Common Tactics

## Bracket Surfing

* Because your attack bracket (AB) is determined by power +/- 50% and your attack power +/- 20%, players can change their AB by artificially changing these two numbers to match targets. This is usually achieved in one of a few ways:
	+ Receiving vassals from an ally to increase base power.
	+ Consigning lower power vassals to their attackers to increase attack power.
	+ Consigning lower power vassals to lower their base power
	+ Using an ally's trapper to shed vassals. A player may shed low vassals to drop base power or shed top vassals to drop in attack power. They may also choose to shed both.
	+ It is most common for players to surf down, but this tactic can also be used to surf up.

## Team Attacks or Gang Attacks

* Players who attack the same target at the same time as allies to quickly wear down a target.

## Power Rescue (PR)

* When a player takes on much larger vassals into their attack team to aid in a rescue. This is accomplished in several ways:
	+ Receiving a fealty (once every two hours)
	+ Conquering an ally (no fealty timer)
	+ Receiving a gift from one's liege (no fealty timer)
	+ Important: this is a dangerous maneuver to undertake, as it will greatly inflate your attack power, perhaps beyond what your defenses can handle, putting all of your other vassals at risk.
		- Usually this risk is mitigated by the use of the companion bond. Either the player will uncompanion a large vassal, rescue, and then release, or they will take on a large vassal, rescue, and propose companion bond.

## Walling

* To defend against the PR, players may choose to take on extra power in a similar fashion to the PR itself, but place these large vassals in the defense that protects the prisoner.
* This incurs a comparable level of risk as PRing for the player.
	+ The risk can be mitigated by dropping defenses to a single line defense, typically blue defense because it contains the tower for gold protection.

## Dropping a defensive line (aka Going 1 Line, or Going 2 Lines)

* Some players will choose to ignore one or two of their defenses completely. This is risky because it opens the dropped line to a free attack, making all unprotected gold available to raid. Also, any vassal that does not fit into the protected defensive line is vulnerable to seizure.

## Rescue breaking

* The trapper is often used as a deterrent, to discourage others from continuing an attack. However, if used improperly, it can also make a player vulnerable.
	+ Experienced players will frequently attack with a "Trapper Safe" configuration, which places an expendable squire/maid ("squirrel", colloquially) at the end of the attacking army. When this low value vassal is trapped, it is available for rescue.
	+ Rescues are free attacks that do not engage the trapper. That means a player can rescue at full power, which wears down defenses, eventually enabling rescue and leaving the defense open for attack.
	+ The attacking player will repeat this process until the defense is open enough for raiding and eventual seize.

## Double Zeal

* In order to seize, the defense must be burned. So for a sure thing, players can double zeal.
	+ Attacking player has twice as many vassals as their attacking army that are fully zealed (prayed for utilizing the church).
	+ The first set of zeal is used to burn the defense in one hit.
	+ The second set of zeal is used to seize the vassal.
	+ Usually, this tactic is used in conjunction with a scout report, so that the attacker knows exactly where the vassal is located and does not waste their zeal.

## Force Promote

* Taking advantage of a player leaving a trapper set to force a player to the next title by dropping power into the trapper. This is done for a variety of reasons:
	+ To promote a player out of their liege and make the player vulnerable to conquer
	+ To promote a player out of their liege to thwart the liege's rescue
	+ To remove the player from the attack bracket.
	+ To make the player more vulnerable to attacks in the new attack bracket due to new attack criteria.

## Deploy

* Probably the most common use will be to set army 2 as a mix of zeal and non-zeal that is high enough to seize the target vassal when defense has been spammed down to burn.
* A more complex application uses all three armies.
	+ First you need a scout report
	+ Second able to calculate attack damage
	+ Set Army 1 as normal trapper safe/rescue line
	+ Set Army 2 as second line zeal
	+ Set army 3 as Best zeal line
	+ Attack with army 1 until your damage has dropped to a point where defense is below Army 2
	+ Deploy 2 and Raid
	+ Deploy 3 and Seize
	+ In most cases you will be able to seize in less than 10 attacks

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