Backyard Monsters Dealing With Jumpers and Empire Wreckers Guide

Backyard Monsters Dealing With Jumpers and Empire Wreckers Guide by Monster Masher

One day you log on, have lost 5 outposts, & there are one or more nasty looking black diamond yards sitting like a cockroaches in the midst of your empire. You’ve been jumped.

Jumping is a game strategy to reduce the size of empires. This is done by taking ownership of a player outpost, moving the main yard to that spot, and then moving again, which leaves a wild monster space erasing the outpost. Jumping is considered valid game play.

This is what happened to you.
1. The jumper(attacking player) was invited to or took over a spot within flinger range of one your outpost. They then likely farmed the area to replenish their silos.
2. They attacked & claimed your outpost for 2mil. Jumpers often don’t have outposts elsewhere, so they can buy your first 5 ouposts for 2 million each.
3. Then they relocated their main yard to what is now their outpost. Or they invited friends in to claim your old outpost locations. When they are able to jump again, the space they occupied reverts back to a Wild Monster hex once they move their yard.
4. They will likely repeat steps 1 – 3 until you have no outposts or just thin you out to return wild monsters to the area.

Why did this happen to you?
1. Someone you once attacked waited for revenge.
2. Your starving neighbors solicited a jumper to forcibly remove your surrounding outposts. (You did not space out your outposts & your empire looks like a plate of M&M;’s.)
3. Another alliance is downsizing your alliance (reducing your empire rating).
4. Someone decided you were good sport, they just like jumping, & get a thrill from gobbling through your empire.
5. All of the above. War is unfair & the game is about war.

You can take the fun out of jumping. You are not helpless.

Call for help.
1. Message your alliance leader with “URGENT: I am under attack by a hostile jumper(name) located at hex(hex location) from Alliance(name). Please respond.” Your alliance should have a plan for when jumpers appear.
2. Message neighbors with same message.
Note: You can follow up with them later. Deal with the jumper’s yard immediately.

Protect your ouposts & resources.
1. If you are an alliance of one, activate all powerups. When the power ups run out, and if you have the funds, you can buy what the store sells.
2. Don’t let your outposts sit destroyed without damage potection. Either keep destroyed outposts repaired so that they can’t just buy it, or have allies keep your endangered outposts in a state of constant damage protection. (See Alternate Strategies & Current Oupost Damage Protection Rules below) Make jumpers use monsters and spend resources. This will slow them down some. If your outposts are spaced wide apart and you have the shiny, buy 24 damage protection for the endangered outposts while you regroup and organize.
3. Upgrade higher level weapon towers to hide resources from being stolen. Fill a few yards with a few 100 DAVE’s to hide your goo. Cancel upgrades/DAVEs’ later to get back your resources.
Note: Hiding resources in hatcheries and upgrades is a risk. These few outposts must be away from the fray. This is a temporary thing. If you have 30+ outposts, hiding goo in 2 outposts spaced far apart gives you pretty good odds. Odds sre not so good if you have only 10 outposts all clustered withing reach of the jumper or his allies.
4. Upgrade all of your catapults and flingers to level 4 for maximum reach. You are doing this to have access to the largest possible attacking army.
Note: remember. If you have high end outposts these catapults and flingers can be used against you too.
5. Your yard should have radio tower built to email your cell phone when you are attacked.

Fight back. Keep the jumper poor and elements of his yard constantly destroyed. Here are some suggestions.
1. Destroy the monster pens, thus killing what’s inside, with whatever monsters has the best chances of destroying them quickly.
2. Destroy the catapult & flinger.
Note: If you have oceans of resources, catapult the yard constantly. This is what 250 harvesters are good for.
Try not to put his/her yard into damage protection. You don’t want him to be able to stock up his pens and gather resources. Keep the catatpult, flinger, & pens down. Hatcheries repair quick so they are a lower priority.
3. Starve the jumper. Destroy anything the jumper may be feeding on such as wild monster tribes, enemy outposts, etc. This may require destroying neighboring allied outposts. Message them to explain the situation. If neighbors aren’t responding or assisting you, you must destroy them because they are food. Look to see if he is feeding on a neighbors outpost for resources but not claiming it. This person may be helping the jumper and we will deal with them too. Leave nothing for jumper to feed on. Nothing.

Jumping is seldom done alone. Punish those responsible for assistance. Empires are cruel and harsh in their punishments. If you want to be an empire you have to act like an emperor.
1. Look for a shared alliance. If you are an alliance of one, set the Jumper’s alliance to “Hostile” to see all around you who are apart of that alliance. It is easy to forget who is hostile over time. Keep lists of jumpers, abettors, and thier alliances.
2. Message the jumper & their alliance leader P-O-L-I-T-E-L-Y requesting that the jumper immediately leave your area. Only if the Jumper leaves your area has hostilities actually ceased. Note: DO NOT wait for a response from anyone before acting. You are under attack & must respond immediately.
3. Destroy all hostile neighbors mercilessly including his allies or anyone else you believe responsible.
4. Save truce requests enemies send you but don’t use them yet. After jumper has moved on, re-destroy everyone who sent you a truce request and then accept all the truces. Let them know you won’t be so nice next time.

Additional Strategies:
1. Identify your outposts that are within 4 to 6 hex of the jumper and the jumper’s allies, if any. Ask your allies/neighbors to destroy your outposts to put them into maximum length Damage Protection. Know when the DP will drop and repeat this with your allies to keep your outposts “Bubbled”.
2. Try to get friends to jump to the outposts you are going to loose anyway to help fight the Jumper and his ally(allies).
3. Message the jumper’s alliance leader to join the jumper’s Alliance if he stops immediately.

Current Outpost Damage Protection Rules:
1) You have up to three attacks on an outpost to do as much damage as possible.
2) If after the 3rd attack, the outpost is 25% damaged or more it gets 8 hours of damage protection.
3) If after three attacks, the outpost is less than 25% damaged, you can keep attacking until it reaches or surpasses 25% damaged. Then it gets 8 hours of damage protection.
4) If you destroy an outpost in one attack it does not get damage protection.
5) When damage protection lifts(ends) the rules above go back into effect.
Note: If you have allies destroy your outposts to get damage protection, be sure they use three attacks and reach the 25% damage needed to be “bubbled”.

Current Yard Relocation Rules:
UPDATE: Jumpers currently have a 7 day cool down timer before they can relocate their yard again using resources. There is no timer if 1500 shiny is used to jump. Thus jumpers may now appear in groups of 3 or more.

War is about intimidation, timing, and resources. Empires aren’t bad. Jumpers and empires are two sides of the same coin really.
Remember you only own your own yard. Everything else on the map is community property.

Everyone has their own opinions on the topic. Please feel free to share your strategies/stories/wisdom as jumper or defender. Just don’t post or whine if you have nothing to add to the topic. Blind opinion is boring. Anyway…. hope this helps someone.

It would be nice to have more stategy guides on this topic to make flash wars more fun for both sides. (I’ll fix typos as I catch them.)