Free Endgame Analysis by zeizei

Day 63

Editors Note: This might be long but worth reading for your benefit. On behalf of everyone, I would like to thank zeizei for his time and effort in coming up with such an intriguing article about our server. Hopefully we learn from our mistakes and chooses to do better. In real life as well... here goes...


To start the analysis I would like to first congratulate MY for their hard work and their huge investment eventually paid off. Nevertheless, FR did a great job too. A round of applause to all the my3 players. *clap*clap*clap*

As for now, lets assume that MY is going to win the throne of my3, if no hairpin turn exists, I would like to share some thoughts as well as doing some analysis of the endgame stage. I stress that I am not the supporter of any alliances, as I said; I used to spectate during the endgame stage, with no intention to neither cause any offense to any side nor jeopardize anyone's effort and hard work.

There are few points that brought MY to the victory. Rather than commenting about the leadership that often triggers many argumentative issues, I would prefer to share my thoughts on the tactical perspective.

Hammer Size
Firstly, I usually play in .com servers as well as nationals, and there is a very huge difference between nationals and internationals. It is the hammer size and amount during the endgame stage. As we all know, endgame stage is a very crucial phase as it is the point where alliances meet, friends turned to foes, and most importantly, it decides who is going to win the server. In internationals, your army would not be tagged as a hammer if you do not have a massive army that is inclusive of at least 2K rammers or at least 5K catas. The reason is obvious. Only these sizes of hammers are able to deal significant damages to the WW village. As we can see from my3, a 2k catas-based is declared a medium size 'hammer' and could have the potential to bring down a WW with a single strike (for instance, Shah Irwan's offense). What we can conclude from the fact is the defense matters, given that the size of 'hammers' are roughly the same (balyks' hammer is an outstanding one).

WW Defenses
From numerous battle reports I have spotted, the defense of WW from both sides were far less than enough. Let us bring out some statements. A standard defense of WW consisting of 1.5-2 million defenses from each tribe could withstand a hammer with up to 7k catas with no damage done (probably few levels on the targeted building). In other words, a standard WW village has at least negative 2.5 millions crop consumption; that WW village should be immune to Natar attacks. Hence, it is improper to blame FR for piggybacking just after Natar’s attacks. The strength of the defense is still the main reason to justify.

Solid Defense
A level 90+ WW should expect a great amount of hammers invasion, as they want to delay, prolong or even vanish your WW construction and kick you out from the race, and make it impossible to reach level 100 on time. Take Golden Palace (GP) as an extreme example. It was the first to exceed Level 90 and had a very great chance to finish the race. However, what I can see is that GP did not have a solid defense. A so-called 'solid defense' simply means it is invulnerable to the Natar assaults (If it can be easily brought down by Natar, how can you expect to resist your foes?). Yet unexpectedly, Natar heavily weakened GP defense starting from level 90.

WW Pit Stop
GP builders realized (or not) about the crippled defense, but they chose to queue it every time the WW is being degraded. Rather than stopping for a moment to restore GP's defense, time was not sufficient hence GP again faced Natars in short intervals of time. A weakened defense further crumpled with the integrated offense from FR for the first time. As a result, the plan was stolen while WW got zeroed. Some choose to blame Natar for sending close-time-intervals offenses, I would say this is an inexcusable mistake as they can actually have a brief stop. By doing so, GP can take out the attacks one after another, instead of defending both simultaneously. Level control is a very vital element; it decides when you will meet the dreadful Natars. If MY has no other reserved WW villages to replaced GP, the mistake could be a catastrophe for MY. Fortunately they did.

A Fake WW
As MY put in a lot of effort trying to bring GP to level 100, they could have a so-called fake WW to distract the enemy hammers as well as draining their offensive power on GP. 2-3 WW is faked by making its level close to the real one with about 1 million defenses stationed there. By doing so the enemies will send offense to both WW so a real one is likely to survive from receiving a focused multiple assaults. Numbers of WW doesn't matter but only a level 100 WW assure you the victory. Every WW builder tends to make level 100 without anyone willing to sacrifice for the team good. Thus, defense split and a lot of WW were brought down after a great deal of efforts had been done, obviously, it is GP.

FR Offense
In perspective of offense, FR did not carry out an efficient plan to stop MY. They chose to launch organized assaults only when it reached level 90. Bear in mind that defense accumulate throughout the race so a level 90 WW would be heavily guarded. As a result they used a lot of hammers to bring down a single WW from level 97 to zero while other MY high-level WW were still safe and peaceful. With the lost of huge hammers on GP, Fr is likely not to have that much strength left to bring down another 3 menacing MY WW (Picasso, cili and fpt). In fact they should have begin the offense call when one of MY WW reaches level 60 or thereafter.

WW Infrastructures
Most of the attackers did not target the infrastructures (Great Warehouse) but instead they wasted their hammer on targeting the WW. Ex facto, a zeroed WW without destruction of infrastructures is a failure for the attackers. If the infrastructures were still intact, hence the builders would only take a brief time to bring it back to be competitive again. That was what we can see from FaQar's WW (It had been zeroed once and came back again to be the top wonder of the Fr's). Thus, if the particular WW was threatening, a zeroed WW would never scare them off, but clearing of infrastructures would surely cause a great delay.

Team Effort
In order to demolish a WW, hammers don't go alone. Instead it should be a team effort, otherwise, it would not be a rewarding offense even you bring down the WW some levels. A series of WW assault comprises of a rammer-hammer (which consists of rammers no catas) and few catas-based hammers. This is to reduce crop consumption and easier to build. Rammer to bring down the wall, diminishing its defense bonus, followed by 3 catas-based hammers to bring down 4xGW and 2xGG respectively. A massive catas-based hammer should be the last one, it's to zero the WW. The chance of succeeding is very high since previous hammers weakened the defense heavily. Landing time should set as close as possible to each other to not giving any chance to the WW for defense recovery. By doing so the target WW village would suffer extreme damage, in other words, it can be eliminated from the race list and the attackers' side would have one WW less to concern.

Artifacts
Meanwhile, artifacts means a lot in the endgame. There are 2 types of account artifact which bring huge advantage to the selected WW village(s). It's the Pengeliru Musuh (Unik) [vanish with Panamarox] and the Rahsia Arkitek.

Having the Pengeliru Musuh (Unik), the enemy would have no option to target any infrastructure except the WW, hence infrastructures were protected within the artifact's power and since it is harder to bring down the WW, the hammer will be deemed useless.

Having the Rahsia Arkitek, the wall and buildings can increases its stability up to 5x. Try to imagine if a Roman WW holder (cili) with the Rahsia Arkitek. The wall gets strengthen, and the defense bonus boosted to 81%(at level 20). It's almost twice the original defense of the chosen WW village.

Kawalan Diet and Mata Helang are practically unimportant. Crops problem can be handled with the teamwork from members by continuously sending crops, the troops will still survive with or without the artifact. Instead, it may provide a reason for members to not ship crops to the WW village as they assume that it's self-sufficient with extra supplement from some other players.

Having a WW you always have to expect hammers and non-stop calling for defense, even if you have the Mata Helang. It does not mean that if the WW village has no real incoming then we do not have to send defense, instead defense goes to WW village for 24/7. Its only advantage is to know which player is sending a real wave, so that we can send some catas to take down his village before his armies arrive. It could be a devastating move, but it can still be done during the late midgame stage.

Hence, midgame is a very crucial phase as it is the time for alliances/meta to get, store and protect useful artifacts (for instance, the both I mentioned.) Other artifacts are only useful for individuals which don't really promise an endgame victory. Once you get the artifacts immediately make the housing village a defend site. If good things fall to the wrong hand, they will be a nightmare for those who do not know to treasure and value.

Seek & Destroy
'Search and destroy' method is very useful during the late mid game phase, but it wasn't really being implemented by Fr/MY to vanish enemy hammers before the endgame stage. Hammers from both sides’ increases during the mid game and neither grabbed the opportunity to decrease the opposition's hammer numbers. It is handy and accurate to indicate a hammer village. Just click into your treasury and see which enemy's village houses artifacts (which affects the village) having the Pelatih Berbakat, Kawalan Diet or But Berkuasa. If you found their hammer site, then the next thing you have to do is zero-pop it (Panamarox / dUE). Hence, the enemy lost a hammer. If their artifacts affect the account, there's still nothing to worry about. Scouts the villages/oases locating adjacent/nearby to their capital. You will likely to find a great army there, so make it disappear and the enemy will then lost a hammer again. Another technique is to look into the Perompak Mingguan and observe who usually makes the list. Their loot usually goes to making a hammer and feeding crops to it.

To end my post I would like to thank all of you for spending your time to read my analysis. Please correct me if you found any factual errors. I heartily welcome your comments or even critics, so we can both benefits from the arguments.

Regards... zeizei.

TQ once gain...