Jan 31 2009
Tribal Wars - Speed Farming
Most every player in a tribe will say that farming and building strong villages is the boring part of the game but it will make that tribe much more successful in the long run. If we learn anything form history, the fighting in the European theatre in World War II ended more because the allies could out produce and out supply the Axis powers and not because of superior strategy or fighting tactics.
So the following is what I have learned about building a supply chain and support group within the tribe I am in. One of the keys as to why this could be done here is that there was limited attacking taking place on my villages. Almost like being the United States or Canada in World War II.
In order to Speed Farm effectively, you concentrate more on Light Calvary for troops, Farm/Warehouse and Market to create a production and distribution facility. It is much like a factory and TW Logistics. Light Calvary carry large loads of resources that can be found primarily in the Barbarian villages. Each flight of LC is always accompanied by 1 Scout to view what might be left behind in the village to determine whether additional trips are warranted. By the time you get to medium range farms that you are running a second pass on, the quantity will have grown due to in house production so add 10 to 20% to your flight. (LC’s carry 80/unit, 12K resources should have a flight of 150 + 25 cushion for a total of 175 to reduce trips)
- 25 LC, 1 scout - Search for new farms
- 50 LC, 1 scout - Service known medium size farms
- 100 LC, 1 scout - Search longer distances
- 250+ LC, 1 scout - 2nd pass on a known quantity in a farm and short range searching on unknown farms
During two holiday shutdowns, this proved to be a good way to start before the ceasfire had actually ended. Some flights of Speed Farmers were sent long distances to Barbs that were somewhat isolated from other villages timed to arrive shortly after the ceasfire ended. Some very large and virgin farms were discovered using this technique.
If your warehouses are large enough you can provide a service to your tribe members and selected other players by adjusting their imbalances through one for one trades. You don’t need to worry much about what resource they are asking for because it will all balance out at your end once you have 3 or 4 villages. Single orders of 40-50K (offered as mutilples of 1000) were no problem. Meanwhile, you also keep uppgrading your villages and keep your troop building occupied at all times. You just don’t attack very much.
You can also take advantage of any discounted deals that others are offering. It’s like farming without any troops. I set my range to 24 hours and only deal in multiples of 1000. The cart holds 1000 so why would you send it around half empty unless you are shorting the other guy,
That is the supply chain side. The other side of the is the longer range support group. It’s not unlike tanks or the old fashioned calvary as opposed to ground troops. The Heavy Calvary is the primary unit here for suppport. They can be a supplement to more localized support from other members of your tribe that may require support.
At least one village needs to have an academy and offensive troops primarily to noble larger Barbs that are centrally located in large pockets of same. For a lot of players this is close to blasphamy. “You nobled a Barb!. Are you crazy! Why don’t you just farm him.” The answer is simple. Speed is important in farming. If you can get closer to your farms, then you can have spears do some of the very local farming and they double as defensive troops/support for nearby tribe members. If the Barbs are well concentrated and well developed, they you can make more trips.
It isn’t very exciting but every once in a while you will need to remove a strategic independent to develop another area. You don’t get to kill off very many opponents troops but you also don’t have to waste much time rebuilding all the ones you have lost in a hurried attempt to noble a reasonably well defended village in the name of attacking the tribes “enemies”.
Sometimes a tribe can be it’s own worst enemy. Just ask the members of my tribe (lol)
