How to Chief

by: JZephyr

This write up is compliments of .. SUNSHINE!!!!!

Here is a breakdown of the process.

You want to start by clearing the village and demolishing the residence. This can be done in one or two waves. Obviously it’s easiest if it’s done in one wave. You obviously want to make sure that your clear takes out all of the opponents troops.

Then, once the residence is completely demolished, you immediately follow with your chiefs (the following second). Ideally, you send 5-6 chiefs. If you don’t have them, you have to repeat the entire process until you bring the loyalty down to 0. If your opponent is larger than you are, you need fewer chiefs. If he is smaller than you are, you can need up to 7. You can also increase the effectiveness of your chiefs by throwing large parties in the villages that they are from.

If you want to help someone else out, that’s fine, you just want to insert the your chiefs between the other person’s waves of chiefs. Additionally, both people have to have the culture points, not just the chiefs, in order for it to do anything.

So, to break it down, send your clear/catas, followed by chiefs +100 escorts, and you should secure the village, provided you have enough to clear, bring the residence down, and bring the loyalty to 0.

As with any offensive maneuver, the closer together your strikes, the better. A perfect village chiefing would involve the clear landing at xx:xx:01 and the chiefs all landing at xx:xx:02, but that’s not always possible.

To be even more specific, here’s a breakdown.

12:00:01: Clear lands with 8k imperians and 2k horses plus 100 catapults targeting the residence and a hero
12:00:02: First wave of 100 imperians and 1 senator lands
12:00:02: Second wave of 100 imperians and 1 senator lands
12:00:02: Third wave of 100 imperians and 1 senator lands
12:00:02: Fourth wave of 100 imperians and 1 senator lands
12:00:02: Fifth wave of 100 praetorians and 1 senator lands

It’s nice to throw some defensive troops in the final wave, because they can act as escorts while also defending your newly acquired village before the rest of your defenders get there. You generally don’t want to send reinforcements until after you’ve acquired the village – otherwise it’s a dead giveaway to what you’re doing.

Another strategy/trick that I’ve learned is to change all of your village names after you’ve sent the waves so that when the person looks, they see 6 waves from the same village. Most likely they won’t click on them to see the coordinates, so they think that it’s just 6 waves of something. If they realize that you’re trying to conquer the village, they might pull out all the stops. And 6 waves from different villages is an obvious conquering attempt.

The thing to remember if you don’t have 6+ chiefs is to make sure you repeat the entire process every time. You might end up with more damage, but that’s better than

Once you’ve conquered your village, immediately begin building the residence. Keep it building until you have 100% loyalty, which usually takes like 24 hours with constant residence building.

Here’s another neat trick for you all regarding chiefing villages. When you settle new villages don’t settle any from your capital. That allows you to have 3 chiefs all in one place, which makes knocking down the loyalty a lot quicker and less conspicuous. In fact, you can have catas knock down the res and your chiefs hit for loyalty all in the same wave.

As a Roman in my account on another server, the senators are a bit more powerful than the other units, so with a big party going in one of the villages I can easily take a village with 4 chiefs. Having a big party in any village gives a 5% bonus to each chief, and I believe even more for one that’s based in the same village.

Basically, I have 1 wave go in first, from my cap: my hammer, rams (walls get knocked down anyway), catas aimed at the res, and all 3 sens. Then I have one wave from another village with a single senator and a defense escort hit 1 or 2 secs later. Bam, village is mine in 2 hits, and no one suspects it.

Of course, there is the danger that if you come up against heavy resistance in the village you’ll have a senator killed and thus not take the village. If it’s a major concern, you can always send in your hammer ahead of the sens, with a smaller escort. They still only see 3 waves hitting, not a likely candidate for a chief run.

With any village that you chief, you can create settlers or chiefs from that village based on how many expansion slots are already used. If the original village holder had a palace and settled or conquered 2 villages from there, both of those villages must be either cat’d down or conquered to free up the expansion slots on the village you took.

Added by Dr. Wily:
Few things…
1. I have been told that you can send cats and chiefs in the same wave. The cats will knock out the residence and then the chief will lower loyalty. I have never tried it, but I trust the source.

2. You don’t NEED 3 chiefs in your capital…instead, demo the palace in your capital (before or after you train chiefs) and build it in your hammer. This way, you can get 3 chiefs in your hammer village. CAUTION: Do NOT click to switch capitals. You can have a palace in a non-capital city, just don’t switch it or your capital will be fucked.

3. Don’t always assume a chiefed village must be kept. Consider the training time and cost of 1 chief vs hundreds of cats. Next, consider the implications of chiefing a distance village and having allies bash it to nothing. For example, you send your chiefs to land at 12:00:00 and conquer the city. You have your allies sending their clears/cats at 12:05:00. This gives you 5 minutes to gold up a rally point (if its gone) and send any reins home. Then their city gets catapulted with no wall, no defenders. Once its zeroed, your slot is reopened and you retrain your chief.

4. Also consider, a chiefed village loses all troops and all research. This is FAR more damaging than catapults. If you chief a 45,000 crop hammer’s village then you instantly kill 45,000 crop worth of troops and reset all of the poor guys research to zero…that is assuming he reconquers the city. 

deakon|wren:

i like this guide. However, nailzz (of the amazing guide) has this one:

For biggun’ enemy croppers, first send a flurry of 5 or 6 fakes to all enemy villages and real attacks to oasis points to set up a smoke screen before and after the strike. If you’re in an alliance, get them to do it too with the same approximate land time.
scout (3000 scouts)
2. clear at 4:00:00 am
3. cata residence at 4:00:02 am (at the latest)
4. 2 chiefs from one village at 4:00:03am
5. 2 chiefs from 2nd village at 4:00:03am
6. 2nd clear at 4:00:03 am
7. 2 chiefs from 3rd village or 1 chief from 3rd and 1 from 4th village at 4:00:04am 
(inhabitants now enjoy my rulership)
8. Wheat shipment of 80k at 4:00:05am
9. 30k accumulated reins from my own stash (and that of my alliance mates) between 4:00:10 and 4:01:00
10. 3k defensive scouts by 4:05:00am at the latest.
11. Incoming reins/scouts and wheat for the next 12 hours from friends and family to kill hammers and enemy chiefs if they retaliate and those of their alliance mates.
12. I’ll spend the next 48 hours taking down wood/clay/iron bonus buildings and fields (because I know they’ve wasted resources on them) and erecting granaries.

Smaller scale conquers follow the same basic formula just on a well… smaller scale. There’s a little more margin for error as well.