We played generals.io over the weekend. It gives some solid adrenaline rushes but we are prob going to take a break from it due to that and other priorities.
Quick tips:
- Use click + WASD to queue up traversals quickly (on your own squares you can chain it multiple times)
- Cities repopulate if not fully captured, be sure to have +2 to city count (1 for wipe out, 1 for move in)
Here is what we learned as some strategies:
- In 1v1, maps are set up with generals at 2 sides (e.g. North/South, East/West, Northwest/Southeast)
- Initially, spread out in all directions (approximately 3 armies per sweep, use shortest path to cover as much ground as possible before turn 25)
- At turn 25, all squares get +1
- There are 2 initial goals: find a castle and find the enemy's border
- Focus more troops to find the border so you can determine where their general is faster
- However, don't get too aggro -- you should have found a castle but turn 25. If not, panic as you will be overwhelmed
- A game where everyone attacks each other with no castles is super boring as it's like a shitty tug of war with equal strengths
- Due to draw distance of 2, you should avoid unclaimed castles from being seen so pad out your troops to prevent that
- If an unclaimed castle is seen being claimed by the enemy then they should capture it as it's super cheap and prevents you from gaining troops
- Vice versa, if you see a castle that was just claimed and has low troops, grab it as they won't get new troops and you will
- A caveat is you can make a borderline castle undesirable via +100 troops to its capture value. This way it will cost the enemy more troops to take it over than it's worth
- This means it would be 50 troops (castle value) plus any additional worth (so +1 and -1 means an absolute ratio of 2)
- Hand waving to math but it feels right
- When turn 25 hits, expand troops to an adjacent cell so the next +1 boost becomes more effective
- Once the enemy's border is found, trace it as much as possible. This locks them in and gives you a better idea of where their general is
- Don't let underpopulated cities be seen or the general at all, if there's a high count scout, then get rid of it ASAP
- See "draw distance of 2" notes for reasoning (it's super effective at removing your resources which restricts army which makes more scouts easier)
Make your base harder to find by leveraging draw distance. Expand border with hollow parts then fill outward/inward to prevent enemy from seeing where it starts
Sometimes troops collect on the inside of borders and we can't push out easily. Use a lance to collect them and push out the border
1. 2->2->1
2. 1->3->1
3. 1->1->3
4. 1->1->1->2
If you are seeing all your castles get taken and running low on troops, it might be best to do a hail mary. Find a weak point in the defense and follow the low numbers back to a city/general. It doesn't always work but it's better than failing entirely
It's great to spread out over the ground early and often. As time passes, these will grow into nice numbers. You can then walk over the ground via a space filling curve (or something simpler if you like) and get a new army from nothing.
Don't scrape the ground at the border unless you are desperate though. Those are free troops that will not be a weak point for any incoming attacks
Take a low count enemy city that you know will be re-captured. Before being re-captured, move out of way and follow trail of 1's back to source. You should find either a new city or general -- or at least have a new direction to search in due to location of attack
This is another filling technique that gathers from sides then forward:
2->2<-2
^
|
2->2<-2
^
|
2->2<-2
...
1->3<-2
^
|
1->3<-2
^
|
1->3<-2
...
1->4<-1
^
|
1->4<-1
^
|
1->4<-1
...
1->10<-1
^
|
1->1<-1
^
|
1->1<-1
Great startegies review. I will try to apply them to my bot :)