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Hello, folks.
I doubt many will recognize me, so hi, I'm Red
I've been around for quite a while (W6, to be exact), though I've been mostly TW free for almost 2 years now. This summer I was tempted back for a brief visit, and along the way decided I might give writing my own guide a shot.
Don't worry, my guide will not be posted in Red
Organized in spoilers to lessen the "Wall of text"
Edit: Thank you very much for the feedback so far
I tried addressing some of the very valid points and corrections that have been made. Thankfully this is a very general guide, so it shouldn't require constant updating, but I'm more than open to feedback and criticism, as the discussions they spark tend to be more informative than the guides themselves.
I doubt many will recognize me, so hi, I'm Red
I've been around for quite a while (W6, to be exact), though I've been mostly TW free for almost 2 years now. This summer I was tempted back for a brief visit, and along the way decided I might give writing my own guide a shot.
Don't worry, my guide will not be posted in Red
Efficiency and Village Dynamics - By (R)ed
1. Background
2. Setting your goals and defining your path
3. Considerations
4. Farming
5. Queues and Buildings
6. General Tips
7. Wrap up
At the end of each section I’ll be adding a “****”, which is a sum up the main points, to emphasize them and to make it easier to read if you are short on time.
1. Background
2. Setting your goals and defining your path
3. Considerations
4. Farming
5. Queues and Buildings
6. General Tips
7. Wrap up
At the end of each section I’ll be adding a “****”, which is a sum up the main points, to emphasize them and to make it easier to read if you are short on time.
1. Background
**** This is a general guide about principles, not specifics. The goal of this guide is to give you a new perspective of this game, and understand how the village dynamics work, and a deeper understanding of proper efficiency needed to ideally run a village, and thus be able to be the decision maker on your own account.
2. Setting your goals and defining your path
**** Before you start, plan out ahead the way you want to play this game. Plan out a guidline which you want to follow, which will help you stay focused on your goals. Through your goals, you can work your way backwards to figure out a style of play that will fit the most, and thus you will be more focused and efficient.
3. Limitations
****There are two factors that limit each player’s growth. One being resources, the other being (ingame) time. If you find yourself waiting to get enough resources for something, then that means you are limited by the income you are getting.
If you are able to keep everything running easily and are getting a higher income than you are spending then you are limited by time. That will be explained in further detail later on.
Resources can be gained through two sources of incomes. A steady and consistent income from resource mines or the more active and demanding income of farming.
While mines provide a solid income, growth through farming is near exponential, as the resource you invest always goes towards increasing your source of income.
While resources are far more dominant and tangible, the more important resource in competitive play is time. Resource is a currency. Time can’t be bought back.
You should recognize your limitation, and always work towards getting over it (or in the case of time, balancing and shortening it).
While I won’t be going into detail or styles of play, not farming on a farming world is simply not efficient. No matter whether you play offensively or offensively. Your mines alone are not enough to run a fully efficient village, and your queues will be left idling for large periods of time. Having said that, you might not want to entirely neglect your mines, as they are productive and they do have their uses.
Urgency vs. Benefit vs. Cost
****Those three overlapping factors are the key to making your decisions. First, you make sure that there isn’t any pressing emergency that you have to meet (based on extreme examples of the benefit/cost). Once you’re in the open again, you should look for the most beneficial next step, and compare it to the cost. Ideally, your next steps should always be towards fixing your limitation.
To sum this all up, simply arrange a list of priorities, according to how urgent the need is, how much you will gain from it, and how much it will cost you.
I will be going into further specifics later on.
4. Farming
**** I already summed it up within the section, though I promised a separation for the major points.
As your main source of income, your troops should –never idle-. Letting them sit around in your village doing nothing is a waste of time that could be spent bringing in more resources, and thus limiting and slowing your growth. You can always farm more, or farm further, so if you want to run an efficient village, you have to always keep your troops on the move bringing in more.
5. Queues and Buildings
****Any time you let your queues idle, you are wasting time and potential. Your queues should be chosen according to your limitations. If your limitation is Resources, then your queues should be focused on increasing your production (troops, or resource mines, though troops potentially supply more through farming). If your limitation is time, then you should focus on increasing your production rate. While keeping the troop queues constantly running, increase your barracks and stables, until you are barely able to keep up with keeping all the queues running (running at full efficiency), and are getting close to being limited by resources.
6. General Tips
7. Wrap up
This is not a guide that is meant to run you through the development of your village, nor is it going to give you definite and ultimate rules. The intent of this guide is to hopefully provide you with a new insight as to the general management of a village, and thus your whole account. As the saying goes, light a man a fire and he’ll be warm for the night. Set a man on fire and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.. Instead of giving you crunched numbers or a set of building orders I’ll show you the guideliness and principles of a toolbox from which you will be able to choose for yourself, adapt by yourself, and improvise as much as you require.
When I started playing this game (W6) I read practically every guide available. I knew all the strategies and playing styles known at the time, and I thought I had a more than solid understanding of the game. I chatted and questioned many renowned and excellent players, and was in several top tiered tribes. However, despite my best efforts and despite everything that I knew, I never seemed to get very far. In hindsight I can tell you that it’s a matter of mindset. Sure, I knew 101 different ways to farm, but the extent of it is what caught me off guard. The efficiency is what separates between those who know the game and those who excel at it, whether it be in the village development, farming, tribal operations or world domination.
It took until W19, during which I had the privilege of co-playing Robj, a friend whom I consider one of the best players I’ve known, to make the leap from the theory to practice. To realize that I wasn’t thinking in the proper terms and benchmarks to run a top account.
I realize that there will be many who will view the contents of this guide as mere common sense (which I believe is the reason I haven’t seen any other guide on this subject before). So this is for the players who, like me, only need that slight push to connect the dots to a far more competitive style of play.
This guide is slightly more start up oriented, but following the principles here you should be able to build up on it for multi-village late game situations.
Throughout this guide I will be using many analogies, metaphors and examples to emphasize my points. Some of it may be repetitive, but please bear with me.
When I started playing this game (W6) I read practically every guide available. I knew all the strategies and playing styles known at the time, and I thought I had a more than solid understanding of the game. I chatted and questioned many renowned and excellent players, and was in several top tiered tribes. However, despite my best efforts and despite everything that I knew, I never seemed to get very far. In hindsight I can tell you that it’s a matter of mindset. Sure, I knew 101 different ways to farm, but the extent of it is what caught me off guard. The efficiency is what separates between those who know the game and those who excel at it, whether it be in the village development, farming, tribal operations or world domination.
It took until W19, during which I had the privilege of co-playing Robj, a friend whom I consider one of the best players I’ve known, to make the leap from the theory to practice. To realize that I wasn’t thinking in the proper terms and benchmarks to run a top account.
I realize that there will be many who will view the contents of this guide as mere common sense (which I believe is the reason I haven’t seen any other guide on this subject before). So this is for the players who, like me, only need that slight push to connect the dots to a far more competitive style of play.
This guide is slightly more start up oriented, but following the principles here you should be able to build up on it for multi-village late game situations.
Throughout this guide I will be using many analogies, metaphors and examples to emphasize my points. Some of it may be repetitive, but please bear with me.
**** This is a general guide about principles, not specifics. The goal of this guide is to give you a new perspective of this game, and understand how the village dynamics work, and a deeper understanding of proper efficiency needed to ideally run a village, and thus be able to be the decision maker on your own account.
2. Setting your goals and defining your path
Before you jump head first into the world, like almost anything in life, you have to take some time to set your priorities, your short term goals and your long term goals. For most people this is done on the subconscious level; however this is something you should do at least once. Bringing it out to the conscious line of thought allows you to have a compass to follow, and a tangible benchmark (a memory, even if you don’t write it down) to help you decide your next actions instead your choices being determined by your whim.
By doing so, you will be able to work your way backwards to determine the “how” and the steps along the way.
Even though this isn’t exactly the main subject being my guide, it’s the foundation on which is built.
I’ll do a quick demonstration, though you yourself might want to choose differently.
That was an example of one way you could do this. You don’t have to write it all out like I did, or set it up like that. You could go into more or less detail. It’s up to you. As long as you have a direction and overall game-plan ready for when you actually play, then you’re on the right track.
By doing so, you will be able to work your way backwards to determine the “how” and the steps along the way.
Even though this isn’t exactly the main subject being my guide, it’s the foundation on which is built.
I’ll do a quick demonstration, though you yourself might want to choose differently.
My Priorities:
1. Work as a tribe
2. Play competitively
My Priorities:
Short Term goals:
1. Reach nobling stage with as large of an army as possible.
2. Noble a large target
Long Term Goals:
1. Split into dense clusters. One inside the tribe lines, and one on each expected future war front.
Now that I have it all out on the table, I go over each one and work my way backwards to see how I can accomplish each one.
Priorities:
1. Keeping close contact with the tribe at all times. Working together to help each other. Meaning:
Short Term Goals:
1. I will have to be careful with what I attack.
Long Term Goals:
1. I should consider according to the situation the world is in whether I want my first villages to be close (for a more solid base) or whether I can afford to spread out, and thus start building outposts right from the start (decrease in farming overlap, and thus increase in income/overall growth). As I noble, my first targets could be over long distances (with the help of my tribe mates, or after I manage to get a full train).
1. Work as a tribe
2. Play competitively
My Priorities:
Short Term goals:
1. Reach nobling stage with as large of an army as possible.
2. Noble a large target
Long Term Goals:
1. Split into dense clusters. One inside the tribe lines, and one on each expected future war front.
Now that I have it all out on the table, I go over each one and work my way backwards to see how I can accomplish each one.
Priorities:
1. Keeping close contact with the tribe at all times. Working together to help each other. Meaning:
- I should build defense, so that I will be able to support tribe mates under attack and be able to hold my own (and not leech off my tribe) when I’m under attack.
- Get in touch with the nearby tribe mates to make sure we aren’t hurting each other with our growth, and let them know that I’m there to help if they need help.
- Nearing the nobling stage, we can plan it so that we all reach the academy at the same time, and help each other clearing and nobling (with co-trains and the likes), allowing us to noble better targets.
- I will need to consider what I plan to do, and play less on whim.
- I will have to preserve my army and troops so that I will have a bigger farming income, and so that I will be able to clear my actual targets with less casualties.
- I will have to keep tabs on my competition, and make sure I’m not under threat.
Short Term Goals:
1. I will have to be careful with what I attack.
- I won’t clear villages for no reason.
- I will preserve my troops.
- If/when I manage to keep my queues running, I will increase my stables/barracks to increase my production rate.
- I will have to consider, as I play, the competition, and when to act against them. (If they are to be my first targets)
- I will not play too aggressively, so that some villages may grow into potential targets.
- I can work with my tribemates to take down large targets quickly. (More targets to consider)
Long Term Goals:
1. I should consider according to the situation the world is in whether I want my first villages to be close (for a more solid base) or whether I can afford to spread out, and thus start building outposts right from the start (decrease in farming overlap, and thus increase in income/overall growth). As I noble, my first targets could be over long distances (with the help of my tribe mates, or after I manage to get a full train).
That was an example of one way you could do this. You don’t have to write it all out like I did, or set it up like that. You could go into more or less detail. It’s up to you. As long as you have a direction and overall game-plan ready for when you actually play, then you’re on the right track.
3. Limitations
Now, to get to the topic of this guide at last. I will start off by defining a very simple analogy.
You village, by all accounts, is an investment.
What does this mean?
It means that like all investments, the return you get from it is proportional to your how much you put into it, and largely dependent on how wisely you did so. You put in your own time, you have certain limitations, and you can tailor it towards whatever purpose you want.
Apart from your own personal restraints, there are two limiting mechanisms in this game.
Resources and Time.
At each stage of the game, you have to consider what that limiting factor is. If you find yourself waiting for enough resources to queue your HQ or troops then resources are your limiting factor. On the other hand, if you are able to keep your queues steady and without pause then time is your limiting factor. By recognizing what your limitations are, you can adjust yourself to be more efficient. A truly efficient account would be at a delicate balance over the time limitation. Hopefully by the end of the guide this will be more clear.
Let’s take a peek at the components of those two factors.
Resources
Resources are your currency in this game. They are the requirement for pretty much anything you decide to do or develop. There are two ways to obtain them.
1. Resource buildings (Timber camp, Clay pit and Iron mines. All 3 are labeled as “mines” for the sake of simplicity)
2. Farming
Resource mines are the simple, classic and stable sources of income. They provide X amount of resources per hour at a steady rate. As you raise their levels, the production increases, and so does their cost. It takes them a certain amount of time to cover their costs in resources and after that it is all profit.
Farming, on the other hand, is a more aggressive approach to gaining resources. It involves a higher risk and effort; however it is –substantially- more beneficial. The idea behind farming is the emphasis is placed on building up your army, and taking the resources from your neighbors. Instead of your village supplying you with a steady and consistent medium income , you are collecting small pinches of resources from many players. In terms of arbitrary numbers, instead of developing you mines to, say, 1000 production of each resource, you can farm, say, 50 villages producing 100 resources of each type per hour. Ideally, that means 15k resources total instead of 3k total. As a rough point of comparison, some top players reach several hundred farms before nobling starts. Farming is a topic worthy of a massive guide by itself, so I will not be going into it the details. I will address it in an upcoming section, and despite possibly being outdated, I will refer you to Lardingds’ guide linked in the Wrap Up.
As long as you are limited by resources, your goal should be to increase your income, whether it be by raising your resource levels or increasing your army. **Important to note**
Nonhaul worlds aside, farming is by far the superior resource gathering source. Though having said that, neglecting your mines is also not recommended, as their production is not always negligible, and adds up over time.
Time
If your limiting factor is time then your income is greater than your expenses, and you are able to get to keep your village running smoothly without stop. Congratulations, you’re almost there. Newer players might find this stage more difficult to reach, but it is possible, and it will become easier with experience.
Here is where efficiency comes into play. Now that you have a fully functioning machine in your hands, your goal is to make that time worth more. Now is when you start increasing your production, which means higher expenses, until you find yourself just a step away from being Resource limited again. See how that balance comes into play now? Those top accounts are the ones that reach this limitation faster, and streamline their villages best.
Now that the underlining limitations have been defined, we can go into the actual considerations you have to make while building your village.
You village, by all accounts, is an investment.
What does this mean?
It means that like all investments, the return you get from it is proportional to your how much you put into it, and largely dependent on how wisely you did so. You put in your own time, you have certain limitations, and you can tailor it towards whatever purpose you want.
Apart from your own personal restraints, there are two limiting mechanisms in this game.
Resources and Time.
At each stage of the game, you have to consider what that limiting factor is. If you find yourself waiting for enough resources to queue your HQ or troops then resources are your limiting factor. On the other hand, if you are able to keep your queues steady and without pause then time is your limiting factor. By recognizing what your limitations are, you can adjust yourself to be more efficient. A truly efficient account would be at a delicate balance over the time limitation. Hopefully by the end of the guide this will be more clear.
Let’s take a peek at the components of those two factors.
Resources
Resources are your currency in this game. They are the requirement for pretty much anything you decide to do or develop. There are two ways to obtain them.
1. Resource buildings (Timber camp, Clay pit and Iron mines. All 3 are labeled as “mines” for the sake of simplicity)
2. Farming
Resource mines are the simple, classic and stable sources of income. They provide X amount of resources per hour at a steady rate. As you raise their levels, the production increases, and so does their cost. It takes them a certain amount of time to cover their costs in resources and after that it is all profit.
Farming, on the other hand, is a more aggressive approach to gaining resources. It involves a higher risk and effort; however it is –substantially- more beneficial. The idea behind farming is the emphasis is placed on building up your army, and taking the resources from your neighbors. Instead of your village supplying you with a steady and consistent medium income , you are collecting small pinches of resources from many players. In terms of arbitrary numbers, instead of developing you mines to, say, 1000 production of each resource, you can farm, say, 50 villages producing 100 resources of each type per hour. Ideally, that means 15k resources total instead of 3k total. As a rough point of comparison, some top players reach several hundred farms before nobling starts. Farming is a topic worthy of a massive guide by itself, so I will not be going into it the details. I will address it in an upcoming section, and despite possibly being outdated, I will refer you to Lardingds’ guide linked in the Wrap Up.
As long as you are limited by resources, your goal should be to increase your income, whether it be by raising your resource levels or increasing your army. **Important to note**
Nonhaul worlds aside, farming is by far the superior resource gathering source. Though having said that, neglecting your mines is also not recommended, as their production is not always negligible, and adds up over time.
Time
If your limiting factor is time then your income is greater than your expenses, and you are able to get to keep your village running smoothly without stop. Congratulations, you’re almost there. Newer players might find this stage more difficult to reach, but it is possible, and it will become easier with experience.
Here is where efficiency comes into play. Now that you have a fully functioning machine in your hands, your goal is to make that time worth more. Now is when you start increasing your production, which means higher expenses, until you find yourself just a step away from being Resource limited again. See how that balance comes into play now? Those top accounts are the ones that reach this limitation faster, and streamline their villages best.
Now that the underlining limitations have been defined, we can go into the actual considerations you have to make while building your village.
If you are able to keep everything running easily and are getting a higher income than you are spending then you are limited by time. That will be explained in further detail later on.
Resources can be gained through two sources of incomes. A steady and consistent income from resource mines or the more active and demanding income of farming.
While mines provide a solid income, growth through farming is near exponential, as the resource you invest always goes towards increasing your source of income.
While resources are far more dominant and tangible, the more important resource in competitive play is time. Resource is a currency. Time can’t be bought back.
You should recognize your limitation, and always work towards getting over it (or in the case of time, balancing and shortening it).
While I won’t be going into detail or styles of play, not farming on a farming world is simply not efficient. No matter whether you play offensively or offensively. Your mines alone are not enough to run a fully efficient village, and your queues will be left idling for large periods of time. Having said that, you might not want to entirely neglect your mines, as they are productive and they do have their uses.
Urgency vs. Benefit vs. Cost
When planning ahead and making decisions you must keep in mind three main interweaving questions. What is the urgency of what you need to do? What is the benefit? And what is is going to cost you if you do or do not do it?
A) Immediately Urgent
This is the override function. Did you miss something critical? Sudden change of plans? This is Code Red level Priority. Forgot to upgrade your farm in time? Enemy took down your farm or rally point right before you had to send out an attack? (Inconsiderate schmuck). Might want to push back that warehouse upgrade you were planning on a notch or two until you can afford to get back to it (Yes, as painful as it is, it might even mean canceling a building that’s half way done). On the same line of thought, boosting up your wall is probably a smart idea, but you might want to reconsider doing so on the first day of a 5 day BP, when you are largely resource limited.
B) Benefit
This should be your main line of thought when planning ahead. Will you benefit more doing this before that or that before this? This is for your day-to-day development. \ As an investment, everything you do should be considered in terms of benefit, according to both short and long term development and goals.
The first thing you should consider is how it will influence your limiting factor? Will you benefit more from a higher income or from faster production? Is it the -most beneficial- thing to do to overcome your limiting factor? How –much- will you gain from it, and how does it compare to your alternatives? Are you still on track with your long term goals?
C) Cost
Here we find ourselves back at square one considering our limitations. After you have determined what would help you the most, you have to look back to see if you can afford it. Yeah, you might want to produce troops faster and have a larger army, but can you keep up with the expenses (not only of the building itself, but in the long term too)? Imagine you decide that you need more LC, so you upgrade your stables. It will now cost more (iron especially) to keep those stables running. If your resources are unbalanced and you have trouble keeping up and will end up going out of your way to balance it. You might find that upgrade counterproductive despite the -increase- in your farming force. Before running heads first into your “ideal” build, it’s important to keep track and take a look backwards and realistically consider your options. Sometimes adding the small preparation step of upgrading the iron mine or market for resource balancing can go a long way in a smoother build.
A) Immediately Urgent
This is the override function. Did you miss something critical? Sudden change of plans? This is Code Red level Priority. Forgot to upgrade your farm in time? Enemy took down your farm or rally point right before you had to send out an attack? (Inconsiderate schmuck). Might want to push back that warehouse upgrade you were planning on a notch or two until you can afford to get back to it (Yes, as painful as it is, it might even mean canceling a building that’s half way done). On the same line of thought, boosting up your wall is probably a smart idea, but you might want to reconsider doing so on the first day of a 5 day BP, when you are largely resource limited.
B) Benefit
This should be your main line of thought when planning ahead. Will you benefit more doing this before that or that before this? This is for your day-to-day development. \ As an investment, everything you do should be considered in terms of benefit, according to both short and long term development and goals.
The first thing you should consider is how it will influence your limiting factor? Will you benefit more from a higher income or from faster production? Is it the -most beneficial- thing to do to overcome your limiting factor? How –much- will you gain from it, and how does it compare to your alternatives? Are you still on track with your long term goals?
C) Cost
Here we find ourselves back at square one considering our limitations. After you have determined what would help you the most, you have to look back to see if you can afford it. Yeah, you might want to produce troops faster and have a larger army, but can you keep up with the expenses (not only of the building itself, but in the long term too)? Imagine you decide that you need more LC, so you upgrade your stables. It will now cost more (iron especially) to keep those stables running. If your resources are unbalanced and you have trouble keeping up and will end up going out of your way to balance it. You might find that upgrade counterproductive despite the -increase- in your farming force. Before running heads first into your “ideal” build, it’s important to keep track and take a look backwards and realistically consider your options. Sometimes adding the small preparation step of upgrading the iron mine or market for resource balancing can go a long way in a smoother build.
****Those three overlapping factors are the key to making your decisions. First, you make sure that there isn’t any pressing emergency that you have to meet (based on extreme examples of the benefit/cost). Once you’re in the open again, you should look for the most beneficial next step, and compare it to the cost. Ideally, your next steps should always be towards fixing your limitation.
To sum this all up, simply arrange a list of priorities, according to how urgent the need is, how much you will gain from it, and how much it will cost you.
I will be going into further specifics later on.
4. Farming
Like everything in the village, your troops are your investment. As a matter of fact, they are your biggest ones. You supply them with resources, and in return they bring in even more. For whatever purpose, you will not be able to get far without them. For whatever purpose, you will not be able to get far if you don’t use them to their –full extent-.
Of course, there is the laziness variable, and considerations such as troop vulnerability, but your troops are, in essence, your biggest suppliers of resources. It doesn’t matter what kind they are, as long as they have a hauling capacity. Any time they spend idling means that they are potentially wasting the time which could have been spent bringing in more resources. I can’t stress this enough, especially with farming. **Letting –anything- idle is in most cases a waste of efficiency**. (Of course exceptions do exist, such as waiting for troops to return so that you can send out a full attack/defense to clear/support a target/tribemate). When farming, unless you are focusing your troops together for a single attack, always keep them on the move. Use them to their full potential. Take unit speed into consideration (if I hear of you sending swords with LC for no legitimate reason, I will find you, and I will hurt you. Or not. Probably not, but the point still stands) Constant troop movement was one of the efficiency issues I had before my turning point world. not registering how much better I could have been doing. Even your defensive troops have farming potential, and whenever faced with “lack of targets to farm” you can simply increase your radius or frequency. (reduce numbers and increase frequency for more competitive areas).
Without exaggerating, I have had worlds in which I had several thousands of incoming and outgoing farming hauls. This is, of course, subject to your farming method. Some methods are based on sending every X time, and as such sending before you are ready can potentially decrease efficiency…. But I’m rambling, going into specifics, both of which are no-noes, so let’s carry on!
In a nutshell: The more you keep your troops on the move, the more resources that come in. The more resources that come in, the more troops you are able to produce. The more troops you are able to produce, the more troops that are on the move. And the more you keep your troops on the move, the more resources that come in.
I repeat again, idling is a waste of potential, and thus efficiency.
To take matters even further, while farming, plan ahead. If you will be gone for a long time, send your troops out on further trips. Your alternative would be letting them idle uselessly, so you might as well cover more ground and reach resources you usually don’t reach, while letting your close sources more time to gather up (and thus better hauls when you get back, ideally). It also protects your troops by keeping them outside your village for longer, in case you are attacked while you are gone.. Unrelated, but it’s a nice bonus to note.
Here is where a part of the investment analogy comes into play.
The more you invest in it, the more it produces. The more it produces, the more it brings you back a profit. The more it brings you back a profit, the more you are able able to invest in it. If you use all troops to farm, after a few hauls they are done paying for themselves and are hauling in pure profits.
Having edited out the previous oversimplified introduction to farming, I’ll simply use this one example to emphasize my point. A full offense is roughly 6k Axes, and 3k LC. That’s a potential 60k haul from the axes, and 240k from the LC. Imagine sending them all out every 4 hours. That’s potentially 1.8mil resources hauled in 24 hours. To put that into perspective, in that amount of time, at speed 1, lvl30 mines produce roughly 187k resources (2.6k*24(hours)*3(type)). Of course, that’s only potential haul and in practice they rarely come back full, especially when competition comes into play, but I believe the point still stands. (And there are more efficient farming strategies than the one I just mentioned, so it could also potentially be more).
You may also note that this also follows my example goals and priorities.
Through use of farming, I will be able to gather enough resources to supply all my queues, and it will bring me one big step closer to competing competitively.
And through the resources I get through farming and not letting my troops idle, I will be able to keep my queues (especially barracks and stables) running without stop (or as close to it as I can, until I am able to do so), and thus ensuring I have a constantly growing and sizable army by the time nobling starts.
Of course, there is the laziness variable, and considerations such as troop vulnerability, but your troops are, in essence, your biggest suppliers of resources. It doesn’t matter what kind they are, as long as they have a hauling capacity. Any time they spend idling means that they are potentially wasting the time which could have been spent bringing in more resources. I can’t stress this enough, especially with farming. **Letting –anything- idle is in most cases a waste of efficiency**. (Of course exceptions do exist, such as waiting for troops to return so that you can send out a full attack/defense to clear/support a target/tribemate). When farming, unless you are focusing your troops together for a single attack, always keep them on the move. Use them to their full potential. Take unit speed into consideration (if I hear of you sending swords with LC for no legitimate reason, I will find you, and I will hurt you. Or not. Probably not, but the point still stands) Constant troop movement was one of the efficiency issues I had before my turning point world. not registering how much better I could have been doing. Even your defensive troops have farming potential, and whenever faced with “lack of targets to farm” you can simply increase your radius or frequency. (reduce numbers and increase frequency for more competitive areas).
Without exaggerating, I have had worlds in which I had several thousands of incoming and outgoing farming hauls. This is, of course, subject to your farming method. Some methods are based on sending every X time, and as such sending before you are ready can potentially decrease efficiency…. But I’m rambling, going into specifics, both of which are no-noes, so let’s carry on!
In a nutshell: The more you keep your troops on the move, the more resources that come in. The more resources that come in, the more troops you are able to produce. The more troops you are able to produce, the more troops that are on the move. And the more you keep your troops on the move, the more resources that come in.
I repeat again, idling is a waste of potential, and thus efficiency.
To take matters even further, while farming, plan ahead. If you will be gone for a long time, send your troops out on further trips. Your alternative would be letting them idle uselessly, so you might as well cover more ground and reach resources you usually don’t reach, while letting your close sources more time to gather up (and thus better hauls when you get back, ideally). It also protects your troops by keeping them outside your village for longer, in case you are attacked while you are gone.. Unrelated, but it’s a nice bonus to note.
Here is where a part of the investment analogy comes into play.
The more you invest in it, the more it produces. The more it produces, the more it brings you back a profit. The more it brings you back a profit, the more you are able able to invest in it. If you use all troops to farm, after a few hauls they are done paying for themselves and are hauling in pure profits.
Having edited out the previous oversimplified introduction to farming, I’ll simply use this one example to emphasize my point. A full offense is roughly 6k Axes, and 3k LC. That’s a potential 60k haul from the axes, and 240k from the LC. Imagine sending them all out every 4 hours. That’s potentially 1.8mil resources hauled in 24 hours. To put that into perspective, in that amount of time, at speed 1, lvl30 mines produce roughly 187k resources (2.6k*24(hours)*3(type)). Of course, that’s only potential haul and in practice they rarely come back full, especially when competition comes into play, but I believe the point still stands. (And there are more efficient farming strategies than the one I just mentioned, so it could also potentially be more).
You may also note that this also follows my example goals and priorities.
Through use of farming, I will be able to gather enough resources to supply all my queues, and it will bring me one big step closer to competing competitively.
And through the resources I get through farming and not letting my troops idle, I will be able to keep my queues (especially barracks and stables) running without stop (or as close to it as I can, until I am able to do so), and thus ensuring I have a constantly growing and sizable army by the time nobling starts.
As your main source of income, your troops should –never idle-. Letting them sit around in your village doing nothing is a waste of time that could be spent bringing in more resources, and thus limiting and slowing your growth. You can always farm more, or farm further, so if you want to run an efficient village, you have to always keep your troops on the move bringing in more.
5. Queues and Buildings
Welcome to the crowning section of the guide! Leaving the vague explanations before, here is where it starts becoming more practical.
This is where your efficiency comes into play. The actual growth of your village. This is where you are able to measure your limitations, and make the necessary changes to balance them as much as you can.
This is the village dynamics.
Consider your village to be 2 types of production lines; Headquarters (HQ) and Troops.
Of course there are the different types of troop queues, each with its own emphasis, but development-wise they can be considered the same.
The HQ is the driving force of your village development (building upgrades), while your troops are your power, so to speak. The more troops you have, the more farming (income) capacity you have, and the stronger map dominance/control you have. (Less relevant to this guide, so I won’t be addressing it any further). Your goal is to find a balance that fits you between the two.
Let’s take a look at both types of queues.
HQ: Builds the village itself. Your most important tool to determine the efficiency of your village (farming aside). Let’s look at the buildings themselves, and consider their impact and importance.
Troop queues: Due to it’s importance in farming, I think the Stables is the most important queue, although ideally they should all be running constantly. Higher production means higher expenses, but in the long term it pays off. It does, however, require more activity, and especially at the beginning they are massive resource drains. Important to note: a 20 minute queue and a 20 day queue produces at the same rate. Long queues are counterproductive. While it is important for the queue to be long enough to play comfortably with margin for error, the resources of those troops idling pointlessly at the end of the queue could have been those few missing Ks needed for that building upgrade you would have preferred to have been built next.
To sum it up with a simplified guideline, priority buildings (=the earlier the better) are HQ, Barracks, Stables (efficiency buildings) and Mines (income buildings). The first three Increase your expenses, the latter increases your income. The rest I’ll loosely call fillers. Ideally, your income should be just enough to cover your expenses.
If your income is barely enough your focus should be on upping income. (HQ should be building mines or fillers). If you are producing more than what you’re spending, you should be upping the efficiency buildings. (HQ should be building Stables or Barracks). It’s a steady loop. Up Income, up Production, up income, up production. (With other necessary buildings in between. The “Filler time” can also be classed as income, since your army grows in that time and thus your farming potential). If you are confident that you can keep it up steadily, then you can start upgrading your HQ. Don’t forget to look ahead. Just because you hit a lucky big haul, doesn’t mean you should right away upgrade your production. Keep it steady.
The most important factor, as I’ve already mentioned multiple times, is to keep all your queues steady. Lardingd, whom I’ve mentioned before in this guide and consider one of the best players I know, I’ve seen keep a low Barracks/stable level until well into midgame, and yet still come out with one of the largest armies on the worlds he played, due to the simple fact that he kept those queues running right off the bat and never let them stop.
Upgrading HQ past 20:
Noted by Twenty-Five that this question is a bit out dated. While it was once a very relevant question, with the high farming competition through quests and Loot Assistant on such small worlds, rarely do you reach such enough of a surplus to consider boosting your HQ anymore. I am leaving my old answer to the question in the spoiler, as I believe it's a good example to the kind of mentality you should be hoping to develop, and might eventually be of use if you find yourself doing surprisingly well on some slow server.
According to your priorities and goals, you should do whatever you can to overcome your limits, and keep the appropriate queues running. As a general rule, based on your farming being your main income source, I personally consider the most important queues are the stables and the barracks. The more you are able to keep them running, the more troops you produce, and thus the more income you can get back in return.
However, having said that, now would be a good time to address the decade old “Pointwhore vs Troopwhore debate”. I hope that if you’ve read this far into the guide you already came to the conclusion that both are bad. It doesn’t matter whether you have a 20 minute queue or a 20 day queue on your barracks, it still produces the same amount of troops. So instead of taking pride in your “large army for your village size”, be smart about it and increase your barracks, and have a larger army with a larger village size. So yes, while your troop queues should be priority, don’t neglect your headquarters.
Conclusion:
Be aware of the capability of your village.
If you aren’t able to keep the queues running, focus on increasing your income so that you will be able to keep them going later on, and won’t be wasting precious time that could be spent developing your village.
If you are managing to keep everything going, then start increasing the efficiency/production rate of the village (as long as you can afford it). Faster production means faster growth. Focusing on one queue while letting the others idle is wasting time, potential and efficiency, especially since as noted before, a 20 minute queue is the same as a 20 day long queue. Divide up the resources accordingly.(And according to your resource income)
This is where your efficiency comes into play. The actual growth of your village. This is where you are able to measure your limitations, and make the necessary changes to balance them as much as you can.
This is the village dynamics.
Consider your village to be 2 types of production lines; Headquarters (HQ) and Troops.
Of course there are the different types of troop queues, each with its own emphasis, but development-wise they can be considered the same.
The HQ is the driving force of your village development (building upgrades), while your troops are your power, so to speak. The more troops you have, the more farming (income) capacity you have, and the stronger map dominance/control you have. (Less relevant to this guide, so I won’t be addressing it any further). Your goal is to find a balance that fits you between the two.
Let’s take a look at both types of queues.
HQ: Builds the village itself. Your most important tool to determine the efficiency of your village (farming aside). Let’s look at the buildings themselves, and consider their impact and importance.
Building name – time impact/ (direct) resource impact / importance (+when)
HQ- Reduction of build times / higher expenses / Sooner the better, as long as resources can keep up.
Barracks- Increase in troop production / higher expenses / Sooner the better, as long as resources can keep up.
Stable- Increase in troop production / higher expenses (slight increase in income)/ Sooner the better, as long as resources can keep up.
Workshop – Increase in troop production / higher expenses / Lower priority. Not involved in farming, and usually not the limiting factor in building a nuke.
Smithy- neutral/neutral/importance for long term (reaching workshop at startup, and nobles). Lowest priority until nobles, but useful filler if HQ queue close to stopping.
Academy – neutral/neutral/depends on your play style.
Market – neutral/neutral – positive, depending on how well you use it/ depends on your play style.
Resources – neutral / higher income / Sooner the better
Farm- Neutral/ Neutral (although expensive)/ Very important, but only when necessary
Warehouse- Neutral/ Neutral / Very important, but only when necessary
Hiding place-- Neutral/ Neutral /Defense precaution
Wall- Neutral/ Neutral /High, Defense precaution. Good filler for HQ idle avoidance.
HQ- Reduction of build times / higher expenses / Sooner the better, as long as resources can keep up.
Barracks- Increase in troop production / higher expenses / Sooner the better, as long as resources can keep up.
Stable- Increase in troop production / higher expenses (slight increase in income)/ Sooner the better, as long as resources can keep up.
Workshop – Increase in troop production / higher expenses / Lower priority. Not involved in farming, and usually not the limiting factor in building a nuke.
Smithy- neutral/neutral/importance for long term (reaching workshop at startup, and nobles). Lowest priority until nobles, but useful filler if HQ queue close to stopping.
Academy – neutral/neutral/depends on your play style.
Market – neutral/neutral – positive, depending on how well you use it/ depends on your play style.
Resources – neutral / higher income / Sooner the better
Farm- Neutral/ Neutral (although expensive)/ Very important, but only when necessary
Warehouse- Neutral/ Neutral / Very important, but only when necessary
Hiding place-- Neutral/ Neutral /Defense precaution
Wall- Neutral/ Neutral /High, Defense precaution. Good filler for HQ idle avoidance.
To sum it up with a simplified guideline, priority buildings (=the earlier the better) are HQ, Barracks, Stables (efficiency buildings) and Mines (income buildings). The first three Increase your expenses, the latter increases your income. The rest I’ll loosely call fillers. Ideally, your income should be just enough to cover your expenses.
If your income is barely enough your focus should be on upping income. (HQ should be building mines or fillers). If you are producing more than what you’re spending, you should be upping the efficiency buildings. (HQ should be building Stables or Barracks). It’s a steady loop. Up Income, up Production, up income, up production. (With other necessary buildings in between. The “Filler time” can also be classed as income, since your army grows in that time and thus your farming potential). If you are confident that you can keep it up steadily, then you can start upgrading your HQ. Don’t forget to look ahead. Just because you hit a lucky big haul, doesn’t mean you should right away upgrade your production. Keep it steady.
The most important factor, as I’ve already mentioned multiple times, is to keep all your queues steady. Lardingd, whom I’ve mentioned before in this guide and consider one of the best players I know, I’ve seen keep a low Barracks/stable level until well into midgame, and yet still come out with one of the largest armies on the worlds he played, due to the simple fact that he kept those queues running right off the bat and never let them stop.
Upgrading HQ past 20:
Noted by Twenty-Five that this question is a bit out dated. While it was once a very relevant question, with the high farming competition through quests and Loot Assistant on such small worlds, rarely do you reach such enough of a surplus to consider boosting your HQ anymore. I am leaving my old answer to the question in the spoiler, as I believe it's a good example to the kind of mentality you should be hoping to develop, and might eventually be of use if you find yourself doing surprisingly well on some slow server.
This is a bit more delicate of a question, as it has been subject to many debates, and largely boils down to personal choice. HQ 20 is the requirement for building an academy. Passing that rarely happens outside of the pre-noble start up. I’ve seen (and done) startups reaching HQ 27, and heard of others reaching 30. It all depends on how well you farm and how well you are able to keep your village maintained. You should only consider reaching those levels if you manage to maintain a massive resource flow (Faster build times aside, those HQ levels are resources you aren’t getting back), and is only done if the time saved off faster queues is greater than the build times of the HQ itself. (required planning). So No. Unless you really know what you’re doing or you’re doing incredibly well, don’t go too far past HQ 20. HQ 22-23ish usually has a rather good payoff, but again, it highly depends on you and what your priorities are.
According to your priorities and goals, you should do whatever you can to overcome your limits, and keep the appropriate queues running. As a general rule, based on your farming being your main income source, I personally consider the most important queues are the stables and the barracks. The more you are able to keep them running, the more troops you produce, and thus the more income you can get back in return.
However, having said that, now would be a good time to address the decade old “Pointwhore vs Troopwhore debate”. I hope that if you’ve read this far into the guide you already came to the conclusion that both are bad. It doesn’t matter whether you have a 20 minute queue or a 20 day queue on your barracks, it still produces the same amount of troops. So instead of taking pride in your “large army for your village size”, be smart about it and increase your barracks, and have a larger army with a larger village size. So yes, while your troop queues should be priority, don’t neglect your headquarters.
Conclusion:
Be aware of the capability of your village.
If you aren’t able to keep the queues running, focus on increasing your income so that you will be able to keep them going later on, and won’t be wasting precious time that could be spent developing your village.
If you are managing to keep everything going, then start increasing the efficiency/production rate of the village (as long as you can afford it). Faster production means faster growth. Focusing on one queue while letting the others idle is wasting time, potential and efficiency, especially since as noted before, a 20 minute queue is the same as a 20 day long queue. Divide up the resources accordingly.(And according to your resource income)
6. General Tips
- Troop preservation = more troops to farm and clear with = more income.
- Keep thinking of your village as an investment. You can either allow it to sit there and slowly build up, or you can use profits to invest more, and potentially gain more.
- If you can’t keep your barracks and stables running 24/7, there is no reason to upgrade them. You are not gaining your troops (overall) any faster, since you are anyways not producing at full efficiency.
- If you can keep all queues running, increase the levels of the queue buildings. Barracks for infantry, stables for cavalry, and HQ for buildings. A headquarters increase will save more time being upgraded before the other buildings than being upgraded after. (There are many tools which provide calculators. Follow your Resource/Time limit considerations, but feel free to find a right balance and timing for you.
- Long queues may actually be inefficient. The longer your queues are, the earlier you'll need to raise your farm, which will get in the way of developing the buildings that can give you more benefit.
- Make sure you notice your need of a farm upgrade in time. Reaching the maximum farm population with your queues running out means that your queues will be idling uselessly for the whole time it takes to get enough resources for the farm itself and the time it takes to upgrade.
- Farms and warehouse should be upgraded as close to the last minute as possible (as long as you won’t have your queues stopping while the farm is being built). Unlike "queue buildings" which increase production, getting them early does not benefit you in any productive way. (Only in more margin for slack). Like the point above, there are buildings that will give you more benefit the earlier you get them.
- Build according to urgency, priority and gain. If you have to build a resource mine and a smithy, set your resource mine to build first, so that during the time the smithy is building you’ll get the extra income per hour.
- Plan one step ahead. If you won’t around for a while, you might want to consider queuing your longer build-time buildings (in headquarters). Longer buildings means that your queue is less likely to stop while you’re gone and less time wasted (or if it stops, it will be idle for less time). Queues with longer building time are your smithy and wall, for example. They’re buildings that you’ll need at some point, but to have them build during the day would block up your headquarters queue and prevent you from building the shorter and directly important villages (and since you’ll be gone, it wont be a problem for you).
7. Wrap up
- This guide is simply an outline of the principles and ideals. This does not take into account many world or player specific factors. Most of what's mentioned is what you should strive for, though it is obviously dependent on the amount of effort you can allow yourself to put into it.
You are unlikely to be able to fully implement this in every aspect of your game, as this is the ideal and it doesn’t take kindly to human nature. I myself am guilty of not doing so on occasion, and am often teased about it by friends. (Red report Red, being my most known nickname) The level at which you follow it depends on how seriously you plan on playing this game and how much effort you can allow yourself to devote to it.
- I can not take credit for all the ideas presented here, I simply take credit for the way they are portrayed
- Thank you to those who proof-read this guide before publication, and pointed out some improvements that were made
- Thank you for taking the time to read this guide (and hopefully give feedback), and I hope you were able to take some new from this.
- If there are any questions, feel free to post and ask. I don’t play anymore, but I occasionally take a stroll down amnesia lane and check in with old friend.
- I may have alternated several times between my meaning for “production”. (Income and troops) Sorry about the confusion. I hope it was clear from context when I meant what.
- Template and wrap up I borrowed from Lardingds’ farming guide:http://forum.tribalwars.net/showthread.php?t=99427
You are unlikely to be able to fully implement this in every aspect of your game, as this is the ideal and it doesn’t take kindly to human nature. I myself am guilty of not doing so on occasion, and am often teased about it by friends. (Red report Red, being my most known nickname) The level at which you follow it depends on how seriously you plan on playing this game and how much effort you can allow yourself to devote to it.
- I can not take credit for all the ideas presented here, I simply take credit for the way they are portrayed
- Thank you to those who proof-read this guide before publication, and pointed out some improvements that were made
- Thank you for taking the time to read this guide (and hopefully give feedback), and I hope you were able to take some new from this.
- If there are any questions, feel free to post and ask. I don’t play anymore, but I occasionally take a stroll down amnesia lane and check in with old friend.
- I may have alternated several times between my meaning for “production”. (Income and troops) Sorry about the confusion. I hope it was clear from context when I meant what.
- Template and wrap up I borrowed from Lardingds’ farming guide:http://forum.tribalwars.net/showthread.php?t=99427
Organized in spoilers to lessen the "Wall of text"
Edit: Thank you very much for the feedback so far
I tried addressing some of the very valid points and corrections that have been made. Thankfully this is a very general guide, so it shouldn't require constant updating, but I'm more than open to feedback and criticism, as the discussions they spark tend to be more informative than the guides themselves.
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