CROM'S BLESSING CHESTS

Crom's Blessing Chests are special loot chests scattered across the entire realm that give players special server curreny.

Each chest gives pippi gold and a chance drop of Soul Essence, Ancient Medallions and Talismans of Gedren.

VIDEO WALKTHROUGHS

If you are new to raid servers or feel like you need to improve your raid defense skills, please take a few moments to read over this guide.  It's for you.  This is called Raid Defense 101 for a reason.  It's basic, but important.  It's not for everyone, but designed specifically to help the least prepared players be more competitive.
 

I don't pretend to be the best Conan player, but I have a lot of experience at “holding my own” against better players, more experienced players, better equipped players, and being outnumbered.  I haven't always successfully defended, but I guarantee if you employee these strategies you will improve your outcomes above whatever you can achieve from your skill on it's own.

-FIGHT SMART, NOT HARD

STRENGTHS VS WEAKNESSES

No matter your individual skill level or the strength of your clan, it's important to understand the strengths and weaknesses you have as a defender.

STRENGTHS:
    - Unlimited resupply
    - Immediate respawn
    - Thrall army
    - Controlling the field of battle

WEAKNESSES:
    - Cannot schedule your fight
    - Can be scouted extensively
    - Have the most at risk

It is with those realities in mind that we must proceed.

BASE BUILDING BASICS

I'm not going to talk about fancy base designs, stacking methods, good base locations, or any of the things most people talk about.  There are unlimited youtube videos to walk you through those things, which are all imho only worthwhile after understanding the following PRINCIPLES:
 

BUILD WITH DEFENDING IN MIND.
Do you know why medieval castle staircases all curve counter clockwise going down?  Because most people are right handed and it's easier to swing a sword from your right hand into a curve going to your left.  Attackers would have to swing their swords back handed going up, where defenders can swing with their full strength going down.
How do you want to fight?  Do you want to snipe at your attackers with a bow while they approach?  Then you better make the entrance to your base lower than the place you plan to defend it from.
Imagine yourself being raided as you build your base and build it with your own best strategy for defending in mind.
 

BUILD FROM THE INSIDE OUT.
It takes time to build, and you cannot pick the time of your fight, only the place and the design.  Design your base in such a way that it's actually a series of many “nested” bases.  What would you build if you knew you were going to be raided TODAY?   Build that inside of what you would build if you knew you were going to raided tomorrow.  And then build that inside of another layer.  Because a 1000 piece gigantic “land claim” fence will be just as easy to get into as a 82 piece 5x5 2 story building.  But guess which one takes longer to build. And guess which one draws more attention.

MODEST BASES SURVIVE LONGER.
The presentation of your base should be directly proportionate to your ability to defend it.  Making a GIANT T1 base is an invitation for everyone to notice you and target you.  The T1 part makes it look easy, and the giant size makes it look worthwhile.  In short, you will appear AS YOU ARE...which is someone who has their priorities BACKWARDS.
They will see someone who is likely building from the outside inward, and has a bunch of T3 mats and goodies inside somewhere they haven't used yet because they've been spending all their time throwing up thousands of pieces of T1.
That doesn't mean you need to be a large clan to have a large base.  It just means the base itself must grow in size relative to its strength.
 

STACKING AND OTHER 'HARDENING' STRATEGIES
A lot of people rely on “stacked” doors and gates and “layers” as their primary method of defense.  And they do help, however they are very likely over-hyped.  Allow me to explain why:
Let's say you are a solo player that is being raided by 3 good players.  You cannot 1v3 them successfully.   You are inside a base with 10 stacked gates in a row.   They begin blowing up the outer most gate.   What do you do?  WAIT.   There is nothing else you can do.   You wait and you hope that the combined HP of your gates is greater than the number of bombs they have.  What a terrible way to go down...without a fight, depressed or raging.
Instead, build your base so that you can take an active role in the defense, using such strategies as redundant entries, kill boxes, staggered walls, etc.
Imagine the same scenario above, except instead of 10 stacked gates, you have two entrances that each have 5 stacked gates.  While they are dropping bombs on one entrance, you can leave out the other and come up behind them and engage them.  Imagine the same scenario but with gaps in between the layers so that each time they go through a gate they are met with more thralls or you again...fighting them again and making them work for every inch of ground.  Make attackers use up more than just bombs to attack you.  Take their lives if you can, but always take their time.

YOUR KEEP
Contrary to what you just read, at some place in your base should be a keep.  Every castle had a keep.  A place to fall back to as a last resort.  Your “safe room” in modern terms.  It should be hardened and it should have everything you need to make your “best last stand”.
 

STRATEGY
REVIVES
Your single greatest strength as a defender is that you can die over and over again defending your base with nothing to lose.  However, that is only the case if you position your revive points correctly and redundantly.  If you only have 1 re-spawn point it will either be in danger of being destroyed by attackers too early or it will take you longer than it should to return to the fight.  Your bed or bedroll should be in your “safe room” deep inside your base (remember build from center out) and the other (bed or bedroll respectively) should be dropped closer to the entrance.
The idea is that when a person is attacking you...you can arrive quickly and repeatedly to meet them at the entrance, inside your base near the entrance, always falling back.  And then when they reach your first re-spawn point and destroy it, you can repeat the process from your secondary, deeper location.
 

FALL BACK POINTS
Talking again about layers of defenses.  Back to building your base with defending it in mind.  Not just in one place, but in many.  When your first door or gate goes down, you should be there to fight them along with your thralls or pets, trying to stop them or slow them down.  If that fails, when they make it through the next layer, you are there again...revived with new gear (doesn't have to be great gear), ready to throw yourself at them again.
Build your fallbacks/layers with differences so that where your attacker may be easily able to make it through one strategy (eg. Thralls shooting arrows down while you fight) the next area is totally different and they might struggle (eg. A small room with a perch for you to throw down gas orbs).  Imagine you're building a dungeon to challenge players.  You want them to have to think in as many different ways as possible to proceed past your obstacles, hoping that at some point their ingenuity, skill, or patience runs low.
 

KILL BOXES
At least some parts of your base should be designed with “funneling” attackers into an area where defenders (you, friends, thralls) can attack them without as much risk.
This is where you employ the types of strategies most often seen OUTSIDE of a base, but put inside a base where they can't maneuver around them and can't easily retreat.
 

PROTECTED VIEWPOINTS
Create areas where you can safely watch the attack and the fighting to adjust your strategy in real time.  If the only two things you can do are revive in safety or face them head-on you are at a disadvantage.
 

STRATEGIC RETREAT
Strategic retreat is important, especially when outnumbered with a well-built base.  Fight and retreat.  Draw them off your base and make them chase you (with a junk kit) then re-spawn back in your base and be waiting for them back at the entrance with a fresh good kit and thrall.  Make it so that they don't get to decide when is bombing time and when is fighting time.  You decide.
 

HARRASSING
Anything you can do to focus their attention on you instead of your thralls and base destruction is a win.  Regardless of the final outcome.
If you can attack them and draw them off of your base while they chase you in a nearby field for 5 minutes that is a tremendous victory even if it ends with them group teabagging you. That's 5 minutes bombs were not going off in your base.

PAIN. PAIN. PAIN.
Defending a base from a raid is all about causing pain.  Making their attack cost more time, more effort, more explosives, more kits, than they expected.
Even if you are bad at pvp and even if your base design is terrible, if you put up a defense, it's likely that at some point at least some of the attackers will die.  They have respawns nearby.  
Loot their corpses immediately.  That should be your number one priority.  Looting attackers when they die to take advantage of their limited ability to have item resupply with them.  And also to cause as much pain as possible.  Loot them, duck back into cover, and store their items or despawn them.
Did one of their player's die?  Kill their horse if you have time.  Make the raid as unpleasant for them as it is for you.

ALLIANCES
Alliances are a great value to a defender because if you can get someone to come to your aid, by the nature of their secondary arrival, they by definition will meet a lot of the criteria written above.  They will be attacking the rear of the raiders, drawing them off the base, messing up their bombing coordination or plans.  Even if the extra man-power doesn't allow you to outright wipe the raiders, you will likely slow them down and increase their cost of raiding for all the reasons described above.
 

CACHES & BASES
CACHES:
Within your base, find a place that you think will be overlooked that contains items for use after you've been raided hard.  Some construction pieces for patching gaps, extra thralls, materials, kits for yourself and thralls, etc.   A hidden chest in the wall somewhere in your base with your own custom made “starter kit” for after the worst case scenario takes place is a great thing to have if/when you need it. 

BASES:
You can have up to 3 bases (5 with loyalty purchases) on this server.  There is no excuse to lose everything to a single raid.

OPSEC
Operational Security:  Don't tell people where you base is.  Don't tell people where the safe room in your base is.  Don't tell people which base you keep the good stuff in.  Or what good stuff you have.  Or your defense strategies.  Or where your caches are.

SERVER SPECIFIC TOOLS
PUBLIC VAULT
For a few pippi, players can rent a completely unraidable admin controlled public vault room in the hub that holds anything you want and is accessible 24/7 with your password.
PERSONAL SAFE
Players who complete the Syndicate guild quest line are rewarded with a special instanced residence that includes a personal safe with additional storage of select items.

TARGET COOLDOWN
No matter what, take heart in knowing the same clan that attacked you cannot try again for two weeks. You get 5 days off between raids to prepare....but you get 13 or 14 days off between dealing with the same clan.

FINAL REMARKS
Good luck.  Have fun.  Remember it's a game.  If things are going badly... try to learn something from it!
 

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