Play Celtic Tribes Part Six

This is part of the in-depth VisiHow series of Complete Celtic Tribes Game Guides.

Things, By Topsy Krets.

Make sure to check out all 6 parts of this guide!

A lot of players have asked me how they can reach a top position. This guide last section of the guide gives some pointers on how to do that, and includes some social bonus tips that should be obvious, but might not be. For my part, I've managed to stay in the top ten position with an infant son in my arms more or less since I started playing. To be honest, it has not been easy, but there are a few tricks I've used. Some of it is just a matter of applying the information listed earlier in this guide, and some of it requires real world money.

The use of real world money is perhaps one of the most important things I will discuss in this game, as it offers diminishing returns the more you use it - unless you restrict it to lower level builds. This is the reason I am mentioning it here - so those of you who want to be at the top can consider your options, and those who are already there have a better idea of when and how to use magic potions. Just skip ahead to the Magic Potion section if that is what you want to see first, but I'd recommend reading up on the different play styles to get some more tips before burning a bunch of potions.

So, dive into the last part of my guide, and please remember to comment or link to me. Special thanks to those who provide suggestions and tips that help improve this guide (no one has for this part yet, but if someone does...).

PRO TIP! If it seems impossible to reach a top position, you should reconsider. I haven't sent a single cart on a resource farming run in weeks, and I'm still in the top ten players on USA 1. That means, if you follow this guide, you have a shot at getting in the top percentile as well - especially if you're farming (because I just don't have the patience to do that three times a day)

• Click here to return to the main menu and read other sections of this guide.

Delicious, If You Leave It Undefended...

This explains how to grow quickly, and what tips you can take to do it even without potions. The techniques I will describe here are a bit outside of what you might commonly expect to apply to your growth patterns, but they are very effective. In fact, once you start using them you will quickly realize that they are just common sense (the sense part not being as common as we are led to believe). Using these strategies, you will be able to grow your village very quickly (assuming you have enough resources to support that growth). Just make sure you do not make the mistake so many new players make and grow a huge, fat village with no defense (because I eat those up).

If you take nothing else away from this section, the most important part is this: Speed Growth is all about time. If you manage your time properly, then you can grow at near potion rates - you just need a plan. Knowing what to do and how to do it makes a big difference.

PRO TIP! Never use potions on troops. Troops will eventually die, while buildings are permanent.

Expert Mode (Solid Snake!)

So, you have no time (Justin Timberlake, we need you!). This will help you to look at what you can do to help avoid having this be a problem, without testing your brain too much (a little testing is healthy, so thank me for saving you from another of those boring mental quiz games that don't do anything other than generate ad revenue and waste your time). In other words, be prepared to do some homework (alternatively you could spend money on potions, and just skip to the next section, but I recommend reading this section just in case).

The logic is very simple, it just takes seeing it for things to click. Consider that if every building takes a fixed amount of time to upgrade that is the same for every player, and each time you upgrade a building it takes longer to upgrade that building type, then eventually every player reaches a point where they will start taking an entire night or more to upgrade any building. This means all players are equal, but those who plan will move ahead in leaps and bounds, even without potions (I don't use potions on all of my buildings, just some, and then only when I need it). In simple terms, plan your work and work your plan.

The plan is simple. We'll make all of our small upgrades in while you are awake or otherwise able to interact with your device, and then make the big ones when you are sleeping, working, or hiding from an angry spouse when playing the game and ignoring your family (this is also a good reason why you should pick the longest line in the grocery store - more time with Celtic Tribes!). As mentioned above, the logic is simple. If you can interact with your device every thirty minutes, then you can build something every thirty minutes, after which the time increases to an hour, or two, requiring less interaction up to a point where your building will take eight hours to complete. At that time, you switch to a new, low level building, and repeat the process - until all of your buildings are upgraded to the eight hour mark. From there it just takes time - or potions.

I will show you two examples of this in action, with the Farm and the Palisade (both essential buildings). If you want me to post all of the building types and times, get me any combination of 25 total likes on each of my guides, and I'll post them here, start to finish. For now, just these two, and how to train them up properly. Remember that for each of these we are training two buildings at a time, and then coming back when both will be finished. Note that the first 15 hours is all daytime, while the last 10 Hours and 14 Minutes is sleepy time. Everything in the bullet list below is listed in terms of "Time - Level and Building Type - Day or Night Build".

Level 17 Farm - 25 Hours 43 Minutes

0:01 - Level 02 Farm - Day 0:05 - Level 03 Farm - Day 0:10 - Level 04 Farm - Day 0:16 - Level 05 Farm - Day 0:23 - Level 06 Farm - Day 0:32 - Level 07 Farm - Day 0:43 - Level 08 Farm - Day 0:57 - Level 09 Farm - Day 1:13 - Level 10 Farm - Day 1:33 - Level 11 Farm - Day 1:58 - Level 12 Farm - Day 2:28 - Level 13 Farm - Day 3:04 - Level 14 Farm - Day 3:49 - Level 15 Farm - Day 4:44 - Level 16 Farm - Night 5:50 - Level 17 Farm - Night

From this point forward, every Farm level you increase will take 7 hours or more. This is a bad investment of time, so you will want to stop building farms and move to the next building type (in this example, the Palisade). Keep in mind, we've only spent a little more than 24 hours to get here.

Level 15 Palisade - 22 Hours 17 Minutes

0:02 - Level 02 Palisade - Day 0:09 - Level 03 Palisade - Day 0:17 - Level 04 Palisade - Day 0:26 - Level 05 Palisade - Day 0:37 - Level 06 Palisade - Day 0:50 - Level 07 Palisade - Day 1:05 - Level 08 Palisade - Day 1:22 - Level 09 Palisade - Day 1:42 - Level 10 Palisade - Day 2:06 - Level 11 Palisade - Day 2:33 - Level 12 Palisade - Day 3:04 - Level 13 Palisade - Day 3:41 - Level 14 Palisade - Night 4:23 - Level 15 Palisade - Night

From here, every level of the Palisade takes 6 hours or more to improve, so, like the Farms above, we move on to another building type. Bonus points if you noticed that the total sum in terms of time for these two sections is exactly 48 hours. Obviously I rounded up from the seconds listed in game, but the 48 hour thing was pure coincidence. Must mean I'm on the Golden Mean.

PRO TIP! A variation of this strategy is just to sit there for an hour and upgrade every small building type until you get to the five or ten minute mark on everything, and then time it every hour or so as your day goes on (or hide in the bathroom so as to avoid getting fired, divorced, grounded, expelled, or any combination of the above).

Easy Mode

With potions it becomes an entirely different game. You use the same tactics as above, except rather than spend your time sitting in front of the computer screen waiting for every five minutes to pass so you can build the next best thing, you just speed past all of that. The way this works is simple. We're not assuming you just burn money, so we'll work to maximize your build speed. The fastest way to do it is just to use potions to speed (one click) and then finish (second click) your buildings. This, however, is costly, and in the long run does not save significant time. Each click might cost, for example, 3 potions (and it increases, a lot - Level 26 Farm, for example, will cost 58 potions per click). To make the most of this, what I do is start out my morning and just speed build every building up to the night ones. I just one click add (add to building list) which costs around 50 potions, and then your day is free (to write a guide, for example). :)

PRO TIP! You can mix and match these sections to grow even more quickly, or save potions for the more expensive items - just make sure you have good defenses or someone will take your village, making for an expensive lesson in potions.

My Favorite

Basically you time an attack on the inactive player village to land just after night, with defensive troops arriving minutes after your main attack (so no chance to lose the freshly captured village). It really does take planning, read on to see why!

Special thanks to Beth for catching the confusing part of this. I've fixed it, and hope it is more clear now (I was juggling my little Celtic Ham when I wrote this part the first time, so it was difficult to focus on writing and keep his comments out (he likes to type things like hpnd0892nks and other things - I suspect he was born knowing 1337 - but I could be mistaken...).

A daring maneuver use in war times (or peace times if you are particularly evil), this can be done in groups, or accomplished alone if you have sufficient magic potions. This is without a doubt my absolute favorite strategy in the whole game! It is a very complex thing to execute flawlessly, but when properly done it is a beautiful thing to behold. Bear with me, as it requires some explanation and about twenty dollars to pull off. If you have three or four Alliance members to do it with you, then it is just that much better. To do this, you need to have at least ten of your own villages. Less than that, and you will not be nearly as effective in pulling this tactic off. The other essential ingredient is one or more inactive player villages near your intended target (inactive villages, not free villages - you can't send resources to free villages, so the plan won't work with free villages). The closer the inactive base is to your target, the better. From here it is all planning and execution. This is the plan (shhh!)...

1. 1
   Planning One - Opening Moves

   :

   This is pretty straightforward. Identify the inactive player village you plan to attack, and time your attack to see how long it will take your attack troops to land (any attack units are fine). You attack should be timed to land just before nightfall (because at night you will have 100% bonus defense if someone attacks you). It should go without saying, but just in case, make sure you have the correct amount of silver so you can make the capture.

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2. 2
   Planning Two - Essential Defense

   :

   Since you planned the inactive village attack, you know when it arrives. As you'll need defense for this to work, you will want to send at least 500 defense units from each of your villages to the inactive village you just captured. Ideally they should arrive not more than 25 minutes after you capture the village (this prevents anyone else taking it from you, just in case). From ten villages, this gives you 5,000 defense units. With a proper Palisade, it is nearly impossible for one village to overcome your defenses. You also want to send defense to the enemy you are attacking. This is for several reasons - but mainly to prevent your fresh capture from being taken back. You start a day or two in advance, and just send a small shipment of defensive units. Then you time your main shipment of defensive units to arrive either 25 minutes, or 50 minutes after your first attack (25 minutes if you are sure you will win, and 50 minutes if you think it will take two waves of troops to win). Then, before your attack lands, you withdraw the small defense troops so you can make the attack, winning the capture, after which your main body of defenders arrives to defend you from further attack.

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3. 3
   Planning Three - Empires Require Resources:This is the critical stage

   .

   The inactive village you capture will likely have almost no resource storage, so you will have to send (from each of your other ten villages) shipments of resources. You will start off with one horse cart of about 125 of each resource, working your way up to full shipments of 9,999 resources. From all of your villages, you will be sending max resources from each village (so a total of 300,000 of each resource type). What you use the resources for is not as important initially as how much you can store (you want to stagger shipments so your resource stores in the newly captured inactive village are always full as you do this).

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4. 4
   Planning Four - Buildings

   :

   Remember, your real objective is capturing the enemy village - so this is what you need to make that work - you'll need resource storage first to absorb all the shipments you are sending yourself, but leftover resources can go to troops and other buildings - if you still have leftovers, just dump them in the Chief House for extra silver. To do this you will need a Palisade of 20, as you need to prevent them from capturing your village and losing your troops (9,489 Wood / 8,106 Clay / 4,821 Ore); you will need a farm of around Level 28, with 30 being preferred (total for Level 30 Farm: 35,509 Wood / 32,238 Clay / 21,851 Ore); you will need resource storage of 20 for each (total for all Resource Storage at Level 20: 21,659 Wood / 32,136 Clay / 14,503 Ore); you will need a Chief House of Level 6 so you can make a Druid (Chief House and Druid: 3,082 Wood / 3,334 Clay / 1,546 Ore). The total for all of these buildings and your Druid will be 69,739 Wood / 75,814 Clay / 42,721 Ore. Alternatively you can also build a Marketplace 4 to send Horse Carts to your new capture, but this depends on you.

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5. 5
   Planning Five - Shock Troops - Slingers

   :

   This is the part where you spend a stupid amount of Magic Potions to have a massive army in no time. Your ability to recruit troops will be limited by your resource capacity (this is one of the reasons we build max resource storage). You can build 8,000 Slingers (104,000 Wood / 168,000 Clay / 136,000 Ore). That will bring your total resource costs to 173,739 Wood / 243,814 Clay / 178,721 Ore. Your remaining resource shipments will be staggered here to arrive AFTER your attack lands on the enemy village. This is so you can immediately send defense to the newly captured village and prevent any enemy capture. Basically once your attack lands on the enemy village, you will suffer troop losses. You immediately rebuild this lost offense as Spearmen and send them to the new village. You will need to build a 'Rune of the Spear' - but the cost for that is negligible.

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6. 6
   Attack and Defense

   :

   Now you just make your attack, capture the village, and as soon as you have troop losses, you should have resources arriving from the village you launched from, so you're building defense troops and sending them to defend the village you just captured. Make sure you forward me screen shots of people asking how you did it. ;)

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7. 7
   Optional Planning - Stormtroopers - Axemen (you're crazy)

   :

   If you are feeling particularly crazy, and you have a LOT more resources, you could build 8,000 Axemen. It will cost you 304,000 Wood / 368,000 Clay / 656,000 Ore. You could also mix and match with the slingers - this would require some additional research into the Magic Circle and Rune of the Axe, but you could definitely do it.

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8. 8
   Why it works

   :

   If you have done everything properly, you will have around a 15 Palisade, and 4,000 or so Slingers by the time morning comes. Plus your own defensive support has arrived, so you'll have a cool 5,000 or so defensive troops to guard your new fortress, while your 4,000 Slingers make a ten or thirty minute attack to the adjacent enemy village, and your adjacent fortress keeps sending resources to the newly captured village, where you speed build defense.

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9. 9
   Since you already sent in defensive troops to the base a day or two before you attacked, your enemy is expecting nothing other than to be defended by you, and they are completely unaware of your planned attack, or the attack you are making to the inactive player next to them - just make SURE you pull the first defensive troops from the player village you are attacking, or your attack will be sent home!

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10. 10
    All told you spend about 300,000 of each resource, and twenty to thirty real world dollars - to achieve a brilliant attack

    .

    You capture a base in what appears to be an instant move to your enemies, and no one can figure out how you managed to do it with basically no attack notice (you will be accused of cheating, but that's half the fun). You can even work with Alliance members to have them help send you resources at the new location, so that you have even more ability to build troops in the night before your morning coffee attack.

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11. 11
    The best part about this is that when you send defensive troops to the target you are planning to attack in advance, and then follow it up with more defensive troops to arrive after your attack, they will laugh at you, thinking that you have made a fool mistake and sent defensive troops instead of attacking

    .

    Plus it is a good way to see if they are inactive if they message you about it.

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PRO TIP! For even more fun, do this with three or four members of your alliance, and take over an enemy Stronghold by simultaneously taking four inactive villages, and taking over four of the enemy Stronghold villages. You'll then have a total of 8 well defended and supported villages in the center of the enemy stronghold. How is that for daring and dangerous? :)

Sliced Bread!

You know, when the iPad first came out, I was one of the many people to discuss what a stupid device it was (I already had a MacBook Air for my university work). So, I was most certainly surprised when lo and behold, my husband gave me an iPad for Christmas. He did such a good job of disguising it with a box of DVD movies that I did not even see it! So, I started to use it, and then one day my Husband needed my computer for a business trip. Long story short, when he came home and gave me my computer back, I kept yelling at the screen because when I touched it, nothing happened. It was truly amazing, but I now realize - touch screen devices like the iPad are the way of the future. So - here are some for you to look at (just don't touch your monitor - fingerprints are the worst on a non-touch screen).

Burn Baby, Burn!

Honestly, these are things you should not do, but more importantly, they are things you should be aware of that other people do. They can cause quite a bit of headache, so pay close attention!

In the absence of any true method of extending battles in the Celtic Tribes Game (more on that in the next section), this section discusses the scorched earth tactics that are developing in the vacuum. You might encounter them, or you might use them yourself. They are dirty, and should be used with caution, or only as a last resort (such as when you are getting reset). If not, you will find yourself getting reset for using them.

There are some shady folks out there. Watch out for them.

There are two things to be careful of. The first one is the old 'bait and switch' tactic. This one is pretty simple, and usually happens outside of war (rarely in a war, but be careful just in case). This is where the player changes their name to match that of another alliance, and then makes an attack against you. You see the attack report, and believe that it came from another alliance, so you post it in your forums, which causes quite a stir. This one isn't 'too' dangerous if handled properly, but if coordinated it can create problems and dissension within the ranks. It is the least dangerous tactic, as it can be easily spotted by an experienced player. There is a more 'dangerous' version where the player also mimics the actual alliance, but again, it is easy to spot for an experienced player. Make sure your players know what to look for, and you should be fine.

The more dangerous tactic, which is much, much harder to prevent, is when you are attacking another player, and they change their name and village name to mimic your name and your alliance name. This is bad, because they then send real attacks to the villages closest to them. Your attack of course lands, and the village is taken over by you - except that to everyone around who is reading their attack reports, you look like the player who attacked them. This can be quite difficult to mitigate, and can even result in the loss of a freshly captured village when the devious attacks are made against an aggressive alliance and that alliance member immediately counters with a sliver attack. The worst part about it is that you won't know the attacks were made, and from your perspective the neighboring players have attacked you without cause. This is a very shady trick, and one that you should be vigilant of when attacking experienced players who might be the sort to use it.

The best defense against it is simply to be vigilant. If you see a player change their names or their village names when your attack is on the way, immediately message villages near them. Inform them that you are attacking that player, and that player has changed their village name and or player name to one very close to yours, and may be launching attacks against them pretending to be you.

PRO TIP! Using this tactic will usually result in you being reset (repeatedly if that is what it takes). Generally the alliance attacking you, and the alliances you attacked, will join forces and destroy you - so I do "not" suggest using this tactic - rather, be prepared for it, and pay close attention to any attack reports or changes in the name of any player village you are attacking.

I am not a believer in the whole 'don't talk about it and it won't happen' myth of parenting or life. If you don't talk about it, you can't prepare for it. Not being prepared for something usually results in getting knocked on your tush. This game is no different, and I'd like to help you avoid getting knocked down by a deceitful player.

Just Like A Lotto!

It is impossible to extend battles like you can in Crazy Tribes or Lords and Knights. This is because all attacks are calculated instantly. There is no possibility to add other defenders within a ten minute window, trickle defense from nearby villages, or hide your own defense and bring it back in. Read that again:

There is no way to extend battles in the Celtic Tribes Game. All battles in the Celtic Tribes Game happen instantly. Either you instantly win, or you instantly lose.

Now, with that in mind, some of you might have noticed that a vast majority of the troops available in Celtic Tribes are pretty slow. Likewise, you are limited in how far you can attack from any given village based on the size of the village you are attacking from. This is good, in that there will be no more attacks from 800 fields away of 20,000 Lancers, but it is also bad in that there will be no more attacks from 800 fields away that allow you to time your 40,000 Spearmen defense just before Captain Brilliant arrives at night to attack you. I will miss those days.

So, what can you do then? Good question, and lucky for you Prof. Nikki is here to answer your questions again! First, the attack times are a little longer, so you'll want to make sure you log in at least once a day - though twice per day is the ideal time. Once in the morning, and once in the evening. That means anyone attacking you has to be able to land their attack within 8 hours. My last attack, for example, was 18 hours away (and it was "really" close - I only had 6 slingers and 1 lancer left at the end of the battle - hats off to you Rue68). This is where being in an active alliance of like minded people comes into play. As soon as you notice an attack, take the following steps (if you read the rest of the guide, you already know how to do all of this - of not, go back and read):

1. 1
   Immediately send a spy to the attacking player to see if the attack is real or false (do this before anything else).

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2. 2
   Send a message to the attacking player, linking the incoming attack report, informing them that you are prepared, and have sent spies (this is in the off chance the attack was a mistaken farming attack).

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3. 3
   Copy the attack report and post it to your forums.

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4. 4
   Copy the spy report and post it to your forums.

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5. 5
   Message any nearby friendly players with the attack report and spy report, and ask for support

   .

   A good tip is to offer to repay their support in resources to make up for the troops they might lose protecting you.

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6. 6
   Message any of your own Alliance members who are near you (as they might not read the forums regularly)

   .

   Include the attack report and spy report.

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7. 7
   Stop running any missions.

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8. 8
   Make sure you have the 'Complete' pattern of your most powerful Shield of Esus Artifacts equipped and saved.

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At this point you have done everything you can to be prepared. Now you just need to wait. A good tactic I find is just before the attack lands, check your training facility to see how many slow offensive troops you can train, and then train 40%, 30%, 30% of that troop type. This prevents your attacker from training any new defensive troops to hold the village if they capture it. It can also hamper your own defensive efforts - so only do this if you are certain to lose a village. Any left over resources should be sent to the nearest friendly village to prevent your attacker from capturing anything. In most cases, if you have followed this guide, you should not lose a village unless it is from an attack made by a very experienced and prepared player, or if you have not followed this guide (it bears repeating).

PRO TIP! You know that old saying in relationships? "What? No dear, he/she is just a "friend". We're not getting horizontal, I swear (it was vertical)." The same thing applies to "anyone" who tells you their attack was just a farming accident. Do not believe it. Prepare for an attack. You have been warned.

The path of the loser.

This is just something that I had to put in here, and it was deserving of a separate section, as it is one of those things that just screams loser (you know, like creating separate Facebook accounts just to like your own posts). Some people suffer from cognitive dissonance, and simply need the rest of the world to see how awesome they are so that everyone else can enjoy the greatness. It would all be so much easier if everyone would just recognize how awesome "I" am and worship me. Then we wouldn't even have to worry about those folks.

But... seriously, this section is to help prevent you from being banned. I still think people who have multiple accounts in this game are losers (in some other games it takes real skill to dual box their way through a dungeon - now that is cool - but this isn't a "real" MMORPG - no offense Xyrality). Anyway, it works like this...

A player is walking along one day in Celtic Tribes, probably resource farming, and then they have what seems like a great idea, "Hey, it would be so much easier to get resources if I had ten other villages that were all sending resources to my main village."

So they do this. Then they start sending themselves resources (never mind the logistics, lets just assume they are patient enough to make hundreds of free email accounts until they get a nice little set of villages). Eventually real life kicks in, and they miss a day or two, so they start building up their other villages a little, and this is when their next great thought kicks in, "Wow, wouldn't it be awesome if I build these villages all up, and then I just emptied the troops right before my main village attacked them, I could get some free villages."

This eventually leads to worse, and really, if it was Farm Town, no one would care. Since this is a competitive game, this is the absolute worst type of cheating (if you're doing it, well... we can bet you probably can't get a girlfriend either because real girls don't like smelly guys with hairy palms - no matter how good you are at Celtic Tribes). So, do yourself an everyone else a favor, and go play Farm Town if that is your thing. You can create a hundred Facebook accounts and like yourself into stardom while you are at it.

As an added bonus, if Xyrality finds out you are running multiple accounts, you will get banned (honest players take note - it means if you have two devices with two separate accounts, you can get banned unless both are 'separate'). Now, in reality, not that many people ever get banned - but if you find compelling evidence, you can pass that on to support@xyrality.com and they will take it from there.

So, enough said. Shave your palms, stop stuttering, get a shower and some sunlight, and for god's sake, trim your toenails, you look like Sasquatch. Then maybe we can get you a date with, uhmm... *looks for volunteers*...

Don't Be Ignorant (Seriously)

There are a number of 'unwritten' rules in the game. I'm going to go over a few here, but I'll start with some of the less appealing things that have happened to date.

1. 1
   Whatever you want to name your village is fine, but remember - some players, like me, will remember that name, and mark your village for reset

   .

   If you are growing your village, and even if you change your name, we don't care. That is just a free village for us, and we will reset you. In the early game on our server, there were some immature and rude folks who had racist names for their alliance and village names. They were asked nicely to change them, and in short they refused (and were reset). Thanks in particular go out to Unforgiven of S.A.S. who initiated the attacks. Good job my friend!

   • So, if you want a rude base name, you'll be reset - and in some cases, even after you change the base name.

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2. 2
   If you copy another player or alliance name, you're just creating confusion

   .

   That is not acceptable to anyone, and generally speaking "all" of the alliances made aware of this will target you and systematically destroy you and anyone who is a part of your alliance. Often, new players who have bad attitudes do this, mistakenly believing that top players can't attack them. Keep in mind that most top players usually keep two times the silver they need to take over an enemy village. That means one set of silver to take back a village they might have lost, and a second set to take over a new village. It also means that a very small group of top players can erase any small alliance with very little effort. Take care when choosing your Alliance name.

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3. 3
   Begging - which is perhaps the single worst thing you can do it any game

   .

   Some players are coming into the game and begging for resources (please help me I need some wood, and similar messages). The nicer players might point you to an alliance. I won't. If you are that type of player, and you have a decent village, I will just take your village. I worked hard to get where I am (no one to date has ever sent me even one resource, and SpaceJunky from S.A.S. is the only person I've ever asked and received defense aid from - thanks Space!). So if you come into the game looking for a free ride, after I spent weeks preparing a guide, I'm happy to see you reset, and so are a lot of other people.

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4. 4
   Losing your village to an attacking player and complaining excessively about it

   .

   This is NOT the SIMS, and it is NOT Farm Town or Farm Ville. Those are other games, and if that is your type of game, you should understand when coming here that you can and will get attacked, and often lose what you worked hard to build (think of it like a plague of rabbits eating your carrot patch...). I understand how some of you can get very upset by this, and to be honest, there isn't a great deal of information out there about how to play the game. That is why I made this guide. The Celtic Tribes Game Guide is exhaustive, to say the least. It is not complete, but then it is also a work in progress, and evolves with the game. Considering that, there are plenty of tips, instructions, and helpful things you can find here to prevent your village ever being taken over. If, even after applying everything in this guide, your village is still taken over, then you'll want to take it on the chin, and even consider asking the attacking alliance if you can join them. The reason for this is simple. If they attacked you, it means you generally had a decent village. If their attack succeeded, and you also followed this guide, then you had a solid defense, so it was not an easy fight for them, and they'll have respect for you (unless you whine incessantly about losing your village - not cool). Of course... if you "really" followed the guide, you would have joined a decent Alliance, and never lost that village... :)

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5. 5
   Poaching members is bad

   .

   This is a practice that is generally very, very frowned upon. It is when you see the members of another Alliance, and you try to entice them to join your Alliance. In some cases people have gone to war over this, but as a general rule it is not a good way to grow your alliance. People will know your members as deserters, and they will know you as the reason, or at best the catalyst from which their players left. Don't do it.

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6. 6
   Do I even need to explain this one

   ?

   You should "never" accept refugees. Sometimes an Alliance will be destroyed during a war. When this happens, their members will begin to abandon ship (ever seen rats, they know when to jump - and who wants a rat in their pocket, eww!). These are almost never good players to invite to your alliance. They were on the losing side of a battle, and they either ran, went into vacation, or begged to join another alliance for protection. Your expectation should be that they will do the same thing when your Alliance is attacked. This makes them no more than excess baggage. There are very few cases of a truly 'good' player abandoning their Alliance and being more than undependable in their new alliance. For your own good, beware this sort of player, and do your best not to be one either. If you are on the losing side of a war, just take your hits, message the diplomat or leader of whoever is attacking you and let them know how things "really" are. Don't offer to spy (you do it once you'll just do it again), and don't whine (especially don't whine). Be honest and direct. Just say something like, "Hey, I appreciate how coordinated your attacks are - you know, since you've nailed half of my villages. I'm starting to feel like a pair of cheap shoes. I have to say that the level of support I've received from my alliance is not exactly what I was led to believe I signed up for. I'm going to keep attacking you, and you're going to keep attacking me, but when this is all over, I'd like to discuss the terms I might join your alliance under." This lets them know you are a decent player, and you'll keep fighting, but when the war is over you're up for a "real" alliance. In many cases they will stop attacking you, on condition that you stop attacking them and send defensive support to their villages, and when it is all over you'll have a real alliance. Cool huh?

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7. 7
   At any rate, if you're getting reset, take it as a lesson learned (next time read my guide first)

   .

   At the end of the day it really is just a game. Play, have fun, and remember that no one really gets hurt here, unlike the real world. Laugh it off, and be thankful for what you have in life. Turn off the Droid or iDevice, and take a walk (naked, if you have to - but preferably in a forest or something). Remember to relax, smile, and appreciate the good things in life (like shoes!!).

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PRO TIP! Let me know if you think of anything that needs to be added here. I'm updating and editing the Celtic Tribes Game Guide as I go along, so just pop a note below or send me a PM, and we'll go from there. Good luck in game!

No? Well, I'd just like to say, "You Rock!"

You don't have to log in or create an account to leave comments! Thanks, Nikki :)

If you are here, and I mean really here from reading and didn't just scroll down to read whatever cute comment I might have listed this time, then you are absolutely amazing. You rock. You are the king of cool (or the queen, you know, but I'm pretty much the only princess, so that's taken). Thanks for reading to the end of my epic journey, and pop a post here if you made it this far so we know who the champions are. By the way, that was two references to Queen (we are the champions, my friend... hehe). Much love, hugs, and even kisses from VisiHow (he's the frog of VisiHow, and he just LOVES to kiss, so you can have some serious smooches). Though… I tried - he hasn't turned into a prince yet. 'sigh'

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