A Newbie Guide by an Actual Newbie

[ThorianB]

After reading several guides heres, i found many things i dont agree with in the current ones. alot of guides seem to focus on the goal of the end game in mind. And alot of players write guides for noobs and havent been noobs for very long time. The tactics that work with older players starting new accounts etc arent always that effective with noobs. So here is a guide on what to do as a noob from a noobish player to help prevent from getting slaughtered.( make sure you read all so you understand the why behind the whats):

1) Pick the right server. New servers are best. servers 102, 105,106 are newish servers. you want newer servers because their is less people to slaughter you out of protection.

2) pick the right spot. Granted this isnt all up to you. But scout the land around you. If you have several people with decent size towns and highish prestige . If your spot is bad you have two options:1) restart 2) use a city teleporter scroll ( you get 2 as a noob in your packages). I would try option 1 first( using the restart button in game). IF you still land in a bad spot you can tele before you come out of protection.

3) follow the quest. They will be a big help. In many cases you will end up with some buildings and techs for free or nearly free and free is important to a noob.

4) Buildings:

Inn- level 1
Feasting Hall- level 4-5
Marketplace- level 1-3
Warehouse - level 3-4 min set to 100% food
academy - level 6
Townhall- level 4
Walls- level 5
Forge stable workshop - upgrade as needed for techs and buildings
Embassy -level 3
Beacon tower- level 5
Rally spot -level 1-3
Relief Station- level 1
Cottages- start with 6 to level 5 add more as you need later in protection
Barracks-4 at least to level 4, try for 4 to level 6
Resource fields( with level 4 townhall): 8 lumber to level 8, 5 stone to level 7, 5 iron to level 7,
4 food to level 7. NOTE: you can switch food and iron to 5 food and 4 iron if iron is really cheap.


5) Techs:
Resources techs = level 4 or 5( recommand 5 for at least lumbering and stone)
Metal casting - level 3
Informatics- level 5
Military Science- level 5
Military tradition - level 1( higher if you have time and can afford)
Iron working- level 4, 5 if you can
Logistics - level 3
Compass- level 1( for the quest bonus)
Horseback riding- level 1( for quest bonus)
archery- level 5 minimium, try hard for level 6
Stockpile- level 1( quest bonus)

6) Offense- focus on archers about 100 of each of the other troops. The only other troops you should trian alot of are scouts. 200 at least starting. with 1k archers out of protection min.

7)Defense- this is where your earlier production comes into play. If you follow the production i laid out in the guide once you reach 60k lumber 30k stone and 15k iron you will be able to build archer towers continiously for the last 2-3 days of protection. The end result is 1.5k archer towers or more( i managed nearly 2k but i play alot). archery level 5-6 will give you the added range on both towers and archers. This will greatly increase you chances of surivial.

8) heros: for mayor you want high politics and low level( 65 of better on a level 1 i would go 68 or better myself on a level 1 for every level above that add 1) BUT you also want decent intelligence at least in the 40s though 50s or 60s would be really sweet. In any case try to get any cheap hero starting out because a small boost is beter than nothing you can replace later with a better hero. For scouts you want a high intelligence hero at least 68 at level 1, For attacks you will want several heros with attacks above 68 at level 1 and decent intelligence. DONT level your heros at first. let them build xp but dont upgrade them. You will have to pay them more and right now you need the gold for other things.

Starting Tips:
1) Do the quest they are very important in the beginning
2) focus on production and cottages but dont over do them so you dont have any materials left for quest.
3) get academy upgraded enough to get archery level 3 early on
4) get walls to level 3 early on. This is a good one to train while your offline.
5) start building archer towers within the first 72 hours. start out with the first 10 ( you will get 50) then another 50 ( will give you 200 total), then do as many at a time as you can afford without hindering building and tech training( note: upgrades on things like walls, townhall and academy will give you resources back)
6) get 1-2 barracks up to level 4 train some scouts and archers. With about 300 archers you should be able to take a level 3 valley with no or little losses. Take 2 stone( desert) and 2 wood( forest) valleys.
7)If you do it right 2-3 days before protection ends you will be producing alot more wood then you are using in comparison to iron and stone. Wood typically goes for more than everything else( except in rare instances where market is flooded with it). sell your wood and buy iron and stone which are typically much cheaper. You will end up with an = amount of stone or iron and some extra gold to boot. this extra gold is very important as you need it to get your techs up.
8)Focus on defense. namely archer towers. You dont typically need alot of archers to attack a level 1-2 NPC or raid an inactive player( assuming he has been inactive for a bit and raided before). archer towers are a good deteriant.In most cases the attacker will suffer losses( unless he is alot more advanced that you tech wise). Combine this with low or no resources and its not benefitial to hit you.
9) Remember what you build now can be tore down later when its no longer needed ( click the circle with line through it on the building portreit in the upgrade window), Later you will probably want to change your production and what not around. For now you want to focus on survival and being self sufficent.
10) Join a decent size alliance if you can, this will help discourag SOME attackers)
11) always be building something and try to always train something. build troops and ATs( archer towers) as materials allow.
12) if you have to buy a little bit of resources in the beginning thats fine. you should be able to sell off some of your lumber the last few days ( i was doing over 200k a day lumber on the market) which will really help with the tech training in the last few days( like archery level 6)

JOOP tips( Just Out Of Protection):

1)Keep your gates closed.
2)When in an alliance make sure the garrison allied troops is checked in embassy
3) 1.5k or 2k archer towers wont save you against someones that really wants to raid you bad enough.However when combined with other factors( some of which are listed in the guide) it makes a strong suggesstion that its not a good idea to raid you.
4)If you dont have transporters by now build some
5)Make sure your resources are kept low. put any excess on transporters and send to a level 1 valley somewhere. send a group of archers with them( a few hundred). Max sure you have max valleys you can control so you plunder and not capture. Set the distance for how much time you plan on being gone divided by 2. This will cost you food and its more efficent to only do this with gold( in other words try to use all your resources up and sell the rest). This combined with archer towers will help deter attackers.
6) Always keep at least 100 traps( 500 is ideal). This forces the engagement to start at 5000 range. end result you towers will shoot sooner instead of later( apparently if you only have towers the engagement doesnt start until the attacker physically attacks the tower meaning some of their troops such as warriors are already in range. if they use archers and warriors and the archers attack first then warriors make it to the towers because the towers go after most valuable attackers first. someone correct me if i understood this wrong)
7) dont attack players in an alliance even if they are obviously inactive. alliancemates still get the war reports and theirs no sense in drawing unnecessary attention to yourself while building up your defenses.
8) look for players targets that are/have: A) village or town, village is best. B) not in an alliance C) low prestige D) watch prestige levels to see if they rise and how fast. ( keep a little note pad of name, cords, date/time, pres level.)
9) get your archery skill max as soon as you can as well as iron working,miltary science, construction and medicine
10) always be building troops or archer towers or both( both perferred)
11) keep your loyalty high( above 75) and your grievence low.
12)remember your loyalty is 100% - tax rate. loyalty= to % of max population.So 20% tax rate on a max population of 10k will give you 80% loyalty max and 8000 people max.


My OOP( Out Of Protection) results with doing the above:

Production:25k food( after what troops eat)75k lumber, 40k stone, 30k iron,2000ish gold( at 20% tax rate- heros)

2k archer towers
2k archers 250 scouts 100 of the rest from transporters below EXCEPT calvary and cataphracts.
48k Prestiege