Illusion Battlefield

Our alliance competed in our first Illusion Battlefield event today! And as you can see, we were successful!

There were definitely some nervous Nellies (myself included) before the event began. Most of us (myself included again!) had never played in the Illusion Battlefield before. When we saw the team we were matched up against… whew!! Several of their players had troop marches with more than 100,000 power! We were definitely outranked.

But as one of our esteemed R5s declared afterwards: “They were stronger. We were smarter.”

The best advice that I can give to any alliance who wants to attempt this event is to just do it! Even if you believe the odds are against you. Even if you can’t get your strongest players online at the same time. Even if you don’t understand the event!

PREPARATION PHASE

Use the statistics mail to gauge your team’s interest and availability. Once you have a general idea of who wants to play (and, more importantly, who can play in one of the time slots), you can start organizing.

Generally, you’ll want to assign roles to each of your participants: Those with the strongest troop power should focus on the center tower but be ready to travel the entire field. Mid level players should be distributed across designated towers (1 through 4), with lower level players making up the difference.

As far as selecting skills and allocating troop types… Those strong players? The attack skills will serve them well. The defense skills are OP, IMHO, and if you’re unsure of which tactic you’ll be using, a one second construction time for relocation sites and the ability to instantly heal 30% of your hospitalized troops will not let you down. (I can’t speak to the support skill set, as I believe we managed this decisive victory without anyone using them.)

When allocating troop types, it’s tempting to leave out the troops that don’t factor into your best march. Unless that troop type is missing from ALL of your marches, be sure to include whatever you’re “not using.” If you don’t allocate any troops of a certain type, you won’t be able to use the lesser marches that include that variety.

If you can spare the gems—and this is absolutely a worthwhile investment—change your Lord Talents to all warfare skills (the right side of that menu). At the last moment, before the battle begins, use all four of the attack boosts (increased crit, increased dodge, etc).

THE BATTLE BEGINS!

Get your team to their assigned starting positions as soon as possible. In the Illusion Battlefield, relocation travel times are significantly faster than other travel times (attacks, joining rallies).

The NUMBER ONE thing you should be doing is relocating where the enemy is trying to go! This is an absolutely thankless task—the game does not reward players who “block”—but it is vital!

Do not use your strongest march to garrison the towers. Remember: Illusion Battlefield is a team effort. The enemy doesn’t have to beat you, alone. Five weak marches in a garrison is almost always better than one strong march. And you’ll need that strong march to attack and join rallies.

ALLIANCE BOOKMARKS

Be judicious with your alliance bookmarks. The first application of bookmarks should be to direct your teammates where they need to be. After that, begin labeling enemy castles according to their location and priority. Strong enemy players can be marked anywhere on the map, as it helps those who are actively fighting decide which relocations to block without having to scroll to the relocation site’s origin.

At each tower, label high priority targets, and be sure to include their location! When your attackers (those very high power players!) are ready to move, they don’t have time to check each bookmark to find out what tower requires their attention. Try bookmarks like, “Tower 1 - Rally” for large targets, or “Tower 4 - First!” for enemies with low prosperity that can be force teleported back to the spawn point. Alternatively, for your tower and relic defenders, try bookmarks like, “Sun Relic - BLOCK.”

I hope these strategies help your alliance dominate the Illusion Battlefield! Good luck out there. We’ll be back for the next one in 11 days!

Kneedecker
Winds of War alliance, R5
Server 107