Dearest Dson Family Members,
(Long post warning)
(Scroll to bottom for tldr)
By now, you would have noticed a huge change to the Dawn of Titans game play with the pushed 1.9.3 update.
I'm sure that there are tweaks to come but one thing is for certain, the days of easy gold are over.
If we are fair about this, we have to admit that we have been exploiting the easy gold loophole for quite a while.
In a realistic game, a level 4 army should not be able to crush a level 23 gold mine. (Paul even demonstrated how a level 1 titan with level 1 archers could take down a level 23 Ragnar mine)
The 1.9.3 update actually brings some benefits. (The Cardinals are not saying it's a better update but we ARE saying that it ain't that bad and we can still very much enjoy the game with the plan that will be detailed below).
Firstly, the game is actually more realistic now. I firmly believe that if we keep the faith, we'll enjoy the increased realism more. After all, we are wargamers and after a while, too easy becomes too boring.
Secondly, I feel the alliance aspect of the game has become more relevant.
In the last update, smaller players did not need an alliance.
They could raid or capture high level player lands. If high level players capped their lands, they could just shrug their shoulders and cap&discard the high level player's lands too.
Now players without alliances can only cap lands that are within their ability. This means that if any low level player messes with our family, our cap&discard punishment will hurt them much more.
The idea of having an alliance as protection is far more obvious now.
So what is our plan? The Cardinals have discussed this and feel the best way forward is this:
Every player will change to a mix of land levels. Some level 20+, some level 17 to 19, some level 14 to 16, etc..
E.g. I can hold 16 lands.
I will carry 4 x level 20+
4 x level 17 to 19
4 x level 14 to 16
4 x level 10 to 13.
This means any Dson player can hit us. High level players hit our high level lands, mid level players hit our mid level lands, lower level players hit our lower level mines.
In this way, we can still do Ping Pong although a bit slower.
If we do this, no matter which Dson player you click on will have something that you can raid. You just raid what fits your level . So instead of hitting the same guy over and over, you actually hit a Dson player once or twice then go on to next Dson player. If everyone does this, there will be plenty of targets to hit for Ping Pong.
Almost all Dson players (even low level ones) already have level 23 gold mines. This is good. They just need to get lands of other levels.
I know it will hurt to dump level 23 mines but you will get more gold through PP than just farming level 23s. E.g. 40000+k from a level 15 mine compared to farming 2600+ from a level 23 mine. We're wargamers right?
Yes, you will get less gold per raid. But there is no avoiding the fact that easy gold is now in the past. What I CAN say is because we are organised in the described way, you will still get more than other players of your level who are in other alliances or are working alone.
Consider also that low level upgrades also need less gold to achieve.
For us level 20+ guys, our upgrades cost millions of gold so naturally we have to hit higher lands.. but for the teenagers their upgrades should cost less than a million. . So everyone's growth rate would be the same.
So, let's do this shit! The high level player's will need to cap low level lands from low level players and the low level guys will need to cap mid level lands from higher level players. Use league chat or LINE chat to coordinate until everyone has a good mix.
Happy gaming!
Smorgasbord
Patriarch of Dson Family of Alliances
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Extra reading:
In the Cardinals' discussion, we also spoke of just mixing up the players so that each alliance will have a mix of players from all levels.
The proposal was to do banded Ping Pong. That is, level 10-12 players Ping Pong each other. Level 11-13 players Ping Pong each other and so on.
However, we felt that as cardinals we should help the juniors.. it felt a bit weird to have ping pong only among our own levels.. it made us feel like we were looking out for ourselves only.
Also if we only Ping Pong among our own "band" we may end up running out of targets. . Maybe a level 10 in our alliance finds that his band is all bubbled up.
But if everyone has a (more or less) equal mix then almost any Dson player that level 10 looks at should have something he can raid..
We also predicted that if we chose banded Ping Pong, our lower levels will want to keep as many level 23 GMs as possible (for farming gold). This would also lower the number of mines available for that band to PP with.
We also fear with the banded PP, lower level players will give up playing. We'll essentially be asking them to ditch their level 23s and get a bunch of mid/low level lands and play among themselves.
What then would our alliance be for?
The lower level guys are the ones who need the most support in this crisis n they would need to hold at least some level 23 lands. The big guys would need to hold some lower level lands for them to raid to help them grow..
We acknowledged that it would be more painful to convert so many of our lands but it would be better for our alliance overall.
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Tldr: Don't give up! Change mindset about easy gold! Alliance play will be improved! Change your mines to a mix of levels. Hit lands +2/-2 of your castle level and continue to grow.
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