Hello citizens of World 67. In this issue we're going to ignore all the topics that have been done to death on the externals lately. Certain people and wars are being talked about endlessly so for Issue 1 I've strayed from the "Frontline" so to speak and found some things to talk about that you may not have looked at before. I will get to the current wars and the bigger tribes in future issues.
Please excuse my rookie attempt here.. I think I tried to make this look nice but it may end up being a bit painful to look at. We'll see how it goes and I'm sure I'll learn to make a more visually appealing post for next time. Enjoy.
Continuing with the theme of finding up and coming players and tribes I've identified six players who are not currently in the Top 20 but are growing at a very rapid pace and will likely be there soon. Some of them had a later start or some setbacks and are roaring to life now. Kudos to these players for their hard work. (All players were selected using several complicated algorithms, a blender, and two 12 sided dice). Actually they had growth ranks that were much better than their in game rankings. And didn't noble a terribly huge amount of barbs or internals to get there.
djwright15
Tribe: virus
Rank: 33
Growth Rank: 11
Points per Day: 7,467
Brogrammer
Tribe: MM
Rank: 47
Growth Rank: 17
Points per Day: 6,740
Jace Deathbringer
Tribe: 0000
Rank: 78
Growth Rank:28
Points per Day: 6,051
HardToGet
Tribe: -?-
Rank: 66
Growth Rank: 35
Points per Day: 5,613
Erik.Cartman
Tribe: 0000
Rank: 91
Growth Rank: 69
Points per Day: 4,632
olly1234
Tribe: Cheers
Rank: 93
Growth Rank: 73
Points per Day: 4,576
FFE: Thanks for granting an interview Openeye. You took a long break from the game, what brought you back?
Openeye: I wanted to find a strategy game where I could play against people. I tried out a few other MMOs out there, but nothing really appealled to me. They didn't offer me the oppurtunity to actually attack players.
Openeye: I could raid them but I couldn't really attack people. Even Inno's other game. It was just a let down.
Openeye: So I figured I would give it another go.
FFE: I like it too. It's amazing how this game stays in business since the goal is to destroy another person's work completely. Maybe that's the appeal! Would you say you're playing as well as you used to? Do you consider yourself in top form right now?
Openeye: Not even close. I'm far below what I was. Plus my entire strategy seems to fall flat on it's face in this world. There is an entirely different gameplay in the progress of the world. My in my top still would not be much more successful than what I am now.
FFE: Are you going Heavy Cavalry heavy?
Openeye: Heavy? Not really. I dunno. Maybe compared to some of the builds that are out there because I still have at least some HC in about every village, but nowhere near what I use to.
FFE: You were inspirational to a lot of people 5 years ago when you came up with a lot of your strategies and the TeachU framework. I'll link to it below so people can read it if they want. Is there anyone on this world that inspires and teaches you? Are you absorbing the new strategies of TW?
Openeye: There are a lot of people who have inspired me. Players like Poe_Blitzkrieg who have been role models since I started in W4. And new players, like Covert or Quite Goddish. They try to get me to pick up the new tools available to TW players, but I avoid any of the new strategies if I can.
FFE: What would you consider your greatest Tribal Wars accomplishment?
Openeye: Prolly TeachU. It was tons of fun, and I really think that it made an impact beyond the world itself. I had other things I enjoyed more, but nothing that made such a wide impact. I had no idea it was going to become what it did.
FFE: TeachU gets debated endlessly but I think everyone can agree that you taught people that thinking critically about what they're doing is very important.
FFE: Are you farming on this world? What method are you using?
Openeye: Farming? Yeah, some I guess. Occasionally. Nothing like what the top accounts are. I'm real lazy with it. I just do a bit on FA. I did microfarming early in the world, but now its all about just getting the farmers out as quick as possible.
FFE: For sure you can spend as much time as you want farming. If you've got 30 seconds to spare TW will gladly take it! For me farming helps accomplish my goal. This world isn't too tough so I keep making my goal tougher. Rank 1 in K, good ODA, etc. Do you have any goals for this world?
Openeye: My only goal in this world is to make sure my villages aren't easy. I feel like the world is just looking for the easy 60% of the villages by whatever means they can get them. Recruit, noble, whatever. It doesn't matter as long as the 60% comes easy. Mine wont come easy.
Openeye: If I go grey or am willing to join a top tribe just to be part of the "winning" team, then I am doing what they want.
Openeye: Making my villages easy.
FFE: I can certainly respect that!
FFE: Are there any tribes or players you've got your eye on? Who impresses you? Are the enemies giving you a good fight?
Openeye: Players, sure. There are several. Quite Goddish next to me has been a great rival. Justin and I regularly talked to one another on Skype while we exchanged a few blows during the Purr war. It was very refreshing. Dark Conquest is another I am watching, if only to be in awe of the growthrates that the account can sustain.
Openeye: As for enemies. No, not really. On the tribal level everything rolls over. The players have given me some good skirmishes, but nothing worth mention. At the end of the day, the tribes dont stick along long enough to let anybody give you a fight.
FFE: I think that's true. I think we know which players will be here for the long haul but tribes are nearly as permanent as mist on a summer morning.
FFE: What do you make of the new "Pay" benefits on world 68? Would you ever use those?
Openeye: Not my style. But if I wanted a top solo account again, I think that would be the route to take. Its either time or money, and with growth rates where they are now, you need to invest a lot more time. I think your life would be better if you just shelled out the cash.
FFE: I'm ready for some pizza and beer so we'll wrap this up. I hope you breathe a little fresh life into the community again like you did in 2008. The strategies of today are very good for growth but are becoming a bit stale. We could all use a little more variety, maybe TeachU 2.0 will come out one day!
Do you have any parting words?
Openeye: Just to remind people to think about why they play. Play the game the way that you want to play. If you want to be entertained by this game, its on you to bring it to your doorstep.
Openeye: Just dont let your villages go easy. Thats how the game goes dull.
FFE: Good advise all around. Thanks for you time OE. I'm looking forward to this world and am glad you're here for it.
Openeye's teachU Guide
In the Help Desk I'll try to give some advice or tips that I usually don't see posted often. As with anything Tribal Wars related your experiences may vary and anything I recommend should be done after considering YOUR situation and playstyle. This issue has a couple tips that may help in your transition from early world to mid-game.
Tip #1 - Timing Options
Everyone likes to have options. When you're building your Offs and Defs, it is important to include a few utility troops - they're not there for attacking or defending - they are there for timing!
Offensive:
In you Offense villages you can add 5 (or 10) Swords and Heavy Cavalry. Why!? Because those units are unique in their travel time. The only units that are any good for sniping with in a nuke are light cavalry. If you have 5 swords, 5 HC, 5 axes, 5 rams, and 2500 LC in your village you have five count 'em FIVE options to send your sniping units. Is this useful? YES! You may go a year without using this option but eventually you may come under heavy attack. If your defense is tied up in the frontline or if you've been stripped of troops you will be sniping and believe me - having plenty of options is important. Many, many times you will login and only have an hour to snipe several close range trains. LC will be your only option. If you have the HC utility troops in village you at least get 2 chances to send those LC.
Another reason!? There's another reason to do this, yes. If you have a reason to believe that an enemy player has sniped one of YOUR noble trains you can send a nuke divided up into 5 in order to weave some small clearing waves in between your nobles. Without swords or HC you only have 3 attempts to do this - but if you add these utility troops to your offensive build you get 5 attempts per village. I call the method of putting attacks between your nobles "Lacing" but it hasn't caught on yet.
I have done this ON THIS WORLD. The report below shows where some of my units (sent at sword speed!) cleared out a snipe between two of my nobleman attacks. It is useful!
Defensive:
In your Defensive villages you should be adding 5 (or 10) swords if you don't include swords in your build already. You should also have between 12 and 20 Rams or Catapults. In the case of sniping with defense you usually use the entire village worth of troops in your snipe attempts. If you have some utility swords and cats(rams) you can often send your snipes hours earlier than you would have been able to otherwise. This difference can mean you don't have to set your alarm for 4 AM to snipe a train.
Tip #2 - How to build Utility Troops
If you're using premium here is a great tip that will always keep your supply of utility troops ready to go. When using the Mass Recruit feature or a mass recruit script you can in fact run it on ALL your villages. During times of war I will often run Mass on All my villages at once just for the purpose of topping up my utility troops. This ensures that within 24 hours of me nobling a village that it is ready to go with a handful of what I'll need later.
Including 5 swords and 5 HC for example in your Offensive build is good but mass recruit will not build all 5 of them at once - unless you make mass script/setup for the "All" villages group and force these things to build if they're not already there. I hope that makes sense.
Often I'll burn through 15 rams a day in my D villages sending fakes but mass recruit will only add new ones at a rate of about 3 or 4 per day which is inadequate.
Here is what I put in the mass recruit for the purpose of timing and fake attacks.
Thank you very much for reading. If you know someone that I should interview or a tribe that needs profiled feel free to send me a message in game or here on the externals. I promise to clean things up a bit better next time and have a more consistent appearance throughout the post. I've learned a little about the limitations of MSPaint and vBulletin today. Thanks again to AdamF19 and Openeye.
Adios!
