This is a document I dug out of the forum. There is some good information here but use with caution.
Regards,
Von
1. Robber Baron Guide
0.0 Preamble
I've done this before. When I play a game for some time, I experiment and analyze, and often come up with ideas and solutions others have not discovered. I often wind up fundamentally changing the way people play the game. A few of you may recognize one of my other handles -- Charista. If you play a certain Flash MMORPG, you'll know my previous recent work. My older works are unavailable now, but I have published under Arkand Eagleseeker, too.
I find some aspect to analyze and use against my enemies, and then I eventually reveal it. Well, that's not what I'm doing this time. I'm keeping those secrets. Instead, I've been working on something less personal -- robber baron castles.
Attached to this you will find a list of enemy strength, my solutions, and the corresponding losses. Below, I will discuss what works and what doesn't. I think you'll agree that I have more than a little experience having reached Level 33 RBC's. I've broken this two parts. In Section 1, I'll discuss the forces arrayed against you, and the forces available to you. Section 2 will discuss methods of dealing with various deployments.
0.1 Disclaimer
I do not make any claim that all of these solutions are perfect. Many of my discoveries came in higher level fights where losses mounted and I needed to try something else. It isn't worth a lot of time to cut a loss of 1 to 0, but losses of 10 are worth experimenting on. I have redone some of the lower level barons with new knowledge, but not all.
0.2 Definitions
F - Armed Citizens (Farmers)
S - Spearman
M - Maceman
B - Bowman
C - Crossbowman
G - Onehanded Swordsman (Romans used a Gladius, a short one handed sword)
A - Archer
Z - Twohanded Swordsman (From the German, Zweihander)
H - Halberd
X - Heavy Crossbowman (Cross is often shortened to X)
L - Longbowman
Traveling and Veteran units are not represented.
Symmetric - Equal in number and type, or so close to equal that it doesn't matter
Asymmetric -- Different, either in numbers or types.
Baron 8-1 -- Level 8, with 1 remaining until level 9.
0.2 Excel File I have a copy of this Excel file, if you would like a copy, ask.
Please note that due to some Find-Replace issues, sometimes F's will appear as C's in the Excel File.
[b]Section 1 -- The Enemy and You[b]
1.0 What's the point?
Why bother with Robber Barons? You lose so much, right? With the correct attackers, you always gain some gold. When the rewards reach 1500G in the Level 14's, you start gaining 1000G per fight. Wood and stone are losers until very high levels. Food begins low, but by level 24, you'll gain over 1000 per fight. Three fights per hour at that level is a lot of bonus food production.
But the big winner is Rubies. There are things you can never buy without rubies -- bakeries, watchtowers, ruby moats, and so on. Though low level barons reward few rubies, by Level 25, you can see 25 rubies from a fight, and that keeps rising. I have gotten 38 from my highest Barons. You also get some rubies from finishing the baron quests, but those will pale in comparison to the ones from the fights themselves.
But then there is the RBC resets. These set you back and force you to re-do all the barons you already completed. Apparently, Support doesn't edit them back to your claims anymore. I have already commented on that elsewhere, but I am no happier than you.
1.1 Our Forces
So, we have 10 types of soldiers we can use to attack with. What should we use?
It's simple. At low level, Maces and Crossbows (M and C). At higher level, Heavy Crossbows and Twohanded Swords (X and Z). Why? Simple: they're built to attack. M and C are cheap and fast to build. At high level, only X and Z work as attackers. You can find ways to win with others, but it's not a good idea.
In a future update, more Unit Statistics may become available and some changes may be due. I have experimented with halberds and never found them superior to X and Z in any situation, but I do admit to limited testing. If they reveal more about the combat system, some new testing may become necessary.
The other consideration is the size of our attacking force. For high level barons, we need 200 of a single type of soldier for one battle. The next battle will need a second type. That's 400 soldiers. Each additional type of soldier you ant to use needs 200 more, and that gets into food problems. With Outposts tight to your castle, you can have many types, but I am wider open, to make more barons available. That restricts my types, so I restrict myself to three -- X, Z, and some M's for martyrs (which is discussed later).
1.2 The Enemy
1.2.1 Armed Citizens
Weakest units, but often fought in large numbers. Z's are slightly better than X.
1.2.2 Spearman
Defensive meleer. Fight with C or X.
1.2.3 Maceman
Offensive Meleer. Fight with M or Z.
1.2.4 Bowman
Defensive ranged. Fight with M or Z.
1.2.5 Crossbowman
Offensive ranged. Fight with C or X.
1.2.6 Onehanded Swordsman
Same offense as M, but good defense against both. Not much difference between any attacker.
1.2.7 Archer
Good defense against both. Not much difference between any attacker.
1.2.8 Twohanded Swordsman
Offensive meleer. Attack with X.
1.2.9 Halberd
Defensive Meleer. Attack with X.
1.2.10 Heavy Crossbowman
Offensive ranged. Attack with Z.
1.2.11 Longbowman
Defensive ranged. Attack with Z.
1.3 Tools
1.3.1 Defensive Tools
The enemy uses Stones (+25%) and Tar (+40%) to improve walls and Gate Reinforcement (+25%) and Insulating Mats (+60%) to improve Gates. It also can use Fire Arrows (+25%) and Buwarks (+50%).
1.3.2 Offensive Tools
The Offensive Tools Ladders (+10%) and Towers (+15%) cancel the bonuses granted by Walls, Stones and Tar. There is absolutely no difference between these tools when facing Barons, except for the number you need to use. Spies will tell you the enemy defensive bonus (ie. 40% wall +2 Stones = 40%+2x50% = 90%). You can easily convert that bonus into the number of tools necessary to defeat the total bonus (ie. 9 ladders or 6 Towers defeat 90%.) Extra offensive tools above the defensive bonus are wasted. You can test this yourself by attacking Barons with the ideal number of tools and extra, and seeing that there is no difference. Experimentation with lower Barons can sometimes demonstrate losses don't rise so fast that you need to cancel the entire Wall or Gate bonus, so sometimes you can come up short with no extra losses. The two types of Rams work in exactly the same way, but against Gates instead of Walls. It is important to note that the bonuses conferred by Fire Arrows and Bulwarks cannot be cancelled.
The only real difference is with Mantlets (10%) and Iron Mantlets (15%). These reduce enemy damage, and do not cancel bonuses. These can greatly reduce losses, if used correctly. This is the one real advantage Ruby players have, but they are effective only in fights with large losses against ranged defenders. A stack of 10 mantlets costs a lot of time to build. If you are choosing between 10 mantlets (1 hour) and 4 ladders (12 minute), and you know the mantlets will only reduce losses by 1 Z (10 minutes), it makes no sense to waste the mantlets. Note that Ruby players have no time consideration for buying Ruby tools, so will only consider the time to rebuild the Z, and the monetary cost of the Ruby Tools. Ruby players and non-Ruby players may make different decisions where Mantlets can be used. All my solutions use resource tools, so Ruby players will need to consider different solutions for these situations.
So, again, Mantlets can save you losses, but their expense suggests that you should not always decide to use Mantlets where 4 ladders will only increase losses by small numbers.
1.3.3 The Martyr UPDATE!! This is no longer appicable, the system has been changed. A martyr will not take out all the tools any more.
There is another way to skin a cat. In this case, we can use a sacrificial unit (one we expect to die) to force the enemy to use up its tools. We fight the enemy in Wave 2, instead of Wave 1, by placing a lone soldier in Wave 1. I use Maces exclusively for Martyrs. It reduces the number of soldier types I am building to use only one type, and Maces do a little damage. The cost of Maces is reduced by Glory Rank, so they are cheaper than Spears for this purpose.
1.4 The Castle
The Robber baron castle has 4 fight locations -- Left Flank, Middle Wall, Right Flank, and Fort. The first fights take place against Left, Middle, and Right, and any attackers that penetrate their walls then fight any remaining defenders in the Fort. If the attacker has overwhelming numbers and fills all three parts of a wave, 20% are on each flank, and 60% in the middle. The defender can control the number of defenders in each Wall, as well as the type.
The defenders can be on any wall and in the Fort. They can control whether ranged or melee are on a wall. This constructs puzzles for the attacker (us) to solve. We will deal with this in specific detail in Section 2.
1.4.1 Left and Right Flanks
The Flanks gain a defensive bonus from the Wall (20, 40, or 60%) plus cumulative bonuses from tools.
1.4.2 Middle Wall
The Middle gains a bonus from Wall and Gate (20, 40, or 60%) plus bonuses from tools.
1.4.3 Fort
Any defenders that cannot fit on the walls are placed in the Fort. If a defender wins a wall, those defenders will retreat to the fort to fight any attackers that penetrate a different wall. If the defender wins 2/3 of the walls, the attacker fights at -30%, 1/3 then at 0%, 0/3 then at +30%. With much experimentation, I believe that fighting the Fort at 0% is identical to eliminating the defensive bonuses from walls and gates on the walls. This is a vital fact for determining solutions to some of these puzzles, so it will guide some of our solutions in Section 2.
1.5 Spies
Spying is vital, now that we have official.confirmation that Flank Flipping is intended.
Flank Flipping occurs randomly. The two flanks will swap sides. This can be disastrous if it occurs between spying and attack hit, so spying should occur as short a time before attack launch as possible. Any spy mission more than 24 hours old must be re-done, if the sides are assymetric. A classic baron, level 8 with 1 remaining, has 15 B on one side and 15 S on the other. More than once I have sent 15 M against the B and 15 C against the S, only to find the flanks flipped and I lost 100% of my soldiers to total defeat. X and Z only lose 4 each instead of total defeat, but that is still absurdly high at level 8. Flank flipping is incomprehensible to me, and I don't know what moronic thought got into the developer's head when he thought that completely assymetrical Flanks combined with Flipping was a good idea.
You can build only 3 taverns in your main castle (and you should) for 15 spies with a recent update, but that takes 18 Sword Brothers. Spying Level 31 robbers has a 17% failure rate with 14 spies. Care to guess the success rate with 5? More spies also allows you to spy multiple low level Barons at a time.
1.6 Losing to a Baron
If you lose to a Baron, all of the Baron's forces resurrect. So, you can't wear a Baron down with multiple small attacks.
1. Section 2 -- Solving the Puzzles
Finding the best solution is basic puzzle solving. You can see the enemy deployment, and can arrange your attackers to combat them best. So, we Spy, examine the defenses, and then design our attack to minimize losses.
Some put an emphasis on maximizng Gold profit, but I do not. Each loss costs a lot to replace, and time, so I look to save forces so that they can attack as often as possible. What this means is that I am a fan of Overkill: send more atackers, even if it costs more gold, so that you lose less gold in from dead soldiers. That often means I do make more money, truthfully. Sending massive troops often costs very little, but one less loss saves a lot more.
[u]2.1 Defensive Deployment[/b]
The robber barons' defenders can be arranged in many ways. The defenders can be symmetric or assymetirc, abandon one or two walls entirely, and place melee in one location with ranged in another, or combine them.
There are few important details to determining a solution to a particular deployment. These are facts I have learned through experimentation, and if you don't agree, well, I'm not going to prove each of them here for you.
1) The attack and defense equations are different. Basically, this means that if H on the Wall kill Z that attacking Z on the Wall with H is not a good idea. Feel free to experiment with this, like I have. If you attack 20 Z in Fort with 20 Z of your own at 0%, the defenders will get slaughtered, even though some think the even match so wipe both forces out.
2) Fighting in the Fort at 0% is identical to fighting on a wall after eliminating Wall and Gate bonuses with Ladders and Rams. This allows us to save Tools by fighting one Wall in Fort.
3) One attacker type can defeat some types of melee and some types of ranged, so seeing a combination of melee and ranged defenders doesn't always mean you should attack with two types of attackers. Since G and A don't really change the choice of Z or X, if you see "10B, 10G, 10A", you can base your decision solely on the B, and attack only with Z.
4) Reducing resource tool losses is one of my goals, since I am a non-Ruby player. At higher level (above L2 , where soldier losses mount, resource tools produce faster than soldier replacements, so I switch to saving soldiers over tools.
5) Balancing tool and soldier losses means you are less often waiting on one or the other. In other words, sometimes losing soldiers to save tools is a good choice. This is up to your individual situation..
6) Mantlets can save some losses, but they take a lot of time and resources. Use them only when you know losses are high enough to justify the expense.
7) I generally use a Martyr when facing 40% Tool bonus, but not against 20%.
Going up the middle requires Rams, which are slow. Fighting on Walls is often much cheaper. But going up the middle gives 3x the number of soldiers compared to a Wall, so when the middle is weak, it can greatly reduce losses.
9) Going up the middle allows for a lot more soldiers in Wave 3 for fighting in the Fort. With Martyrs and Flanks, you only get 4x(1 Flank Wave) total in the Fort. The middle starts at 3x(1 Flank Wave), so you don't lose a lot more fighting in the middle vs. the Fort.
2.2 Solving the Puzzles
So, now we get into the meat. I'm going to list some Deployments and how I arrived at the solutions.
It is an exercise for the reader to figure out how many Ruby Tools to use instead of Resource Tools.
2.2.1 27-7
Left: 49F: 2S
Middle: 50F: 2S, 1GR
Right: 49F: 2S
Fort: 132F
All Armed Citizens, 33% on each wall, with excess in the Fort. This is a very common format. It's symmetrical, so we don't need to Spy.
Z's do better against F than X, but X are pretty close. You'll only lose one or two X more, so you can freely mix Z and X in these situations.
You want to fight in the Fort with 30% bonus, so you want to win all three walls. We want Martyrs to take out the Defensive Tools, so we only have to cancel the 40% walls and gates, requiring 4L and 4R. The walls are 29/87/29, so the ideal solution is:
Y/29Z+4L/29Z, Y/87Z+4L/87Z, Y/29Z+4L/29Z
And your losses will be approximately
Y2/Y1/Y2/2
[b]2.2.2 8-1a[b]
Left: 15B: 1T
Middle
Right: 15S: 1T
Fort:
This one is assymetrical. B are killed by Z and S by X, so we have to identify it with Spies before attacking (denoted by the "a" after 8-1 in my Excel file).. We do not want to fight either Flank in the Fort, since we will take losses to the other attacking unit type, no matter how badly we flood the middle with the correct type. We only get 11/33/11, but 11 is enough. The solution is:
11Z+6L, 0, 11X+6L
You could choose to replace 4L with a Y on both flanks, but you should have lots of Tools for fighting Level 8 barons, since you won't have used many up to this level. You'll lose the Y's, for Y/0/Y/0 losses.
At higher level, the number of men on the flanks rise, and the type rises. But it is always a mistake to try:
11Z+6L/11X/11X, 33X/33X/33X, 0
You will lose Z's in the Fort. You can't keep those Z's out of the Fort, and so some of the S damage will be assigned to them, and you'll lose one or two.
2.2.3 15-5
Left: 12F, 3C, 3G: 1T
Middle: 11F, 4C, 4G:
Right: 12F, 3C, 3G: 1T
Fort:
Our Flanks are symmetrical, nothing in Fort to worry about, and the Middle is only slightly more powerful than either Flank. C is ranged and G melee, but G's can be foughtly nearly equally by Z and X, so we can ignore it in choosing our attacker. Same with F. That leaves C, which is fought by X, so we are using only X attackers. T's take too many Tools to overcome, so we want Wave 1 Y's.
We could approach this in two ways. We know that fighting a Wall in Fort at 0% is identical to cancelling the bonuses on a wall, so we could save Tools by fighting on only two walls and take one wall to Fort. The two solutions are Flanks (no attackers fighting Middle) and Flank+Middle (one Flank is not attacked). Flanks cost 2x4L but wall costs 4R+2x4L, so if we're resource limited we want to try Flanks first. Flank trick first...
Y/18X+4L, 0, Y/18X+4L
nets Y1/0/Y1/1, so more support in Wave 3 on the Flanks could reduce the loss in Fort to 0. Tried the Middle first, and got
Y/18X+4L, Y/54X+4L, 0
netted Y1/Y1/0/1, so that conclusion about the Flank support was wrong. The Flank solution put 4x18X in the Fort, and this just tried that and didn't eliminate the loss. So the Flank solution above is superior because it uses less resources and fewer soldiers are devoted to the attack. However,
Y/18X+4L/18X, Y/54X+4L/54X, 0
might elimiate the Fort loss, but I haven't tried it yet.
2.2.4 18-3
Left:
Middle: 35G: 2S, 1GR
Right:
Fort:
Walls are 21/63/21. We could fight the wall straight up with Martyr and 63 attackers. Remember that fighting a Wall in fort is the same as cancelling the bonuses. If we ignore the middle and fill both flanks with attackers (no need for martyrs where there are no defenders), we can have 6x21=126 attackers, instead, which should greatly reduce losses. In general, Z and X are nearly identical when fighting G, but X are a touch better.
21X/21X/21X, 0, 21X/21X/21X
nets losses of 0/0/0/5. We lost no tools, because we didn't fight on a Wall.
2.2.5 24-4
Left: 12G, 12S, 12M: 2S
Middle: 6G, 6S, 6M: 2S, 1GR
Right: 12G, 12S, 12M: 2S
Fort:
This is an ugly one. Both Flanks are stronger than the middle, so it should be obvious that we want to Fight in the Middle. Once that decision is made we have a choice -- fight one Flank for 0% in Fort, or don't for -30% in the Fort. The problem is the scale of the difference. Our walls are 27/81/27, so we're only going to have 243 up the middle at -30% vs. 72, and 48 of those 72 are true defenders. In the end, I worked out that:
Y/27X+4L, Y/81X+4L+4R/47X, 0
Gave Y5/Y2/0/0. I can't see any way to cut losses further. 7 losses is actually low for this level, so it's not as bad as it could be.
Another version of this has one weak Flank, stronger middle, and the other Flank is even stronger. This solution works there, but you need to Spy in order to ensure you are putting your attackers against the weak Flank.
2.2.6 29-6
Left: 3F, 2S, 3M, 2G, 3Z, 3H, 2B, 2C, 2A, 3X, 3L: 3S
Middle: 2F, 3S, 2M, 3G, 2Z, 2H, 4B, 3C, 3A, 2X, 2L: 2S, 1T, 1GR
Right: 3F, 2S, 3M, 2G, 3Z, 3H, 2B, 2C, 2A, 3X, 3L: 3S
Fort:
This is as nasty as it gets. All 11 unit types at the same number, so neither attacker has an advantage. 50% Ranged means Mantlets won't help. In other words, this is going to hurt... bad. Using our knwledge from 2.2.5, we know that taking on one Flank and the Middle will cut losses best.
Y/16Z+16Z+4L/32X, Y/48Z+48X+4R+4L/32X+64Z, 0
takes Y8/Y6/0/2. 16 real losses. What about Flank attacks, and fight Middle in Fort? We know that if we hit only the Flanks, we'd get Y8/0/Y8/? for 12+?. We're already hitting Middle with 3x32, but hitting the Flanks bumps that to 4x32 due to Martyrs in Wave 1. We would only see Middle losses reduce from 6, but we're not doubling the attackers, so 4 or 5 losses are expected in Fort. The result would be something like Y8/0/Y8/4, for 20 real losses instead of 16.
I don't know if I have tried this with a monotonic Attacker. I have seen that work in other solutions, but haven't faced this one since making that discovery.
2.2.7 27-6a
Left: 14S, 24B: 2S
Middle: 1S
Right: 21S, 17B: 2S
Fort:
Not enjoyable. Going up the middle is easy, and since we can overwhlem it, we don't need a martyr or tools. I don't have wall by wall losses for this one, since I changed to that format later.
Tried:
0, 90X, Y/15X+15Z+4L
Lost Y and 18 more.
Tried
0, 101X/78Z, 0
taking the -30 in Fort to experiment with overwhelming numbers at -30 in Fort. Lost 21. Fighting on the Wall then in the Fort at 0 is better than takging the -30 in the Fort and going up the middle. Going up a Flank at -30 would be even worse, since you'd have 1/3rd the forces getting through.
I don't have a good solution for this, but I would next try:
Y/30Z+10M/30X, 90X/90Z, 0
This hits the high Ranged on the Left with Mantlets to cut their damage on the Flank, floods the middle, and overwhlems the Right in the Fort.
2.2.7 23-7a
Left: 8H: 2FA
Middle: 15H, 9A: 1FA, 1S, 1GR
Right: 2H, 6A: 2S
Fort:
Look at the Left. Halberds with Fire Arrows. Fire Arrows only increase Ranged unit defenses, not melee, so these Tools are useless and don't need a martyr. The Right is less than 1/3rd as strong as the middle, so we hit it, too.
26X+4L/26X/26X, 0, Y/21Z+5X+4L/26Z
Cost Y+10, but again, I didn't record losses by Wall. I am showing this one mainly to point out that sometimes Tools are not well chosen, and you don't need a Martyr or to cancel them.
2.3 Conclusion
I hope this helps. I don't make any claim that all of these solutions are ideal, especially in the 7-13 region. I simply haven't experimented with a lot of them since uncovering some of my more recent discoveries.
I am still working on fights where the enemy is split 50/50 on whether I should hit with Z or X. Right now, it looks like choosing one or the other is superior to 50/50. I don't know if it matters whether I choose one or the other, or if it's irrelevant. Investigating this has taken some time because I had Travelling Knights clogging up my food supply and needed to wait until those were out of the way and not screwing up my loss count. It's hard to take extra losses just for the spreadsheet when you know you can cut them with a superior unit. So some of that testing has been put off.
Regards,
Von
1. Robber Baron Guide
0.0 Preamble
I've done this before. When I play a game for some time, I experiment and analyze, and often come up with ideas and solutions others have not discovered. I often wind up fundamentally changing the way people play the game. A few of you may recognize one of my other handles -- Charista. If you play a certain Flash MMORPG, you'll know my previous recent work. My older works are unavailable now, but I have published under Arkand Eagleseeker, too.
I find some aspect to analyze and use against my enemies, and then I eventually reveal it. Well, that's not what I'm doing this time. I'm keeping those secrets. Instead, I've been working on something less personal -- robber baron castles.
Attached to this you will find a list of enemy strength, my solutions, and the corresponding losses. Below, I will discuss what works and what doesn't. I think you'll agree that I have more than a little experience having reached Level 33 RBC's. I've broken this two parts. In Section 1, I'll discuss the forces arrayed against you, and the forces available to you. Section 2 will discuss methods of dealing with various deployments.
0.1 Disclaimer
I do not make any claim that all of these solutions are perfect. Many of my discoveries came in higher level fights where losses mounted and I needed to try something else. It isn't worth a lot of time to cut a loss of 1 to 0, but losses of 10 are worth experimenting on. I have redone some of the lower level barons with new knowledge, but not all.
0.2 Definitions
F - Armed Citizens (Farmers)
S - Spearman
M - Maceman
B - Bowman
C - Crossbowman
G - Onehanded Swordsman (Romans used a Gladius, a short one handed sword)
A - Archer
Z - Twohanded Swordsman (From the German, Zweihander)
H - Halberd
X - Heavy Crossbowman (Cross is often shortened to X)
L - Longbowman
Traveling and Veteran units are not represented.
Symmetric - Equal in number and type, or so close to equal that it doesn't matter
Asymmetric -- Different, either in numbers or types.
Baron 8-1 -- Level 8, with 1 remaining until level 9.
0.2 Excel File I have a copy of this Excel file, if you would like a copy, ask.
Please note that due to some Find-Replace issues, sometimes F's will appear as C's in the Excel File.
[b]Section 1 -- The Enemy and You[b]
1.0 What's the point?
Why bother with Robber Barons? You lose so much, right? With the correct attackers, you always gain some gold. When the rewards reach 1500G in the Level 14's, you start gaining 1000G per fight. Wood and stone are losers until very high levels. Food begins low, but by level 24, you'll gain over 1000 per fight. Three fights per hour at that level is a lot of bonus food production.
But the big winner is Rubies. There are things you can never buy without rubies -- bakeries, watchtowers, ruby moats, and so on. Though low level barons reward few rubies, by Level 25, you can see 25 rubies from a fight, and that keeps rising. I have gotten 38 from my highest Barons. You also get some rubies from finishing the baron quests, but those will pale in comparison to the ones from the fights themselves.
But then there is the RBC resets. These set you back and force you to re-do all the barons you already completed. Apparently, Support doesn't edit them back to your claims anymore. I have already commented on that elsewhere, but I am no happier than you.
1.1 Our Forces
So, we have 10 types of soldiers we can use to attack with. What should we use?
It's simple. At low level, Maces and Crossbows (M and C). At higher level, Heavy Crossbows and Twohanded Swords (X and Z). Why? Simple: they're built to attack. M and C are cheap and fast to build. At high level, only X and Z work as attackers. You can find ways to win with others, but it's not a good idea.
In a future update, more Unit Statistics may become available and some changes may be due. I have experimented with halberds and never found them superior to X and Z in any situation, but I do admit to limited testing. If they reveal more about the combat system, some new testing may become necessary.
The other consideration is the size of our attacking force. For high level barons, we need 200 of a single type of soldier for one battle. The next battle will need a second type. That's 400 soldiers. Each additional type of soldier you ant to use needs 200 more, and that gets into food problems. With Outposts tight to your castle, you can have many types, but I am wider open, to make more barons available. That restricts my types, so I restrict myself to three -- X, Z, and some M's for martyrs (which is discussed later).
1.2 The Enemy
1.2.1 Armed Citizens
Weakest units, but often fought in large numbers. Z's are slightly better than X.
1.2.2 Spearman
Defensive meleer. Fight with C or X.
1.2.3 Maceman
Offensive Meleer. Fight with M or Z.
1.2.4 Bowman
Defensive ranged. Fight with M or Z.
1.2.5 Crossbowman
Offensive ranged. Fight with C or X.
1.2.6 Onehanded Swordsman
Same offense as M, but good defense against both. Not much difference between any attacker.
1.2.7 Archer
Good defense against both. Not much difference between any attacker.
1.2.8 Twohanded Swordsman
Offensive meleer. Attack with X.
1.2.9 Halberd
Defensive Meleer. Attack with X.
1.2.10 Heavy Crossbowman
Offensive ranged. Attack with Z.
1.2.11 Longbowman
Defensive ranged. Attack with Z.
1.3 Tools
1.3.1 Defensive Tools
The enemy uses Stones (+25%) and Tar (+40%) to improve walls and Gate Reinforcement (+25%) and Insulating Mats (+60%) to improve Gates. It also can use Fire Arrows (+25%) and Buwarks (+50%).
1.3.2 Offensive Tools
The Offensive Tools Ladders (+10%) and Towers (+15%) cancel the bonuses granted by Walls, Stones and Tar. There is absolutely no difference between these tools when facing Barons, except for the number you need to use. Spies will tell you the enemy defensive bonus (ie. 40% wall +2 Stones = 40%+2x50% = 90%). You can easily convert that bonus into the number of tools necessary to defeat the total bonus (ie. 9 ladders or 6 Towers defeat 90%.) Extra offensive tools above the defensive bonus are wasted. You can test this yourself by attacking Barons with the ideal number of tools and extra, and seeing that there is no difference. Experimentation with lower Barons can sometimes demonstrate losses don't rise so fast that you need to cancel the entire Wall or Gate bonus, so sometimes you can come up short with no extra losses. The two types of Rams work in exactly the same way, but against Gates instead of Walls. It is important to note that the bonuses conferred by Fire Arrows and Bulwarks cannot be cancelled.
The only real difference is with Mantlets (10%) and Iron Mantlets (15%). These reduce enemy damage, and do not cancel bonuses. These can greatly reduce losses, if used correctly. This is the one real advantage Ruby players have, but they are effective only in fights with large losses against ranged defenders. A stack of 10 mantlets costs a lot of time to build. If you are choosing between 10 mantlets (1 hour) and 4 ladders (12 minute), and you know the mantlets will only reduce losses by 1 Z (10 minutes), it makes no sense to waste the mantlets. Note that Ruby players have no time consideration for buying Ruby tools, so will only consider the time to rebuild the Z, and the monetary cost of the Ruby Tools. Ruby players and non-Ruby players may make different decisions where Mantlets can be used. All my solutions use resource tools, so Ruby players will need to consider different solutions for these situations.
So, again, Mantlets can save you losses, but their expense suggests that you should not always decide to use Mantlets where 4 ladders will only increase losses by small numbers.
1.3.3 The Martyr UPDATE!! This is no longer appicable, the system has been changed. A martyr will not take out all the tools any more.
There is another way to skin a cat. In this case, we can use a sacrificial unit (one we expect to die) to force the enemy to use up its tools. We fight the enemy in Wave 2, instead of Wave 1, by placing a lone soldier in Wave 1. I use Maces exclusively for Martyrs. It reduces the number of soldier types I am building to use only one type, and Maces do a little damage. The cost of Maces is reduced by Glory Rank, so they are cheaper than Spears for this purpose.
1.4 The Castle
The Robber baron castle has 4 fight locations -- Left Flank, Middle Wall, Right Flank, and Fort. The first fights take place against Left, Middle, and Right, and any attackers that penetrate their walls then fight any remaining defenders in the Fort. If the attacker has overwhelming numbers and fills all three parts of a wave, 20% are on each flank, and 60% in the middle. The defender can control the number of defenders in each Wall, as well as the type.
The defenders can be on any wall and in the Fort. They can control whether ranged or melee are on a wall. This constructs puzzles for the attacker (us) to solve. We will deal with this in specific detail in Section 2.
1.4.1 Left and Right Flanks
The Flanks gain a defensive bonus from the Wall (20, 40, or 60%) plus cumulative bonuses from tools.
1.4.2 Middle Wall
The Middle gains a bonus from Wall and Gate (20, 40, or 60%) plus bonuses from tools.
1.4.3 Fort
Any defenders that cannot fit on the walls are placed in the Fort. If a defender wins a wall, those defenders will retreat to the fort to fight any attackers that penetrate a different wall. If the defender wins 2/3 of the walls, the attacker fights at -30%, 1/3 then at 0%, 0/3 then at +30%. With much experimentation, I believe that fighting the Fort at 0% is identical to eliminating the defensive bonuses from walls and gates on the walls. This is a vital fact for determining solutions to some of these puzzles, so it will guide some of our solutions in Section 2.
1.5 Spies
Spying is vital, now that we have official.confirmation that Flank Flipping is intended.
Flank Flipping occurs randomly. The two flanks will swap sides. This can be disastrous if it occurs between spying and attack hit, so spying should occur as short a time before attack launch as possible. Any spy mission more than 24 hours old must be re-done, if the sides are assymetric. A classic baron, level 8 with 1 remaining, has 15 B on one side and 15 S on the other. More than once I have sent 15 M against the B and 15 C against the S, only to find the flanks flipped and I lost 100% of my soldiers to total defeat. X and Z only lose 4 each instead of total defeat, but that is still absurdly high at level 8. Flank flipping is incomprehensible to me, and I don't know what moronic thought got into the developer's head when he thought that completely assymetrical Flanks combined with Flipping was a good idea.
You can build only 3 taverns in your main castle (and you should) for 15 spies with a recent update, but that takes 18 Sword Brothers. Spying Level 31 robbers has a 17% failure rate with 14 spies. Care to guess the success rate with 5? More spies also allows you to spy multiple low level Barons at a time.
1.6 Losing to a Baron
If you lose to a Baron, all of the Baron's forces resurrect. So, you can't wear a Baron down with multiple small attacks.
1. Section 2 -- Solving the Puzzles
Finding the best solution is basic puzzle solving. You can see the enemy deployment, and can arrange your attackers to combat them best. So, we Spy, examine the defenses, and then design our attack to minimize losses.
Some put an emphasis on maximizng Gold profit, but I do not. Each loss costs a lot to replace, and time, so I look to save forces so that they can attack as often as possible. What this means is that I am a fan of Overkill: send more atackers, even if it costs more gold, so that you lose less gold in from dead soldiers. That often means I do make more money, truthfully. Sending massive troops often costs very little, but one less loss saves a lot more.
[u]2.1 Defensive Deployment[/b]
The robber barons' defenders can be arranged in many ways. The defenders can be symmetric or assymetirc, abandon one or two walls entirely, and place melee in one location with ranged in another, or combine them.
There are few important details to determining a solution to a particular deployment. These are facts I have learned through experimentation, and if you don't agree, well, I'm not going to prove each of them here for you.
1) The attack and defense equations are different. Basically, this means that if H on the Wall kill Z that attacking Z on the Wall with H is not a good idea. Feel free to experiment with this, like I have. If you attack 20 Z in Fort with 20 Z of your own at 0%, the defenders will get slaughtered, even though some think the even match so wipe both forces out.
2) Fighting in the Fort at 0% is identical to fighting on a wall after eliminating Wall and Gate bonuses with Ladders and Rams. This allows us to save Tools by fighting one Wall in Fort.
3) One attacker type can defeat some types of melee and some types of ranged, so seeing a combination of melee and ranged defenders doesn't always mean you should attack with two types of attackers. Since G and A don't really change the choice of Z or X, if you see "10B, 10G, 10A", you can base your decision solely on the B, and attack only with Z.
4) Reducing resource tool losses is one of my goals, since I am a non-Ruby player. At higher level (above L2 , where soldier losses mount, resource tools produce faster than soldier replacements, so I switch to saving soldiers over tools.
5) Balancing tool and soldier losses means you are less often waiting on one or the other. In other words, sometimes losing soldiers to save tools is a good choice. This is up to your individual situation..
6) Mantlets can save some losses, but they take a lot of time and resources. Use them only when you know losses are high enough to justify the expense.
7) I generally use a Martyr when facing 40% Tool bonus, but not against 20%.
Going up the middle requires Rams, which are slow. Fighting on Walls is often much cheaper. But going up the middle gives 3x the number of soldiers compared to a Wall, so when the middle is weak, it can greatly reduce losses.
9) Going up the middle allows for a lot more soldiers in Wave 3 for fighting in the Fort. With Martyrs and Flanks, you only get 4x(1 Flank Wave) total in the Fort. The middle starts at 3x(1 Flank Wave), so you don't lose a lot more fighting in the middle vs. the Fort.
2.2 Solving the Puzzles
So, now we get into the meat. I'm going to list some Deployments and how I arrived at the solutions.
It is an exercise for the reader to figure out how many Ruby Tools to use instead of Resource Tools.
2.2.1 27-7
Left: 49F: 2S
Middle: 50F: 2S, 1GR
Right: 49F: 2S
Fort: 132F
All Armed Citizens, 33% on each wall, with excess in the Fort. This is a very common format. It's symmetrical, so we don't need to Spy.
Z's do better against F than X, but X are pretty close. You'll only lose one or two X more, so you can freely mix Z and X in these situations.
You want to fight in the Fort with 30% bonus, so you want to win all three walls. We want Martyrs to take out the Defensive Tools, so we only have to cancel the 40% walls and gates, requiring 4L and 4R. The walls are 29/87/29, so the ideal solution is:
Y/29Z+4L/29Z, Y/87Z+4L/87Z, Y/29Z+4L/29Z
And your losses will be approximately
Y2/Y1/Y2/2
[b]2.2.2 8-1a[b]
Left: 15B: 1T
Middle
Right: 15S: 1T
Fort:
This one is assymetrical. B are killed by Z and S by X, so we have to identify it with Spies before attacking (denoted by the "a" after 8-1 in my Excel file).. We do not want to fight either Flank in the Fort, since we will take losses to the other attacking unit type, no matter how badly we flood the middle with the correct type. We only get 11/33/11, but 11 is enough. The solution is:
11Z+6L, 0, 11X+6L
You could choose to replace 4L with a Y on both flanks, but you should have lots of Tools for fighting Level 8 barons, since you won't have used many up to this level. You'll lose the Y's, for Y/0/Y/0 losses.
At higher level, the number of men on the flanks rise, and the type rises. But it is always a mistake to try:
11Z+6L/11X/11X, 33X/33X/33X, 0
You will lose Z's in the Fort. You can't keep those Z's out of the Fort, and so some of the S damage will be assigned to them, and you'll lose one or two.
2.2.3 15-5
Left: 12F, 3C, 3G: 1T
Middle: 11F, 4C, 4G:
Right: 12F, 3C, 3G: 1T
Fort:
Our Flanks are symmetrical, nothing in Fort to worry about, and the Middle is only slightly more powerful than either Flank. C is ranged and G melee, but G's can be foughtly nearly equally by Z and X, so we can ignore it in choosing our attacker. Same with F. That leaves C, which is fought by X, so we are using only X attackers. T's take too many Tools to overcome, so we want Wave 1 Y's.
We could approach this in two ways. We know that fighting a Wall in Fort at 0% is identical to cancelling the bonuses on a wall, so we could save Tools by fighting on only two walls and take one wall to Fort. The two solutions are Flanks (no attackers fighting Middle) and Flank+Middle (one Flank is not attacked). Flanks cost 2x4L but wall costs 4R+2x4L, so if we're resource limited we want to try Flanks first. Flank trick first...
Y/18X+4L, 0, Y/18X+4L
nets Y1/0/Y1/1, so more support in Wave 3 on the Flanks could reduce the loss in Fort to 0. Tried the Middle first, and got
Y/18X+4L, Y/54X+4L, 0
netted Y1/Y1/0/1, so that conclusion about the Flank support was wrong. The Flank solution put 4x18X in the Fort, and this just tried that and didn't eliminate the loss. So the Flank solution above is superior because it uses less resources and fewer soldiers are devoted to the attack. However,
Y/18X+4L/18X, Y/54X+4L/54X, 0
might elimiate the Fort loss, but I haven't tried it yet.
2.2.4 18-3
Left:
Middle: 35G: 2S, 1GR
Right:
Fort:
Walls are 21/63/21. We could fight the wall straight up with Martyr and 63 attackers. Remember that fighting a Wall in fort is the same as cancelling the bonuses. If we ignore the middle and fill both flanks with attackers (no need for martyrs where there are no defenders), we can have 6x21=126 attackers, instead, which should greatly reduce losses. In general, Z and X are nearly identical when fighting G, but X are a touch better.
21X/21X/21X, 0, 21X/21X/21X
nets losses of 0/0/0/5. We lost no tools, because we didn't fight on a Wall.
2.2.5 24-4
Left: 12G, 12S, 12M: 2S
Middle: 6G, 6S, 6M: 2S, 1GR
Right: 12G, 12S, 12M: 2S
Fort:
This is an ugly one. Both Flanks are stronger than the middle, so it should be obvious that we want to Fight in the Middle. Once that decision is made we have a choice -- fight one Flank for 0% in Fort, or don't for -30% in the Fort. The problem is the scale of the difference. Our walls are 27/81/27, so we're only going to have 243 up the middle at -30% vs. 72, and 48 of those 72 are true defenders. In the end, I worked out that:
Y/27X+4L, Y/81X+4L+4R/47X, 0
Gave Y5/Y2/0/0. I can't see any way to cut losses further. 7 losses is actually low for this level, so it's not as bad as it could be.
Another version of this has one weak Flank, stronger middle, and the other Flank is even stronger. This solution works there, but you need to Spy in order to ensure you are putting your attackers against the weak Flank.
2.2.6 29-6
Left: 3F, 2S, 3M, 2G, 3Z, 3H, 2B, 2C, 2A, 3X, 3L: 3S
Middle: 2F, 3S, 2M, 3G, 2Z, 2H, 4B, 3C, 3A, 2X, 2L: 2S, 1T, 1GR
Right: 3F, 2S, 3M, 2G, 3Z, 3H, 2B, 2C, 2A, 3X, 3L: 3S
Fort:
This is as nasty as it gets. All 11 unit types at the same number, so neither attacker has an advantage. 50% Ranged means Mantlets won't help. In other words, this is going to hurt... bad. Using our knwledge from 2.2.5, we know that taking on one Flank and the Middle will cut losses best.
Y/16Z+16Z+4L/32X, Y/48Z+48X+4R+4L/32X+64Z, 0
takes Y8/Y6/0/2. 16 real losses. What about Flank attacks, and fight Middle in Fort? We know that if we hit only the Flanks, we'd get Y8/0/Y8/? for 12+?. We're already hitting Middle with 3x32, but hitting the Flanks bumps that to 4x32 due to Martyrs in Wave 1. We would only see Middle losses reduce from 6, but we're not doubling the attackers, so 4 or 5 losses are expected in Fort. The result would be something like Y8/0/Y8/4, for 20 real losses instead of 16.
I don't know if I have tried this with a monotonic Attacker. I have seen that work in other solutions, but haven't faced this one since making that discovery.
2.2.7 27-6a
Left: 14S, 24B: 2S
Middle: 1S
Right: 21S, 17B: 2S
Fort:
Not enjoyable. Going up the middle is easy, and since we can overwhlem it, we don't need a martyr or tools. I don't have wall by wall losses for this one, since I changed to that format later.
Tried:
0, 90X, Y/15X+15Z+4L
Lost Y and 18 more.
Tried
0, 101X/78Z, 0
taking the -30 in Fort to experiment with overwhelming numbers at -30 in Fort. Lost 21. Fighting on the Wall then in the Fort at 0 is better than takging the -30 in the Fort and going up the middle. Going up a Flank at -30 would be even worse, since you'd have 1/3rd the forces getting through.
I don't have a good solution for this, but I would next try:
Y/30Z+10M/30X, 90X/90Z, 0
This hits the high Ranged on the Left with Mantlets to cut their damage on the Flank, floods the middle, and overwhlems the Right in the Fort.
2.2.7 23-7a
Left: 8H: 2FA
Middle: 15H, 9A: 1FA, 1S, 1GR
Right: 2H, 6A: 2S
Fort:
Look at the Left. Halberds with Fire Arrows. Fire Arrows only increase Ranged unit defenses, not melee, so these Tools are useless and don't need a martyr. The Right is less than 1/3rd as strong as the middle, so we hit it, too.
26X+4L/26X/26X, 0, Y/21Z+5X+4L/26Z
Cost Y+10, but again, I didn't record losses by Wall. I am showing this one mainly to point out that sometimes Tools are not well chosen, and you don't need a Martyr or to cancel them.
2.3 Conclusion
I hope this helps. I don't make any claim that all of these solutions are ideal, especially in the 7-13 region. I simply haven't experimented with a lot of them since uncovering some of my more recent discoveries.
I am still working on fights where the enemy is split 50/50 on whether I should hit with Z or X. Right now, it looks like choosing one or the other is superior to 50/50. I don't know if it matters whether I choose one or the other, or if it's irrelevant. Investigating this has taken some time because I had Travelling Knights clogging up my food supply and needed to wait until those were out of the way and not screwing up my loss count. It's hard to take extra losses just for the spreadsheet when you know you can cut them with a superior unit. So some of that testing has been put off.