How to Play Warbook in Facebook

I've joined Facebook for awhile but never took it seriously until last week. It was impressive to see how that simple social networking site has evolved into a democratic application portal that in the end has given a lot of choice for its community members.

One of the application that I got to try is Warbook. I am not a gaming fanatic of sort but this one really got me hooked. As the game becomes more popular, new players may have a tough time scaling up. So here's a simple guide that I give to fellow new players:

Choose your hero and strengthen it

1. You need to decide whether you'll be a visionary (ultimate defense), general (balance defense/offense), warmonger (ultimate offense), mogul (trader), magician (prefers magic over brute force), slayer (assasins), necromancer (can use the dead), or automator (low elite upkeep).
2. You can also invite 20 friends in your Facebook account everyday and earn 25,000 gold for each of them. If one eventually joins, through your invitation, you'll get 150,000 gold too.
3. As you level up, either through attacking or be attacked, you can decide to use the experience points to increase powers in attack, defense, spells, and mana. You can do this in Your Hero's page.

Expand your kingdom

1. Create Mines to increase your income. (priority)
   Note that your kingdom earns on an hourly basis that you can use to expand it further and build infrastructure. Make sure that your kingdom generates more income than its hourly upkeep or cost.
2. Build Forts (priority) and Training Grounds equally to protect your kingdom and strengthen your attack.
3. Build Barracks to reduce your army recruitment and upgrade cost.
4. Build Amplifiers and Barriers (priority) to strengthen and protect yourself from magical attacks.
   
5. Use your Mana to cast spells such as alchemy (create gold) and boundary shift (enlarge your kingdom). This gets partially replenished every hour so make sure to use it whenever possible.
6. Update (10/17/2007): I had to admit that as you level higher, improving your kingdom takes a setback as it can be frustrating whenever you get attacked after major work in this area. I ended up focusing more on my army build-up. However, due to an increase earthquake and fireball attacks, I now focus as well on increasing my barriers.
   

Build your army

• It is best to protect your kingdom by having at least 2 to 12 personnel per acre of land you have. (Thanks Toby for additional tip there!) Whether you are attacking or the one on the defensive, it is best to convert your soldiers to their strongest form as possible such as knights (offense), pikemen (defense), elites (strong on both offense and defense). Depending on your hero type, the elites are also referred to as defender (2 attack and 8 defense score), elite (5 attack and 5 defense score), berserker (8 attack and 2 defense score), legionnaire (3 attack and 5 defense score), wizard (5 attack and 3 defense score), assasins (6 attack and 2 defense score), zombies (3 attack and 3 defense score), machina (5 attack and 5 defense score).
• Update (10/17/2007): As I leveled higher, I stopped upgrading my soldiers to elite. When computing amount paid to get an elite, it appears to be more cheaper and practical to invest instead on knights and pikemen.
  
• Whether you win or lose during attacks, spend your gold immediately to replenish your army. When your attackers can't extract any gold from you, it deters their motivation to attack.

Attack / conquer enemy lands or repel attackers
Upon sign-up in Warbook, you go through a 2-hour period of protection. Make sure to use this time to set-up your infrastructure and army utilizing your hourly kingdom's income.

You can level up by either attacking (offense) or be able to repel attacks (defense). Winning or losing can be influenced by:

1. The number of forts, training ground, amplifiers, barriers.
2. The strength of your army (number of personnel, attack or defense score per personnel, hero's attack or defense rating, % of training ground or defense ports)

When attacking or counter-attacking, note that:

• You can size up your enemy or target by casting a spell using your mana in their hero's page. This can be used to anonymously spy (show hero's gold and army resources) and/or survey (shows infrastructure of the kingdom) them.
  
• You can attack or counter-attack a hero as much as you can (and vice-versa). However, Warbook does not let a hero to be brought completely down and bar further attacks once it reaches the limit a hero's kingdom can take.
• Update (10/17/2007): Attacking a hero more than 2x may be considered a multi-attack, especially if they are part of an alliance.
• Update (10/17/2007): On the other hand, if you are being multi-attack, you can consider joining an alliance. If you have lots of friends in Warbook, forming an alliance can be a good option too.
• Update (10/17/2007): To survive and grow in Warbook, hit the smallest kingdom that you are allowed to attack but the strongest hero to increase chances of success and get high exp to level up.
  
• As of December 18, I now focus on attacking heroes with the same land size as I am but lower levels. I think it is useless to be a high rank hero if your land is small.
• As of January 2008, I now attack heroes of levels higher than mine but smaller in land size.
  
• Update: (11/8/2007): Warbook just added the Super Search feature and this is now what I use to find heroes that can be attacked. Although I only focus on those whose level is higher than mine. The good thing about it is that leveling up became faster and chances of chain attack gets minimized. Although I had to admit that the game is beginning to be less exciting since I start using it. (As of December 18, this is no longer the case for this feature, I stopped using it).
  
• Another option in attacking is by casting spells such as magic vortex (drain half of opponent's mana), fireball (destroys opponent's army), and earthquake (destroys opponent's infrastructure). This is dependent on how much spell power and mana you have and which you can increase as you level-up in the hero's page. This is an option if you find that an opponent's barrier is not that strong during your survey.
• Note that magicians with higher rank can also land grab (get opponent's land and convert to own) using their mana.
• Note that warmonger and slayer can use their bloodlust mana to increase their attack score for a period of time.
• The necromancer can use its raise dead mana to resurrect its dead army members to zombie.
  

Trade agreement, aid package, and alliances (subject to Warbook tax as applicable)

• Note that you can enter into a trade agreement with other heros. This is where you can trade gold in exchange for soldiers or vice versa. As a newbie, I find that sending a trade agreement proposal while being attacked is also like a white flag being waived.
• You can also send an aid package to another hero such as soldiers or gold that they can use to rebuild their kingdom.
• You can also join alliances to help out or be helped by fellow heroes. When you have enough gold, you can also start your own alliance.
• I'm still figuring out how Factions work.
  

I'm still a newbie in Warbook and hope to update this guide as I learn the game more. For now, my goal is to reach Level 50 in Warbook which is considered the maximum level that you can attain in the game. Don't forget to monitor and join the discussion to get a feel of the community too. Additional tips are more than welcome. Thanks!

Goal - to reach Level 50 in Warbook

I just reached a Level 13 status in Warbook and quite comfortable in taking the initiative to attack and not bothered receiving it as well.

The upgrade that happened in the game lately is the Level 50 limit. One of the reasons behind it is to make the playing field as reasonably competitive as possible. What I like about this move is that the ending is clear. For players like me, it is like a finish line that can be targeted upon although the path is unpredictable, which makes it exciting.

Being able to level up from level 11 last week to level 13 was due to:

• Attacking kingdoms that are no more than three (3) times smaller. To do that, assuming you'll attack the smallest, check your kingdom size and divide that by 3. Example: If your kingdom size is 3000, you divide that by 3 and you'll get 1000. Search for kingdoms that are 1001 to 1010 in size and pick one that you can attack from there. I now prioritize attacking those with the highest level in the result and not affiliated to any alliance.
  
  If you are lucky, you'll find them neglecting their hero already with lots of gold in it. Also, the higher the level of the hero you are attacking, the higher the experience points.
  
  
• Focus on strengthening my knights and pikemen. I use my hourly gold income to get knights prior to attack and use gold gathered during attacks or mana to replenish the pikemen.

Lastly, don't get discouraged by attacks as this forms part of your army per acre ratio finetuning. Just target to reach Level 50 fair and square - no shortcut or cheats or scripts.

Creating a Warbook Alliance and manage Kingdom growth

Over the weekend, my hero reached a Level 11 status in Warbook. There are the things I'm doing now in the game to sustain kingdom growth slowly. This includes:

• Have a ratio of at least 10 army personnel per acre. At least 50% of them be made to pikemen, 10% elites, 30% knights, and 10% soldiers.
• Carry out attacks whenever alchemy casting is due. As the gold given is based on your kingdom's hourly revenue, successful attacks prior to casting can temporarily increase your land and reduce army size. Make sure that your army ratio is more than 10 per acre before carrying out an attack.
  
• Note that as your hero's level increases, the number of exp points needed to level up gets higher. If your goal is to go up once a week, then carrying out 5-10 attacks per day may be necessary.
  

Usually after overnight, heroes find themselves having more than 1 million gold and may be tempted to create a Warbook alliance. Think if you really need to create or join an existing one. The advantage in being part of a Warbook alliance includes:

• Being able to ask for help from fellow alliance members whenever you get more than 2 attacks in a day and unable to fight back due to size disadvantage.
• Be less susceptible to attacks as heroes with alliance affiliation are less attacked for free of being mobbed.

The challenge in creating and maintaining a Warbook alliance includes:

• You must have friends of various hero levels eager to join you before creating an alliance. The last thing that you want is to be alone in it. I've seen several players who created an alliance and later on requesting it to be deleted - as they are unable to join bigger groups when they need help and have not much members in it.
  
• You are responsible for your members. Make sure they follow alliance rules, such as attacking another hero up to 2x only, to avoid getting you all into trouble. This is the reason also why I've made my alliance a close group with five members at the moment for easy management. Although each one is able to recommend future members and be responsible for them.
  

How to Survive in Warbook

This is a follow-up to how to play Warbook in Facebook guide that I posted last week. I just reached Level 10 in the game and learned a lot of lessons to survive in the game. Here are some of them:

1. Focus on building your army
   Whenever you gain gold through conquest, alchemy, or hourly income, spend that in building your army. Although the elites are the best, they can be fairly expensive. So it is best to spread your investment to knights and pikemen instead as they are cheaper and practical too.
   
   
2. Be cautious when making counter-attack
   Just because you were able to repel an attack, it doesn't mean you will win when you hit them back. Make sure that your attack score is the same or higher than your defense score before making a counter-attack. You can also use your mana to spy on them to check how big their army is and compare with yours.
   
   
3. Hit the smallest to increase chances of success
   You can only attack kingdoms that are no more than three (3) times smaller or bigger than you. To do that, assuming you'll attack the smallest, check your kingdom size and divide that by 3. Example: If your kingdom size is 3000, you divide that by 3 and you'll get 1000. Search for kingdoms that are 1001 to 1010 in size and pick the strongest hero that you can attack from there for high exp (to level up faster). Make sure to read if they still have resources or not so you won't waste your army.
   
   
4. Make one or two attacks an hour
   Don't go into an attacking spree to boost your gold and kingdom. The more you attack, you also lose men in your army. As a result, your defense will be weaken and all the land you gain can just be gone in a snap. Also, when you over-attack a hero that belongs to an alliance, you might get subjected to multi-attacks. If you are being over-attacked like more than three times in a day or almost daily, you can join an alliance and ask for help or post a shout-out in the forums.
   
   
5. Attack a kingdom once except.....
   By default, it is practical to attack a kingdom only once - whether you succeed or get repelled. An exemption is when you get more than 10,000 gold in the first attack that gives a hint that the said kingdom is already neglected.

I'm still learning the game, but aiming for Level 50 in Warbook, and will post more survival tips as I experience them.