Sunday, June 22, 2008

Beginners Guide to Game with 10 TACTICS COMMANDMENTS!

This section will discuss the basic strategies of the game and what new players should know to help get them started. This guide is mainly for the multiplayer aspect of the game, since I only use the single player to test out a new setup. Those of you looking for a good guide to the single player aspect can find it here on COCAK posted by Reading through this guide will catch you up to speed on the types of things the experienced players utilize as second nature and will decrease your learning curve in getting better.


SETUP ARMY:

Every new player should first start by entering 'Setup Your Army' screen and clearing out that default army. That army is extremely useless and if I accomplish one thing, I hope its to never see another player just blindly use it again.

"Okay so now I've cleared out the army and left with a blank slate, what army should I choose?"

At this point in the guide, we wont be discussing the various types of armies, so I suggest you have fun and play around with the setups and get used to seeing what the different pieces do.

"But Doctorrook, I need help in choosing!?!?!"
For those of you looking to jump right into it without testing the waters then without going into reasoning or details, let me suggest you start with an army that has a some combination of the following: 1 Fully Upgraded Mage, 3-5 knights, and 2-4 Archers. My advice on this setup will probably change depending on updates made by Gamebrew, but with knights currently powerful, its a good starting point. It's important you learn to use the Mage, so start early. Again we will have later discussions as to various different strategies, but for now lets go over game fundamentals before we get into that.

Additionally, as much as you want to create super upgraded players at the expense of having an army with only 3-6 pieces, please avoid this unless you really know what your doing. In my experience its best to fill out your army with the maximum allowed 8 pieces, giving you more attack power and strategy even if not a single piece except your mage has any upgrades.


READY TO PLAY:

Personally I suggest you test out your army in the single player mode, but its usually more fun to get into the multiplayer and really test your abilities win or lose.


WHAT I NEED TO KNOW:

Instead of going into opening techniques and those sort of things, let me go over some key game elements that you need to always remember, which will help you develop your own strategies. Remember these are strategies, the better you get, the more you will learn to use some of these techniques to fool your opponent or lure them out, but for now just obey blindly as Tactics Commandments!

10 Commandments of Tactics 100 Live

1) Never expose your BACK!

Unless its completely necessary, never expose your back, especially to a mage. A hit to an exposed back allows up to 50% increased damaged by the attacker and if delivered by a mage, it will Chain itself right down the line.







2
) Become a VETERAN!

Everytime one of your pieces gets a kill, they get a badge next to their picture indicating they are a veteran that does 15% more damage with each kill. So two kills will be 30% more damage, and so on. I've seen Mages get every kill and do insane amounts of damage by the end of the game. Conversely, remember to kill the opposing teams veterans before the normal player as a good strategy. The concept of creating Veteran's is what separates the skill level of players.




3) Remove the knights SHIELD!


When attacking the knight, if you hit him head on, he will block with a shield. So try not to attack a knight head on with your mage, it will just result in a decreased hit % for your chain attack. The shield can only be used once a round, so remove the opposing knights shield by hitting him with another player (archer/knight), or hitting him on the side or back where he cant use his shield. A beautiful thing about the mage's chain attack is that every knight hit in the chain has their shield removed to be demolished by another one of your pieces.

4) Forget the HILL!

Many new players are lulled into a sense of safety brought on by the increased attack percentage and increased defense percentage of standing on the hill. First, I never want to see anyone putting a knight on the hill since its pointless, they are close range fighters, keep em off unless its the end of the game. Second, you lose attack percentage jumping onto the hill and jumping off the hill and you can only move 1 spot to get off so your range of movement is limited. A smart player will position themselves outside of your attack range on the hill, forcing you to get off to be effective. SO.... Avoid the Hill! Unless your low on hitpoints.

This rule does not count for Archers or Clerics, I was mainly discussing Mage's and Knights. Archers can do some distance damage on the hill and your healer can be protected by the hill while providing support for your offense. But let me restate, in the setup army screen, dont start your Mage on the hill please.

5) Kill the CLERIC!

The Cleric aka "Healer" can be an integral piece. She used to be seen a lot more during the era of Archer-Mage-Healer armies, but is important nonetheless. In the setup screen, you can see how expensive it is to add a Healer to your army. Under the right person these women can keep that annoying Mage at full health and beating your unhealed army down. I like to focus on taking them out as early as possible.

6) Avoid the POINT BLANK!

Again, this is mainly for the new people, advanced players know how to approach this properly. Until you are at that level, try to attack the oppising mage from a distance with your mage or archer, or just one knight thats separated from the rest of your pieces. When the mage attacks a player right next to it, he gets an increased attack bonus that will chain to the rest of your peices. I will get into more details about avoided Chain attacks in a later guide, for now understand that strategies exist and its best to learn them. This holds especially true if the opposing mage is on the hill (since they didn't read #4 above and either did you) and your attacking them by standing next to them. Now they get increased hill damage, increased standing next to opponent damage, and god forbid you exposed your back to them as well causing you to possibly lose your entire army in a single wave of the wooden staff.


NOTE FROM DOCTORROOK:
I know you people might be thinking I focus to much on Mage discussions, but thats only because whether or not you like to use the Mage (since you will definitely be facing off against the mage in most games), it is the most important part of the game unless the creators make some fundamental changes to its power. Which is why it is important to understand the range of his attacks and how the chain attacks distribute themselves.


7) Learn to GANG UP!

Many new players lose out because they keep hitting every player on the opposing team doing a nice distribution of damage points. Instead learn to focus on individuals in the opposing team and kill them off so they have one less players to attack you with on the next round. Usually knights are HP monsters so focus on killing off that annoying archer or cleric. Remember not to put your guys in compromising positions just to accomplish this.






8) Never give them a LAST DITCH!

It's tough to learn exactly what hit will cause a LAST DITCH over a kill, you will learn over time. The "Last Ditch" is when you leave a player you just attacked with under 5% Health (Correct me if I'm wrong on exact percentage) that shows up in a red font. Do whatever it takes, if you have attackers left, to kill this guy, because if he is still alive when its his turn this piece will do 75% more damage for one turn (if he is alive more then 1 turn the damage will return to normal). This is especially painful if an Ubermage gets Last Ditch type powers that can turn the tide of the game and wipe out your entire army (Experienced players refer to this as the "D'oh" moment.

9) Defend the WEAK!

I laugh so hard when I see players sending the cleric into the front battle lines. I will discuss techniques later, but it's important to learn how to keep the cleric away from damage in your rear guard away from the opponents mage's chain attack, archers arrows, etc. I can't tell you how to do this, its something you need to learn. The same goes for the mage. Some advice I can give you is the following:

a) The more pieces you have between you and an opposing archer (including the enemies own knights) - the less damage the attack will do.
b) The more spaces the opponent has to move his pieces to reach a position that he can be in range to attack you, the less damage they will do.
c) Remember Mage's can attack over pieces without losing attack percentages, but also remember they are limited to how far they can attack and at the most they can only move two spaces. Mage offensive/defensive strategies will be an entire guide section in itself.

10) Don't QUIT!

This may sound like a rant agains't quitters, but its more of a motivation to those who think they are losing. I've seen players quit with with a full team of pieces and I only had 3 players left, but I had killed their mage. As much as I tout the powers of the mage and his importance, its also a major flaw in people's perception of the game. I've had my mage killed off early in the game only to still dominate the other team through pure strategy and staggering my players to avoid chain attacks. Play the game out, learn to use your pieces without thinking all is lost. I remember crushing a player early on, or so I thought, only to have the game come down to my archer vs his archer and he won. Moral of the story: Play the game to the end and learn the movements and strategies. Players get confident when they get a mage kill. Use that against them since many opponents then become reckless. The same goes for having one's cleric killed early on, this doesn't necessarily spell the end of your game.


SUM IT ALL UP:

These commandments are hardly written in stone and the beauty of the game is that the creators change the gameplay based upon community feedback. I might just be writing a blog sometime next month about a new Ubercleric with attack powers, who knows. For now, use this knowledge to get yourself past the initial mistakes of new players and hopefully it provided some useful info to you other players.

1 comment:

Ceylan said...

It helped so much. Thank you!