zif guide
There are two types of ships
attack ships and merchant ships
attack ships are like sloops, dhows, WBs etc.
merchant ships are like cutters, MBs etc.
okay, i'll start off with fighting cutters, since thats usually the easiest, at least for me
actually before i get into it
i want to mention some standard tips
the first one is that they will ALWAYS go and try to grapple you as soon as possible
so the first couple of turns, try backing off and keeping some distance, the first thing i like to do is look at the entire board and find a nice place with few obstacles and try and move there on my first couple of turns"
BUT use the turns that you are using to move, to keep track of what the opponent does, i memorise it, but i know some people make little sticky notes or whatever on their computer"
there are a couple of standard positions that almost all ships do the same thing in"
we'll go over them in the game gardens"
what do you mean keep track of moves?"
for example, while you're moving to your place, notice what moves the other ship makes"
just wait, i'll come back to it"
merchant ships"\
you'll see that merchant ships usually go straight a lot"
meaning they'll do things like left straight straight straight"
and left right straight straight"
each ship is slightly different though and has what i like to call a signature move"
some common ones are right right right blank"
or certain dhows"
or cutters a really common one is left blank straight straight"
so when you're moving keep track of what the other ship is doing"
notice the set moves it does"
ah"
so attack ships go right and left a lot"
you'll see them doing things like left right left straight"
and right right right straight"
oh and the other thing i forgot to mention"
you want to take some chances and make super random sneaky hits in the first place"
in the first few turns if you think there's a chance you'll hit them, put a shot in"
then after you've gotten 2-3 hits in, you'll notice that they'll start to slow down, make less moves, and now you can start trying to get behind them if its an attack type ship or infront of them and make them turn into you if"
is a merchant ship"
and then you want to be super careful, at this point they should be super low on moves, and you want to NEVER get anywhere near where they could possibly shoot you from"
the ship will be spending a lot of turns just shooting from both sides"
so you want to get around it and behind it or infront of it"
and then just keep on hitting it"
and hitting it"
until your hit:miss ratio is pretty good like 50/50"
so just the key things: choose a good spot, sneaky shots at the start, monitor moves, then be cautious, make them run out of moves, be super cautious, get behind/infront and then overmax"
also never shoot four shots all at once, only shoot three maximum and try not to last second move as much as possible"
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