Tips for the Underdog
By "Elrad"
1st Edition

     Often times we are dealt with a situation where a larger and better-mobilized player decides to march towards our borders. Unfortunately (by nature) the larger player usually will not only win but also grow even stronger by defeating you. This is especially true when the larger player is experienced, and the smaller player is a Newbie, the more experienced player will cycle through some of the oldest tricks in the book, and take full advantage of every mistake the newer player will potentially make. By now you would think the situation seems pretty hopeless for the underdog…however there are a lot things you can do to make it very difficult and costly for the advancing tyrant, possibly even win. I would say your strongest asset is that you will be underestimated, also most top players are racing against time and have a very concrete time table and set of strategies they will deploy in sequence, throw them off of their time table with something un-expected and you cause a riffle in their entire master plan. Here are a couple of strategies you can use to fight out of a situation where you are outmatched. (note that many of these work well as general strategies as well)

Lesser Movement

One common mistake new players are "victims of" is moving a large group of lessers hopelessly against their foes. You have to assume that the enemy will not only have more lessers that you, and a better type of lesser, but that they also have more fury than you and can be in complete control of the situation. If you have say a group of 300 amra which took you 3 turns to build, and 170 fury, and the enemy has a fortress and makes 250 Rip Lizards a turn, already has 250 (in the fortress) next to you, AND has 250 fury, guess what happens? This player can cast a 171 fury suckerman and have 500 "Hatchlings" fight your 300 amra, slaughtering them and profiting from it as well. There are plenty of other examples with Optic Terror's and Hand of Nergals. The rule of thumb is to never travel with more than 100 lessers, and to not try to move offensively with lessers alone.

Being a Pain

     Any player that has ever been in command of a large empire fighting a small one will tell you that the hardest nations to fight are the ones that try to ruin you rather that beat you. This counts on the fact that your opponent has enemies other than you (which is usually true if they ARE much larger). Of course there are many ways you can be a pain.

Ravage with Forms

The most common and effective is in the use of forms. It is a known fact that wandering forms are a pain to capture and kill. A smart smaller nation, rather than sending their lessers futilely against a larger player will rather collect groups of them at fortresses (say 300+) and Sacrifice them periodically. They would then use this fury to summon forms that are not meant to defeat the advancing army of a larger player, but rather flank it and break into the interior. Forms are very hard to catch, especially when they have a lot of regions they can enter (the enemy is not going to slappy bomb every one of them are they???). To get a form into the underbelly of a larger player is the ultimate thorn in their side, it is also a good step at recovering if that larger player eventually falls.

Hold on to fury

This seems like a small factor, but is VERY important: Try to keep at least 200 fury at all times. The less fury you have, the more options your opponent has and the more they will take advantage of the fact you are a sitting duck. The more fury you have the more fury your opponent has to waste on spells than he or she otherwise would have, you will also cause them to second guess certain maneuvers now that it is far more costly for them to achieve these maneuvers. In the above example with the suckerman, had you 220 fury, the enemy would at least have to spend 221 fury instead of 160 in order for their suckerman to work without risking a counter spell by you (an expensive optic terror for example). If the battle was less lop-sided the larger opponent may not have suckermaned to begin with just because it was less guaranteed that they would profit. Having a large fury stockpile is important for many other examples as well, hand of Nergals, slappy bombs, combat spells…all of these the enemy would have less freedom to do, not to mention the enemy would also have to "anticipate" all the possible spells you could do. Even if you don't cast a certain spell, you may waste an enemy's fury in their attempt to counter it just because you "could have".

The Ambush

     Very frequently a larger opponent is racing against the clock, and against other rivals for 1st or 2nd place (or whatever). This means they are often more careless in their maneuvers, and make more risks. They also don't expect a lot of good strategies from you because they do not think you are capable of them, either because you are a small nation or just because you are a new player. Taking advantage of this can be your largest weapon against these big players. There are many ways to "ambush" a larger player, here is a handful:

The Sacrifice no Suck

While this is not a direct ambush, it is very effective (but usually only works only a few times at best). The concept is simple, you cast a sacrifice on your army just when you anticipate the enemy to suckerman it, thus giving you a fury profit while giving your enemy none (and a loss of whatever they spent on the suckerman). Take the example in the introduction where your 300 amra are about to be suckermaned into 500 Rip Lizards at a fortress. By casting a Sacrifice spell on your 300 amra you would have given yourself a profit of 170 (270-100) and dropped your enemy 160 fury. (Even more if you kept at least 200 in stock forcing your enemy to overbid). More importantly you have given your enemy a whole difference of 300 less than what they expected, If they were "counting" of this revenue, you may have crippled them on other fronts, possibly with their other enemies. I have also seen a Sonic Loop (makes your enemy see 3-4 times as many lesser in a region) also work well to give enemies less of revenue that expected. I once almost lost a game because a sonic loop put me at 5 fury less than what I needed for a Sacrifice spell, the fact I had 900 troops that were transformed into fury (and then into forms) 1 turn later than planned made ALL the difference. Remember that we top players usually operate on precise time tables.

The Cloaked Trap.

This is perhaps the most simple and effective trap of all, you must first anticipate where you think an enemy form (or even a group of lessers) will go, you start building a temple 3 ticks before they get there, and cloak it on the 2nd tick, so when they are 1 tick from entering the region there is a cloaked temple already there (which they do not see) that can summon a surprise form to slaughter them the following tick. This also works well with cloaked Fortresses, or cloaked armies/forms that will ambush the enemy army. Often times you can also cast a spell (a cheap head of nergal, or a more effective spell….or an axe of nergal if you are fighting a form will lessers, or a battery club if fighting lessers with a form)

Spell Traps

There are others ways to ambush enemy troops. The slappy bomb is effective at trapping enemy troops provided you can kill them afterwards, it is also possibly the most effective way of trapping forms. (be careful as the enemy can still cast spells even in the wake of a slappy bomb, in which case the maneuver can backfire). I have seen pulse probes, Transform spells (mountans/lakes), and even the Leopard fighter cause unexpected problems to the enemy.

General Spell Usage

In general, you don't want to waste your fury. Unless it is vitally important, "Let" your enemy grab a couple regions at the expense of a spell (it will be several turns before they get a return on the taken land). Plus if you can employ some of the above strategies to make them waste fury, all the better. My advice is to rely on forms rather than cast spells, and only cast spells to ambush the enemy, if you are going to play tug of war (or highest bidder) with combat spells or mind controlling spells (suckerman etc) this is the field where the larger player has the advantage, and it is yours to loose. Don't be upset if you fall flat on your face fighting the direct way.

Try not to let your enemy control how much fury you have, even if you sometimes fall below the 200 fury minimum that I recommend, ATLEAST try to ALWAYES stay above 100 fury (so you can recover without much delay with a sacrifice spell). Having fury battles with your allies is also a good idea, but a lot of larger players will try to control how much fury you have, the more control they have, the more effective their strategies against you will be.

Diplomacy

Ultimately you will not be able to win a war against a larger player alone (unless you are very lucky, or very very experienced). One important thing is to keep track of who else is fighting the same enemy as you are, try to coordinate with them, and help them avoid the common mistakes smaller nations make (if their 300 amra get suckermaned, that hurts YOU by chain of effect, but if they sacrifice and cause the larger player a loss of fury, then that helps YOU by chain of effect. Try to see the big picture, who is fighting that large player (assume they are allies) and who is fighting those "allies"? (Assume they are your enemies). Put a political hand in trying to get fewer enemies off the backs of your potential allies, and more on your potential enemy. If you declare peace with a smaller nation for example that is fighting another nation that Is fighting the larger ultimate foe…what chain reaction will that ultimately have on you? If you have allies that are attacking players fighting the bigger foes, try to convince them to stop (or better yet convince them to make an "expedition" towards the larger foe, and help you fight them)
Also it is usually the case that a larger player is fighting another large player for supremacy, just by holding your own you can cause the "other" larger player to outrace the one you are fighting (and beat them). Of course now you may have put yourself in an even worse situation than you started in!

"The Last Resort"

Often times you are faced with a situation you are forced to risk. A battle that you are forced to fight, an army that you have only one shot at defeating (who will kill you the following tick no matter what you do) and a battle that you will probably loose. The most extreme solution is the Raw Knuckle, that 1 in 5 odds may be better than your odds if you don't take the opportunity to fight that battle "now" (0?). Although I STRONGLY recommend that you try to find another alternative (traps/withdrawing). But sometimes there is no way out, sometimes the revenue from the successful Raw Knuckle is vital for your success later on…for the record this all or nothing gamble has only worked for me twice (and I have only tried it twice). However this maneuver is so complex and "situation dependant" that I wont even get into it.

Wrap-up

     To wrap-up everything, the best way to beat a larger opponent is to simply cause them problems. There are many situations where you with an X amount of resources can cause more than an X+ amount of resources to stop for your opponent. A good example is casting a 50 fury grunchguard that forces the enemy to cast a 75 fury hand of nergal to stop. Require more resources from your enemy to fight you than you generate, and you are doing your job effectively. You don't have to win a game in order to "beat" a top player, any confrontation where you survive while outnumbered is your success, and their embarrassment. Use these tricks and good luck, but remember, the true "best" course of action always depends on the situation.

1st Edition Written By Elrad on 6/15/01.