The abc’s of Sniping - Memoirs of a Sniper by CountDuMoney[]
Sniping is the act of forcibly occupying a contribution spot on another player's GB by donating forge points in an amount considered less than the spot is valued. Or it may also be defined as forcibly overtaking another contributor by donating more than that player, but only enough forge points to prevent that player from taking the spot back.
Have you been Sniped, by an Sniper or maybe you yourself have gone Sniping? Have you heard the term Snipe and are wondering what the heck people are talking about? Well my friend you have come to the right place.
Forge of Empires has a function where you can assist a fellow player if they are a Friend, Guild Mate, or in your neighborhood, by donating Forge Points (fp) to that player's Great Building (GB). When this is done the owner of the GB need not spend as much fp to promote (flip) their GB to the next level. For instance if it costs 40fp to level Mark’s Oracle of Delphi from level 0 to 1, and Jack donates 5 fp to Marks OoD, Mark will only have to pay the difference of 35fp himself to raise the OoD to the next level. Nice right? But why would Jack want to give Mark 5 of his hard earned fp. Well the gift of giving comes with a gift itself. For Jack's donation he will receive a reward of 5fp given back to him from the game. So in fact Jack's 5fp donation cost him nothing at all, because it's fully refunded when the building levels. Mark can have several benefactors as long as they meet the criteria of being a Friend, a Guild Mate, or are in his neighborhood. (You must also have unlocked, Archeology, one of the first three technologies of the Iron Age)
Now not everyone gets this reward of 5fp back for donating. Just the player who donates the most. In the case where two players donate the exact same amount, the person who donated earliest will win the tiebreaker, and be ranked higher on the list of contributors. As the GBs get to higher levels you’ll see not only the #1 donator receives a reward, but all the top 5 donators will get a reward of fps, medals, and Blueprints.
“My CoA just got sniped”
In general sniping is looked down upon as if it’s some kind of trick. I think this is because a lot of players out there want to get the maximum amount of donations on their GB as possible, and players make deals to ensure this. Sniping is like the opposite of GB owners wishes, in that, at its core, snipping meant to bring the donator profit by paying the least for any giving amount of reward. Personally, I don’t see it as a trick, I see it as a technique to gain fp, Blueprints (BP), and medals.
For the purpose of this explanation I will pretend Arcs do not exist. If your reading this and you don’t know what an Arc is. it’s a GB that gives you more reward for your donations. For instance, if being the most generous donator on a building would pay you back in return 5fp, for someone with an Arc it will pay them back 6, 7, or more, depending on the level of their Arc.
Here are the various sniping strategies I use;
Sniping for profit
Sniping for a place holder
Sniping for 2nd
Sniping to break even
Sniping to minimize loss
Sniping out of spite
The consequences
Sniping for profit[]
90% of sniping is doing the math. The idea is to pay as little as possible. For snipping to be profitable you donation has to be less than the reward. Also, the true art of sniping is placing the right amount of fp so that no one else can snip you back. This is called locking it in.
So the two things we are looking for in a good snipe is that 1 it is profitable and 2 that it is lockable. These two conditions are not always attainable. Sometimes you can out bid another investor and get the slot you want, but to make it locked, it wont be profitable. Sometimes you can get a profitable slot, but it wont be locked, so you have to be willing to run the risk that someone else wont come along and snip you. And there’s always the case where the slot you want is already locked in. This is to say there is not enough available FP left to donate at that level to out bid the person who already has the slot.
Here’s how to do the math.
Let me define a few terms first.
P = Total points required to level GB
C = Current points on the GB
L = P-C, the amount left that can be possibly donated
M = L/2, Theoretical minimum amount of points required to donate to secure a spot. If M is decimal, roundup to the next whole number.
S = Amount of fp competing donator has in the slot you want
Ms = Amount of fp you already have on this GB, if any
R = How much reward the slot will pay you back
F = The amount of FP necessary to put down to make the snip locked
To find F:
F = (S + L -Ms)/2
Note: if S=0 & Ms=0 (in other words you haven’t already invested, and no one else has either) F=M
Sniping for a place holder[]
Sniping is like an auction or a bidding war on ebay. You want to win, but you don’t want to pay top dollar. There can be cases where you can just put 1 or more fp on a building knowing it’s not locked just to see what happens. The idea is to come back to it later, to see how things develop relative to the other donators. This is best done early in a GB level, where no position is lockable yet, but you have an inkling the GB owner is going to move fast.
a.Sniping for 2nd
There are unique cases where you can put FB on a building and it is not locked, but it will still be locked and profitable if and when you get out bid for the slot. I’ve found this is the case on the first level of GBs. For example say for the example mentioned earlier where Mark’s Oracle of Delphi is going from level 0 to 1. If Mark had already self donated as the GB owner 27fp. Then I happen along and see that Mark has been the only one to contribute to the GB (no other external investors). There are 13 remaining fp that could be donated before the building levels. I would put down 4fp and take slot P1, which would leave 9 possible fp to be donated after me. This spot is profitable because P1 pays a reward of 5fp, so I would make 1fp profit. But it is not locked because someone can come in after me, and donate 5fp and take P1, pushing me down to P2. The beauty of this scenario is that the reward for P2 is 5fp. I make the exact same profit whether I finish in P1 or P2. After this second donator puts down 5fp to takeover P1, there are 4 remaining fp left that can be donated before the building levels. That is not enough to overtake my 4fp in P2 (a tie goes to the player who donated first). The player who got P1 with 5fp ends up breaking even.
Sniping to break even[]
So in the example above, you might be asking why would someone invest to just break even. After all I did say the criteria for a good snip was that it be profitable. Well it can still be profitable in a sense. A reason to spend fp on a break even investment would be purely to get fp off of your bar and into your inventory. Then game automatically gives you 1 fp per hour, until your bar reaches 10fp. After it hits 10 the game stops giving you fp until your bar is 9 or less. Then the clock resets and you start getting 1fp/hr again. You can have more than 10fp on your bar, but those will not come from the games automatic pay rate. These will come from prizes generated from gameplay.
Sniping to minimize loss[]
Sometimes despite our best laid plans, we mis calculate. Or maybe we were taking a risk, and things didn’t work out. Even in loss we can have some possible relief. This has happened to me a few times, and I’ve been able to save a total loss into an acceptable price. Most of the time, the last paying slot pays 5fp. Lets say P5 pays 5fp, 10 medals, and 1 BP. You see that P1 to P4 are all locked down, but P5 has no one on it and is a pretty good deal on a GB that has P=100 and C=88 it but it’s not lockable but you take the chance anyway, and put 4fp on it. Someone else comes along and puts 5fp on it, and pushes you out from your 1fp profit to nothing at all. Now, you can just walk away from your 5fp and tell yourself that’s the breaks, or you can try this. Put another 3fp on the GB, you will now have raised you bid to 7 and regained P5. This time it is locked. but instead of gaining 1fp, you will now loss 2fp. Still, if you had walked away from the deal, you would have lost 5. So my reasoning is losing 2fp is better than losing 5fp. Also you can think of it as paying 2fp for the BP and the medals.
Sniping out of spite[]
We’ve all been there, your bidding on that rare collectable, and in the heat of passion and wanting this item so bad, somewhere along the line it gets personal. It’s no longer about adding this item to your collection, but it becomes about the person over there who is trying to rob you of your happiness. So in turn, your motivation becomes to rob them of their happiness instead.
I’ve found myself in moments, where I’m not sniping for profit, not to break even, not even to minimize my losses. After getting beat time and time again for a coveted spot, I have been known to snip for the pure pleasure of knowing that the other guy can’t have it. Just the childish pride of having 1 up on the competition. If this is you, and you just have to be number 1 no matter the cost, just make sure the math works out.
This usually happens when I am putting down placeholders, as will other players. Some people will just put down 1fp like a lottery ticket and hope the building owner levels the GB while they are in a paying slot. What you will find happen, is that multiply people will put down 1fp, then someone will put down 2fp to just get ahead. This will creep up little by little, all the while not locked, but profitable. Then someone will cross the line, and make a donation that will push you down to the point you are unprofitable. The Spite Snip is when that person’s slot is not locked, and you can out bid them, only that it would cost you more fp than you are losing already, your only reward being, that by sniping them you making sure it is locked you make sure they lose too.
The consequences[]
As mentioned before, some people don’t like you donating on their GB without permission first because they are saving a spot for a guild mate or friend. I’ve experienced retaliation in various forms. one player wrote me a message saying I’m suppose to ask first. Ahh, no, if you were suppose to ask first, there would be an ask button. One player attacked my city after I landed a very nice snip on their GB. Another player un-friended me. So be prepared for some backlash, but that’s just a sign that your doing it right.