land / 100 is the rough estimate.

courthouse % * 2 + K policing + R policing is used to negate corruption.

it also rounds up over around 0.1

0.4% corruption will show and act as 1% corruption

also you could dump 20 mil points into policing but it won't take effect until the hr change.

Rimp=Mimp*(1-e^(-points/(land*1250+15000)))
EffectiveImps = Rimps*(1+alchs%*2.5+labs%*3.5)

and Luf you can edit the imps if you want to include MaxRawImps = 15, 20, 10, 10 & 10 in full number not decimal or %.

here's the original offline (Excel) alch sheet:

https://jshare.johnshopkins.edu/kchung9 ... sv1.50.xls

I am retired from Elveron and have no plans to update the sheet, so you'll have to leave it at that. I think it should work for all the races minus Ilith's modified alchs.

Warning: long post ahead
Disclaimer: The following post is not directed towards any particular player, and is intended for learning purposes only.

Introduction

I'd say that Elveron has an active community of about a hundred players on the global forums, in addition to several hundred other active players that don't post frequently on the forums. With a large pool of players, you'd expect to see some lesser-known names win over the years (i.e. Jester won last round). But despite the opportunity every round for the more populous middle-of-the-pack players to take the cake, the veteran favorites indeed take the vast majority of wins. And even though Jester isn't as well-known, some would argue that he fits into the veterans' category, having started playing Elveron before many other well-decorated experts. Clearly, the veteran experts are doing something that the rest of the players aren't. But what, exactly?

You've often heard the cries in the globals of "(insert race here) is broken", "(insert strategy here) is overpowered", and such. As it is, round after round, the administration is balancing the game and yet the veterans seem to always be a step of the rest. If I had to generalize a style of play, a strategy, a timezone, or a race choice that has a strong correlation between veterans and winning, I wouldn't be able to. That's because, in the words of The Baron, "veterans don't play the game, they play the players". As their competition changes, veterans scope out the situation and adapt. So with that being said, don't fuss about trying to tweak your near-perfect human build, because that's not the key to winning.

Tips from the Experts' Manual

A lot of time is often spent criticizing middle-tiered players on what they shouldn't be doing, but it's a rare topic to mention what experts are doing. I'd like to prepare the setting for this discussion by defining a couple of words. In the context of Elveron, I will define strategy as a pre-planned general course of action. For example, strategy includes building strats, in-protection build order, military composition, and improvement levels. I will also define tactics as, but not limited to, on-the-fly decisions and counter-measures that are situationally made. Examples of this include spec pushes, cover offense, insta-war declarations, and such. As a general guideline, both an effective combination of strategy and tactics are needed to win a round. I'm also going to call holding the torch as carrying top offense. Now onto some tips:

1. Working as a team
Let's start with some basics that many players are capable of employing. While it is nice to cut down on dust and stealth usage by sharing info ops via realm book, there is more to this than target-sharing communication (in-realm only, of course). I can't stress how important it is to keep your realmmates informed of your particular take on a developing situation or any major decisions you will make during a round. These include but are not limited to: timeframe for your next planned attacks along with projected military, pointing out immediate and potential threats, hittable 'landfarms' and projected landfarms, possible need for war bonus, and such. Since coordinated online activity is often limited for many players including those at the top, it is vital to have some sort of messaging program capable of sending messages offline. Some players have even resorted to exchanging phone numbers, but it doesn't have to go that far.

2. Hostile and War
The ability to coordinate trivial matters plays a major factor when it comes to war declarations. Too many people see war simply as a +10% offense, +20% land gains bonus. Far from being just a land-gaining asset, war or the absence of war can be exploited in a variety of ways. If top offense has recently used war elsewhere, that is a +10% offense less that they can use against your realm for another 24-36 hrs. If your own realm carries a major offensive threat and uses war, you need to weigh whether you are actually giving your opponents a big break to clean up more acres than you can possibly gain. Not just a war, but also a false-alarm hostile declaration can scare potential landfarms into defending themselves against your opponents even if you can't capitalize yourself. And most importantly, the ability to war along with a major military threat will keep opposing threats in check, even if you don't necessarily plan to act.

3. Top offense
It has become commonplace for players to settle either into a defensive posture or suicide mode when dealing with an opposing realm's top offense. The former will render a player ineffective, and the latter may counteract the offensive threat in the short-run (and probably turns yourself into free acres for other competition) but doesn't deal with the underlying problem. Top offense, while many times synonymous with top players, is a torch that gets passed around in the early goings of a round and is crucial to hold to establish any sort of initiative in the game. Let's put it this way: if you're top offense, people should be defending you, not the other way around. And once top offense makes a couple of grabs and spends his economy on buildings and defense, that torch is passed to the next top offense. Even two weeks into the game, two or three realms may still be passing the torch around as their major threats shred their offense.

While there is no one key to holding top offense, there is generally some sacrifice of long-term efficiency for short-term gains. Even if one or two players in a realm hold top offense temporarily, it may be effective enough to cut down on the amount of defense the rest of the realm is required to hold. One common mistake is that one player in a realm should be a designated torch-holder while everyone else plans out a longterms strategy. While this may work out, it is oftentimes necessary for two or more realmmates to coordinate their efforts for torch-holding.

4. Threat offense
Since top offense is cyclical due to casualties, timing is a crucial aspect of the game. This is more in line with playing the players, not the game. Let's give an example. Say there's a player who holds top offense and makes a slowed war grab followed by two more effective attacks. In addition to the startup cost of building the buildings, it will likely take three days for that player's higher economy to replace the casualties and jump back to a level where he can hold top offense and sufficiently defend himself. In that time, there is a new but lesser top offense. An average player will recognize that opportunity as an attack window and stuff in his two or three grabs. A good player will try to command the new top offense during that attack window, knowing that there will be a larger variety of targets available. And an expert will try to mess around with top offense's attack cycle by pushing threat offense inbetween those first two attacks in hopes of forcing top offense to make a smaller grab. Even if you don't plan on attacking immediately, overtraining offense as threat offense may tip the scales just enough to force the issue.

5. Some of the usual tactics
Just to list some commonly used tactics: spec pushes, tavern pushes, hourchanging, shadowing (attacking around top offense), stockpiling & overtraining offense, wall/forge pushes (including coordinated realm wall/forge push), and even in a couple of cases, faith switching. There are a lot more that I've seen used that I forget off the top of my head.

6. Knowing your enemies
Very often, players can't keep their locations secret. It only takes one player in a 6-pack to leak the entire realm's info, and that knowledge is vital in weighing what tactics need to be employed. For instance, if one of the top land players is a known conservative bottomfeeder, the player will oftentimes be ignored because he will not pack threat offense anytime soon (see point #4). If the names of an entire 6-pack are uncovered and let's say, they have relatively predictable login periods because their local timezones are known, then it will be much easier to know when that realm is unlikely to have war available (see point #2). Or if a player is known to suicide and farm himself out late in rounds, an opposing realm will get several offenses ready on standby to draw the player out and capitalize on the easy land gains, even at the expense of one player. Knowing your enemies and their playing styles is crucial to playing at the highest levels of this game. That's why protecting your location is so important.

7. Playing your enemies
If you know who is behind a particular opponent kingdom, then you will be able to devise tactics to exploit both that player's strengths and weaknesses. If a player near the top is a known bottomfeeder, a near-top offense can force the issue by aligning his attack cycle with the bottomfeeder's. A false-alarm hostile threat can further get the point across. If a player is paranoid and checks many top offensive threats constantly, stockpile gold and/or overtrain offense to force him to spend his own economy and overtrain defense. If you are trying to protect easy farms from a future top offense who hasn't trained up yet, you can press the issue by getting to them first, or fail info ops on purpose to force them to train necessary defense. Out-of-realm coordination is prohibited, but mind games aren't.

8. Bigger fish to fry
Many players settle for acres from the cheap non-threats when they should be dealing directly with their opponents. If you ever happen to hold the torch (or have close to top offense where you're also a major threat), use it effectively. Experts spend time plotting their opponents' demise, and careful planning and trap-setting is required to take down opponents. Never has there been a round where the top land players haven't taken a swing at each other. If you're packing heat and not using it on your threats, you will find yourself in trouble sooner or later when they come after you.

9. 67% size
Oftentimes, top offense is also top land, and you may find yourself hovering around his 67% size. It is a tremenduous advantage to be slightly below that 67% than slightly above (although you'd rather find yourself much larger, of course) that a player under that 67% often carries another torch. That torch can be used in a straightforward fashion to make a chain of cleanup grabs, or it can be used to hinder the growth of opponents in top offense's 67% while he is in a rebuilding phase. Also, another advantage of being the smaller land player is that in a 1-for-1 confrontation, the smaller player wins and therefore holds the torch if top land can't defend him.

10. The numbers game
This is a team game, and anytime you have multiple players in a realm that can pack heat, it is a good thing. While top offense is in rebuilding mode between attack cycles, a realmmate that can hold the torch temporarily will starve opponents from gaining crucial acres and economy. Also, the threat of 2-for-1, 3-for-2, and other potential exchanges force the short-handed realm to put forth more defense. It is oftentimes not trivial who exactly is holding the torch. For example, top land and offense might be held back by a combination of two opponents in one realm and might have insufficient defense and defense-in-training to attack. A player that can deduce this would see that the torch is actually being held by his two opponents, and may possibly be able to make an effective grab with the lesser offense to deal with.

Anyways, these were just some tips from a retired player. Good luck and hopefully you guys actually use the advice.