5. Lord of Ultima: PvP Guide
How Combat Works
Golden Rule: Do not use Defense for Attacking, Do not use Offense for Defending
The important thing to realize here is that the defensive values that you see when hovering
over a unit are ONLY used during defense. When you attack with a defensive unit, it only uses their “Attack against units” value, which is low for all defensive troop types. For example, if you use Rangers to attack Zerks you do not have an advantage. Similarly, offensive troops have very low defensive values. So offense should never be used as defense.
How Defensive Damage is Calculated
The second thing I want to point out is how the defense is calculated. An AVERAGE defensive
value is obtained from all of the units on Def. This means that when you throw a crappy unit on defense such as any Offensive unit or Rangers vs. Cavalry, you are bringing down the average DEF power vs. that troop type. This may be hard to understand but you will be better off using 100K crossbow vs. 200K Knights then 100K Crossbow and 100K Rangers (weak vs. cavalry). Yes, you will kill more knights with the second group but your own losses will be worse.
(Note: 64% of each defending troop type died in this attack)
Taking Damage: Damage is always evenly distributed to all defensive troops. The damage taken is calculated as a group, and then it is simply divided amongst the rest. So, when you attack a castle that has lots of Sloops with Mages, you are not going to kill more Sloops than other units simply because it is weak vs. Mages. You will kill the exact same % of all troops. However, since there ARE Sloops the average DEF vs. Mages of the group is lowered and all units will receive more damage. This is why you shouldn’t use OFF troops or the wrong type of defense on DEF. You are simply killing more of everything by increasing the opponent’s attack power.
PvP Combat
Going to region view, click on any other player’s
city or castle. On the left a new screen will
appear:
Here is shown the move time from my city to the targeted
city for all unit types. Click on “Send army.”
Scout = Scouts
Cavalry = Knights, Warlocks, Paladin and Xbows
Infantry = Zerks, Mages, Rangers, Guardians, Templars
Siege engine = Rams, Catapults and Ballistas (very slow!)
Baron = Baron (very slow!)
Carts = how fast you can send resources by carts
As can be seen above, there are four types of PvP options. Assault, Plunder, Scout and Siege. To perform any of these actions, you must have a castle in your city.
NOTE: All types can be used on a Castle, Assault and Siege cannot be used on cities without a castle.
Assault: Your troops attack ONCE with force (Strongest battle intensity 50%)
Siege: Your troops attack with minimal force, but CONTINUE to attack once an hour until the siege is cancelled or the troops are killed. As long as the siege survives, troops currently in the defending castle will be locked in (cannot move) (Battle intensity 10%)
Plunder: Your troops attack ONCE with minimal force, but all surviving troops loot the target’s resources to their full loot capacity (Battle intensity 10%, defender only gets 10% of the dmg)
Scout: Your scouts attack ONCE, and fight only enemy scouts (if there are any). If successful you will receive a full report. Only scouts can perform this. (Battle intensity 50%)
-If the remaining attacker Scouts are >= 4x remaining defending, Report shows: All units, resources, defense structures and buildings
-If the remaining attacker Scouts are >= 2x remaining defending, Report shows: All units, resources and defense structures
-If the remaining attacker Scouts are >= 1x remaining defnding, Report shows: All units and resources
-If at least one scout survives, Report shows: All units
Offensive PvP
NIGHT PROTECTION:
The best times to attack are from 10:00:00-22:00:00 server time because of “Night Protection.” While it is still technically possible to attack during Night Protection hours, the penalties are very harsh. It works as follows:
● From 00:00:00 to 08:00:00 server time “night protection” the power of attack is reduced by 40%.
● From 08:00:00 to 10:00:00 server time “night protection” is gradually reduced from 40% back to 0%.
● From 22:00 to 00:00:00 server time “night protection” slowly increases from 0-40%.
● During these periods, the damage to buildings and fortifications will be reduced by the same value.
● During these periods, the growth of Barons’ power to claim a sieged city will be reduced by as much as 90%.
● Protection is in effect for any attack against players: Assault, Siege, Plunder and Scout.
● The protection only matters for player-owned cities. Dungeons and lawless cities will not get any protection.
For these reasons it is highly advisable not to attack other players during Night Protection if possible (though you may be able to catch some people off guard if you know what you’re doing).
HOW SAME-SECOND ATTACKS ARE PROCESSED
The server will process troop movements that arrive at a target at the same second in this order:
1. Defensive support arrives
2. Assaults hit
3. Sieges hit
The attacker can send Assaults and Sieges to arrive at the same second, but the Assaults will always register BEFORE the Siege. Since Defensive support arrives before attacks, all defense that arrives that second will have to face all attacks set for that second. This will influence how we plan our offense and defense, as discussed later.
FAKE ATTACKS - VERY IMPORTANT
Before you read on, it is important that you understand the concept of “Faking.” When attacking a person, realize that on their end they will only see a few things: a) when the attack arrives, b) what castle it is from and c) when the attack was spotted by their lookout towers. They do not necessarily know what kind of troops are being sent (unless they guess from the travel time, or know what type of castle you are sending from - discussed in the Defensive PvP section later), and there is no way for them to really know how MANY troops are coming their way.
Because of this we can confuse the enemy by creating duplicate fake attacks. Every attack you set against the main target can be made to look the exact same way on 2-3 other targets (or more) regardless of the TS amounts. Here is an example:
Real Target: Full Zerk assault from (your castle at 123:456) at 10:00:00,
Full Knight assault from (your castle at 123:457) at 10:00:00
Full Catapult siege from (your castle at 123:458) at 10:00:00
2-5 Fake Targets: Minimum TS (1.5-2.5k TS) Zerk assault from (123:456) at 10:00:00
Minimum TS (1.5-2.5k TS) Knight assault from (123:457) at 10:00:00
Minimum TS (1.5-2.5k TS) Catapult siege from (123:458) at 10:00:00
On the enemies side (and to all his allies watching) the attacks on each target will look exactly the same! As they don’t know which is the real attack, they are now forced to either split their defense between all the targets, guess and hope for the best or wait till the attacks have already landed. Make sure you use the same castles for both the fakes and real attack.
Now imagine if a whole alliance executes this plan on over 40 castles at the same time... how does an alliance prepare for that when their defense board is lit up with 300+ attacks, some fakes, some real? Whether fake or real, splitting up their defense is ALWAYS a good thing as one target is very easy to defend.
HOW TO DESTROY AND CAPTURE ENEMY CASTLES
The end goal of any war is to remove the enemy. There are two ways of doing it, either by capturing with a baron (“Baron sieging”) or destroying the buildings in an enemy’s castle with Catapults or War Galleons (What we call “7pting”). As Barons and Catapults travel extremely slow, your enemy will have lots of time to react (very often over 8 hours depending on distance), so do pick several fake targets as well to throw them off!
7-pting (Castle destruction)
You can destroy the buildings within an enemy city with Catapults or War Galleons. They should be sent as a Siege, as then they will be able to hit the castle every hour until all that is left is a lvl 1 Castle and a lvl 1 Townhall (a castle worth 7 score). The enemy will still own the city however and any troops originating from that city that still survive (whether on support at another city or otherwise) will continue to exist. Putting it on Siege rather than Assault also reduces the blow to your Catapults from enemy defense that may be within the city (damage effect on buildings is the same for both Assault and Siege).
Clearing Assaults: It is important to prevent your catapults from hitting into enemy defense. This can be done by sending clearing Assaults to hit on the same second as the catapult siege, since Assaults are processed before Sieges. Use Zerks, Knights, Mages and Warlocks for this.
Supporting Sieges: Because Assaults only hit once and return home, it may also be smart to have a siege of Zerks, Knights or Mages accompany the catapult siege on the same second throughout the entirety of the siege should defense show up. This is not as necessary if you have enough Catapults to 7pt it in 1-2 ticks.
Timing is EXTREMELY important: Again, be sure to time these Assaults for the same second as the Sieges using the war minister so that there is no gap of time between the clearing assault and your catapults. This is because the enemy may try to time their defense to appear on the same second your Catapults hit (thus avoiding any clearing Assaults on previous seconds) and catch you by surprise. This is why I suggest a basic 7pt plan to look like this:
Clearing assault(s) at 10:00:00 server time
Catapult siege at 10:00:00 server time SETTING UP ATTACKS:
Possible Supporting sieges at 10:00:00 With the war minister, you can set your attacks to land at a specific time by selecting “Arrival time” from the bottom left drop down menu. Set when you want it to hit and fire away. Attacks will not launch until the required time. Make sure the troops will be idle in the city for the time of departure or the attack will not launch.
Baron Sieging (Castle capture)
You can attempt to capture an enemy castle by recruiting a baron in a castle and sieging an enemy castle with it. Because barons are weak, it is important to send a large amount of troops WITH it in the same siege as “padding” (e.g. 300k zerks + barons). It is also good to send 2 or more barons in the case 1 of them dies. If ALL the barons die, power of claim is reduced to 0. As long as there is at least ONE baron the Power of Claim will continue as normal (more barons does not mean faster claim percentage).
Baron sieges will hit the target every hour until you cancel the siege or capture the city. Depending on the success of each hourly siege “tick,” the power of claim over the city will rise or fall by a certain percentage. If the claim percentage reaches 100%, the castle is yours. The base claim percentage for a baron is 10% per siege “tick” but you can improve your claim percentage by researching Baron: City Capture Bonus, the effects of which are seen in the above report (24% per tick)... (Please note that there is a further bonus from Palaces here).
Clearing assault(s) at 10:00:00 server time (Zerks, Knights and/or Mages)
Baron siege (e.g. Zerks + Baron) at 10:00:00 server time
Regular sieges (Zerks, Knights and/or Mages) at 10:00:00
It is advisable to send supporting “Regular sieges” on the same second as the Baron siege. It will help kill defense that is brought in to stop the city from being captured.
The Baron siege continues each hourly tick (11:00:00, 12:00:00, etc.) until captured. If defense is brought in and begins to make the claim percentage drop, you will need to send more clearing Assaults to throughout the day to assist if you are to have a chance of taking the city. This is
where speedy troops like Knights and Warlocks are handy.
Small Ball Tactics
There are several ways to harass the enemy in a single sitting in an effort to kill enemy troops, however, your targets will need to be fairly close to your attacking castles for them to be effective. My personal favorite is “Lock-in sieges.”
How to Lock-in Siege
1. Send minimum TS sieges (should be around 1.5-2.5k TS) to multiple castles in the area.
2. If these sieges survive after their first hit, which is likely, you will be able to see the siege report to find out what enemy troops are in the castle. Any troops originating from that castle are now LOCKED IN until your siege is fully dead or recalled by you.
3. Send large assaults of countering troop types and watch the carnage. For instance if you locked in a bunch of rangers, send your knights. If you locked in a bunch of offensive troops send any kind of offensive troop to kill it for easy purries!
4. Be careful, if the player or his teammate is on to send defensive support you may be in for a surprise yourself. Therefore the key is pulling this off as quickly as possible to catch them off-guard.
Scouting and Plundering
You can scout enemy cities/castles to see if they are open for plundering. For military cities, if you can get their food balance to 0, you instantly kill 10% of their troops. They will continue to lose 10% until all troops are gone or if food is sent into the city/castle. Raiding nets you more resources than plundering, so unless you’re able to go for the quick starve I wouldn’t bother.
Defensive PvP Techniques
The reason I began with Offensive PvP is because good players will do the very same things to you. Now that you recognize their “schemes,” how can we best defend against these shenanigans?
UNDER ATTACK!
If the double swords are flashing red, you are under attack! In red brackets (3) is the total number of attacks on your whole alliance, next to that is how many attacks are on YOU - in this case 1. Click on the swords to find out more about the attack:
Here you can see several things about the attack, the most important being Arrival time (Arrives/Next Wave), the Source of the attack (Castle that is attacking you) and when the attack was Spotted. If you have 2 fully upgraded lookout towers (a must in every castle), they will have a large enough range to spot any land attack the second it started marching. Since this castle does, we know that the attacking troops launched from the enemy’s castle at 19:07:27 server time. All this information will be key to what we do next.
How to find out what kind of troops are coming at you
To find out what kind of troop is coming at you, you can do several things. First select the enemy city. Are there any successful scout reports from you or your alliance there? If so, scroll down to the bottom of the report to take a look at the recruitment buildings that are inside the city. As can be seen in the report below, there are 180 levels of training grounds in the city (18 lvl 10 training grounds). So it is capable of training Zerks, Rangers and Guardians very quickly. Because it is attacking you, it is safe to assume that it is a Zerk castle, and that Zerks are coming your way.
Checking travel times: If you don’t have a good scout report or wish to double-check, first make sure you are inside your city that is being attacked. Then go select the Attacker’s castle on region view. This familiar menu should pop up on the left of your screen:
Now its time to do the math: Since the attack left at 19:07:27 and arrives at 19:43:30, that means the attacker’s units have a travel time of 36 minutes from their castle to yours.
On the menu here we can see that between my castle and the Attacker’s castle (“Pepperoni”) my Infantry have a 36 minute travel time. This will be the same time for the enemy (however, keep in mind that the travel speed of YOUR troops may differ ever so slightly from theirs because of research bonuses).
Congrats, you now know for sure that some infantry is coming your way. There are two types of offensive infantry, Zerks and Mages, so this narrows it down. (If you find the travel time to indicate Cavalry, the two types of offensive units are Knights and Warlocks).
Note: Remember that attacks travel only as fast as their slowest troop, so there IS a possibility of faster troop types being in the attack. HOWEVER, this is highly unlikely from a player in a larger, more experienced alliance, as any castle worth building should have only one recruitment building type and therefore can only efficiently recruit one type of offensive unit).
IMPORTANT: ALWAYS CHECK TO SEE IF THERE ARE CATAPULTS OR BARONS TRAVELLING TOWARDS YOU, THIS MEANS THE ENEMY IS TRYING TO 7PT OR BARON SIEGE YOUR CASTLE (more on this in the next section)
HOW TO REACT
Dodging
If you are still unsure of the troop type and the attack is moving at infantry speed or faster, the best thing to do is to dodge. This means emptying the castle of all troops and sending them to support nearby friendly cities. You do not want to defend against an unknown enemy. Worst case you lose some resources to an assault which is much better than having a large force of rangers/guardians wiped out by mages. So don't get trapped with troops at home.
Defending
If you DO know what troop type is coming then you can prepare a nice surprise for your enemy. Each offensive unit has at least one foil. Berserkers lose to Rangers, Mages/Warlocks lose to Templars/Pallies, and Knights lose to Guardians/Crossbowmen. If you own any of these units send them to your castle and ask for any nearby alliance members who also have these units to send them as support.
Do not defend with the wrong troop types, that will lead to unnecessary losses which is a waste of time and resources. The only time you need several TYPES of counter defense (e.g. Rangers, Guardians, Paladin, Ballista, etc.) is if the attacker is sending different troop types within the same few seconds (e.g. Zerks, Knights AND Mages), in which case you can not just pick one type of defensive unit to stop it. This is what a good player usually does, so look out for it and be sure to have all the necessary types of defense available nearby. The other scenario is when you desperately need to stop a 7pt attempt or Baron siege.
Also do not defend with a small amount of TS. If you are at the point in the game where people are sending out 300k TS assaults, defending with anything less than 200k defense is simply not going to cut it.
Using Horns
When sending troops that you absolutely need to get there fast, you can use a horn item to double the travel speed. However, you should check the horn that your rank allows you to use and see what the maximum TS it can double is.
For example, if you are Emperor you can horn 100K TS with one horn. So, if you absolutely need to get there fast, don’t send more than 100K TS at once. If you have 200K to send, break it up into two parties. If you use the Emperor horn on 200K TS it will only go 50% faster. But if you use 2 of these horns on two 100K TS parties then both go 100% faster.
Spotting and Stopping an Incoming 7pt
If you know that Catapults are coming at you, as confirmed by a scout report on the attacking castle and checking the travel times, the enemy is attempting to 7pt your castle!
As we know, it is not smart to send catapults without clearing waves first. It is easy to stop a 7pt plan that has the clearing waves on a different second as the siege as seen here:
Clearing Assault(s) at 10:00:00 server time (Zerks, Knights or Mages)
Catapult Siege at 10:00:01 server time
Possible Supporting Sieges at 10:00:01 (Zerks, Knights or Mages)
In the case above, you need to decide whether you or nearby allies have enough defense to get there for when the Catapults hit at 10:00:01. Sending it to arrive on the exact second the Catapults hit will cause the enemy clearing assaults 1 second prior (10:00:00) to hit nothing (as you should dodge them), and your incoming defense will meet the catapult siege head on in full force at 10:00:01.
If the Assaults are on the same second as the Catapult siege (a good 7pt plan):
Clearing Assault(s) at 10:00:00 server time (Zerks, Knights or Mages)
Catapult Siege at 10:00:00 server time
Possible Supporting Sieges at 10:00:00 (Zerks, Knights or Mages)
Either muster up enough defense to stop both the Assaults AND Siege at 10:00:00, or dodge the first tick and have it arrive on the next tick of the Catapult siege (11:00:00) since the Assaults only hit once (at 10:00:00).
Remember that depending on the amount of enemy Catapults sent your Castle could potentially be 7pted within 2 ticks, so unless you can get defense there within the time period it takes to 7pt you fully, it is too late and not worth the effort (especially if help is needed elsewhere!).
Spotting and Stopping an Incoming Baron Siege
If you know that a Baron is travelling towards you, then the enemy is trying to Baron Siege (take) your castle!
NOTE: The only way to see that a Baron Siege is coming is to check the travel times as shown on the menu (so always be sure to check!!!).
As we know, it is not smart to send Baron sieges without clearing waves first. Here is what a good Baron Siege plan looks like:
Clearing Assault(s) at 10:00:00 server time (Zerks, Knights, Mages)
Baron Siege (e.g. Zerks + Barons) at 10:00:00 server time
Possible Supporting Sieges at 10:00:00 (Zerks, Knights, Mages)
It takes many hours of Baron Sieging to capture a city, depending on the Attacker’s claim percentage/h. For this reason, you will most often see Baron Sieges set to arrive around the 10:00:00 hour, as soon as Night Protection is fully lifted for the day. This will give the Attacker from 10:00-22:00 server time to Baron Siege without penalties.
Base claim percentage is 10%, therefore, at the beginning of the game it will take at least 10 hours to take a castle. Later in the game, players will have researched this to as high as 20%, and may have an extra bonus from their alliance’s Compassion palaces.
Below I will discuss the technique for stopping Baron sieges, called “Baron Sniping.”
BARON SNIPING IN 4 STEPS (Its all in the timing, baby)
STEP 1: Dodge first tick of Assaults + Sieges (rendering the initial enemy Assaults useless)
STEP 2: Read the Baron Siege report after it lands. Find out how many ticks until the enemy will take your castle at the current rate. This will give you a timetable to work from. With a Claim percentage of 29%/tick, the Baron Siege below will take the city in 3 more Siege ticks, meaning we need to get enough defense in there before 13:00:28 to stop it.
STEP 3: Find out how much defense you and your allies can possibly get into the city within that time frame and have it all land for the SAME tick (do NOT filter it in slowly between several ticks; small amounts of TS will not stop the claim from going up, and certainly will not kill the Barons). Rather aim for as late a tick as is convenient so you can gather the most amount of defense inside AT THE SAME TIME. Try to have it all land on the same second as the Baron in the case the attacker sets up a clearing Assault for that tick 1 second prior or earlier.
STEP 4: Send your defense for the decided time using the “Arrival time” option from the drop down menu. If the baron dies that tick, you have successfully sniped it!
If you cannot get enough defense within that time frame (even with horns), but can get enough there for 1-2 ticks later, you can slow down the claim percentage a bit by throwing in a decent amount of troops. While it will not necessarily stop it from going up, it may lessen the Claim percentage rate enough to give the extra hour or two you need to get more defense there, or even push it into Night Protection where Attackers do not want to go (penalties start to kick in at 22:00!).
ALLIANCE SUPPORT
You cannot fight a war on your own. You and your alliance will need to work as a team if you hope to compete with other experienced alliances. Here I will discuss how to respond to attacks on your alliance as a whole.
READ THE DEFENSE BOARDS!
Make sure to check the ‘Incoming Attacks’ board whenever you log in. Attacks can happen at any time, and while we hope that members can fend for themselves, sometimes they are not online or are getting overwhelmed. Notice above that there are 0 attacks on you, however, there are (6) attacks against your alliance elsewhere, so lets go see who needs help by clicking on the flashing double swords.
Looks like your alliance mate Divet might be taking a beating from InevGlitch of Organized Chaos. He has 6 Siege attacks on Divet at two of his castles, C42_06 and C42_09. Click on each castle to see all the attacks that have landed on them so far, and whether there are any Baron sieges or Catapults on them. From here you can coordinate defense with your alliance mates as you would on any of your cities, as discussed previously.
Using the Defense History Board/Prioritizing
Sometimes the Incoming attacks board is so filled with attacks and it is too tedious to click on each individual city.
Use the ‘Defense History’ tab to locate targets that need help quicker. As always look for recent Baron sieges and 7pt attempts (check “Last attack” to ensure it is recent). Baron sieges are listed as such under ‘Attack Type.’ 7 pts can be recognized by looking at the ‘Building Damage’ column. As can be seen below, one of Divet’s castles has taken over 10 million Building damage. That large amount of damage means it has already been 7pted.
There is also a Baron siege on Divet, second on the list. So far it seems it is in our favor, with the enemy Attacker having lost 135k TS to our 75k. You could send defense here to help, but you have to prioritize with what defense you have available.
More important is the Baron siege 2nd from the bottom. There is no defense in the castle (as there have been no losses listed)! Click on the cities to see recent reports and latest claim percentage of the baron. From there, decipher what defense you should send as support. Try to snipe that baron!
