Grahams War Guide
Some useful tips I wrote up a few years ago, thought I'd post it here, some things may have changed since I wrote this, so if anyone spots mistakes edit them please
I put things into the following headings:
1)Avoiding getting into trouble
2)Killing your enemy
3)It is a team game
4)A few handy tips
1)Avoiding getting into trouble
Here is a few things to look out for:
Always have a high number of workshops around 299 works well
Always have full barrier resistance, that 75%, this is the single most important thing to protect yourself
Have at least 20 forts, you don’t want to get attacked 5 times and run out of forts and die.
Keep an eye on your resources – mana, geld, population.
Constantly check your mages for enemy spells when using turns
Donate to the gods:
Only get favour from one god as there is no longer any safe combos
Moon gives +10% mana income
Lucifer gives + 10% units when you summon
Donate at least 10mil geld or 10% of your total geld whichever is higher to get favour
You can have favour from moon and Lucifer at the same time.
Your spell assignment should be a low cost spell and never set it to always
Make sure to have a decent army (i.e. not 10mil zombies solo stack)
Make sure to have a decent unit base to defend against pillages (multiply your land by 10 for a rough estimate)
Get at least one minor indulgence and mana crystal off the black market, just in case.
2)Killing your enemy:
5 different types of things you can do
You should pick whether you want to catfish with low rank or spell with a high rank
Catfishing Spelling Sniping Item Bombing Middle Rankers
Catfishing:
These are mages in your guild who have a low net power. They are also the most vunerable mages in your guild. A catfisher needs to be extremely experienced and very good at taking care of his country. A catfishers job is to finish off enemy mages. When an enemys net power gets low the catfisher will take their last forts.
Spelling:
Usually done by the high and middle ranked mages in your guild.
The basics:
Confuse should be casted first by a blue mage. DnD and MS should be casted nest by black/red mages. This set up means that the enemy will have to dispel using 3 turns which will make them lose some forts and barriers forcing them to rebuild.
Spell locking:
This is where you cast every offensive spell on your enemy.
Confuse/Meteor Storm/Death and Decay/Temporal Stasis Field/Summon Locust Swarm/Call Lightning/Laziness
This should be done when your enemy has low or zero barriers. You will also need to zero one of his resources by item bombing.
Item Bombing
Basically using lots of items on your enemy to zero their resources. You should scrying mirror or crystal ball the enemy to find out what resources he has. If they have a low amount of mana or geld etc… use items to get rid of the rest of it.
Middle Rankers
Those mages in your guild between 2.5mil and 4.5mil net power. These mages can usually help out with all of the above techniques.
3)It is a team game:
Ok so your guild should have a varity of those types of mages. You should have only one or two catfishers. Otherwise your hands will be full trying to protect them. You should try clear yourself a space in the rankings. That is kill any of their mages between 4mil and 8mil power. That gives you space to work with. Always check the Black Market for items, as war items are a bit rare on the black market in apprentice server, so you should check it whenever you are online to get those war items. Better than your enemies getting them. Aim for the easy kills first, those enemies with low barriers or low forts, or who have a high cost spell on defence as use always. One thing to remember is not to hand out counters. The guild should decide on the easy targets and then put all effort into taking down the easy guys. There is no point in attacking mages that will be able to counter you, when that mage is not a high priority target. Do not hand out unnecessary counters.
The most important thing is think not what your guild can do for you but what you can do for your guild.
That means being active and being smart. Read guides that are on the UBB. Ask questions if you are unsure. Get the tools like IRC, dispel calculators etc….
4)A few handy tips:
If you find yourself being spelled up everyday. Get 100% resistance by casting on yourself. Yep that’s right cast DnD or MS or Confuse on yourself so they cant do it. Then just dispel it the next time you want to move. If your really stuck get your mates to spell you up, then dispel you later.
If you have no mana, hardly any buildings and are pretty much dead with no hope of living, you can if you have some geld try to get a seren from the gods. That is the spell serenity, the god will cast it on you if you get disfavoured by them. To get disfavour, first get favour, then donate 1 geld to that god and he will disfavour you. Donate 1 geld again to get hatred.
If you have been beating an enemy for a few days and have him spelled up, then he goes into meditation, note down the time he went into meditation at. Cause 3 days later he will most likely try to dispel. Get online at this time and watch him when he comes out. If he dispels, respell him.
If one of your mates is spelled up and is about to try dispelling, help distract the casters, send them a-mails, cast spells on the casters, if you get a spell on them, and they try to respell your mate they will run your spell for many turns making your enemy dead.
If you come up against a guy who is using AA and a lot of other defensive units cast battle chant on them. That’s right this will increase his units attack power but decrease their hit points making it easier for you to beat them. Then dispel when you are done.