Taking a city

[Sinfee]

What happens if I'm lowering a cities morale, it's on already around 30/100 can somebody else come in for the kill? And win the city before my troops get there?

[Kaleel]

A quick note on terminology:

• Loyalty -- a city's level of confidence in its lord. This is lowered when scholar waves successfully attack the city. Every scholar can lower a city's loyalty by 25-30 percentage points.

• Morale -- your attacking army's rate of efficiency. At 100% morale, your attacking army does 100% of its potential damage towards a target. However, when you are attacking a target which is significantly weaker than you (if you have multiple cities, this is the city from which you are launching your attack), then your army's morale drops. The lower the morale, the less efficient your army performs, so the damage you inflict is also lowered.

To answer your question, yes: it is possible to steal a kill from someone else that way. This is why you always want to send 4-5 scholars at a time in 4-5 waves so that they hit the target within 30 seconds ~ 1 minute of one another. Never send scholars together in the same wave: it has the same effect as hitting the target as only one scholar and you risk wasting scholars to claim a city. See the following example (the percentage points are arbitrarily chosen within the prescribed range):

HOW TO DO IT RIGHT:

• Waves 1-5: Send clearing troops to kill off all of your target's defenses. Once your target's defenses are zero'd out or are very low, then you want your scholar waves to hit.
• Scholar Wave 1: 250 guardians & 1 scholar -- arriving on target (AOT) at 14:25:00 PM Valor Time (VT) --> this lowers the loyalty from 100% to possibly 75%.
• Scholar Wave 2: 250 guardians & 1 scholar -- AOT @ 14:25:30 PM VT -- this lowers the loyalty from 75% to 49%
• Scholar Wave 3: 250 guardians & 1 scholar -- AOT @ 14:26:00 PM VT -- this lowers the loyalty from 49% to 29%
• Scholar Wave 4: 250 guardians & 1 scholar -- AOT @ 14:26:30 PM VT -- this lowers the loyalty from 29% to 2%
• Scholar Wave 5: 250 guardians & 1 scholar -- AOT @ 14:27:00 PM VT -- this lowers the loyalty from 2% to 0% --> congratulations, you have conquered a city!

HOW TO DO IT WRONG:

• You don't send any clearing troops.
• Scholar Wave 1: 1,000 guardians & 5 scholars --AOT @ 14:25:00 VT -- your target's defenses of 5,000 guardians kills your entire attacking force.

OR

• Scholar Wave 1: 250 guardians & 5 scholar -- AOT @ 14:25:30 PM VT -- this lowers the loyalty from 100% to 75% because hitting a target with 5 scholars at once is the same as hitting it with 1 scholar. And because you only had 5 scholars, you now have to wait for the troops to return before you can send them out again. In the meantime, your target's loyalty is steadily recuperating at the rate of 2-4% per hour (depending on the world).

OR

• Scholar Wave 5: 250 guardians & 5 scholar -- AOT @ 14:25:30 PM VT -- the target's loyalty has already been reduced to 25% but you want it to give it one final push, so you sent all 5 of your scholars. Well, you are successful in lowering the loyalty from 25% to 0%. However, all the scholars in that wave are consumed. So you used 1 scholar and wasted the other 4.

Hope this helps,
-Kaleel

[Stark Bledfast]

• Loyalty -- a city's level of confidence in its lord. This is lowered when scholar waves successfully attack the city. Every scholar can lower a city's loyalty by 25-30 percentage points.

20% - 30%. Unless it differs by world. As well, there is a special that may be purchased with gold to increase the effectiveness of scholars.

[Kaleel]

Yes, you are correct. Thanks for making a note of that.

-Kaleel

[yeungwailei]

What will happen in this case?
Target loyalty: 10%
Scholar wave 4: 250 guardians & 1 scholar -- AOT @ 14:26:30 PM VT -- this lowers the loyalty from 10% to 0% --> congratulations, you have conquered a city!
Scholar wave 5: 250 guardians & 1 scholar -- AOT @ 14:27:00 PM VT -- ??????????????????
Will I lose the 5th wave scholar?

[Kaleel]

@yeungwailei

Then you also lose the 5th scholar, and only the Guardians will return to the city from whence they came. This is what is meant by "multiple scholars can conquer a city", when you read the descriptive blurb about scholars and how they work.

That's why you have to be careful in your planning when attacking a target. Take into consideration the morale of your own attacking army, as I believe it also has an effect on how efficiently your scholars can lower the target's loyalty.

Hope this helps,
-Kaleel

[Stark Bledfast]

Not necessarily, Kaleel.

When you conquer a city it's loyalty is set at 25% and it is under your control. Your next attack wave will hit it and loyalty will be reduced as normal: 20%-30%. If the loyalty is reduced to 0% then your scholar will capture it again (it is super captured!) and you will lose your scholar.

However, it is possible for your scholar to lower the loyalty by only 20% - 24%. In this case the city's loyalty will be 1%-5% and your scholar will return home with your guardians.

[yeungwailei]

Thanks a lot! That helps

[Kaleel]

@Stark: Thanks for clarifying that. When I said that one could lose their scholar, I was referring to your first scenario, where one ends up "super-capturing" a city, as you clearly described. This usually happens to me.

I've never had the 2nd scenario (where the scholar only lowers the recently captured loyalty to 1%) and then return home, so I never thought of that.

Best,
-Kaleel

[Wrecking]

You guys got the strategy down? Haha. It's actually a good post and a good strategy.