Newbie Guide for NPC

[oHellsingo]

Needs to be noted: These aren't the minimums, but they are safe assumptions for when you get started. With strong heroes, higher archery, etc, you can go less. I've done an NPC 5 with 520 and people in my alliance have said as low as 475.

I send 330 ballista per npc raid, every one and awhile i lose 4-5 but its really effective.

[Master Kezzy]

what would be best for attacking a lvl 1 npc using ballistas

p.s. what hbr and archery levels would be best?

[Lumbermillzftw]

I was originally going to post this as a reply to the other thread, but I figured the information given here should not get buried by other noob posts of people who have no clue about HBR + Archery lvl combinations and cry why they can't raid lvl 4 and lower cities. So I warn you that you need to have some basic knowledge on initial 1st hit ranges of ballistas with different combination of Archery/HBR to fully understand what is going to be said here. So I strongly suggest that you refer to other threads about the Archery, HBR combination created by other awesome members of this forum.

Now, many of us who have raided NPC cities before, know that NPC lvl 4 and lower is easily doable without any losses. NPC 5 becomes a bit tricky because we want that high tech upgrades, but one wrong upgrade starts costing us ballistas on what used to have 0 losses.

So first I want to let you guys know that there is certain discrepancy in the figures given to us by devs, and the actual calculation of the bonuses we get.

About upgrades and game glitches:
If you look at a worker with 200 load capacity and the logistics level. Logistics have similar description on its upgrades compared to archery, hbr, and compass where it says the upgrade "enhances by %". Since the descriptions are the same, i'm going to assume that the same bonus formula will be applied for all of the mentioned upgrades.

Given that I have logistics level 7, my worker should be able to transport 340 loads (200 x (100%+70%)). However, what i actually get is 338 load sometimes, and i get 340 on other. The reason for the fluctuation is that, *in rare cases*, the game compute the food required for traveling time to be 2, and on other times, it doesn't calculate the food needed for travel at all!!! (When i actually press send, it doesn't subtract the food from the city i sent from).
However, this discrepancy is not significant enough or happens enough to tell me that actual battle calculations can be off at times so, i've included this as just some anomally i noticed at times.

*But one thing i can conclude is that, some of you guys who have thought the percentage on the upgrades is compounded are probably wrong. Unless devs like to make the same descriptions for upgrades and use a completely different formula...*


Now, onto NPC lvl 5 raids.

Some of you guys who are taking loses with HBR 8,9,10 at lower level Archery such as 8 and below (not archery 9 and 10)... consider this, your battle rounds lasted 47 to 49 rounds for the towers to finish your ballistas off, in the meanwhile, me at lvl 8 Archery and HBR 5 fought roughly about 65 rounds.

http://battle18.evony.com/default.ht...c0497caec4.xml
Hero w/ 88 attack for 65 rounds

http://battle18.evony.com/default.ht...0624d7ded4.xml
Hero w/ 84 attack for 66 rounds

http://battle18.evony.com/default.ht...5ca95651c9.xml
Hero w/ 80 attack for 68 rounds

For those of you who have been doing some math and reading on the forums, it's definitely a mystery to me from the calculations of Archery/HBR combination that ballista's initial first hit range in Archery 8/HBR 5 (which is supposed to be at 1875) keeps them safe from Tower range at (1300x1.5=) 1950. But it works, and my previous links proves that it works. Therefore, I can only conclude that upgrading HBR to 6,7 @ archery 7 and below, or HBR to 8,9 @ archery 8 makes your ballistas stupid making them move into tower range, resulting in heavy ballista losses.

Now, i recently upgraded my archery to 9, keeping HBR at 5, and have started taking some losses.

These are my battles:
http://battle18.evony.com/default.ht...ba66abac51.xml
Hero attack 93

http://battle18.evony.com/default.ht...c17015452f.xml
Hero attack 88

Another member, Ryoki, a different member from the other thread, with HBR 6, went from archery 8 to 9. He took no losses at archery 8, but took 44 losses on 9.
This is his battle report:
http://battle20.evony.com/default.ht...41d33189e9.xml

http://battle20.evony.com/default.ht...d58fe64f11.xml


Solution
As icedppul mentioned very thoroughly about the battle mechanics, it was indeed the archers hiding behind the swordsman that took out some of my ballistas, not the cavalries.

I haven't tested my theory about the catapults + ballistas... but it's not really something most people can do so I'm not going to emphasize it as a solution. However, theoretically it should work as long as the archery / hbr combo leads ballistas to tower safe ranges.

Higher lvl NPCS:

I know it's now impossible to get 0 losses against trebuchets, but lv 6 cities can be raided with some 150-200 ballista losses. This is because your ballistas and catapults still have a tower safe range. I can conclude this from the reports of the players who have lost only 300 ballistas out of 600 and winning the battle. If their ballistas were in tower range from round 1, they would've lost almost all of their ballistas.


(On the side note)
For those of you thinking that hero attacks change the tech lvl.

Hero attacks factor in as the variable that reduces the rounds. Higher the attack of the hero, the less time it takes to finish the battle. This is because hero attacks increase damage and defense variables in the system. If you want proof, you can see my 2 battle reports with hero attack 93 and 88.

Notice the 5 attack difference resulted in same number of rounds, but with 2 less losses on ballistas?

In other words, we can safely assume that that hero attack purely changes the attack and defense of units, not the tech level. I just can't seem to see significant correlation present on the tech factor from hero attack levels.
Last edited by syoganai1111; 07-14-2009 at 03:42 PM. Reason: editted marks are in all colors besides black.

[Lumbermillzftw]

Confirmed Archery and HBR combinations when raiding a lvl 5 npc city (the 0 loss combination will work for any npc lvl under it as well).
Archery 07 / HBR 07 (Massive losses due to being in tower range, confirmed by Countryrazorback)

Archery 08 / HBR 03 (Massive losses due to being in tower range, confirmed by simul)
Archery 08 / HBR 04 (Smalls losses from units but @ tower safe range, confirmed by thetho21)
Archery 08 / HBR 05 (0 Losses confirmed by me, shoko-koko, Cudaman73)
Archery 08 / HBR 06 (0 Losses confirmed by Lena, Samuraial, Vanin, Icedppul and Zeddknite)
Archery 08 / HBR 07 (*Update* Small losses confirmed by Yoskly, Kokoloko, and Hasurunous)
Archery 08 / HBR 08 (Massive losses due to being in tower range, confirmed by Juan Guerra, and Leepang)
Archery 08 / HBR 09 (Massive losses due to being in tower range, confirmed by CravenMore, and brycepunk1.)

Archery 09 / HBR 01 (Small losses from units but @ tower safe range, confirmed by lingerer)
Archery 09 / HBR 02 (0 Losses when using over 575 ballistas confirmed by Hand Shank)
Archery 09 / HBR 03 (0 Losses confirmed by Zareth)
Archery 09 / HBR 05 (Small losses from units but @ tower safe range, confirmed by me)
Archery 09 / HBR 06 (Small losses from units but @ tower safe range, confirmed by me and soydeedo.)
Archery 09 / HBR 07 (Small losses from units @ tower safe range, confirmed by me, soydeedo, and Kokoloko)
Archery 09 / HBR 08 (0 Losses confirmed by Patta23)
Archery 09 / HBR 09 (0 Losses confirmed by Shoko-koko, Smasher, and SeksuAlus)

Archery 10 / HBR 04 (0 Losses confirmed by General Malice)
Archery 10 / HBR 05 (0 Losses confirmed by Zareth, Thalum, and Robertstewart55)
Archery 10 / HBR 06 (0 Losses confirmed by JoMama)
Archery 10 / HBR 07 (0 Losses confirmed by Zareth)
Archery 10 / HBR 08 (0 Losses confirmed by Patta23, Mantooth, LordGastros, and MikieCGY)
Archery 10 / HBR 09 (Since more people have shown 0 losses, I'm going to say it's good. Confirmed by me, JPA32, Kumquat, match, Scinto, xifins, SeksuAlus, Fubar2150, and Jabbers.)
Archery 10 / HBR 10 (0 Losses confirmed by Angel_Fire and Ostoles)

*NOTE
If you have these tech levels and you are incurring losses, it's because your hero attacks are too low, or you aren't sending in enough ballistas.


The following are number of ballistas that you can send to raid npc cities despite the defending hero stats and your hero stats. It's not the MINIMUM amount of ballistas, but a sure number to raid NPC cities without losses:

20 Ballistas vs Lvl1 NPC
50 Ballistas vs Lvl2 NPC
170 Ballistas vs Lvl3 NPC
250 Ballistas vs Lvl4 NPC
550 Ballistas vs Lvl5 NPC


Confirmed Archery and HBR combinations when raiding a lvl 6 npc city (you will always expect losses, but this will be the combination for minimal losses).

Archery 10 / HBR 09 (200-300 ballista losses, which shows that ballistas didn't die from towers, but mainly trebuchets confirmed by SeksuAlus. This is more effective when using fodder for the trebuchets.)


I'm also collecting some information on your attempts at lvl 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 cities, so if you can, please post those results as well. And thank you all for continuing to support this thread and sharing your knowledge. I will do my best to keep this thread alive and updated.

*Please READ*

Farming npcs is important but it's also important to know how to spawn one. I understand that game dev. don't like people spawning npcs, but if it's going to happen anyways, i'm going to let you know how to do it right.

1) It's best to spawn level 4 and 5 npcs. The valley level determines the npc level that will spawn there and in order to do this, you need to have a level 4 or 5 valley.

2) To get a level 4, 5 valley, you need to wait for the server maintanence that occurs daily. Each maintanence brings up every single valley's level up by 1. Once it gets to 10, it goes back down to 1.

3) The only exception to this rule is when the valleys are occupied by players. So if you want to spawn npc lvl 4,5 cities, please do not hold on to valleys thinking it will lvl up after every maintanence. It won't work, and will keep the same level.


(Side note: This is irrelevant to the npc farming, but since it's a non-noob post...
Please do not hold on to low level valleys! Abandon it each night before server maintanence until it acquires the desired level you want. I'm getting tired of people being lazy around my cities holding on to level 1-7 valleys and crying there isn't enough valleys, or there are only crappy valleys around them!)

(Lumbermillzftw--didn't want to go through and put in all the snazzy color coding links, google still has this thread cached if someone wants to redo these posts in color ill edit my posts to contain no info or leave as is -- this info didn't originate from me, its just a copy so thanks goes to the original author)

[zzbrick]

I am looking to attack an NPC Lv 2, but don't have ballista technology available yet (I hope to get the gold i need from the NPC)...is this futile?

[Max Crunch]

I am looking to attack an NPC Lv 2, but don't have ballista technology available yet (I hope to get the gold i need from the NPC)...is this futile?

Do not do it, you will loose all your troops,
just work up to it get ballista and then attack

[Jakota]

How many Ballistae should I send for a level 4 NPC? I have 8 ARCH 6 HBR.

[CHiH]

With Arch 10 and HBR 9, I regularly send 400 ballista and transports at L5 barbs with no losses, with hero ATKs as low as 55

[danwithabeer]

I'd just like to add the combination (which isnt listed)

Archery 6 - HBR 4

for npc lvl 1 and 2 work

done this with 30 ballistas on lvl 1 npc and 50 ballistas on lvl 2 nps many times, 0 losses. (do not take other troops such as archers, warriors, workers) use transports instead to carry the plunder as workers have losses in these cases.

just adding this info for those lower level guys like myself who want to plunder while awaiting for archery upgrades 7 and 8 (which takes some time and a lot of gold)

so to confirm wat im saying
Archery lvl 6 - HBR lvl 4
30 ballistas for npc's lvl 1 - 0 losses
50 ballistas for npc lvl 2 - 0 losses

(use transports to carry goods back, not workers)

[Baltezar]

Since the NPCs have massive amounts of traps, I assume you only need 20 ballistae and a good research level in order to overtake a Lv. 1 NPC?
I don't know any other way of getting past the 1000 traps.
So, the ballistae will suffice by their own?
If not, what do I need to add?