Capture Strategies

So tough guy, you want to capture your first city, huh?  Not sure what to attack but have blood rage to the max and need to shed blood?  Here are some easy simple attack strategies that have worked well.  Everyone has their own way of doing things, this has worked for me and is common practice within the community.  The deconstruction on the "How To" has been explained in the blog Capturing Cities - this is just an explanation on the strategies of capping live targets.

Train

• You will hear the term "Train" or "Scholar train" all over this blog, and quite often in your guild forums.  This is the practice of sending 5 consecutive attacks all at once to land within a few minutes of each other to capture a city with the 5th land.  You can achieve this by teaming up with a buddy or two from your guild or home grow the 5 scholars within your kingdom.  You can grow them all in one city or launch from several strategically placed cities to land all at approximately the same time.  When you do this, you have your clearing crews land before hand, then your train.  Most send 5 scholars, one scholar per wave as it is pointless to send more then one scholar per wave as it does no more loyalty damage then one scholar alone.  This is the grand standard on capping cities within the land of Valor, no matter what world you play, this tactic is the old reliable.  You may want to send more then 5 scholars in case your victim gets smart and tries to Snipe you.  Sniping your scholar is to kill one wave so your just short of capping his city.  The victim usually seeks mad support and truces up so you can't send another wave to cap for an additional 24 hours.  If you have enough escort and a 6th wave, you shouldn't need to worry about snipers.
• Escorted Train -- Another way to avoid the Snipe is to time clearing crews to land just before each scholar in your train.  This is especially useful if your scholar trains are grown in a single city.  It is better to stagger your train with several cities, but that is not always feasible.  If you have a large enough kingdom, your clearing waves can be calculated easily, however if you are getting others in on it, make sure they are aware of how critical the strike time needs to be, and work out their math for them.  Maybe its because I'm a control freak, but I like to know that they know exactly when they need to launch.  The tactic of launching scholars then waiting to launch cc is a gamble with the introduction of Truce in the store.  This is one of the main reasons I've adopted fake into my strategy bag, if you fake them, they truce, you know when their truce wears off, they can NOT truce again for another 24 hours.  No matter the support they've gotten, nor troops they've built, you can take your time and trust in the knowledge that you have 24 glorious hours in which to take their city from them. 

Divide and Conquer

• This is where your guild chooses high risk targets of the enemy guild, posts the cities of the victim in the guild forum, then you each take one or two targets and either coordinate a land time - which will freeze the victims home grown defense troops, or just pick him apart one city at a time.  This tactic is the best for full guild participation and a good war planner will know how to choose targets.  Some take out mid range and bottom feeders first, this will force the larger players to scatter their defense troops (this is also a good fake out target area because mid rangers always post for support in guild - no matter what type of troop is coming their way), others choose the larger players first because it is more of a challenge. 

 Rally Take Down

• This method uses the much loved rally against your victim.  The idea behind it is to a) hit your waves within 30 seconds - this requires careful planning on your part, and much more math then I've ever been happy about using.  First wave hits massive cc PLUS Ballistas.  your victim will likely want to keep his city supported if he thinks his buildings or wall will be destroyed. Set your Balls to destroy the Rally Point - But why Luna? It only takes a minute to rebuild RP! Here's why kids, your second (and third, fourth or fifth) clearing crew lands seconds after your first, preventing your victim from dodging. Make sure you scout and do all the math to clear, plus whatever forces he can bring in just to be safe.  You can't ever send too much.  Have your scholar train hit seconds after your clearing crew.  5 scholars, 6 if you are uncertain about support, and boom, city is gone before rally point is finished rebuilding.  This is a fan fave and is called many different names, I prefer the ball buster - but I'm crude like that ;)

Fake Out Take Out

• This strategy is good when you have minimal guild participation and you are going against a larger player.  For this strategy to work, your fakes must be in abundance.  With the introduction of incoming troop view which is purchasable in the store, your victim only needs to spy one or two waves to figure faux from real so plan ahead and use his gold spending ways against him.  Don't only fake cities you have no intention on taking, but also the city you ARE taking - make the fake scholar trains land after your real ones.  Group up your fakes to match, so they feel the same to your victim.  Stagger fake launches by a few seconds - this will assist in making them 'feel' real to your victim and will make it harder for him to guess what is what.  If you have no one else to help you, spend an extra day or so lulling him into a false sense of fakes R us - making them land throughout the day and night, he will get used to seeing incoming and slip into complacency. It will also tire him out.  Most people have day jobs, and will spend the first night or two staying up to view landing and carnage reports, or to dodge and counter. I'm not saying using the human need for sleep against your victim is fair, I'm saying its FUN. :)  Few things, as you fake, send scouts to monitor your victims behaviour.  Watch what he does, how he moves, how quickly support comes in, you can get a good idea where it is coming from by scouting often. You can also get a sense of his play schedule by doing this as well.  The more information you have, the better.  I can hear you now, but WHY Luna? Why put extra effort into the cap, why not just bombard him ceaselessly till he has no troops to spare then cap him at your leisure?  Because kiddo, its fun.  Its also harder to take down a larger player by yourself, or with minimal guild interaction - and in my experience brute force is only good if you have cooperation with your mates.

Scholar Bounce

• Not everyone has a scholar train from the get go, and sometimes bouncing your nerd off your victim is the only way to go.  For this, if you are going against a real person (not a barb or husk) you are going to want to plan carefully, it is strongly recommended you seek guild assistance, there is always someone who has an extra scholar and most are willing to help.  However if that is not the case, or you have no one near by, scout and send clearing waves in between bounces - as you are bouncing, scout in between - constantly bombard your target with incoming to keep him on his toes, and make sure you fortify your scholar accompaniment.  To bounce your scholar your target should be fairly close by, you do not want to use this method if you can at all avoid it on anything longer then a 1 to 2 hour walk one way.  Make sure you continually monitor your cap if your guild mates do not have extra scholars they may have clearing waves willing to send to your victim - have them do so often as it will keep your target's resources down, and you can save your troops for defending your scholar as he does his job.

The Double Tap

• We have all had an instance where you are hap hap happily capping a barbarian city, just to get your final report and see a train barreling down on your 6.  What to do?! If your defense cluster is close enough you can always defend heavy and kill off his train, or... and you're going to love this... or... Take a gander at his source cities, if you have the time of course you can always attack and cap his source cities, if you cap his source city before his scholar lands, when it finally does land on your new cap, it will be as if you capped it.  Yes that sounds complicated, but it's not - Break down:  Any troops that are out supporting, farming, attacking or otherwise are not dead at the time you capture a city instantly become apart of your army!  Yes that includes scholars.  When you 'inherit' scholars your scholarship goes into deficit, or a negative number (its like a school loan, you still have to pay for the scholarships for the inherited scholar) if said inherited scholar caps one of YOUR cities, your scholars v. scholarships even out because you gain back your scholar once your city gets capped.  This strategy is always fun, and causes your would be ganker to have a bad, bad day.

 

Battlefield Chaos

** Please note that due to the introduction of the purchasable "truce" within the Valor Store, Playmesh has removed Battlefield Chaos from the game play experience **

Chaos is a term that is commonly used in Valor.  It refers to a defense tactic that is used by players to prevent others from attacking a city that you currently own, prevents others from attacking a city you are currently conquering, and or to prevent a player from defending a newly conquered city by filling it with troops.

The game limits the amount of attacks and support any one city can send and receive - this prevents server clogs for Playmesh and provides an excellent tactic for us to use against our enemies. These queues are called "Commander Slots" and the numbers are as follows:

• You can have only have 40 INCOMING attacks to any one city 
• You can only send out 25 OUTGOING attacks from any once city
• You can only receive 15 INCOMING support (trip wires count) to any one city
• Note that if multiple support is sent from ONE city, once the support lands the game will combine the support into one support commander slot - so to make support chaos permanent send the 15 waves from multiple locations.
• Also Note that battlefield chaos usually takes up an abundance of TIME and it will limit your ability to FARM and ATTACK if the need arises, sending 10 waves from 4 cities will leave open commander slots for you to still function as a productive member of your guild.

To achieve BFC you will need to either not be in the same guild, or drop your guild, send chaos then rejoin.  Its smart for the leadership of your guild to create a designated Chaos Team who are very active and will be responsible for providing chaos to your sister guilds and or allies.  It is helpful for your sister guilds and allies to also have a point of contact to provide chaos for your guild as well.  The more efficient the communication, the more effective this tactic can be. To assist a friendly with chaos, you send one Ram, Sentry or Lancer to the city in need of chaos.  The longer the walk the better, so Rams are typically used.  The city you are Chaos'ing, will stay in chaos until your waves start to land. As soon as Commander Slots start to free up, others can fill those slots by sending in attacks so make sure you have someone dedicated to this task to keep your city in chaos for as long as you need to rebuild, get support or plan for defense.

Now it is speculated that Playmesh created this to prevent exhaustion on their servers, or some also say that its a 'glitch'. I like to refer to it as the poor man's "Truce" but better because you can send yourself support.  Whatever the case it works to your advantage and here's how you can make it work for you.

Battlefield Chaos
First example in how to make battlefield chaos (BFC) work to your advantage is to defend your city - if you have been bombarded and need time to get support from your guild, and rebuild your city - putting your city into chaos will effectively cease all incoming attacks and further damage to your city or to prevent your city from being capped when loyalty is dropped.

Second example is to put a target city you intend to capture into chaos as you are capping it.  This prevents others from sneaking in and taking it from you.  Its a little more work esp if you are bouncing scholars off the city or working with others to cap, but it is well worth it when you have finally capped to not have a surprise incoming sch attack from friend or foe to take it from you after you did all the work.  This is effective best when capping an inactive city or juicy barb far away - you are just leveling the playing field giving your slow ass scholars time to walk the great distance to a new location - good cities are hard to come by and go quick esp by ppl already in the neighbourhood.   This tactic is tested and effective and prevents a ton of work for your diplomacy leaders and as long as you have the legal claim on the city and cleared it, there should be no issues for your leadership to work out.  |It is also effective to put a city you are not quite prepared to clear into chaos to prevent property disputes later on, typically property disputes are settled as who cleared the troops and who has first scholar land.  Its kind of a douche move to tie up a cities commanders for days on end while you take the time to clear it, but w/e, their loss.

Lastly, Chaos is a common tactic used, and most ppl use chaos to defend newly capped cities.  If you want to recap your own city, but need time to re educate your scholar, send in a couple of waves to the city stolen from you just as it is capped - this will prevent your squatter from filling all the slots, you'll be able to monitor landing of the few waves you sent and will be able to fill them with your scholar waves as soon as they do land. Scouts work really well for this, if you send them from far enough away you can time it so that your scholar(s) will be done cooking and you are ready to roll by the time the waves start to land.  If your squatter isn't paying attention, he might not even notice that a few waves are from you, he may just think they are chaos set up from friends, and will get complacent and feel safe.  I love it when that happens, bcs when you finally do recap your city it'll wreck his day.  Good Times.

Support Chaos
An example of Support Chaos to work for you is this - If your city is getting capped, and there's no way you can save it - send yourself 15 waves of support.  Send 1 lancer in each wave, preferably from as far away as possible, giving yourself as much time to recap as possible.  How this works is once your city is capped, your squatter will want to fill your city with support to defend, if all 15 support slots are filled said squatter will be unable to defend and you will be able to recap easily.  Keep in mind that this will only work for support on route, once support lands, if your squatter is smart, he will just send it back to you and send support of his own.

Chaos smart.  Chaos Fair.
Good hunting my friends.

A Girls Guide To Faking It

Faking / Faux Attacks and Disguising attacks

During war, you don't always get a nice neighbor to aim at as your victim, they are usually hours walking distance from the heart of your kingdom. This gives your victim plenty of time to seek assistance from their guild mates. This especially happens when you just attack one city at a time.

The alternative is to pick a real target and send clearance and scholars. Then, you simultaneously send the same number of attacks to a few fake targets to land around the same time as your real attacks. If they look the same, the enemy has to split up their defenses and or support, thus weakening the true target.

The object is to make your fake attacks LOOK like real scholar attacks on their other cities and heres how you do it.

Send a single ram from 4-5 different cities, (just you or seek assistance with this from a guild mate or five :)
Then a string of five straight single rams after from one city (to simulate a scholar train) try to time it so your simulated clearing attacks land at the same time your real clearing crew attacks land. Same for your scholars. This takes time and planning figuring out how long you'll need to wait to send the fake scholar train so it'll appear to your victim like it's real.

Disguising your clearing crew;
A very effective defense strategy is dodging attacks, However your prey will be less likely to dodge if they think you're going to cause damage to their buildings or wall. If you have a decent cc of a good mix of infantry and calvary about 5 to 10k total, - this will effectively clear out or at least break them troop wise, add one ram to your cc. This will slow down your speed demon zerks and knights to make them appear like building busters keeping their troops in place like little virtual lambs for the slaughter.

Another handy tool in the magic bag of disguise is to spend a few days fake attacking their city - add a decent crew of scouts with your fake ram every few strikes. You'll be able to monitor his troop activity this way, how much support he gets, how quick he builds, how often he dodges, etc. Then once you've lulled him into getting used to seeing incoming fire, hide a cc in your fake attack wiping his defenses clear. Make sure you have time to do this last one, takes a while but is worth it for a choice city.

The only downfall to faking it is now we have the instant report. I always say if you can make your prey spend real money on fake money, and still cap their city, well then you're doing your job!!!

Good luck faking it kids!!!