Fusing Lieutenants

Fusing LT's is a good feature, but it's not as easy to use as one might hope. Here are some guidelines.

First, you choose the LT that you wish to upgrade, or "star up." Let's say you choose a 2* Blink.
Second, you choose two other LT's to fuse into your new cool higher LT from step 1. They must be the same type (common, uncommon, rare, epic) as the first LT, and have the same number of stars. For example, do fuse a 2* Blink into a 3* Blink, you'd need 2 LT's who were 2* uncommon.
Third, you fuse them. This consumes a recombinator, and the 2nd and 3rd LT.

As easy as 1-2-3, right? But sometimes you get an error - "You don't have enough Lieutenants" even when you do, right?

The following LT's cannot be fused away:

• Kate
• Fox
• Caine
• Tagg
• Blink
• Lucas
• Hector
• Michael
• Blade
• Cesar
• Charmaine
• Penelope
• Fang
• Mia
• AK
• John

You can't fuse your last one. If you have a 2* and a 1* you can fuse one of them, but not both. 

When I suspect that I might have some fusing possibilities, I just pick any LT with the stars and type I want, and choose to fuse them. If I can see more than one LT on the next screen, I know that fusing is an option - that I have a recombinator and enough LT's. It won't show you LT's that you can't fuse away. Then I cancel out and start over if I want to actually complete a fusing, using the specific LT that I want to build up.

Whether fusing is wise or not is a different matter. I seldom buy crates, so I'm often willing to fuse the crate LT's away, since they won't ever be strong enough to seat. 

Or will they? If you have Centurion, or Victoria, you might want their skills, and be willing to wait to fuse them up. I would like to have a 6* Eve Armstrong, that's a rolling ball of butcher knives right there.

A common guideline is never to fuse away the last of any LT. That keeps the number of LT's high. I kind of agree with Voodoo though - if you're not using it, you're wasting it. When are you using an LT that you never seat? Um, boss jobs. They can give you LT criticals. So think carefully before you fuse - then try the old 1-2-3. 

Evaluating Promotional Offers, part 2

I think I might have been a bit strict when I wrote a post about evaluating promotional offers.

Truth be told, all of the promotional offers include getting something for free if you buy FP at the regular price. Sometimes you can get a minimum amount of FP, other times you might have to spend $20.

But the offers all include something that you get for free when you buy FP. So, if you were planning to buy FP anyway, you could say that ALL of the promos have some value to you.

In particular, there are some "level promos." These include the beginner package, and another offer at levels 30, 60, 90, 120, 150, and 180. There has been talk on the forums about a level 210 promo, but we haven't seen it yet. These promos provide LT's, refills, and some even include crate rolls. Some include Class Coins. There are several beginner packs out there, and you might not get the one everyone wants. That deal costs $20, but includes 8 crates and 20 of each kind of refill and 10 scratchers! Most people get a $5 offer that has no crates and no scratchers, but your next account might be one of the lucky ones!

There are also occasional promos such as the recent one to get a free crate with any purchase. Think about that - a crate is 30 FP - and if you buy 30 FP you'd be getting 30 FP and a crate - equivalent to 60 FP altogether. We had one at valentine's day, but I forget what it was. They put Sara in a different dress, so they had that going for them.

If you're a player who is trying to minimize her spending, you might be as critical in your evaluation of promos as I was in my previous post. But if you are dumping an allowance, think about buying as many as you like.

If you bought all of the level promos, you'd spend about $85, and you'd have like 9 lieutenants, more than a hundred refills, and more than 1000 Class coins. If I remember to do it, I'll list the level promos. The problem with listing any promo or reward is that there is a tendency for them to change over time, and then you start getting historical perspective here instead of tips on the basics.

Happy tapping!

Zombies, no longer our friends

I wrote a previous about about chaining executions. This was a great tactic for weaker players to get good scores, and to sharpen up their execution skills.

No more.

Now, the first time you execute a player, and your health is below 200, it reduces his health by half. For example, if he has 318 health, and you execute him, he will have 159 health.

But if you execute him a second time, he'll go straight to zero. That's it. You gotta find yourself another target.

The more likely target for weaker players now are hitting buildings - for which you get 110 battle points and suffer no health reduction. If your team's game conditions allow weaker players to get a bunch of 20-point shots on a building, that is. Sometimes your team will be in a big hurry to get the building down. Your shots will be welcome, but you'll need to do it quickly. Imagine how long it takes to get a safehouse down, with the kids nicking it for 20 points a shot (something like 170 shots needed - that's 5 or 6 squishies shooting for the whole game).

Zombies are still our friends, but we don't have zombies left in these parts.

Android, my android

Right after the MegaBoss event, PA released the app on Android - roughly 8-July. There have been a few complaints on the forums about problems putting money into the bank, taking money out of the bank, and the like. Others have been anxious to transfer their iOS character to Android - and except for certain cases, you can't. But I've been playing it, and loving it.

I have two android devices at my house - a 2012 version of the Google (Asus) Nexus 7, and a Kindle HD.

UWE on KINDLE HD

I was able to install the app on my wife's Kindle HD, by sideloading it. That's a process where you put the APK file on your computer, copy it to your kindle while connected, and then install it using a file explorer (I used the free ES Explorer). Sadly, the Kindle doesn't work with Google Play services. That means that you can't buy anything. Since you basically only buy FP, that's the main thing I'm saying that you can't buy.

It's not so bad. Having spent nothing, my wife's alt is up to level 60, and has accumulated 75 FP just from in-game achievements. I have to figure that PA will want to make this work, but my guess it that it's going to be a while.

UWE on YOUR PC

I tried to use an android simulator, Bluepipes, to install the game on my laptop. You can install it, but you can't run it. This, I'm guessing, will work sooner than the commerce on the Kindle, because KABAM has a section on how to get their android games to run on Bluepipes. Since they have acquired PA, I expect that they will support the app on that platform someday. Users on the forums think that having the game on Android or the web would result in rampant hacking. I don't understand the argument. I'm sure that they have some reasons for worrying about it, and I'll just suggest that you ask them about it. It's over my head.

UWE on NEXUS

This is what's so much fun for me. I started a toon the day the app came out, and I've had no problems running him up to level 150. He's a squishy heavy - you know that they don't need any skills, right? It's just fun to play. I played him for a month before I added a second account.

I already had a second account on my nexus, because I share it with my son. I had tried to set up the app on his account and got a server error. I read up on the error, and decided that I needed to delete the google account from a certain place on my nexus and then re-enter the same account. Much to my surprise, this worked. I was able to download the app, install it, and do anything with it that I can do with my iPhone (except for the minor differences in the two apps).

The Nexus supports up to 8 accounts, but I was already seeing some lag switching from one account to the other. I did set up a 3rd account, and once in a while when things went just right, I could cycle through the three accounts without much more trouble than using three different devices.

YOUR PLAYING STYLE MIGHT DIFFER

I should mention that this isn't going to make you a great player on a Legend Empire. The time it takes to switch from one account to another, and then back again, takes a while. This doesn't bother me. I take about 5-10 minutes with each account, leave them for an hour or so, then come back and dump the rest of their tokens in turn. I have been able to get 4000 battle points on each account, which gets them 50-60 CC's if my team wins. But this isn't something that I do competitively, and I can't tell you how to be competitive doing it. I just like to build things, sort of the like little criminal version of ships in a bottle.

Which Nexus do you have?

There are two versions of the Nexus 7. Some people call them Gen1 and Gen2, some people call them 2012 and 2013. Mine is a 2012 version, 1st gen. That device is a poor little brother to the 2013 model, which has better graphics, a faster processor, a rear camera ... and more RAM. That's the thing that keeps people from enjoying multi-user activities on the 2012 Nexus 7. It's got 1 GB, the 2013 Nexus 7 has 2 GB. That single Gigabyte gets used up pretty quickly, and people don't like the resulting lag. Including me. I found myself spending 10 minutes trying to switch from one user to the other to get to another toon!

One thing I tried was turning off auto-sync. That helped a bit, but I wasn't running anything but UE and having Facebook stop updating didn't provide that much help with UE.

Until a couple of days ago, I thought that perhaps it just wasn't operationally feasible. Then I discovered two tricks that helped. The first one was a well-documented clearing of cache, that made the battery charge faster, discharge slower, and lag a lot less. Having it hold a charge was great - it had been discharging so quickly that I was afraid I'd never be able to fully charge it.

But I still had a problem with lag. Until I stumbled over the second trick. There are 3 buttons on the bottom row of the Nexus - back, home, and a "recent app list." Displaying that doesn't automatically work like the iOS list of running apps - but in the case of UWE it does. When I am finished with a character, I press the RECENT button and swipe the UE app (it's the only one ever running on my nexus) to the right, which produces a FORCE STOP (thank you PA developers).

If I have even ONE of the other toons running, I get a visible lag. Tolerable, but irritating. If have have TWO of them, I'm running in surf. But if I have the other accounts stopped, I can switch from one account to another in a few seconds. It's wonderful. I don't use it to try to gang up in EvE, but it's a good way to level my guys up. I do visit each account 2-3 times during a game, but these squishy beginners can't beat anybody and wouldn't tip the scales in a contest anyhow. Someday I'll have a lot of demo tho.

I'm saving my allowance so I can buy a refurbed 2013 Nexus 7. There are rumors that Google will announce a nexus 8 this month, and I'm not excited about the Apple-like prices I have heard. But I can't wait to try out the Nexus 7 2nd generation as a platform for a nursery for little toons.

If you have an android device, you ought to be able to enjoy UWE. More power to you!

Evaluating Promotional Offers

Evaluating Promotional Offers

If you read the forums, or the comments on Facebook (and I suggest that everyone should at least glance at them), you will see a constant clamor for “a promo.” Yet, when one happens, there is grousing about how it’s not a good promo, and within a couple of days the din continues.

Promos are discount sales. If a company is happy with their income, they ignore the clamor, and there are no discounts offered. But when you see them, you can rest assured that the company believes that they will make more money than if they didn’t offer a promo.

EQUIVALENT FP

There is out out there today (12 June 2014). Let’s look at it. The offer claims to be a 320 FP Value Pack, including the following:

• 2 crate rolls (those would cost 30 FP each if you bought them on the favor page)
• 500 class coins (there is no price for these, because you can’t buy them). I’m arbitrarily assigning them a value of 60 FP, but you might think they are worth 100 FP. I wouldn’t argue over it.
• 4 recombinators. In theory, you get 1 of each level (common, uncommon, rare, and epic). It would be great if we could buy recombinators. They are worth 1/3 of an LT, if you think that you can get an LT to level up by adding one. So I’ll give them the arbitrary value of 10 FP each, and call this 4. In truth, if you already have 20 of them and can’t use them, they are worthless to you. But for this exercise, I’m saying 40.
• 10 FP. Pretty easy to convert THIS one to equivalent FP, no?
• 1x “Ariel” LT. I like Ariel. At Level 1, I think she adds 5% to your property income. You can get her from a 30FP crate roll (except you might get someone else). I put 30 FP on the LT in the promo, but you could make a case for 40 or 50 since you know which one you’ll get.
• 5x Income property. I give these a zero value. They never represent much property income, and you can’t buy the 6^th, 7^th, and so on.
• 3x Energy Pack. Energy refills are 10 FP each, so this is 30.
• 3x Stamina Pack. Also 30 FP.
• 50 Chat tokens. I’ve never bought a chat token. I think you can use them to create a private chat room, and to post your army code in World Chat. I put a value of zero on these. Perhaps you like them more. You can’t possibly like them less.
• $6.4 million in game money. I also put a zero on money. I know that you can buy money with FP, but I get money with Property and by doing Jobs. At level 500, 10 FP will buy you $1 million, so they might be evaluating it at 60 or 100 FP. I use …. Zero.

When I add those numbers up, I get between 150-200 FP. To get that extra value, you have to buy 125 FP, at a cost of $20 US. You’d get 137 FP or so, because they give you a 10% bonus for FP purchases.

The bottom line on this offer is 300 FP for $20 US. Is that a good deal, or a bad deal? In general, if the “free stuff” is worth less than the stuff you have to pay for, I think it’s a bad promo. In this case, 150 > 125 so it is better than the minimum. But is it good enough? Maybe. Between 100% and 200% you have to think about it. Above 200%, it’s a really nice deal, and I’d put a BUY on it. So, how about this one? Yes or no?

If you are really hurting for CC, it might be great. I can get the CC in 3-4 days of empire games. I can get the cash in a day, but lower level players will need more than a week to get $6.4 million. If you don’t have much property income, Ariel won’t be worth as much to you as if you have a lot.

Remember that you can fuse Ariel up, and that the benefit is even greater if you have a 2* or 3* LT. At 6 stars, she gives a 17% bump to property income – when she’s seated. If she’s not seated, you get … zip. Bupkis. Nada. Rien. Ze-ro. Nothing.

BOTTOM LINE IT FOR ME

If you don’t have a lot of property income, I think this offer is probably not for you. I have a lot of property income (more than $250,000 per hour) and I can live without it.

There are properties that do what Ariel does – they are the Stock Markets that you can buy after you get a Fortress. Admittedly, a Stock Market increases property income by 1% for each Stock Market you get, up to 10 of them – less than Ariel gives if you star her up. But Stock Markets work all the time. Ariel works when she’s seated. If she’s not one of your 5 strongest LT’s, you’ll have to weaken your toon in order to use her. I like to seat her overnight, but sometimes I don’t remember. Truth be told, swapping LT’s is a huge pain in the neck for me. I forget, it takes time, some of my devices time out or take a long time … I get an attitude. But every day that you don’t use Ariel is a day that you get no benefit from the featured LT in this promo. (Someday, they’ll give you a quick way to switch LT sets. That will be a great day. The sun will shine and everyone will say please and thank you. The lamb will lie with the lion. All wars will cease, and hunger will not be found on earth.)

This time I’m passing, but maybe it’s just the promotion you’ve been looking for. I hope this exercise helps you evaluate a promo next time.

The Daily Player

The Daily Player

Some people don’t have the opportunity or the inclination to play the game more than 1 session a day. Here is a short guide to becoming a Daily Player.

A MORALITY TALE?

The game gives you several resources based on the passing of time. They are:

• 1 Energy every 5 minutes. That’s 288 per day.
• 1 Stamina every 5 minutes. That’s 288 per day.
• Hourly property income. You get 24 of these a day.

If any of those resources won’t fit into your “bucket” it will be wasted, and will not help you. It’s like throwing away food or money, your parents will yell at you. Your friends will look at you like they think that you are not to be trusted to borrow their car. Don’t waste resources, in the game or real life, so you can be likable and live a long and happy life.

STATS

Many players advise beginners to get their E and S up to 100. That’s fine advice, if you’re going to check in every 8 hours and burn down these supplies. “Burn down” is a slang term, meaning to use them up, preferably in some constructive manner. But if you’re a Daily Player, you will only get 100 of the 288 available stam every day. The other 188 will splash out of your bucket and trickle down the street. Don’t be that guy.

Get E and S to 300. Waste not, want not. If you do this to start the game, it will take you until about level 125, which takes frequent players about 3 weeks. Whether you want to be strong and level up slowly, or weak and level up quickly, you should wait to act on this decision until you have a bucket big enough to match your playing style. The daily player needs a big bucket.

PROPERTY

Once your property fills your safehouse, you only get 10% of your property income until you collect it. Let’s say that you get $10,000 per hour in property income. In 24 hours, you’d get $240,000. But if your safehouse only holds $150,000, you’d stop getting $10,000 at that point, and only get $1000 for the next 9 hours, or $159,000. That’s a loss of $81,000 (or 1/3 of the potential cash for the day).

Get a 25-hour safehouse. Or a 30-hour safehouse. You have to do some math. Some milestones:

Income of $5,000 / hour requires Safehouse Lvl 3, which costs $240,000 and protects $150,000. You should buy this just as soon as you can afford it. When you reach $5,000, start working on Safehouse Level 4, which costs $960,000 and protects $320,000.

EMPIRE

Some empires want you to play several games a day. But there are plenty that don’t stress it if you are playing at least once a day. Look around for an empire that suits your playing style, once you know what your playing style is.

GIFTING

How hard would it be for you to send out gifts once a day? You’re gonna want to start a Skull King boss someday. Wouldn't it be nice if you had friends who sent you gifts? Gifting is broken, but it still helps to try.

THE DAILY CHECKLIST

1. Join an empire battle. When you’re out of ammo, leave the battle and …
2. Burn down your energy. You may need to shuffle your LT’s, to level up the right ones, get the benefit of their skills, etc.
3. Burn down your stamina. I do boss jobs, but you can battle if that’s your thing.
4. If you level up, return to step 2.
5. Collect your property income.
6. Donate to your empire. If you have Victoria, seat her first.
7. Buy new property, if you have the money.
8. Buy lots of FP, use it on Crates, Scratchers, and Refills. I skip this step.
9. Put the balance in the bank. If it’s more than a million dollars, seat Charmaine first.
10. Pay respect to the faction of your choice.
11. Set up your LT’s for battle. Return to the empire battle. Use up all your tokens.
12. Return to your happy Real Life.

There isn't anything the Constant Player does that a Daily Player can’t do. You might get there slower, but Daily Players are nothing if not patient.  

Update 1.75

This week there was an update. The main changes, according to the app store:

• Game Center
• LT Skins coming soon
• Properties page polishes
• Lots of minor improvements and bug fixes
• As always, more FREE updates to come!

A bit more information based on a day of play and some forum posts:

The apple GameCenter is now used to transfer characters. You can switch from one character to another, for up to 5 characters on a single device. There is a 2-hour cool-down period. This doesn't mean that you can create many characters on a device. You can't have more characters than devices. But once you've created them, There is apparently a way to play multiple characters on a single device. I want to know a lot more details, and I'll write about it as soon as I know the relationship between a character, a game-center account, an appleID, and an email address. 

LT Skins is curious - apparently you can change the appearance of your LT's. Are we going to be dressing them in matching clothes?

Properties page polishes refers to a change in the top of the page. Some people think that it's not underworld enough, that it looks too clean. A briefcase shows up and fills with money. Kind of cartoony. But I can say this - if you're playing on an iPhone 4, it's way faster than before. 

Which brings me to my favorite change - they added settings to support turning off some graphics and animations. Overall, that really helps on the older iPhones. I turned it off on everything, because after I've seen the cool graphics and effects a couple of dozen times, I'm only interested in how it plays, not how it looks. 

But that's not all. There are two new "secret jobs" in the Westside district. Financial Center and The Docks will each give you a crate roll for completing them. And in the process, you get 40 SP from each one. These are "cheap" SP, too. In some parts of the game, a star costs 1000 energy. In this area, there are stars for 200 SP and less!

On 13-March, PA mentioned an upcoming event (an "Ultimate Boss"), new LT's, items, and bosses. Some of the LT's are from the newest district, Mexico. But there are other LT's pictured that we haven't seen in the game yet. Speculation about the timing of this event has been constant. I predicted it would be two weeks, so I'm almost a month past my guess. Others suggested "Tax Day" which has also passed. Perhaps, this big holiday weekend, we'll have some kind of promo / event starting up. 

I can't wait!

Filling the Inner Circle of Lieutenants

Filling the Inner Circle of Lieutenants

There are 5 seats in the inner circle. Here’s how you add them.

1. RIGHT HAND. You get the Right Hand seat at the beginning. It’s only metaphorically a right hand seat, the chair is in the middle of five of them. It’s your “right hand man” so to speak. This is the only seat that can level up. It gets no seat bonus.
2. ENFORCER. You get the enforcer when you complete the “No More Talk” job in Midtown. The enforcer gets a seat bonus of 10% of attack. For example, if your LT has 53 attack, they get 53+6. You can see this on the LT page.
3. CAPTAIN. You get the captain when you complete “Calling the Captain” in the Downtown district. The Captain gets a seat bonus 100% of defense. So, if your LT has a 53 defense, they get 53+53. You can see this on the LT page.
4. ASSASSIN. You unlock the assassin seat when you reach level 100, if you have the CAPTAIN seat open. The Assassin gets a seat bonus of 100% of Attack.
5. UNDERBOSS. You unlock the UNDERBOSS seat when you reach 500 allies, if you have the ASSASSIN seat open. The Underboss gets a seat bonus of 50% of attack and 50% of defense.

Maximizing your seat bonuses

A forum post by Voodoo Jester contains a simple process for assigning these seats.

1. Put your highest attack at Assassin.

2. Put your next highest attack at Underboss.

3. Put your highest remaining defense at Captain.

4. Put your next highest attack at Enforcer.

5. Put your next strongest LT in the right hand seat.

This is a fine way to load them for empire games. You have to use some common sense. The idea is to max the seat bonuses, and sometimes you might have to try things a couple of ways before you find the best combo. 

But empire games aren't all you do in UWE. You might want to have some other setups.

For doing district jobs, you want:

• Penelope,
• Michael if you’re buying weapons,
• Blade if you’re wanting some cash.
• Baron, to save you some clicking

At Level-up time, you might want:

• Tagg, for more energy
• Caine, for more stamina
• John, for energy
• Shun, for energy
• Fang, for stamina

When doing Boss Jobs, you might want:

• Hector or Lucas for extra boss damage
• Stacy, to save on healing costs
• If you’re a sniper, Blink or Pain for criticals

When you’re going to be away a while, you might want:

• Ariel, to add to property income.
• Your best defensive players, to help when you are attacked.

They really should let you set up these groupings and switch them all at once, but for now you have to do it one at a time. And don’t forget to seat Victoria when you are donating to your empire!

New Property - Bar

This week Kabam added a new revenue property to the game: the Bar. It costs about $2500 and pays $250 per hour - that's a 10-hour payoff. There is nothing so good among the previously available properties. Oh, and the buildout takes only 30 seconds. I don't know what that is in metric, but it's fast.

You are only allowed to buy 3 (well, you buy one, and upgrade it twice). Every player, especially every beginner, should get these three as quickly as possible. $750 of income per hour in a couple of minutes, for 7500? Run, don't walk, to your device and buy them.

Another unusual thing about the Bar is that the image changes as you upgrade it. As if you bought a run-down bar and spruced it up. I suspect that the bar was used as an example of how this graphic adaptation might be used as a general feature of properties. Over time, I expect more bar upgrades, and more graphic changes in other properties.

This is how the bar looks when you buy the first one. Barrels stacked high. 

27 more seconds til it's ready!

After you have two, no barrels

So you buy it ...

Now it looks more like a night club. So fancy your original customers don't like it anymore. 

At Paradise cove, the merchants change every 3 or 4 levels, and the ships about the same. UWE may eventually use 3-4 images to show the progress for properties through 10 levels as well.

In Hay Day, houses start at level 1 and go to level 4. Each level is visually different from the others. If you saw them side-by-side, you could tell the differences.

It's common to give visual feedback about the status of your progress in leveling up properties in several games, and it appears that UWE is about to become one of that group of games.

Some users will complain that they wanted something else for Christmas, so to speak. I'm not trying to suggest that introducing the bar this week was the best thing that Kabam could do, but just to describe what has happened, and how you might use it in your game.

The Great Wiki

One of the best reference resources for the game is the wiki [link]. Squiffle and his minions do a great public service describing the game.

If you find things that aren't right, or are missing, just volunteer. There are instructions on the home page. If you can help make it better, then be a good scout and just do it.

Help make the UWE world better.

Seven surprising things that happen in UWE

Some things in the game just pop up and you say, "Why in the heck did THAT happen?"

• Sometimes you level up, and click on stamina/bosses, and you have zero health. Leveling up refills your health. Where did it go? It went to some boss, who was pounding on you when you weren't even in it. If you join a boss fight, your health is on the table at all times. Which is cool. You only need it while you're hitting them. And if it's zero the rest of the time, people can't attack you. 
• Sometimes you look at your achievements (that trophy icon in the upper left of the screen) and if you scroll through them, you find one that you have earned but not collected. 
• The game gave me the achievement for $200,000 in hourly property income, when I only had 194,000 in property income. Apparently, just starting the next Caribbean Island was enough. 
• Sometimes you look at your profile and you find that you have a scratcher that you haven't used. 
• If the turn you take to level up puts you over the XP target for your current level, the extra XP is applied to the next level. Playing this angle makes it possible to level up repeatedly at the low levels. Some players will shuffle different lieutenants into the inner circle to maximize this effect by increasing the max Stam and Energy for the next level.
• The Personal Armory property adds +1 attack to each of your lieutenants. If that LT is seated, and gets a bonus such a double attack, the armory point is doubled, too. The same goes for the Boxing Gym and LT defense. If you buy all 10 of each, you'll be adding 10 attack and 10 defense to every LT, and if you have all five seats open, an additional 26 attack and 15 defense to your seat bonuses.
• Sometimes, when you have an alt, and you get to an EvE game late, they don't have the same number of tokens. What made one of them wake up sooner? Getting shot. 

Glossary of Underworld Terms

GLOSSARY

Many games have their own languages. UWE is no exception. I'll collect these for a while, then attempt to organize them. Please offer suggestions in comments.

Toon - a slang term for your character.
Army code - your individual player ID. Can be viewed on the Allies page, the My Allies tab. Many players who want more allies put this code in their profiles, so other players can add them easily.
X - in Empire games, execute. As in "X in B5."
BR - Battle Rank. Your rank in PvP duel and war.
BP - Battle Points. The statistic that determines your Battle Rank. You get more or less from each Battle, depending on the relative BR of the combatants, and whether you win or lose.
SP - Stat points - the points you use to increase your stats. You get 5 when you level up, one when you complete a district job, and others as rewards for achievements.
XP - Experience Points. These are what you acquire to reach the next level. There are several kinds of experience points. The general ones affect your level in the game. But there are also Class XP - which impact your class level.
PM - Private Message. Looks like a 1-1 chat or message board.
Stam - Stamina. You get a stamina unit every 5 minutes, and your stamina refills when you level up.
EvE - Empire vs Empire, or Empire Games, or Empire War, or Battles
PvP - Player vs Player. Two forms of fighting are categorized as PvP.
Fortress Properties - the properties introduced in late 2013, including a Fortress, Dojo, Science Facility, etc.
LT - Lieutenant.
Inner Circle - the five seats that you use for LT's to help you in fights.
Farm. To perform a task repetitively. Ex: "I just want to farm some CC's."

EMPIRE SLANG

Back door - In EvE, a building on your opponent's back row which can be clearly seen by assassins. Often called "Building 9" "B9" or simply "9."
Stack tokens - In EvE, an order to wait, and to save up your tokens as the armory issues them.
Caller - the person coordinating action in EvE - calling the shots.
Start your timer - when an EvE game begins, all players are asleep, with "ZZZ" displayed above their images. When sleeping, you get half as many "action points" or "tokens" from the armory as when you are awake. By taking a single shot, a player tells the game that she is awake, and receives action points every time the armory cycles (between five minutes and nothing flat, depending on the level of your empire's armory).
CC's - Class Coins. These are acquired by playing empire games. They are necessary for buying Class Skills and upgrades to Class Skills.

Property Basics

There are three good reasons to buy properties.

1. Income. Cash helps with many facets of the game. I like to buy properties that have a payback within 60 days as income properties. 
2. Skills. Some properties will increase the skills of your toon or your LT's.
3. Class coins. I'm a big fan of the dojo, because I love the boost in CC's. 

There is a property that doesn't impact any of the above - the safe house. Still you gotta buy 'em. I try to plan to get a safehouse when the amount of money it holds is 10 times my hourly property income. This is just the first example of a class of properties that you will need to buy, but the reasons for it aren't as easy to justify as the others. I get those when I have to, as late as possible.

Like everything else in the game, I use a spreadsheet to plan property acquisition, and to track my progress on my plan. Here are some suggestions that you might use in your plan.

THE FIRST 30 PROPERTIES

• Tier 1: the "less than three days paybacks." These are the first 8 restaurants. They cost $10,000, plus an additional $1,000 for each level after the first one. They each produce $250 per hour of income, and only take half an hour to build. So you spend 10k, 11k, 12k, etc up to 17k, a total outlay of $108,000, to achieve a return of $2,000 per hour in income. 
• The layer of icing between Tiers 1 and 2 is the first safehouse upgrade. I wanna say it's free, and will protect up to $40,000 in undeposited funds. It will cost you an hour of waiting. So, until your hourly income exceeds $4,000, you're okay with this level. 
• Tier 2: "safehouse 1." In this tier, you will buy Restaurants 9-10, and Condo's 1-3. That will take your income to $4,000. 
• Then you need to save a bit, and sped $120k on Safehouse 2, which will protect your income up to $80,000 an hour. 
• The next tier is Hospital 1, Condo 4, Hospital 2, Condo 5-6. 
• Safehouse 3, costs $240,000, protects $150,000.
• Acquire properties with the biggest cash return for the money you put in. If it looks like we're just randomly jumping around from Hospital to Condo to Clubs, that's the reason. Condo 7, Hospital 4, Condo 8, Hospital 5, Night Club 1, Condo 9, Hospital 6, and Condo 10. By this point, you'll be making almost $15,000 per hour in income. 

THE NEXT 30 PROPERTIES

The next 30 properties are a mix of Night Clubs, Hospitals, Construction Companies, Mansions, and a Casino. I promote the construction companies ahead of where their calculated return puts them, becuase they build faster. Mansions take 24 hours and Casinos take 48. Construction companies take 1. Getting a $1,000 hourly income on $1.5 million isn't a great return, but since it shortens the build times for the longer properties, and since it is $1,000 an hour after all, I push them up a little bit. Note: you must have the

Downtown district open to build a Casino. The first casino puts you over $100,000 per hour, a fine milestone for your first 60 properties. 

You have a choice for the next 30 properties. I play to maximize property income, but some players might prefer to strengthen their LT's sooner. That means you are going to want to build the Personal Armory and the Boxing Gym. They start at $10 million, and go up a mil per level, for ten of them. Each one adds one attack or defense to each of your LT's. That's a big boost in boss fights, and it's a nice boost in EvE, especially if you are a leveling build. Adding 10 attack and 10 defense to each of your seated LT's give you a nice boost in empire fights. You must have the Westside District open before you can build Armories and Gyms. 

One cool thing is that these additions to LT powers are factored into the seat bonuses. So, if you add 5 attack to your LT's, and you put an LT in the assassin seat to double their attack, the LT bonus is doubled too. For example, if you have a 1* Epic with 60 attack in the assassin seat, and add 5 personal armories, they will have 60+5 attack, and their bonus will be 65 more points for being in the Assassin seat. It will display on the LT page as Attack 60 bonus +70. I do these after finishing the first level of Fortress jobs, but some players will want to do them sooner, like ... here. 

Another possibility for the 60-90 property approach is to start on Fortresses. I like to wait on this until I get the property income above $200,000 per hour. These properties cost a lot, and I'm a patient man. 

The 90-120 properties include all ten of the real estate agencies, which take an hour, yield $1,000, and lower the cost of other properties by 10%; the rest of the casinos and construction companies, and the last three begin a new era: The first Fortress, Dojo, and the 11th restaurant. Note: You must have the Meat Packing district open to build Real Estate offices.  

THE FORTRESS PROPERTIES

You can approach the fortress properties two ways. 

• Rush the Dojos. In this approach, you build the fortresses and the dojos as fast as you can. The game doesn't allow you to build them one after the other. The requirements for each Fortress are a different property from the previous level. You can skip about a third of these if you want to rush to dojo 10. 
• A balanced approach, between Fortress job development and more property development. In this approach, I do all of the Level 1 Fortress properties (Fortress, Dojo, Bio Lab, Airport, Space Program, Steel Factory, War Factory, Defense Facility, Stock Market), then do the Level 2 Fortress and Dojo. That gets me a 10% boost in Cc's, and a 1% boost in Attack, Defense, Energy, Stamina, Health, and property income.

Some notes about fortress properties. These come after your first 60 (or 90) properties, so I'll be brief about them until I can devote a full post to them.

• Fortress 1 requires a Level 6 safehouse. That's the one that costs $7 mil and protects 1.25 mil. 
• Building a Fortress allows you to build another Restaurant, Condo, Night Club, Casino, and Caribbean Island. The first four are terrific sources of cash, and at this point I do 11th and 12th properties from Restaurant to Casino, and build the first four Caribbean Islands. That gets me up over 200,000 income per hour. 
• The first fortress takes 24 hours. After that they take another 24 hours for each level. So, the second one is 48 hours, the third one is 72, and so on. Dojos are the same way. This isn't all bad. Since they cost an arm and a leg, it takes a while to save up for them. 
• Then I build the Armories and Gyms. That boosts my LT's, gets me another 20,000 in hourly income, and they only take an hour each. After waiting several days on a fortress and Dojob, a one-hour property is like a vacation.
• After that, I alternate building a level of Fortress properties with a level or income properties, but I don't build the Islands after level 7. The cost and return are so bad that I just push them out until all of the fortress properties are done. 
• Building the fortress properties through level 10 will add 10% to your energy and Stamina. Some LSI players look at the 2000 energy refill limit, and the 1000 stamina refill limit, and only build these skills to 1818 and 909 respectively, before turning to Attack and defense. Those players are dying to get stronger, and the fortress properties give them a chance to get a max refill and perhaps get their toon stronger than Mia at the same time. 

The sequence for building the fortress properties, and the requirements for each level, are complicated enough to justify a post devoted to the topic some other time. Beginners won't be building Fortresses very early. 

Secret Jobs

In each District, there is a building that is grayed out when you start. After you 5-star the district, that building takes on its color, and can be entered. It contains 8 jobs, each similar in cost and reward to one of the jobs in the district. They follow themes, and when you finish them, you get a crate roll. 

They are not always easy to find. At this time, the secret jobs are only available for the first 5 districts. 

Slums - Skulls Screte Hideout. Bottom left of the map, huge haunted house. 

Tracks - Union Station. Center of map, large columns on building. 

Midtown - Casino. Bottom left of map, on the beach.

Meatpack - Sports Arena. Top center, open stadium. 

Downtown - Entertainment District. Top center, near the subway. 

These are a great deal. By the time you reach them, you generally have enough energy to get through them quicker than the districts they are from. They are a great source of 40 SP - 8 jobs, 5 stars each - and a free crate roll besides. You can do these jobs as many times as you like, but you only get one crate roll for each district. 

After you 5* a district, pile up some cash and SP doing the secret jobs. And I hope you get an Epic LT on every roll!

How big are the districts?

A few notes about the size of the districts. 

The number of jobs in each district:

6 Slums, Tracks

9 Midtown

10 Meatpack

11 Downtown, Westside

15 Russia

17 Italy, Hong Kong, France, Mexico

The approximate amount of energy needed to complete one trip through each district:

Slums 488

Tracks 1,410

Midtown 4,030

Meatpack 6,111

Downtown 5,581

Westside 7,376

Italy 9,858

Russia 13,041

Hong Kong 19,623

France TBD

Mexico TBD

The XP/Energy payoffs decline from 1.32 in Slums to 1.15 in Downtown. The next three are between 1.07 and 1.10, until you reach Hong Kong, where it plummets to 0.78. Yes, you put in more energy than you get back in XP. 

For some reason, it seems like it takes a month to 5* Italy (for an LSI build, longer for BSI), and only a couple of weeks for the next three. I think that's because by that time, an LSI is climbing up above 1500 Energy, and a refill or level-up gets you two stars. When I was at the end of Italy, it seemed like a level would only get me 1 star of progress. 

This game is more fun if you are patient. Set your expectations realistically. Then enjoy the journey, instead of dashing to the destination. 

The Best Paying Jobs

You don't play for long before you realize that different jobs pay different amount of money and XP. You put in energy, and you get back some of both money and XP. 

And then sometimes later you find that you need some quick cash. Here's where you can get the most money for your Energy. I just calculated the average payout for each job, and the amount of energy you put in per roll, and calculated a Return on Energy - RoE. 

Final Stop, Hong Kong $3518

Stock Exchange, Hong Kong $3240

Baja, Mexico $3180

Final Relic France $3125

Retrieve the Relic, Russia $3107

Those are the only jobs that give $3000 for each Energy unit put in. You might notice that they are from the last four districts in the game at present. If you are not that far along, here are the best-paying jobs in each of the other districts.

Italy. Ambush $2673

Westside. Armored Takedown $2500

Downtown. Steal a Rival's Protection Fees, $1575. NOTE: Downtown has a secret job DJ, that pays $1750. If Downtown is as far as you've gotten, you'll want to be able to use that job to get more case. 

Meatpack. Open a Strip Club, $766

Midtown. Move Stolen Goods $590

Tracks. Bank Robbery $284. NOTE: Secret Job Movie Set gives $383.

Slums. Skull Market $211

You can do these jobs over and over, if you've completed the boss job for that district. It's always a good idea to "5-star" a district so you can get more Stat Points (SP). I usually try to complete the following district before I 5-star a district, in case I run low on cash in the next district and need to use the previous one. 

But even after you have 5-starred a district, you can return and roll on jobs you like. 

WHAT ABOUT THE MOST XP PER JOB?

I mentioned above that you get two things when you do a job: money and XP. Perhaps you are close to leveling up, and you'd like to know how to get the most XP for a job. Here are the five jobs that give the most XP for a job. NOTE that if you have Penelope, you will get one more XP for each job (and in some conditions, more than that). This list assume that you have Penelope seated somewhere in your inner circle. 

Slums, Find Leads. Costs 2 energy, gives 3 XP, 1.50 XP per E. This is the tappingest job you can do. I know people including me, who have tapped this baby 500 times in a row to get to a new level.

Tracks, Escort Duty. Costs 8 energy, returns 11 or 12. I call it 11.5, and that's a 1.44 ratio. 

Tracks, The Shakedown. Costs 6, returns 8 to 10. This is the job where luck can take you above the Find Leads return. It averages just short of 1.5 - you get the 8 more than the 10 - but sometimes you get the 10, and 10 for 6 is the best return anywhere. 

Midtown, Rob a Jewelry Store. Costs 8, returns 11. That's a 1.38 ratio.

Downtown, Prepare for War. Costs 18, returns 24, 1.33 ratio. If the return is important, but not critical, this one will save you some tapping. If you have a baron, it will take 54, and return 72, and catch you up pretty fast. 

Honorable Mention: Italy's Warm Welcome gives 1.30, and $1000 per Energy. A fine balance. 

SUMMARY

Most of the time, you're going to want to get SP for your jobs. Once you've 5-starred a job, you would only want to go back and do it again under unusual conditions, such as if you are trying to level up quickly, or need cash to heal or buy property. But some players have 5-starred all of the properties. Those players generally spin the dice jobs, which give a little money and a little XP but lots of LT's. Dice jobs are a different animal, and we'll talk about them another time. 

Gifting

Gifting only sort of works. I have been told that about 25% of gifts are actually received. My own tests indicate that it's hit or miss. This introduces an element of frustration and difficulty, but you have to just turn a blind eye to it. Gifting is very important. 

Why?

Because gifting is the only way to get certain items. If you get the parts to make a diamond in the Techlab, for example, you will add 1 attack to Sin - if you have her and if you keep the diamond. You can also use the diamond to start the Red Phoenix Core job. 

In some cases, you can't do the dice job for a district unless you have a skull medallion, for instance. I try not to use my last skull medallion (you use them to start the Skull King boss job) so I can do the dice job it permits. Plus, medallions count as gear in PvP War. 

But the best reason to gift is to be able to try to build the Sara LT. Sara has 5 parts, and four of them come from Boss Drops where you need a TechLab item to start the job. 

The rule of thumb for gifting is that if your intended recipient has accepted your previous gift, you can gift them again. It seems to me that you can gift about 15-20 people every 15 minutes, but I don't know the exact specification.

I try to gift a page of my allies every half hour or so. I only get one or two gifts back. Since you know it's a leaky process, and you want a lot of stuff back, gift early, gift often, and try to get all of the people in your empire to help. 

Don't be discouraged. This game is about persistence, if nothing else. 

6 Quests to Do in the First Week.

The game can be a bit overwhelming to the new player. Here are a few things for the "first-week" player to focus on.

1. Complete 25 Jobs to 100%
2. Own 5 Property
3. Gain 5 allies
4. Send 5 Gifts
5. Pay Respect 5 Days
6. Win 25 Duel / War

There is lots more that you will need to decide about later. But the first week, you might try to do these things.

Why I think new players should start out as a Heavy in Empire play

When you play boss jobs and empire games, you use a Class. The available classes are Assassin, Enforcer, Heavy Weapons, and Sniper. Each of these can add different skills, and benefit from a different "build" - a different emphasis on things like attack, defense, health, criticals, etc. One of the keys to enjoying Underworld Empire is choosing a class that helps you enjoy playing the game. You wouldn't want to spend hours each week and perhaps some money as well, doing something you don't enjoy. Try them all, pick out one you like best.

But wait on that. The first thing that new players should do is build up their energy and stamina to 100. Maybe 150. Why? Because the game gives you an energy and stamina unit every 5 minutes. It doesn't give you attack units, or defense units, it gives you energy and stamina. 12 per hour. 288 per day. If you are going to go to sleep for 8 hours, you're going to receive 96 energy and 96 stamina.

That's why I think 150 might be a better number. Do you really want to empty both of them before you go to sleep, and then empty them again the first thing when you wake up? Well, if you do, 100 may be the number for you. Heck, put them at 20, and set your alarm to wake up every 90 minutes to use them. You could meet some interesting people on world chat. You could disappear from the real world, and take up a permanent existence in the Underworld. I'm not saying that's a bad thing for everybody. But honestly, it would be bad for most people. But I digress.

New players have limited attack and defense abilities. If they attack more experienced players in EvE, they generally lose. That costs them 60-100 health points, and gains them 80 points toward Class Coins (CC's). If they shoot an empty building, they lose zero health points, and gain 110 points toward CC's. I'm only talking about somewhere between 3 days and 10 days. You might not even have time to buy a demolition skill upgrade.

Most empires are long on assassins and snipers and short on demo players. So when you start the game, come in and play the heavy. You can learn about how the empire communicates, enjoy some play, and see what the other roles in the empire are. You can always change later.

Boss jobs - getting help

Boss jobs are a great way to convert stamina to XP. I seldom make money on them because I heal a lot. The thing I focus on are the rewards, specifically the epic drops.

Items might be common, uncommon, rare, epic, or legendary. They are cooler and better in that order. Players have reported their results, and determined how many points you need in a boss job to get 1, 2, or 3 epic items at the end of the job, called epic drops. Those point levels are called epic tiers. I generally stop at the 2nd tier, because I want to use the stam on another boss job.

There are a few things to avoid in a boss job.

Strengthening your LT's

One of the best ways for a Skinny Guy to get stronger is to strengthen his lieutenants. After you get to 1000 energy, it kind of makes more sense to use an energy refill than when your energy is 250 - you get a lot more for your Favor Point dollar. I use the arbitrary goal of 1500, because I think I can get through the Street Fighter DICE Job in Slums 3 times.

DICE JOBS

I've done a lot of math about the energy cost of LT's, and with some unusual exceptions, I only try to do two dice jobs - Slums and Westside. Slums costs 35 energy per roll, and takes 13 rolls, for a total energy cost of 455 per LT. You might get the uncommon LT Pain (Great for a sniper or assassin, he gives criticals), or the common LT John (you get him almost 50% of the time). You may also find Colt, an uncommon recombinator, or Mia. Many players have only disdain for the LT's of the Slums, and fuse them. My advice to the new player is to build them up. 

If you spend $5 on FP, you'll get 33 FP. That's enough for 3 refills. If you have 1500 Energy (and the beginner won't), you can get 3 LT's with the energy from a level-up, then burn your stamina, and then use an energy refill to get 3 more LT's. This should take you to the next level, where you can rinse and repeat. Three of these cycles should produce 18 LT's. You'd have 9 Johns, 2 pains, 4 Mia, 1 Uncommon recombinator, and 3 Colts. These are estimates - in small numbers of rolls (less than 100) you might see a lot of variation. 

But if you had 9 johns, you could make a 3* John by combining them. That's still a pretty weak LT. You'd need to have a 6* common LT to be stronger than a 1* epic LT. To get a 6* john, you would need about 65 LT's from Slums, at a cost of about 11 refills (maybe $15).

I don't stick to these two jobs exclusively. First, at level-up time, I try to get as far into the next level as I can. If you have Baron seated, when you roll you get 3 rolls for a 1*, and 4 rolls for a 2*. If you have 800 energy left, you could cruise over to Mexico or France and roll the dice job to go deep into the next level.

Another reason for me to play other dice jobs is that you can try to get different rare LT's in different districts. My reasons for focusing on Slums and Westside still make sense to me, but they are guidelines, not rules. 

CRATES

You can get lots of different LT's from crate rolls on the Favor page. Crate rolls cost 30 FP, or 3 for 80 FP. In real dollars, that's $5 or $15. Your odds of getting an epic LT are 5%. Some people get 2 in a row. Some people don't get one for months. This is an expensive source of LT's. You could end up with a 1* John, for example, for the same FP that you could use to make a 3* John at DICE jobs. 

There is still a good reason to do crates. If you're a Skinny Guy, your key to winning in PvP is "War." That means you get one LT for every 5 Allies. You aren't likely to have more than 15-20 LT's from doing dice jobs. Getting a 1* version of 20 MORE LT's gives you that much more power in WAR. Since you are weak, the relative strength from adding LT's and weapons is much higher than it is for BSI builds, who might as well not bother. 

PLATINUM SCRATCHERS

You can get LT's from Platinum scratchers. They cost 45 FP for 10 (or 5 FP for 1). Most of the time you get nothing. But sometimes you get LT's. This makes sense for Assassins more than the other classes, because if you can get Scorpion you can decap at higher levels. 

HOW TO CHOOSE?

If you have $50, you can get 320 FP. With 320 FP, you could buy:

32 Refills, or

7 sets of 10 scratchers, or

4 sets of 3 crate rolls

That would give you .7 LT's from scratchers, 12 from crates, or 60 from refills (if you do slums, and you have 1500 energy). That's why you see comments on the forums like "Scratchers are a no-no" and "Crate rolls are evil." I advise you to spend your FP in about a 5:1 ratio of refills to crate rolls. 

You don't HAVE to buy FP. The game gives you lots of it in achievements and other rewards. 

FAILING TO PLAN IS PLANNING TO FAIL

After I had been playing about 3 months, I decided to try to get my LT's to a certain strength. I wanted whoever was seated to either be a 4* rare, a 6* uncommon, or an 8* common. If you pick a goal like that, and you look at the LT's you have, you can combine, fuse, refill, and gamble your way to a strong inner circle. Having a plan makes a lot of decisions easier. 

A NOTE ABOUT FUSING 

I fuse when it will make my team stronger. But beyond that, I avoid it. My reasoning is that I can combine 2 LT's for nothing. To fuse I need 3 LT's and a recombinator. That represents twice as much energy. Like I say, if it makes me better right now, today, in the next empire game, I'll do it. Well, I might need a day or two to level them up after I fuse them, but you get the idea. 

You could talk about LT's and dice jobs until your eyes cross. There are lots of ways to get them, and lots of ways to grow them. These are a few, and hopefully your eyes aren't crossed yet. 

Respect: Factions in UWE

There are four factions in UWE: Mafia, Cartel, Street, and the Dragon Syndicate. Each day, you can pay respect to one of these, and you will receive two things.

First, you will get 100 Respect Points. As you gain respect points toward each faction's maximum of 6000, you will receive valuable weapons, vehicles, and gear. Paying respect to a faction isn't the only way to get Respect Points (RP). You get them from PvP, from Bosses, and from District Jobs. In PvP, if you beat a Mafia guy, you get Mafia RP. This is limited to 10 RP per day. In boss jobs you often get a point or two based on which LT's you defeated. In district jobs, each job has an affiliation, and you get an award every 6-10 rolls. Sometimes it's longer, sometimes you hit several in a row. There is no daily limit on the RP earned in district jobs. Note: you can still get RP on a district job even after you have five stars on it.

Second, you will receive a stat point. Each faction gives a different point. Mafia gives energy, Cartel gives stamina, street gives defense, and syndicate gives attack. Note: if you pay respect to the Cartel, you get 200 respect points, and you can't give respect again for 48 hours.

Most players do a faction to the max and then do the others, in whatever order you like. I have done mafia first, because I'm an LSI build and I want lots of energy.

There are some achievements associated with respect.

• FOOT SOLDIER. Pay respect 5 days. 1 FP. 
• AFFILIATED. Pay respect 25 days. 5 FP. 
• UNTOUCHABLE. Pay respect 50 days. 5 SP. 
• FAVORED ONE. Pay respect 500 days. 25 FP. Some of the very first players are near this goal. 
• KING OF KINGS. Pay respect 1000 days. 30 SP. 

Some of the most powerful gear in the game comes from factions. El Aguila (Cartel)is a pretty good pistol. Lightning (Street) is an awesome car. There are guns, cars, chainsaws, a cute little bicycle, dynamite ... just about a complete kit for a mobster. If you don't believe me, just look at the weapons and gear selected for your class, by pressing SEE MORE on the Class Power page. 

After you reach 6000 RP with a faction, you can continue to give them respect. You will still receive a stat point. You won't increase your RP past 6000. 

My favorite thing about giving respect is that when you "finish" a faction, you get more than a prize. You get a FACTION POWER. Your character gets a skill boost. 

• Cartel: +20 Attack, +1% Critical chance
• Syndicate: +10 Attack, +2% Critical chance
• Mafia: +30 Attack, +15 Defense
• Street: +15 Attack, +30 Defense

You only get the Faction power when you are "in that faction." This is a bit complicated. The forums have several cases to demonstrate it. Whichever faction you have the most RP for, that's who you are. But when you finish a 2nd one, you have a tie, right? Then you're whichever one you gave respect to last. There are times that players say they have "changed factions" after a PvP battle or doing a District jobs.  I think that it's been changed so that once you're maxed, you get it based on last respect given, not last respect point earned. 

There are some correlations between the faction powers and the classes. I'm going to oversimplify, and say that the Cartel faction power is great for assassins, the Syndicate faction power is the best for snipers, that the Mafia is for heavies and the Street is for enforcers. Try them all, see what works best for you.

I didn't get the idea about respect at first, and it took me almost 60 days to reach 6000 for the Mafia. Because I had been accumulating points doing jobs, it only took 15 more days to finish the Cartel. In 60 more days I was "finished" with all four. You can do it quicker than I did, but think of it as a 4-5 month project. This game calls for patience, and the combination of patience and respect is good in the game and outside it. 

Empire tactics

A few Empire tactics. These tips are aimed at new empires. The big boys in Legend are strong enough to do whatever they want.

• Try to use Assassin and Sniper tokens to clear buildings (to kill all of the defenders). Don't use them for demolition unless you really have no choice. 
• Try to use heavy equipment tokens to demolish buildings. Don't use them to shoot or execute defenders as long as the outcome of the contest is in doubt. 
• I left out the enforcers because I have no idea what to do with their tokens. 
• If the other team has a front row of safehouses and sniper tower, full of BR 16 players, they might be like an eclair. Crisp crust outside, soft filling inside. Take a look at the "back door" with your assassins. You might be able to clear and demo that back door quicker and easier than you can break through the front line. Take what they give you. The water goes around the stone, but in time it wears it down. 

Idle thoughts and scatter shots

I saw a note on the forums last night that I thought was pretty helpful. Someone said that he seats Centurion when the Empire game starts, to get the benefit of extra health. Then before taking any shots, he switched to his regular LT to get the most power. And finally, when he was dead without the prospect of health packs, he switched to Trix.

The chances of getting healed by Trix are low. Maybe it works. I'm not inclined to give up that much power to put my wimpy Trix out there, even dead.

I have been saying previously that the new skills introduced last month give the game some variety. Today I'd like to suggest a different approach. Think about which skills are active (require a token) and which are passive. It seems to me that players should just load up on all of the passives. They don't require any change of strategy or tactics to get the benefit.

Class coins for Skinny Guys

Empires have games, sometimes called EvE (empire vs empire). In these games, you have some health, let's say 1500. (Actually, the formula is 3 times your max health + 1200, unless you are player Enforcer. Then it's 4 * Health + 1200). Every time you get shot, you lose 100 health. If you shoot someone, you get points and lose health. There are three outcomes that come to mind:

• You win. you get 120 points, and lose 30-50 health points.
• You lose. You get 80 points, and lose 60-100 health points. 
• You shoot a building. You get 110 points, and lose no health points. 

When you fall under 200 health points, you're dead. The other team gets one point. You are only able to hit with 1/2 of the damage that you were able to hit for when you were alive. If your team has a hospital, you can take a health pack and come back to life. You won't have full health, but you'll have 1200 or more, based on your hospital's upgrade level.

At the end of the game, the points from all of your shots added together, divided by 100 is the number of class coins you will receive. If your team wins, you also receive a 25% bonus in class coins. Class coins are used to buy skills upgrades for whatever class (sniper, enforcer, assassin, or heavy) that you use. More is better. Many players make 2500-2800 points at first. Some make 3000-3500. Later you'll make more than 4000. Most games the winning players get 50 class coins. At least until the fall of 2013, they did.

Odd Notes for beginners

A few more notes about UWE. They're just opinions, guidelines. Your mileage may vary.

• ALLIES. If you put your army code into your profile, people can add you for free. Take a look at other people's profiles, and make yours better.
• ALLIES. You want to get to 500 allies as fast as you can. I think that you can buy allies for $100 (game dollars) at your level. You can buy like 20 at a time. I'd do that as much as you can afford it. Allies for higher level players cost millions. (But you can add them for free if you know their army codes).
• ALLIES. Go through the empire and ally with everyone if you're not allied with them already. Your empire mates will give you guns and things.
• FACTIONS. My advice is to pay respect to Mafia until you get to 100 energy, and then to Cartel until you get to 100 Stamina. Then work your way to 6000 on each of the four in whatever order you prefer. You get great gifts as you do.

BASIC GAME PLAY: Two minutes and done?

Some players visit the game, do their job and fight a boss, pay respect, and bam! They're done! It takes a minute or two and they say, "Where's the attraction to this game?" Fair enough. Here is what I would say to a new player about using energy and stamina to level up.

At level 14, it should take about 180 XP to get to the next level. At this stage, leveling is your goal, because the stat points (SP) that you get are how you grow.

Each time you level up, you get 5 more stat points (SP), which you will want to use on energy. The first thing I tell a beginner to do is to try to get his Energy and Stam to 100. Why? Because the game gives you one energy and one stam every 5 minutes. If your capacity is 100, and you use all of yours up, you can get back in 8 hours and have 96 of each - you'll get the full benefit of the "manna from heaven" for Energy and Stamina. I like to see them both more like 150, so that you can go more like 12 hours without missing out. The game gives you 288 Energy and 288 Stamina in 24 hours.  

Class Skills for lvl 3 and 4 (the "New Class Skills")

New class skills were rolled out yesterday, and they have the chance to change the way that EvE is played. The skills are listed on the forums, and are described. I haven't seen or used them, but some of them are must haves, for sure.

SNIPERS - Sure Shot - this is for the no-mans-land between Headshot and Killing Spree. If you shoot and it's not a crit, you have a 1% higher chance to get a new crit. Presumably, level 2 and 3 will be 2% and 3%.

ENFORCERS - Stim packs. These are a great new opportunity for enforcers to be kind of like medics.

HEAVIES - Booby traps, Burn, and Explosives. Heavies are going to be able to play a lot more offensive game.

But the big impact, as I'm visualizing the game, is a great need for better coordination. Imagine this scenario: A sniper cuts an opponent down into decap range. An Assassin decaps him. A heavy booby traps him and then demos the building. There are a number of opportunities to waste tokens, or mis-time the activities. I think we'll need some improved processes for this - signals, practice, art.

I can't wait to try them out.

Some forum critics complain about the cost of the new skills. But Class Coin yields are up about 50% and more in EvE. Just be patient, set your roadmap, and work it.

Zombies are our friends

Draft

What is a zombie

How do you use them

Zombie killers

WHAT IS A ZOMBIE?

in this image, Nino is a zombie.

a zombie is an opponent whose health is under 200 and more than 0. these players are shown two ways. if they are defensive players, they have a broken shield. if they are offensive, they have a blood spatter, like Nino above.

HOW DO YOU MAKE A ZOMBIE?

It's not as complicated as it might sound. You just attack an opponent until their health is below 200 and above zero. Typically you just take a couple more shots than you would if you really wanted to execute them. It's best to choose an inactive opponent. It's very frustrating to have your zombie heal, and have to make another. 

HOW DO YOU USE THEM?

When your health goes below 200, your shots only produce half of the damage that they would otherwise. If you pair this with the execution action, you get a case of Zeno's Paradox. Zeno said that if a rabbit was racing a tortoise, it would take him some amount of time to get halfway there. And then some other amount of time to get half of the remaining way there. And so on. So, in Zeno's mind, the rabbit could never pass the tortoise because it would take an infinite amount of half-distancs to overcome.