a few thoughts on optimal strategy

[Ascent]

Since I decided not to chase the blue boxes and prizes this event, in my spare time I typed up some of my thoughts for your amusement

Energy:

There are 1440 minutes in a day, so everyone has 4,320 energy points to play with each day... unless of course you play as IRAN with a 10% bonus, which means an extra 432 energy per day for you. It does not seem much, but if you convert it, it could easily mean an extra $100,000+ cash per day as a bonus if you are hitting the right missions. And this is an advantage you will constantly have over all other nations day by day, week by week, they will not be able to compensate for this in any other way.

Defense:

Other nations will certainly reply, that their Air, Sea or Ground defense bonus is worth more than this extra daily cash. If you do the math, it is obvious that they are right - an extra $100,000 daily will not be enough for you to buy 10% more units than they have, especially not at higher levels. However, and this is the key to understand: you are not comparing yourself against one other guy of another nation, you are playing against a horde of players and there will ALWAYS be someone stronger than you. So unless you are they GOLD king of the hill, we can safely conclude, that no defense is enough... EVER

Now, if no defense is ever enough, then why bother at all? I say, money is king in this game and it is simply futile to waste money on defense, especially if you can vault all your money and if all else fails, invest the unvaultable money in defense buildings or palm tree parks until you need it.

Unvaultable money:

Yes, when you have extra, unprotected money you can't fit in the vault you have two choices: either try to defend it with an army (hopeless, as there is always a bigger fish than you are) or you invest it in a building and pay a 50% protection fee for this type of storage. Yes, it is a hefty price, but what this way you can be certain that that (half of)the money WILL be available on demand when you need it. The alternative is to risk losing ALL of your money (and sleep over it) and you cannot count on it being there when you need it.

Skill points:

There is absolutely no reason to have more energy points than the longest period you spend away from the game daily (number of hours of sleep time to fill it to the max). The rest is wasted, when it could be used for more important things.

Now, originally, when I was thinking about what strategy to follow, I realized, that to spend skill points on ATTACK bonus is kinda stupid, as I can always look up the enemy profile and pick someone way way weaker than myself to make sure I can defeat them. On the other side, since DEFENSE skill ponts do not show up in the defense total ponts, having a huge DEFENSE skill will surprise the attacking enemy. I noticed, that 50 or a 100 defense skill points can easily cause an attacker to lose a few battles even if they have 3-5-10 thousand attack points over my defense points.

Now, I know that this will not fool the smart players, however, since my defense SKILL bonus will usually make them lose the very first one or two battles, this will certainly demoralize the enemy, even if they know what is happening. When I am faced with such a surprise, I almost always keep attacking, knowing that they luck is simply a defense skill bonus which runs out in 1 or 2 fights and from then on the real attack defense values will determine the fight. Howver, psychologically it is quite a deterrent to those who let feelings guide them instead of pure rationality


what else?

Oh yes... however, since I am about to reach whale territory, I am changing my skill points strategy because now I must look at the situation differently. Whales are not effected by my high defense skill bonus, as they will have twice or thrice the attack points over my defense, and no amount of skill bonus will make them lose even one fight against me.

Therefore, defense again is a futile excercise, and I must focus on making my attacks have as much success as I can.

So now, I look at attack skill points as the extra force I can add to raise my attack / win chances against those I am planning to attack. I can only spend as much money as I make a day to buy units, and besides the boost buildings, the skill points is another way to "boost" your winning chances.

Cheers and see you out there

[Mcdoc]

Seems rational - but for the first 3-4 months of playing, you should be able to actually utilize defense buildings against the normal "mortal" enemy - SO - why not buy ALL the defense buildings you can along the way - keep them at level one only because I don't think you get back more money when you sell a level 1 building vs a level 10 building - and then SELL all your defense buildings (if you honestly feel they are worthless) when you reach the level that you want money for a Nanotech building or Space Station.

Not my strategy - but maybe makes a little sense added on to your strategy.

To each his own

[Ascent]

Since part of the optimal strategy is to always utilize the other reasource I haven't talked about, namely TIME, what I noticed (on both my accounts, each using different goals) is that I can always spend all my money on keeping the one upgrade, one building and one extension process going. Therefore, I eaither have no money left to be stolen via attacks, or I invest them into defense buildings or palm trees until I need the cash to buy something above my vault limit.

Also, since I can collect the high value buildings at least once or twice every day on schedule, and raiding my lower value buildings is not lucrative for the enemy, I really do not see any reason to protect anything at all

Seriously, reading went down so much, that I have a level four bio dome sitting there for a day an no one is interested in half a mill

And finally, at $450,000 income per hour I am having trouble spending the money as it is... so I do not mind sharing some fat loot with an occasional visitor... I am really quite happy for him... I can see the grin on his face and enjoy his joy as well

On a further note, reflecting on my original post, that extra 10% energy bonus does convert to +10% mission loot units, so it does make up for at least the loot unit strength advantages of other nations.

[Warfiend]

That's a completely different way of looking at things. A couple things though:

1) the nation bonus for units is not just defense, it also applies to offense. So it's not just a question of making up for lost defense, it's also a question of making up for lost offense as well. I don't see that what you're suggesting does that.

2) Just because a strong defense can't protect you from every last threat, doesn't mean there's no point in building one, anymore than the fact that a seat belt can't protect you in every single accident means there's no point in using a seat belt. To me, it looks like at the upper levels it's a choice between being just whale food or being whale food and whale food's food(for non gold or light gold players anyway). Granted, I'm low level now and haven't been there, but it just seems like that is the case based on the many things I've read by people who have been there.

Still though, that's an interesting way of looking at things and I enjoyed reading it.

[Jp lfs]

There are some very interesting points made here. And I have to share that I have had some very strange outcomes while attacking with my LLP. For example, someone with no boost buildings or country bonus beats me when my stats are easily 30-40% above theirs. Or I lose an attack on someone I should have easily beaten. Or I will win 3 in a row, then lose the 4th and 5th attacks. Very strange. My higher level account has never had this result, and I put quite a few points into attack and defense in both players. There really is an unknown, secret, or even random factor at work here. Thanks for sharing, it has given me a lot to ponder.

[Jp lfs]

Also, I have noticed that even when I can't successfully attack someone, I can still raid their base like crazy, regardless of defense buildings. I think that raiding is based on a completely different set of rules.

[War Priest]

Also, I have noticed that even when I can't successfully attack someone, I can still raid their base like crazy, regardless of defense buildings. I think that raiding is based on a completely different set of rules.

They do because then defense building stats jump in and all. Except mine works the opposite compaired to you. Sometimes when I raid somebody I lose a super hornet or one of the really high stat money units. Haven't done it in a few weeks so I don't know if I am all gold yet or not but now I just stick to attacking.

[Thunder Child]

@ Ascent
A very refreshing appraisal of and attitude toward the game. Notice a lot of ideas, strategies and conclusions I use or have used, and some new ones, too. Hope to see more of your thoughts...
Great avatar, BTW

[Ascent]

It is about time I expanded a bit on my original thoughts about optimal strategy.

I will not explain and prove every point as we can nitpick about the details... but on the overall grand scale the situation looks like this:

1.) Valor is a limited and finite resource. You will get less and less of it for an ever increasing price until it will not be worth pursuing it at all.

2.) Cash on the opposite is an ever increasing resource as you build up your economy.

3.) Funzio will not likely to introduce any future ways to make valor easier or cheaper to get, as it would only "make the rich richer" and funzio does not want to spread the player base even more thinner than it is now.

Therefore, it is assumed that:

4.) Any valor lost is lost forever and is irreplacable on the long run.


Well then, if it is so, I am looking for the strategy to make use of valor in a way that prevent any loss of it. I do not mean hoarding it, I really do mean USING it, but in a way that will allow me to minimize its losses.


Now, we do know that attacking the the fastest way to lose units, so I will obstain from using valor to purchase attack units. In fact, I will try to make sure that valor units will never be taken to battle.

The only way to do this is to spend valor on defensive units.

And since they will NOT participate in ANY attacks EVER any such defensive unit I will have to have the lowest attack stats possible... why pay for something which will be never used...

...in fact the lower the attack stats the easier to make sure they will never be used in attacks.

So, I am spending all my valor points on Military Ambulances (for now) and M270 MLRS on the long run. At the same time spending all my cash on making sure I will always have at least 2000 units with higher than 17 Attack stats.

I know it is a long run to get that many separate units for attack and defense, but hey... money just keeps growing at an hourly rate of $560.000 and Valor isn't. Also, until I get there I really don't need too high Attack stats to beat up those 5-6000 A/D stats guys who exist on every level... and as I notice, the higher I get the more of them there are (I guess they are the whale gangbang victims?)

So, what do you think guys?

[JohnnyR]

Your assesment regarding the finite nature of valor and it's best use is brilliant. I will be rethinking my strategy.

Quick note regarding military ambulances, mine cost $84,000, no valor. Did you mean another unit?