Strategy? Not Really

DeletedUser

Guest
In retaliation I would have to agree with occult, thought it does depend on the player. I am simply clearing cities just for the fun of it. And I would not mind giving it to another player unless it was destined to be my farm. I think your just butt-hurt from being rimmed.

Wow, now that was awsomly insightful. Nobody LIKES loosing and if they do there is more wrong than strategy and tactics. And since it appears futile to attempt discussion on this I'll leave it at most here like to play checkers and I prefer chess.
 

DeletedUser

Guest
@Maqmang

I also have to side with Dakkar and Occult. I don't think this game is that limited to creating strategies. It's much more complex than chess or checkers combined. It is not just about how people fight, it's also how people build the cities, and where they take the cities, alliances matter, who's near you matter, what farms you have might matter, premium/no premium matters, timing, Divine power casts, etc. etc.... I don't see what you're complaining about.
 

DeletedUser

Guest
Maqmang has a very good point when he analyzes the The goal, the strategy, operation and tactics. Not everyone is equipped to value the importance of that, hence the opposing side of the argument "rolls their eyes" and take out the flamethrower.
But his observation about Smash & Bash is far from being a trend of strategy here.
That is part of the game, and a much needed tactic that benefits many.

I find it unlikely that the council of an alliance sits down and say: "Our road to success is to have the big players "gift" villages to the small ones. Let's get to work now people".

It's not a tactic, nor a strategy. It's the natural way of playing the game.
It's more along the lines: "I have armies, you have culture points and we are both in one alliance. What should we do about that?"

When you take a city from the enemy, it's not just about "who will manage that city". It's a lot about "Who will not control it anymore".
When an army invades a town, they kill , destroy and loot. But there is as much booty you can take with you, so what do you do? you set fire to destroy what you can't have anymore.
That is in the real wars. In Grepolis, what's better than to set a city on fire? It's to "give" it to the weaker players.

@Maq, it's an eternal part of the forums that when someone gives an opinion, the next reply will most likely start with "GTFO you dumb noob". Not that i approve it, but in here you can't pick the intelligence/education level of the posters. You get what you are dealt.
:pro:
 

DeletedUser

Guest
Anyway, this thread is outdated. With all the changes, better not plan on any long term strategy. It'll get screwed up by the next update.
So yes, although I would not have agreed with that when the thread was made, short term tactics are all there is left.
 
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DeletedUser

Guest
@Maqmang

I also have to side with Dakkar and Occult. I don't think this game is that limited to creating strategies. It's much more complex than chess or checkers combined. It is not just about how people fight, it's also how people build the cities, and where they take the cities, alliances matter, who's near you matter, what farms you have might matter, premium/no premium matters, timing, Divine power casts, etc. etc.... I don't see what you're complaining about.

Exactly, what he's complaining about is he failed at understanding the more complex strategy to the game, so he's saying that there is no strategy, when obviously there is, if we were all building without a strategy no one would conquer anything.

If you can't understand anything more complex than chess then go away and don't bash the game because you lost, you failed, get over it.
 

DeletedUser

Guest
Oh dear god...what happened to this thread? Have you all been watching pop idol or something else equally trashy that just melts your brains out of your ear?

Someone please say something intelligent before we all get dragged into this and start happy slapping and working for McDonalds
 

DeletedUser

Guest
First and foremost to the rest of the forum community I apologize for the wall of text.

Strategy refers to a plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal. The word is of military origin, deriving from the Greek word strategos, which roughly translates as general.

In military usage strategy is distinct from tactics, which are concerned with the conduct of an engagement, while strategy is concerned with how different engagements are linked. How a battle is fought is a matter of tactics: the terms and conditions that it is fought on and whether it should be fought at all is a matter of strategy, which is part of the four levels of warfare: political goals or grand strategy, strategy, operations, and tactics.

That said, can someone explain how ANYONE can impliment strategy in this game. The only strategy I have seen displayed herin is what I have lovenly named "Smash & Bash". It has been explained to me, adnauseum, that it is SOP for most Alliances for the larger members to "clear out" the troops and defenses of a weaker player for their weaker player to take over. I submit that you can give any idiot a few thousand troops armed with ax handles to take a few hundred troops armed with musket loaders and see him the victor but what did that person learn? You have simply given your idiot a few thousand more troops with ax handles. Hence the term "Smash & Bash".

You give a promising introduction with a good overview and description of the difference between tactics and strategy(something 90% of people cannot do), but your potentially insightful post quickly deteriorates from there.

First I want to express my opinion that Grepolis is not the game for you- You are clearly a man of tactics. You want to control not just an empire, but also the individual battles that directly affect your failure or success. I have played a few persistent massively multiplayer online strategy browser games that have this feature. In my opinion it is a flawed concept because it requires a player to be online excessively for every battle lest the ai takeover and as we have all experienced, ai control= insta-loss. If you wish to be directed towards this game, send me a pm. You may smile the first time you flank the ranged units with your cavalry, or perform a classic hammer and anvil. But I doubt it will last long.

Now there's nothing wrong with being a tactical person, and the reason I came to the opinion that you were such is that in your post you focus so narrowly on the lack of "strategy". This game is nothing but overloaded with strategy-you try to prove the lack of strategy by instead proving the lack of tactics(which is a good thing in these persistent online games imo).

I'm taking the liberty of making your counter argument for you here- Sending your offense out of a city with an immediate CS wave incoming and recalling them just in time to hit right after it lands is a tactical withdrawal and subsequent counter attack.

Okay, you know as well as I that these examples are so few and limited and that tactics are for the most part entirely void from this game. They are not meant to be included and I highly doubt the Inno team ever will.

As for the "Smash & Bash", that is also just a mechanic, the byproduct of eliminating the tactical from a strategical war game. The way battle between armies work is quite simple, and is done as follows:

One Player is the attacker. The attack value of his combined units, and only their attack value, is added up.

The other Player is the defender. The defense value of his combined units, and only their defense value, is added up.

These two numbers collide in a mind screw of calculating fury and the bigger one wins. The other side is completely wiped out. Battle Over, smash and bash complete.

It is above in these three lines you see the lack of strategy. But I stress my point again that it is the lack of the tactical you are witnessing. It's a simple winner take all approach, hell there isn't even an option for the attacking player to retreat, or preset a damage thresh hold before the attack so the computer knows to withdraw when 80% of your horsemen are gone (if that was your tactical decision).

I again apologize for the wall of text with 1million hit points. But you are a world class chess champion among simple checker players and I direct this post at your unusually large intellect and not theirs. Continuing.

From here on out, let's look at the strategy involved in this game. ITS GOD DARNED EVERYWHERE I LOOK. This entire game, and your success in it, is almost entirely the consequence of your implementation of strategy.

First you must strategically choose what units you will build and in what levels. This can be done haphazardly or strategically, looking at offense/defense numbers, comparing the differing units mathematically in a way to determine the best ratio of units to use, and then apply that in a way that is the most efficient use of the limited population space you are given to work with. This is the stage at the beginning of the game, in your first city.

From here on out there are a myriad of ways you apply strategy to your game. You send spies both in game and without to get needed information on potential targets. You try your hand at personal, and alliance wide diplomacy, to create strategical advantages against your enemies.

You start farming weaker players to feed your war machine. Conquer weaker targets to expand your cities. Fight head to head against opponents that are also expanding. Send a CS fake and include support fakes to a target to tie up the defenses of the opposing alliance/player in the wrong city, then send your real strike and catch him off guard.

Did you exploit a weakness in one of the three attack types in your targets unit strategy? Did you properly and fully take advantage of divine powers to coincide with the overall goal of your strategy? What about the choices you made in your city builds? Is there a plan and purpose behind each city? Or were they all a hodgepodge of randomly built units lacking a cohesive purpose, weakening their overall effect?

Strategy in this game includes all the minute choices you made before the battle ever started. These all change how effective any war you wage will be, before you even start to strategically decide where to send support, which cities to take, which to defend, where to open a front, where to push coordinated believable fakes. I haven't even gone into the complexity of planning behind a large alliance wide war effort, and you may wish to call that operational but it is still part of the grand overall strategy.

Don't focus on the end product of a small calculation and comparison of 2 numbers that is the battle system and say there's no implementation of strategy in this game. Besides, that is essentially the tactical.

Methinks, if one were to use their more powerful members to keep others off their players back while he/she takes their own town, you end up with an Alliance of warriors that is stronger, player for player than the "Smah & Bash" crowd.

Your thoughts on this?

This makes no sense. Methinks you should rethink this and make a point. Oh wait I forgot, you are right and I am wrong. Let me go bang my head against a wall continually until this makes sense. Brb.

Since you posted the blah, blah, blah, it leads me to believe you did not read the info and if you did you would know that the portion you used as an example of me contridicting myself was about tactics, not strategy. Giving a player a city on a platter is a tactic, and a poor one at that, for nothing is learned. Loosing that city was a huge educational experience for me. If those tactics were used on me by others now, I would be able to hand them their heads. Due to the tactics used against me has lessened my animosity at the inellagent assault, improved my game and strengthend another Alliance as a result.

The battle points being seperate from the ranking system is just another flaw in the game that would be easily sovled withh a more complex calculation of the rankings. Similar to the lack of a "Fog of War" here. I like the game to a point and the games frorm their competitor are inherantly (sp?) better but these guy provide a superior priemum system. Maybe if they tried different variences in beta worlds, they would see that some of the suggestions provided them are actually good ideas that would be benifical to improving the quality of their product.

If you disagree with my thoughts, I have no problem with that but the combacks of "stupid" and "noobs" is simply the last resort of the inane. How about a little intelligent discourse instead of petty insults.

There's nothing wrong with clearing and "giving' a player a city. Experience is not necessary, we as humans beings have created systems of communication where we can share our experience and knowledge to "teach" others. If this was being done, then a stronger player clearing a city for a much smaller ally to take and grow is nothing but good news.

Wow, now that was awsomly insightful. Nobody LIKES loosing and if they do there is more wrong than strategy and tactics. And since it appears futile to attempt discussion on this I'll leave it at most here like to play checkers and I prefer chess.

Dude, first rule of insulting other people's intelligence online-leave no evidence that you are in fact, no more if not less intelligent than they. This forum is one of words, how you spell them and then craft them into ideas are our only measuring tools. Just shows pure laziness on your part the damn words are underlined in red. And if you are color blind I apologize, you clearly show you are a superior human being and I assumed you were born without defects.
 
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DeletedUser

Guest
Okay, I have cleaned this up if it starts going off topic again infractions will be handed out. Keep it on topic and spam free please.
 

DeletedUser

Guest
Which is easier to kill? The enemy you can see or the enemy you can't. These games are about far more than just the battlefield, any diplomat will tell you that. I believe Sun Tzu wrote, "The sword can harm, words can kill". I have tested this on several different strategy games, and with success every time. The amount of strategic involvement in these games depends how deep into strategic warfare you take yourself. Strategy is far more than war.

Over and out of gamma...
 

DeletedUser

Guest
indeed. there are all sorts of things that form part of strategy. Like espionage.

Incidentally, if anyone hates their alliance and thinks they are all evil (insert insulting term here), then mail me in game to sell them out. Intel sources are always greatly appreciated.

All information will be used to the detriment of the alliance in question.
 
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DeletedUser

Guest
Maqmaq, a great game for you is called Rome Total War. It and it's expansion pack together is only 20 bucks. Plenty of strategy and tactics(on and off the battle field), religion, economy, political, and so on. Plus is has online mode!!

This game is 2005 but still one of the best out there and beats most RTS today. When I first discovered RTS I dropped TW right away because I found out that's the stuff I was looking for. Maybe you need to play a different type of strategy game...
 

DeletedUser

Guest
My tribe, the lords of grepolis(been disbanned for a couple weeks) attacked the Dark Union once. We attacked 10 of their middle point players and lost everything, tons of troops, tons of attacks, 10 cships, all gone. They sure had strategy
 

DeletedUser

Guest
lords of grepolis lasted until a couple of weeks ago?
:O:O
and they coordonated?
:O:O:O:O
i remember that in the begining i farmed like 2-3 of them, and all of them in O46 were farms, as each and every one of them i attacked, just bent over....:D
 

DeletedUser

Guest
There is strategy within the scope of this game. First you have to understand what your over all view. Do you play defensive or offensive. Does your alliance chose to work in group/team effort or do you work alone. picking a target city or targets. choosing divide and conquer, taking out support cities then going after the major players...ect. these all are part of a stratagem. Understanding what strategy is and the difference between it and tactics is necessary if you want to become a efficient effective player and alliance; or a brute who only understands smash, bash and grab.
 

DeletedUser

Guest
Strategy changes with opposition. To set a defined doctrine would is akin to playing the same hand every single time you play "Rock Paper Scissors". In my TW days I would have coordinated all members according to tribe-wide surveys with the information locked safely inside an Excel file on my computer:
Enemy positions: Is there a clear frontline? Or are the participants of the war mixed together? Are there any isolated members?
Player strengths: How high are their points? Have any of our members recently been attacked? Could they afford to be double-teamed?
Loyality: What is his/her position? How loyal is he? Has he proved it? How long is his membership?
Activity: Would an inactive player be of any use?
Buildings: Could you tell a player with no workshop to bring down somebody's wall?
All members have to send their noble and coin counts to me, and I will give them their opponents accordingly.

Yes, I know :pro:, but still, basic planning and coordination still applies in this game. There is no clear concept of Strategy in this strategy game, but merely how people work together.
 
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