A slow and exhausting KvK shaped by uncertainty, patience and constant pressure

Before Reset

After the Alliance Conquest match against OBV and another hour in Endless Mode inside the Lost Realm, it was already a long Saturday night.

The AC match had been intense and ended in a disappointing result. Endless Mode itself was mostly uneventful and exhausting. Both things are normal in alliance life, but combined together it felt draining. Especially after the loss, Biff was not exactly in a great mood.

Still, losses are part of the game and people always say you learn more from defeats than from victories.

One of the nice things about Game of Thrones is that there is always another chance to prove yourself against other players. This time it was the upcoming KvK and 182 could look at a long winning streak while waiting for the matchmaking result.

The planned break before reset ended up shorter than expected because Biff stayed in Discord discussing the loss against OBV together with other alliance members.

After finally getting at least one hour of rest on the couch, he joined Discord again, still slightly frustrated.

The Opponent

Shortly after, Sarduka joined the call and the mood slowly shifted into excitement for another 182 KvK. Sarduka was not really a new member on 182 and definitely not a stranger either. After spending time with NBe during the last AoW and SoW season, he had decided to return to the German Jokers and, more importantly, back to 182.

The squad was finally complete again and this KvK would be the first chance to play together at full strength.

Only one question remained: who would be the opponent?

The answer: K515 and members of [TFI].

At first, Biff thought the matchup looked difficult but manageable. The enemy had more numbers, sure, but if it came down to PvP situations, players like Biet, Asenherz and now Sarduka again were strong arguments on our side.

But Sarduka quickly destroyed that optimism.

“Okay, we can go back to sleep. Over there is MatJenin. Basically a maxed infantry player.”

Right at that moment Biet joined Discord as well.

“What’s going on?”

Sarduka answered immediately:

“We got MatJenin. He can wipe all of us alone.”

Biet only replied calmly:

“Okay, let’s wait and see.”

But Sarduka was right. MatJenin was clearly visible near the western tree line next to King’s Landing. He had a lord sitting in prison, fully prepared for battle.

There were actually many interesting targets on 515. One player above 10 billion power, another above 6 billion, another above 4 billion and several more around 2 to 3 billion power. All tempting targets if they joined PvP because they obviously carried huge amounts of troops and were not dangerous solo attackers.

But MatJenin was something completely different and a serious problem for us.

KvK leaves no room for experiments. Losses are real, there is no Blessing of Resurrection and every mistake can become expensive very quickly.

Even so, Sarduka decided to openly signal readiness for PvP right from the start and stayed unshielded inside our hive.

If MatJenin wanted action, he would have his chance there and maybe we could even get a counter opportunity if Sarduka defended successfully and captured his lord.

After showing our intentions openly, we switched back to basics. We secured our King’s Landing with a small account and started sending farm accounts over to 515 for gathering.

As the hive slowly emptied, more and more positions opened where MatJenin could suddenly teleport next to Sarduka and launch an attack.

On one monitor Biff managed the farm accounts. On the second he constantly watched MatJenin. On the third screen Sarduka remained in focus and Biff was convinced he would see MatJenin jump over any second.

Uncertainty

The situation felt strange and somehow gathering with farm accounts had never been this tense before.

Again and again Biff checked MatJenin to make sure he did not miss any movement.

But the minutes passed and the only activity from 515 came from other players teleporting to 182 and sending marches to gather resources.

After all farm accounts were positioned, we also captured King’s Landing on 515 with another small account, hoping to force some kind of reaction.

But nothing changed. MatJenin stayed completely still.

And exactly that made us increasingly suspicious.

Soon we started discussing possible offensive options against him. A solo attack was obviously impossible. A player like MatJenin was simply too strong for that. But maybe a rally could work.

“He can always bubble whenever he wants,” Biet pointed out.

“And if you open a rally, he will instantly solo you,” TheLu answered, who had joined Discord by then.

“And after that everyone else he can still find,” Biff added.

It was difficult. If things went badly for us, the KvK could basically end right there.

We decided not to rush into unnecessary action. Nothing was decided yet and we did not want to throw away our options too early.

Biff tried scouting MatJenin with a spy account and surprisingly the scout actually worked.

The whole situation still felt strange. Unless he wanted us to attack first just so he could punish us afterwards.

Meanwhile TheLu had already picked off a few smaller unshielded targets and gave us a small lead. But MatJenin remained motionless and that was exactly what made the situation uncomfortable. Nobody knew if he was really absent or simply waiting for the right moment.

At the same time more and more players from 515 moved over to 182 and spread out for gathering. It became obvious that MatJenin’s presence alone combined with gathering could already decide the KvK.

About two hours after reset we discussed reinforcing King’s Landing for a while to extend the lead before taking a break. In the end we decided not to risk too much and instead reevaluate the situation after some sleep.

So Biff moved over to 515 as well, sent his own troops gathering and honestly was not too unhappy with that decision.

We went into the break with a small lead.

Playing for Points

After a few hours of sleep, the small lead had turned into a clear deficit.

The rankings confirmed that 515 had been gathering actively and also showed that MatJenin had started contributing points as well. Without any targets to attack, the only option left was that he had been scoring through King’s Landing.

And yes, MatJenin was still standing there in front of occupied King’s Landing on 515.

Biet and Sarduka were already in Discord when Biff joined again, so he hoped they already had some kind of plan to get us back into the game.

Still tired but at least equipped with coffee, he joined the voice channel.

“We are sitting in King’s Landing on 182,” Biet explained.

“And we are watching MatJenin. If he moves, we instantly pull out and shield,” Sarduka added.

Biff found a remote spot, changed his castle exterior to blend into the surroundings and sent a full march of T4 and T5 troops into King’s Landing for maximum points.

Then he locked MatJenin onto the second monitor and hoped that image would not change.

“Well, let’s hope for the best. I’m watching him closely,” Biff said.

“As long as he stays in King’s Landing, nothing can happen to us,” Biet replied.

“And if he pulls his march out, we just need to react quickly and get safe,” Sarduka clarified.

While Biff rotated the farm accounts and kept sending them to new gathering spots, Asenherz reinforced our King’s Landing with another full march. That brought us to almost seven million troops inside the building.

One eye on MatJenin, the other on the score and his own castle, Biff tried to understand whether the gap was shrinking.

“Hard to tell if we are catching up. Gathering keeps adding points all the time,” he said.

“Yeah, they gather like crazy. The moment one march returns, it goes right back out,” Sarduka answered with obvious frustration.

“If we only look at King’s Landing points, we gain almost nine million every five minutes,” Biff calculated. “If our farms keep gathering nonstop, then all we need is peace from MatJenin.”

Time dragged on and the same actions repeated again and again. Farm accounts rotated between gathering spots while the attention constantly shifted back to MatJenin.

And slowly the gap actually became smaller.

At first the thought sounded ridiculous, but minute by minute it became more realistic.

“What if MatJenin is simply offline and fully relying on the intimidation factor?”

Breaking the Pressure

That feeling became even stronger once we got close to equalizing and noticed that some players from 515 had already stopped gathering and started returning to their home server.

Maybe they realized we were no longer intimidated.

For us, it was the signal to increase the pressure.

Of course we still kept MatJenin under constant observation, but at the same time we also started attacking the gathering spots of the 515 players. Not exactly the cleanest style and definitely not our preferred way to play, but after spending hours without real action we wanted to slow them down completely. If their gatherers stopped producing points, we would not only take the lead but also start pulling away quickly.

Using an alt account, Sarduka cleared gathering spots all across 182. Valuable gathering time for the enemy suddenly produced no points anymore and the eliminations themselves pushed us back into the lead.

Now we could score through King’s Landing while our farm accounts continued gathering at the same time.

Every five minutes the lead became slightly bigger and little by little more players from 515 started disappearing.

When TheLu finally caught another careless enemy player and extended the lead even further, we were able to remove most of the remaining risk from the situation.

Aftermath

By then our lead had become large enough that MatJenin alone could no longer close the gap.

So we gave up King’s Landing on 182 and returned to playing safe.

The remaining hours of the KvK were mostly spent gathering and eventually we secured another victory.

It was not an easy win. There were no major battles and no spectacular fights, but the amount of time, focus and patience required made the result satisfying for all of us.

In the end it was a surprisingly quiet but still interesting KvK. What started as an obvious threat slowly turned into constant uncertainty.

And even at the end of the following day, MatJenin was still standing motionless in front of King’s Landing.

Most likely he had really been offline the entire time and relied completely on the pressure created by his presence alone.

Looking back, that realization was interesting. During the KvK itself, however, it changed nothing for us.

We could not afford unnecessary risks. So, we stayed patient, controlled the situation carefully and invested the time that was needed.

That was enough to continue the winning streak.