CONQUEST! Conquest is one of the most underrated minigames in RS with lots of in-depth strategy and theorycrafting. Its mechanics are easy to understand, but can get complex in execution. Discuss the game here. Also tell everyone you know to start playing it more. Some thoughts I've come across ever since coming back to the game: Units Foot Soldiers are deceptively powerful. I used to think they were utter trash since they had crappy movement and attack, but they make excellent counter scout-rush units and don't die to bombard-scout attacks like halberds do. With shield wall or stoicism, they make for a disgustingly annoying unit to kill and are still only worth 50 points to the enemy Scouts are probably the most OP unit. While they're outranged by archers and mages by 2 and 1 units respectively, they're also only worth 25 CPs. They make excellent bait and when used with BC/Stoicism/Charge, their offensive prowess skyrockets. Their cheapness is great for forcing unfavorable trades for the enemy and also allows more room for stronger units and commands. Their flexibility and versatility is unmatched. Champs are still amazing units despite the 100 HP nerf a while back. However with tricky stuff like bombard/charge/BC scouts, they need to be protected a lot more and should only be brought out if the player can assure they'll wreck maximum havoc. Halberds are a solid unit. They can render the vigilance ability useless on all non-ranged units. 4th longest range for a unit. I don't have much experience with a mass hally setup and I still think a bombard setup can do well against it, but it's worth looking into I haven't found a good place for mages and archers. If you go second, you need to be super paranoid and protect them like crazy since charge-scouts will one shot them. I tried a strategy where I used mass scouts to block off a single mage or archer, but whenever I faced mass scouts they would just trade scouts with me until I could no longer protect the archer. Maybe mass FS + a mage would be better? Knights are an interesting unit. They can make for good units to 1 shot BC'd scouts and have the potential to 1-shot champs with BC/charge. However, their vulnerability to BC'd scouts themselves make them hard to place for me. Perhaps a knight would be a good pairing with the mass FS+mage strat since he has the ability to kill BC'd scouts or Stoic'd scouts with BC. Commands Regenerate is probably the worst ability in the game now. It was decent back when champs had 600 HP to make them annoying difficult to kill, but with the nerf I feel like stoicism is just strictly better. I can't think of any solid setups that skip BC/Charge. There's just too much potency in these two abilities. Winds of Fate seems like it has a lot of potential, but it's incredibly hard to use. Using it is just as or more expensive compared to bombard and you're faced with two choices when using it: Either use your abilities asynchronously or play the RNG game. Bombard is another high potency ability. Given that players are typically sitting on massive piles of points late game, having a place to spend them is great. So long as the unit has more than 100 HP and an attack is made right after, the net loss in points isn't actually that bad. Shield wall and stoicism are somewhat similar in function. Both are meant to let a unit tank an extra hit or two. Shield wall is probably better for taking on champs whereas stoicism works on any unit with more than 100 HP. Unfortunately, both are countered by chastise. Chastise is probably the best ability right after BC and Charge. Locking down a unit is incredibly powerful and it effectively bypasses the effects of stoicism/shield wall/vigilance while only having a 3 turn CD. Still has a nasty bug attached to it that lets players chastise the last unit on a team - really unfair stuff Miscellaneous Musings Jagex should allow players to unlock Hybrid gear from the minigame. It gives an alternative to mind-numbingly boring PC, encourages a healthier population of players, and also entices Jagex to fix some of the nastier bugs still left in the game. Met quite a few of the high rating regulars, ranging from 3k to 15k rating. Most of them are open to strategy discussions and are pretty chill, except this one fellow who comes off as pretty cocky. A single misclick can cost the game. Things can go sour really quickly just from misclicking a command or not using corners properly. I lost two games by a single unit just because I misclicked a movement phase and failed to kill a unit. Not too fond of boosters. I wish there was a good measure to discourage it. It doesn't promote actual play of the game which is disappointing. Irrelevant material below: [hide] Origin of this Blug [hide]BAM! I'm one of those weird people who see significance in pretty mundane things. Seeing that my standing counted post count on TIF hit 2011, I thought I'd start a blug. [/hide] Who I am [hide]I am an ancient Maltese practitioner of alchemy at a Shaolin Temple. I played croquet at an Olympic level, but retired to take up freefall chess-fencing. I have 15 extra bones that are not normal to humans, but I have adapted them into a collapsing framework that can used as a perch for my companion albatross, Koo. I am also none of these things and I play Runescape.[/hide] Current Main Goal: 3000 Talon Beast Charms I'm really dumb and want to get this relatively unrealistic goal. However, I do rather enjoy temple trekking and I value the xp rewards and being a virtual swamp is pretty cool. I'll also be able to collect enough Vyre corpses to max my blisterwood polearm while I'm at it. Current count: 740 Corpse count: 400 Stat Updates [hide] (October 17, 2011) [/hide] Completed Goals [hide] 90 Ranged/92 Firemaking/99 Farming 99 Farming woo! Joined DGS as a recruit. Accepted by Tui <3: Join a Dungeoneering Clan I want to join a community where people know what they're doing. I really want to learn from the best on how to key, path, coordinate, and communicate. I've always really enjoyed co-op elements of any game and this is one of the best co-op experiences when you get good competent team mates. I'm thinking of DGS, but they have rather high requirements in terms of time that I can't commit at this time, though I think I can hit the point where I'm competent enough to join them. Get a Fire Cape Donezo [/hide] Skill Goals [hide] These levels are simply what I want to achieve before I stop caring about what level I get thereafter. Obviously I aspire to get 99 eventually, but I these goals are the main breakpoints. Most of them are dungeoneering and effigy releated goals lol. 90 in all Melees Just to round my combats out for bossing or whatever. 96 Magic Just for spellbook swap and also have vengeance. 95 Prayer Turmoil/SS. My top priority for buyables. 90 Agility For Kuradal dungeon 90 Fishing Cave morays and I guess rocktails if I ever want to AFK fishing. 89 Runecrafting To be able to boost to effigies, but once I hit 77 for bloods I don't care that much. 70 Construction Just for quest requirements lol. Dislike this skill. A click-intensive and a deep money sink that doesn't offer enough utility for me. I would maybe consider 75 cons for altars in dungeoneering. 90 Fletching Dungeoneering and effigies I guess 99 Slayer Want me a hex lol. Don't really expect to get this at all soon, but the cape looks pretty rad. 90 Cooking Dungeoneering and I guess effigies. 96 Herblore Being able to make ovls without boosting. 99 Smithing I like smithing as a skill even if it's not really that useful. This is probably the skill that I would want to trim my farming cape with, but I don't think I'll get it before I hit 99 with another skill. 81 Hunter For herblore habitat 96 Summoning Yak 91 Thieving Last room for PP just so I have access to it. Also I guess effigies. 90 Mining Dungeoneering. 90 Woodcutting Dungeoneering 120 Dungeoneering I like this skill. I really want 120, but it's really far down the line. Chaotics and rewards would be also pretty nice. [/hide] Other Goals [hide] Finish all Quests Still haven't done stuff like wgs and Nomad's Requiem lololol. I do have a strong intention to do so though. Attempts so far: 5 Get Any Drop Worth >1 million gp The most exciting drop I've ever received was a d med from Nechryaels and I still get a little giddy from dragon daggers. Something actually nice would be cool. [/hide] Accomplishments [hide] Coming Soon™ [/hide] Current RS-related Projects [hide] Temple Trekking Guide Working on something for Tip.it and hopefully it makes it into the AoW Done for now. Will update later though Crew stuff mostly now [/hide] Things I have Beat Quyneax in [hide] Won a Conquest Game Got 596 total levels in Temple Trekking first :) [/hide] Non-RS Interests [hide] Coming Soon™ [/hide] Random Stuff [hide] In regards to this, I have changed my profile photo: [hide] wut Also posting in interesting blog oh hey you think this blog is interesting official harpie connoisseur [/hide] Halloween 2011 [hide] [/hide] [/hide] [/hide]