I have seen a lot of questions from new players asking for help. The general answer to this is to tell them to read the information provided. Once they do that they are pretty much on there own and only get limited assistance. I would like this thread to provide more general knowledge and assistance for new players.

With that said I would like the advance players to check this thread and provide assistance.
1. By answering new player questions here.
2. By posting links to other threads that a player would consider useful.

Why post links to other threads? Because it is easier to bump one thread forward than to advance all of the helpful threads.

Now for some advice
1.
A lot of new players want to know how to start winning right away. The simplest answer is stay in the game. Players that stay in a game finish higher than the players that quit or go inactive. Even if the players that quit or go inactive have more experience.
2.
Don't be in a rush to get to higher levels. The best place to experiment and learn is in the novice games level 1-40. Rushing to higher level games takes away your chance to experiment, unless you are willing to risk getting slaughtered and losing rank. Take the time at low levels to develop your build strategies and find out which troops you perfer to use.
3.
Don't be in a rush to join a clan. Most of the older established clans aren't going to take a player that hasn't proven their worth. Also different clans have different rules that you have to follow. Make sure when you are ready to join a clan that you choose one that follows your game style.
4.
To take over a castle,
you need to have a commandeer unit inside of the enemy castle, with no enemy troops in the castle. Then click on the commandeer unit, on the right hand side of the screen at the bottom a "Take over Castle" button will appear. If you can't see the button then try tabbing down to get to the bottom of the page.

I'll try to add more but this was my answer to a question about how to build.

There are several conditions to consider when trying to build like:

a) location ... (yes some buildings need plenty of space and can be obstructed by another building or terrain so you may have to move your unit a space or two and then try to find the right "build spot")

b) proximity to enemy or barbarian units ... (again you may be too close to them so move away from them or eliminate them)

c) rubble or bloodstains ... (you cannot build on them and a large building may be extended over them so again if they are near, try moving away from them)

d) tech research ... (for example you need commerce to build a market, you need military to build a military academy and a barracks and you need a military academy and I think advanced training to build a training guild)
**the manual says only that you need a military academy to build a training guild so I'm not sure if also "advanced training" is needed for the training guild**

e) some buildings require a technology and also a building to allow you to build like for example walls require castle defence but also a blacksmith shop

f) you cannot build on roads

g) and finally when commandeers are near each other, you select a build location but from the build button on the right of the screen you must select which commandeer you want to use to build

PS:

It is very complicated so I advise everyone to click the online manual under "Help" on the menu bar and then under buildings click "Medieval" to get exact requirements to build various building structures for Medieval campaigns.

*(edit)*
I look forward to a "build footprint" because I still mislocate the building sometimes.

TR

There are also lengthy threads in this forum with more "advanced" advice from several people (I believe most of them were created by CTDXXX) on more specialized issues (e.g. economy, etc.).

As a first pass, it is important to understand RPS system when attacking/defending (essentially when you are fighting).
-RPS stands for rock-paper-scissors, and just as the game, one "beats" one and "loses" to another.
-In WoL, what this means is that if a rock type troop (e.g. spearmen) attacks a scissors type troop (e.g. scouts), it has an advantage, when it attacks a paper type troop (e.g. swordsmen) it is at a disadvantage, and finally when it attacks another rock type troop there is no advantage (at least with respect to troop type).
-So what are these advantages? Without getting to engrained in the actual numbers (which could be several lengthy posts in and of itself, and others have gone to the painstaking efforts of doing so already--if you can find the thread), you get an attack bonus when you attack a troop type you have an "advantage" over. Basically this means you hit harder than normal, and they hit back weaker than normal (as a very simplistic way of thinking about this system).

However this is not the only attack modifier; commandeer units, standing on rubble or bloody spots (as TR mentioned about building) also decrease attack a/o defend points (depending upon which, I believe blood reduces attack, while rubble reduces defense points, but I'm not certain).

Obviously in addition to this the number of troops is also very important. It won't matter that you have an RPS advantage if you attack an army of 100 scouts with an army of 10 spearmen, as the spearmen will hit "harder" than they normally would, but they will still be wiped out (however this may be the desired effect if you are attacking with a second unit).

Retaliation
-For most units once they have retaliated to your attack, then they can no longer defend themselves against other attacks from your armies (provided the additional attacks are made before they regenerate BP, and the first attack had to be sufficient to deplete the BP).
-Macemen have unlimited retaliations, so every time you attack an enemy army of macemen, they will return the attack.
-Knights do not receive a retaliation (even from Macemen), and correspondingly, the army attacked still has retaliation BP remaining (i.e. the next group that attacks the army will receive a retaliation).


This was just a very small blurb about attacking--there are SO many more things to take into account when fighting (e.g. Zone of Control [ZoC], unit selection, unit size, formation, ranged vs. melee, etc.) we could fill this forums with different insights and opinions on this over-arching topic (as this IS a war game), but this is just to help orient a newbie to the basic workings of this game.

I have went through and bumped the old threads for easier access for new players. Hopefully some people will benefit from the discussions contained within those threads.



ETA: Mog, I can't believe you didn't use this opportunity to promote your newbie pages...

A brief intro:
home.earthlink.net/~johnoco/newcomers.html

How to join a battle:
home.earthlink.net/~johnoco/wolBattleTutorial.html

Last Edited : Friday, 25 March 2005 - 10:49

This is a list of strategy threads that new players may find useful to read. If you cannot find them in the current forum pages then use search forums. I have provided the players name and the title to help make the search easier.

Player: CTDXXX
Wk 2, Lec 1 - "Max Damage/Siege"
Wk 2, Lec 2 - "Buildings/Techs"
Wk 3, Lec 1 - "Politics"
Wk3, Lec 2 - "The Big Picture"
Wk 4, Lec 1 - "Titbits"
Wk 4, Lec 2 - "Outside of the game"
Wk 5, Lec 1 -"Strategies for strategies"
Chapter 3: Later troops
Wk 1, Lec 2 - "Ranged Troops"
Wk 1, Lec 1 - "Rock-paper-scissors"
'Break-Even Time'

Player: Genming
Chapter 1: What troops to start with?
Chapter 4: Resources Management
Chapter 6A: Art of War (Laying Plans)

Player: BigAmigo
Chapter 5A: Intelligence

Player: RedTony
Chapter 8: Balance your army

Player: savetuba
Chapter 7: defending your castle

Player: Silva Husky
Chapter 9: Range or Melee;Range Vs Melee

Player: Gutterfly
Chapter 2: What to Build First

Player: VivaChe
Advices in Master wol-Warfare

Note that changes in the game may make parts of the information obsolete but as far as I can tell new players can still learn quite a bit from them.

Last Edited : Wednesday, 23 March 2005 - 21:50

Here's a few thousand words:

geocities.com/marsgranite/UltraWar5.JPG

geocities.com/marsgranite/UltraWar6.JPG

You can do this too and we haven't researched half of the technology yet.
War begins on turn 40 and I'm ready for him.

TR

Attacking with the "correct" type in battle gives an advantage of a 140% attack. Even types do 100% attack and the "wrong" type attacks at 70% of it's normal strength.

10 Scouts vs 10 Swords(militia) is
Scissors 140% attack against Paper. This is good.

10 Swords vs 10 Scouts is
Paper 70% attack against Scissors. Don't try this at home.

_____________________
Bloody ground takes off 10 points of attack. Rubble takes 10 points off both defense and attack.
_____________________
Ranged units only take retaliation from other ranged units. (do arbs retal against melee?) However, if the attacker has a longer range than the defender, such as a Marksman shooting an Arbelestier, and he is outside the range of the defender, there is no retaliation taken by that unit. The defender still has all his retailation, though, and if a ranged unit inside his range shoots him after the first attack, he will retaliate against the attacker who is in his range.

Maybe I misunderstood you, Mog...but ALL ranged retal against melee. They just do so at an extreme disadvantage (too lazy to look up the numbers)

There's a reason why when you attack a huge stack of balistas with a huge stack of scouts, you lose a ton of scouts as the price for killing a ton of balista.

I think what Mog was saying is that when attacking with a range unit, that is not in contact with an enemy, it will only recieve a retal if the other unit is a ranged unit.

I believe a ranged unit fighting in a melee recieves a 50% penalty to their attack and defence. The only ranged unit that doesn't suffer this penalty is arbelestiers.

Can you join two armies into one?

i believe this is posted somewhere else but since you dont know, i will explain

you can join two armies given both armies are of the same level and over 90% Battle Points

you can purchase an Advanced Recruitment tech that can allow you to join armies of different levels

To be exact advance recruitment allows you to purchase troops from your barracks into higher level units (IF they are sitting in the barracks).

Expert recruitment allows you to join two armies of different levels (AS long as they are side by side).

thank you ghengis

can i blame my information on being very tired? right after that post i took a nice little nap