[1085][Guide] An Ideal Team.

G'day KAG members: I warn you, this is long. Very long.
It's kind of like a guide, but with only a few specific actual tips. Really, this just suggests the principles a good team abides by, with a few of my personal ideas thrown in the mix.


The Effective Team:

In King Arthur’s Gold and its respective forum there is much debate on what the ‘best team’ may be and what it may consist. However, in reality there can be any number of ideal team set-ups; the best though apply a handful of principles to their team and suddenly, they are unstoppable machines of flag-capping, hall-storming bad-asses. This piece shall explore these principles, and how a good team uses each one.



Communication:

As in war, as in KAG; communication is key.
The ability to tell a builder to fortify a base, to demand your fellow knights to cover your bomb-jump, to let your compatriots know that you have three bomb arrows, ready to Legolas shot any tower in your way.

This ability to communicate quickly and effectively is integral to become an effective, opportunity-seizing group of marauders.

Whilst team chat may seem adequate for communication, it is often not due to many factors: spamming enemies, possibility for opposition interference and most disruptive of all: the fact that your allies will easily miss some of your messages.
Instead, things like Skype and Mumble where chatter is audible are far superior for effective communication.

And so, if you can communicate effectively through any of these mediums, you can move, build and attack effectively as a team.


The Builder:

Oh the builder, humble, yet the one of the most important and unrecognised elements of an effective team. Sorry guys, but a guide on how to construct penis towers or swastikas will not feature in this compilation.

The primary role of the builder in any team, let alone a good team, is to optimise movement for allies, and make movement as difficult as possible for foes. This can be done in many ways:

Optimising for allies:

- Make towers easy to scale, yet durable.

- Travel tunnels are ESSENTIAL, always place them near your base to optimise time usage.

- Tramp cannons are an underrated, yet excellent way to minimise time from base to battle.

Minimising for enemies:

- Good towers! (Make them fairly fireproof!)

- One well-placed spike is enough to stop any inexperienced wall-jumpers and grapple-climbers.

- A quick, fairly cheap way of temporarily blocking enemies is a 6 block high sidewards facing platform, with stone door at the bottom and backwalls. And at the cost of only 50 stone and 92 wood, it’s worth it, despite its impermanence. Easy and effective to spam, give it a try!

- Any enemy doors, block with stone. One block is all it takes to irritate an enemy knight.

- Don’t be afraid to die! Pick your moments correctly and you can be in the enemy base, saving your knights bombs by digging through their flag shelters as they protect you.

(Just as an aside, it’s always hilarious to dig in to their base, make a travel tunnel and grab the flag)

So that’s the builder.
Things to remember:
Make things as fluid as possible for your knights.
Make things as difficult as possible for the enemy.


The Archer:

If any of you readers have ever played against @Trumbles , you will know how devastating the archer can be. Like the whole game, except more so, the archer is easy to learn but incredibly hard to master. This is partially due to the incredible fragility of the class, as even a builder is a terrifying foe at close range, partially due to its potential inaccuracy.

However, this is not a guide to being a good archer, no. This is a guide to how to be a good teammate as an archer.

As an archer, your role is not to get kills. No, as the class with the most directed attacks, you have two jobs.

1. Don’t aim for knights. Instead you should be looking for a few things: Builders first, Archers second and knights bomb-jumping.

2. Secondarily, get up close and juicy behind your knights and stun opposition knights in order to make their death far quicker.

That is for the poor archer, he who has no coins.

Of course, once you’ve bagged a few kills, things change. The archer has the most variable and arguably the most useful auxiliary tools: the bomb arrow, the fire arrow and the water arrow. All three have separate roles, and an expert teammate will use them wisely.

The bomb arrow:

- Any archer who can charge a triple shot can bring down any insubstantial tower.

- And yes, excellent for taking down builders and clusters of archers.

The water arrow:

- Useful for large area stuns of knights. Great to use when you see a fellow knight charging; if you time this correctly, your knight can be slashing at completely undefended foes, reaping the seeds you have sown.

- Can also be used on towers when your builder has forgotten to fireproof.

The fire arrow:

- Brilliant in long games where stone is scarce, the fire arrow can change the most well defended flag into a pile of ash and cinders.

- Can also be used to ignite enemies, removing their control and dealing damage.

As a player, an archer should be brave, gutsy and willing to die for the cause, as he is the quickest of all the classes. Use this fact to return flags quicker, eliminating the danger of a long trip home.


The Knight:

The knight’s job is simple compared to the other two classes: kill things and push forward. There are many different ways of doing this, and many different guides to tell you how, so I will not retell old stories, nor will I explain every option for explosives.

As knight, you are many things. You are the shield, having the most health; you are the scalpel, taking out strategic enemies such as sneaky builders and crafty archers; but primarily, you are the hammer, most capable of taking on other knights with the help of your other classes.

Use your explosives, use momentum and use your allies. If this means having an archer shadow you, so be it.


Now, for arguably the most important element of an effective team: the leader.

The Leader:

An effective leader is skilled in the art of communication and issues unquestioned commands; however as builders spend a lot of time at the back of the map they are less suited to leadership.

Archer-Leader: Due to its ability to drag the screen and effective zooming, the archer leader can easily see the bigger picture of a battle. When to push, when to defend, and when to blockade the enemy; these are all the decisions of a capable Archer-Leader.

Knight-Leader: Whilst choosing your best knight player may seem like a good idea to begin with, as they seem most competent. However, as they spend a lot of time bomb-jumping around and focussing on enemies, they are actually quite unsuited to this role.

Thus, my preferred variant of leader is the archer, as they have time to issue explicit and clear demands, rather than screaming down the microphone. As with anything, though, leadership requires practice.



Wrap-Up:

In conclusion, an effective team applies the aforementioned principles in order to rek with speed and precision, utilising the best facets of each class and working together as a communicative unit.

Cheers.

(Will add some screenshots of a few things later on)

 

Builder-Leader?

EDIT: Well done!

 

Thanks!

The problem with builder-leaders is that they aren't always in the heat of battle and thus can't always have enough information to know the best decision.
But I suppose if the builder is constantly aggressive, staying on the battlefront at all times then he could do nicely, at least equally as good as the archer.

--- Double Post Merged, Apr 29, 2014, Original Post Date: Apr 29, 2014 ---

Reudh, that's the problem with belonging to a clan like AUSS; we never compete and thus have no real reason to train as a unit, so all the matches I really play are essentially solos. Unfortunately this means you don't really get the communication/leader element at all.

 

Ah, thanks, wasn't sure where to put it considering it encapsulates all three classes and a few other things.

--- Double Post Merged, Apr 29, 2014 ---

So guides of all sorts should be in classes and mechanics? (For future reference)

 

All good!

--- Double Post Merged, Apr 29, 2014, Original Post Date: Apr 29, 2014 ---

Guise if you read this and think its sounds interesting, and something you might consider trying out, send me a PM. I'm considering setting up a group like this, which can communicate and have leadership (and still have fun).

 

good stuff. Now only if we had in game voice communication.

 

It would be nice for competitive groups, but would be hell for normal multiplayer: people cursing constantly, yelling at each other, the list goes on. It would be impossible to actually use well, unless you got very, very lucky

 

Some default teamwork tactics to add :)

Arrow Ladders
-Perhaps the Archer as a support class will always be present in the middle of the battlefield; as builders have their attentions divided between repair, mining, or assault building. So aside from the usual stun-and-lucky-hit fire that archers provide the knights, archers should also take time to build arrow ladders. When they see a friendly knight coming, they should start building arrow ladders.
-Knights on the other hand, must be always alert for these, so that the arrow ladder is not wasted. They must climb it before the enemy takes it off (by climbing down on it)

Assault Ramp/Stairs
-Besieging the enemy walls? Ladders are the most fastest provided you have team mate knights climbing with you; but what if you're alone as a builder? What if your team mates are in the thick of combat while you sneak yourself to the enemy wall? Here it is better to build assault ramps/stairs. Applicable especially when there are "back walls/ cave walls". What you do is you lay down, stone, wood, trap blocks in a stair like fashion. Space them apart to save resources. Then, if you run out of backwalls, revert to ladders. This way, while enemy knights can destroy ladders, it'll take a builder to destroy your ramp - and majority of the time, defending builders are not brave enough to exit their walls if there is combat occurring outside.

Knight Mantlet
-your tower is crumbling, enemy archers are continuing their arrow rain on it. Your builder will have a hard time repairing it; if you're a knight, consider shielding your builder. He'll appreciate it, and he'll quickly repair the tower. Just make sure you're not standing where he wants to place a block. Try, jumping and shielding.
-Also consider if it is more plausible to chase away the archers if you as a knight can reach them and if their escape path leads them away from the tower.

Knight Ladder
-just a reminder to the players of how blocked up shields allow others to climb on it; this is still applicable, especially with the patch that allowed multiple knights to stack again. While there are those skilled with the "glide-wall climb" the knight ladder is still useful especially for friendlies carrying kegs, or defeating a low-lying overhang. Sure bomb jumps are possible, but there are situations where you're deep in enemy territory, without bombs, just you and another friendly knight. Remember the knight ladder trick can still be useful.
-suggest using a "ladder emoticon" / "up pointing emoticon" while blocking up, to initiate a shield ladder.

The Defenseless Line
-Why wait for a tower built to mark a certain territory, when you as fighter can do it?
-As a knight you can stake your ground directly in front of the enemy tower and hold your ground there. Most useful during the early games. What will you be gaining by doing that? You will be distracting the enemy team, while allowing your team to build up defenses and advance. As well as denying enemy builders from going out and collecting resources or advancing their territory.
-As a builder you should check your map, if you notice friendly knights or archers doing just that, then you must take the opportunity to advance and build a tower. Or you can go assault builder and besiege the enemy tower near your patient team mates.
-An archer can do this to some extent, threatening builders and building arrow ladders; but ultimately a knight, hunkering down will stop all but enemy knights and the bravest of builders.
-This held territory can make it easier for team mates to let say, deliver a siege engine close up.

 

@metalcallous Thanks, I just knew that there are so many mechanics that are specifically aimed at teamwork hat I couldn't mention them all without doubling the length of the guide.