Advise...

[Natmus]

haymaker said:

intchanter said:

lab, main house, and barracks are level 15; everything else is level 20

I strongly suggest level 20 barracks.

I agree. Soldiers should be built as fast as possible, 24/7. Harbour doesn't need to be above level 1 unless you want to build LWS, and not above level 10 unless you want to build colo boats on the isle in question.
In my experience a level 10 harbour builds LWS in an adequate time, as it's assumed that with time you need more men left behind on your isle as a garrison when the fleet is out fighting.

[Cesium]

Personally, I've shunned this advise on the thread, and made all of my isles something I could properly attack and defend with. This sort of means I don't have very many killer fleets, but I've got lots of respectable fleets spread out over my empire. The way I see it, if we go to war, people will try and pick off my smaller isles first, and I want to give them an unpleasant surprise, so that by the time they've gotten to my bigger isles (1-10) they'll be so worn out and damaged, their killer fleets won't be strong enough to touch my core armies. This strategy mostly rests on the assumption that the defender has the advantage in Inselkampf, and that through attrition, you can wear an enemy down to where he'll just get sick of the losses and decide it's not worth it. Admittedly, larger fleets are pretty awesome, but I like to be well rounded. Better to have 1,000 spears on all your isles than 5,000 on five of them, with the others all sitting ducks.

[blazed]

I must agree I've done much the same as Cesium. I am planning to begin feeding some of my isles to create larger fleets, I'm also going to have at least 100 LWS on my smaller isles for the time being, because I believe its silly to have isles with no offensive power. I'm currently tryin to catch up on fleet a bit with my top 5 isles each having over 3k spears, but only 1 over 300 LWS

I guess I'm not spearwhore like Tom though, remind me to make sure you attack me, not the other way round

[digital]

The way I work my isles is that I upgrade them so that all them can produce colo's/lws/spears/cats that way depending on what mood I'm in I can make whatever I feel like on my main isles, the rest of the resources are shipped to my smaller colonies to help them progress further.

[Tomthebuffalo]

Just worked out that I got 5,000 spears on the ol' main isle!
I wonder who else in the game has this? Probably loads! Cant be bothered with Archers on this server.... ^^.

[AeroS]

I would like to know how a colo Puttana! predicts when war will happen and when to actually start miltary production to be ready for it? We could be in a fight over night and most of the time it's never expected. Will our colo whores be ready with strike capability? I don't doubt that many have plenty of troops to defend their islands but what good is it if they can not be put on ships and sent against some one?

[Arminius]

I have three groups of islands, ocean 1, 12, and 23.

Ocean 1: 'mature', building troops and ships
Ocean 12: mostly mature, about half the isles switched to troop production, other half stil building buildings
Ocean 23: still being upgraded, only just able to build spears on three of them

So I have one expanding group which is growing, and the remaining isles slowly switch over to troops. I'm still expanding, but I guess not at the rate at which I could do if all isles where producing colo ships.

[Natmus]

tomthebuffalo said:

Just worked out that I got 5,000 spears on the ol' main isle!
I wonder who else in the game has this? Probably loads! Cant be bothered with Archers on this server.... ^^.

Well, this is the current statistics for my main isle:

Army
Stone Throwers (850)
Spearfighters (4745)
Archers (880)
Catapults (203)

Ships
Large Warships (985)
Small Warships (65)
Colonization Ships (2)


I have some 120 sms on it as well, but they were all out sailing when I took this picture.

[eproxy]

arminius said:

I have started setting my islands on autopilot using XXL, which means I won't have to touch them. I only manage the newly acquired ones and one or two which I keep on 'manual' to build colo ships.

Haymaker: why barracks 20? I have them at 10, mostly, but can't see why 5 wouldn't be enough. My standard isle produces 35 spears and 5 LWS every day, and for that level 10 barracks are enough.

Granted, when it comes to actual attacks it might be better to have the ability of faster troop building.

I leave the lab at level 1 (apart from the cat producing isles where it's 15), the harbour and barracks at 10, and I try to avoid building up the quarry too much. Everything else is level 20.

Similar setup here, I generally get my quarries up to 18 on all isles though (helps feeding others) and I also keep my barracks at level 15. I'm attempting to keep a 10:1 ratio of SF:LW.

I believe I'm currently numbering over 3k LW and a pitiful number of cats but we all have to start off somewhere

[ashimar]

I fulheartedly agree with Bishop that this is a very worthwhile thread to read and to contribute to. Very nice !

There are quite a few approaches as shown and with time some will be proven better or worse. A lot depends on being lucky as well.

For those who complained about the virtual absence of warfare, you have to remember that in server terms we are still in the dawn of this IK world ! I expect full scale warfare to ensue only after the one year anniversary of this server. It's all about risk avoidance and critical mass. The clever player expands because it's easy to expand right now and there are hardly any predators (depending on where you are), so why bother risking clashes by taking other player's isles ? It is simply unnecessary. Why slug it out now because you are feeling somewhat bored when the fireworks could be so much bigger if you just wait around a bit more ? Chances are you'd be able to do it twice in a row by that time.

The current situation is really meant for those with a long breath and patience. I sometimes hear people say: "I wish we had a war, I'm bored", but personally I do not feel that way at all. I'd gladly sit here doing my stuff for a year more and be as happy as can be. But then I'm more of a fortifier, so ever higher garrisons give me a "hard on". ;D

When I started playing on this server I never would have guessed that I would go beyond 12 or even 15 isles and now I find I have 25. But wait a minute....Arminius has more, Fottuto! hell...48!!! I'm bloody well shocked ! I need to get more, I need to move swifter, I need to raid more, I need to....get a cup of coffee and bring Sophie to bed and build up my 25 isles nice and quietly.

The truth is, even though I have gotten XXL for the scheduler, I am really sick and tired of score 1 islands. You see, I build up all my islands as equal fortresses, I do not like the insecurity of feeder islands which I have to defend, I do not like to constantly stop production to churn out colonyships and I most certainly do not like to ship loads of resources around, so I have reached the point where I really hate unfinished isles. Will I then not get any more isles ? Well, herded along by such fine and ambitious if not maniacal players as you lot, I guess I will try to go beyond 30 at least. Perhaps aim for 40, but at least not by getting virgin isles in unreachable far places. I'm concentrating on ocean 2 exclusively. To this end all my 25 isles need to be able to make catapults. Yes I know that might be considered a waste of resources to get such productionfacilities up and running, everywhere, but the advantage for me is island independance, no need for complex resource logistics and saving time whenever I need lots of cats in a relatively short period of time.

Same for the military: I like strong garrisons on all my islands and maintain a personal decentralized "rapid reaction force" of stonethrowers that by utilizing ultrafast fleets of small warships can be deployed in my cluster of islands in ocean 2 in no time (another reason to have abstained from emigrating to another ocean; I like being top dog in my ocean, but I guess not for long now that I don't colonize that much anymore). I would say 300 LWs is my minimum aim for all islands, with some capital islands sporting larger fleets and then my main fleets of which I have gone for two at the moment. These produce LWs 24/7, in a fashion similar to what Natmus described, but as I've been raising all my other islands up with resources from these mains I've started somewhat later than he did. And then there was some fleet mishaps during the Tyrant war, costing me some 70% of my main fleet at that time. It is very true that in the long run a killerfleet is only defined by the superior edge it has in numbers over any defending garrison, so when I lost significant numbers that drove home the point to me that my garrisons could be killergarrisons instead and I changed training policy. And while indeed the defenders have the advantage in Inselkampf, the killerfleets need to be substantially larger to A) reduce expected losses to a minimum and B) be able to utterly devastate the defenders on said island. To that goal the availability of larger (ideally equal) numbers of catapults to go along on those killerfleets is strongly recommended. So now that my garrisons are coming along nicely it is time to yet again change policy and focus more on the fleets.

As I don't raid anymore (too much trouble for poor dad here) I have in the past resorted to the practise of buying catapults and stoners (playing the Rockefeller card on my fellow Inselkampfers), but as my IK sources have either quit the game or decided to keep them for themselves now I am experiencing a slow down in catapult acquisition on my isles, hence the decision to develop mass production facilities for them. ;D

It is indeed all about decisions and timing. When to stop expanding, when to stop building spears, when to build colonyships ?
I know I always fail to keep colonyships in reserve - I guess I'm too Dutch for that! It's like with the "interest", a sitting colonyship doesn't yield interest, but uninterrupted LW and SF building does...

I think the Germans of E|S will eventually conquer all, and that DIGG will break up in smaller pieces, such is the way of things, but I do not feel too bothered about that, because afterall I know already I cannot possible contend on the issue of time being devoted to playing this game. I mean, I cannot and I will not be suckered into being slave to my account, instead of my account being slave to me.
One of my reasons for not involving myself overly with diplomacy anymore. Talk, talk, I can do loads of it, but that doesn't mean I have to like it, still ?

For the hell of it, one of my two mains:

Army
Stone Throwers (5600)
Spearfighters (4669)
Catapults (200)

Ships
Large Warships (706)
Small Warships (40)
Small Merchant Ships (35)