Offence » 12 ways to tell if a player is online (by jaq)

Of all the elements which decide the success of an attack, the offline or online status of the defender is most crucial. The online defender can set up ambushes, regenerate layers and fortify his towns. Even if you manage to break the defenses, an online defender can still truce, teleport, use speech scripts, comforting, ask for help, or send reinforcements from another town ? preventing conquest. For this reason, pro players almost never try to take a town from a defender they know is online, and even then, only if there is some special tactical reason for doing so. Because of the importance of knowing the online times of a potential opponent, the pro player should always have an arsenal of methods for determining the online status of his targets. I call this status detection. I?ve compiled twelve effective techniques ? meant to be used in conjunction for determining whether a potential target is online:

1. Scouting: In addition to vital information, merely scouting creates a status detection opportunity. Most players reflexively heal slain troops ? including scouts. If a defending player heals scouts you?ve wiped, you know he?s online. This same principle can be applied to the regeneration of layers, if you?ve already attacked the player and killed some or all of his layers.

2. Valley Theft: A sense of property ownership and the need to defend property are deeply rooted within the human psyche. So when you take a valley from another player, they will almost always attempt to take it back immediately. Naturally, you can use this to tell if they?re online. And if you should take a valley from a player while they sleep, recall troops and leave it there. They?ll probably attempt to take it back as soon as they log back in ? providing you precise information about their online times.

3. Resource Use: An offline player can?t spend resources. If you have been scouting a player, and see a sudden drop in resources that doesn?t coincide with a drop in loyalty/defenses (indicating an attack), then the player is certainly online. Players, however, can GAIN resources while offline, due to normal resource generation, and market sales.

4. Report Scanning: The pro player looks at every war report available to him in order to best understand his enemy. If your enemy attacks with any degree of frequency, he should leave a chronological footprint of his onlines times in your reports, and the reports of his other enemies. By studying them, you should look for a gap, generally 8-5 hours in which he never lands an attack. This is when he sleeps.

5. NPC Patterns: Players will sometimes drastically vary their actions in order to prevent you from discovering their sleep times. Perhaps the easiest way to cut through this fog is to scout their NPC?s. Doing so is undetectable to them and will allow you to see when they farmed it. NPC?s regenerate 1.25% of their total resource value every 6 minutes. So if an NPC has 12.5% of its resource value in it when you scout it, you know it was farmed an hour ago. Next, measure the length of time it would require for his transports/ballistas to reach the NPC from his town. If you have a similar HBR, you can make an estimate just by picking a point of similar distance from your own town and seeing how long it takes to reach it.

6. Whispers: Talking to a player can be an easy way to discover their status. It is most effective when the player does not suspect an attack from you, or when you make the message particularly enticing sounding. For example, if you are messaging an enemy, a ?Hi? is much less likely to elicit a response than, ?Nice move the other night.? In general, people are most likely to respond to compliments, insults, and proposals. Obviously, if a person responds to a whisper, it means they are online. If they do not, it doesn?t necessarily mean they are offline.

7. Mails: Similar to the whisper tactic, establishing a conversation via mail can be an effective method for determining a player?s online times. You?ll want to space your mails out at least an hour apart each. This will allow you to look for gaps in your target?s response times. That gap is when he sleeps.

8. Personal Info: You may find it helpful to know if your victim works, where they live, if they go to school or not. Their location will tell you their time zone, and thus, the range of their most likely sleep times. If they work, then they probably have additional blocks of time of absence separate from sleep time. Knowing the nature of their job can help you in your estimates. For example, someone doing an office job will almost certainly work during the day, while a club bouncer will probably work at night. All of this information can be found through discussions with the victim, or those that know them.

9. Internet Footprint: In addition to Evony, your target likely uses many other functions the internet has to offer ? all of these provide potential data for their online times. One of my favorite tactics is to ask a neutral friend to begin a dialogue on an instant messaging program. The majority of instant messaging programs indicate whether or not contacts, such as your victim, are online or not. In addition, many record the precise times of messages, giving you detailed histories to work with. On top of instant messengers, there?s also forums, social networking sites, etc., which can provide you information on opponents.

10. Attack Fakes: Any player worth his salt will attempt to prevent attacks on his cities. A popular method of doing so is by ambushing attacking troops. Send an attack at a city which will be easy to reinforce for your opponent, but isn?t yet all that well guarded. Be sure to scout first. Send a scout to hit (as a scouting mission) in the exact same second as the attack. Recall your attack at the last possible second. If the victim attempts to reinforce, you know he?s online.

11. Spying: Good ole? fashioned spying. One of the many perks in crushing an alliance, is a few of its members will begin trading information for protection. Spy info is easy to come by and shouldn?t be overlooked. Spies can help you with many of the other methods, in addition to having access to logged sign-in times in the alliance tab.

12. Spreadsheeting: If you?re having difficulty getting an iron lock on a person?s online times, it may help to gather all of the data you have and put it on a spreadsheet. This will help you compile larger amounts of data and discover nuanced patterns. This is particularly useful against people that are adept at hiding their patterns or have very fluid online times.

It generally takes about 3 days of tracking to get a lock on a victim?s patterns. Some will be more predictable than others. There is never a 100% way to know if a person is online at any given second or not. You have to play the probabilities to get the highest possible chance of success. Happy status detecting!