[FAQ] Suffering from massive attacks, destruction, game without war, defenses...

Are you being attacked constantly? Do you think that the defenses the game gives you are not enough? Do you want a separate game mode and/or continent where only peaceful players play? This thread is for you.

Preamble

There is a point in the game where new players may face aggressive players or alliances and suffer from overwhelming attacks. This is not the best moment, but instead of being constructive and trying to learn from the situation, analyze what they did to end up in this situation and what to do to prevail or avoid such situations next time, players often start to express their emotions, create threads on forum over and over, and so on. To prevent it I have tried to create a single thread with FAQ's and have all these sentiments in one place.

Frequently Asked Questions

• Q: I am being constantly attacked by another player!
• Q: It's too hard to defend in this game. Attackers have an advantage.
• Q: I am being attacked by big alliance! I cannot stand on my own.
• Q: I want this game to have no "war" part. (I want a separate peaceful mode or continent, etc.)
• Q: Developers are not listening to peaceful players, they are only listening to top alliances (bullies, attackers, etc.)
• Q: You will lose all players if you don't stop attackers from
  attacking as much as they want. Everyone is quitting the game because of
  it.
• Q: 30 day rule does not work, players should be able to attack others of the same level/age/power.

Q: I am being constantly attacked by another player!

A: You have to learn how to defend yourself. Here are some suggestions

1. I assume that you are playing with Collectivism (default) politics selected which gives you great defense bonuses and 50% storage protection. If you have carelessly selected Despotism in the beginning and are now suffering from it - you can switch to Collectivism in the main building - the first switch has only a small penalty. Alternatively, you can switch to Republic if you researched it, which has an even bigger defensive bonus than Collectivism, but learn about the drawbacks first.
2. Because of those defense bonuses, your troops are roughly 3 times stronger than the attacker, and thus you need 3 times less to defend. However, it won't work if you have no troops at all, you still have to train them, because 0 * 3 = 0.
3. 50% storage protection means that as long as you keep your resource green (not bigger than 50%), the attackers won't steal anything. Upgrade your storage and build/upgrade a stash to upgrade protected limit - when attacker doesn't steal anything a few times in a row, he will loose interest.
4. If you don't want to have your hero and units killed - store them in Shelter or at quest locations like Herald's Home when you are away! Other players cannot access your quest locations so it's a safe house for them. Just make sure you have enough food there because your troops will leave and go home when they run out of food there.  Also it is a good idea to hide your troops when you haven't re-trained your whole army - it is better to miss a few hits while you retrain and then defend with full army, than trying to defend with only a fraction of your army.

Now as I've outlined some basic bits, there are some defensive strategies that will work even better:

1. Towers! Just like in TT1 towers are great - they are just like warriors, but cannot be destroyed unless your opponent attacks with siege units like rams. Build towers and upgrade them and your enemies will think twice if it is worthwhile to plunder you when they lose troops on each attack. Having too few towers is a typical mistake that players make, but it's usually too late when they realize it.
2. If you have defending troops - upgrade your walls as this increases the health of defending troops. You will be upgrading them anyway if you are building towers, since it is required.
3. Catacombs - if you have researched it, hiding your troops in catacombs will make them instantly join the battle in any of your towns, which is especially convenient when you are attacked while you are away.

Combine all of these suggestions for the best effect. Hopefully these tricks will help you and others suffering to stand against attacking players.

Q: It's too hard to defend in this game. Attackers have an advantage.

A: We have made a lot of means to make the life of attacked player easier:

1. Beginner protection for 7 days when you start the game where you cannot be touched by anyone else.
2. Extended beginner protection which pops up for some extra time if you receive significant damage over a short time on poorly developed country.
3. Protection items like Truce Proclamation which allow you to make yourself invincible from time to time.
4. Beginner-friendly politics like Collectivism and Republic which have 300-400% defensive power.
5. Cheap and fast rebuild - even if your buildings were destroyed by the massive attack, you can rebuild them at quarter of the price and time if you act fast, making it easier to recover.
6. Snails - when enemy army is getting closer to your domain, it is slowed down significantly, to provide you or your alliance commanders more time to react. Taverns also allow reinforcements to arrive on time, which is especially helpful for alliance-wide defenses, where numerous alliance members are trying to defend against incoming multiplayer attack.
7. 30-day rule which allows to attack only players who are 30 days younger or older than them (effectively meaning your can only battle those who started roughly at the same time as you and have relatively the same chances for success).

Q: I am being attacked by big alliance! I cannot stand on my own.

A: The defensive mechanisms in this game are so good that you can defend alone against a significant number of players attacking you at the same time if you max your defenses wisely. However you cannot make yourself invincible. There is a chance that at some point in time you will be facing numerous strong players coming after you which you cannot defeat on your own. Congratulations, you are transitioning into massive multiplayer part of Totem Tribe II: Jotun and facing the importance of player interactions, communications, and diplomacy.

Massive multiplayer attacks won't happen early, which means you have probably already spent months in the game. By that time you should have built connections with other players, maybe joined an alliance, etc. Your friends and/or alliance would help you to defend against multiplayer attacks successfuly.

If your friends/alliance are not strong enough or not willing to help, you can try to contact attackers directly to figure out why are they attacking you and try to find a solution - communication in this game can solve a lot of gameplay problems and some players enjoy the TT2 for this added social depth.

If you have failed to settle down with your attackers and are still being wiped, try to hold your emotions and restrain yourself from calling names - try to accept your defeat and learn from your experience to do better next time (and you will always do better next time, because you have improved your skills over past experience). Being upset when you are being destroyed is understandable, but try to restrain yourself from being vocal about your emotions. Starting verbal confrontation could make enemies in this game who will be going after you the next time you decide to start a new hero. Try to pay some respect to your attackers - they are wiping you not because they are coward bullies, they have actually spent a lot of time and effort to learn this game, to outperform other players, to organize themselves into a stronger force and dominate the game, etc. It is a better idea to learn from them and one day you will be able to stand against them or even defeat them.

Q: I want this game to have no "war" part. (I want a separate peaceful mode or continent, etc.)

A: There are enough farm games on facebook and mobile already.  This is not a farm game and was never meant to be one. There will be no such mode, or continent or whatever. The war part will always be an integral part of the game, just like it was in original Totem Tribe. However, we tried to make the war part as smooth and accessible as possible, so it won't frustrate players too much, and we are always looking for constructive feedback on how to improve the balance. You can post your suggestions as well. Just make sure the emotional part of your feedback is minimal and you are operating with facts and not feelings.

Q: Developers are not listening to peaceful players, they are only listening to top alliances (bullies, attackers, etc.)

A: This is not true. We are always listening to both sides in this conflict and trying to make the game balanced and not geared towards one category of players or another. Here are just a few out of the numerous examples of features that were implemented because of players feedback:

• Call for ideas: defending your towns
• A suggestion about attacks

The fact that we don't respond to your idea right away, doesn't mean you haven't been heard. We are reading forums all the time actually.

Q: You will lose all players if you don't stop attackers from attacking as much as they want. Everyone is quitting the game because of it.

A: No game in the world has players that never quit. People are quitting the game for numerous reasons and it's debatable if attacks are the major reason for player exodus. If this were a strictly peaceful game, people could be quitting out of boredom, etc. Our belief is that attacks in reasonable amounts are a very good part of the game because it boosts player interactions the way no other feature could. It motivates them to develop, learn, evolve, group together to form alliances for attack or defense purposes, etc. True, some players may quit (at least temporarily), but in the grand scheme of things it makes the game deeper and more interesting if you can get over the initial frustration of your loss. Next time you will do better, learn from your mistakes, become stronger and enjoy this game more. Here is 3 years old thread as an example of typical frustration that players may face:

constant attacks

At the time of this writing, 3 years later, this player has not quit and is still actively playing this game, enjoying all aspects of it, including battles, both as attacker and defender.

Ironically, the majority of current top attackers had moments in their past when they wanted this game to be peaceful.

P.S. Some humor on the subject from one of our players.

Q: 30 day rule does not work, players should be able to attack others of the same level/age/power.

A: First of all there is no way to accurately compare how one player fares against another - the game has many variables representing strength (hero level, number of towns, army size, technology, resource income, amount of time spent, money donated, and so on) and different players will have different combinations of those.

Second and more important point is we are not aiming at making everyone equal - this is not right, because it usually means handicaping someone which is not fun. Instead our goal is to provide everyone with equal chances, and 30-day rule nails it pretty well.

Let's pretend we have 2 players who started roughly at the same time - it means  they are having relatively equal chances. If the first player was actively playing (putting a lot of effort and spending a lot of time to level up / reach higher age / settle more towns), while the second player only entered the game once a day to order a building, naturally first player will be stronger. In this situation those two players are not, and should not be of equal power. Making them equal will defeat the purpose of advancement in this game. Noone will be motivated to progress if your power will be handicapped to be eqaul with those who do not want to progress. This thing has been tried in real life and it's called "communism". Unfortunately as good as it sounds it simply does not work - neither in real life, nor in the game.

If you have any questions on the subject not covered by the FAQ or want to elaborate - post in comments. This will be the single thread on the issue, too keep everything on once place, all others threads will be closed.

It might also be a helpful to include some tips for defending alliances. New alliances are often formed by new players who don't know how to use taverns and lighthouses, share troops, communicate, and other things that can help an alliance who has been identified as a target.

You can post them or links to them here in this thread and we will update the faq :)

For example, there is this lovely, but rather rare resource called Sulphur. Top players, and especially the despots really love this resource. Problem is, you will only see this resource when you research Gunpowder, a renaissance age technology. Now, we have rather aggressive players completely wiping your hero off the map for something you couldn't ever have known. Ofcourse, when you ask them about this resource, they will assume that your average classical age (yes, this means months away from ever getting that resource) will obviously try to claim this resource as their own. Now Bers, would you please tell me how any of this drama could've been avoided? I know multiple players that would love to have the answer to that.

Another issue that isn't covered by your FAQ is when the reason of your attackers is "Just cause". You will not learn anything from this, other than apparantely being unwanted by your attackers. This could ofcourse extend forever, without ever knowing what the attacker's issue was.

Basically attacking because of sulphur is not too different from attacking "just because". Some players can come up with a valid reason to justify attacking you, others need none, they are just having fun out of it. You have to be able to deal with them nonetheless - you should both communicate with players to solve it in verbal way - sometimes just talking nicely could end the attacks, sometimes bluffing will work, but no matter what - you should also max out your defenses, no matter where diplomacy goes - make them pay a big price for attacking you, even if you cannot defeat them.  Make them pay each time they attack, so you won't be an easy target. Not only it will make them think twice about attacking you, this may actually earny you some respect and a way to a better alliances.

"You should also max out your defenses, no matter where diplomacy goes - make them pay a big price for attacking you, even if you cannot defeat them. Make them pay each time they attack, so you won't be an easy target. Not only it will make them think twice about attacking you, this may actually earny you some respect and a way to a better alliances."

Good to hear back from you. It is, however, that this point means absolutely nothing if the attacking player is a good 2-3 ages above you. You know, lil pointy arrows aren't going to do exactly much against an army of tanks. Those reactive battle tanks shouldn't really have an issue surviving a fully upgraded set of basic/arrow towers. Therefore, this strategy might work if you are Renaissance age and are being attacked by a halfway Industrial player, but isn't going to work if an Information Age player attacks a Classical Age player.

30-day rule means both of those players in your example started at the same time and had relatively same starting position. If one player didn't played the game much and the other maxed it out as much as possible, who is the one to blame that first player is at disadvantage?