A Painless Mobilising Armies Guide

[Seike]

First off, no one hates mobilising armies more than me. This game is one of the worst-designed and least functional or fun minigames in RuneScape. For this reason, I suspect it will only be a matter of time before Jagex modifies this very unpopular minigame. Since there's no guarantee when or if this will happen or if it will make the rewards easier (or harder) to get than now, there might be no time like the present to get its rewards.

For our Title-initiative, this game can help us out because it is one source of acquiring in-game titles for "free."

For being so awful, the game has pretty decent rewards when you imbue a ring to give it stat bonuses. Thankfully it is also decently AFK-able.

Game info: http://runescape.wikia.com/wiki/Mobilising_Armies

Advice for getting the rewards in the least painful way possible:

You have to play on a M.A. Specific world. The game won't let you play on other worlds. I use w76.

Investment tips:

On this page you can see a list of commodities and what their yield is in Investment Credit. The column on the far right is what you look at. The higher the ratio, the more useful it is. As you can see, SEEDS such as jute seeds, hammerstone seeds, marigold seeds, and asgarnian seeds are the highest yield per GP spent. Additionally, it just so happens that all of these seeds are commonly sold on the GE (or dropped beside GE, for that matter.) Since many of these seeds go for ~1gp ea... you can actually purchase investment credits at a very low cost to your bank.

There are two things you need to imbue your ring of choice.

1) Ranking

2) Reward Credits

Advancing Ranking:

Ranking is by far the more time-consumining of the two if you're interested in imbueing good rings. If you win a game you get +2 ranking, but if you lose you still get +1 ranking.

The following method gives you consistent, quick (relatively) ranking (But will yield only 100/200/300 (depending on your "class") reward credits per round):

-Unlock the "Seige" mode by playing conflict at least once.

-Outfit all of your squads as light.

-Invest no credits as your "wager" for the scenario.

-Order all of your squads to attack the castle wall. Let your units die. While they're attacking the wall, you can go make a ham sandwich or afk in a manner of your choice.

-Restock your units between games, hop back in the waiting room as soon as you get out of the game. It costs 500 investment tokens to completely restock between games.

-If you wish, you can also purchase cannons as a special unit and use them to kill of your own squads so as to keep the games closer to exactly 4 minutes. This costs more investment credits, however, 300 for each cannon.

You're required to make at least ten actions in the game, so if you just tell all your squads to attack the wall that covers that. To gain a rank you also need to last at least four minutes in the game, so if someone's coming to kill you just run around until the clock shows 26 minutes remaining. You can only gain 12 ranks per hour, so even if you were to win six games in a row, you're not going to be gaining any more ranks in an hour than someone who doesn't try at all and virtually AFKs it.

The "die on the wall" strategy is popular enough so that you shouldn't really have to worry about the other players in the game. Occasionally some jerk might try and kill you before 4 minutes, so keep that in mind. If you want to go for the "wins" by outlasting or attacking the other players, be my guest but it will almost always make the game take longer, suck up your investment tokens into special units and as often as not give you no more reward credits because the game ended too early and there's a huge negative modifier for that. I prefer not trying at all, myself.

To access the first floor of the building and be able to imbue dragonstone rings, you need 200+ ranking. To access the second floor and be able to imbue berserker, onyx, etc, you need 300+ ranking. It takes 8.3 hours to get +100 ranking going at a 12 rank per hour rate.

Gaining Reward Credits:

You also need a decent sum of reward credits in order to purchase the imbue for your rings. The only real way to get this is to do the conflict scenario (As the games usually end too quickly in seige and it gives you a sharp negative modifier). To get a good return on your investment you'll need to win by beating the enemy's troops and this game be quite maddening as the game requires extreme amounts of micromanaging and tedium.

Tips:

I use only heavy squads. I use two different types of units (Elves and Dwarves, personally) and make a point to use the dwarves to kill all goblins and use elves to kill all dwarves. Enemies don't seem to run heavily elven teams as often, in my opinion. Since investment points are easily obtained, wager the maximum (starting is 10k, I believe) that you can each round. You won't actually "lose" this even if you lose the game, you just don't get the winning modifier. Go for kills, they give you an advantage in numbers and also give you a bonus at the end in reward tokens if you happen to lose.

You also need to use special squads unless it's clear that you're not facing someone who knows how to play the game. I've found that glider bomber and distractor to be very useful. Timed and positioned right, the distractor can freeze all of the enemy's troops and allow you to attack them for like 15 seconds. This can be a big advantage. The gliders deal a significant amount of very specific damage and can give you the upper hand in the contest. You want to use the special squads earlier as opposed to later so as to maximize their subsequent impact on the remaining forces. That said, you don't have to do it at the very start of the battle. Use them as necessary.

Make use of the "special terrain" around the map. I hop between special terrain spots when making my approach on the enemy. Attacking from this terrain gives you an advantage (I believe defensively) in combat. You can even use this terrain to "tank" if all of the enemy squads are on a single one of your squads.

Also keep in mind grouping. It can give people nightmares trying to figure out which squad each of their squads is attacking. If you stay in a tightly-knit group you'll make it harder for the enemy to pick one clear target out. Make sure that your squads are idle as little of the time as possible after the fighting begins.

Alternative way to gain reward credits: (Requires 4 people)

Four friends get together and take turns pre-deciding the winner before each round. The winner invests the full amount of tokens possible into the scenario and uses heavy squads. The losers invest nothing and use light squads. In order to get a decent reward token payout at the end you should play for at least 10 minutes of game time (or else you get a large negative modifier). You have to pre-select a game type that no one plays, like hoard or rescue. So, before you begin, make sure that each participant has played one game of conflict and seige in order to access those later game types.

If you win the scenario, you seem to gain roughly twice the amount of investment credits you wagered in reward credits. This also depends on the time it took you to end the scenario.

WHYCARE?

The very versatile Onyx ring (i): http://runescape.wikia.com/wiki/Onyx_ring_(i)

The very powerful berserker ring (i): http://runescape.wikia.com/wiki/Berserker_ring_(i)

The reasonable to obtain dragonstone ring (i): http://runescape.wikia.com/wiki/Dragonstone_ring_(i)

As you gain ranking you unlock the ability to use the following titles:

Junior Cadet

Serjeant

Commander

War-Chief

Edited April 5, 2012 by Ythaar Seike

[Bryce]

Seike question, why are u still retired?

nice guide

Edited April 7, 2012 by FreeBall In

[India777]

Seike question, why are u still retired?

lol

but very nice seike very helpful

[Cpatel23]

didn't think anyone still played mobilising armies or stealing creations.

best minigame in rs is dungoneering.

[Moto Bro]

didn't think anyone still played mobilising armies or stealing creations.

best minigame in rs is dungoneering.

We usually have at least one Stealing Creations event per month if not more. I enjoy SC but I've avoided MA all these years because of what I've heard people say about it. I guess this guide gives me a good excuse to start playing it now though. Thanks, Seike!

[Krista Dash]

im rank 480+ haha i play too much MA but i still refuse to put the title infront of my name seike!

[ReDrOc]

Nice guide but I probably wont ever do that

[thegreatwha]

Posting here to say "I read this, and actually found it helpful", even after all this time.

 

So nowadays lots of people play this game for the Trim Comp Requirement. Of course they could be playing it for many other reasons still (Rings, for fun, or whatever). I figure in the long-run I might go for this goal (Trim Comp Cape), though it is not a priority in any way at the moment. 

 

On 4/2/2012 at 3:40 PM, Seike said:

The following method gives you consistent, quick (relatively) ranking (But will yield only 100/200/300 (depending on your "class") reward credits per round):

-Unlock the "Seige" mode by playing conflict at least once.

-Outfit all of your squads as light.

-Invest no credits as your "wager" for the scenario.

-Order all of your squads to attack the castle wall. Let your units die. While they're attacking the wall, you can go make a ham sandwich or afk in a manner of your choice.

-Restock your units between games, hop back in the waiting room as soon as you get out of the game. It costs 500 investment tokens to completely restock between games.

-If you wish, you can also purchase cannons as a special unit and use them to kill of your own squads so as to keep the games closer to exactly 4 minutes. This costs more investment credits, however, 300 for each cannon.

You're required to make at least ten actions in the game, so if you just tell all your squads to attack the wall that covers that. To gain a rank you also need to last at least four minutes in the game, so if someone's coming to kill you just run around until the clock shows 26 minutes remaining. You can only gain 12 ranks per hour, so even if you were to win six games in a row, you're not going to be gaining any more ranks in an hour than someone who doesn't try at all and virtually AFKs it.

The "die on the wall" strategy is popular enough so that you shouldn't really have to worry about the other players in the game. Occasionally some jerk might try and kill you before 4 minutes, so keep that in mind. If you want to go for the "wins" by outlasting or attacking the other players, be my guest but it will almost always make the game take longer, suck up your investment tokens into special units and as often as not give you no more reward credits because the game ended too early and there's a huge negative modifier for that. I prefer not trying at all, myself.

That aside, I played this game for the first time today, and everything you described above I saw people doing. Reading your descriptions and explanations has helped me "make sense" of the player behavior I noticed in the game. Now everything I watch in this game isn't just complete madness and confusion. With that, just want to say again, thanks.

 

However it was clear all playing were using this method you described with playing Siege and just storming the castle. I did, however, notice one player was not storming the wall, it seemed so they could try and be the last alive and get that extra credit. When I noticed this I then started storming that player and ignoring the castle (again, I wasn't thinking of this strategy, just playing the game thinking last one standing wins; I suppose I was playing to win). This choice of engagement on both our parts turned the whole Siege scenario into a Combat scenario. Only thing is I barely had an idea what I was doing. Funny though, the player went from docile doing nothing to active about 5min into contact. Maybe I interrupted them preparing their ham sandwich?   

 

I imagined this game to be a real pain in the ars, but to my surprise it wasn't too bad. In fact I found this game a bit of fun. I can't say I hated it, mainly because I actually enjoy strategy games like this (board games like Risk or old NES/SNES games like Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Ghengis Khan, Nobunaga's Revenge, etc. (released by Koei).  Not that Mobilizing armies carries all the traits and strategy of these games, but it is in general like a more mobile game of chess, in a way. The game still could use either a graphic overhaul or some new programming. Still difficult to see units as they flash and disappear at-times depending on your viewing position and angle. It seems like they never made too many improvements over the years, but then again, I haven't played this game ever so I really have a point of reference to make any comparison, apart from some of the screen interfaces which do follow the now RS2/Old School Runescape format, or whatever it's called (someone in this forum can correct me on this and explain it better).

 

Edited August 1, 2018 by thegreatwha

[Seike]

Glad it was helpful! I'm surprised this minigame hasn't undergone a massive overhaul. I guess there are just bigger fish to fry. I agree about strategy games and I actually found the minigame that's somewhat like chess (maybe it was called Conquest?) To be really fun. 

[thegreatwha]

On 8/7/2018 at 4:41 PM, Seike said:

I agree about strategy games and I actually found the minigame that's somewhat like chess (maybe it was called Conquest?) To be really fun. 

That's right. It's one of the Void Knights mini-games called 'Conquest'. Just played it the other day for the first time.

[shallow]

I gotta keep this in mind for next time its on spotlight, gotta get to the trim requirement ty very much!