KvK "Special Edition" - My 1st Steps Into Open World PvP

So, you know how I don't usually PvP because I have a mediocre lineup at best and I'm terrified of getting 0ed in a single hit by some massive account?

Well... after my recent upgrades and the confidence boost from finally defeating some Strongholds that had been bullying me for ages, I've developed an itch. I want to test my new lineup against actual players... in actual open world PvP.

And what better place to do it than KvK? And not just any KvK either, but this almost-no-death version we've got going on right now.

I log in about 8 hours after KvK started, so I assume most of the big fighting is already over. My kingdom buddy is online, so I ask for a quick battlefield update and, more importantly, if there is anything on the map I can hit without getting myself cross-murdered.

The information is surprisingly encouraging.

There is 1 big account I need to avoid because it could give me a serious hospital bill, assuming I don't instantly lose my Lord first, which would be even worse.

And considering every troop I feed the enemy kingdom is basically points for them, I don't particularly want to be the guy who single-handedly throws the KvK.

On the bright side, we're slightly ahead in points. Perfect opportunity.

If I can land a few good hits, I might actually push the score further in our direction.

And if I lose... well, let's just hope I lose the march I'm attacking with rather than my entire army.

I get some scout reports for CR and RR and both look manageable with relatively low losses.

Time for a quick hit-and-run.

I just need to speed in, slap a greater city, and disappear before that big Spear account notices me.

Sounds easy. Except... my open-world PvP experience is basically nonexistent. So I have absolutely no idea what I'm supposed to be doing.

I still have the LoL Castle Skin equipped from SoW last night and pop a 50% Army Size buff. I don't want to waste a 75% buff because those are reserved for my AC matches.

Should I get a HoF? Should I, at least, have a Lord in my Dungeon? Should I shelter some troops?

I look around and there aren't any unbubbled castles anyway. The PO is sitting there, but I'm definitely not HoF-ing the PO just for practice, lol.

So... What now? I'm a big boy now. I guess it's YOLO time!

I teleport reasonably close to KL, but not too close, and start preparing my PvP setup.

PvP Preset? Done!

Army size? 50%!

Now I need to save a new preset with all this extra army size and something made for actual PvP.

With the 50% buff I can field around 1.4M troops, so I figure I'll take roughly 800k T5s and fill the rest with T4s and a little T3 spare change?

Sounds about right. Now let's save the preset. Except...

I'm not in the Military Grounds. I'm on the actual map... looking at KL...

And there is a rather important difference between those 2 screens, where I thought I was looking at vs where I was actually looking at.

One has a Save Preset button.

The other has an Attack button.

In the heat of the moment, while rushing to get everything ready before anyone notices me... I click what I think is the Save button.

My troops immediately leave my castle. And for about 2 seconds I just stare at the screen. What the fuck just happened? Where are you going? Why are you going?

I don't even fully process that I can recall them and try again.

The troops are already out. The cat is out of the bag. So... I guess we're going in!

The formation is already good and I probably wouldn't have changed much anyway. Might as well speed it!

I speed into KL. Hit! Immediately speed back followed by a random teleport. And I'm gone before anyone knew I was there.

Nobody saw anything. Perfect execution. Now let's check the report and see how my 1st ever PvP attempt went.

...

Except... there is no report. Wait... whaaat?

Before I can figure out what happened, I get a message on. It's my PvP "coach". I'd better check that out. Maybe he knows what I screwed up.

I open the message. And there it is. He told me to hit CR and RR. And I hit KL... I'm such a n00b sometimes!

Good thing KL was empty.😅

Because if that big Spear player had actually been sitting there, this story would probably have ended right here.

Apparently my 1st PvP strategy is "accidentally attack the wrong building and hope nobody notices."

Great start.

OK. Now my eyes have read the correct names and my brain has processed the information. Time to hit the actual targets.

I teleport to CR and give it a nice little spanking. The lineup inside is rather strange and there's a ton of T4 Bows, but the report looks surprisingly good.

Who's next? Winterfell? It's red. So it's an enemy!

An old buddy of mine from another game once said: "If it's Red, It's Dead." So here we go: CHAAARGE!

Discord pops up again...

Oh? No! No, no, no...

Ok, no bueno. So far I'm 1/3 good hits. I knew I sucked at PvP but boy, this is next level.

RR doesn't stand for Winterfell. RR stands for RiverRun.

I just attacked the wrong place again. Jesus Christ!

Next target: actual RR.

That one goes better. This isn't so hard, now, is it? I'm starting to think I might actually know what I'm doing.

So let's recap what has just transpired here: https://youtu.be/-qboY1L9Ang

I've fake attacked an empty castle, landed 2 good hits and attacked a friendly castle.

I'm sitting at a 50% success rate? Or, probably better said... A 50% error rate.

I knew I was bad at PvP, but this is reaching levels I didn't know were possible.

At this point I decide I've had enough excitement for 1 day. I need to wait 15 minutes for the Fervor debuff to disappear so I can bubble again.

It is at this time I remember an important aspect of PvP: Curfew. Or should I say, how I completely forgot to use Curfew!

That's basically step 0 before doing anything else. Jesus Christ, I really suck at this.

Now comes the difficult part. I have to survive in the wild. And fighting is one thing, but waiting for Fervor to drop without doing nothing is a psychological horror.

There are a few players from our kingdom who could potentially cause problems, although probably nobody capable of capping my Lord in 1 hit.

If someone rallies me, I can always jump server and dodge.

But if that big Spear account finds me and decides to blind solo...

Even if I survive, I'm absolutely not going to enjoy reading that report.

So I keep random porting every few minutes, just to make sure nobody can easily track me down.

And the 15 minutes pass without incident. But that doesn't mean I wasn't sweating like a farm animal in a slaughterhouse.

But in the end... it kind of worked, if you look at the big picture and squint your eyes a little bit.😂

My 1st ever KvK open world PvP adventure ends with 2 successful hits, a couple of spectacular mistakes and, most importantly, no catastrophic hospital bill.

Even better, I managed to finish #4 on the kingdom personal points ladder.

From only 2 actual hits, that's considerably better than what I usually manage by gathering resources all day, lol.

I could probably make a push for #3, especially since the rewards improve quite a bit there. But I've had enough excitement for 1 day. I'm calling it.

Despite all the fumbles, I have to say I'm actually pretty happy with how this went.

I still have a lot to learn if I want to properly participate in open world PvP. I need to get to a point where I can do the preparation purely out of muscle memory and not even have to think about it, have different setups predefined and, apparently, learn the geography of Westeros...

But I think it's time I finally started learning. As Laozi supposedly said: "A journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step."

Today was my 1st step into open world PvP in the big(er) leagues.

And did a good job managing not to get 0ed. For now, this has to be the success story. Next time... who knows... I might get a spot in the top 3!