximum activity on the account.
Coat of arms (COA): The picture used on a tribe or player’s profile. Generally speaking, no ultra-l33t COA is complete without at least some of the following: blood, darkness, shadows, swords or other weapons of choice, the tribe/player’s name.
Coin: A unit which you use to buy noblemen in your academy. Each additional nobleman costs one coin more than the last one. Each coin is bought with a certain amount of resources. Specific to coin-worlds. In a coin world, if your nobleman gets killed while defending or you over noble yourself, you do not need to mint the full number of coins but rather just pay 40K/50K/50K training costs.
(The) Core: The four innermost continents in the map - K44, K45, K54, K55. Generally regarded as prime real estate, unless you miss the opening of the world, in which case ‘waiting for the rim’ is a pretty cool fallback position. It should be noted however that as the world grows, the core expands outwards.
Cross defending: When two players put their defence in the other ones village. This means when one is attacked he can just pull his defence back, even if the other player is offline.
Cross Sniping: Two villages do not snipe their own attacks but the attacks of the other one.
Cupping: Nobling yourself in order to raise the loyalty back to 25 after 4 unsuccessful noble hits, or nobling yourself in order to make multiple attackers hit themselves with their nuke/nobles. This strategy is only worthwhile in coin worlds.
D / Def / Defence: Spears, swords, scouts, heavy cavalry and catapults comprise what is referred to as a player’s defence, or defence force.
Dodging: An in-game technique in which a player sends all their troops out of the village just before an attack hits, thereby saving their troops.
Duke: Leader of a tribe. Often characterised by in-tribe forum silence, due to the overwhelming amount of mail they have to sort through every time they log in.
Ego: The reason we play TW. The size of one’s ego should be directly proportional to one’s IG skillz. For reference: Duffbdat. Need I say more?
(Epic) Fail: A phrase used to express extreme disapproval of a post, poor attacks, etc. Commonly used on poor PnP posts.
Fake: In-game technique in which a player sends a ‘fake attack’ at another player - often consisting of a single axe or ram. Typically used during war to confuse and fluster enemy targets. Choose thine target wisely - if you’re not faking someone who gets worried, you’re probably faking someone who’s just going to get irritated and make it a personal mission to crush you.
Family tribe (lulz):A group of tribes joined together with a traditionally silly name. Widely renowned for having a ‘numbers > skill’ policy and poor co-ordination/organisation. No true family tribe is complete without an ascii sword.This applies to 99% of family tribes.
Family tribe (serious):A family tribe is any tribe that has multiple branches, all of which are united as one 'group', playing together with the same goals - as distinct from allies, who occasionally help each other out when it's mutually beneficial, but quite often have their own agendas. And yes, this includes brother tribes, sister tribes, academies, and so on. Any addition to the main branch.
Farm: Any village a player sends his troops to, to gain resources, is a ‘farm’, irrespective of whether the village is actually being played by someone or not.
Farming: The act of sending troops to another village, to gain resources. If this village happens to be played by an active player, irate mail may accompany any resources you take.
Farm shaping. This happens in worlds with growing barbs. As they stop growing at a certain point, catting everything you don't need in your farm ensures the resource pits and warehouse grow to decent levels.
Fast tabbing: Quickly switching or closing tabs on opera using keyboard shortcuts.
Flaming: The art of shooting down another poster's arguments and points in the forums whilst also making fun of them.
Free Trade: Refers to the ability to send resources to players in game, via the market, without needing to make a swap for anything in return.
FTW: For the win. Used to express great approval. Ie. AI’s TW dictionary is ftw!
Gang-bang: The act of multiple players attacking the same target. Or on a larger scale, multiple tribes attacking the same tribe. Typically done to high ranking players/tribes, by lesser ranking players/tribes, whose main ambition is to take the #1 spot and, poetically, wait to be gangbanged themselves.
Greys: Grey villages on the map. These include abandoned, barb/barbarian, and bonus villages.
GTFO: Get the f*** out. Most often said disparagingly on the forums, to express dislike towards another poster. (Or in jest, depending on the players.) May or may not get you an infraction or warning depending on the moderator in question, if used in the public forums. (May or may not get me two infractions for posting it in this dictionary. Twice. Cruel, cruel irony.)
Guides: Guides are written by (usually) experienced players, and range from detailing single strategies, to advice on how to approach world settings, etc. New players who dare to suggest they’re not interested in reading any guides, and just want someone to ‘tell them how to play’ will soon find themselves victim to a cascade of scorn and disapproval from older players.
Hate Mail: Hate mail is usually received after a successful attack on another player. The targeted player will send insults to the attacker, after which one of two things will usually occur. One: the recipient of the hate mail will report the sender for being insulting, and get them banned. Two: the recipient of the hate mail will post the mail in the in tribe, or public forums, and much lolz will ensue. Typical hate mail is identified through poor grammar, poor spelling, swearing, insults regarding one’s mother/sister/intelligence/lack of life, and an excess of exclamation marks.
HC: Heavy cavalry.
Hugging: Aka Tribal Hugz, this is when tribes obtain as many alliances and naps as they possibly can, in order to avoid conflict. Can also be used in reference to any nice behaviour on the forums. W34 was especially good for Forum Hugz, early on.
Infraction (forum): A player may receive what is known as an ‘infraction’ when they post inappropriately in the forums. This is like a black mark against the player, and in serious enough cases, can result in players being banned from the forums for a time. 4 infractions = instant ban, and most infractions expire after a certain time period, except for serious ones which are permanent.
IG: In Game.
IGM: In Game Message.
IGN: In Game Name.
IRL: In real life.
In Game Staff: A player who has volunteered to help police and "moderate" the game worlds. Typically speaking their dedication and service to the running of the game is undervalued by many players. They do a great job! (… -slips $50 from Godsman into pocket-. Pleasure doin’ business with you.)
Inactive: A player who isn’t logging into their account often/at all.
Invite: Aka invitation. Tribes send invites to players, and once this is accepted, the player automatically joins the tribe. If you're already in a tribe, you need to leave in order to view your invitations.
K: Shorthand for ‘continent’. Ie. K45.
Kicked: When a player is dismissed from a tribe.
LC: Light cavalry.
Loyalty (tribe): Willingness to stick with your tribe during war.
Loyalty (village): Each village is set at 100% ‘loyalty’. This means it is 100% yours. When you are attacked by another player, with a noble, the ‘loyalty’ will lower from anywhere between 20% - 35%. When a village reaches 0% loyalty, the attacker takes control of your village, and you no longer have access to it. This is known as "nobling" someone, any troops that you have outside the village when the loyalty falls below 0 will simply disappear.
MA: Mounted Archer
Merge: When two tribes agree to join forces and create a single tribe. The community response to merges can vary depending on the stage of the game, the reasons for the merge, and the tribes that are merging.
Moderator: A player who has volunteered to help police and "moderate" the game worlds. Typically speaking their dedication and service to the running of the game is undervalued by many players. They do a great job! (… -slips $50 from Godsman into pocket-. Pleasure doin’ business with you.)
Monitor: An early-game technique in which players keep track of the points of surrounding players to gauge their building progress.
Morale: A protection mechanism for smaller players. Players more than 3 times bigger than their target get a handicap that reduces the strength of their attacking troops depending on the relative difference of the size between attacker and defender by up to 30%. Some worlds have time based morale, which adds a deduction of troop strength for attacking players that are new to the world.
Morale sacrifice: Allowing an enemy to noble a village before attacking him (this village may or may not be one of yours), thus getting a better morale when attacking and clearing him. Afterwards you may take both his old village(s) and his new one.
MS: Millisecond.
Multi accounting: A practice typically employed by newer players, where they create multiple accounts for the one world. Usually recognised by being labelled in such a creative fashion as: spartanwarrior1, spartanwarrior2, spartanwarrior3. Against the rules, and ill-advised.
NAP: Non-aggression pact. Made between tribes to signify a state of peace between each other. This generally lasts until one tribe decides they want the villages of the other, which is most often followed by the betrayed tribe posting in outrage on the PF’s.
Newb: A new player that shows promise.
N00b: A player that does not show promise. Can be either new or old.
Nobling: The in-game act of taking over someone else’s village. See “Loyalty (village)” for more information.
Nuke: A massive force of troops, larger than your average ‘100 axes, 30 LC’ attack combo. A nuke is the full space of a level 30 farm used to make offence troops. Used with the sole intention of obliterating an opponent’s army. Informing enemy players you have built up several defence nukes is a good way to provide cheap lolz.
O / Off / Offence: Axes, light cavalry, heavy cavalry, rams and catapults comprise what is known as a player’s ‘offence force’. These are the units you attack other players villages with.
ODA: Opponents Defeated as Attacker. Refers to a player’s ODA ranking, which gives an indication of how many enemy troops a player has destroyed by sending attacks at others.
ODD: Opponents Defeated as Defender. Refers to a player’s ODD ranking, which gives an indication of how many enemy troops a player has destroyed by defending against attacks others have sent.
Offence-defence matching: Automated programs that match increasing ODA and ODD (can also include the delay of ODA, when all troops died) to show who has attacked whom.
OP:Original post / Original poster - depending on context.
OT: Off Topic / On Topic - depending on context.
PA: Personal Ally. Typically a good friend up until the moment one PA nobles another.
PA (premium account/points): ‘Premium’ is the shorthand reference to a paid account. A premium account comes with additional bonuses, beyond that of the ordinary, unpaid account.
Packages: The system of creating noblemen preferred by many "old school" players. Simply put the cost of a noblemen is "X" number of packages. "X" is determined by the following formula :
X = current number of villages + number of existing noblemen + number of noblement currently in training
Under a package system, a nobleman which dies on offence can be retrained at the source village for a single package. However when a nobleman that gets killed on defence or is lost when a village is over nobled, the full number of packets needs to be paid to get it back. This makes defence far more strategic.
Pally: Lazy term for paladin.
PFs: Public Forums.
PNP: Politics and Propaganda.
Point Disguise: Building/demolishing hiding place levels to make it look like you have been building something else - counter-strategy to monitoring. Also has strategic value in church worlds - can be used to hide the points increase accompanying the construction of a church.
Point Whore: A player who enjoys collecting points, rather than troops. They don’t last long.
Post: Anything one writes in the forums, once posted for all to read, is a post.
Premade: A tribe that is made prior to a world opening, typically with players that have some idea of one-another’s skills and strengths. Often themed.
Pushing (legal): When a tribe sends a rim-side, or newly restarted, player resource deliveries to boost his rate of growth and dominate his area.
Push Accounts (illegal): When a player makes multiple accounts to send troop support or resources to his original account to try and gain an unfair advantage.
Quarantine: Deleted mails are shown as read, so you need to store unread mails in order to appear offline. These mails are ‘quarantined’.
QFT: Quoted for truth.
Quick Bar: This is a tool bar only available on premium accounts. It is the bar below the main options, which allows you to shortcut to a particular building. The quick bar can be edited as you want and used to add legal scripts to help play more easily.
Ranking: Determined by the number of points a player has in any given area. Each player has an overall point ranking, a K player ranking, an ODA ranking, an ODD ranking, and a combined ODD/ODA ranking. Opinions differ wildly on which ranking is the best to rise to the top in, and at what stages of the game it’s most impressive to be highly ranked in a given area.
Rax: Lazy term for Barracks.
Recruitment (as a summary of barrack, stable and workshop) building
Refugee: A player that is under attack, and looking for a tribe to join, in order to get protection from them. The general rule is to dismiss players if they’re found to be refugees, and leave them to the attacker.
Report Deleting: Reports and mails not stored in self created folders or the archive are deleted, and the resend link expires too.
Res’s: Resources. I.e. wood, clay, iron.
Restart: When a player chooses to give up his current location, and start over. Typically done for one of two reasons. One - after joining a world, and surveying the map, a player may restart if dissatisfied with his location. Two - when getting pwned, a player may restart rather than spend any more time on a lost cause. Often when players are getting thrashed in a war, they will restart just before being nobled, so as to ruin the conquering tribe’s statistics. Restarting is only possible when in possession of a single village.
Restart mail: Aka hilarious. Mail sent out by Player A to everyone in his 7*7, or 9*9, or etc., to try and convince players it would be in their better interests to restart before they get pwned by his spear army.
Restarting in tribe territory: After being nobled, a player may be given the option of restarting in the middle of their current tribe (world specific).
Re-take: Presuming one’s village is going to be nobled, this involves timing an offence with a noble to hit after the last enemy noble, thus killing the enemy nuke that stays in the village, and re-claiming the village.
Retiring: The classier version of quitting.
(The) Rim: The outer K’s on the map. The rim is always expanding.
Rim tribe: Any tribe that forms on the rim.
Rimming: The act of nobling all of a player’s villages, and sending him to the rim of the world. A term that is slowly becoming obsolete as players in current/future worlds will be able to restart within their tribe territory when nobled.
RL: Real Life. If you play TW to any great degree, RL will become a distant memory. Something spoken about in a detached, clinical way, with no real understanding of what it actually involves anymore.
RL Excuse: An excuse given about RL, in order to leave the game, traditionally given just after one is pwned by another player. Excuses may include, but are not limited to: I don’t have time for this right now, a long-lost relative has just reappeared in the Bahamas with a small fortune, the dog ate the internet, and I got an upgrade to web 2.0 and apparently TW isn't compatible.
Rollback: This is when a world gets set back to an earlier point in time. Typically when the last backup occurred.
Rush / Rushing: The process by which a player focuses on achieving a set goal, to the (relative) neglect of all else. LC rushing, HQ rushing, and noble rushing are the usual suspects.
Scripts: Scripts are java based codes that help you make your gameplay easier
Service request: Service requests can be lodged in-game, through Settings à Service Request. Through this, players can ask for help on matters such as bugs, in-game problems, premium accounts, etc. Before sending in a service request, it is advisable to read through the q&a’s already listed, to see if your question is already answered.
Shared Forums: Used when two or more tribes create a section in their in-tribe forums where members from multiple tribes can communicate.
Sims / Sim City: Derogatory term, used in connection with players who are more interested in building up their villages than getting involved with the war aspect of TW. Often noted for only nobling low-point villages or barbarian/bonus villages, and in turn needing to build them up from scratch.
Sleep: A foreign concept to any long-term TW player. If you’re new and reading this, please contact Agent Incognito immediately with an updated definition.
Sniping 1: To time support / recall defence in such a manner as to split an attackers noble train and thus prevent him from conquering your village in one stroke. This is a favoured defence tactic by experienced players when defence needs to be conserved.
Sniping 2: To noble a village that another player cleared before he/she can noble it. This is considered a low trick.
Solo player: A player who chooses to play alone, without joining a tribe. Usually a technique adopted at the start of the world, whilst tribes are formed, disbanded, merged, destroyed, etc. This allows a player to establish their presence in their own territory without worrying about tribe mates, as well as giving the opportunity to observe which tribe(s) might be worth approaching for an invite.
Spam (PFs): Irrelevant rubbish that completely drags a thread/conversation off topic.
Spam (in-tribe): A section in the tribe forums where people may talk about whatever comes to mind, play games, etc. Aka “If that counting game keeps getting put into forums of tribes I join, I will have to noble my entire tribe just to shut them up.”
Spear wars: Typically used in a scornful manner, when referring to tribes/players that declare ‘war’, or fight one-another, so early on that the only troops anyone is likely to have are spears, and possibly a token sword or two.
Spiking: Used in the early stages of the game, this technique involves players sending a limited number of swords (ideally) and/or their paladin to support grey villages. This causes other players in the area to lose their troops when they attempt to farm the village. A questionable technique with as many pros as cons.
Split second: The ms shown in the detailed attack screen.
Spread Out: Used in reference to the locations of tribe members. I.e “That tribe is so spread out they’ll never be able to coordinate effectively.”
Spy: A player who joins a tribe solely to feed information to another tribe. Used most often in war times. As a general rule, it’s best not to leave one’s public forum signature as advertising one’s original tribe, when spying.
ST: Server time.
STFU: Shut the f*** up. May or may not get you an infraction or warning depending on the moderator in question, if used in the public forums.
STW: Speed Tribal Wars.
Stack: A technique that involves the members of a tribe all sending support to a particular player, thus ensuring he is ‘stacked’ against an incoming attack. Also used as pre-war preparation, for players on the front line.
Stats: Lazy term for statistics.
Suicide Troops: A technique that involves sending all of one’s troops at an enemy target that will quite likely wipe the attack out. Suiciding troops is commonly done for one of two reasons. One: a player is quitting/restarting, and chooses to suicide their troops on an enemy target first. Two: a player may choose to suicide his own troops ahead of a tribe mate’s nobling attacks on a common enemy, ensuring successful nobling.
Support: Any defence troops player A sends to player B to help against an incoming attack are then known as ‘support’. Very important one doesn’t confuse the ‘attack’ and ‘support’ buttons when sending support.
Target blocking: NAPing with a tribe and then taking all good targets in a specific area, in order to create a wall, which can only be crossed with long range noblings, thereby keeping them out of "your" territory.
TBH: To be honest.
Teaching Tribe: Few and far between, a true teaching tribe is essentially a tribe established by experienced players, with the intention of bringing newer players in and teaching them the ropes of TW. Not to be confused with ‘academy tribes’.
Tech (technology) / Research: Particular to certain world settings, in which troops can be upgraded to stronger levels. Each upgrade is referred to as a ‘tech’ or ‘research’ upgrade.
Thread: A thread is created within a forum. When a player makes an initial post, they start a ‘thread’. Anyone who responds to this post, contributes to the thread.
Ticket: A ticket is a question or request to In Game Staff. It can be a question on game play, a report of breach of rules or an appeal for an account ban.
Time in: In-game technique in which attacks are sent to ‘time in’ with other attacks already in progress.
Train: A series of attacks sent in quick succession, most usually including nobles, (referred to as ‘noble trains’).
Tribe hopping: The act of switching excessively from one tribe to another. Tribe hoppers tend to get themselves a bad reputation, as the better tribes don’t have an interest in bringing in a player who’s just as likely to leave a week later. Tribe hoppers often switch tribes to avoid war.
Trip wire: A system by which players in a tribe send troops as support to one-another, in order to be alerted should a tribe mate be attacked. As a rough guide, 10 scouts are advisable for this purpose.
Troll: Used to refer to players who spend their time posting irrelevant, controversial, or simply off-topic posts in the forums. Usually in an attempt to incite argument and flaming.
Turtle: A player who builds masses of defence troops, but very limited/no offence force. (See Last Apparatus for a definitive guide to turtling. He’s got it perfected.)
“W”: Short for world. I.e. AI sadly quit w33 and w34.
Warning call: An internet site that monitors the world data and sends a warning call to your tribe mates if the points in one of your villages go down or if a nearby enemy village looses points or goes inactive - automated external messages are possible, but not allowed any more. Messages to an external forum or to your phone are still allowed.
White wall: Stacking a village with scouts so as to prevent attackers from getting info on the level of defence.
A Massive thanks to Agent Incognito!
Monday, September 28, 2009
What does it take to be a successfull Tribalwars player?
Being a successful Tribal wars player can be accomplished in many ways, some quite unique. But none the less they all fall into the same group. Whether you are just starting out, or have been around for some time, you have the ability to succeed in your goals. It will take many hours of farming, waking up at 2am to send countless farming runs and attacks. Depending on your position of course. But the only way to succeed in a world of Tribal wars is to attack and conquer. You cannot become #1 in a world in Points or ODA if you do not build Offense. But you can become #1 in ODD, if your goal is to become #1 in ODD for a specific amount of time, and you eventually get this goal then Congratulations! Even the title of the game gives away the secret to becoming #1. Tribal Wars, That means to be almost successful all the time, you need a Tribe, and you need war.
The deciding factors that make you a successful tribal wars player are Strategies, Tactics and the use of efficient time while being logged in. Throughout this blog, you will find most of the two deciding factors of game play, which are the Strategies and Tactics. It is up to you to use your time efficiently.
How to make a "Fake" Script, By Publisher
Fake scripts are scripts used by Premium users to mass fake a fellow TW player.
What this fake Script does is when you put it in your quick bar and go to the rally point, then click it, it will randomly add in the Co-ords of the villages you listed in the script. And also your selected unit you would wish to fake the player's village with.
The village you want to fake should be in this section of the script:
javascript:coords='687|695%20675|475%20';var%20doc=document;if(window.frames.length>0)doc=window.main.document;url=document.URL;if(url.indexOf('screen=place')==-1)alert('This%20script%20needs%20to%20be%20run%20from%20the%20rally%20point');coords=coords.split("%20");index=Math.round(Math.random()*(coords.length-1));coords=coords[index];coords=coords.split("|");doc.forms[0].x.value=coords[0];doc.forms[0].y.value=coords[1];insertUnit(doc.forms[0].ram,%201);end();
As you can see in this example I am only faking two villages there because only two villages listed in the script. I am faking these two villages with Rams.
If you wanted to Fake the player with Cats or something else, insertUnit(doc.forms[0].ram,%201);end(); <-- You would remove the word "ram" and add catapult in its place on the script. Where does this script belong?
Go to Settings --> Edit Quickbar --> Click "add new link" and add the finished script in the Target-URL. Also scroll down to know how to make this script as well.
Notes:
This script is very useful when attacking a player with 30+ villages. You also need premium to work this script.
If you want to know how to make a fake script please look down:
Ok first of all you need the enemy’s village co-ords.
Example
oJvCos village 687|695 9.675
You only need the 687|695 bit, not the points or the name.
once you have done that you need to get the co-ords and shove a %20 on the back end of it.
Just like this
687|695%20
Then once you do that add a few more village co-ords in
example 687|695%20675|475%20 Yadda yadda until you get how many villages you want to fake.
The it should end up like this:
Spam this player:
javascript:coords='687|695%20675|475%20';var%20doc=document;if(window.frames.length>0)doc=window.main.document;url=document.URL;if(url.indexOf('screen=place')==-1)alert('This%20script%20needs%20to%20be%20run%20from%20the%20rally%20point');coords=coords.split("%20");index=Math.round(Math.random()*(coords.length-1));coords=coords[index];coords=coords.split("|");doc.forms[0].x.value=coords[0];doc.forms[0].y.value=coords[1];insertUnit(doc.forms[0].ram,%201);end();
That should do the trick.
Clean fakescript:
javascript:coords='enter co-ords here.';var%20doc=document;if(window.frames.length>0)doc=window.main.document;url=document.URL;if(url.indexOf('screen=place')==-1)alert('This%20script%20needs%20to%20be%20run%20from%20the%20rally%20point');coords=coords.split("%20");index=Math.round(Math.random()*(coords.length-1));coords=coords[index];coords=coords.split("|");doc.forms[0].x.value=coords[0];doc.forms[0].y.value=coords[1];insertUnit(doc.forms[0].ram,%201);end();
REFERENCE:
http://forum.tribalwars.net/showthread.php?t=86748
Recruiting Post Template
Hello Tw Players!
Here is a Template for recruiting members to your tribe. Just change the bolded content in the "[]" brackets, and dont forget to take the "[]"s out aswell.
I am here on behalf of my tribe, [Tribe name]. We offer strong leadership and stronger bonds between recruits. This is reinforced by co-operation between supporting and attacking.
[Tribe name] is formed by some of the best players [Describe previous TW experience, for example"formed by some of the best players who have dominated their area in previous worlds.]. Who are all very experienced and able to go to the top. [Tribe name] recruitment is extremely limited right now but you have been selected to join. If you are interested in joining and can show that you are experienced, just mail back and state your experienced, backed up with twstats.
We encourage activity of our members to ensure efficiency and to keep everyone working as well as they can. We enforce this by dismissing those who are inactive for over 7 days without prior notice.
To encourage our members to work hard, we have established tribe goals which we shall work towards. These goals are:
1) To reach the top tribe in [What world you are playing]
2) To get our members below the 200 ODA and Point mark in as little time as possible.
We have an active community and in the process of organising regular events to encourage further cooperation.
Recruits are given the opportunity to be promoted every week. Those recruits who we believe have done particularly well can increase in rank. This change in rank allows more voting power in certain discussions and greater control over the tribe to further assist leadership.
If you would be interested in joining or you require further information, contact me.
Thanks,
[Name of Sender]
How to Handel Attacks, By Dazander
In war, it's not uncommon to wake up one morning to find that you've got an insane number of incoming attacks. If this happens Don't Panic! The worst thing you could do is start sending your troops around in a flurry without taking the time to evaluate the incoming attacks.
First thing that you should note, is that most attacks during a war are fake attacks, consisting of 1 unit. The whole idea behind fake attacks is to overload the defender with information, and try and get them to give up mentally, or try and disguise where the 'real' attack(s) are going. Remember, these 'real' attack(s) may not even be heading towards you. The real attack(s) may be headed towards a tribe member, in which case the fakes are sent at you to make sure you don't send support to any other tribe members.
The best thing to do right away as soon as an attack is headed your way is to try and identify what kind of troops are being sent in the attack. If you've got premium, tribalwars just recently added a nifty little 'troop marching time' calculator to the attack screen. If you don't have premium, you'll have to calculate the attack time using a tool like the 'attack planner' at www.twstats.com. At any rate, you can often identify what is the slowest troop in an incoming attack, especially if you are online when the attack is sent, or the attack is sent from a long distance. For premium accounts, you can actually rename your attacks to help keep track of them.
Next thing to do is try and identify which villages (if any) are under the highest threat of being attacked with a real attack. The biggest threat is obviously a noble train, which is usually one or more nukes in front of 4 nobles, probably followed by support. Nobles are usually pretty easy to spot because they take so bloody long to travel... Also, when people send noble trains, most of the time they pay more close attention to timing, so the closer together these nukes/nobles/support are, the more likely it's a real attack. Fake noble trains usually are four or five ram attacks in a row, followed by some sloppy support. If all of the nobles/nukes/support come from the same village, that's a dead giveaway that it's a fake noble train, why would a player support from the same village when they know the last noble would support the village with all of it's troops? Players often send this sloppy fake noble train because they don't have the time to properly co-ordinate attacks from multiple villages.
Real noble trains often (but not always) use multiple villages in the attack, so be wary when the nuke/noble/support is all spaces a few seconds apart, and from different villages. It's rare that someone will spend that much time co-ordinating a fake noble attack.
Some good defensive tactics for when you spot a noble train heading your way:
- If the noble train obviously doesn't have more than one nuke, run your troop counts in the simulator, if you can withstand it, especially without taking too many losses, you can just stand up to it heads up.
- If you're concerned about losing too many troops, you can 'split' a noble train by sending your troops out on a farming mission to a nearby city. There are two ways to time this, you can either calculate the 'there and back' time for the farming mission, ensuring that your forces will return in the middle of your opponent's noble train, or you can send them out right before, and then cancel the attack. Personally, I prefer the timed 'there and back' approach, because if you mess it up, you can try it again with a different village, or you can always back up to the 'cancelled attack approach' if you have no other option.
- Another variation of the above is to send support to the village being attacked, allowing it to arrive before the final noble hits.
- If you're pretty sure there's no way in hell you can either split the troops or kill off the incoming nobles, there's a sneaky tactic that will allow you to really hurt the enemy. The biggest downfall of this tactic is that when your village is nobled, all of your troops build in that village dissappear. Anyhow, before the attacks hit, if you can lower the loyalty of the village, there's a good chance that the incoming noble train will noble the village multiple times, and they'll lose all of the packets it took to build the noble, really hurting the enemy in the resource department. To cap it all off, you can send in a nuke and final noble to hit the village in between the last noble and the incoming support (if any) to take the village back.
- A spin off of the last strategy is that you can also simply just noble the village back by timing a nuke/noble to hit after their last noble, but before their support.
As for single attacks, sometimes they could be catapult attacks, or random nukes being send out. In this case, it's best to weight your options.
- If you have a ton of support, best move is to just take the brunt of the attack, and hopefully wipe out the nuke/cat attack. I'd only suggest this if you're confident that you're doing more damage to your opponent than they're doing to you.
- If you're worried about incurring to many losses, you can always 'dodge' the attack, worst case scenario, you may lose some resources and your wall if it's a nuke (as for resources, you can always send them to another village with your merchants, or try and put them into troop queues. Just as a side note, resources up on the market CAN get plundered even though they aren't in your warehouse). Dodging an attack is basically just clearing your village of troops for when the attack hits. If the attack is a catapult attack, they're probably going after your smithy or academy, so worst case scenario, you'll have to build up some damaged buildings. It's all a cost/benefit situation... Weight your potential costs that will be incurred from an attack, against the benefits involved in keeping all of your troops intact.
I'm sure I'm forgetting something in this little guide, and I have no doubt that there will be dozens of posts with things to add :)
I guess I'll leave with a little extra tidbit... Wars are all about resource and time management. Whomever have access to more resources and can use them quickly and efficiently will win the war.
A successful attack or defense is one that has cost the enemy more resources (and time) than they cost you.
The more defence you have in 1 village the less you lose. sounds simple but what it means is spreading yourself too thinly increases the chances of your losing lots of villages! If you can make sure you have minimum 2 full villages of support if you are going to 'tough out' what looks like a full on attack. Better to defend a few villages well, than all of them poorly.
If there's no nobles incoming, and you dont have lots of troops, just dodge the nukes. A wall can be built back quicker and cheaper than troops. Especially if they have an attack time of multiple days. We'd rather kill the enemy troops, but if they take days to get to you and days to return, that means they are tied up, and cant be reused.
Targeting 1 noble in a train. You time your troops to return as the clearing attacks are finished but before the last noble hits. You dont have to kill the last noble. Depending on the time gaps you can target the 2nd or the 3rd noble in the train with good timing, and get back out again. If your lucky the middle attacks can be weaker then the 1st and last nobles.
Lowering morale. If you expect to lose a village, this is a devastating blow to the enemy. If you can lower morale so that the 1st or 2nd noble gets the village, attacker nobles themselves 2 or 3 times. Each noble then costs the full price to replace, e.g. 30 - 50 noble coins each!!! Added to any troop loss this is a huge blow!
If you can combine this with a swift counter attack to try to retake the village, it can actually hurt the enemy more than if you defended your village! Finally if you expect to lose your village and cant counter, perhaps your tribe mates can noble it back for you. Keep it from the enemy's hands.
How to Handel Attacks, By Dazander.