I have borrowed images from Settlers Online Wiki pages. However having read their guide, I don’t find it the easiest of things to follow.
Troops
Hopefully as a child you will have played a game with your hands called rock, paper and scissors. PVP is based on the same principles, one type of troop has an advantage over another type as shown in the below triangle.
Infantry have an advantage over Cavalry, Cavalry have advantage over Archer, Archer have advantage over Infantry. If you want to play PVP you MUST learn this triangle.
Camps
Over the camp tells you want is in it. So in the example we have 60 cavalry, 60 archer and a Metal Tooth Boss (note his cav symbol). This is where Wiki really helps, by telling you troops you need. I need 58 Infantry and 38 Cavalry to win the camp.
Fights
In the same way as a normal adventure, hovering the curser However it is not a simple case of adding troops and just sending the attack as you would in a normal adventure. You have to change the troops that are fighting, as the fight progresses.
Why it is really helpful to learn the fighting triangle.
When you send the attack you need to select the type of troop you want to attack with first. Use the fighting triangle to select the type with the advantage, in the new example above archers have been chosen by the player to win over the opponents infantry.
In the middle picture we can see at the top that the next troop type we are going to attack is One-Eye Bert Boss (Archer), so we need to change the troop type we are going to fight with to have the advantage.
Click on the lower troop icon as shown in left picture, this lets you select the desired troop type (from those loaded on the general) as shown in middle picture. Last picture shows that cavalry has now been selected which have advantage over One-Eye Bert Boss (Archer).
Troops Attack and Heavy
Attack troops are used to attack the camps as shown above. The Heavy troops are used to block camps and save you some attack troops.
Blocking is very much trial and error in PVP and I wouldn’t try to block more than 1 camp. Whenever I have tried to block 2 it has always gone wrong.
NB : Elite Guardsman are blocking troops.
I have not included details of blocking in this guide, if you use blocking in normal adventures you will have a good idea of how to do this in PVP. If you don’t know how to block in normal adventure, first question is why not? (Speak to an officer, they will run an adventure such as Dark Priest and you can watch how it is done and have a go yourself under a mentor). Second – You really need to practice in a normal adventure before trying on a PVP.
That’s the basics but how do I get started?
There are three types of colony that we can attack. Easiest is small, Medium is regular and Hard is large
- For small, I always start with 300 of each troop type (attack).
- For medium, I always start with 500 of each troop type (attack).
- For large, (I will update guide when I start doing these).
NB These troop numbers are for tier 1 colonies.
Tiers
The above can be viewed by clicking on your PVP level, so on the above I am rating of 10. My next attack will be against a Tier 2 Colony. If I want to attack a Tier 1 as they are easier, then I need to lose. Win you go up 1 rating, lose you go down 1 rating.
Note – Your rating is also impacted on how well you defend your islands from other attackers.
Note – Some achievements require you to attack / defend a Tier 3 colony. I got all these done at the same time (for all colony sizes) and then lost lots of times to get back to Tier 1.
Red / Blue – What is the difference?
Red are owned by another player – you want to attack these if you are after achievements or want bigger XP for one colony attack. In general the yield is also larger if you win.
Blue are owned by computer – easier to win but rewards are not as great and they don’t count towards most achievements.
Battle Plan
The aim is to kill the Map Boss – you can skip all other camps but you won’t get the full XP.
The camps you really want to avoid where possible are the blue ones (player owned, they do more damage than a normal computer camp).
Killing a sector boss gains you all the XP for that sector.
I WON – now what?
You now need to set up the defences for your new island.
Make sure you click on Build defences
WARNING – If you click Claim colony, you no longer can add defences and you will make any other players job attacking your island all the more easier.
Deciding where you place the defences is up to you, I always aim to protect the final castle first and then look for placing camps where there is no way to avoid having to attack it.
Click on the Building Lot to decide what camp you are going to build.
TIP – I have found it most effective to try and drain another player of one type of troop, so in example above there are already Cavalry camps, so all the other camps I would build will be Cavalry.
However we now need to add troops to the new building (something that some players don’t do and failing to do so means the attacking player can walk past without losing any troops).
To add troops, click the new building and add troops in the same way you would add troops to a general. 
Keep adding new buildings and troops until you reach the limit. 
Now we need to return to the home island and claim our new island
Show me the money
Every six hours your colonies will generate a new yield. So in this case I will get 296 tit ore, 166 iron ore and 307 hwl in 4 hours 25 minutes time.
However on the right I have some yield that I can claim now, 307 hwl and 296 tit ore. To collect these to our home island simply click Gather Resources.
You will see that 603 / 2000.
2000 is your yield limit, you can’t exceed this and you will not get excess resources if you don’t claim them and go above limit, so always claim them every 6 hours or make sure you are not going to go over storage limit.
The limit can be increased, along with amount of yield by gaining a higher PVP level as a level up reward. Hence why my numbers may be higher than yours when you start out.
I welcome any comments and will update guide accordingly
Welcome to PVP and maybe you will learn to love it as much as I do.
Sorry no prize reward for reading or jumping to the end 😀
Sparky (Sir_Sparkalot)
Valinor [VALE] - Do GQ, Have fun, Kick Ass!!! 