Not All Leaps in the Dark End Badly - K187

INTRODUCTION

My daily goal is always to find a good target. Every day, I’d look at my alliance mates’ battle reports, and I can’t deny I felt a twinge of envy seeing things like "18 million merit points here" or "20 million merit points there." Seriously—how on earth were they finding these castles? Sometimes I’d even get frustrated—especially when I saw reports from servers I’d been monitoring myself. It drove me absolutely crazy to see a battle report for a fight that took place just 10 or 20 minutes after I’d checked that same area. Why?????!!!!

Don’t get me wrong—I’m happy for them—but it feels like shields only drop the moment I look away. I just want one successful hit—even a small one! It would really make my day.

THE MORNING

That morning, I’d searched again, but to no avail. To be fair, my search hadn’t been very thorough—I was short on time—but I did manage to spot a cluster of unshielded castles in a rather dangerous server: K187. The server is home to several alliances, but what worried me most were a few terrifying "whales"—players I absolutely wanted to avoid.

I checked to see if they were online; seeing that they were all offline, I gathered my courage. I could make the jump, but one thing still bothered me: I had no way of knowing if these castles actually had any troops. My scout wasn’t ready, and preparing it would have taken 15 minutes—time I didn’t have. So, I decided to take a leap in the dark. At the very least, the jump would only cost me one scroll, and I might even manage to snag some resources.

K187

And there I was, all set. Everything was in order: troops perfectly prepared, a 50% buff active, anti-scout enabled—everything was ready to go. "Let’s give it a try," I thought. But as soon as I landed and performed my first scouts, I was deeply disappointed. There were no troops, no resources—absolutely nothing. "What a shame," I mused; I had wasted a jump.

Since I was already there and had my "battle fervor" active, I decided to spend the time waiting for it to expire by searching the map. I found several fairly large accounts belonging to various alliances. I marked all their locations—about ten in total. "I’ll try again later this evening when I get home" I thought.

THE EVENING

When I returned home, I was once again amazed to see some fantastic battle reports. It was wonderful to witness the joy and enthusiasm of my fellow hunters. The battle reports were always analyzed in great detail, and I would often join in on the study of these findings. I was wondering if I might get a chance at something for me that day.

So, I began my search. Instinctively, I looked at other servers—partly because the "whales" in K187 were all online—but then I remembered the locations I had saved that morning. "Right! Let’s see if there’s anything here." These castles were quite isolated and didn't belong to the whales' alliance.

THE MARKED TARGETS

I checked the locations in the order I had saved them, and when I reached the seventh one, I spotted a castle without bubble. "No way! Seriously?" It was a 2-billion-power castle!!!

I chuckled at the thought of having to call someone else on that server to organize a rally—or, worse, the prospect of losing the target entirely because I couldn't take it down on my own. At first, I thought I might have been mistaken, so I jumped quite close to take a look. My heart was pounding—it seemed impossible for a 2-billion-power player to have no troops. What if they were all bows? I waited anxiously for the report, and... oh my god: 37 million troops! And it wasn’t just archers—there was a mix of everything, though no T5s. There were plenty of T4s and T1s, and the wall was defended by random commanders with no synergy.

THE ATTACK

Because there were so many T1s, it was effectively like facing only half the enemy’s total troop count; a 50% buff would be more than enough. More importantly, the player lacked a strong defensive formation on the wall, which meant I stood a real chance. Finally, I’d found a perfect target all for myself! Yay!

I launched my troops. Even though I knew the "whales" were active, this castle was isolated and belonged to a different alliance—it would take at least thirty seconds for anyone to be alerted and intervene. I had a solid head start. "Maybe they won't notice me right away" I thought.

My troops reached the castle and clashed with the T4s. I dealt significant damage, and to my pleasant surprise, my own soldiers held up quite well. The "infantry bleed" synergy worked perfectly. My infantry engaged their front-line infantry, but since there were no infantry-specialized commanders on the wall, the battle turned out to be incredibly brutal.

The T4s were the first to appear on the wall—as the strongest units always step forward to counter—but in this case, that actually worked to my advantage. The first clash had earned me 23 million in merit—a figure I rarely managed to reach even with an entire castle—and here, I had secured it with a single blow!!!

I recalled the troops quickly: there were few dead or wounded, so I was able to replace them and send them back out in a rush. I watched the clash unfold and, to my great delight, I captured the lord.

In this battle, my infantry had engaged the rest of the enemy forces; there were fewer T4 units, and I began encountering T1s. I performed very well in this engagement too—scoring 14 million points—while losing only a few of my own T4 soldiers.

As my troops were returning, I scouted the castle and, to my utter astonishment, discovered that 13 million troops still remained inside—mostly T1s. I didn’t hesitate; I attacked again, and this time, I sustained zero damage.

CONCLUSION

Attacking a castle like that on such a dangerous server was truly incredible—even absurd—but it never could have happened had the castle not been so isolated. It was a good thing I’d taken the time that morning to note down all the coordinates; that only added to my satisfaction.

https://youtu.be/Clr0R6l1qPU