Experienced PvP Toolkit
Before reading this you should already be familiar with how tlk works and know how to play the game. This toolkit has been written to help players get pvp gold medal, it doesn’t always work as there are some random factors during ages but should get you to be top 5. I will assume you know how to manage your hts and gold.
In order to do this though you will have to be active, you don’t have to not sleep but you do have to have influence on what happens. There is little competition in pvp at the moment and I don’t know if this is because people don’t know what they are doing, aren’t active enough or just give up when they don’t get a good start.
Tip 1: Know how the pvp points system works….
You get more points for winning pvps than losing – it might be fun to have catapults and kill lots of units but you won’t win the majority of pvps v full armies so you won’t be getting 1st.
You get more points for how much ‘auth’ you take out, this can help us in 2 ways; the first being pvping at a higher rank will get you more points. Also pvping against already injured mains might be fun but you won’t rack up lots of points when you only take out 5 units each pvp. This helps us with unit selection - you need to be able to pvp full armies and win while taking limited, if any, damage yourself. This is so you can repeat again and again. As any pro pvper will go random it’s actually best to save those 2 free hts till age end when you’re at your highest rank and those pvps count for more (not that I ever manage this).
Tip 2: Know your maps and age lengths
This is never an exact science and if you are HC or doing some sort of diplo you can have influence over it. As an example we know Africa map is usually quite short, there isn’t an easy hiding place or areas to circle round so you don’t need to worry about what your army could look like at marquess, you can happily pvp mainly at Marshall/Knight and the age will end. You can look at other factors such as random age or not, if there is a few stacks playing we usually know they will mop-up maps pretty quickly. Being in the community will help you understand this.
Tip 3: Unit selection
When you random in somewhere you will get the option of a unit everyone can use or your countries specific unit. I usually like to try the countries unit as it matches up with terrain bonuses, this makes very effective pvping if you can get it on that terrain. You should also consider on whether it’s a random joining age or not, I’m currently in Kediri with cavalry so I have to rebuy raiders to fill up my auth when I get a dead. This isn’t ideal and why a lot of people have gone marksmen in Asia. Sometimes you’re not bothered about terrain, e.g. lancers v pure cav…. Pret Guards (Rome) are the best example for this – being able to win pvps nearly flawless on bad terrain is an absolute dream.
You need to have some knowledge of the way the battle simulator works, ranged inf, cavalry, high melee inf, any pike and pezzies can all pvp really well with low injuries against the right armies. This is your call and you have to try and read the map + units and any changes to try and maximise the amount of targets you will have. E.g. African map has strong halbs (pike) even though they got nerfed a few ages back, going cav is still risky as some rankers may include some in their armies.
Tip 4: Hero setup
You already know to maximise your duelist but you do have 2 different options on your supports. 1 – trainer – you get this if you want to have amazing units before everyone else. While everyone else at knight is on standard t3 units you could have vet (or master maybe) units and you can win very easy. This will take a lot of sfs and/or training to do.
The normal option is to maximise merchant and hoard gold. Of course in a long age you might find that your units are still t3 std or vet while others are on t3 master making it harder to win late in the age.
Tip 5: Spy early
Sometimes I’m spying people’s units day1 just to see what people have gone. This can help you make decisions on who to war and even what unit to go. Find a friend to share intel with across the map, sometimes you can have most people’s units in the first day. In order to do this you need to understand where it’s best for some countries to train – look at their terrain bonuses and unit bonuses to work it out.
Tip 6: Know your enemy
Ranking quickly with a pvp army is useful so you still have to be active, joining sfs and sometimes training. However you can rank too quickly, if you’re against some semi active rankers then you are going to want to be the same rank as them and farm them every 6 ticks where you can. Don’t feel bad about it either, it’s your job, this is a war game after all!
Tip 7: Take a risk sometimes
Sometimes being in the main gets you loads of pvp and is all’s you need to do. However, much to the annoyance of your leader/planner you do need to go alone and start hunting other mains. If you can put yourself in their shoes and see where they will end their wheel then it might be worth it. You risk getting kicked, annoying your own country or there just being no targets offline. Even better if you know they will pass on perfect terrain for you. My advice is to stay invisible, don’t border them as soon as they finish a wheel, wait for them all to go offline before moving in – do your bit – move out… as if you were never there. Of course if you repeat this too much then the country and players will be wise to your antics and you might get caught.
I’ve also considered being deliberately kicked home because another enemy main is approaching capitol and the terrain is excellent for me. You need high hp units for this and hope for few deads…or have lots of gold to replace them with! You could also not join another country when yours dies and deliberately join when an enemy main is near a capitol in order to pvp them immediately. Your units still heal, hts still get added and merchants pull in gold even though you have no country.
Tip 8: Hit in the right order
If you are fully stocked with gold and hts and have let’s say 3 targets on the border you know you can win then do not hit the easiest first! You want to hit the easiest last so you can heal from ticks and cheaply after. Use your hts on the 2 hardest targets to save gold.
Tip 9: Spy their hero
Winning hero duels is so important in pvp it makes a massive difference throughout the age. The crazy thing is if you have time to properly spy their army it should show you their hero hp, damage and racc, rstr…if so you can probably work out their setup. You might want to change your loadout so you can beat them easy.
Tip 10: Suck 1 in
Sometimes you’re too high ranked or all your targets are online and you are going to have to get sneaky in order to win a pvp. If you’re on good terrain and all the enemy armies online don’t scare you then logoff and they will usually be too tempted to click attack you can win another pvp!
Logging off can also be useful to help get your targets to logoff as they are no longer scared you might pvp them… make use of the fact you can see if people are online or not without having to login to the game.
Hope this is useful,
Blacky23