Black Sheep Conversation Thread

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General Freeman

Ranks and promotions.. Here we go.

Ok... here is the official initial rankings. This was determined by a number of things. Major consideration to older members of the faction. If you feel you are unfairly ranked, let me know. Future promotions will be based on participation and recruiting of good people.

Higher ranks, you are responsible to reach out to the lower ranks.

Officers
General - Yours Truly.
Colonel - Lori is the Colonel of the faction.She reports directly to me.
Majors - Laskar_Nkri is our first Major. Second major will be Maximus. Each major reports to Lori.
Captian - Elad, Mopar both report to Laskar_Nkri, Seth, Nick who report to Maximus.
Lt - Laura (who is new but coming on strong!) and Joaqui - report to Seth.

Enlisted
Sergeants - Felix, Shai and Navy. Report to Laura.
Corporals - RAGE, cavidn, naber. Report to Felix.
                   Anekc, Alpaca, tjmiddleton - report to Shai
                   DOD$HBAGGR, Rasera74, Fleischer200 report to Naber.
                   fsfos and Jack - report to tjmiddleton.

All NEW personnel will start as private at this time for initial rank. After 1-2 weeks I will assign them a permanent rank and any reports.

Colonel Lori and Majors Laskar and Maximus and I will discuss promotions from time to time. We will also be discussing discharges on a regular basis.

Have fun you all!!

General Freeman
Commanding Officer - Black Sheep Faction

Rank and Promotions

I get a lot of messages about promotions and the like. I've decided that I'm going to create a rank system and that it will be designated here. The ranks come with varying levels of responsibility and power. The ranks will be:

Officers
General - Complete control over the army. Can make any promotion. (Robert) Only one ever.

colonel  - Second in command. Responsible for keeping track of membership, rules, statistics, etc. Can also add and remove faction members. Only one - ever. (Lori) - Major reports to Colonel. Colonel may approve promotions up to the level of Major, including enablement of faction promotions to allow majors to do their duty with respect to recruit.

Major - Third in command. Can add and remove faction members. Only 2 for now. Captians report to the major.  Majors are responsible for recruiting and training faction new faction members and, under the direction of the major, correcting faction members who violate rules or are in danger of being discharged from the faction. Majors may not discharge members but should make discharge requests to the Colonel and General. Majors are responsible for accepting faction members who make requests to join the faction after they have been properly qualified. Majors should remain in constant contact with the Captian's. Majors make promotion requests for lower officers and any enlisted to both the General and the Colonel.

Captain - Leads a group of troops with 2 lieutenants under this person. Unlimited number. Reports to Major. Captian's are responsible for recruiting but do not have the ability to add faction members. Recruits should goto the faction page and request to join the faction. Should stay in constant contact with the lieutenants. Capt's make promotion requests for lower officers and any enlisted to their Major.

Lieutenant - Leads a group of enlisted. Unlimited number. Reports to Captain. Each Lt. will be assigned one or more enlisted man to be responsible for. The Lt. should be in constant contact with their assigned enlisted men.

Enlisted
Sergeant - Will be responsible for at least one lower rank enlisted person.
Corporal - Responsible to fight
Private  - Responsible to fight
Buck Private  - Responsible to fight

I will have a list of rank assignments out soon.

General Freeman

some things to do, some things not to do, some things you might not know....

In the game, there are a number of things that you can do. Just because you can do them, or even want to do them, does not mean that it's the right thing to do at the *time*. If you want to be a long term success at the game and not get frustrated, then be patient and follow these baisc guidelines.

To Do:

Prioritize
If you want to be a long term success at the game, then you will need to prioritize certain things. Many of us want to get our there and fight, because it's fun. But, in the begining especially, you are vunderable when fighting and fighting has a high cost to it. Also, loosing is frustrating and if you are feeling like all you do is loose, then you will get frustrated with the game and you might decide to leave.

So, what should you prioritize? In the begining and up to level 20 or so - or if you have not already done this and you are beyond level 20, I'd prioritize the following:

1. Income generating buildings - At the end of the day, coin is KING. You need to be generating as much coin as you can. You also need to make sure that the income generating buildings are generating as much income as they can. This leads us to:

2. Boosters - Boosters will increase the amount of income generated by a building. They also increase oil production, storage and decrease build time for units. At the begining of the game, concentrate on income buildings and placing boosters on those income buildings.

Boosters
Boosters come with different streingths. So, clearly you will want to use the best boosters you can. They have a cost, of course, but the additional production of the building over time will more than offset the booster cost. Also, check your stash as there are often boosters in there.

So, a typical booster/incombe building would look something like this:

bbb
bib
bbb

Where b is the boosterrs and I is the income building. The difference in an income building without boosters and one with can be on the order of anywhere from 10% to up to several hundred percent. I use a lot of the warplane boosters but they are costly at 250,000 coin. The trees and other 1% boosters are less expensive and can be replaced later as you build more coin.

Building Income
If you want to see an epic build out of a base you can look here:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnSAtE_fsI0

I've not watched the whole thing but it looks interesting.

3. As your building income, income buildings and boosters, you will be adding experience points. This is important 

as the more experience points you have, the more buildings and units that become available. Thus, the more coin 

that becomes available. 

Best coin buildings? (I'm leaving out the buildings to buy for stars)

The mess hall isn't bad, and in fact over time is one of the better collections early on. 

But, you will need to collect from it every minute to get the real use out of it. That's a bit of a pain.

The millitary cottage gives you a bit less overall income over the same amount of time as the mess hall, but you only 

need to collect from it every 5 minutes. Still, that's a lot of coin lost if you are not playing for a while.

The warehouse seems a good early on choice. I'd build several of these as the price is right and the income rate

is also pretty fair. It's income rate is also better than the modern house.

Protection 

In the begining put your income buildings far enough apart that no one can easily steal from more than one at a time.

This will protecting you from being invaded and having your coin stolen. You can also buy protection for a certain

amount of stars, but at the lower levels I don't think you will need it. You will be protected after a raid on you

base for a while anyway.

Not to do - lots of battles

Fighting battles at the start is a great way to loose coin, and fast. I understand you want to fight battles, and you

are a member of the Black Sheep faction, so you need to fight there. Still, limit your battles initially.

Let your coin build first, build a few units and battle cautiously. I'd only take on the lowest level

enemies at first.

Invasion

When you do battle, invasaion at the lower levels is critical. When you choose someone to fight make 

sure they are not protected (the little shield below their name means they are protected). Invade with any and 

every fight you win, without exception (until it comes to when you are capible of underwater 

operations then the rules change). Invade invade invade unless you have a strong feeling the enemy

has nothing worth taking. It's a great way to build coin. Carefully look at their base. Once in a while,

you will find a treasure chest of millions of coins. That is a great payday!

Fusion

You might be tempted to build a fusion building and start fusing your troops. I'd build only one and  I'd use it 

sparingly. The truth is the surface fusions are not that great. Wait until you can move underwater and

build an underwater fusion building. Then you can really do some fusing.

If you want to spend stars, you can get some good fusion from the surface building but I would not 

waste your money.

So, in summary.... build income buildings with boosters. Build coin. If your going to fight, do 

so in a selective way. Invade when you do fight and collect the most coins you can. 

More later...

The General