OK, I decided to start this thread with the idea to show that you can be an MG top player too. This will not happen right after you read this but ... you can try - it just takes a little practice. After seeing so many people join the MG servers and forums it's worth to have a one-stop shop for beginners (and not only them). Mind you, though, that your first stop should be the :arrow: FAQ, of course .
I am in full awareness that I alone can't exhaust all possible effective strategies but I will focus on a few important aspects of the game. I also hope that your questions/ comments/ ideas will help me fill the gaps - this thread is meant to be edited in time. Soooo here we go:

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MANHUNTS
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I don't know whoever had this "brilliant" idea of playing a game by just clicking and waiting for a good result to happen in order to gain experience --> level up(without putting any actual thought into clicking the manhunt button) but he/ she was surely a bored and lazy office worker who wanted to kill office hours ... Anyway, I have discovered that you may just try some tactics even here:

1. Do your manhunts in 6x10 min or 12x10 min portions - the only reason I should choose a larger than 10 minutes would be if I didn't have enough time to cover all my MH time right before server reset

2. Some players claim that when you start doing manhunts you should stop doing them once you start getting small villages and try again after 30 min or so. I've tried that with non-conclusive results but I noticed that I have better luck when I do MH on even number of the hour (this may differ depending on where you are or what server you play on).

3. Yes they are random and this is the feeling you'll get whatever you try but .... manhunts are created by a machine and even though randomness is the main factor here I should say all machines work in cycles and quite a few players use this fact to their advantage:
- imagine the cycle consists of a 5-second period giving (depending on your level) 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 xp points. What can be done is experiment with a clock on your pc (I have an analog one on top right of my screen) and click the MH button on exactly one of these five seconds and see what the result is. Once you get a 10 xp result you should continue clicking the button on exactly the same second. When luck changes (often happens after 5-6 successful manhunts) try clicking on a different second.

-another theory similar to the above mentioned is that the click should happen after your MH time has finished:
st0rm wrote:



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GETTING GOLD
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This is probably one of the two most important aspects of the game since it provides you with the opportunity to have enough money to upgrade your stats and equipment so that you have more victories and even more gold. Unofficially the highscore sorted by gold looted from battles is the one criteria that can give you an idea of how strong you are in MG world, and the comparison may be carried even in terms of comparing characters from different servers. So how do you get it?

1. Joining a clan could be really helpful. Clans usually have forums and if it's a good clan they would update their list of gold leaking targets often enough so that it stays fresh and yield good gold hits 70-80 % of the time. It works really simple - you hit someone, they give you 100 gold + and you post their name on clan forum. The player you hit will have to gather that sum of money again and if your clanmates hit the target again they will have to gain the money again and again keeping the target poor and you and your clanmates rich .

2. Later on, when you have a bit higher level of character you may try to make your hits more effective by using the method so nicely described by Vision. It does require a very good coordiantion by clanmates but gives excellent results. The point is that at a later stage in the game you should be aiming at averaging 100 gold per hit or more so that you stay ahead of the other players.

3. This one requires a bit of practice but results are amazing. It's called player watching and has many variations but the essence is the same.
- you choose a protion of the highscore that matches your ability ( you don't want to attack players that will hit you hard or even worse win against you). I find this very helpful if you are not a very high level.
-open a notepad and copy the highscore portion there
-wait 10-15 min (but no more) and open another notepad
-refresh the highscore list and copy it to the new notepad window you have just opened
-now put the two notepads next to each other and compare them - if a player has moved up then he/she has manhunted --> attack them. If they haven't safetied you get lots of gold .
-after 2-3 successful hits you should repeat the above steps but this time just copy the highscore from your second notepad window to the first (you need to delete everything form here before doing that) and refresh the highscore again copying it to the second notepad window (again you should remove everything before you do so)

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ANCESTORS
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nice htread here and a little quote thanks to jbcoops



My thoughts: a) make sure your stats are double your level b) Princes are usually more generous to you and c) do 12-15 successful battles at lvl 20, then same number at 40 etc and NOT more because you want to balance your real stats and ancestor fights.

[to be continued]

Just for clarification purposes ... do you mean click on the continue button to start the mainhunt ... or click on the refresh link or Raid button once the manhunt time has expired ?

Some interesting stuff there ... thanks for the info and for the link to Visions post.

Thanks

FoRa!

I mean the click to begin MH

Click on the "refresh" link of "raid" button once the manhunt time expired. This is when you connect to the server and ask for the result. The starting time of manhunt is meaningless.

I think zulu means, that once your MH expired and you clicked the refresh button with in that period you'll get a good loot, once you get a good loot. Example, you get a LC 2 seconds after MH expires, always refresh every 2 seconds after, you'll get a good MH loot.

I tried it before when i am not too busy in the office and is proven.

It works, indeed. However, you forgot to mention the timing for which you get dustbins/lamposts or any such "decorative" things you might run into when manhunting.

Oh, thanks Byte but I seem to have been a bit confusing in my explanation . I meant clicking to start mh and not clicking on a certain second after finishing mh .

Actually I haven't tested the clicking/ refreshing after mh raid has finished but what I posted as a method is much easier to follow - once you click to start mh, you can always check which second you actually clicked. Due to server/ i-net connection lag what storm is suggesting might be true but really difficult to check - you don't see the MG clock seconds counting so you never know if you clicked e.g. the 00 second or 01 second from the 5 second cycle. I'll have to test that anyway and report in my first post here . If anyone knows for sure a better method of testing what st0rm and Byte are suggesting please feel free to add input.

I tried the thing with clicking after the manhunt is over and it depends on server lag time or connection speed, therefore it doesn't always give the best results.
Checking the second when you started the manhunt means that you have to click "refresh" immediately after the manhunt is over or can you click at any desired time after that?
It seems a bit strange to me since it is when you click "refresh" after the manhunt that server "choses" the outcome. When you click to start the manhunt you are just telling the server that you'll be busy for the next xxx minutes. I am not sure whether it has any influence on the outcome of the results unless you click on the same second when the counter reaches 0 and turns into "refresh" link (and then we come again to the server lag / connection speed dependency or even the case when the "raid" page appears as if you didn't start the manhunt yet).

Ok, I think this is a valid point there st0rm ... I'll add it to the guide.

(Precious piece of advice marked as sticky.)

I would also like to add something not sure if you will all agree though

when performing a random attack on a "lower or equal level" you tend to get a lot of lvl 1's or i do any way

but what i look for to see if they were created by some other vampire (or werewolf if you are a vampire) if you click on this then you will see them and 9 times out of 10 they are a higher level so will yield more gold if you can attack them

one time i did a random fight asnd it was a lvl 1 created by a lvl 5 who was created by a lvl 20 who was created by a lvl 31. i managed to beat the lvl 31 and they gave me 200 odd gold and the lvl 1 had only 3

so look to see if they were created by someone and attack the creator as they tend to have more gold

i must admit i do similar if i dont get much from my original victim i try their creator but this is a bit off topic so i will say no more till i have something more constructive to add

ive gotten 100% small villages the last 3 day, im new to MG but when i started i used to get quite alot of blood and money and now i barely get a couple of liters... anyone got any tip... am ni doing something wrong?

Well, most players here will tell you it's pure luck. If you like you may look at the first post and try some of the suggested manhunt strategies.

Slight update on ancestors added to first post