In my previous post I’ve wrote about how to create a lobbyist train.
But some of my leaguemate seem to have problems with how to build them and how to use them.

First if your completely new to lobbyists you can check koramgame TKO forum thread about them here.
I’ll summarize it for you and add some of my trick in the process.

1- How to build them

That part is easy, you need Mansion or Annexe Level 10, Drill Ground Level 20 and Command Center Level 10 to research a lobbyist. Like the pioneer you con recruit a lobbyist when the Mansion at level 10, 15 and 20, for the annexe it’s on level 10 and 20 only. Once your have all the requirement, you have to research the lobbyist in the drill ground. From my experience, if you decided that your city will recruit lobbyist it better to dedicate your city to lobbyist, so you will have to research it only once to recruit two (or 3 if it’s a mansion) lobbyist.

Note that your first cities should probably be built with pioneer instead of lobbying someone else city. Why ? Because it’s take a boatload of resources to get you city to recruit them and it takes much more time that the simple three pioneer, on top of that it’s easier to create subs that are near your main and you can chose the arrangement of your resource fields if you want to specialized your city.

2- How they work

The lobbyist reduces the loyalty of the attacking city only if it’s not the main and there no annexe in it. They typically reduce the loyalty by 20% (25% for wei), you can increase their effectiveness with a hero that have a scroll of rumors.

Note that you can only lobby a sub city and the annex must be destroyed in order to reduce the loyalty of the city.

3- How attack a city with them

Lobbying a city is three step process, first you need to clear the city from its troops, after you need to destroy the annexe (see using demo with lobbyist) and then you can send your lobbyist. Like explained in my previous article on how to create a lobbyist train it’s better to have more than one to save you from many roundtrip to the city you want to lobby.
Be careful when you attack an active player, he might rebuild troop and hide them just to kill your lobbyist. They can use the curfew command or just rebuild an annexe to prevent the lost of loyalty too.

For more tip on attack tactic here more info from my previous article :
The anatomy of a attack and other offense tactic
Using demo with lobbyist

It’s seem that a lot of player are extremely aggressive when it comes to farming. Sometime they do hit abusively and attack poor souls that are actually playing. While plundering is at the essence of the game they’re usually way to plunder and still not ruin everybody fun.

Here a few tips to plunder like a gentlemen

1. First send a message to the guy you want to plunder just to check if the’re still active
2. if there is no response after 3 day or 1 week you can now plunder him
3. If the user haven’t grow for a while (one week at least) you might start earlier but it’s always better to send a message before
4. if the player come back and send you a mail, stop and even offer him some support.
5. If there have a population lower than 50 the previous point doesn’t apply. Its really easy to have at least 150-200 of population within the end of beginner protection, so if they come complain about your attacks, tell them to go play another server.

There a survey on Koramgame forum about if the Emperor’s Road should still be in the game and how to make it more accessible.

Personaly I haven’t be able to grab a state capital or else give a shot at the emperor road. The main problem I see from the two server I’ve played it’s that usally a strong league came up, then when the empreor road start they grab most of the state capital and then attack the other league to grab the other state capital. Once that’s done on of there member who willing to put a lot of cash into gold acheive the rank of generalissimo and grab luo yang, and then the whole league concentrate on helping him build the imperal palace and clearing the other league that remain alive.

Note that the feature is cool but maybe it should be more accesible.

Here the link to the survey : http://forum.koramgame.com/viewthread.php?tid=10084&extra=page%3D1

Someone have attacked a weaker league member and you want to strike back or someone have taxed your league and you want them to pay.

The first mistake new league leader make is usually to throw the name of the attacker in a league message. What happen its that people usually don’t do anything about it or attack in an unplanned, disorganized way making it easy for the defender to dodge most of the blow.

Planning a attack on one player.

If he’s stronger than most of your player but smaller than your league and he league don’t care about him you can probably taking out in 2 wave.

1-List the cities of the player

Post the list of the player you want to strike on the league forum if you have one or by sending a league message.

Each player pick a city and , if you league is small and many player attack one city a leader for the attack should be name and he will coordinate the attack with other players assign to this city.

It could be a good idea to use the legion system to coordinate an attack, assigning the leader of an attack has a legion leader and put all the members that are helping him in his legion.

2-Pick a time for the clearing wave and the second wave

This we give an idea for the league member to plan how and when they are going to deploy there troop.

Note that players that are to far should focus on sending only troop with high movement rate.

Why ? because if the members are to far, it will give a hint to the player that you are attacking and will give him enough time to message his league mate to send support and maybe to attack the attacker before the actual attack hit, stealing if food which may kill some troop if its food consumption is negative.

3-the actual attack

1st the clearing wave

Like explained in a previous article, separating your strike in wave can help to increase the efficiency of your troop.

This wave consist mostly of inf/cav with some ram and maybe demo

The goal is to take is troop and resources out and do some damage so he wont be able to have support

2nd the demo/loby wave

Still Consist mostly of inf/cav with some ram but with a lot of demo

The goal is to paralyze him by destroying all is granary, warehouse and farmland.

Without any of these his city food will be in the red he will have to destroy his building in order to rebuild farmland. More info on how to use your demolisher here.

If you’re planning to attack him with lobbyist be sure to strike a sub city and that the annexe is destroy. You can always try to steal the city in one sweep with the help of your league mate using this tactic.

Planning an attack on many player

Probably the best way is the list all the player you want to  attack and there city.

Then you proceed like we discuss for attacking one player, Your member could pick many enemies member to strike if he’s really strong or your member may regroup in team to strike a specific player and each sub team take care of an enemy.

From what I saw taking the county is a good tactic because they are easier to pick than normal city since once you kill all the troop you get the city and all troop from your league mate will become support troop.

Another tactic that seems to work well, focus on the strong player of the league, it usually demoralized the other player of the league and they might quit too.

Tell me about your tactic you’ve used to take down other player or league. Did I forgot some other strategy that worked well with your league ?

"In battles, as verbal communication cannot be heard clearly, cymbals and drums are used as commands" As visual communication and eye contact are hampered, banners and flags are used as signals. Now the purpose of using cymbals, drums, flags and banners is to draw attention of the troops and focus them for combat under the direction of the commander. Once the troops are united as one body, the courageous ones will not advance forward by themselves and the cowardly ones will not retreat by themselves. This is the art of directing larges forces in battles. – Chapter Seven, Sun Tzu Art of War

In war good, communication with your troops, allies and even enemies his the key.

In most games MMO browser-based strategy game (like Three kingdom online, tribal war and travian) they have these feature built in.

If your a veteran player you can probably skips that part for other the advantage and disadvantage of each method will be explained.

In game feature

In game message

All these game have in game message, the quickest way to got a player whatever he his online or the next time he login.

It help you to find out if the user is still active, if he doesn’t answer after a few days or week you can presume he’s out.

The main advantage of this is that it’s quick and you’re almost sure the other player will read it next time he play.

The disadvantage is that entrusted player may read your message.

League message

Same thing has above but use by leadership and elite members of a league or tribes to send a message to the mass.

While it’s great to reach all your members, if there a spy in your league he might be able to read it and like normal message entrusted member can read it to.

Chat

Some of these game have in game chat, it’s great to talk directly to your peer, but you must be aware of the issues each room have.

From TKO chat here are the different room and how to use them.

World

Everybody on the server see it, so don’t tell sensitive info or information about what time it is or if it’s day or night, because other player might use this to attack you when your asleep or working.

League

Like the league message all your league member see this, beware of spy.

Private

Standard – One on one chat, note that you might be speaking to an entrust not the real player.

Internal forum

They work differently depending on the game, but like the league message, all league member see it (accept officer sub-forum). That some of them (like tribal war tribe forum) someone with an entrust can see it.

External to the game communication that might be useful.

External forum

The external forum solves most of the issues player with an entrust, only the player who registered can access it.

It can be useful to coordinate with ally too, an ally can have is own section of a forum and each tribes/leagues can share a section forum.

The main disadvantage is that you lose most of the feature of the in game forum, like writing the coordinate wills create a link directly to the in game location, this don’t work with an external forum.

IRC

You can always set up a IRC channel for you league. The advantage is that user can access it even if they’re not logged to the game and you can have control over who can be in the channel with a bot.

IM

Instant massaging can be useful specially the conference or group chat, you can talk to your buddy evens if they are not online (which can be annoying too if they are always poking you when the see you online).

Collaboration systems

like google wave, wiziq

I honestly haven’t planned anything with google wave but I did with wiziq and it really cool, you can have a draw  board and put the map on it and plan the attack and have a visual representation of the situation. It takes some effort to setup though but it might worth it.

Does any of you have use other method of communication to plan an attack or to plot something with your allies ?

A Interview on gamasutra really caught my attention it’s about The Rise of Free-To-Play At EA

EA have a brand new game that inspired from game like tribal war and travian but set in the world of ultima (Lord of Ultima) and gamasutra interviwing Ben Cousins general manager of Electronic Arts’ new free-to-play team

I really like that it takes on game I’ve played like tribal war, travian (TKO is kind of a travian asian style), why people play and don’t play evony (one of the reason he says Is actually why I don’t play). The part I liked the most is when he talk about how the small shops are scared that EA is entering the free to play with a somewhat big development team (5-6 peoples 10 month).

I think I will give a shot to there game, I just hope It’s not another time sink like TKO, Tirbal war and countless others… Here the complete article called : Interview: The Rise of Free-To-Play At EA

The art of war is over and it seem that I’ve won the first prize!
They were some great post by other players, here some of my favorite :
What city/cities to place your mansion or annexe.
Great guide to have a city of 400000 k of troops.
http://forum.koramgame.com/viewthread.php?tid=6839&extra=

How to defend your city:
http://forum.koramgame.com/viewthread.php?tid=6832&extra=

General guide by Chris soon
It’s cover pretty much everything
http://forum.koramgame.com/viewthread.php?tid=6800&page=2&authorid=135650

Guide per kingdom and a good intake on each unit of all the kingdom
http://forum.koramgame.com/viewthread.php?tid=7454&extra=

Great spreadsheet with the analysis of each kingdom
http://forum.koramgame.com/viewthread.php?tid=8154&extra=

Hope it’s help and happy TKOing.

It’s a tricky tactic that can help you take a city before the defender can realized it and prevent him to use the curfew command.
To make the train work you need 5 lobbyist (4 for wei) or ask player of your league to help you by attacking with some lobbyist too.
The train is quite hard to do since you only got 6 schedule deployment and you have to have 5 different attack with a lobbyist, your clearing wave and your demolisher wave.

First : check when your lobbyist and demo of all your city take to get to the target. If the difference of time is less than 10 minutes you should be fine to launch them at the same time.

Second: Pick a time that you want the attack to land or just launch the attack that from the city that the farthest from the target, note the times of that attack will land

Third: Time your clearing wave and demo wave to hit before this time, the clearing wave first and the demo wave a few second after. Make sure to hit the annexe and that you have enough demo to clear the annexe.

Fourth  : Launch all the other lobbyist attack so the land after the other attack by less than 5-10 minutes, if you have enough schedule deployment left use them.

If everything go fine you should have the city in one sweep.
To increase your chance you can always fake a train by using fake attack of demolisher since they have the same speed.

Another variant you can do : attack normally with a clearing wave and a demo wave and clear annexe of their cities. And after send a train with a clearing wave since that only 5-6 attack it’s easier to do, but since you’ve cleared there annexe they probably think you want to steal there city.

Hope it’s help.

Today is another post for the Art of War contest, which a contest about strategy to help player dominate there opponent in three kingdoms online. Today it will be about “Offense tactic” 

A traditional attack usally have a Clearing wave and Demo wave, here how they work how to counter them and how to use them effectivly.

Clearing wave

The clearing wave constitute mainly offensive troop, a mix of infantry and cavalry.
It might be a good idea to include ram in it to minimize the effect of the opponent city wall.
Defensive Counter : Dodge the attack if you expect to be overwhelmed by the attack or stack a lot of unit in the same city to minimize your lost if you expect to win.

Preventing the counter : Fake attack or Timing your attack (see below)

Demo wave

(more in my previous post)

A mix of demolisher and infantry or even only demolisher for maximum impact.
Your offensive level and number of demolisher should be high enough to be able to target to building.
Defensive counter: Defensive troop good vs infantry, if it a only demolisher attack just defensive troop is enough they are very weak when attacking alone.

Preventing the defense counter : Timing your attack with the clearing wave.(see below)

Lobbyist

The lobbyist must arrive after the clearing wave and have some offensive troop with him, so he won’t die when it’s attack land.
The annexe must be destroyed too in order to reduce the loyalty of the city.
Defensive counter:Dodge the clearing wave and have troop in your city before the attack hit. Curfew command, relieve if you’ve been hit by a lobbyist

Preventing the defense counter : Timing your attack (see below)

Fake attack

If you opponent have many city, it can be a good idea to mix thing up, send a bunch of fake attack to one city while launching a full attack to another city. That way he won’t know which city defend.

Timing your attack

So you launched a attack like a noob and the clearing wave was dodged and the demo wave was destroyed because he had enough time to bring is troop back before the demo attack hit.

Here how you can prevent this

Schedule your demo wave to arrive just one second after the clearing wave. If you really confident that your clearing wave will clear is troop, send the demo wave one second after. So if he dodge the attack he will pay for it and if not you will probably clear is troop and demolish is city.

if you have specialized your city with specific kind of unit (like only offense or only offense and demo) it pretty easy to time your attack with the schedule deployment feature.

Pick a time and make a schedule deployment in your clearing wave city that will arrive at this time and schedule a deployment in your demo city that will arrive 1-2 second after the first attack.

If your city consist of only the kind of troop for the attack, set the schedule deployment to deploy all troop if there are troop missing.

Use your defense for offense

Piking

This tactic is simple, you send troop to defend a city you know your opponent is plundering.

Since the attacker only launch part of his troops to plunder, you can actually do some pretty good damage.
While this tactic used to worked well in tribal war where you don’t know who is supporting the city. In Three Kingdoms online, since you know who is supporting the city you’ve attacked this can be considered has an act of war.

I’m trying something with my Lobbyist, and if it’s work I’m gonna tell you about it. Do any of you have other tactic that could be include here?