Vanilla Strategy (in General)

The only thing that stays the same in CB are the changes and the fact that no-one ever manages to really guess what they're going to be in advance - kudos Jon.

Given that there are, and always will be changes to the game as it evolves and matures, do you think there is such a thing as a "Vanilla Strategy" (one strat suits all).

Can a balanced character be created that although not setting the place on fire, will always be able to ride the changes picking up small boosts and suffering small drops on the journey through the game ?

Is it possible for a single strat to be started and grown unchanged, eventually coming to the top as the months (and change months) roll on...?

If it exists - what is it ?

some millions of USD

Pretty easy,

Right now a SMTOE is still quite powerful, does not need NW and in the future can hire minions, get tank items for a conversion to a tank/tank team if needed.

Almost all the SMTOE's in existance now still have a score>PR.

A Big ELB on a ToA minion, behind a big wall, behind a little Enchanter.

if you played cb1 a while ago, id say a good vanilla strat would be protest boys. he had tow tanks and two coc mages. thats a pretty balanced team, and can ride out fluxes in tank bonuses and mage bonuses...

Soul, TTMM has been a good example of balance. It is also a good example a team that wallows slightly below 1.00 for a score/PR ratio unless you hat tons to spend on the tank gear. Now that NW is wrapped into PR, even that won't necessarily make such a strat viable.

I have been informed my answer was wrong as I did not read the part that you start and grow as the same, unchanged.

Therefore I would say a EEMM team would be best as Tanks frequently get the most changes. AS, AMF/GA, MM, COC

yup.. generally:
a balanced strat "survives" changes easier, and can kill more sorts of chars. normally they are often more tough to change dramatically too.

a killer strat, (with one aspect taken to extreme), is vulnerable to changes, and kills lesser but bigger targets.. they are easier to change dramatical, and tougher to finetune. (Ride-the-current-wave strats)

my first char here was named Hypnotoad, and belonged to the first group.. But I got bored, since I like the second group :)

Im stil pretty much a newbie, though the strat ive finnaly settled on seems to work fairly well, and woudlent be hit hard by any changes. Start out with an enchanter of choice, i use AS, and it promotes my strat. Lightly armor him. Next up have a Tank, followed by 1 MM mages / second enchant, then one 100% MM mage. This provides the maximum protection for your high level mm mage, while usign the enchanter as a meatsheild. When your first mm dies, you dont loose as much damage because of the enchants and mm. Look at me for an example.

Oh and if this strat sucks, please tell me, but dont be mean :)

Heh. I have the most expensive strategy of all I believe. But it is fairing pretty well with all the changes so far and the score:PR ratio stays the same. I might move the order of the minions or change their armor from one to the other but the basic strategy has survived so far. GO TANKS! and TANKS RULE!

I vote for a basic EMT strat...Ya don't have to shell out quite as much cash for tank gear as a two tank team, have less exp split than a 4 minon team, and can still take and deal out considerable damage with, say, only a modest investment in a decent bow/melee weapon for your PR.

I ran a EMT for awhile on CB1 and generally was able to keep 2x score vs my PR. Also since I wasn't able to get my hands on any ultra rare equipment, none of the nerfs ever effected me. Well equipped single tanks gave me the worst trouble, but all in all it's still a fairly strong strat.

Solo FB mage. CBF isn't common enough, and with solo PR gain you can get enough HP, FB, AMF and GA / prot to ride any wave.

My character has been able to ride the changes pretty well throughout the months. Just a simple TM, can't get much simpler then that, doesn't really light up the scoreboards or anything though.

I would think "solo" anything would suggest a one way alley that would be very vulnerable to change.

Personally I like a balanced EETM set up.

EETM strategy is the most versatile strategy, not relying too much on the damage of the tank, because of a backup mage.

also possibilities to have GA to do damage as well as AS for more life and VA for more leaching to make the tank live longer.

the 2 E's make great meat shields against normal weapons (and normal ammo) and can have AMF and perhaps some other nifty strategy things

My AMF/VA/BL ET char Skucum does moderately well. I've been using a ToJ, but recently got my hands on a ToA and am looking forward to seeing how that changes things.

Not a killer strat by any means, but considering Jon's focus on balance I believe it is a solid long-term strat that can ride out change months without sinking

As I said.. Killer strat will be more vulnerable to changes, but also more easy/cheap XPWise to change..

although not setting the place on fire, will always be able to ride the changes

I can vouch for EETM fitting that criterion.

My vote goes to EETM too; that was my strat for a long time until I decided to ditch my mage in spite of SMTOE syndrome. It's pretty 'vanilla' and doesn't have a strong or weak point, but holds its own at medium levels. AS, GA, tank, CoC/archery seems to hold out quite nicely against most other 'average' strats.

My strategy seems to work well. If the toj gets messed with/changed for the worse I can always switch to a dd tattoo. I like my strategy it should ride nicely for quite a while.

I'm running ETM with a ToJ (that may be switched for a ToE if I could ever test one on it) and so far I have yet to feel the bite of any changes (or at least very hard).

My mage makes up for my lack of NW, my tank saves my mage some cover from completely ant-mage teams, and my enchanter, well he protects me (somewhat) from single mage teams.

My only real bane is a CoBF (my mage has fireball, and my tank would get smashed), and there are what, like 25 of those? Basically my strat isn't great, but leaves all my bases pretty much covered, and once I get a CoBF for myself, it will be real nice.

As suggested by others, EETM.
Either a ToA on the tank (with archery), or a a ToE on the CoC mage. Train AMF and AS on the enchanters.
You cannot get plainer vanilla than that: the worst that could happen is that you would have to re-train the AMF to something else.

For some chocolate flavour, add seekers to the tank, e\o a CoBF on the mage.

TTTT or EEET

I am eeet with a toj familiar as a meat shield with massive dx....not many changes affect me. nothing major anyway. my plan when i thought of this strat was to be able to win against most different strats at my pr. this lets me fight up in score and pr for big rewards too.