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Following a recent discussion in Guild Chat, I am interested to know how many people do not use a guide of any sort when doing adventures? what are your reasons for not using a guide and if you don't use a guide, how do you play?
Hope this was ok to post, curiosity killed the cat after all
I don't use any of the guides in the forums or the wiki - I run the sims myself and put together my own, based on my own evaluation of troop costs. I find that my losses tend to be lower than the wiki losses anyway, and I see no point in even looking at guides that involve skilled generals, because if the skills aren't identical then the results will be misleading.
I use the wiki guides as a reference a lot of the time, I find them clear and easy to follow, but I don’t always stick to them and will modify them to suit my needs better, maybe for extra xp, speed or gen/unit availability. I tend to experiment a bit and I use the in-game tool a lot. As previously mentioned, the variety of gens and skills nowadays can muddy the waters quite a bit when planning attacks. I don’t mind losing a few extra troops for the sake of saving time and convenience, since that’s not where my constraint is.
I find that campaigning adventures like doing loads of ywc, 3t or wisdom in a row can be good for progression, also more efficient as you loose fewer troops with practice and after a while you learn all of the attacks..but doing it like that can get boring after a while.
I use a lot of sacrificial attacks and buffs kills, so I often stray from the standard attacks quite a bit.
Wiki guides are usually done by people who know little to nothing about mechanics and optimization. Its much better to just browse forums, on every group of servers theres at least a few people who have been doing multitude of guides for a long time and through the process of verification and optimisation ended up doing a much better job.
Another thing is general skills - there isnt really as many options as people think, and if you find someone competent doing guides its usually better to swap skills around (even losing a couple of books) to the new combination, because there is a reason why its being used (and its not just personal preference).
I modify wiki guides for my gens and my skils :)) So technically I still use a guide, just my own spreadsheet!
I use my own and those of others in my guild who I trust to get the minimum losses possible for the maximum xp.
I usualy use evils guides mixed with wiki But I also use the sims a lot as some gens have different skills than in the guide so I adat and set my own troops for different adventures.
Wiki & EvilJ blended plus comments from others = own guides for most frequent adv giving lowest losses for speed I like to do at. In general wiki guide losses are HUGE.
I do use guides. But for my favourite adventures I have my own guides that are made up with inspiration from other guides and friends + guild mates.
With that logic then, you shouldn't be playing TSO at all, you should design your own game ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by qawpaw
I look at Guides just to see the path they take, I dont do blocking moves (cos Im a bad player) and i dont do adventures often.
So I usually look at a few guides then sim my own, unlike Wulf my losses wont prolly be lower but thats ok cos I dont do em often.
My normal routine is pick a day I can spare the time and then use 1 PREM token and try to do as many Valient Little Tailors as possible using
the Merry Christmas General with skilled for max xp. I can do 4 but usually only get 3 done due to lazyness
The reason i Sim is cos my Mary is skilled for 215 troops and the guides dont cover that normally.
I use this sim https://www.settlerscombatsimulator.com/en
Adventures I do the most are Traitors during events cos they normally give good event currency and can be done very quickly
When leveling up I did lots of Stealing from the Rich. but at the moment my big XP grinder is Valient Little Tailor.
So as I dont adventure often, I spend a lot of troops on multiple Valients and then spend a good while rebuilding before doing it again.
I have my own guides for these which I simmed.
I use guides as a starting point of how I might approach things. But I look for places of high losses and/or too many waves of generals and start to modify based on my general's skills and my style. I also look for opportunities for additional or different blocks, etc. What I end up with can be much different than the original. Plus input from others, my wife (who is great at designing very interesting custom blocks), forum posts, any source that makes sense.
I use my own guides,during events and its a map I haven't done before I'll look at evil/corona and wiki to design/alter one for my own use.
I understand your point that using a guide and making sure you have exactly the same generals with the same troops and doing everything the guide says is not as creative as what you say you do but it is not cheating in my opinion. Cheating would be using some hidden keystrokes (like the cheat guides you mention) to make your troops have 999,999 health and 999,999 damage. Using a guide still requires you have the economy to make the troops, get them there, do the attacks with the timing that is required in some cases, positioning the generals correctly, not loading the wrong troops, making sure you can finish in the allowed time, having enough reserve troops in case something does go wrong, and more.Quote:
Originally Posted by qawpaw
So yes, it's an easier path to use a guide but it's not a guaranteed win like a cheat. And I would bet players that rely on their own customized guides and not someone else's are farther ahead in the game.
So you use guides yourself. By your own admission you're cheating and not actually playing the game. What's the point of your rather provocative posts then? To troll? :)Quote:
Originally Posted by qawpaw