Monday, August 15, 2011

Castles

Castles!
  This may be the most difficult part of the game. Every player wants to castle every city they have built. DON'T! The first mistake I made with my 1st castle was building from a resource city. Never build a castle from a resource city. You will lose it, or end up abandoning the city.


   As a general rule you need 3-4 resource cities, 1 hub, 4-5 military support cities, 1 gold city,  before you castle a military city. This is a general rule. As you start out it is a very good rule. But as a whole...It is actually quite weak.


I say this because there are 2 thoughts on when to castle a city. 


FIRST THOUGHT:
       When you have met the criteria listed in the general rule, then you may castle a military city. Expect to become a target many times over. Do this for 5-6 castles, then you can start focusing on castled cities, sieges, raids, plunders, and assaults. The castles should be 2-5 mix of offense/defense troops types. For every 2 Offensive castle you want to build 3-5 Defensive Castles.
 I don't care for this line of thought. But, I put it in to give you an opposing view.


SECOND THOUGHT:
      When you max out troop count in an all military city 50-60K troops, castle that city and begin raiding dungeons for resources. Build up troop count to 230-270K (ships and siege castles recruit far less) of a specific troop (1 type only per castle). If you build a castle on water, make it a ship castle with supporting magic troops. It will be attacked from the water as well as from land. 


Build hubs to send resources from 1 city to the next close by. Also, build Castles close by the others. Try not to have them spread out for the fact that it will take longer for reinforcements to arrive. There was a player on the opposing alliance who built 10 castles all besides each other. He tried to spy on us once, found out that he built his castles right next to each other solely for intimidation. 


     Since he had them clustered together, the only way to capture them was to have the entire alliance attack at one time with 4-5 sieges on each castle. and then we needed to search out his hub, to choke off his resources.We were finally able to defeat him by capturing 4 of his castles, and then reducing 2 of his other castles to level 1 TH and level 1 Castle (7pting a Castle). 



Monday, August 8, 2011

Resources & Warehouse Cities

Resource City

First, install Lord of Ultima Tweaks:

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/80532

I can't imagine ever playing this game without it. It helps with so many different aspects of the game and ensures efficiency in nearly every aspect of the game.

Then, when you've familiarized yourself with the added functionality, whenever you found a new city or just want to see if you could have made better economy building placement, click on the "L" green box in your city Build Queue to access layout functionality. Copy the Sharestring, it looks like this:

[ShareString.1.3];########################-.-----#-;--C:-#####------.-#-----:--###----::---#-;---:--,##-,,--:--.#--------,##------#######-----,##-----##UUUUU##-----##:--;##UUPUPUU##-;--##:---#UPUUUUUPU#----##---:#UUUPUPUUU#-.--#######UPUUTUUPU#######----#UUUPUPUUU#----##----#UPUUUUUPU#UUU-##---;##UUPUPUU##UPUU##:----##UUUUU##UUUUP##:-.---#######UURRUU##--..-----#---UR##RU##-..------#--PUR###R###-.-----:#---UUR#######--,---:#----UUR########################[/ShareString]

and paste it into the Loof placement calculator here:

http://2.latest.loof78.appspot.com/lou_city/calc

with the following parameters (just hit enter after the sharestring for a new line) to create a Wood, Stone, Iron resource city (see the WSI down there?):

use_slots=82
num_cottages=19
keep_extra_res_nodes=1
placement_schedule=WSI
clear_buildings=1

Then open the output link in a new window and flesh out the rest of your city in the Flash City Planner:

http://www.lou-fcp.co.uk/map.php?

I recommend at least two warehouses, 19 or 20 cottages, 4 marketplaces (if producing resources) go for max production/efficiency.

When you're satisfied with a layout in the Flash City Planner, click "copy URL" and switch back to Lord of Ultima and paste in the URL into the second tab of the "L" layout tool of LoU Tweaks and click "apply layout"

Build away! MAXIMUM EFFICIENCY!!!!

Warehouse City

Follow the standard of building up 20-30 cottages as well as supplemental resources to keep you building. Building a Warehouse/Hub City  is essential to maximize building and recruitment efficiency. A warehouse/hub can transfer and receive resources in large quantities, quickly! Hubs can also hold millions of resources at a time. This can come in handy when building Palaces (we will discuss later), purifying resources, and level advancements.

You will understand why you need a warehouse city for each cluster of 6-10 cities you have, later. But for a minimum of every 10 cities you want a dedicated HUB! This is for your benefit and protection.

I have two hubs that I am currently working on. The first is a hub on water with larger amounts of transport capabilities. I use this to send and receive resources across the sea/water spaces. So, with a larger shipping and receiving demand there is less need for storage space. Any oversupply is sent to the landlocked warehouse hub via carts from the market.

I also have a land locked version that supports itself with resource production. So if arrivals of resources take a while, I won't run out of them. 
If you notice there is less markets in this city. Once the resources arrive at this city, they are dispersed from it to other cities ass needed from my Trade Minister*.  In this city you will need large amounts of city guards and a MGT. In the event that you are attacked in this city. Also never ever disclose the location of this city to other players. Enemies can disrupt your ability to build and recruit if they find out where this city is located.


*Note Trade Ministers are not required for you to have,since they do cost Diamonds. I keep them so they can do the work I cannot do while taking care of real life (RL).

Up NEXT: Castles