Game of War Fire Age - How to assess your opponents without scouting

Your alliance leader has called out asking members to spot potential targets for attack. You scour the kingdom and find a few strongholds not shielded that you think may make good targets.

Read the tips below to find out how you can look a bit deeper and know exactly where to send your allies to fight and where you want to avoid.

You should always be looking at a players power when deciding it a player is a potential target. Once you find a Stronghold in your power range, the next thing you should be doing is looking at the players profile. Some of the Key things you will want to look at are:

• Troops Killed
• Enemies Hospitalized
• Troops Lost
• Troops Hospitalized
• Battles Won / Lost
• Defense Won / Lost

By reviewing these stats, you can get a feel for if the player is getting most kills from attacking or if they are likely a trap. Players with High Troops Hospitalized and Low Enemies Hospitalized generally have more kills from inbound attacks. Using the information on the profile page you should get a feel for the type of opponent you are facing.

From the players profile, tapping Hero will take you to the players hero. When you are assessing a player you will want to review the gear they are wearing to see what you are up against. Players will wear very different gear depending on what they are focusing on.

Look for players with Weak Gear - In Game of War Fire age, gear makes a huge difference on your effectiveness at certain tasks. Chalices greatly increase your research speed but leave troops weak, Odyssey gives the same benefit to construction speed at the expense of troop strength.

Remember, If you have the choice, always look for targets wearing Research, Construction or Monster gear.

Bread and Butter for Attacking - Look for players wearing research or monster attack gear. If a player is wearing research gear, it is also very likely that they have their skill points allocated to research and will be very weak in combat. The difference between fighting a player with battle gear and skills verses research is HUGE. Gear should be a very important factor in deciding who to attack.

Get to know the standard research, construction and monster gear pieces. Items to look for are

Research Gear

• Chalice (accessory)
• Spiked Armor (armor)
• Scythe (weapon)
• Mirror (accessory)
• Magister Set

Construction Gear

• Odyssey
• Mirror (accessory)

Monster Slayer Gear

• Slayers Set
• Perseus Set

There is a large variety of combat gear, with each set powerful towards specific combat skills. Some sets improve a single unit type greatly, increase all units somewhat or reduce the effectiveness of your opponents army.

If you see a hero geared and they are not wearing research, construction or monster gear it is safe to assume they are wearing combat gear.

You can tap each piece to see the name, then go lookup the item in your forge to see exactly what stats your opponents gear is targeting.

I strongly advise all players to become familiar with the basic and special event gear. Part of winning is knowing what you are up against.

Game of War tends to leave inactive players in a kingdom for a very long time. As kingdoms grow, may will quit playing the game and leave their stronghold abandoned. If you are scouting for players to attack, abandoned strongholds should be avoided as primary targets. Generally, heros are already executed and no troops are present.

How can I tell if a stronghold is abandoned?

There are a few factors I look at when scouting an area.

• Any stronghold not in an alliance is very likely abandoned. Be careful when looking over a hive to see if it is worth porting to. It may appear many are not shielded, but if the majority of those are not in an alliance, you just wasted a teleport.
• What Gear is the hero wearing - Often you will see alliance with some or many members unshielded. Before teleporting in, I will check the hero gear of the unshielded strongholds. If you see a hero with no gear on at all, it generally means the hero was executed and has not been revived or rehired yet. Stay away from these if you are looking for troops to kill.

One trick to see if a player is online and active, or if they are offline is to watch the alliance help count over a period of time.

When I am searching a kingdom for players to hit, I will general pick out 6-10 targets ahead of time. When I find someone that may be a good target based on the info above, I will look at the profile and go down until you see alliance helps. I then create a bookmark for that player (I keep favorites bookmarks for targets and all others in friend or enemy). Change the name of the player to the current time and number of helps (i.e. 5:10 pm 2515).

I will do that for all 6-10 targets, then after at least 5-10 minutes have passed, I will go back to each and see if the alliance helps number increased. If it has you are pretty sure the player is currently active. If it has not moved, there is a very strong chance the player is offline.