Here's my situation, could someone please explain what I am doing wrong. This is more hypothetical and the numbers are only approximations. I have no grog or gold. I buy some gems, and I use those gems to buy 1 mil each of grog and gold. I spend 500k each of grog and gold to upgrade. Which leaves me 500k each of grog and gold. I do a raid and gain 30k each grog and gold. While I wait for 40 mins for my newly recruited pirates to be ready, someone raids me and takes 100k each grog and gold. I am upset that I lose grog and gold I spent real money to purchase with gems. I break shield and raid again 40 mins later, and once again I get 40k each grog and gold, and now I wait another 40 mins for my next crew to be done recruiting. Since I broke shield, once again I am raided and lose 90k each grog and gold. This cycle repeats every 40 mins until my grog and gold supply gets down to 200k each, at which what I earn raiding every 40 mins is lost when I break shield to raid and get taken away from me. How am I expected to both raid and save up 1 mil in grog and gold for upgrades with this current system? I am not spending any real money any more to buy gems to buy grog and gold, as it will be taken away from me as soon as I break shield to raid. Only way I see to get increase in grog and gold is to do expeditions only, and not bother with the entire other aspect of the game involving raiding. Do I just do expeditions only and accept the fact I will lose grog and gold every 12 hours when my shield expires and completely ignore raiding, as this option is the lessor of the evils? Could someone please explain how to acquire 1 mil in grog and gold without waiting forever for the refineries to produce it, or through raiding without having to spend 15-20 gems to rush troops for every raid. Love the game otherwise Thank you
Initially I would suggest you look for better returns on a raid than 30K. This is dependant on your pirate level of course, but there should be loots of 200K available, thus dramatically shortening the time to reach 1 mil. If you have a shield I would also suggest not breaking it as this will only leave you open to attack. Instead, head over to the exploration map and tackle the single player forts on that. Attacking them won't break your shield and you can still get a decent amount of loot. Great to hear you're enjoying the game I hope these pointers help you out
Thanks Chris for the prompt reply. There are no loots of 200k available at all at my PH level. I have never ran across one. I am at 400+ trophies, the best I have ran across with my PH level is 100k, but those are few and far between. I can search for 20 minutes before finding a 100k loot raid, if I ever do. But even if I raid every 12 hours, still have same problem. I lose more loot than I gain, so back to my original quandry. It's nearly impossible to raid to gain loot without rushing with gems. I imagine once you reach max PH, this challenge is somewhat negated by availability of higher loot targets. At the lower levels this was not a problem. I think this challenge might be most apparent in the mid levels. And for the record, I am not complaining on behalf of myself. I welcome a system that rewards those that spend money, it provides me with an advantage over those who don't spend money. I was asking more on behalf of my guild mates, who are experiencing the situation and are getting a little frustrated with the game. I imagine the game will weed out those that can't work the system or are not willing to purchase gems. My guild is geared more towards those that are willing to spend money anyways. Thanks again
That is understandable, I know some players find themselves in this predicament. As I said though, whilst your shield is up, head over to exploration and you can do the single player fights there and you're protected from people raiding you. There are some big loot rewards on the map, and even if you just run in, steal what you can and leave, you should be able to reach your target without too much bother. I suggest you wait until you have been attacked and that triggers a 12 hour shield, and then spend your time on exploration.
Your suggestions really don't work, Chris. At higher pirate rankings getting and holding onto resources becomes very difficult. I think many players are getting frustrated like Shark Bait and quitting the game because of it. Getting gold is easy if you lower your pirate rank enough by surrendering over and over again without committing any troops. With a score below 100 you can keep hitting the next button until you find an easy island with 100k+ grog. You can then attack it with just enough pirates to take all the grog and be ready to attack again quickly. The more people use this strategy, though, the less effective it will become, as iIt'll be harder to find good target islands. It also hurts the quality of the game to have strong players attacking weak players. Grog economics are especially bad. The grog cost of recruiting a good pirate army is too high, so raiding most islands would result in a net grog loss even with total destruction. Grog costs should definitely be lowered, especially for recruiting voodoo pirates.
Yes, for some grog loss seems to equal grog gain. Farming is ineffective due to time required for troop recruitment. At higher trophy levels without max PH and near max farming troops, even gem rushing troops for farming becomes ineffective. So you reach a stage while waiting for max PH that you just sit around and collect resources and do expeditions. Raiding is greatly reduced as a play option. I will only do 1 raid every 12 hours when shield expires. Once max PH and max troops are achieved, I am expecting the dynamics to change and anticipate gem rushing troops for raiding once again.
I don't get you guys.. I don't have any problems whatsoever. - I find enough bases with at least 100k gold and 100k grog that I can raid (Pirate level 416 PH doesn't effect your search) - When I get raided they never got more then 100k (14 hours ago was a exception this guy looted 130k gold and 103k grog, but he came with 4 high level juggs, 2 brutes and 45 gunners!), but usually it's below 10k gold and 10k grog -When I use gems to speed up troop producing I earn about 1-2 mil in say 3 hours tops.
Chris' suggestion, above, works perfectly. Find the pirate stronghold that yields around +1.7 M, raid him for all you can (losing is optional, personally I still haven't defeated him once) and use the money to upgrade/build. Just make sure you do have free builders, of course.
I'm going to assume that you have at least PH 6 and your defenses are intimidating enough that you don't get attacked often at rank 416. When enough other players reach PH 6 things will probably change for you. When I'm "bullying" (perfect name for lowering my ranking and attacking easier islands) I get plenty of grog too and rarely get attacked. I did enough of that to pay for all the upgrades I wanted so now I'm trying to see how high I can get my ranking while I wait for PH 6 to finish. I've been through the bullying/leveling cycle twice. Eventually I hit a level where my rank stagnates and resource accumulation slows to a crawl. The bullying is a major flaw in the game. Many players are getting frustrated and quitting, leaving behind islands that provide resources for the rest of us, but I don't think that's the balancing mechanism the developers really want in place. Alternatives are to increase resource rewards for successful attack and defense without punishing the losers or to lower costs. Bullying should be prevented in the battle matching system, not encouraged..
You can see my base here: http://www.midoki.com/forum/index.php?threads/base-design-6.1013/#post-8748 That's the most recent picture I have on this forum. Yes I have PH6 but I wouldn't say my defenses are that intimidating, I don't have the mystic mortar yet and cannons are just level 10. For PH 6 my base isn't that good (yet). In my guild we have the rule can you lower your rank by a max of 100 if that doesn't drop you below pirate rank 200. Lowest I was in a while was 320 I believe. To get my PH 6 I used my time when shielded to raid the big Pirate Stronghold with 1.7 M gold. Also my guild is #13 of Plunder Pirates and nobody, I repeat nobody talks about this so called "flaw" Which makes people frustrated and quitting. If you don't get more resources income then you get raided you should rethink your strategy. Which might include changing your base lay-out our attack strategy to maximize loot. (Do you get 3 stars? Whats the average loot you raid?) Cheers
I am still sitting idle, waiting for PH to upgrade, and doing 2 raids every 12 hours or so when shield drops (gotten pretty good at timing the return of my exploration ship to replenish my crew). I should add, that I could drop my pirate rank by 300-400 points and raid endlessly slaughtering all players weaker than me. Like I said, this is not a complaint. Just noted at the mid PH levels, towards the higher rankings, raiding for booty becomes very challenging. I keep my second and third accounts around pirate rank 200-300 and raid endlessly and easily. I honestly don't believe there is a solution, other than to make an affordable method to increase the number of raids you can do per hour. One raid per hour, or spending 30 gems to rush a crew, do not seem like viable options. There needs to be a more economical method to raid more frequently at the higher levels. This reply does seem a little incoherent, but it's early and I am not in a mood to revise it.
