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ADVANCED STRATEGY: CHANGING YOUR STRATEGY BASED ON OPPONENTS 
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One of the most important aspects of playing some of the top
players is strategy adjustment. Most players(me included) 
have some basic armies that they use for each MUG. When somebody
offers up a standard MUG 5, 3000 gold, 1 advantage scenario, 
out come the shadow warriors, shadow dragons, and elephantmen
with amulets. And for MUG 3, out come the lionmen and assorted
friends. Well, most of these standard armies are used because
they are very effective for most situations. But imagine you
know that the opponent is going to pick a standard army.
You would be able to change your army to exploit the weaknesses
of that army, right? Well, guess what? Your opponent can
do exactly the same thing to you! How? Well, when you play
someone enough times, you get a good idea of what type of
army they will pick, and what kind of air/ground/item 
distribution they like to have. If you continue to pick 
standard armies, and your opponent catches on to you, then 
you could be in trouble if he knows what he is doing. 

This is why I would encourage you to change up your army
distributions occasionally just to keep players off-guard,
esp when you are playing the same person over and over. 
But the more important point of all this is you can take 
advantage of many opponents who are NOT paying attention
to their patterns. Let's say I am playing someone for the 
third time, and the previous games he chose the following 
armies: the first time at MUG 5 he took 5 full exp shadow
dragons, 3 with amulets, a few full exp shadow warriors
with amulets, and some assorted support and junk units. 
Let's say the second time at MUG=3 the player chose 3 full 
exp shadow wings with amulets, two full exp flying monkeys,
5 or 6 full exp lionmen, and assorted support and junk. 
What does this tell me? It tells me that this player likes
to overload on air units to make sure he wins the air
war. In both cases he has spent 3 items on the air war,
and likely has weak ground forces. It stands to reason he
will pick a strong air army again whatever the MUG. Now let's
say my standard army does not call for too many air units;
this means if I go with the usual, I will be behind the 8-ball
in the air war. 

So what's the solution? Load up on air units like my opponent?
No. That would just even the odds. What I would do instead is
set the odds in my favor by trying to load up on anti-air
units while still keeping the ground advantage I will likely
have because my opponent overspent on the air war. In other words,
I have a good idea of what army he will pick, now I just need to 
modify my standard army so it would defeat that one. The important 
thing is that I should MODIFY my standard army somewhat, tweak with 
it, and NOT just create a new army from scratch. Why? Because if
the opponent does not pick the army I expect him to,
I will at least be better prepared to deal with it if my
army has some semblance of balance and is not just an
anti-whatever army based on what I think the opponent
will choose. 

So... in this example, how would I do it? Well, I need to 
defeat a strong air army, probably with amulets, but without
spending too much on air myself. As I mentioned above, the 
easiest way to do this is to load up on anti-air units.
One simple change would be to buy another crossbow and give
it to a cav instead of buying the usual amulet. Remember, 
you will not need as many shadow warriors with amulets
if the opponent's ground army is weaker than normal. If
you have two anti-air cav(in this case I would make them 
mortal since I know my opponent likes amulets), instead
of one and one shadow warrior with amulet, you are better
prepared to deal with strong air units. A simple change 
like that can make all the difference in the game. And even
if your opponent does not load up on air units as you 
expected, an extra anti-air cav will still help in the air war. 
What else can you do in this situation? You can buy an extra 
archer for more air defense, or even buy one strong full exp
amulet sky hunter to protect your units from the enemy air assault.
Having one hard-to-kill sky hunter and anti-air cav on the ground
will likely render the opponent's air advantage unimportant
because he cannot get near your units without sacrificing sky
hunters.

I'm not going to go into more details, as I think you can get 
see where I am going with this. Plus each situation calls for
something different based on how you play and how you think
your opponent plays. The key is to recognize the opponent's
patterns and your own patterns. How do you recognize an opponent's
patterns? Well, you can usually tell after a few games if you are
paying attention. Or if you are coming up against someone new, 
you can ask your clanmates for some info if they have played 
the player. 

This is not the easiest strategy to implement, which is why
this section is titled "Advanced" strategy. You have to be 
able to improvise with your army and make educated guesses.
But if you can do this, you will always have a chance to beat
the top players. Even if you cannot implement this strategy,
I still want you to take one thing away from this article:
that is, VARY your army choices, strengths and weaknesses. 
Vary whether air or ground gets more amulets, vary how many
cav with bows you buy, vary ground/air distribution. etc. 
That way you will keep the top players guessing, and who 
knows, maybe they will even misread your patterns and have 
an army that is not tailored to take on your army. 

NEXT ISSUE: Beginner's strategy- Cookbook army recipes(quick 
and easy suggestions for each MUG and number of advantages).
I STILL want to hear from you! Nobody has suggested
anything new for me to write about in terms of strategy. 
I would appreciate some input. 

Suggestions, thoughts, and feedback on my strategy articles is always 
welcome!

Regards,

BloodLord the Lich
FG Laddermaster
E-mail: "nvayn@chesco.com"
ICQ 8062414